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ndpMay 16, 2012 11:10 am | Ontario, Windsor WestMr. Speaker, I am proud today to have the opportunity to congratulate the University of Windsor's women's basketball team. It recently captured its second consecutive Bronze Baby trophy, awarded to the CIS champion in women's basketball. Lancer basketball, under the inspirational leadership of coach Chantal Vallée, has ascended to the elite of CIS athletics. It is the unquestioned benchmark in women's university basketball in Canada. The Lancers earned this championship by bringing together a squad that includes a strong mix of local Canadian and international talent. They embody the qualities of the community that supported them: a strong work ethic, determination, consistency and poise.
This second title in as many years is a result of the ongoing devotion of a committed coaching staff and team, an exceptional athletic department, strong institutional support and fiercely loyal fans whose faith remained unshakable. It is with tremendous pride that I rise to congratulate the entire Lancer nation on the occasion of our second consecutive national title for women's basketball.
- MPndpMay 03, 2012 3:00 pm | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, the OECD has best practices for budgeting. It has suggested that a budget be tabled three months in advance of the beginning of the fiscal year so that people can debate it and digest it.
We do not do that here in Canada. In fact, we do not follow any of the OECD's best practices for budgeting.
- MPndpMay 03, 2012 2:55 pm | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, I am sorry the member did not understand my speech.
There are many things that we could do to cut taxes. We could stop the corporate tax cuts to the oil and gas industry.
We have to improve our revenue stream. Under the Conservatives' rule, the manufacturing deficit has gone from $16 billion to $80 billion. That is costing our revenue stream. Those companies provided important value-added jobs and paid taxes. They were not just shipping out logs or oil and gas or other resources. Value-added jobs have been lost in these sectors, and those revenue streams need to be recovered.
- MPndpMay 03, 2012 2:45 pm | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to speak to Bill C-38. We New Democrats oppose the bill for content and process. I will get into both of those themes during my deliberations this afternoon.
I would like to carry on with a little discussion with regard to the Great Lakes. People in Windsor live along the Detroit River. There has been a lack of action by the government on the Great Lakes despite the U.S. Obama administration addressing some of the issues. The Americans recently made a $500 million investment into the Great Lakes, and in the budget prior to this one, put $800 million into it. In fact, because so little was put into our Great Lakes system, the fake lake in Muskoka got more per capita contribution than any of the Great Lakes did.
That is important, because we are deficient not only in terms of environmental practices but also in services. We do not have some recovery services for men and women in distress on the Great Lakes. Our Coast Guards do a very good job of responding when they can, but at the Ambassador Bridge, for example, there is no recovery immediately available there when work is being done, and something needs to be done about that in case somebody falls off, a worker in particular. We had another death recently when a worker fell off into the Detroit River.
I want to move toward some of the content of the cuts that are taking place with regard to the budget. I will start with the OAS and the GIS, and in particular the raising of the age from 65 to 67.
Just so the public is aware, individuals have to apply for the GIS, the guaranteed income supplement. It is not automatically provided, so if people do not know this—and we deal with this situation all the time—they would not automatically receive that additional supplement. I would encourage the viewing audience out there to look at their pensions and, if they are past the age of 65, to inquire of their members of Parliament as to whether they are eligible for the GIS. It is a very important supplement that does not always get moved through to them.
Similar to that is the disability tax credit. If people do not actually apply for it, they will not get it. Both the GIS and the disability tax credit could be retroactive. It is important to know that, and people should contact their local members of Parliament.
A number of years ago I had the opportunity to go across this country on what was called the seniors charter of rights. It was a motion that was put forth to this House for a number of years, and it built up enough support over that time that it was eventually carried by another member, the member for Hamilton Mountain. The motion was then passed, but sadly, this has not been brought to fruition.
Many of the elements of the seniors charter of rights called for increasing the government's contributions to the pensions. It noted that we had to look at this issue because many seniors were in poverty. It called for housing as an adequate strategy to deal with poverty and issues like that, and for more inclusion in society by making sure that seniors were not left out of government policy. It even looked at a seniors minister as a potential solution to making sure seniors' voices would be heard as the demographics of the aged increased. As well, there were provisions related to pharmaceutical and other costs that we identified.
We heard quite clearly across Canada that seniors were very concerned about all of these issues, and never would I have imagined at that time that the government would be looking at increasing its date for acquisition of benefits.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer and other experts have noted that we are not in a crisis with regard to that issue. With proper prudent fiscal management, we will be fine.
Second, we are opposed to a corporate tax cut. Right now, a corporate tax cut basically goes to the corporation. There is no guarantee it will actually be spent in Canada. In fact, some corporations are taxed on worldwide profits, so Canada does not actually benefit from some of the taxation on those corporations that takes place in other countries.
We still have continuation of subsidies to the oil patch. That is unacceptable and should be stricken right away. As well, the OAS and the GIS supplements, in the vast majority of cases and unless individuals leave the country with the money, are generally spent in the country, providing a multiplier effect much higher than the corporate tax cut.
I know it has been argued many times that the corporate tax cut is a job creation strategy; it is not. It could be used as one of several tools to try to spur investment, but the reality is that it has not. It is actually counter to what has been happening in the manufacturing sector. Over the years that the Conservatives have been reducing corporate taxes since coming to power in February 2006, we have lost around 365,000 manufacturing jobs. That is shocking.
It is shocking because it also speaks to the Conservative trade policy, which has failed this nation significantly and continues to do so. I especially want to note the auto industry. What we have seen, counter to that, is higher corporate taxes in U.S. states, as well as higher federal taxes, and the United States has been growing its manufacturing jobs. The Obama administration has a job strategy to win back jobs, including jobs from Canada, and we have done nothing on that.
The auto industry was again ignored in this budget. The automobile is the number one value-added item traded throughout the world. Sadly, the government is looking at some trade agreements that actually threaten the auto industry. I would note, on the Canada-European trade agreement, that right now the EU has a $20 to $1 trade surplus with us, so they are dumping autos into Canada.
South Korea has a potential trade agreement. South Korea sells literally hundreds of thousands of vehicles in Canada, and we barely sell any at all—maybe 50, I am told—in South Korea. They have tariff and non-tariff barriers. We also have the potential of a Japan agreement, where again we cannot enter their market.
Japan, Korea and Germany have state-supported auto industries. They are actually involved in crafting policy, providing resources and making sure the jobs are going to stay local. Some of these countries actually have shares in the companies.
The government originally ran away from the auto bailout, the auto loans that were needed. Thank goodness for the public pressure to reverse that decision. Now we have success, but it is still very fragile. The auto industry is very fragile right now.
I would point out the government's lack of interest in the auto industry and the fact that the Canadian Automotive Partnership Council has not met in years. Only the executive has met. There have been very few meetings, and they have not been very robust. It is very unfortunate, because that model brings in the suppliers, the auto workers, the companies, the tool and die mold makers and the dealerships. They crafted a plan that provided a benchmark system to cherry-pick the top items we could actually work on to create a robust auto strategy.
The government's response to the Bush administration's $25 billion auto and energy act was basically a $250 million fund over five years, which is virtually an empty tank right now. That is a big problem.
I do want to talk a little bit about process, as much of that legislation did not come to the chamber. One of those pieces of legislation is a shiprider program. A shiprider program is going to allow United States officers to participate and actually arrest and detain Canadian citizens. That is actually not going to go to committee. A similar bill went to the Senate. It was very extreme. It did not distinguish the new teams. We do not have the details on it. It is sad.
Right now 1,100 jobs at CBSA are being affected through the cuts that are taking place. It is $143 million cut from our Canada Border Services Agency. We are now going to be doing more work with less resources. It involves the investigators, who take drug smuggling, child pornography, human smuggling and all those things very seriously.
The government is actually cutting 25% of the dog teams; 19 dog teams are being eliminated. They cost $100,000 for the investment in training for the human and the animal. Those are going to be sunsetted. That is unfortunate, because they are very specific and get the things that got past the original set of border officers.
It is very important that those positions remain. By allowing this to happen, we are certainly going to see more guns on the streets and more drugs on the streets, and organized crime will benefit. It is terribly unfortunate, because the evidence is there.
The government is cutting a number of the investigators who work with U.S. and other officials to break these cases open. They are undercover, in many respects. They are going to be affected as well.
As I conclude here, it is rather unfortunate that this is taking place, because t is not acceptable for Canadians.
- MPndpMay 03, 2012 2:00 pm | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, it is really important to note the work that is happening in the industry committee right now, of which she is a member, and where there is time to be able to go through government legislation properly. My colleague ably noted that process issue that we are losing.
Would the member expand upon the foreign ownership issue with regard to what has taken place in the past? We have seen the industry adjusted twice in recent years: the first time led to less competition in some urban areas, and the second time the minister actually put the Government of Canada into a lawsuit.
I would like to ask the member about due process. Why it would be more advantageous to go to committee and avoid those problems? These changes were in previous budget bills, at least one was, and that was the end result: no due diligence.
- MPndpMay 01, 2012 1:35 pm | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, no, I do not.
- MPndpMay 01, 2012 1:30 pm | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, I agree, I think it can be. However, I think it becomes a larger issue. When looking at that corridor and high-speed rail, we could also be protecting, for example, farmland and other types of areas where there is urban sprawl. We would have development along the corridor through strong urban planning. It would become a natural attraction to live and work along the corridor, and use the corridor. For example, we can look at how many people now commute from Kitchener to Toronto.
Improving our rail safety, whether through the act or improvements for VIA passenger rail, would also improve our capabilities to protect our other infrastructure, such as the 400 highway system which gets pounded by excessive car and truck traffic. I would look to see the benefits there as well.
- MPndpMay 01, 2012 1:20 pm | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Scarborough Southwest.
I thank the House for the opportunity to speak on this matter as the NDP critic for high-speed rail between Quebec City and Windsor. The dream is eventually to connect with Detroit and Chicago. Rail provides our future with an incredible opportunity, and I will come back to that in a minute.
I want to note a number of important things with respect to Bill S-4 that are important in terms of jurisdictional changes in updating and modernizing the act. These changes are important not only in terms of Canada's overall economy but also in how they relate to people in our constituencies.
In relation to a rail issue taking place with CP right now, I would like to thank Mary Reaume and Mary Kavanaugh in Windsor. I am pleased as well to note Robert Taylor and Randy Marsh from CP and councillor Allan Hoberstadt and staff person Ian Bawden. These individuals have agreed to meet to work on a rail noise, vibration and flooding issue.
I would like to talk a little about that, because modernizing the act would provide a little more accountability, and hopefully more co-operation will take place with respect to rail issues.
We were able to get funding from the Let's Get Windsor-Essex Moving fund to separate a grade on Howard Avenue in Windsor. This is a fund for border infrastructure improvements. It is a very busy area, and there were a lot of issues with regard to pedestrians and with trucks and cars backing up.
A proper process was not in place or it was missed somehow in the planning process, and residents suffered repercussions when the grade separation took place. Consequently, residents living behind on Memorial Drive have been subjected to flooding, noise, vibration changes—a whole series of things. They have submitted a petition asking for a panel to look into this. I would like to thank those residents for their patience. Perhaps we can identify this with a meeting coming up.
It is important to note that rail was the birth of the country in many respects and is still important daily to our constituents. Companies need to be held accountable and changes have to take place.
We are going to see the macroeconomics of the importance of rail in the future with the opening of the Panama Canal. A lot of goods will be coming in through the Port of Montreal and Halifax. It is anticipated that a lot of these goods will be shipped on the rail system as we transfer them into the midwestern United States. That country does not have deep enough ports, and the ports are not as attractive as what we have on the east coast.
The safer railways act review is really important. I was a former transport critic, and we held many hearings at committee and looked at everything on this issue from safety management systems to the necessary infrastructure requirements. We have the romantic notion of rail being part of our past, but it is really going to be much more for our future.
It is important to note high-speed rail as well. The Railway Safety Act would modernize some of the issues with respect to high-speed rail, and that would be very important.
We all heard about how the recent tragic VIA incident took place. I wish to send my condolences to the families and to those who were injured.
The rest of the world is moving forward with investments in high-speed rail. Many G8 countries are doing that. Canada is the only G8 country that does not have high-speed rail. We are the only ones who have been left out of the equation. Modernizing the act is important, but at the same time we need funding allocation.
I have been working on the Quebec City to Chicago run. Last year I went to Michigan and met with officials of a department there. I wrote a letter to Kirk Steudle of the Michigan Department of Transportation inquiring about what is happening on the American side, because tens of millions of people live along the Quebec City-Chicago corridor. This would provide us with an opportunity for great urban planning as well as for improving the environment and bettering our economy.
I asked Mr. Steudle what his department is doing. He replied that improvements are being made that would eliminate a series of choke points, thereby relieving congestion and resulting in an increase in speed to a maximum of 110 miles per hour. The long-term vision also includes doubling the number of daily round trips in the Detroit-Chicago corridor.
There are rail tunnels that connect Canada and the United States. There are two in Windsor. We did have passenger rail between the United States and Canada through this corridor in the past. However, it stopped in the 1930s. We still have that infrastructure today available to us. It is exciting that the tunnel for passenger rail service is available again.
Improvements include: the Kalamazoo - Dearborn Service Development, for $200 million; the Ann Arbor Station Project; and the Midwest Corridor Regional Equipment Pool, where another $268.2 million was awarded to purchase 48 more passenger rail cars.
I want to quote Kirk Steudle, who was appointed director of the Department of Transportation for the state of Michigan. He states:
It is our understanding that the investments being made in high speed rail service in Michigan will prompt similar projects and studies in Canada, which would allow expansion of the high speed corridor from Chicago-Montreal. Improved and expanded service along this corridor will enhance our economic competitiveness,promote energy and environmental efficiency, and support interconnected communities by providing a more reliable passenger rail service.
MDOT looks forward to working closely with you to bring new investment to our region.
Sadly, I have seen the department of transportation on this side cut $200 million from VIA Rail. The United States is going in exactly the opposite direction. It sees the merit of this project. It is open to it and wants to connect to this corridor. It sees the bigger vision. Imagine, we could have Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, and maybe eventually extend the improvements to Ottawa. We could have good passenger rail service around this corridor. This would be an economic investment that is critical at this point in time.
I proposed what I think is a modest strategy similar to the Detroit corridor. The Minister of Transport could convene a special working group. It has been done before with the Canadian Automotive Partnership Council. I think it is important to lay out the strategy behind this. The CAPC model not only brought in the auto manufacturers, it also brought in the union, the dealers, the parts people, the tool and die/mould makers, the entire automotive chain. The CAPC laid out a business plan and a measurement system for how to deal with our auto sector.
Sadly, the government has not convened a major meeting of this kind in two or three or four years. It has only had some executive meetings. It is sad because that is a model that I could envision. I was hoping the minister would take that up and would bring in the cities.
I have had a chance to meet with Mayor Fontana of London. He is interested. The mayor of Quebec City is interested. The mayor of Windsor has been supportive. A number of municipalities would provide opportunity and guidance with regard to this project. Then, on top of that, we would have the railways, CP Rail, CN Rail and VIA Rail, and other groups that could look at the overall business plan with regard to passenger rail and rail issues. They could look at the things that are preventing some of the improvements from taking place, and get them out of the way.
The goal is, and this is what they are doing in Michigan, to improve the overall line. It is really critical to eliminate some of those things, whether they be separation grades or improvements to the lines so they can go faster. Michigan is buying some lines, and those municipalities will know the problems and weak spots. It would be very important for us to get them together and look at the costs and how we make the improvements. That would be a positive way to approach things.
Once I conclude, I really hope that the government and the minister rethink their decision and take advantage of this opportunity for economic development and environmental development along the corridor with Michigan. That would be a real benefit to all of us. It would be an economic issue championed by municipalities, the province and the federal government.
April
- MPndpApr 24, 2012 11:45 am | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, we voted against it because it was a bad budget that did not serve Canadians. That is what we voted against.
Canadians do not want cuts to front-line services that are designed to ensure public safety, but the Conservatives are not listening. Not only have they cut border guards, they are also cutting one-quarter of Canada's sniffer dogs. Taking away this effective detection will make smuggling easier. All of this as the minister authorized himself a lavish executive retreat in Montreal last week, costing taxpayers thousands of dollars.
How does the minister justify this spending when the government is cutting so much that even the dogs are getting pink slips?
- MPndpApr 24, 2012 11:40 am | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, the government has it priorities backward. By recklessly cutting $143 million to the CBSA budget, the government will cost business and weaken border safety.
Instead of encouraging trade and tackling organized crime, the government has decided to give a break to smugglers. How much is the government going to save by allowing more illegal guns and drugs into Canada?
Why is the government turning its back on the public safety of Canadians for ideological cuts? Where is the logic in this?
- MPndpApr 23, 2012 11:05 am | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, today many of my colleagues and I will walk with a Canadian Holocaust survivor on this national Holocaust Remembrance Day.
I shared in the same honour last Thursday, remembering with Windsor's Jewish community at our local ceremony. The Holocaust refers to a specific genocide event, the state-sponsored systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945.
Jews were the primary targets and victims—six million were murdered—but targets also included gypsies, the handicapped and Polish citizens because of racial, ethnic and national reasons. Homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war and political dissidents also suffered grievous oppression and death under Nazi tyranny.
It is our nation's obligation to break down the walls of indifference and to shatter the conspiracy of silence. As an international community, we must stand together and act to prevent future genocide, not stand idly by and intervene when it is too late.
Today, by reflecting on this annihilation, we break that silence and honour the memory of the victims.
As Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, said:
...I swore never to be silent whenever human beings endured suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
- MPndpApr 23, 2012 8:45 am | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on Bill C-321, An Act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act (library materials). It is an important bill.
I know this bill may not be the flavour of the month, so to speak, in terms of being a bill that people across this country can sink their teeth into, and is controversial, and so forth. That is a good indicator, though, of a Parliament that is functioning well, that we can actually move legislation forward that we do agree on.
New Democrats do agree with this and congratulate the member for bringing this forward yet again. It has been through this House a number of times. Unfortunately elections have interrupted its actual final delivery for Canadians.
It is important. We do live in a technology-based age. At the same time it is really good to see the Conservatives actually supporting good solid public institutions today, be they the library or the Canada Post Corporation, which is a public institution. They were formed because the private sector cannot do everything. To assume that the private sector should or could do everything is a fallacy not only in our country but across the globe.
We founded the Canada Post Corporation to provide for those services to be done efficiently, so Canadians could communicate from coast to coast to coast. We continue to do so because of the principle that we need to communicate amongst ourselves and bind ourselves as a nation in a way that is cost effective. It is not just about making money. If it were just about making money, then we would charge as much as we could for a stamp, for example.
Canada Post Corporation does do very well. It is an important employer for our country. However, the principle element behind it is to make sure we continue to be able to communicate as a nation. Whether or not we live in Windsor, Ontario, in my riding and want to send a letter to a relative who might have had to move out to British Columbia or somewhere else, like Alberta, we can actually do that.
I know the digital age has taken up a lot of the different types of communication, whether they be email, Skype, electronic books or video games that people can play online at the same time. However, we still have the old-fashioned written letters, as well as distribution of hard materials that takes place.
As a former job developer for persons with disabilities, I can say it is very expensive to keep some of the library content available. For example, large-print books, talking DVDs or CDs and audio books are very expensive. This bill actually defines those materials as library content so they can be shared with other libraries, be they rural or urban. That is important because, again, as a former job developer for persons with disabilities, I know it is really important for those large-print books to be shared. Often they are more expensive, and different titles are not available across the country. This is an opportunity to be able to share them with other people.
The intent of the bill is to enhance public institutions, enshrining the fact that libraries are a critical component for Canadian learning and should be enhanced. I know a lot of municipalities are under a lot of strain right now, including my own, with regard to keeping these institutions going. If they disappear or we withdraw services, the institutions will be weakened and Canadians will be weakened.
When we look at and think about the bill, on the surface we might think it is just a convenience to be able to have the latest book available, but it is actually the learning experiences necessary for training, education, employment, health and safety and a series of different things that are key to the materials that are out there.
I think it is important to really home in on a couple of things. Canadians do support this. It is interesting that it was unanimously passed in the last Parliament. Every member of Parliament recognized that these institutions are critically important to the foundation of communities.
In my own community of Windsor West, we are going through a process right now with our library where there is the possibility of the re-districting of it. It is generating a lot of interest and lot of different types of commentary. It is all based on trying to enhance it, not actually withdraw services.
The municipal politicians are under difficult financial constraints with regard to their budgetary process right now, but at the same time there is a loud voice out there saying that the library is very important to it.
What is interesting is that we have moved beyond libraries just being a place to go to pick up books. I remember when I used to go as a kid. It was essentially a place to go to get books and bring them home. Now, they are tapped in with the Internet and with computer resources and they support learning services. Our main library has a wood carving museum as well. Libraries have public meetings and functions that take place. They have become social places where people gather. There is a café and all those different things.
The bill would provide that repertoire of enhanced services to other places. I remember in university, as well, going down to the book store and the library. We had a choice to make. If we could find that book in that library or someone else's library, we could order it and it would only cost about $1 or $2 as opposed to paying $20 to $40 for a resource we only needed for a week or two. This would provide, again, an opportunity for people to do that at low cost.
The service part of it is really important too, because this would also protect jobs at those institutions. I am glad the Conservatives are protecting the jobs in the public institutions in this particular case, because it would provide more need for staffing and more need for services, but the value we would get out of that is way more than the actual cost to Canadians. In fact, there is no real way to estimate what this would cost, but it would be modest in the overall budgetary picture for Canada. What it would do is re-enhance some of the services necessary to keep these institutions going.
Some countries have moved to privatize parts of their postal services, and that has been to the detriment of the public purse. It sounds good on the surface to privatize some of these services, because we say we will get that revenue stream at the immediate point, but at the same time we weaken the overall organization, so then it appears to be a failure because it is doing the hard work and heavy lifting that the private sector will not do.
Therefore, this would provide more work and activity to enhance that service and also to provide some stability, which is necessary.
We on this side of the House have been fighting significantly to maintain postal services over the last number of years. In Sandwich Town, for example, the management of the Old Sandwich Town post office actually tried to build a business case to move a lot of the services to the University of Windsor, which would actually damage the service to the Sandwich Town area and cost the businesses, the community, seniors and even some of the students a number of services, which they might eventually employ.
I was thankful the union came forward with leaked documents that it provided me. These showed that when it looked at the business case of the closing of the Sandwich Town facility, it saw that the regional manager's salary was included in the business plan, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, when the manager was not even at the Sandwich Town post office but at another location. However, his salary was included to make it appear much more costly than it was. Thankfully, we were able to reverse the trend, and that post office is still open today. It has been open for a couple of hundred years in that area, and we are very proud to have that now as another stable point.
The member has brought the bill back to the House of Commons several times. We have seen a few of these bills where that has taken place. I am hopeful the Senate will dispose of this bill rather quickly, that it will move rather expediently and we can be done with this. We have a majority government and more stability now with more opportunity to finish legislation.
As I conclude, unfortunately, there have been several bills that have gone to the unelected chamber that have not been passed. I hope that will not happen to this bill and it will get through rather quickly.
March
- MPndpMar 27, 2012 10:55 am | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, I would ask you to intervene on this. The hon. member just said I was “against bank profits”. I would ask you to check the blues and come to the House about that. I did not say that in my speech, as the transcript will indicate.
I would ask the hon. member to apologize for that. He said I said something that is not true. That is being espoused fictitiously in the House of Commons.
Mr. Speaker, I would ask for your ruling on that, because I am tired of those types of things being used against me. If there is specific language that a member is going to quote me as having used, then please provide that language.
Second of all, I would just conclude by saying that I am not against bank profits; I am against banks gouging. The balance has been lost, and that is what we on this side want to fix.
- MPndpMar 27, 2012 10:50 am | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, as a TD customer since 1986, I am shocked. I did not know that.
It is unfortunate. One has to look at that extra cost, which will not be recovered in the economy. We know the bank is not going to apply that back into the economy but to its profit margin. It will not have the same impact as seniors being able to spend their money on groceries, on day to day living expenses, on prescription drugs and a whole series of things. Those things are now going to be lost to the overall economy.
Seniors' personal budgets are going to have to be stretched, but local economies are going to be stretched as well. We have not seen recent investment out there in regard to the banks' profits. Those profits have not gone back into the Canadian economy by any means.
The user fees are pretty incredible when one thinks about them. User fees are non-value added and are out of control. One of the lower hanging fruits we can actually provide to the Canadian economy is to lower the user fees and expensive service fees, which do not add value, and give them back to workers who are on the ground.
- MPndpMar 27, 2012 10:45 am | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, I will keep that advice in mind and return to the amendment.
It was part of the larger framework that we were dealing here, which is why I was trying to connect the two. The assumption or proposition of the banking industry is that they have basically propped up the Canadian economy with their wisdom, whereas if we look at history, there was clearly an attempt to actually to do something different.
However, I will go back to the amendment and the issue related to transparency, which I think is really important. It is important for the bill itself because it shows that there was an attempt to get an amendment that would clearly define where there would be some transparency for the banking industry related to transactions. The bill does actually have some interesting points related to foreign investments and a series of different things.
However, again, it speaks to the point that we have this small amendment that has been denied, whereas the banking industry in its entirety has not been dealt with in this chamber. That is a real problem.
I started my speech here today by noting that the banking industry affects consumers and businesses, and I would like to move to that point, especially the business point because I am not sure it has been addressed here in the chamber. This is a missed opportunity on credit lending and rates, and transparency is important in regard to that, because we need to have real decisions made about the lending practices and percentages.
Let me give an example. We have a successful automobile plant in Windsor that produces Ford products. It has been very good, even during the auto downturn, at expanding itself. It actually feeds into supplier markets and supplier chains that have very important jobs. These jobs are critical because they have value-added elements, but they only pay $15 an hour. In terms of an auto supply market job, their profit margin is very small. The workers make around $15 an hour and get some benefits. Here is the real connection to the banks, because these supplier have had to rely upon government lending versus their own bank, because the bank interest rate margins are so high they actually eat into the profit margins of the auto suppliers so much they actually lose money.
Here is an auto plant that produces parts for the Ford Focus in particular. It has automated itself and has workers that do some manual labour and some industrial labour related to servicing of those, including everything, from windows to doors and a series of things, and it only pays people $15 an hour, along with some modest benefits. There is also low management overhead. However, they are losing money if they have to borrow from the Canadian banks, despite the fact they made $25.5 billion in profits this past year. They have to rely on going to the Canadian Business Development Bank or Export Development Canada to actually borrow the money necessary.
What we are saying here, to conclude, is that we see this as a missed opportunity in the House of Commons to reform our banking industry. It is important for consumers. However, it is also important for the small and medium size businesses that are providing value-added work for the Canadian economy that we are missing out on and losing to the United States and other places right now, because we have a poor financial system that actually does not provide borrowing capacity at the rates necessary to survive in this industry.
- MPndpMar 27, 2012 10:40 am | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise here today on Bill S-5 and the amendments that the NDP has put forward with regard to creating more transparency and accountability in this bill.
We do support the bill. However, we see this as a missed opportunity because there are so many issues relating to the banking industry right now that affect Canadian consumers, and also Canadian companies. I was at committee today and so I do not know if this has been discussed a great deal here, but small and medium size businesses have been hurt exponentially by the banking system in recent years. I will get into more detail on that later, but it is important to put that as part of the equation as we talk about this missed opportunity here.
First, as my colleague from the Liberal Party noted, the bill comes from the Senate. That is a concern for us. Why would the government table a bill in the Senate and then have it come to the House of Commons? A Conservative called the Senate equally capable. That is an interesting description for the Senate coming from the Alliance/Reform Party base out there when senators are unelected, unaccountable individuals.
While there are some very good people in the Senate who do some good work, at the same time they are not elected and not accountable to the Canadian people. Therefore, I do not think the Senate is equal to the House in any sense whatsoever. I am shocked that a Conservative/Reform/Alliance person would call the Senate that, because senators are political patronage appointments made by the Prime Minister, whether that be Joe Clark at the time, Pierre Trudeau, Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin or now our current Prime Minister.
Senators do not have to go to the electorate and earn their seat. Once again, there are some very good people there whom I have worked with on a lot of good issues and I respect them a great deal, but there is a big difference between them and having to go to the person checking out groceries and selling cars. They are our bosses. They are the ones who decide whether we get to this place or not.
Having said that, I am a little concerned that the bill is from the Senate. I say this because in the past I worked on Bill C-393, a bill on providing generic drugs to developing countries for tuberculosis, AIDS and malaria. The House of Commons passed it, but it actually died in the Senate. Thus the elected body here passed a bill, sent it to the Senate, but it never made it through, even though it should be Canadian law right now so that we could provide medicines to those who are suffering from tuberculosis, malaria and AIDS in developing countries. There was also the bill from Jack Layton, the climate change bill, that was passed in this House of Commons, but, again, did not make it out the door of the Senate.
Now we have the reverse coming back here and what we see is a very scoped bill on the banking industry. However, I am glad that the Conservatives are dealing with this. The government is actually addressing some component of it, but let us take a step back in history, which I think is very important.
It is interesting that representatives of the banking industry came into my office a year ago and said that I should be thanking them for the work they had done and the fact they had propped up the Canadian financial system because of the way banks were structured and had done business. At that point, I asked if they wanted me to go to my computer or to my filing system and pull out all of the presentation decks and summaries they had previously provided me saying that they had to become like the American banks.
It was the New Democrat members in the House of Commons who fought against that. I will admit there were some Liberals who did so too, because I have been corrected in the past on this, and quite sincerely, by some of my Liberal friends. However, it was John Manley under Paul Martin who was trying to move our banks towards the American model. We voted against that and stopped it and it did not pass the House of Common, as there were some others who supported that notion to keep our banks the way they were. However, it was certainly the Conservatives, the right wing members, who got up day after day to complain about how Canadian banks would be swallowed up by U.S. institutions if we did not act at that particular time. That took on—
- MPndpMar 26, 2012 12:35 pm | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, it is of great concern because we have a number of different immigration files from countries with lots of troubling issues. If we had further complications with people being detained and held, there would certainly be repercussions for their wellbeing once they have run through the immigration system.
We all know that being detained for a long period of time or separated from family creates trauma. Right now, we actually have few psychological services available in the Windsor region area, especially for youth and children. Therefore, I would be worried about the imprisonment and locking up of people who would later become Canadian citizens and their not having the support services to deal with those tragedies and complications.
It ultimately affects our economy. The health and welfare of people is necessary for them to be productive. That is one of the concerns I have with the bill, that is, not having the services to be able to point people in the right direction.
- MPndpMar 26, 2012 10:55 am | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, I cannot mention who is or is not in the House, but obviously the applause was not for my answer. I wish I were that popular. However, it is a pleasure to have the member for Outremont back in this place.
To answer the minister quickly, if our system is so good, why does he have to establish laws and measures to control it? If it is so good, why does the minister have such little faith in his own legislation? This debate is about moving the control of our refugee information into a small cabal as opposed to having due process to ensure that when refugees show up on the shores of Canada, they are going to have a fair and partial process to become part of our country.
- MPndpMar 26, 2012 10:45 am | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on Bill C-31, a very important piece of legislation. I hope to put some of this into context.
I wish our new elected official from Toronto—Danforth, Mr. Craig Scott were able to participate. He has yet to be sworn in. He has a legal degree from Oxford, London School of Economics and Dalhousie University. He can certainly provide an international lens to this. Canada is not an island. It is important to deal with the issues of worldwide refugee problems, whether they be violence, hunger, persecution for religion or beliefs or not having beliefs. This is something that Canada has to do with other nations.
I have empathy for the minister having to deal with a difficult file. Karen Boyce in my office is directly assigned to deal with immigration matters. She has worked diligently for 10 years, since I was elected in 2002, processing many claims for people, because we have such a backlog in our system. Sadly, we are not even funded to have a direct immigration person. However, in my office we are dedicated to that service. Karen has basically dedicated her life over the last 10 years to helping people. There is not a day that goes by that she does not change somebody's life.
It is important we talk about this, and think about some of the language that is being used here by the government. In the last couple of minutes I jotted down the words government members are using: protection, take advantage, security of population, abuse, crackdown, bogus. These are the types of words that the government is using to describe the most vulnerable who are coming to our shores, whether they be refugees or immigrants.
I think about this, and I think about my grandfather, Fred Attwood, who came to Canada after the Second World War. How courageous he must have been to come across the ocean, to Windsor, Ontario where he had never been before. He had to try to find a job and save money to send back for his wife, daughter and young son who had been left behind. I thought about how courageous it was. When we go to citizenship ceremonies, we think about how courageous people are. Also, there are the ones who are being persecuted and who do not know their fate. They are often dealing with children.
Let us be straight about this. Canada needs immigration and refugees. That is a reality for us to sustain our quality of life. That is necessary. We have a small population growth right now. That is not going to do, the day we need our pensions paid for, our economy moving and important new skill sets.
Let us put a face on some of these people the government is saying are dangerous, are security issues, who have problems and who we have to make sure are not going to be threatening the general public. They are people like K'naan. He was born in Somalia. He spent his childhood in Mogadishu and lived there during the Somalian civil war which began in 1991. Is a person like that a threat? He is a refugee.
How about Adrienne Clarkson, former Governor General of Canada? She emigrated from Hong Kong as a refugee in 1942. She came here, making her mark and contributing to Canada.
How about Fedor Bohatirchuk, a chess master? He has since passed away, but he was persecuted in Ukraine. He came to Canada and contributed for many years.
Sitting Bull, the Sioux chief. He left America for Canada as a holy man who led his people as tribal chief during the years of resistance in the United States. Sitting Bull eventually came here to Canada from the United States.
These are the people we are talking about. So when we see a system that is going to be put in place, we have to be very careful. I do not like the language that is being used. I do not think it is fair. I do not think it is right. It feeds into the base, the negativity. It is almost exhausting to see that this is what Canada is about, that we literally have a refugee problem that is overwhelming the capability of our current government, and that we have to gut our immigration and refugee policies to deal with this plague before it destabilizes our country. That is almost the message the Conservatives seem to be trying to paint.
We do have problems with our immigration and refugee situation. We do want to make improvements. There is no doubt about that. However painting it in this context, locking up people, tearing families apart, having no defined dates, having no capabilities to be able to advocate for themselves, is this what we are trying to espouse?
I do not like to see lists. I have seen this in the past. I was in the Canadian embassy in Washington in 2003. The ambassador said that Canada was going to have certain citizens who, when they entered the United States, would be put on a list because they came from a different country. I asked if we were going to protest that. He said that we were going to accept that. I said that is wrong, because that list is going to grow. Sure enough, it did. It went from 5 countries to 17.
Now there is a situation where our own citizenship is being tiered and defined by the U.S. to this day, with no resistance from the government, not the previous Liberal administration, not the current administration. We have accepted the fact that they will not validate our legal and due process to assign citizenship to the people we want to come into our country. We have allowed them to tier that.
What happens on the Windsor-Detroit border every day is ironic. We have doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, a whole slew of people, some of them were born in Pakistan 40 years ago, who are saving lives.
This is the funny part. Their credentials are not recognized in Canada, so they have to go into the United States and serve in the hospitals there. They are considered a threat to the United States at the border, in many respects because they happen to come from a country that the United States defines as being insecure or having issues, despite having Canadian citizenship. They are actually fingerprinted and photographed. Then they go to their jobs, saving American lives every day.
Ironically, they sometimes save Canadian lives, because when the hospitals are full in Windsor or if there are problems with people that cannot be solved, instead of being sent to London sometimes they will be sent to the United States. They get treated by a doctor who is not qualified to treat them in Canada and cannot get a job here. It is unbelievable. We have not been able to solve that in over 10 years.
The problem we have with this bill is it does not deal with the real situation of the backlog. I am concerned with the delays that are going to take place by not having appropriate staff levels.
We see this on a regular basis. For people waiting for security clearances, what happens is their health clearance goes null after its expiry date. Then they try to go back and get that and have their security clearance go null again, or wait in advance for many years. We have many cases where people are waiting for many years because of security reasons. We understand and appreciate that. However, why would we not put the resources to get these people moving?
Once again, we are connected to the world in regard to refugees. When there is a situation as in Sri Lanka, or in the past with Jews out of the Second World War, it is for all the world to contribute and do its due diligence to ensure that those who are vulnerable, through no fault of their own, get protection. Hopefully, we can restart their lives so they can contribute to our country and planet.
When we talk about refugees, think about people in the past who were refugees. Bob Marley was a refugee from Jamaica. Olivia Newton-John's grandfather was a refugee, as was Max Born. There is K'Naan, as I mentioned before. There are people like Jackie Chan. He was a refugee because of the Triads in Hong Kong. There is Jerry Springer, and I am not a fan of him, but his parents were German refugees. My own editorial opinion is he has not improved the television I watch, but the point is it is a free democracy.
There is Madeleine Albright. Under the system we are talking about, she would be considered a risk and would have to be vetted through our system the way the government wants to do it. Madeleine Albright and Harry Kissinger were refugees. As I mentioned, Sitting Bull was a refugee. I would bet if one were to look at some of the persecutions of people who did not want to participate in the draft during the Vietnam War, they would probably not be let in Canada anymore. Victor Hugo was a refugee. Here is another interesting refugee, Albert Einstein.
When we talk about this, we need to have some context. That is why I think it is important to note the language coming out. It was interesting to hear the minister talk about polls. In a question to one of my colleagues, he talked about polls wanting Canada to do this. We get calls and false emails all the time claiming refugees are getting all this money. It is not true. It is all a campaign of hate.
On an issue like this, sometimes the proper thing to do is not what is popular but what is right. That is hard to do sometimes, and the Conservatives do not understand that. They see this as a wedge issue.
When the Conservatives use the words, “bogus”, “crackdown”, “abuse”, “protection”, “take advantage”, “security of the population”, I refute that with the refugees who have contributed to Canada and this planet. We have to be there for them, not only in terms of passing legislation but in ensuring they can contribute to our country.
- MPndpMar 07, 2012 1:25 pm | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, one of the things we have witnessed under the current government is the climb in the manufacturing deficit from about $16 billion in 2005 to $80 billion now. We have lost value-added jobs as a result.
I would ask my colleague about what effect that has had on Canadians as we become more of a service and natural resource nation, versus one with good manufacturing jobs, which are actually being won in the United States, where there is a plan to rehabilitate manufacturing and where these jobs are actually on the rise and taking some of our Canadian jobs.
- MPndpMar 07, 2012 12:00 pm | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, Canadians have legitimate concerns about what Ottawa is negotiating away to Europe. Canada's trade relationship with Europe is vital, but the Conservative capitulation means the cost of medication will skyrocket, manufacturing jobs will be lost and even cities and towns will lose their rights. Industry is concerned, cities are concerned, towns are concerned and Canadian families are concerned.
Why the secrecy? When will the Conservatives table the European trade agreement so all Canadians can see the results of their actions?
- MPndpMar 07, 2012 11:45 am | Ontario, Windsor West
You just said you had no evidence.
February
- MPndpFeb 14, 2012 2:40 pm | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, we all know that the NDP punches above its weight. It is as simple as that.
- MPndpFeb 14, 2012 2:35 pm | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, we have seen this in my community, in particular, in the auto industry, where they were denying loans. A lot of these companies were paying such high interest rates that they were not profiting, costing good Canadian jobs that were competing.
I did not say it in my speech, but it is important to recognize the history. The Liberal government and John Manley attempted to Americanize our banks. The Liberals said that they had to come together to compete in the global atmosphere to ensure we could compete in America and move some of necessary services and lending systems. The NDP stopped that. A small group of us at that time pushed back and stopped that from happening.
Therefore, when the banks talk about how great they are and what a great system they have for Canada, it is absolutely wrong. It is not true. They were forced to do that. In addition, lending practices still have not been fixed for small businesses, at all.
- MPndpFeb 14, 2012 2:25 pm | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, it is good to have you here as we enthusiastically finish this part of the House of Commons day. This is an interesting debate that we have had with regard to the banks.
The first thing we want to note is that the bill s not thorough enough in its current form. We will support it to get it to committee but we will be looking for amendments. A lot of things are missing in this, such as an opportunity to address some of the unfairness that is happening in the Canadian financial institutions. I think that is important to recognize because it is actually affecting how we compete as a country. It is not just the individual elements related to user fees, ATM fees, credit rates and all those different things. It is also about how the use of capital is not being spread across this country, and where the priorities of the government are.
I would note that this industry getting this attention right now is rather interesting, coming late in the day, given the amount of profits and excess bonus fees that have gone to CEOs and the institutions, as well as the record tax cuts they have had. It is quite significant because it affects other parts of the Canadian economy. We lose money through our coffers.
This also gives an indication of where the priorities of the government are. It clearly has been to give the banks the upper hand, not only at the consumer level but also an economic advantage versus other industries that are suffering.
I would point out that we have not seen an action plan, for example, in the manufacturing sector. One of the things that is really critical to note is that in 2005, when the government came to power, we had a $16 billion trade deficit when it came to exporting and importing manufactured goods. So, a $16 billion deficit already behind, and now it has climbed to $80 billion. It is because of a number of successive trade deals that have taken place that have cost Canadian manufacturing, and we have not addressed many of the significant issues.
It is unfortunate because, as we were seeing the record tax cuts happening, we were witnessing hundreds of thousands of Canadian jobs being lost across Ontario and Quebec, whether it be in the forestry sector, the auto industry or the textile industry. We saw those industries, which were not profitable because of the downturn that took place and the lack of government policies, actually subsidizing the profits in the corporate tax cuts going to banks and other institutions.
As the corporate tax cut rate was being lowered and lowered, if companies were not making a profit it did not matter. While they were witnessing their opportunities diminish, the banks were getting benefits.
It is interesting that the oil companies and the banks in particular would get corporate tax cut reductions. The way it works in the United States is that it taxes on worldwide corporate profits. Therefore, our tax dollars out of Ottawa that were going to these profitable institutions that were making record profits were actually being taxed in Washington. It was getting our money. We were basically sending cheques from Ottawa to Washington. That is a strange economic way to improve a country. It is a strange way to actually benefit, even when we had the challenge in the United States with buy America.
We need to wonder what the Americans think about us over here, as we are actually handing them cash and, in the meantime, they are telling us that we cannot be involved in the buy America plan despite signing the NAFTA.
I would remind members of something that is very important. In a previous debate in this House, a member actually thought that the auto pact was in existence right now and that it came about because of the NAFTA. No. After we signed the NAFTA , one of the repercussions was that Japan took us to the WTO and the WTO ruled against Canada. We lost the auto pact. We lost all those jobs. We went from number two in the world in automotive manufacturing to number eight now, which is unfortunate. Those are value-added jobs.
When we see what is happening here in this sector, we need to wonder why we did not get certain things into the actual study. Part of it is that there was very little consultation. We note that there were only 30 submissions and 27 respondents with regard to this issue because it was not really promoted. If it does not get out there, people do not notice it.
That was the same type of approach we saw when the government did the deal with regard to the Canada and U.S. enhancement of the border perimeter security stuff that was recently announced. It was thrown up on a web site but there was no dialogue with the people presenting evidence and no expanding of the discussion.
It is the same problem we have had from this initial response. Hopefully, we will see that at committee because that is very important. It all depends upon the committee as whether there will be fairness with regard to witnesses, whether they will be be heard and whether it will be done out of camera.
For those who follow the things that are happening on Parliament Hill, again today many committees met in camera, which means in secrecy, in private. Only the members who were at that meeting or another subsequent member sworn in later can go back and listen to that testimony again and get that testimony. Everything that is discussed in camera, unfortunately, never becomes part of the public record. We hope there will not be people in camera as witnesses, which would be unfortunate. However, I do not think it will go that far. We would like to see enough witnesses to ensure we will have proper hearings and a proper analysis.
One of the things I want to touch on is a consumer aspect because I have done a lot of work in the past on consumer issues. It is a good example of what we have addressed with regard to the changing world and our banking industry and financial institutions and privacy. In the United States, the patriot act was enacted and it is structured in such a way that when it goes to a company and asks for information about a person who has done business with that company, the company must provide that information to the U.S. government services and law enforcement. That information is used for whatever purposes. People do not have any ability to know that is happening because it is against the law for that company to disclose it.
Why is that important here today? Many of our financial institutions have data assembled in the United States. Therefore, because they are assembled in the United States, like my CIBC Visa, my Visa is now vulnerable to the patriot act without my knowledge and CIBC does not even know. It is used for whatever purposes. That is a good example of why we need an international treaty on the use of information. I do not think it is fair for Canadians to have their documents spied upon by Americans without a warrant. The way the PIPEDA works in Canada is that a warrant is needed to get that information. There is a check and balance through our justice system here. They can go after the cases where they think there are significant issues to look at but at the same time there is e the balance in review so tat people are not just having fishing expeditions done on them.
Why is that important? We have seen cases in the past, such as the Maher Arar case. He was deported but we did not know what information was assembled about Maher Arar. Some of it could have been his financial records or information. However, we had a lead government agency in the United States and a lead government agency in Canada conspire against a Canadian citizen and send him to a known torture state. We do not know, because of the patriot act, how all that took place and what information, if there was, was actually used. I believe we need an international treaty with the United States on how to share and disclose information because it has never been addressed. That took place in 2004. Our Privacy Commissioner has raised it, as have a number of different other people. It is important to recognize that.
Another important issue is the credit card fees. With regard to the honorary system we have now, it is simply outlandish. We cannot have this proprietary notion and predatory rates on credit cards, especially some of those that are the third party lenders. It is very significant. Some of them are at 25% to 27% and that is just wrong and should not happen. Some of the user fees, whether it be ATM or credit cards, all those are affecting our economy because the banks have not been re-investing that capital back into Canada to the degree where that money, if we stretch somebody's budget, would pay the rent, buy some clothes or send our kids to school, and would expand our purchasing power. We could do so on a more even basis if we were to look at those things because there is an economic opportunity for all of us.
- MPndpFeb 14, 2012 2:10 pm | Ontario, Windsor West
Madam Speaker, I had asked the parliamentary secretary, who defended the inequity that I believe is taking place, about the bonuses of the banks' CEOs. I understand that compensation is important and will take place. However, in the financial sector, in 2009 the top five banks paid $8.3 billion in bonuses.
I think Canadians want balance. I would ask my hon. friend whether he believes that is balanced. What should be done? Should there be more constraint, especially given the incredible amounts of user fees and costs that Canadians pay for these basic services?
- MPndpFeb 14, 2012 1:35 pm | Ontario, Windsor West
Madam Speaker, that was a rather surreal speech by the parliamentary secretary. I would like to return to some real facts that do matter to Canadians.
This is about fairness. That is the balance the Conservatives are missing with regard to their approach to the banking sector. We have seen an incredible increase in bonuses and salaries to CEOs of banking institutions. In 2009, the CEOs of the top five banks received salaries and bonuses of $8.3 billion. This is where Canadians are onside and understand there has to be a redirection of that balance.
I would ask the parliamentary secretary to address the issue of CEO compensation of $8.3 billion. In 2009, the bonuses increased by record amounts. How does that justify the increasing fees Canadians have to pay for services?
- MPndpFeb 14, 2012 12:45 pm | Ontario, Windsor West
Madam Speaker, one of the things that Bill S-5 does not address is the patriot act. Canadians' personal information could be accessed in the United States through the patriot act. We need an international treaty to deal with that.
I wonder if the member supports the need for an international treaty. Without it, banking records and information and credit card information could be used by the U.S. government through its patriot act.
- MPndpFeb 14, 2012 12:15 pm | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, when I listened to my colleague, I was reminded that there seemed to be a chapter missing, and that was the chapter where John Manley tried to deregulate our banks. We heard this for years and years.
I had representatives of the banking association in my office. They talked about how they saved the Canadian financial system. I asked if we should get the deck after deck that I was given year after year, saying that we had to become like the American banks. If the NDP had not pushed back against John Manley at that time, the banking system would have been deregulated. I would like the member to address that time and error.
A big debate took place in the House of Commons. The Conservatives, the Alliance, were in favour of this, cheerleading it all the way through the process. However, a small band of individuals, and I see one of the members now, came into this chamber day after day telling the Liberals and John Manley that they were wrong and that they should not allow the banks to become Americanized.
- MPndpFeb 14, 2012 11:30 am | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, yesterday the minister said on TV that it would be “ludicrous” not to consider the F-35 order because it may become too expensive. What is ludicrous is the minister's repeated denial that he has a problem.
The NDP has been warning about this for months. Our allies are cutting their orders. The Americans are cutting billions. Even Lockheed Martin confirms that costs will rise.
Conservatives are in panic mode. Will they now tell Canadians what their plan B is for these failed jets and their failed problems?
- MPndpFeb 13, 2012 11:30 am | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, even Conservatives have to give up their fantasy that their billion dollar boondoggle is still on track. The U.S. is confirming it will delay its F-35 orders and it is going to cut $1.6 billion just as a start. The whole program is now in disarray, meaning higher costs for Canadian taxpayers. The Government of Canada has now called an emergency international meeting on the F-35 fiasco.
Will the government agree to finally apply common sense and put this matter out to tender for our men and women in the service?
- MPndpFeb 08, 2012 11:55 am | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, the minister knows full well that when it comes to manufacturing the Conservatives have just not got the job done. On their watch, we have witnessed hundreds of thousands of lost manufacturing jobs and devastated communities line up one after the other.
Trade with China is important, but trade deals must be fair and they must serve Canada's interest. There must be more value-added jobs for our communities.
Could the minister tell the House how many new manufacturing jobs will be created from the trade mission to China, not the phony bogus phantom jobs the Minister of Finance bellows out, but real ones that one can raise a family with?
- MPndpFeb 06, 2012 11:30 am | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, misplaced partisanship will not help unemployed Canadians. The reality is our trade deficit keeps going up and the unemployment rate keeps going up. Those Conservatives have not got the job done. Canada is more than just raw logs and unprocessed oil. Under the Conservatives, Canada's value-added manufacturing sector has been gutted, with more jobs lost every single month.
Will the government ensure any trade deal with China will help hard-hit Canadian communities that rely on a strong manufacturing sector? It is time to stand up for them.
January
- MPndpJan 30, 2012 3:55 pm | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, 40% of daily trade with the United States happens at the border in my riding. I know it very well, and the member does not even understand the implications of some of the policies that are being put in. The privacy laws and the complications for entry to and exit from this country are going to be devastating, and the extra issues with regard to security for threats that do not exist are going to thicken the border again.
When the government came to power, we had a manufacturing trade deficit of $18 billion. It now stands at $80 billion. That is the deficit in manufacturing trade. Conservatives are costing us jobs by signing these agreements, because they agree with the U.S. on the notion that Canada is a danger and a threat and that the issues on the border had to be addressed by thickening it with more security, more equipment and more types of intrusions. That is the exact opposite of what we need to have happen. We need to make sure that the free flow of goods of services will take place. Signing deals like this in secrecy, without consultation and an ongoing process, has only thickened the border. The evidence is the fact of our trade deficit ballooning under their watch.
- MPndpJan 30, 2012 3:50 pm | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to start this debate by acknowledging the changing relationship between Canada and the United States on the border in the last number of years. That is why I rose in the House of Commons to ask the minister about a 29-point plan that was being put in place with the United States with a lot of secrecy. In fact, there was very little consultation with businesses and other organizations or groups. One could go online and make a submission, but only 1,000 people actually visited the website, and very few contributed to that discussion. It was done in a vacuum. Therefore, there could not be the debate and exchange of information that we would normally have at committees to actually bring the issue, which is much more complex and involved, to the table in a much more open and accountable way for Canadian citizens.
The problem we have had with the United States over the last number of years is the approach the government has taken to Washington. We have had a changing relationship since 9/11. There has been a lot of contestation about the safety and security of the northern border. Unfortunately, the government made a very strategic error in its relationship with the U.S. when we were challenged over being able to protect the border against not only smugglers but also crime, potential terrorism and similar issues. The government agreed that it was a problem, but there was no evidence to that degree, especially given the types of events that have been happening at our border on a regular basis.
When Hillary Clinton charged that the 9/11 terrorists came from Canada, we did not have an official objection to that statement. We contested it, but we did not have the Prime Minister there, nor did we call in the ambassador. There were other people, such as Lieberman from the United States, another high-profile politician, and Napolitano, the director of Homeland Security.
Over the last number of years there has been a concerted effort by the southern states--and I have been to Washington and governors' conferences and a whole series of different meetings--to say that the northern border is a big threat, more so than the southern border--this despite the fact the southern border is shared with Mexico, where thousands of people flood into the United States back and forth every single day, and despite the fact that some of its areas and regions are controlled by drug lords and it has no police. The government accepted the argument, and the consequence has been the thickening of the border.
In fact, it has done things that are very puzzling and it has celebrated them. For example, we have had no military ships on the Great Lakes since the War of 1812. It was a signed treaty. It is true that there were patrols, the Coast Guard, police vessels and a series of others, but the government celebrated the ripping up of a treaty for one of the busiest causeways in terms of shipping traffic and pleasure craft and allowed the U.S. to introduce gunboats that fire 1,200 bullets a minute. The government celebrated the ending of a very positive treaty. We do not even know why it is necessary to be able to fire 1,200 bullets a minute.
The consequence has been the thickening of the border and a loss of business and trade that is expected to be in the billions of dollars. The government celebrates those types of events.
What is interesting about this whole issue is that the United States attempted at one point to put 40 gunboat training staging areas on the Great Lakes. The government did not even make a submission on time against that plan. Although lead casings and bullets will go in there and will affect our trade once again, it did not even make a submission to the U.S. government.
That is why our border is thickening. That is why we are losing jobs.
December
- MPndpDec 15, 2011 11:20 am | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, we all want smoother border crossings, but the government is not helping when it is shutting down crossings completely.
The Prime Minister had a year to come clean on his plan to close border crossings and he did not. He had a year to be honest with Canadians and he was not. Instead, he chose silence in Parliament and a fancy photo op at the White House.
We see yet again, every time the Conservatives negotiate with Americans, Canadian families lose. Why are they selling out border communities yet again?
- MPndpDec 15, 2011 9:45 am | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, the vast majority of citizens in my riding are asking why the government has not completed the border deal or put in a jobs action program and why it has allowed the manufacturing industry to languish.
We have the lowest amount of manufacturing jobs since we started taking those statistics in the 1970s. We have seen the hollowing out of these value-added jobs. That is why we have constituents calling about that. Yes, issues related to crime come up, just like with everything else, but the vast majority of the issues we deal with right now relate to why people cannot get employment insurance even though they have paid into the system. It is their money. Their employers have paid into the system. They have been laid off through no fault of their own. When they call, all they get is an answering machine and therefore the processing is not done.
This is what we hear from people and that is the difference. We have a significant problem with the economy right now and it is not being addressed by the government. There are some programs for crime prevention, but at the same time some of those programs have recently been cut, including the one on which I used to work.
- MPndpDec 15, 2011 9:35 am | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today and talk about Bill C-26. This legislature has been preoccupied with a lot of crime initiatives over the last part of the session. The Conservatives have been pushing a whole crime agenda. There is some consensus around this one though. It is nice to see the issue from the member for Trinity--Spadina addressed in this particular bill. I will get into the Lucky Moose Food Mart story later.
This is an amendment to the Criminal Code to deal with modern situations that are taking place and to clarify for the courts not only apprehension of individuals by citizen's arrest, but also protection of private property.
It is important to back up a little though and talk about the overall issue of crime in Canada. We know that crime in Canada is actually down right now. I know that the government's official position is that unreported crime is up. I do not know how unreported crime can be up, but apparently that is the government's position. It seems to know the unreported crime rate. However, we know through statistics that it is not the case. In fact, sometimes when we hear the rhetoric coming from the other side of the House we would be concerned to let our kids out at night. The reality is that Canada is a relatively safe nation and we have good police forces with well-trained men and women who serve the community.
In this particular case we are looking at amending the Criminal Code to deal with some issues that have emerged. The case of David Chen and the Lucky Moose Food Mart is an important one. For those who are not familiar, he was being robbed again by a routine thug. He decided to apprehend the individual to stop the theft because it was too difficult to have that type of atmosphere in his store. Because he detained the individual, he was later charged by the police. Because he had box cutters, which is often the case in a grocery store, he was also charged with a weapons offence.
This was a sad situation that was finally resolved many months later and the case dropped. However, it brought to light the real problem that some people face with restraints on some of our public services, where those services often do not have the capability to respond. I am a former city councillor. I can say that there is not unlimited support to provide our police with the proper time and availability. It becomes challenging, so often some people feel they have no other choice. This is why we saw the apprehension take place and we saw the unfortunate result. This bill would amend the Criminal Code to deal with that.
We have to be careful about whether we want to create a vigilante society. This is one of the things we need to hear from witnesses about at committee. Often, we have seen instances where the replacement of law enforcement by citizens has been a negative thing.
One such case is the Minutemen. The Minutemen have taken over different areas of jurisdiction on the Canada-U.S. border because they feel there is not enough law enforcement and not enough policing of the border. They have organized themselves. I have had debates with Congress officials about these groups because often they are actually armed. Because they are in the United States, they arm themselves. They are looking for people up and down the Canada-U.S. border. They are also on the southern border. There has been quite a lot of talk about what they do and how they do it. There is a lot of concern among law enforcement officials on the U.S. side because the Minutemen are not well trained and they use extreme tactics. Just for crossing illegally or crossing at an area where one is not supposed to cross, there has been violence. We have to be careful about those situations. The Minutemen are a good example of vigilantism going too far.
We have also seen in North America, and even in my constituency of Windsor West at one point, the Guardian Angels patrolling the streets. There were issues with the way some of them apprehended people. Not all of them, there is no doubt about that, but there have been situations where these chapters have come and gone.
A bill like this can feed into the frenzy of the idea that we do not have a safe community or that crime is rampant in Canada. The government has done that with its crime omnibus bill, which will not pass in this session of Parliament, ironically because the government refused to move the necessary amendments for it to be legal. Now we have consequences as well with the upcoming budgetary allocation for the bill.
We need to recognize that resources will be stretched. This goes back to groups like the Guardian Angels. They were formed in Los Angeles. They went across the United States and then chapters came to Canada. However, they have not sustained themselves, and there are lots of reasons for that.
This bill would amend the Criminal Code in a way that would provide some clarity for specific situations. That is the big difference. I look at this bill, and maybe other members do as well, as being able to help people like David Chen. It will help representatives, like the member for Trinity—Spadina, to address issues such as those that took place at the Lucky Moose.
As well, there is the protection and private property. That is an important factor. There have been a number of cases that have come forward under the Criminal Code. Chief Justice Lamer stated that sections 34 and 35 were unclear with regard to private property. We want to see greater clarity about what will happen and who is responsible. At the same time, we want to know if there will be some reciprocity to the individual when that takes place.
When we move this bill forward, it will be interesting to listen to witnesses who come forward. In my opinion, it will be important for the government to be open to the consideration of amendments. We want to ensure that there will be balance in this. The bill proposed by the member for Trinity—Spadina is balanced. There is some more clarity required on the private property element.
However, to be realistic, we need to ensure that we do not make people feel they are no longer safe in Canada, that rampant crime has taken place across the country. It is just not the truth. The truth is that crime is down in Canada, but we need to modernize some tools. This is one thing we can do, which will not be at a cost to the Criminal Code.
Interestingly there are no mandatory minimums in the bill. There are no automatic penalties. However, the bill does give clarity. That is an important difference with this bill versus the government's current omnibus bill, which will come with a hefty price tag. There are lots of issues with it.
As a former coordinator at the multicultural council, I worked with youth at risk. We found that if they were given an opportunity, they looked forward to a job or an education rather than repeating an offence. It is critical that we have those types of programs in place. We had 16 youth at risk, 8 who were new to the country and 8 who were long-term Canadians. The eight who were long-term Canadians had made bad mistakes, whether it was shoplifting, assault, some small crime, maybe a charge related to drugs or some other small theft. We mixed them with new Canadians and put them in programs to fight racism issues and to promote community programs.
With that program, we had a success rate of over 90%. We have found that those kids with problems understood that the new Canadians just needed to learn the process to advance in their lives. They knew the system and they would teach new Canadians about a number of different things. There would be a program with resume writing, skills development, life skills and a whole series of things. That was much more progressive, and we had a 90% success rate. We found that people did want to get jobs.
I will conclude by thanking the member for Trinity—Spadina for raising this issue in the House of Commons. It is important to note that, for a change, we will see the government working in consensus, trying to improve the system, as opposed to conflict.
- MPndpDec 14, 2011 1:40 pm | Ontario, Windsor West
Madam Speaker, there is a good example with IBG Jordan where women are forced to work 16 hour shifts from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week. There is also a mandatory all night 23 hour shift at least once a week from 7 a.m. straight through to 6 a.m. the following morning. The women are exhausted obviously and there have been some horrible cases. We know this has been happening. We need to make sure it stops.
Jordan needs to put a plan in place. We need some benchmarks in order to improve these types of conditions. If we can do that, then we can trade with the country. Trade is a two-way relationship. It is not just about the actual merchandise that is exchanged back and forth. It is also about the personal and social aspects. They go both ways.
This is an opportunity for us to help those workers. I hope the government sees it that way and we can work together on a solution.
- MPndpDec 14, 2011 1:35 pm | Ontario, Windsor West
Madam Speaker, I enjoy working with the member on committee.
We are going to be making specific amendments at committee. Let us look at this responsibly. If someone witnesses an individual being abused, physically, psychologically, sexually, whatever it might be, that person has a duty to act. Certain abuses are happening in Jordan. We need to benchmark where those abuses are taking place, set some expectations and find a way to deal with them. Those are the types of amendments that New Democrats will be proposing in committee. If there is some balance there with the government, we will be okay.
In terms of overall trade, the government has been pushing oil in Washington for years. I was there when it was happening. The government has left the manufacturing industry behind and that industry has now diminished.
- MPndpDec 14, 2011 1:30 pm | Ontario, Windsor West
Madam Speaker, quite clearly this has been happening for a number of years. We have been told. I have met with many American legislators who have said, “Listen, you guys have nothing to offer in terms of reciprocity to these issues so that is the real problem”. That is why we see a Chilean peach create the APHIS fee for our trucking industry. That is why we see a new entry-exit fee. When the United States negotiates a trade deal with Colombia, it ends up charging us that fee because it does not respect us. That is important.
The Conservative government has failed. It has let the Americans characterize the northern border as a security risk and it has thickened it by militarization in policies. Instead of standing up for Canada in Washington, the Conservatives said, “Yes, fine, there is a problem on our border”. They could not point to where it was. There is a problem in Cornwall. However, they agreed with the southern political movement to say the northern border is a bigger risk than the southern border. The result is that we have seen more barriers and thickening of the border on a regular basis.
That is the big failure of the government. The Conservatives did not stand up when Napolitano said that terrorists came from Canada. They did not stand up when Lieberman said it. They did not stand up when different American politicians said that the northern border is a risk. That is why we have these trade barriers today. It is unfortunate because the Conservatives just have not addressed the issue properly.
- MPndpDec 14, 2011 1:10 pm | Ontario, Windsor West
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise on Bill C-23. I will get to this particular trade bill, but I want to address a couple of comments that have come out in recent discussions.
The member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour was referenced with respect to his comments relating to buy America. As vice-chair of the Canada-U.S. Parliamentary Association, I have been to Washington many times and have met with many different congressional and state representatives, as well as senate representatives, heads of committees and so forth relating to buy America and Canada's position. Many of them have argued that Canada should have had a reciprocity clause with respect to buy America by having our own buy Canada act as part of a defence that would have negotiated the removal of buy America because we have now seen it grow even further. What the government does not understand is that there is buy America and buy American. There are two acts that actually have protectionism in them.
Most recently we have seen it happen again where, despite the minister going down to Washington, we actually have more problems because we will see more legislation. There is another piece of legislation that has been tabled in the House that actually calls for the buy America act to be involved in the transportation sector, which it was not before. Therefore, there are more barriers coming up and they come with a series of issues.
Cross border trade was noted as well and the prosperity deal that was signed last week by the Prime Minister and President Obama. What is interesting about that deal is that it concentrates mostly on petroleum and pushing our oil in Washington, and not looking after our manufacturing sector and other trade. Our trade and manufacturing jobs have gone down to the lowest level since we have been actually taking those numbers and making them public in the 1970s. We have the lowest amount of manufacturing jobs left. That is because the government has been obsessed with oil versus that other value-added trade.
What happened today is very important with respect to the announcement last week. We learned that the Minister of Transport failed to move on legislation to protect a new border crossing in my riding at Windsor-Detroit where 40% of our trade goes to the United States every single day. It goes along a two-mile corridor. We are trying to build a brand new border crossing, a new public bridge. It has been blocked along the way by a private American citizen who has literally bought up the Michigan legislature. He has spent over $1 million in donations and has blocked the actual construction of that bridge.
Therefore, when we are talking about trade with Jordan or with the United States, it is important to note who our number one customer is, that being the United States. The way that we have been signing deals and arrangements has actually been lowering us. We have put ourselves in a trade deficit. That is the reality. New Democrats are interested in trade. We are interested also in making sure it will be done in a fair and balanced way. There is nothing wrong with that.
There is no way a Canadian can compete here, which is what we are asking for, with sweatshops in Jordan, some of which are Canadian companies. I will give a specific example later on. These sweatshops take offshore labour, often from Sri Lanka and other developing countries, 75% of them women, house them and put them in deplorable conditions to produce clothing.
How is the textile industry in Montreal able to compete with that? Will we accept that? Should we as citizens accept to wear cheaper garments produced by people who have been put into abusive situations and who are being taken advantage of? That is well-documented.
It was interesting to hear the criticisms about us saying that the labour movement is in favour of this now and that we are offside. The United Steelworkers originally supported the 2000 agreement between the United States and Jordan with respect to a trade deal. It is one of the situations I will be looking at with respect to amendments to get that undone. The United Steelworkers went on a fact-finding mission to see what happened because it had labour and environmental agreements and a whole series of things that were included but were voluntary. It found very little change. There was very little substance to the differences it was experiencing in the past because there was no enforcement.
This week we saw how our environmental enforcements are often not working within our own country. Therefore, we can just imagine what the rights of people in a kingdom like Jordan, which is not a democracy, can subject them to.
There is a responsibility and, generally, an interest for us to find some common ground and move some of those serious issues to closure. Surely we do not want the abuse and mistreatment of women fleeing Sri Lanka to increase because Canada has signed a free trade deal with Jordan. I would hope that is not the case. We want some measures in this agreement to make sure we can eliminate those issues. Perhaps there is an opportunity.
Side issues to bilateral trade, such the environment and labour, are often very much weakened because there is no regulatory enforcement, but we can build that into the legislation, and New Democrats will be looking for that. It is a carrot and stick approach. There is an offer to Jordan to improve trade and improve access to markets, theirs and ours, but at the same time we will be seeking improved humane labour standards, improvements we all think we can agree on.
Would anybody want to diminish those things? That question has to be asked. If we were to fuel further problems, would that be something we would support and be proud of as a country? We see that we have turned a blind eye to this in many respects when we look at what has happened across the world more recently with Libya and other states. We often turn a blind eye to some of these things for corporate interests. At a certain point we need to talk about global trade and all that kind of stuff, where there is no room for rights, the environment or other things; however, we need those things to be in place to improve our lifestyles and improve our planet. There has to be some balance.
Jordan may not be able to reach our standards right away. As consumers, we will demand that manufactured goods meet certain standards. When we buy a sweatshirt, a product with a zipper, or clothing, we want those products to meet certain standards, but at the same time we allow people to work for 14 hours a day, not have time off and be housed in warehouses and unclean areas. We have to address this issue. If that is the difference in getting a sweater or sweatshirt a couple of dollars cheaper, it is wrong.
We have a moral responsibility to address this issue while we can. If we take the blind eye approach, we are actually victimizing them, because we are aware of the standards we have in Canada. We do not allow child labour in Canada, so we should not be ignoring those issues with Jordan and other states.
There are issues because of a side agreement, but the conclusion in the environmental assessment that was done under the Canada-Jordan Free Trade Agreement was this:
Even if dramatic increases in bilateral trade flows occurred as a result of the implementation of the Canada-Jordan FTA, the economic effects of this Agreement would be modest relative to Canada's overall economic activity given the relatively low levels of bilateral trade and the size of the Jordanian economy. As a consequence, related environmental impacts in Canada are not expected to be significant. Moreover, environmental impacts, if any, will be addressed and managed by the existing environmental management programs in sectors that stand to gain in the FTA such as forestry and agriculture.
What is going to happen is that there will be no new regulatory oversight or repercussions related to this deal. It is interesting because the Conservatives talk about these issues in these trade agreements as if they are going to expand increasing markets, but their own research is telling them it is going to be relatively modest. What makes it really ironic and rich is that although the Windsor-Detroit corridor has 40% of our daily trade, $1 billion, flowing through the border, we still have a problem with securing a new site; meanwhile, the government is talking about putting this deal as a priority. It has tabled legislation for Jordan, but when the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities was advised by his own department to table legislation to protect our number one trading partner and border crossing in Canada, he did not do it. The government's policies in this last session of Parliament have been to drive Canada down and apart, not build it up.
The government was advised specifically to take action because we are at high risk when it comes to the Windsor-Detroit crossing, since 40% of the trade crosses there, private American citizens own the bridge, and it is 80 years of age. Our manufacturing value-added system is at risk. We have watched a watershed of jobs leave from Ontario, Quebec and other places, including jobs in manufacturing across the country, and what has the government been focusing on? Panama and Jordan.
That is what the government has tabled as legislation. Our number one trading partner, our number issue, is the United States. The Prime Minister goes to the United States, signs a border agreement and talks about infrastructure. Meanwhile in Michigan, the new border crossing is languishing because the government has not passed a law. The government's own minister was advised in his briefing book to actually act on the Windsor-Detroit crossing to stop lawsuits and prevent it from being blocked. He never did it.
Instead we have this bill, and we have issues with it. It is important to note that when we have these issues, there has to be proper follow-up. We will see if that is going to happen.
I will give a good example. In 2011 Jordan signed the international convention on domestic work. It provides for some protection for workers on the international level. Jordan signed that agreement and adopted it, but has yet to ratify it. Even when Jordan has been out there in the world trying to promote improvements and saying to the world that it is going to do some things, it has yet to ratify that agreement.
How long does that take in the Jordanian system? It probably does not take long. It is a kingdom. The legislative process will not take years. That is one of the things we should be demanding. We should be asking when it will be ratified, when it will be implemented, how things are to be measured, and how Jordan will ensure that workers are going to be protected.
I want to talk a little about those workers and those conditions, because Canada is connected there. I am talking about Nygard, Dillard's, JCPenney, and Walmart, which are linked to human trafficking, abuse and the Jordanian sweatshops.
It is really important to note the United Steelworkers looked at a number of specific plants in different areas. They sent a fact-finding mission over there. What they found is that there are 1,200 foreign guest workers trapped in the IBG factory, and nothing helped when they actually signed the U.S.—Jordanian agreement.
They went back and found that they still had problems. The east factory has about 600 workers: 300 from Sri Lanka, 200 from Bangladesh, and 100 from India. That is an example from one of the factories. I have pictures here. It looks like a warehouse. It looks more like a place for agriculture warehousing or something like that.
An estimated 75% of the guest workers are women between the ages of 18 and 30. It is a young workforce, predominantly women, in conditions that are absolutely abysmal.
Why do we not take this opportunity to say to Jordan, “Fine, we are open to trading and improvement, but we do not want those goods and services provided through abusive behaviours. We do not want them. In fact, if you do not fix some of the stuff you are doing now, then we are not going to move forward on this agreement”.
Alternatively, we could set benchmarks with enforcement tools or ways to peel back parts of the agreement if Jordan does not meet those benchmarks, unless the objective is to turn a blind eye and allow foreign workers to be abused so that we can get cheaper clothing.
We might as well just say that if that is the way it is going to be. If we are going to ignore the photos, ignore the visitations, ignore the pleas from the workers who have actually smuggled out a number of different tags, some from Canadian companies, at their risk, and ignore their cries for help, then we might as well just say that is what we are going to do.
These side agreements on labour and side agreements on environment are not enforceable, although there are some lofty words in some of these agreements.
With regard to the issues on labour, I will provide a good example. The real problem is that they have the words in there, but there is no final accountability. The side agreement is a good example. Under “corporate social responsibility”, it says:
Recognizing the substantial benefits brought by international trade and investment, the Parties shall encourage voluntary best practices of corporate social responsibility by enterprises within their territories or jurisdictions, to strengthen coherence between economic and environmental objectives.
It is so vague it does not matter, and there is no enforcement. It is not worth the paper it is printed on. It does not help the worker from Sri Lanka who is killed in one of the sweatshops. They have pictures here. It does not help the workers who are abused on a regular basis.
It is interesting, too, because when they go to Jordan, there is a process. They are processed. This is the sad and scary thing about this situation. There is a process taking place with the full consent of the Jordanian officials.
Do members know what happens? Guest workers are trafficked into Jordan, stripped of their passports and held in slave labour conditions. Workers' passports are confiscated. Their routine is 16-hour shifts, seven days a week. They work in the factory 111 hours a week. They are cheated out of half their legal wages. Workers are slapped and threatened with deportation. There are reports of sexual harassment and abuse. If, for whatever reason, a worker misses a shift, that worker is docked two days' pay and punished. They live under miserable, primitive dorm conditions lacking heat, with only sporadic access to water and infested with bedbugs. In fact, one was actually brought back to the University of Ohio to confirm that the bedbugs were actually feasting and gorging on those people in that environment. The due diligence has been done to investigate the conditions in Jordan.
Here is a routine shift they work: 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., they work two hours; 9.a.m. to 9:15 a.m., they have a 15-minute tea break; 9:15 a.m. to 1 p.m., they work for three and three-quarter hours; 1 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., they have a half-hour lunch break; 1:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., they work for six and a half hours; 8 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., they have a half-hour supper break; 8:30 p.m. to 11 p.m., they work for two and a half hours. They have 16-hour days.
We need to address these issues if we are saying to Jordan that we want it to be our partner. If we are extending our hand, it is our responsibility to say something about these issues. It is our responsibility to ensure that bilateral trade is fair. Do we want these conditions to get worse for them, or do we want them to get better? Do we want them to stay the same?
I would argue it is economically impossible for us to compete in this way anyway, because it is not fair if they are using slave labour. All those who invest in the textile industry in North American, particularly in Canada, are going to get the short end of the stick no matter what. It does not matter how much they invest or how much they train their workers. It does not matter how much they have given back to the community. It does not matter what they have done over a number of decades: they cannot compete with those standards. They cannot compete with people basically used as slaves.
What does it say to those people who are actually investing in Canada--people who actually believe in proper work hours for their staff, believe in contributing back to the community and value the people who are employed by them? We are insulting them by doing that.
We are not doing anything to be proud of as a country if we are saying those things are all acceptable so that we can get a cheap sweater or lower-cost merchandise or fill the shelves at Walmart with cheap clothes. These are the things we have to look at.
To conclude, I want to say that we are interested in trying to make this bill work, but it has to be done with responsibility. Turning a blind eye is not the ethical or right thing to do.
- MPndpDec 14, 2011 1:00 pm | Ontario, Windsor West
Madam Speaker, the Conservatives have an unusual way of reaching out. It is usually with the back of their hands to our faces. That is the way they seem to approach the way to build bridges.
I am interested in the Jordan–Canada trade deal and moving this forward, but there are some serious issues with which we have to deal. One of them I will raise during my comments in this debate, and it is the issue of human rights and labour standards. The parliamentary secretary knows this happens in Jordan. Thousands of migrant workers are used in Jordan, 75% of them are women. They are in very abusive conditions.
We will support bringing this to committee and when we do, we want to find some ways, within this legislation, to monitor or improve the labour standards in Jordan, as well as other issues that are dealt with in the bill.
In the spirit of trying to move this bill forward, is the Conservative Party open to looking at whether we can get some tools that will be effective? The United States signed its deal with Jordan and nearly 10 years later, there are still the same problems. Many of the people tried to support and get some changes in Jordan. They were done through voluntary means, as is the case with this bill, but there were no repercussions.
If the Conservative Party is interested in moving this forward, we would certainly be open to it as long as we could include some provisions to monitor the worst parts of this deal.
- MPndpDec 14, 2011 12:30 pm | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, the final petition that I am tabling is again about the closure of post offices, which I have already spoken on.
- MPndpDec 14, 2011 11:55 am | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, there is no greater conduit for trade between Canada and the United States than the Windsor-Detroit link. For years now, a new bridge has been in the works, but threatened legal action might thwart this important project. We now learn that the government is sitting on recommendations to shield the new bridge from any legal action.
Why did the government pretend the new Detroit-Windsor bridge was on track? When will it table its support and legislation to move the new bridge forward?
The government's preoccupation with pipelines is costing manufacturing jobs.
- MPndpDec 12, 2011 10:20 am | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, although we might have some differences with the bill, the one thing we seem to have in common is with regard to the tax haven, even though Panama has been moved on the list to the white list.
Would the member be open to an amendment to this bill that would analyze the changes in Panama and then one year later having some consequences if it has not abided by those changes or it continues to be a tax haven and continues to be an area for money laundering, drug laundering and where corporations can use tax haven loopholes to their benefit against Canadian corporations and others?
- MPndpDec 12, 2011 9:55 am | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour most ably handled this file prior to his leadership campaign, which required him to take another route. He took a very balanced approach to the trade file.
I think it is important to recognize that we want to see some balance with regard to these trade agreements. He is rightly talking about the examination of the winners and losers in trade agreements. When businesses emerge out of our Canadian economy, and then all of a sudden the government changes where they can operate, how they can operate, who is going to be the competition and how, then there needs to be an examination of these changes. This will help improve the environment, or at least provide an opportunity to adjust to the new environment.
The government is changing the whole field for these companies, whether it be the auto sector or the supply management for dairy and agricultural sectors. A range of problems can emerge.
We are asking for the examination and identification of vulnerabilities. We are also asking for a business plan so that those organizations know what they are getting into, know what the new world environment is going to be so that they can succeed or at least have some time to adjust.
A good example was our chance to buttress the time for trade on textiles with China. I think it bypassed us, while even our own North American competitors took it up and protected their industries. The United States took advantage of it. We did not. As a result, it killed our textile industry, quite significantly and a lot more quickly than necessary.
- MPndpDec 12, 2011 9:50 am | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, when we look at some of these bilateral agreements, we should be taking into account environmental, labour and health issues. I will use India as an example. We do want to trade more with an emerging economy like India, but we have to watch out, because we ship asbestos to India. We have pictures, documents and other information showing children working with Canadian asbestos with no protection. We know India has child labour issues. We believe that some of these considerations should be written into the agreements, to advance and benchmark them, so there is actually progress.
We are never going to compete if child labour is going to be used in manufacturing, assembling and exporting of the same product. That is just never going to happen. First, it is not ethical. Second, the conditions, wages and treatment of the workers give them such a competitive advantage. This is why they do it. They treat people inhumanely in order to lower the cost of the product. That is just wrong. We believe those things should be addressed, benchmarked and worked on.
- MPndpDec 12, 2011 9:30 am | Ontario, Windsor West
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to debate Bill C-24. I will build off of the last question to start with and then return to some comments later.
It is important to note that New Democrats are in favour of trade. There is no doubt about it. None of us are against the movement of goods and services, but what we prefer is some balance in our trade agreements. The constant theme of trade is that when we give something, we get something back. Under this administration and previous ones, Canada has slipped significantly. It has signed a series of bilateral agreements since NAFTA that have actually put us into a significant trade deficit, even with the United States. My community lost the Auto Pact in NAFTA, and subsequently and eventually our auto manufacturing has gone from number two in the world to number eight.
When we look at Bill C-24 and the repercussions it could create, there are significant aspects with the loss of trade. It does not automatically guarantee that we are going to be the winner in a trade deal. Often Canada's bilateral agreements have been with smaller nation states that have advantages through lax environmental, labour and regulatory systems that allow their products to come into our markets while it is difficult for our products to subsequently get into theirs.
There are also issues related to non-tariff barriers, which I will touch on briefly. One country that has not come forward is Korea. There are tariff barriers there, but there are also non-tariff barriers in the auto manufacturing sector. As a result, hundreds of thousands of vehicles flood into Canada every year, but we sell virtually no vehicles in Korea. That also happens even when we do not have trade agreements or there is no balance.
Another good example is Japan. I was told recently that the only Canadian vehicles sold in Japan were the ones sold to the Canadian embassy. It is a problem when hundreds of thousands of vehicles are pushed into our market and we do not have any reciprocity whatsoever.
The issue of Panama is interesting. It has been put on the white list. There is a blacklist, a grey list and a white list, and I will get into that a little later if I have time. The OECD categorized these lists, but there still is not an automatic assumption of all the characteristics of what a tax haven is. Second to that, there is still a process in place.
The NDP's former international trade critic, the member for Burnaby—New Westminster, was very serious in trying to create an agreement that could be worked out with the government to deal with serious tax haven issues with Panama, as well as labour issues and a number of different things. Unfortunately, the government has not agreed to include that as part of its process. It has not been willing to compromise to a certain degree to ensure that tax havens are going to be taken care of.
It is interesting because Panama has quite a significant history of money laundering and tax havens. It also has a history of flagging ships of convenience and basically throwing the seafarers out the window, so to speak, making them vulnerable for treatment that is not part of the conduct of an international agreement. Panama has used that as a way to supplement income and attract corporations for its net benefit at the expense of others.
Although Panama has been moved to this list, it does not mean that all the measures are being taken into account. It does not account for some of the internal taxation issues, or even the current issues that are taking place. Just because it is moved off a list does not necessarily merit having no checks and balances. New Democrats were proposing some checks and balances to the system. There is a big difference between that and just having a blind faith bilateral agreement and seeing what happens later. It just has not been working for Canada in this case, and has not been working in general.
New Democrats want more specifics built into the agreement with Panama, and we are willing to do that. This bill will go to committee, which needs to hear from some witnesses. I have some testimony that I will table here today, but there needs to be testimony from individuals to look at whether there is actual movement.
I know that the parliamentary secretary made a very important point about the Panama Canal opening up in 2014. It is very important. The Panama Canal is historic. My former legislative assistant, Mohummed Peer, actually did a documentary through PBS on the original Panama Canal. It is quite a significant achievement and a marvel in many respects.
The new Panama Canal will actually have 5% of the world trade going through it. I think that is part of the reason that there is a lot of pressure to move Panama onto the white list. I think that is one of the reasons there has been a lot of effort to move it along that way.
However, that does not mean that it has actually moved that way. We need to have some testimony or some checks and balances to ensure that it does.
The government claims it is tough on crime, but often it has been very lax when it comes to organized crime or tackling some of the difficult challenges with our trade partners that relate to crime and also relate to how things are affected on our streets. I would look at my riding of Windsor West, for example, where 40% of Canada's daily trade goes to the United States, basically, along two miles of the Detroit River. It crosses on four crossings: the hazardous materials truck ferry, the Ambassador Bridge, the CP Rail tunnel, and the Windsor-Detroit tunnel. We have two kilometres there.
Despite having 40% of that trade, recently the government has cut back on the customs facilities and branch there. Now decisions about stopping trucks and smugglers dealing in guns, drugs, and human trafficking are now made 400 kilometres away, in Niagara Falls. Despite having reports saying that there should have been a consolidation in Windsor, the government decided to move the headquarters and so forth to Niagara Falls. My point is that cuts have been made, ideological cuts, and that has actually opened up our exposure to these elements.
With regard to Bill C-24, my worry is that we do not have any of the important backstops that are necessary to look at the tax havens. I want to touch on the issue of the OECD here, because it is important that people understand that there is a blacklist that includes countries that do not live up to any expectations or standards. There are really no countries left on the blacklist that I am aware of. The grey list includes a number of countries that a do not follow some tax standards. Then there is the white list, to which Panama has been added. It has been moved to it recently, so that is a benefit.
However, at the same time, we still do not have the necessary backstops that the member for Burnaby—New Westminster proposed. One of his amendments, which was defeated by both the Liberals and the Conservatives, was a taxation agreement that would track legal income while the tax information exchange agreement would track all income, including that made through illegal means. Considering Panama's history and reputation on such matters, it would be clear that such an agreement is necessary before signing a trade deal.
The member for Burnaby—New Westminster was attempting to ensure that there would be more information and a deeper tax scrutiny on Panama.That would be important because of the hundreds of thousands of corporations that are actually in Panama.
Some testimony from Todd Tucker of the Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch was very important at committee. I want to read a little of what he had to say. He said:
I have two central points. First, Panama is one of the world's worst tax havens. It is home to an estimated 400,000 corporations, including offshore corporations and multinational subsidiaries. This is almost four times the number of corporations registered in Canada. So Panama is not just any developing country.
Later he said:
Let me elaborate on the first point. What makes Panama a particularly attractive location for tax dodgers and offshore corporations? Well, for decades, the Panamanian government has pursued an international tax haven strategy. It offers foreign banks and firms a special offshore licence to conduct business there. Not only are these businesses not taxed, but they're subject to little to no reporting requirements or regulations.
That is important, because when we want to get into a fair trade deal, we need to have access to the types of conditions and strategies that we are going to compete against. These tax havens give advantages on the trade arrangement that do not favour Canadian exporters, and that is why we have seen the trade surplus diminish under the current government and a trade deficit emerge on a continual basis. Our manufacturers, our labourers, abide by international and Canadian standards that make it uncompetitive for them when corporations are able to use those subsidies, being tax havens, to basically lower their costs in the way that they are able to compete, so the realtionship becomes naturally unfair and unfitting.
I understand the pressure on the government with regard to increasing its access to markets. We have seen a couple of other interesting issues emerge recently that are motivating the government, not only with Panama but also Jordan, to move toward some type of bilateral agreement. We recently saw our international trade committee go to Europe for the European trade agreement, CETA. That agreement is very important in many respects. It has a lot of conditions that are going to be very critical for our supply management and a series of different things.
The interesting thing that took place while our trade group was in Europe was that the Conservatives signed a perimeter agreement with the United States for more harmonization on regulations and on different services and products, including food and automotive products, which might actually limit our exporting capability into Europe, because the content requirements are going to further rise between Canada and U.S. regulations and they will then also be negated for Europe.
I can understand the overall strategy of the government in trying to find alternatives out there, but again, it cannot be done in the absence of labour laws and other types of laws that are important.
On Panama, we will offer some recommendations and amendments to try to move forward. However, we are disappointed with the government's lack of ability to compromise and add those elements.
I want to touch a bit on labour rights. Panama has a history of issues with labour rights, and we do not have the type of scrutiny necessary to evaluate this. The member for Burnaby--New Westminster was asking for a commission to be set up to look at labour rights and provide some type of mentorship, in a sense, so that there would be oversight of this trade agreement and labour rights.
In some of the countries we are trading with, labour rights are lower. These issues emerge even in the context of larger trading partners. For example, there are child labour issues with India. These can present serious problems for us to compete against.
Panama, as we know, has ships under flags of convenience. That is important because it allows Panama to lower its labour standards, putting a whole bunch of people at risk, while limiting our capability to compete.
We saw the very high-profile case of Paul Martin's Canada Steamship Lines using flags of convenience. There was quite a controversy in this country. It was really shocking that a prime minister's company would take advantage of this loophole for labour rights to be able to advance his own pocketbook from Canada Steamship Lines. Flags of convenience are another situation that is not addressed in this agreement.
Therefore, we are going to oppose the bill at this particular time. We feel that there should have been some greater compromise with this.
Also, the member for Burnaby--Westminister proposed a yearly review of this deal to examine whether or not Panama has actually advanced on some of the tax haven issues. We would be open to those things as long as there was going to be some greater scrutiny and follow-up. That is the problem with just accepting the bill the way it is right now.
As I conclude, I want to say for the record that New Democrats are supportive of a trade agreement. There is no doubt about that. However, we want to see progressive trade as the difference, and there has to be some balance with regard to our operations and our trade agreements. Right now we are continuing to gut the Canadian economy with some of our trade agreements. How they are working out has led to Canada having the lowest number of manufacturing jobs since we have been tracking them in the 1970s. This is a real problem, because we are losing the value-added work that is necessary for this country to compete in the global economy. What we are witnessing is that when we open up trade, sectors of the economy have actually lost some of their strength.
We can look at the tool and die and mould-making industry, for example. There has always been the argument that we have to go to high-end, value-added manufacturing to be okay, and that will be a way that we can actually evolve our economy. However, tool and die and mould-making in Canada are the best in the world, but we are struggling to maintain it because of tariff and non-tariff barriers and some of the things brought down in trade agreements that have opened us up to competition against lower standards for labour, lower environment rights and less scrutiny. These are real problems.
We have not addressed some of the serious issues. When we actually have some power and some capability, as in the case of Panama, we should have some conditions built into the agreement that would require analyzing and reviewing it to ensure that those things are measured and taken seriously. We would then be able to put pressure on Panama to comply.
The hon. parliamentary secretary said that if we did not do this, we would be punishing Panama and it would go back to being a greater tax haven. First of all, we still do not know the evidence. President Sarkozy was very clear in his remarks. In fact, he was asked to apologize for his remarks and refused. He is very serious about the effects of the tax haven situation in Panama. I do not know why we would not measure and analyze this. Why would we not build into our base model for trade with Panama the ability to influence, in order to end that type of practice? If we did that, we would have a greater effect on the drug trade, organized crime and corporate responsibility. A series of measures would allow Canadians to compete, while also helping to deal with these issues around the globe. We have an opportunity to do this.
We should not just let the OECD determine our relationship with another country. That is not right. We should be putting our own standards of greater scrutiny in place, because we know there are a lot of politics relating to the OECD. However, if we are serious, we have an opportunity for Canada to have a stronger relationship with Panama. We can actually then have some scrutiny over the conduct in Panama. Leaving it to the OECD is not enough. Its members have disagreements on what a tax haven is. At the same time, OECD members like President Sarkozy note that the tax haven situation has not gone away. I think the evidence is strong enough that it merits our making some amendments. We will look at that in committee.
We are disappointed that the government came back with the same bill. It has been around a number of times, the first being August 11, 2009. The bill has been punted back and forth and subjected to electoral changes, yet has not changed at all. That is a real problem for us. We would have thought that at some point the government would introduce some of the measures it heard concerns about, so that it could move the bill through the House more quickly. There is no doubt that if there was that intent, we could move this legislation through the system a lot more quickly.
The member for Burnaby—New Westminster was very clear about our concerns with respect to the bill. We would take this approach: we would go back to committee and examine it and hopefully have an opportunity to convince the government to make these changes. If the government were willing to make these changes, then we would work with it to move the legislation through as long as it would ensure that the tax haven, human rights and labour issues would be addressed and that there would be an ability for us to follow through. If we just act in blind faith, we know the results. We know the government's record.
Canada has diminished its capability to trade, especially from the value-added aspect. We are about more than just oil, gas and natural resources in this country. This country was built on value-added work, especially after the Second World War, when there was a real intent to make sure there would be opportunities. Just opening up a market and reducing tariffs and trade does not guarantee that we actually improve our quality of life.
There is no doubt that we want greater access to these markets in Panama, Jordan and the EU. Some policies will be changed; people who have already invested in businesses and parts of the economy will be affected. We need to identify those areas and ensure that Canadians can compete in a fair way. There may be damage to certain sectors of the economy. I know that the government is looking at putting supply management on the chopping block in a number of different agreements. If we implement those types of measures, there has to be a business case and a plan. Therefore, we should be proposing a series of amendments at committee to ensure that these issues can be taken care of.
I appreciate the opportunity to debate this. I think it is important for Canadians to understand where our economy is going. Our trade deficit has gone so dramatically high that it is a serious threat to our national economy and to our quality of life. It really shows the mismanagement of the government by just blindly thinking it can sign small bilateral agreements to solve the Canadian economy. We have to have a value-added economy. This agreement is a small part, but it actually has a big part to play in the tax haven issues.
The reality that we all understand is that Panama, as the canal opens up, will have a lot of power. The question is what will we do right now to ensure there is some fairness and reciprocity regarding the abuse of tax havens?
- MPndpDec 08, 2011 7:20 am | Ontario, Windsor West
With regard to the procurement practices and policies governing the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA): (a) which set of federal laws govern procurement by CATSA; (b) have CATSA’s major screening equipment procurement processes undertaken in 2009 and 2010 been subject to a legal procedure (such as Treasury Board contracting policy); (c) which set of laws or contracting procedures will govern CATSA’s October 2011 procurement for Next-Generation Computed Tomography X-Ray equipment; (d) which government bodies provide oversight for procurement processes conducted by CATSA; (e) what is the overall annual value of procurement carried out by CATSA; (f) what portion of this procurement is tendered; (g) does CATSA maintain conflict of interest policies for its employees and procurements and, if yes, how does CATSA enforce these policies; (h) how do CATSA procurement actions foster competition to ensure best value to the Canadian taxpayer; (i) does CATSA or Transport Canada establish the regulatory requirements and approval processes for security technology; and (j) how many of the checkpoint x-ray systems acquired by CATSA through a sole-source procurement process in 2009 were deployed in British Columbia for the Olympics?
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