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ndpMay 17, 2012 7:05 am | Ontario, Hamilton MountainMr. Speaker, I am proud to present five sets of petitions today signed by hundreds of people from my hometown of Hamilton who are urging the government to keep the age of eligibility for the OAS at 65.
The petitioners rightly point out that only 31% of Canadians have been able to contribute to RRSPs and, even then, many saw their savings evaporate in the recent market downturn. The petitioners also note that only 40% of Canadians have workplace pensions and the future of many of those pension plans is increasingly tenuous.
Since over a quarter of a million seniors are now living in poverty and public pensions provide at most $15,000 to the typical retiree, the petitioners are calling on the government to drop its ill-considered change to the OAS, maintain the current age of eligibility and make the requisite investments in the guaranteed income supplement to lift every senior out of poverty.
- MPndpMay 16, 2012 12:20 pm | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to present a number of petitions from people in my riding of Hamilton Mountain, all of which address the urgent need for a national pharmacare program in our country.
The petitioners point out that our goal ought to be to have a national drug plan that would enable all Canadians to enjoy equitable access to medicines, while at the same time controlling the rising cost of drugs.
They are keenly aware of a report released by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, which concluded that the existing patchwork of private and public plans in Canada was inequitable, inefficient and costly. The report found that Canada was the third most expensive country for brand name drugs because it deliberately inflated drug prices in order to attract pharmaceutical investment.
Instead of tackling the issue head on, the government is talking about privatization and user fees. Those are hardly the answers for an aging population that is already finding it difficult to make ends meet and whose retirement savings are again—
- MPndpMay 16, 2012 11:35 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development keeps proving how much she does not understand about the reality facing unemployed Canadians.
The minister says EI is “attractive”, as if being out of work is somehow delightful. She also said it is too “lucrative”, as if one's income being cut 45% is a rewarding experience. She will only tell us what she means by “suitable employment” after the legislation has passed.
When will she stand up and give Canadians a straight answer about her plans for EI?
- MPndpMay 15, 2012 11:10 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, along with others in the NDP shadow cabinet, I recently had the opportunity to brief the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.
Although it is regrettable that Canada is the first developed country to be investigated for failing to protect the right to food, our meeting was a welcome opportunity to raise the profile of what is wrong with the Canadian food system.
Despite our country's relative wealth, more than two million Canadians regularly do not have enough to eat. People on government income support and those earning minimum wage are often forced to choose between food and rent.
At the same time, farmers and fishers are going out of business, a quarter of Canadians are considered obese, and the industrial food production system is one of the leading contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.
Food bank use has soared by 28% in the past three years. In a typical month more than 850,000 Canadians are using a food bank.
We desperately need a national food policy, and I am hopeful that the UN rapporteur's report will be the catalyst for government action.
In the meantime, I urge all Canadians who are able to donate to a food bank now. Donations drop off in the summer, but the right to food must be protected every day of the year.
- MPndpMay 15, 2012 10:05 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to the member's comments, as I did this morning to the comments of the Minister of Canadian Heritage when he was vigorously defending the need to close debate on this bill because, as he said, there are a number of validators on the record who have said that enough is enough and that this is the right bill. I want to put a couple of comments on the record as well, because I think both members have been very selective in their discussion of this bill.
First I will quote Michael Geist. Everybody here would know him as a renowned technology commentator. He puts it very succinctly when he states:
The foundational principle of the new bill remains that any time a digital lock is used—whether on books, movies, music, or electronic devices—the lock trumps virtually all other rights....[This] means that both the existing fair dealing rights and [Bill C-11's] new rights...all cease to function effectively so long as the rights holder places a digital lock on their content or device.
There are others. I know I do not have time to quote them all, but in the cultural industries, the Writers Guild of Canada, SOCAN and the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic all have serious concerns about the bill.
I wonder whether the member would choose to address even one of them, since in his own comments he said there are only some parts of the bill that he supports.
- MPndpMay 15, 2012 7:35 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the Minister of Canadian Heritage now for almost half an hour and he consistently says that there has been debate for two years, two and a half years. That seems to be his yardstick for when it is reasonable to bring in time allocation.
On Bill C-38, the government just rammed through in six days of debate an omnibus bill of 425 pages, dealing with everything from gutting environmental regulations to old age security to changing EI, fundamentally changing how we govern this country.
Would the Minister of Canadian Heritage agree with me that two years may seem to him adequate debate, but if that is the standard then certainly six days is not enough?
- MPndpMay 15, 2012 7:25 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, along with my colleagues I must say that I am not at all surprised that we are now dealing with time allocation for the 21st time in this Parliament. I am saddened, not surprised, but definitely saddened. The government seems to suggest that debate is somehow evil, that it is something of an impediment to its legislative agenda. We would think that the government would have learned that every time it has tried to shut down debate in this Parliament, three times already, it has actually benefited from the deliberative process here in this Parliament and ended up having to withdraw its bills or make significant amendments.
The House will remember the Internet snooping law. After debate in the House that bill never even came back because it was so flawed.
The crime omnibus bill that was before the House needed amendment. The government rushed it through with time allocation. In the end the government had to go to the Senate to have it amended.
What we do in this place is important. It improves legislation. The government has a majority and of course it will get its way. However, the deliberative process here matters. The government should respect Parliament and allow us to do our jobs.
- MPndpMay 10, 2012 11:50 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, the reality is that under the Conservative government, fewer Canadians have access to EI than ever before, and now the minister will be able to kick people off EI if they do not take a so-called suitable job. However, she refuses to say what suitable is.
To avoid accountability, the Conservatives chose to sneak these changes into their Trojan horse budget bill.
The Conservatives are even cutting back on the ability of unemployed Canadians to appeal EI decisions. Can the minister tell Canadians how just 74 people are going to fairly adjudicate the over-31,000 cases each year?
- MPndpMay 08, 2012 1:00 pm | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Madam Speaker, I would remind my colleague of two things.
First, the NDP critic on finance, the member for Burnaby—New Westminster, did a superb job laying out our concerns about the budget on behalf of all Canadians. He was not doing that to hear himself talk. He seized the opportunity to ensure that the views of Canadians were heard in the House.
Second, that was a speech on the budget. We are now dealing with the budget implementation bill. This is a bill of 425 pages in length. This bill needs to be considered with all due diligence. We do not have the opportunity to do that in the House because the government stubbornly refuses to allow sections of the bill to go to various committees so we can deal with the environmental changes, the OAS changes and the very significant changes that the government will make to the lives of everyday Canadians.
When the member suggests that Conservatives are trying to pre-empt a crisis in the old age security system, with respect, I would suggest that they are creating a crisis. Every actuary in the country says there are no financial reasons to change the old age security system. Therefore, we have to assume it is politically motivated. I do not understand a government that is politically motivated to do harm to seniors, the very seniors who built our country.
- MPndpMay 08, 2012 12:45 pm | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Madam Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to participate in today's debate on the budget implementation bill, although I must say that 10 minutes to deal with the 425-page bill is absurdly inadequate. It is impossible to offer a comprehensive analysis if the government is intent on giving me less than one second per page of the bill to articulate the concerns of my constituents. What happened to the government's commitment to accountability?
I will, however, try to make the most of what little time I do have. This speech may not end up hanging together very well but, in the interest of hitting on all the key points, I will just jump from one to the next while keeping a close eye on the clock.
I will begin with the environment. The Conservatives have the worst track record of any recent Canadian government when it comes to environmental protection and action on climate change. In fact, the government is engaged in an all out dismantling of Canada's environmental regulation and protection system.
Canada reduced its federal environmental spending by 40% between 1993 and 1997, starting a long and continuing period of environmental backsliding. Our country's environmental ranking is now the worst in the world. The 2011 Climate change performance index ranks Canada 57 out of 60 nations.
Why are the Conservatives doing this? They are gutting Canada's long-standing environmental laws so that their friends in the oil and gas industry get what they have been asking for: fewer environmental safeguards so they can push through resource megaprojects, including pipelines, with little regard to environmental damage.
Fully one-third of the budget implementation bill deals with such environmental deregulation. It is an all out attack on the laws that protect the air we breathe, the water we drink and the communities in which we live. It is outrageous. It is our children and grandchildren who will pay the price.
Although there is much more to be said, I must move on and I will move from kids to the other end of the demographic spectrum and talk about seniors.
The Conservative government is using Bill C-38 to balance its budget on the backs of Canadian seniors. The Conservatives gave $16 billion in tax cuts to profitable corporations without receiving a single job guarantee. Now, facing a revenue shortfall, they expect Canadian seniors to pay the price. It is absurd. The Conservatives have no problem spending $30 billion on their F-35 boondoggle and another $19 billion for their unpopular prisons agenda but they cannot spare $540 a month for Canada's poorest seniors. It is about time they got their priorities straight.
In fact, it was not that long ago that the Prime Minister would have agreed with me. In the thick of the 2004 election campaign, his Conservative Party sent out a REALITY CHECK entitled “Paul Martin's hidden seniors agenda”. At that time the Conservatives claimed that the Liberals were hiding a plan to raise the retirement age to 67 for the old age security. They ridiculed the idea of raising the eligibility for OAS because, “Canadians would have to work two years longer only to receive less from their public pension”.
In 2004, the Conservatives were ready to stand up for seniors but that was then and this is now.
Today, the Conservatives have absolutely no qualms about leaving seniors behind. Instead of working to lift every senior out of poverty, the Conservatives are throwing tens of thousands of seniors into poverty. In fact, without OAS-GIS for two years, almost 100,000 recently retired Canadian seniors would be made poor today. For single senior females, the poverty rate would rise from 17% to 48%.
There is absolutely no sound fiscal or policy justification for any of that. In fact, all evidence shows that the OAS is sustainable. Pension and retirement expert professor Tom Klassen of York University noted, “I haven't heard any academic argue that there's a crisis with OAS". In fact, numerous experts, including the Parliamentary Budget Officer, have confirmed that the OAS is sustainable in its existing form. Even the government's own latest actuarial report indicates that the OAS-GIS will account for a smaller percentage of the GDP in 2060 than it does today.
So why punish future generations? By changing the OAS, the Conservatives are pitting one generation against the next. We have all worked hard and played by the rules. There is no reason to bankrupt the next generation of Canadians with the Conservatives' reckless cuts.
In fact, that is exactly the position taken by CARP, one of Canada's leading advocacy organizations for seniors. CARP members have stated that they:
...do not see how cutting OAS spending would help future generations. Instead, they are calling for measures that will create job opportunities for them as a better way to secure their future. Rather than selfishly guarding their own interests...CARP members and other older Canadians are defending an important part of the social safety net and do not want to see it torn up for their children and grandchildren.
If only the government were only listening.
I will keep moving along.
I was encouraged when I heard the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance say last week, “the best way to fight poverty and deal with inequality is to ensure that Canadians have jobs”.
I was cautiously optimistic that a government bill that is entitled the “jobs, growth and long-term prosperity act” might actually deal with the critical issue of jobs, and it does, but instead of dealing with job creation, it deals with job cuts. That is terrible news for communities like my hometown of Hamilton, which was built upon a thriving manufacturing sector.
Since the Conservatives came to power, Canada has lost 365,000 manufacturing jobs. There are nearly 1.4 million Canadians out of work and the employment rate remains well above the pre-recession level. Youth unemployment remains nearly double the national average at 14%.
What is the government's job strategy? It throws more people out of work.
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives estimates that, in addition to the 19,200 positions being eliminated in budget 2012, there will be a further 6,300 jobs cut as a result of the government's previous strategic reviews that have yet to be implemented and a further 9,000 jobs cut as a result of the government's budget operating freeze. That would total 34,500 federal public service jobs being cut.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer suggests that the total will be even higher, at 43,000 jobs lost, since, “we're actually talking about cuts on top of cuts”.
Anyone who had hoped that the Conservatives would live up to their rhetoric of investing in jobs to alleviate poverty will be sadly disappointed. However, they will not be surprised because the government's track record on poverty is one of exacerbating the problem rather than working to eradicate it. From cutting the National Council of Welfare to eliminating key public programs and failing to invest in housing supports and child care, the Conservative government has failed to ensure that we build a Canada where no one is left behind.
As the Canadian Labour Congress rightly pointed out, budgets are all about choices. With unemployment and underemployment still at very high levels and a shrinking middle-class, the federal government could and should have laid the basis for sustained and broadly shared economic recovery.
Instead, the government introduced a number of measures that will unfairly target the unemployed, severely reduce avenues for unemployed workers to appeal the denial of benefits and reduce the standard of living for workers everywhere.
Instead of fixing a broken EI system that results in the denial of benefits to the majority of unemployed workers, the Conservatives are making it even tougher for the unemployed to receive the benefits of an insurance policy they have paid into all of their working lives.
First, the government plans to cut unemployed workers off their EI benefits if they decline “suitable employment”. The definition of “suitable employment” will be set by none other than the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada. That minister, of course, is the same minister of HRSDC who laid off claims workers at Service Canada at a time when unemployment and, therefore, claims were actually going up. That minister is also the same minister of HRSDC who sat on her hands while hundreds of workers at U.S. Steel in her own riding were unable to access EI during a recent lockout. If she is not willing to stand up for her own constituents, she certainly cannot be counted on to stand up for unemployed workers in other regions of the country. Yet, the minister is assuming even more power for herself under the EI appeal system.
Whereas the almost 26,000 EI appeals used to be dealt with by regional tripartite boards of referees made up of labour, employer and government chosen representatives, the minister alone will now appoint one board of full-time members to deal with all appeals. This is a recipe for unprecedented backlogs and logistical nightmares, and that is before I even begin to comment about the outrageous replacement of fair and balanced boards of appeal with the minister's pet patronage appointments.
When we combine that with last month's announcement that changes to the temporary foreign worker program will now allow employers to pay highly skilled migrant workers 15% less than the average local wage, the government's agenda is thrown into stark relief.
The Conservatives are absolutely determined to interfere in the labour market to the detriment of not only migrant workers, but all Canadian workers by pushing down wages and, in effect, subsidizing big business.
Workers and their communities deserve better. It is time for the Conservative government to stop being preoccupied with issues of power and prestige and get to work on the bread and butter issues that really matter to Canadian families, like creating quality jobs.
Until we see that change, I will proudly vote against the budget at each and every stage.
- MPndpMay 07, 2012 11:15 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, in the last few days we have seen troubling new evidence further linking the Conservative Party of Canada to suspected voter suppression during the last election. We have learned that a single IP address now links RackNine calls to Conservative operatives and to the Conservatives' federal voter database. We know they used burner cellphones, proxy IP addresses and disposable credit cards in an attempt to hide their tracks. Elections Canada is questioning more Conservatives. Missing evidence about who accessed the Conservative database may never be recovered.
Despite this mounting evidence, Conservatives continue to deny any connection and are not even admitting that they are under investigation. No one trusts the Conservatives on this. When will the government do the right thing and call an independent public inquiry?
April
- MPndpApr 26, 2012 11:35 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, for anyone concerned about electoral fraud, that answer does not cut it, nor does misquoting the Chief Electoral Officer.
When asked if this investigation were serious, what the CEO actually said was, “I think it is absolutely outrageous. This is totally unacceptable in a modern democracy”. When asked if the investigation goes beyond Guelph, he said, “If you ask me, it is ten provinces and one territory”.
The CEO knows it and Canadians know it. Why will the government not admit that the Conservatives are under investigation for dirty tricks committed during the last election?
- MPndpApr 25, 2012 12:15 pm | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, ever since the Prime Minister fled to Davos, Switzerland, to announce that he would be raising the age of OAS eligibility from 65 to 67, Canadians from across the country have been signing petitions to urge the government to change its mind.
I am proud to present petitions today signed by literally hundreds of people from my hometown of Hamilton who are joining that campaign.
The petitioners rightly point out that only 31% of Canadians have been able to contribute to RRSPs and, even then, many saw their savings evaporate in the recent market downturn. They also note that only 40% of Canadians have workplace pensions and the future of many of those pension plans is increasingly tenuous.
Since over a quarter of a million seniors are now living in poverty and public pensions provide, at most, $15,000 to the typical retiree, the petitioners are calling upon the government to drop its ill-considered change to the OAS, maintain the current age of eligibility and make the requisite investments in the guaranteed income supplement to lift every senior out of poverty.
- MPndpApr 23, 2012 11:50 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, 500,000 good manufacturing jobs have been lost since the Conservatives came to power. Instead of building an EI system that supports those laid-off workers, the Conservatives are wasting money on an employment insurance financing board whose advice they continue to ignore.
Why have the Conservatives wasted millions of dollars on the EI board instead of using that money to improve EI benefits for hard-working Canadians who lost their jobs through no fault of their own?
March
- MPndpMar 29, 2012 8:05 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Madam Speaker, I note there was not really a question at the end of that speech. However, I would remind my colleague that I, too, have looked very closely at the Canada-Panama free trade agreement and she will note that the section she was reading from with respect to labour rights is, in fact, nowhere near the main text of the free trade agreement. What she is quoting from is a side agreement. Why would a government relegate fundamental labour rights to a side agreement in the larger context of the Canada-Panama free trade agreement?
I will also ask her, because I know she will want to respond, why the Conservatives voted against two amendments that my colleague, the member for Burnaby—New Westminster, moved in committee with respect to labour rights the last time we debated this issue. There were two in particular that I want to bring to her attention. The first would have protected trade union workers in Panama by offering the right to collective bargaining. The second would have required the Minister of International Trade, as the principal representative of Canada on the joint Panama-Canada commission, to consult on a regular basis with representatives of Canadian labour and trade unions. Why did the government vote against those amendments if it is so adamant about being in support of labour rights?
- MPndpMar 29, 2012 7:55 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Madam Speaker, over the last two Parliaments, I think this is my third or fourth time speaking to the Canada-Panama free trade agreement.
I have to say that this is an agreement that has not improved with age, nor has the debate on this issue, frankly. I continue to be struck by the inability of both the Conservatives and the Liberals to differentiate between free trade and fair trade. We in the NDP are not against trade. We recognize the important role trade plays in our economy, but it is not good enough to just keep bringing forward a series of bilateral trade agreements as if such agreements will somehow magically give us a coherent and smart industrial and economic strategy.
On the contrary, there has been no economic strategy, no real focused trade strategy, and the result has been that most Canadians are worse off now than they were before.
The government simply cannot keep doing these ribbon cuttings for free trade agreements and expect that the job is done. This is no small issue. When we look at the last 20 years since the implementation of the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement, we see that the real income of most Canadian families has gone down, not up. The real incomes of the two-thirds of Canadian families who constitute the middle class and those of the poorest Canadians have gone down, right across the country.
The only people who have actually profited and seen an increase in their real income over the past 20 years since the first of these agreements was implemented have been the wealthiest of Canadians. The wealthiest 10% have seen their income skyrocket. One-fifth of Canadians, the wealthiest 20%, now take home most of the real income in this country.
For the Conservatives, that is entirely fine. In fact they are completely unapologetic for having espoused the principles of the robber barons of the 19th century. Listening to their speeches, I am surprised they have not quoted John D. Rockefeller, who said, “The disparity in income between the rich and the poor is merely the survival of the fittest. It is merely the working out of a law of nature and a law of God”.
It is certainly a sentiment that is deeply imbedded in the Conservatives' free trade agenda and in that of the Liberals before them. However, Canadians deserve better. They deserve fair trade instead of free trade. Fair trade puts an end to the race to the bottom by delivering on the promises of sustainable livelihoods and opportunities for people in the poorest countries in the world.
Poverty and hardship limit people's choices, while market forces tend to further marginalize and exclude them. This makes them vulnerable to exploitation, whether as farmers and artisans or as hired workers with larger businesses. That two billion of our fellow citizens survive on less than $2 per day despite working extremely hard makes it painfully clear that there is indeed a problem.
I want to put this into context by quoting extensively from an article from October 2010 called, “Back to the 'Good' Old Days”. It was published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Although it is focused on Asia, its observations and conclusions directly relate to the issues in Latin America. It begins with the legacy of the robber barons that I alluded to earlier. It then goes on to state that the first 60 years of the 20th century were focused on curbing the worst excesses of unfettered free enterprise through government regulations, minimum wage increases and the growth of the labour movement.
It says:
Strong unions and relatively progressive governments combined to have wealth distributed less inequitably. Social safety nets were woven to help those in need.
Corporate owners, executives, and major shareholders resisted all these moderate reforms. Their operations had to be forcibly humanized. They always resented having even a small part of their profits diverted into wages and taxes, but until the mid-1970s and '80s they couldn’t prevent it. Now they can.
Thanks to international trade agreements and the global mobility of capital, they can overcome all political and labour constraints. They are free once more, as they were in the 1800s, to maximize profits and exploit workers, to control or coerce national governments, to re-establish the survival of the fittest as the social norm.
This global resurgence of corporate power threatens to wipe out a century of social progress. We are in danger of reverting to the kind of mass poverty and deprivation that marked the Victorian era. Indeed, this kind of corporate-imposed barbarism and inequality is already rampant in many developing countries.
It is worth pausing here to reflect on the submission made by Dr. Teresa Healy, senior researcher for social and economic policy at the Canadian Labour Congress, during the Standing Committee on International Trade deliberations on the Canada-Panama free trade agreement.
She pointed out that Panama is a country with a population of about 3.4 million people. It is currently recording relatively high growth rates, but it is the second most unequal society in the region. Forty per cent of the population is poor and 27% is extremely poor, and the rate of extreme poverty is particularly acute in indigenous populations. Although the country has endured extensive structural adjustment, liberalization and privatization in recent years, this has not translated into economic benefits for the population.
This should give all Canadians pause to think. It was not that long ago that our forebears were mistreated in workplaces, and the prospect of a reversion to Victorian social conditions should alarm all of us. The CCPA article I was citing earlier reminds us what the conditions were like in Canadian workplaces in the 1800s. Conditions in the mines were especially bad, with most of the miners dying from accidents or black lung disease before they reached the age of 35. Hundreds of thousands of children, some as young as six, were forced to work 12 hours a day, often being whipped or beaten.
A Canadian royal commission on child labour in the late 1800s reported that the employment of children was extensive and on the increase. Boys under 12 worked all night in glassworks in Montreal. In the coal mines of Nova Scotia, it was common for 10-year-old boys to work a 60-hour week down in the pits. This royal commission found not only that were children fined for tardiness and breakages but also that in many factories they were beaten with birch rods. Many thousands of them lost fingers, hands and even entire limbs when caught in unguarded gears or pulleys. Many hundreds were killed. Their average life expectancy was 33.
As late as 1910 in Canada, more than 300,000 children under 12 were still being subjected to these brutal working conditions. It was not until the 1920s, in fact, that child labour in this country was completely stamped out.
Yes, we finally did the right thing in Canada, but somehow the government wants us to believe it is okay to simply ignore the fact that such practices are still rampant in the countries with which we are signing trade agreements. The Conservative government has completely abandoned any notion of corporate social responsibility, and through its trade agenda it is giving state sanction to the continued abuse of labour, human and environmental rights in countries such as Panama. It is completely outrageous.
Make no mistake. Already in most of the developing nations, they have brought back child labour. Conditions in most factories operated by or for the transnational corporations in Asia and parts of Latin America are not much better today than they were in North America and Europe in the 1800s. Thousands of boys and girls are being compelled to work 12 hours a day in dirty, unsafe workshops for 40¢ or 50¢ an hour.
The article went on to say that in the United States another robber baron, Frederick Townsend Martin, boasted:
We are the rich. We own this country. And we intend to keep it by throwing all the tremendous weight of our support, our influence, our money, our purchased politicians, our public-speaking demagogues, into the fight against any legislation, any political party or platform or campaign that threatens our vested interests.
If nothing else, I guess we have to appreciate his honesty. At least he was upfront about the corporate agenda in his day.
It was David Rockefeller who restated the operating principle of the corporate agenda in modern times. In 1990 he said:
We who run the transnational corporations are now in the driver’s seat of the global economic engine. We are setting government policies instead of watching from the sidelines.
That is the sentiment that guides the corporate interests who are pushing our government to enter into the bilateral free trade agreements with willing partners around the world. It is a sentiment that has been blindly accepted and adopted by successive Liberal and Conservative governments that have been only too happy to oblige in the implementation of this corporate agenda.
Surely we do not all need to submit to the notion that might is right. There is an alternative vision of our economic future that believes that no one should be left behind. That is the kind of future my NDP colleagues and I have been championing in this House. It is a future that is based on fair trade, not free trade.
If we do not amend our trade agreements to incorporate the principles of sustainable development and recognition of human and labour rights, then the trade agreements are not worth the paper they are written on. In truth, we should be hanging our heads in shame.
If Canadians were aware that we are condoning practices by our trading partners that we would never condone at home, then I am certain they would call on us to abandon such trade relations. That is why I will be voting against the Canada-Panama free trade agreement.
- MPndpMar 28, 2012 12:20 pm | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions today.
I am honoured to present yet another petition today from my home town of Hamilton. Canadians are noticing that the government has completely abdicated its leadership role on all environmental matters. Specifically, the petition I am tabling today is calling on the government to ban, on an urgent basis, asbestos in all its forms, and to institute a just transition program for workers in the asbestos industry.
The petitioners express their regret that Canada continues to be one of the largest producers and exporters of asbestos and demand that the government stop the subsidies that continue to this day for asbestos. Moreover, they call on the government to stop blocking the international health and safety conventions designed to protect workers from asbestos, such as the Rotterdam Convention.
I am delighted that support for this ban keeps growing and I hope the government is listening to Canadians on this very important issue.
- MPndpMar 16, 2012 10:45 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to speak to the same private member's bill, Bill C-350, an act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (accountability of offenders). The bill would require that any monetary amount awarded to an offender pursuant to a legal action or proceeding be paid to victims and other designated beneficiaries.
I believe my colleague, the member for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, proposes this measure in good faith and attempts to tackle—
- MPndpMar 16, 2012 8:25 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary's spin simply is not working. It is only the Conservatives who are under investigation. Maybe they are not taking this seriously but Elections Canada sure is.
Elections Canada is broadening its search Canada-wide, with hundreds of new tips flowing in. It is finding new evidence that it says is “gold”.
As evidence against them mounts, when will the Conservatives stop pointing fingers and evading questions, and call a public inquiry?
- MPndpMar 15, 2012 11:30 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, three-quarters of Canadians agree that there should be an independent inquiry into the electoral fraud scandal. Instead of taking action, the Conservatives are sounding a lot like the Liberals did 10 years ago. Back then, Stan Keyes called questions about the sponsorship scandal a “typical opposition slur with no proof”. He, of course, had to eat his words in the end.
Is that why the Conservatives are afraid of an inquiry? Will they listen to Canadians who want an independent public inquiry?
- MPndpMar 14, 2012 3:25 pm | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, the NDP will vote no.
- MPndpMar 14, 2012 3:20 pm | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, the NDP members are voting no.
- MPndpMar 14, 2012 3:10 pm | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, the NDP will vote against the motion
- MPndpMar 14, 2012 3:05 pm | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
NDP members are voting no, Mr. Speaker.
- MPndpMar 14, 2012 2:55 pm | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, New Democrats are voting yes.
- MPndpMar 14, 2012 12:20 pm | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
With regard to the Government of Canada’s dealings with US Steel: (a) what was the government’s last claim for monetary damages relating to US Steel and the Investment Canada Act; (b) what are the terms of the settlement with US Steel; (c) to what extent will the settlement cover lost wages and pension benefits of current and former US Steel employees; (d) what job guarantees are included in the settlement mentioned in (b); (e) how much will each current and former employee of US Steel receive under the settlement; and (f) what costs have been recovered from US Steel for court costs?
- MPndpMar 14, 2012 11:35 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Despite the spin, Mr. Speaker, the facts do not lie. Only the Conservatives are being questioned for coordinated voter fraud, no other party.
Elections Canada is looking at the Conservative database right now. Conservative sources are saying that Michael Sona never even accessed the database. Someone else did. Someone wrote a script, someone blasted it across the country, someone paid thousands and someone had access to CIMS.
Only the Conservatives know who it is. When will they tell Canadians?
- MPndpMar 14, 2012 11:30 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
They love to try to change the channel, Mr. Speaker, but only the Conservatives are being questioned for coordinated voter fraud.
The Conservatives paid RMG and RackNine millions in the last election. The Conservatives, and no other parties, are being forced to show their vote database to Elections Canada. It is the Conservatives who are trying to throw a 23 year old under the bus for a scheme affecting dozens of ridings across Canada.
When will the Conservatives stop trying to find scapegoats and tell us who wrote the scripts, who paid the bills and who is responsible?
- MPndpMar 13, 2012 9:35 pm | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Chair, I believe if you seek it you would find unanimous consent to apply the vote on the previous clause to all of the following clauses, with NDP members voting against.
- MPndpMar 13, 2012 2:50 pm | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-377, an act to amend the Income Tax Act (requirements for labour organizations).
The bill before us seeks to require trade unions to publicly disclose their financial statements. The reporting requirements contemplated by the bill are completely unnecessary, but the government knows that.
In Canada's trade union movement, financial statements are audited and reported to elected boards of directors, to all union locals, and to delegates at conventions. Annual audited statements must be filed with both provincial and federal labour boards. The Canada Labour Code requires that financial statements be available to members. Where those statements are not routinely provided to all members, individual union members can request them from their locals and directly from labour boards. The process is open, fair, democratic and accountable.
What is really being advanced by this bill is a dangerous and unprecedented move to advance the government's agenda of undermining the balance of labour relations in Canada by tipping the scales overwhelmingly in favour of employers.
Trade unions are profoundly democratic institutions. The leadership is elected by the membership and serves at the pleasure of those members. The relationship between a union's leadership and its members is one of transparency and accountability. A union is accountable to its members, just as comparable not-for-profit and tax-exempt entities, like think tanks, professional associations and trade boards are accountable to their members.
With this legislation the government is once again breaching the bounds of fundamental fairness by demanding that trade unions release their financial information to the public. Importantly, it is only trade unions that would be required to do so. Entities such as the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, the law society, and the Fraser Institute, all of which enjoy the same kind of tax-exempt status as unions, are curiously not mentioned in the bill. When the member for South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale first introduced this legislation as Bill C-317 in the last Parliament, he was asked why it targeted unions alone, why the same provisions would not apply to other not-for-profit agencies or societies. He was unable to answer that very basic question.
Clearly the labour movement is being singled out for attack in this legislation. Equally clear, the decision to uniquely target labour is ideological, unbalanced and vindictive.
Why are we here today debating a bill which on the surface appears to remedy a wholly invented problem?
We are here to debate legislation that would have the effect of hog-tying unions as they conduct their daily business of representing and advocating for working women and men. With this bill the employer sitting across the negotiating table would have ready access to all the financial information it might need to wage a war of attrition designed to bankrupt a union.
With this legislation the employer would know exactly what resources the union has and how far those resources will stretch. The employer would be handed a report that tells it exactly how much the union can spend on a grievance, whether the union can afford an organizing drive, and precisely how much is in the strike fund. It is absolutely outrageous.
Would the government contemplate any other negotiation between two parties where one side was legislatively required to hand over financial information that provided the other side with a spectacular competitive advantage?
This is legislation that corrupts the very idea of fairness and balance in negotiations between parties and undermines the fundamental right of free collective bargaining.
In grasping this we can now see the real purpose of this legislation. It is not intended to improve transparency or accountability. It is intended to deliver to the government's corporate friends a cudgel with which to hobble Canadian unions as they seek to represent their members.
We have seen the government's determination to sabotage free collective bargaining before, and this bill represents one more breach of common sense and responsible management. Never mind that labour rights are ostensibly protected by international conventions. Never mind that the balance of labour relations in this country has been relatively stable for decades. Never mind that organized labour in Canada represents more than three million men and women from coast to coast to coast. In every major dispute since they came to power, the Conservatives have responded with heavy-handed tactics expressly designed to hand the employer a win: disingenuous referrals to the labour board; the imposition of wage settlements that are lower than the employer's offer; draconian back to work legislation announced before labour disruptions have even begun.
Employers in this country now know beyond a doubt that there is no need to engage in free and fair collective bargaining, because the moment workers contemplate exercising their rights, the government will side with the employer and legislate those rights away. To the simple-minded government this must seem terribly convenient. In fact, it is a dangerous undermining of an always fragile balance in labour relations that will further destabilize an already flagging economy.
We have seen that the government's obdurate evidence-free ideological determination to punish those it sees as its political enemies trumps good management and fairness every time. Like a spoiled child, the government's reactionary knee-jerk propensity to attack any individual or organization that has the temerity to disagree with its world view knows no limits. We have seem it lash out at civil servants, scientists, NGOs, even churches, and now Canada's labour movement is again in the crosshairs.
If the government were really interested in accountability and transparency, it would first take a long hard look inward. Its own record is abysmal, from withholding Afghan detainee documents to the member for Parry Sound—Muskoka's multi-million dollar pork-barrel extravaganza, from an inability to tell Canadians how much the omnibus crime legislation will cost taxpayers to ministers and senior officials jetting about on Challengers, from failed multi-billion dollar sole-sourced F-35 purchases to electoral fraud. The Conservative government's call for accountability is sanctimonious nonsense. Its house is made of glass.
If the government has any real interest in accountability and serving the voters who sent us here to represent their interests in sound fiscal management, in making the lives of hard-working Canadians just a little bit easier, there is a long list of initiatives for workers to which it could and should turn its attention and resources.
Unemployment and underemployment for example are growing problems which the government continues to ignore. The real unemployment rate is 11%. Almost two million Canadians are out of work. Student unemployment last summer was a staggering 17%.
Conservative Party talking points aside, the truth is that the government has no job creation plan. That is why the NDP has called on the government to take positive steps to kickstart job creation.
The government should abandon its disastrous corporate tax spending policy and instead use that $3 billion to $4 billion a year for job creation measures that work. We should be providing a new higher tax credit for every new employee who stays on the payroll for a year. We have called on the government to cut small business income tax by two percentage points to encourage local job creation and investment, and to invest in infrastructure projects to address the infrastructure deficit, create jobs and boost competitiveness and living standards.
New Democrats want to invest in green infrastructure and renewable energy to facilitate the transition to a low-carbon economy and to invest in skills training for workers in transition and leading-edge industries. Instead, the government, bereft of a job strategy, has given away billions in subsidies and tax breaks to corporations without any condition that they create or even protect jobs for Canadians. When the victims of these failed Conservative policies attempt to access the employment insurance system, one in three of them are turned away.
That is why a previous Parliament voted to support my motion to expand and enhance EI benefits. That motion called for the elimination of the two-week waiting period for benefits, a reduction in standardization of the hours of qualification, and an increase in weekly benefits. Our caucus has tabled specific proposals in this Parliament to promote job creation, and to make EI the effective and responsive safety net Canadian workers have paid for.
Canadian families want action on jobs. When they become the innocent victims of the economic downturn, they deserve the support of their government. What do they get from the government instead? A petulant and gratuitous shot at Canadian workers that further weakens their collective position.
This legislation is as unnecessary as it is irresponsible. It is nothing but a partisan assault on the men and women who go to work every day to provide for their families and the unions who represent them.
I call on all members in the House to stand up for working families and vote to defeat this ill-conceived bill.
- MPndpMar 13, 2012 12:15 pm | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, I would remind the minister that there is no work stoppage right now, there is no lockout, there is no strike, yet the government is invoking closure on a mechanism that would put an end to a work stoppage that does not exist. It is completely absurd.
I also remind the minister that if she continues on this path, she will consistently send a message to employers that there is no need to engage in collective bargaining because she has their back. She is the Minister of Labour, not the Minister of Industry.
When will she start to stand up for labour, for workers in our country, and allow them to engage in free collective bargaining?
- MPndpMar 13, 2012 11:30 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, ducking, weaving, and pointing the finger is not the accountability that Canadians deserve. We are not in a schoolyard. These are serious questions with serious consequences. It is election fraud.
A Conservative campaign operative was reportedly questioned by Elections Canada. Why does the government not just come clean by telling the House which Conservatives paid for these calls and where the phone scripts came from? The best they can muster is to say the Liberals did it too. Seriously?
Where is the accountability? Where are the answers?
- MPndpMar 12, 2012 6:45 pm | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely right. In fact, he has put his finger right on the core issue in this debate tonight.
It is about the need for the government to anticipate, identify and manage shortages of medically essential medication. Without that, as we have seen in media coverage from coast to coast to coast, the people who are suffering as a result of the government's abdication of any responsibility are people in intensive care units and people in long-term care who need help with pain management.
The federal government is abdicating its responsibility on the backs of the most seriously ill patients. This is completely outrageous. That is why I would suggest that you, Mr. Speaker, have actually granted an emergency debate tonight, to underscore the importance of this crisis, and I welcome the continuation of this debate. I hope the government will follow up on the findings of tonight's discussion.
- MPndpMar 12, 2012 6:40 pm | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, that is exactly the question at the heart of tonight's debate. This is exactly why we are calling on the federal government to do some planning, to do some management of this file which has been so badly lacking.
The member is right. It is an issue about generic drugs. It is an issue about dealing with the entire supply chain and managing its integrity, not just for today, not just in the middle of a crisis, but frankly for years down the road.
This is why we are having this debate. I wish the government would answer this question because it deserves an answer and in fact is what triggered tonight's debate.
- MPndpMar 12, 2012 6:30 pm | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, I will sharing my time tonight with the member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert. I am delighted to be able to participate in tonight's emergency debate on the critical shortage of drugs currently facing our hospitals and their patients.
I particularly want to commend my NDP colleague, the member for Vancouver East, who requested this debate and without whose leadership this issue would never have come to the floor of this House. For sure, the government would not have taken this kind of positive initiative. On the contrary, while patients, hospitals, and provincial and territorial governments are all looking to the federal Minister of Health for leadership, the minister is ducking, weaving and passing the buck. It is patients who are paying the price.
Let us be clear: It is the federal government that can and must take responsibility for anticipating, identifying and managing shortages of medically essential medications. The government knows it, but thus far has simply abdicated all responsibility.
Let us take a look at how we got here, who is being impacted and what needs to be done to ensure that we never end up here again. The issue, of course, is that Canada is currently experiencing a shortage of medically essential drugs, projected to last 12 to 18 months.
Across the country, many regions have had to change prescription strategies, use replacements, often without experience of how they work, or cancel elective surgeries altogether. It is patients who are paying the price.
The medications in question are painkillers, anesthetics, anticoagulants, antibiotics and cancer drugs. One set is injectable opioids, the main method of pain control throughout surgery and in the post-operative setting, and with most hospital admissions.
Thus, with many hospitals running low on these drugs, the shortage is having the most serious impact on patients in intensive care units and those who are dying and need pain management. Nurses working in palliative care have told us that many of those in palliative care are dependent on injectable opioids since they cannot take medications by mouth. It is imperative that we have supplies for these patients or they will go through withdrawal, adding further pain and suffering to their last few days or months.
The Canadian Pain Society has reported a spike in suicidal callers concerned that they will not be able to manage their chronic pain without the necessary pain medication. Indeed, the impact of the shortages is being felt right across our country.
Here is what we are being told. Two hospitals in Quebec are cancelling elective surgeries, and hospitals in Ottawa are saying that they will have to do the same if their drug supplies are further depleted. In my hometown of Hamilton, Hamilton Health Sciences expects to run out of at least 10 types of mostly intravenous medications within the next 90 days, and has identified roughly 50 drugs that are affected. As a result HHS is warning of cancellations to surgeries and procedures as early as this week.
Alberta, Manitoba and British Columbia are suggesting that they, too, may have to cancel some surgeries. Patients in Alberta are being asked to buy their own anti-nausea drugs because hospitals can no longer provide extra supplies to patients.
Clearly this drug shortage is creating a crisis from coast to coast to coast. I am so pleased that you, Mr. Speaker, allowed us to have this emergency debate here in the House tonight. However, I must also point out that it did not need to be this way.
The crisis we are facing today could and should have been prevented. The problems with drug shortages sadly are recurrent and systemic. In fact it has been a few years now since Canadian doctors and hospitals have become increasingly aware of the risk of a substantial drug shortage. They have spoken out and have advocated. In the process, they have made it clear that the crisis we are facing today could have been prevented.
Similarly, the Canadian Pharmacists Association took the absence of any reliable national data or reporting into its own hands. It decided in September 2010 to conduct a survey to better understand the extent of the problem. The report indicated that out of 427 pharmacists from across Canada, 93.7% of those pharmacists indicated they had trouble locating medications to fill a prescription in a week, and 89% of them indicated that drug shortages had greatly increased since the previous year.
On December 15, 2010, using the information from the Canadian Pharmacists Association's report, The Globe and Mail wrote that the shortage of common drugs was becoming more and more widespread across the country, pointing to the shortage of key ingredients as one of the causes of the increased shortages.
Just a month later on January 27, 2011, anesthesiologists warned in an article in The Globe and Mail that the discontinuation of the production of sodium thiopental in the U.S. combined with the potential shortage of propofol could make it impossible for anesthesiologists to do their work and could postpone surgeries.
On May 13, 2011, both The Globe and Mail and CTV reported that the cancer drug carboplatin was in short supply and that hospitals were worried that patients receiving chemotherapy could face delays. Staff at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto were forced to scramble and get stock from an Australian hospital just to meet patient demand.
On August 18, 2011, the National Post reported that Health Canada had added 16 more medications to its list of drugs in short supply across the country. Health Canada blamed the situation on a manufacturer in the United States.
I am not suggesting that this list is exhaustive, but it does serve to point out that both drug shortages and calls for federal government action well pre-date the current crisis.
In fact, in August 2011, the health minister herself raised this issue with the pharmaceutical industry, but she stopped short of taking meaningful action. Instead, she set up a voluntary reporting system that clearly has not worked. Rather than mandating pharmaceutical companies to inform the government whenever there is a slowdown in production, the Conservatives made it voluntary. That is where the current drug short shortage at Sandoz, the pharmaceutical drug company based in Quebec, becomes illustrative in showing why voluntary measures do not work.
Sandoz knew last November that it was going to be slowing down production because it had received a warning letter from the United States Food and Drug Administration regarding “significant violations” at its manufacturing sites which could cause the drug products to be “adulterated”. Sandoz stopped or reduced production of 110 different drugs while it was making quality control improvements to its physical plant in Boucherville, Quebec. The company did not give prior warning of this production halt, despite the fact that it knew months before that such action would be necessary. That is the problem with voluntary reporting. If it is going to affect the bottom line, why would a company voluntarily report on itself?
If mandatory reporting were in place, the federal government could have acted to protect Canadians and the provincial partners could have developed a complementary response.
As it stands now, federal-provincial co-operation has been virtually non-existent. In fact, the federal health minister's preferred modus operandi is to point the finger and assign blame rather than accept responsibility. Here is what she said in this House on March 7 in response to a question on drug shortages posed by my friend and colleague, the NDP health critic and member for Vancouver East:
I want to be very clear that the shortage has been created largely by the decision of the provinces and territories to pick a sole source supplier, and that supplier cannot provide the drugs now.
Really? Is it the fault of the provinces and territories? I do not think so. Instead of blaming health providers and the provinces, the minister should protect and defend their interests. That is what real leadership is about. That is the kind of leadership that would give Canadians confidence that their minister is on top of her file.
Instead, patients and health care providers are witnessing a mad scramble by Health Canada to speed up the approval of offshore medications, rushing them through testing for quality and effectiveness. That is probably of small comfort to the many patients who fear that quality control will be compromised in the name of sheer expediency.
We have the opportunity to do the right thing. I would urge the minister to start collaborating with drug producers and health care professionals, as well as her colleagues in the provinces and territories, to find lasting solutions, solutions to both the current crisis and to maintaining the integrity of the supply chain so that future issues can be prevented or, at the very least, mitigated. It is about showing leadership. Canadian patients deserve nothing less.
- MPndpMar 12, 2012 11:50 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, this crisis is getting worse every day and the government's finger pointing is cold comfort to the patients who are paying the price.
Mr. Speaker, you agreed to a debate tonight because you know this is an emergency. Why is the government still in denial? The fact is Canadians are going to have to wait longer and longer for important surgeries and procedures. Instead of empty words, the government needs to take responsibility for anticipating, identifying and managing the shortages of medically essential drugs.
Will the Conservatives stop blaming others and take leadership in solving this crisis?
- MPndpMar 08, 2012 11:25 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, contracts signed by Conservative MPs with RMG make one thing clear: scripts are created in consultation with clients. RMG was not working on its own.
The Minister of Finance, the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, the Minister of Natural Resources, the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and the Minister of Canadian Heritage spent over $96,000 on RMG in the last campaign.
Did their campaigns fund the misdirection of voters? Could just one of them stand today and tell Canadians what the campaigns paid RMG to say?
- MPndpMar 08, 2012 7:10 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among all the parties and I believe if you seek it you would find unanimous consent for the following motion:
That, at the conclusion of today's debate on the opposition motion in the name of the member for Hamilton Centre, all questions necessary to dispose of this motion be deemed put and a recorded division deemed requested and deferred until Monday, March 12, at the end of government orders.
- MPndpMar 07, 2012 1:20 pm | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I know that you will have noticed that the Minister of Citizenship took his seat after you began to put the question, and I would ask that his vote not be counted.
- MPndpMar 06, 2012 11:05 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, on the eve of International Women's Day, I want to give a shout out to the Hamilton and District Labour Council which will once again host the Norma Berti women's breakfast to celebrate International Women's Day.
Each year we get together to celebrate the successes of women and girls in challenging stereotypes and in breaking down barriers to their full equality, but we also remind ourselves of the battles yet to be won.
Globally, women and girls continue to face violations of their basic human rights. In too many parts of the world women die because they cannot access safe and legal abortions or even information on family planning. Girls are prevented from going to school. Crimes of sexual violence continue with horrific impunity.
In Canada too, women are losing ground. The Conservatives continue to attack women's equality rights. They have cut funding to organizations like Status of Women, Sisters in Spirit, and groups that help newcomers. They have failed to invest in child care and affordable housing. They ignore pay equity rights.
That is why in Hamilton we celebrate International Women's Day by committing to fight on. We know that all women deserve fairness, affordability, opportunity, equal pay for work of equal value, a decent standard of living, and the freedom to live without fear.
- MPndpMar 05, 2012 12:25 pm | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, discussions have taken place among all parties and I believe you will find consent for the following motion. I move:
That, at the conclusion of today's debate on the opposition motion in the name of the member for Sackville-Eastern Shore, all questions necessary to dispose of this motion be deemed put and a recorded division deemed requested and deferred to Tuesday, March 6, 2012, at the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders.
February
- MPndpFeb 17, 2012 9:15 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Madam Speaker, petitions keep pouring in from my riding of Hamilton Mountain calling upon the government to take action on the price of gasoline.
Just yesterday, Statistics Canada again reported that rising gasoline prices were the biggest trigger last month that helped propel the country's annual inflation rate up to 2.5%. The petitioners know they are getting hosed at the pumps but, unfortunately, as it stands now, they can only complain to each other because there is no official avenue through which they can seek redress.
The petitioners are calling for the speedy passage of my bill, Bill C-336, which would establish an oil and gas ombudsman. The ombudsman would be charged with providing strong and effective consumer protection to ensure that no big business can swindle, cheat or rip off hard-working Canadians.
The petitioners demand a meaningful vehicle for having their complaints taken seriously with effective mechanisms for investigation and remediation to help consumers fight the squeeze.
I know the rules of the House do not allow me to endorse a petition but I do want to conclude by thanking everyone who has signed this petition and who is actively engaged in working toward the passage of my bill.
- MPndpFeb 17, 2012 9:00 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order that arises out of question period.
Earlier today during question period, the Minister of Foreign Affairs made unfounded accusations insinuating that the New Democratic Party was responsible for a campaign to expose the details of the private life of the Minister of Public Safety. As we have said over the last number of days, we are not interested in any details of his private life. His public statements are troubling enough.
The House of Commons Information Services has confirmed that the IP addresses in question are public and could belong to any user from any political party or any member of the House administration and the parliamentary precinct. I understand that the Speaker's Office is now looking into the matter.
I would call on the minister to table in this House any evidence he may have to back up his unfounded claims. If he does not have such evidence, I would like him to immediately apologize and withdraw his statements unconditionally.
- MPndpFeb 17, 2012 8:20 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Madam Speaker, we voted against the Conservative budget because it did not get the job done.
Let me be clear. Building more prisons is not going to put food on the table or help pay the bills. Here is just one example. Gas prices are 6.8%, driving up inflation and making it even harder for families to make ends meet.
When are the Conservatives going to take action on gas prices? Why will they not pass my Bill C-336 so drivers will not be hosed at the pumps?
- MPndpFeb 17, 2012 7:35 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Madam Speaker, the member for Malpeque raises a really good point. Obviously, as I said, it is one of the two areas that is of primary concern to those of us on this side of the House. Committees are an opportunity for the public to be heard with respect to legislation. We value that input and want to make sure it is reflected in the bills that get reported back to the House. Yet the Conservatives want all of that to happen behind closed doors.
The Prime Minister is notorious for wanting to silence his backbenchers. I have been trying to figure out why there is such urgency to go in camera and it finally came to me. I think it is because the Prime Minister is fundamentally afraid of what his backbenchers might say. He does not want that to be on record, so he prefers to move everything behind closed doors.
- MPndpFeb 17, 2012 7:30 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Madam Speaker, clearly we do not have a problem having 25 members on this side of the House, which is why the government has only been able to use Standing Order 56.1 once.
The other point is that the government has not had to resort to using Standing Order 56.1 very often because it has brought down the hammer and has used time allocation over and over again. For those who are watching, time allocation is a bit of insider baseball, but it shuts down debate on a piece of public legislation. The Conservatives have used it in the House before debate has even begun on a bill.
Canadians have a right to have their voices heard. They have influence into the public policy process through the debates that happen in this chamber through us their representatives. Their voices must be heard in the chamber. Their issues cannot be time allocated, closed off and ignored by the government. That is why this debate is so important to the future of this institution. Frankly, Canadians deserve better than having time allocation invoked before debates have even begun.
- MPndpFeb 17, 2012 7:20 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to participate in this special debate provided for in the rules of the House to address our concerns with respect to the procedures and Standing Orders that govern our business here in the House of Commons.
I will begin by pointing out that the rule which allows a debate such as this to happen has been around since 1982. Yet, in all of those 30 years, members of Parliament have only felt it necessary to engage in this debate twice before, once in 1998 and once in 2005. That is very telling.
What it says to me is that, on the whole, our rules of procedure have served the institution of Parliament well. When applied as intended, they have preserved the important balance of giving the government the authority, funds and resources necessary to govern the country while, at the same time, ensuring that the opposition parties can fulfill their roles as watchdog and proponents of alternatives to the government of the day. In the balance hangs the principle of representation through which the views of Canadians are brought to bear on the important issues of the day.
Clearly, the fact that members feel it necessary to review the rules of procedure now implies that something has changed, that the way the rules are currently being applied no longer serves the public well. I would go so far as to suggest that we are experiencing a democratic deficit in the House that must be exposed and addressed.
I concede that normally tuning in to debates about rules of procedure would be akin to watching paint dry for most Canadians but this time it is more than insider baseball. It is about ensuring that the voices of Canadians are heard and listened to in the single most important democratic institution in this country. It is about ensuring that Canadians can hold their government to account. It is about ensuring that the Canadian public does not become vulnerable to a parliamentary dictatorship.
It is for all of those reasons that even the media have begun to pay attention to the procedural games played by the government. In particular, it has focused on the rules that currently allow the government to cut off debate on subjects of its choosing and rules that allow the government to escape accountability by avoiding transparency and holding critical debates in closed door meetings.
I will get right to the heart of those issues.
Currently, our Standing Orders provide that the rules governing committee procedures are the same as govern the House. The only exceptions are the rules governing the election of the Speaker, seconding of motions, limiting the number of times of speaking and the length of speeches. The Compendium of Procedure elaborates by pointing out that:
On occasion, a committee may decide to hold an in camera meeting to deal with administrative matters, to consider a draft report or to receive a background briefing. Committees also meet in camera to deal with subject matters requiring confidentiality, such as national security.
Both in Standing Order 116 and in the compendium, it is therefore clear that in camera meetings are to be the exception, not the rule.
However, under the current Conservative government, some government members have moved that the entire proceedings of particular committees be conducted behind closed doors, shutting out both the public and the media from deliberations on what, in the end, are questions of public policy. How absurd is that? When the issue is raised with the Speaker, he or she consistently falls back on the principle that committees are the masters of their own proceedings.
While technically correct, we must give the Speaker the tools to uphold the independence of committees while insisting that they cannot subvert the democratic principles of transparency and accountability that underpin the Westminster model of Parliament. To do otherwise is to turn the Speaker into a parliamentary eunuch at best, or more likely a government patsy, particularly during majority governments. In either case, the Speaker will be hamstrung in fulfilling his or her role as the principal officer of the House of Commons, the guardian of its privileges and the protector of the rights of all members. Clearly, that must change. We should be examining how to allow the Speaker to overturn anti-democratic behaviour at committee while respecting the principle of committee autonomy.
Similarly, the Speaker must be able to play a more active role in maintaining the balance between the right of the government to pass its legislative agenda and the right of the opposition to examine and debate proposals in the House of Commons.
Among the most undemocratic measures contained in the current Standing Orders is Standing Order 56.1. If the government has been denied unanimous consent for a routine motion, this Standing Order gives the government the right to put the same question again during routine proceedings without debate or amendment, and deems the motion to have carried unless 25 members stand in their places to oppose it. While I am sure that wording seemed benign to its original drafters, there appear to be very few procedural limits on what constitutes a routine motion.
As a result, governments now regularly use the Standing Order to curtail debate on bills and to accelerate the legislative process. Clearly, that was not the intent of the rule. In fact, former Speaker Milliken virtually begged the House to place limitations on the types of motions that would be considered routine and specifically suggested that no motion which furthers legislation can be considered routine. I would refer members of the House to Speaker Milliken's rulings of June 5, 2007, October 3, 2006, May 13, 2005 and September 18, 2001.
This may be a good time to look at how useful Standing Order 26.1 is as well, since it has the same regressive, negative option billing process where a motion is deemed passed unless 15 members of Parliament rise to oppose it. It is a procedural loophole that dates back a century. The government should not be able to use that anachronism to force a vote in the House.
It is not like the government needs any additional mechanisms to accelerate the parliamentary process. On the contrary, my NDP colleagues and I strongly believe that even the existing powers to time allocate debate must be reviewed and curtailed. It goes without saying that the time spent on a bill is a major source of conflict between governing and opposition parties. After all, time is the currency of parliamentary proceedings.
In 1987, Speaker Fraser was clear when he stated:
It is essential to our democratic system that controversial issues should be debated at reasonable length so that every reasonable opportunity shall be available to hear the arguments pro and con and that reasonable delaying tactics should be permissible to enable opponents of a measure to enlist public support for their point of view.
Although he put it slightly differently, the Prime Minister said the same thing on election night last year. He said, “For our part, we are intensely aware that we are and we must be the government of all Canadians, including those who did not vote for us”.
That is a far cry from what the Conservatives have been saying in the House ever since. Now they are saying over and over again that they received a majority mandate from Canadians and that all further consultation can therefore cease. They consulted during the campaign, after all. The arrogance of such statements is astounding and it has led to a gross overuse of tools to shut down debate in this House, whether it be through time allocation or formal closure motions. Those tools were initially designed to give the government the power to overcome deliberate filibusters by opposition parties where the public would ultimately judge which party's actions it supported in the subsequent election.
However, there are occasions now where there is widespread and objective concern that a government is resorting to time allocation too precipitously, and that there is genuine public interest in a full debate in the House. For such situations, it is important that the Standing Orders vest in the Speaker the right to rule a government motion for time allocation out of order or inadmissible.
It is right and proper for the Speaker to have the authority to stand in the way of a government that is prepared to use time allocation to stifle debate without any evidence of obstruction. Giving the Speaker such an authority, even if it were not used regularly, would create the healthy habit of circumspection before the government resorted to time allocation. Perhaps then we could move away from the practice of the now routine use of time allocation which really makes a mockery of the procedures of this House.
Just since the last election, the government has used time allocation 15 times. In one instance, notice of time allocation was given before debate had even started on the bill. When they were in opposition, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Public Safety, the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages and others decried such tactics and they have been quoted extensively on that in this House.
However, for me, the person who summed it best was the Minister of Finance when he reacted to a time allocation motion brought forward during his time at Queen's Park. He said:
This shows...the legislative incompetence on the other side of the House. They've been unable to manage their bills here, so they...have to time-allocate....
I could not agree more. Overreliance on time allocation is the sign of an incompetent government but such incompetence is no excuse for running roughshod over the institution of Parliament.
I look forward to discussing these issues further in committee so we can restore transparency and accountability to the parliamentary process on behalf of all those Canadians who sent us here to speak for them.
- MPndpFeb 17, 2012 7:15 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague's comments. We both sit on the procedure and House affairs committee so I know he cares passionately about the Standing Orders, as we all do.
I wonder if the member could tell me how he feels about the Standing Orders relating to time allocation in particular, as well as committee proceedings in camera, which are two of the issues that are of most concern to members on this side of the House.
- MPndpFeb 16, 2012 7:10 am | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, discussions have taken place among all the parties and I believe that if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:
That, at the conclusion of today's debate on the opposition motion in the name of the member for Manicouagan, all questions necessary to dispose of this motion be deemed put and a recorded division deemed requested and deferred until Monday, February 27, 2012 at the end of government orders.
- MPndpFeb 13, 2012 3:55 pm | Ontario, Hamilton Mountain
Mr. Speaker, NDP members will be voting no.
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