Debates of June 5th, 2014

Mining Industry

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to table a petition calling on the government to establish an ombudsman for responsible mining. The petition was submitted by Development and Peace, a very worthwhile organization that promotes alternatives to unfair social, political, and economic structures, educates the Canadian population about the causes of poverty, and mobilizes Canadians toward action for change.

I am very pleased to table this petition. I look forward to the government's response.

Rail Transportation

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table a couple of petitions today. Two of them are with respect to funding for the Algoma Central Railway. Most of the petitioners are from the riding of Sault Ste. Marie, who want to ensure that their voices are heard here in the House of Commons. They are from Sault Ste. Marie, Bruce Mines, Searchmont, and Prince Township, and some are from Hawk Junction, Wawa, and Burk's Falls, in my riding, and some are from Toronto as well. Some of the petitioners are actually from the United States. This shows how critical this is. It is with respect to funding for the Algoma Central Railway.

The government has actually put in some additional funding for at least one more year while a working group works on this. However, the petitioners remain concerned with respect to the lack of consultation by the government and about the impact this will have on their economy and their businesses.

Consumer Protection

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the next petition is with respect to unfair extra fees and consumer rip-offs. The petitioners are from Spanish, Webbwood, Walford, Massey, Kapuskasing, Moonbeam, Cochrane, and Harty. The petitioners are calling on the government to take significant and concrete steps to make life more affordable. They are concerned about payday loans, pay-to-pay fees, ATM fees, access to low-interest credit cards, and price gouging.

I am pleased to table these petitions.

Canada Post

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to present two petitions, both with respect to Canada Post. The petitioners would like to draw the attention of this House to the fact that in 2014, the federal government will perform a review of the Canadian postal service charter. The petitioners have put forward that because Canada Post is a publicly owned post office, Canadians have every right to have input on matters involving the post office. Therefore, the petitioners are calling on the government to ensure that the Canadian postal service charter review this year is open to the public.

In the second petition, the petitioners would like to draw the attention of this House to the fact that by supporting Canada Post's plan to cut home delivery and to hike postage prices, the government has broken its promise to better protect consumers and that the elimination of door-to-door service delivery will be a particular hardship for seniors and the disabled. The petitioners are calling on the government to reject Canada Post's plan to cut mail service and increase prices.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present two petitions. One is from the town of Postville and one from the town of Black Tickle. They are both related to the downgrading of services by Canada Post Corporation. The petitioners are calling on the Government of Canada to instruct Canada Post to maintain, expand, and improve postal services and to cease any proposals to reduce hours and diminish service to the residents in those areas.

I support the petitioners in their request to the government. We would certainly encourage the government to intervene here to ensure that postal services to all rural Canadians are maintained, and maintained at levels that are acceptable in a country of our stature.

Mining Industry

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, parishioners of St. Thomas à Becket in Pierrefonds are presenting this petition, which asks for the creation of a legislated ombudsman mechanism for responsible mining. This petition calls for the creation of a legislated extractive sector ombudsman mechanism in Canada that would have the capacity to receive and investigate complaints and assess compliance with corporate accountability standards that are based on international labour, environmental, and human rights norms; make public its findings; recommend remedial actions; and recommend sanctions to the Government of Canada.

Egypt

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my second petition is signed by a lot of people. They are calling upon the Canadian government to condemn the abuse of human rights in Egypt. The people who signed this petition are concerned about the freedom of the press and freedom of expression in Egypt.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, Question No. 471 will be answered today.

Question No. 471

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

With regard to Canada Post equipment renewal for community mailboxes and the new call for expressions of interest for specialized companies that responded to the first call for interest launched on July 24, 2013: (a) what company was awarded this contract; (b) what was the cost of the purchase; (c) what companies were invited to submit bids for this contract; and (d) why did Canada Post officials have information about the awarding of this contract removed from the MERX tendering website?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, with regard to (a), Florence Manufacturing, a wholly owned subsidiary of Gibraltar Industries Inc., has been awarded a contract for the short-term supply of community mailbox equipment to Canada Post.

With regard to (b), the requested information is financial and commercial in nature and has always been treated as confidential.

With regard to (c), on July 26, 2013, Canada Post issued a request for information, or RFI, to identify existing and available community mailbox equipment that would meet Canada Post’s short-term requirements. The RFI was issued in accordance with NAFTA obligations and was made publicly available to all potential suppliers through MERX. The names of the unsuccessful suppliers are considered confidential.

Following the finalization of the new equipment design for the long-term requirement due later this year, Canada Post will issue a request for proposal, an RFP, on MERX under NAFTA for the manufacture of the new equipment design.

With regard to (d), Canada Post did not remove information about the awarding of the contract from the MERX tendering website.

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, if a supplementary response to Question No. 425, originally tabled on May 14, 2014, as well as Question No. 472 could be made orders for returns, these returns would be tabled immediately.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Question No. 425

[Chrystia Freeland, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

With regard to full-time equivalent (FTE) federal civil service and Crown corporation positions eliminated since January 1, 2012: what is the number of positions eliminated, broken down by the location of the former position, namely (i) the National Capital Region, (ii) each province or territory, including figures for Quebec and Ontario outside of the National Capital Region, (iii) outside of Canada?

(Return tabled)

Question No. 475

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

With regard to homeless veterans: (a) what programs from Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) are in place to assist homeless veterans; (b) what programs are in place by other government departments, if applicable, to assist homeless veterans; (c) what organizations are working in partnership with VAC to provide support to homeless veterans, broken down by province; (d) what is the annual breakdown of contributions issued to organizations working in partnership with VAC on veterans homelessness from 2009 to 2013 inclusively, broken down by province; (e) how much did VAC spend on veterans homelessness annually from 2009 to 2013 inclusively; (f) what are the details of VAC's evaluation of the effectiveness of their financial contribution and program delivery for the partnership defined in (c); (g) is VAC considering a plan for a national coordinated effort to support homeless veterans and, if so, what are the details; (h) how many homeless veterans have been identified annually by VAC, from 2009 to 2013 inclusively; (i) how many homeless veterans have been identified by organizations working in partnership with VAC annually from 2009 to 2013 inclusively, broken down by province; (j) how many homeless veterans identified in (h) and (i) are now in receipt of departmental benefits or services; (k) what is the breakdown of the type of departmental benefits or services the homeless veterans received from 2009 to 2013; (l) what are the planned expenditures by VAC for homeless veterans for the next five years; and (m) what are the planned expenditures by VAC for organizations working in partnership with VAC to provide support to homeless veterans?

(Return tabled)

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Bill C-31—Time Allocation Motion

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I move:

That, in relation to Bill C-31, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 11, 2014 and other measures, not more than five further hours shall be allotted to the consideration at report stage of the bill and five hours shall be allotted to the consideration at third reading stage of the said bill; and

that, at the expiry of the five hours provided for the consideration at report stage and the five hours provided for the consideration at the third reading stage of the said bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this order, and in turn every question necessary for the disposal of the said stages of the bill then under consideration shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Pursuant to Standing Order 67(1), there will now be a 30-minute question period. I invite hon. members who wish to ask questions to rise in their places so the Chair has an idea of how many members wish to participate.

Questions and comments, the hon. opposition House leader.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, words fail me.

Let us not forget that in the 35th and 36th Parliaments the Conservatives were criticizing the corrupt Liberals at the time. The Conservatives said that the Liberals moved 67 time allocation motions. The Conservatives were clear. They said they would be different from the Liberals: they would be a transparent government, with a fresh new approach and they would not be corrupt.

However, the Conservatives have a rather sorry record these days, with the number of time allocation motions and closure motions they have used. The Liberals moved 67 such motions at the time. The Conservatives are currently at 70. This is the 70th time they are limiting members' speaking time and muzzling Parliament.

It is not as though the Conservatives were introducing good bills. They have introduced bills that the Supreme Court has rejected. Others were so botched that the Conservatives ended up having to waste taxpayers' money to introduce new bills to fix the ones that were botched. They introduce bad bills and then they want to muzzle MPs. Last night, 49 Conservative MPs refused to show up when it was their turn to speak. This is unacceptable.

The worst part of this closure motion, this time allocation motion, is the provisions of the bill. We are talking about FATCA, whereby a million Canadians of American origin would simply be flushed away by the current government. They would have no constitutional protections, no privacy protections. Even though we pushed for them at committee, the government refused to adopt them.

We have also seen, in this particular bill, that railway safety and transparency would be blown away, because in secret, the government could reduce the railway safety provisions that are already inadequate.

After the tragedy last year of Lac-Mégantic, one would think the government would be a little wiser and just a little more attuned to public opinion.

My question is very simple. Why is the government trying to hide from the public these horrible provisions in the bill by ramming the bill through without proper debate in the House of Commons?

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Minister of State (Finance)]

Mr. Speaker, again, it is a pleasure to appear in the House to speak back on the scope of the bill and to talk a bit about the budget, budget implementation, the economic action plan, and the reasons we have moved into time allocation.

The member from across the way started by saying that he was almost speechless. I can tell members one thing. I am not a doctor, but I would never diagnose that member, ever, since I have been here, as being almost speechless. It seems that he always has something to say. I appreciate the questions he asked today. I appreciate the fact that he did stand and question it.

Even though the opposition likes to suggest otherwise, it has been common practice in this place to include various measures in budgets. He seemed concerned that there were a number of different measures, or a lot of different measures, put into an overwhelming budget. He talked about the scope of the budget. Certainly it is nothing new. This is nothing new. This is nothing groundbreaking. I think Canadians expect a budget to deal with all departments of government. They expect a budget to lay out the direction a government intends to go over the next number of years.

Our budget is full of very good measures that would continue to move our government on its low-tax plan, a plan that would put Canadians in a very good position to find a job in this country, a plan that would enhance skill development, a plan that would take someone who says, “I want to move to a next level of employment” and would provide the opportunities to do that through many different measures that would be brought forward in this budget toward skill development.

What the opposition is not talking about is the fact that Canada is in one of the best positions of all countries around the world. We see growth. We see a low level of debt comparative with other G7 countries. We are well-positioned in Canada. We are well-positioned because of bills like this. That is why we look forward to continuing to debate and to continuing to look at the various measures the member brought forward.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question on Part 5 of Bill C-31, specifically on the issue of FATCA and its application to registered savings plans, RRSPs, registered education savings plans, and registered disability savings plans. Those plans have matching grants provided by the Government of Canada, funded by the taxpayers of Canada, that are intended to go to people with disabilities or to young people to save for their educations. Under FATCA, earnings from those deposits made by the Canadian government would be taxable by the IRS.

Does the Minister of State for Finance believe that this would be consistent with the intentions of those programs and that it would be appropriate for the Canadian taxpayer to be funnelling money to the IRS and the U.S. treasury?

Second, has the government calculated how much money would be going to the IRS from the Canadian treasury as a result of FATCA and the provisions of this bill?