Debates of Sept. 30th, 2014

Board of Internal Economy

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

I have the honour to inform the House that Mrs. Ambler, member for the electoral district of Mississauga South, has been appointed member of the Board of Internal Economy in place of Mr. Merrifield, member for the electoral district of Yellowhead, for the purposes and under the provisions of section 50 of the Parliament of Canada Act.

Procedure and House Affairs

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Orders 104 and 114, I have the honour to present in both official languages the 18th report of the Standing Committee on Procedures and House Affairs regarding membership of committees of the House.

If the House gives its consent I should like to move concurrence in the report.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

Sex Selection

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House. This morning I would like to table a petition on behalf of numerous constituents. They are requesting that the House condemn discrimination against females occurring through sex selection pregnancy termination.

Agriculture

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have three petitions to present. They are all with regard to the right to save seeds. Petitioners are calling upon Parliament to refrain from making any changes to the Seeds Act or to the Plant Breeders' Rights Act through Bill C-18, an act to amend certain acts relating to agriculture and agri-food, that would restrict farmers' rights or add to farmers' costs.

Further, they call upon Parliament to enshrine in legislation the inalienable right of farmers and other Canadians to save, reuse, select, exchange and sell seeds.

Asbestos

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition signed by tens of thousands of Canadians who call upon Parliament and the House of Commons here assembled to take note that asbestos is the greatest industrial killer that the world has ever known. In fact, they point out that more Canadians now die from asbestos than from all other occupational or industrial causes combined, yet Canada still allows asbestos to be used in construction materials, textile products and even children's toys.

Therefore, the petitioners call upon Parliament to ban asbestos in all of its forms and institute a just transition program for asbestos workers to end all government subsidies of asbestos, both in Canada and abroad, and to stop blocking international health and safety conventions designed to protect workers from asbestos, such as the Rotterdam convention.

Impaired Driving

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present four petitions from citizens of Canada from Manitoba, British Columbia and Ontario. These citizens want to see tougher laws and implementation of new mandatory minimum sentencing for those persons convicted of impaired driving causing death. They also want the Criminal Code of Canada to be changed to redefine the offence of impaired driving causing death as vehicular manslaughter.

CBC/Radio-Canada

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, today it is my honour to rise to present two petitions.

The first is about CBC/Radio-Canada.

This is our national broadcaster.

The petitioners presented petitions in English, so I will continue in English. The petitioners are from all over Canada. They are from Toronto, Markham, but primarily from British Columbia, from Vancouver, Nelson and throughout my constituency of Saanich—Gulf Islands. They are calling for stable predictable funding for the CBC.

Waste Reduction

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is entirely from residents of Saanich—Gulf Islands, from North Saanich, Salt Spring Island and Victoria. They are all calling for the Government of Canada to work with the provinces to put in place a national program to reduce waste through extended product responsibility and extended producer responsibility.

Canada Post

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present petitions in the House today in respect to the reduction of Canada Post services. The signatories to these petitions note that the elimination of door-to-door mail delivery will have a particularly adverse impact on seniors and the disabled. They call upon the Government of Canada to reject Canada Post's plan to end door-to-door mail delivery and increased prices, and instead explore other options for modernizing the postal service.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development]

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

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed from September 25 consideration of the motion that Bill C-41, An Act to implement the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the Republic of Korea, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Canada-Korea Economic Growth and Prosperity Act

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise today to speak to a bill dealing with free trade. The Liberal Party, traditionally through decades, has been fairly clear in terms of recognizing the value of world trade. The Liberal Party does not fear having trade agreements. In fact, we have been advocating and are very supportive of the movement toward additional agreements. We see the value in the sense that Canada is very much a trading nation. We are very dependent on trade. Trade equals jobs here in Canada. It is important to our lifestyle. The way we live here is dramatically affected by the amount of trade that we have throughout the world.

Liberal governments in the past have demonstrated very clearly that we understand the trade file. In fact, going back to the Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin era, we find that we consistently had trade surpluses. This is something that is highly achievable if the government understands the complexities of the whole file of trade. This is something that the current government has been somewhat challenged on. Yes, the Conservatives talk about free trade agreements and they have entered into some free trade agreements, but where they have been found wanting is in the area of overall trade. When it comes to overall trade, we will find that since this Prime Minister has become Prime Minister, we have been going down from the original high of billions of dollars in trade surplus to where we have seen billions of dollars in trade deficit.

That is important because at the end of the day a healthy trade surplus means more jobs for Canadians. It means that our middle class is going to be doing that much better economically. On the one hand, we recognize the value of entering into free trade agreements, but on the other hand we want to emphasize to the Conservatives that they are not doing their jobs when it comes to overall trade for our country. This is where the government really needs to improve. Regarding our manufacturing industry, one only needs to look at the devastation in Ontario in terms of our manufacturing jobs. Tens of thousands of jobs have been lost because the current government has been asleep at the switch and not addressing the needs of our manufacturing industry, not only in the province of Ontario but in other areas also.

Today, we talk about the free trade agreement with Korea. The Conservatives like to pat themselves on the back, saying how wonderful they are for getting this free trade agreement with Korea. The reality is that Korea has been attempting to get free trade agreements with countries around the world since about 2003. Shortly after the Koreans initiated that bold initiative of wanting more free trade agreements, Paul Martin expressed an interest in Canada being a part of that free trade initiative by Korea. In 2004, the negotiations actually began. Looking at what Korea has been able to accomplish, we see it has agreements in place with several nations, including the European Union, the United States and smaller nations like Chile, and I believe, Peru, a number of nations.

Canada, on the other hand has been asleep again at the switch and there has been a significant cost. I have referred to it in the past and I will reinforce it this morning. The pork industry in the province of Manitoba could have had more pork sales to Korea had the government acted in a more prompt fashion, or had it followed the lead of Paul Martin in 2003-04.

At the end of the day, that is just one industry, albeit an industry I am very proud of in Manitoba because of the jobs that have been generated, whether in Brandon, Winnipeg, or rural communities, through pork production. Some of the huge pork farms that are out there contribute good, strong, valuable jobs to our economy. There is no doubt this free trade agreement would enhance certain industries in Canada, and Liberals look forward to that. However, there should be no doubt that the government was not doing its job by allowing other countries to move forward, and in essence, take a bit of the share away from what Canada could have had if the government had been a little more aggressive on this file.

The government talks a lot about the European Union agreement. The Liberal Party was again supportive of going forward with a trade agreement with the European Union.

It was interesting that when the president of Ukraine addressed the House of Commons, one of the things he made reference to was the need to have a free trade agreement with Ukraine. When one thinks about it, Ukraine is moving rapidly toward freer trade association with the European Union, yet Canada seems to be putting that issue on a back burner. Liberals would ultimately argue that there is merit for us to be looking at a free trade agreement with Ukraine.

What about other Asian countries? A few years ago, I would have been standing in my place and talking about the Philippines. The Philippines is a beautiful, wonderful country. Today, we continue to be very dependent on the Philippines for immigration. Tens of thousands of people come to Canada from the Philippines every year and we have benefited immensely, economically, socially and more, because of immigration from the Philippines.

Why not take advantage of this relationship with the Philippines and look at other ways, outside of immigration, to expand relations between the Philippines and Canada? We should look at trade. There is so much more that we could be doing on the trade file and again we see the government falling short on a number of occasions.

I was on a panel with the New Democrats and Conservatives and we were talking about trade. The NDP seemed to be of the opinion that they have supported trade agreements in the past. The reality is that the New Democratic Party is very different when it comes to world trade. It seems to be willing nowadays to change. For the first time, it appears it might vote in favour of this legislation.

I have challenged New Democrats in the past and I will do it again because they still like to say that they supported other free trade agreements, in particular the Canada-Jordan Free Trade Agreement. New Democrats should review some of the comments they made about the Canada-Jordan Free Trade Agreement.

It is fair to say that there has not been a day inside the House of Commons where New Democrats have stood in their places and voted for a free trade agreement. If I am wrong, I challenge any New Democrat to stand in his or her place when it is time to ask questions and tell me the date so that we can look up in Hansard when New Democrats voted in favour of a trade agreement. There is always hope. This could be the first agreement that they vote in favour of.

The point is that we in the Liberal Party have recognized the value of free trade. We hear lots of words from the Conservatives, but they suffer in terms of tangible action. Yes, agreements have been signed, but let us recognize the fact that they have not been all that timely in terms of their announcements, and so forth. Many of the agreements we have today are there because they were initiated by the former Liberal government.

There is lots of room of improvement, both for the Conservatives and I would even suggest for the New Democrats, on this particular file.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. Naturally, we like to talk about the NDP's position on free trade agreements. Unlike the Conservatives and the Liberals, we prefer to look at the agreement itself to see if it has any benefits. In our speeches, we have said that we have three principles and that we rationally analyze the merits of each agreement. I would like my colleague to tell me what he thinks of this approach, of analyzing agreements before supporting them. Does he think that is a good way to do things?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, in fairness, the New Democrats have been consistent on that particular point.

The New Democrats say they would like to be able to see the details, analyze, and so forth. I have been inside the chamber and I hear that all the time from them. However, in fairness to the Liberals, the New Democrats have to acknowledge that as much as they like to see the details and do the analyzing, the fact remains that they have never, ever stood in their place inside the House of Commons and voted in favour of a free trade agreement. That is the reality.

No members of the NDP caucus can actually stand in their place and say that they stood and voted in favour of free trade deal x. We know that for a fact.

The New Democrats can say that as a political party they analyze and look at agreements, but the reality is that at their very core the New Democrats just do not believe in it for whatever reason.

This is where the Liberals differ from the New Democrats. We recognize the world for what it is, and it is not that large a place. We need to have trade. Canada is dependent on world trade. The Liberals have delivered on trade with multi-billion dollars in trade surplus, which has generated tens of thousands of jobs. For 20% of the people employed today, it is because of trade.

The Liberal Party recognizes the value of trade. The New Democrats have never done that. That is something—

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Order. The hon. parliamentary secretary to the Minister of International Development.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to hear that the Liberals are on side with this trade agreement. It is really unfortunate that they did not get any done during their 13 years in office.

The member spoke about issues related to Manitoba. We know that, between 2010 and 2012, the average annual exports for Manitoba were something over $106 million. Examples of tariffs that would be removed are wheat, pork and most pork-processed products, rye and rye seed, oats and oat seed, kidney beans, potatoes, and pig fats.

I wonder if the member could talk about the benefits that would come to his province of Manitoba when we get this free trade agreement signed.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, maybe I could indicate to the Conservative member that—had the Conservatives done their homework—back in 2003 when Korea approached the world and said it wanted free trade agreements, Paul Martin's Liberal government was one of the first governments to actually act upon what Korea had initiated.

The current government sat for over decade, doing nothing. I should say virtually a decade. It waited until 2013 or 2014 to actually get into serious negotiations. As a result, countries like the United States, the European Union, I believe Peru, and definitely Chile beat us to it.

The member made reference to Manitoba, which lost opportunities for further increased trade with Korea in industries like our pork industry, because the Conservatives did not aggressively pursue a free trade agreement with Korea in a more timely fashion.

If the member wants to compare administrations, I would suggest that all she needs to do is take a good look at and analyze the free trade agreement with Korea, compare what the Liberals did, acting within 18 months of the desire to achieve the agreement, with the government taking over 6 years to even come to the table in a serious way to get an agreement.

I would suggest that the government has a lot of room for improvement in terms of negotiations with other world countries.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The hon. member went on and on about the New Democrats not standing in this place and not voting for an agreement, and he challenged us to prove him wrong. I have the Journals from Monday, March 5, 2012, and I would like to table this document showing the New Democrats stood in the House and voted in favour of the Canada-Jordan agreement at second reading. Where he is confusing it is that, at third reading, we let that agreement go by a voice vote, which happens all the time in the House. As a matter of fact, we understand that the Liberals have sent a request to New Democrats to allow the South Korea agreement to pass by a voice vote.

The hypocrisy and the inaccuracy of the Liberal Party is again breathtaking. I would ask for unanimous consent to table this document in the House, so that the member will once and for all be quiet and no longer state that the New Democrats have not stood in the House and voted for the Jordan agreement, because we did.

Moreover, maybe he can answer a question. Besides the Liberals not supporting the free trade agreement in the 1980s—he prattles on and on about how the Liberals have always supported free trade, but Canadians remember they did not—the Liberal trade critic has said this about CETA:

We have been supportive of the deal from the start....

It's important to say this is a great step, but also we really need to start seeing some details. At some point though we need to see what it is we're actually supporting

Now is that not a classic description of the Liberal Party to support something without ever reading it, or—

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

I think the member is moving beyond the request for unanimous consent, into debate. Does the member have unanimous consent to table the document?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

There is no unanimous consent.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.