Yes, Mr. Speaker. I believe it is contrary to the privileges of the members for anyone in the House to mislead the House and it is particularly important for the minister not to do that.
Lost his last election, in 2006, with 24% of the vote.
Privilege February 18th, 1997
Yes, Mr. Speaker. I believe it is contrary to the privileges of the members for anyone in the House to mislead the House and it is particularly important for the minister not to do that.
Privilege February 18th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, my point of privilege arises from a response to a question yesterday by the Minister of Justice.
It is not a question of interpretation of fact which would not make it a point of privilege. It is a clear point in which the minister said something that was not the case.
I would like to read what the minister said in yesterday's Hansard . It relates to services relating to Airbus. He said that ``all services that were rendered were entirely within those contemplated properly by the contract''.
I have a copy of the contract and it plainly is not the case that those services were rendered within it. I can read it or not, as the case may be.
Airbus February 17th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Justice and it involves the communications strategic advice that he received under contract with a well known Liberal media company. The contract was for strategic communications advice to the minister on his legislative agenda. We all know that the Airbus was not on the minister's legislative agenda. Yet some $160,000 was paid to the Liberal media company under this contract.
Why did the minister pay for advice when it was not provided for under the contract? How much did he pay for advice on how he should handle himself in the Airbus affair while at the same time he was saying that he was uninvolved in the actual affair?
Child Poverty February 13th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development. It concerns the proposed child benefit.
He knows that this proposal will provide dollars to the provinces in the hope that they will pass those dollars on to poor children. He knows that child poverty has got worse under the government and that the Minister of Finance has called it a national disgrace.
The minister has no guarantees from the provinces that they will use these dollars to alleviate child poverty. Nor has he sought them.
Why does Minister of Human Resources Development not ensure that the child benefit is a true national program with national standards so that poor children in Canada, no matter what province they live in or whether or not the province cares about children, will actually receive the benefits in question?
Youth Unemployment February 12th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, over the last decade Conservative and Liberal governments and the leaders of our largest corporations have supported a series of policy initiatives that they said would create jobs.
They said the tax burden had to be shifted away from corporations and on to individuals. They demanded free trade and NAFTA. They called for the GST. Deregulation. Privatization. Cuts to social programs. That was all part of a package. Those changes have been made, the agenda is in place, but the jobs simply have not arrived.
Youth unemployment in Canada stands at around 20 per cent. Since 1976 the number of youths with full time jobs in Canada has fallen by one million. This is a betrayal of our youth and Canada's future. Without major changes to the way the government is managing the economy, this betrayal will continue.
The youth employment strategy announced today is a band-aid solution and shows how out of touch this government is. As part of its strategy the government will make available to young Canadians virtual one stop shopping for information. Well if we do not see a drastic change in government policies, young Canadians will continue to look for virtual jobs. They might even be making virtual deposits into their virtual bank accounts.
Unemployment December 10th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance.
Yesterday a government study showed the huge cost of unemployment of up to $91 billion. The IMF has pointed to the high rate of unemployment in Canada as a cause for concern. Even the private sector seems to have lost faith in being able to create the jobs Canada needs. Indeed it is cutting jobs.
Since the Minister of Finance has no vision for dealing with unemployment, will he pull together the stakeholders in this economy so we can build a vision for the future to deal with unemployment? Or, does he not care about all the unemployed people in the country?
Unemployment December 9th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance.
We know now that unemployment in Canada is stuck at 10 per cent. Yet in Saskatchewan with a New Democrat government the unemployment rate is the lowest in the country. We know too from the government's own studies that unemployment costs the country billions and billions of dollars in lost revenues and would contribute to addressing the deficit had the problem of unemployment been addressed.
Knowing that the government of Saskatchewan has developed a partnership approach to dealing with the economy which has generated an unemployment rate that is the envy of the country, when will the Minister of Finance speak to the minister of economic diversification and development in Saskatchewan to find out how to deal with unemployment?
Patent Act October 8th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, a while ago I asked the former minister of human resources development how he expected public trust and confidence in government to be restored when his government pulled an about face on unemployment insurance. We all remember the red book promise about public trust and confidence in government.
How did he see the serious hypocrisy of his actions, I asked. While in opposition he and his Liberal colleagues opposed Conservative cuts to UI which were not nearly as deep as those they recently pushed through the House.
In today's economic climate support programs like UI are necessary to help workers adjust to changing technological and global economic circumstances; however, income support alone
has not and will not create the long term economic growth and jobs that today's economy demands.
Clearly our aim should be to move the debate forward and develop a bold new approach to unemployment and unemployment insurance reform. It is no longer enough to focus solely on the unemployed, who have clearly been made a scapegoat by successive Liberal and Conservative governments. Instead I believe it is time to focus on what is required from society as a whole, from those who are looking for work, those who are able to supply it, and the governments which facilitate relationships between the two and which help to shape the way we do business in Canada.
A creative and modern approach would include a scheme which would of course provide the unemployed with adequate resources for living for themselves and their families but which would also enable unemployed Canadians to get back to work and, when possible, to get the kind of jobs that match their needs.
Real UI reform involves helping Canadians to find the kind of work they need and to help in creating the kind of workforce which can win a place in the global economy. This certainly means that overlap and duplication must be dealt with. It means establishing partnerships between federal, provincial and municipal governments and the private sector.
The issue of dependency and abuse must also be dealt with, but separately from issues surrounding benefit levels and conditions so that eligibility benefit levels, training, job creation schemes and other active measures can be discussed in a more rational way.
Unfortunately this has not been the case in Canada when UI reform has been discussed by the government. With the present policies, these crucial objectives are farther from being met than ever before.
It is clear that the kind of reform carried out by successive Liberal and Conservative governments amounts to little more than thinking up new wheezes with which to bash the unemployed. Liberals on the government side opposed those measures when they were in opposition but now support them. The approach of the current government to unemployment and UI is more a restatement of the problem than a strategy to improve active support and develop truly effective measures to deal with unemployment and the transition of the unemployed into the labour market.
The primary solution being offered is that the unemployed should receive less in benefits for a shorter period of time and the benefits should be harder to get; a strategy that has been tried and shown to have failed over the last decade and a half.
Further, perhaps one of the most troubling measures with the government's UI reform constitutes the theft of $1.9 billion belonging to employers and employees. Even with the reinvestment into so-called active programs, the government admits to stealing more than $1.1 billion, money which plainly does not belong to the government. The government expects that two years from now there will be a $10 billion surplus in the UI fund. Instead of using these surplus funds to establish more aggressive and more constructive active support measures that would help the unemployed get back to work, measures that have been proven highly successful in other countries, the Minister of Finance will use this money so that he can meet his deficit reduction targets. This is theft, plain and simple, and we cannot afford to continue in this way.
Canadians understand the need for a UI program that is fair, which provides basic financial support and which encourages and makes available the tools they need in order to re-enter the labour market.
Canadians support aggressive active support measures that help people get back on their feet. The unemployed want a system that focuses on moving UI recipients into the workforce and which will support them in their efforts to achieve a greater degree of independence. This is a modern and progressive agenda which this legislation falls sadly short of. There are active measures but we know that they are simply not adequate for the needs of Canadians.
I want to remind the minister that Canadians are watching as this government continues to listen to and give unfair and undeserved tax breaks to banks and big corporations while cutting funding for unemployment insurance, health care, education and other services needed by people.
Oceans Act October 7th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, some time ago I raised with the Minister of Justice his handling of Patrick Kelly's section 690 application.
As the minister and the House know, Mr. Kelly, a former undercover RCMP officer, was convicted in 1984 of the murder of his wife three years earlier and has spent thirteen and a half years in jail, the last eight being at William Head Institution.
Patrick Kelly continues to languish in the bowels of the Canadian criminal justice system while the minister drags his feet about ordering a new trial for Mr. Kelly. From day one Mr. Kelly has proclaimed his innocence and from day one the Department of Justice has mishandled the investigation into Mr. Kelly's case.
Three years ago Dawn Taber, the crown's key witness, recanted her original testimony in which she had claimed to have seen Mr. Kelly push his wife from their Toronto highrise balcony. "I did not see Patrick Kelly drop his wife off the balcony. That was a lie". She said this three years ago.
The Minister of Justice took one and a half years after this recantation to even both contacting Dawn Taber for an interview even though she has made herself available and has been a willing witness.
On many occasions, other members of Parliament and I have pressured the justice minister to release critical information from the police investigation that was originally withheld, information that Mr. Kelly's defence lawyers would need in order to properly represent him. But those police reports apparently fell into the chasm of bureaucracy for 13 years until some of them, and only some of them, were released in February 1996.
Why has the tape recording of the interview with Dawn Taber, the key witness, with the police and the psychiatrist mysteriously gone missing? What are the police, the psychiatrist and the Department of Justice hiding? Furthermore, the minister assigned the very officer accused of suborning Dawn Taber's evidence in the first place to take part in the reinvestigation. Clearly this represent a serious problem.
In June 1995 the minister ordered an independent scientific analysis of the evidence. However, to date the minister has failed to ensure that this analysis is completed and calls from Mr. Kelly's counsel for this analysis are going unanswered.
On more than one occasion the minister assured the House that he would prepare an investigative brief and personally assured members of Parliament that this would be done. Yet suddenly after three years of spending public money on this investigation, the minister refuses to supply that brief.
There are very serious questions about the minister's inaction in this case. Why has the report that was prepared by Michelle Feurst, the minister's independent counsel, not been made available to Patrick Kelly and his counsel and shown to the public who paid for it? Again, what kind of justice is this?
The Minister of Justice has mishandled Mr. Kelly's application and it is time that he accepted some responsibility and answered some questions. Is his staff incompetent or are they merely uninterested in pursuing the truth? What about the evidence which is being hidden from all of us, perhaps evidence that shows Mr. Kelly's innocence? What about concerns of wrongdoing by the metro Toronto police, the RCMP and, indeed, Department of Justice officials?
The minister has led an investigation that has acted with no sense of urgency, with a total lack of established rules of procedure and a total lack of disclosure. Why does the minister continue to conduct an investigation in darkness and secrecy?
When the crown's key witness admits to lying on the stand and when police documents show they have hidden information, then it is clear that justice has been violated, a fair trial denied and thus a new trial must be ordered. It is quite that simple.
The minister has repeatedly promised to review the case, to release a brief, to make a decision and yet the silence continues. That silence is the sign of a minister responsible for justice not ensuring that justice is done. This cannot go on any longer.
When will the Minister of Justice do the right thing by Mr. Kelly?
Federal Conference On Youth October 4th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, last week the federal Liberal government wined and dined over 100 hand picked delegates gathered in Ottawa for a three day national conference. The aim was to have these youth delegates help provide solutions to growing problems faced by young people in Canada today.
The problem is the federal government did not invite any student groups, where corporations were welcomed with open arms, showing once again how this government believes that only the wealthy and large corporations really matter.
Obviously the government believes that rising tuition costs, decreasing quality of education, high student debt, chronic student unemployment and decreased accessibility to university education are irrelevant and trivial issues for the youth of today.
The chair of the conference conveniently forgot to mention the government is backtracking on the Liberal Party's red book promise to fund a $100 million youth core program to employ 10,000 youth every year. He also neglected to mention the government's plans to privatize Canada's student loan program and the $7 billion cuts to provincial social transfer payments.
The corporations and the government were so successful at pulling off this farce that Canada's second largest bank, the CIBC, has generously offered to host the second national conference on youth next March. And why not? The government has already abandoned middle class and working people for banks and big corporations.