Louise Hardy

[Privacy, June 15th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, this Liberal government has collected and disseminated private information on Canadian citizens. This Liberal government takes private income tax information and gives it to HRDC. It takes sensitive health care information and records and gives them to HRDC to use against Canadians. Courtesy of this government, a young woman's medical history, social insurance number and income tax information was posted on grocery store bulletin boards.

Who gave Revenue Canada the right to pass out confidential information, and why can the government misuse this information while MPs have to get ministerial approval to get public speeches they have made?

These tactics are something we would expect of a military regime, not a democracy.

[Supply, June 15th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his commitment to social medicine in Canada. Unfortunately I think he discredits himself when he acts like the problems have not arisen from the serious cuts made by this government.

What plans does he have for dealing with access in remote areas such at the north and Yukon? The fact that people have to travel thousands of miles to obtain treatment such as dialysis means complete isolation from families. It is a serious problem for isolated areas, which means most of the country.

[Petitions, June 15th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I want to present a petition signed by hundreds of Canadians who are worried about the underfunded Canadian medicare system.

The Liberal government's underfunding has led to a shortage of nurses, hospital beds and emergency room spaces. They want the government to fund medicare up to 25%.

[The Environment, May 30th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, recently parliamentarians attended an ecological summit and yesterday a forum on aboriginal health.

The summit included a presentation by Dr. Schindler from the University of Alberta who said that considering the importance of water to all life, it is strange that freshwater has been Canada's most mistreated and ignored natural resource. Canadian citizens are paying the price for governments not protecting our water supply and the environment.

The quality of drinking water is a major issue in Ontario. For the north the concentrations of PCBs and other pollutants in fish, caribou and birds are high enough to require human consumption of traditional aboriginal food to be restricted. The government is fully aware that in the north we have PCB levels five times higher than anywhere else.

It is time that the Liberal government changed its cavalier attitude toward the environment and enforced environmental laws and regulations. We demand action and remedies on the cumulative effects of organic pollutants. The government is responsible for the price that northerners are paying due to these pollutants.

[Supply, May 30th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I hope that is not what the parliamentary secretary was saying because it just leads into the whole sense that parliament is irrelevant and why are we bothering to be here if we have no role.

We do have a role. We cannot compromise when it comes to safety and issues of national importance. We have to expect, demand and put in place the laws we need to make sure we have what we need and that parliament is worth something.

[Supply, May 30th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I did not raise co-operation though I think it is critical. The northern highways I have been on are in incredible shape. The last time I drove out I took the B.C. highway. I swore I would never take the Stewart-Cassiar again. It was beat to pieces by the great big trucks travelling on it. It had not been maintained. I drove for hours and hours and hours, 10 hours in some cases, and there is no gas station. I do not think that is acceptable and I have decided that I will not drive on it again.

As far as co-operation goes, we have one road and one airline out of the north. Who are we supposed to be co-operating with? We do not have a choice. Transportation is very limited. The provinces and territories should co-operate federally so that we can have a cohesive transportation network which makes it possible for Canadians to get where they need to go and to be able to afford it. It is a three day drive from Whitehorse to Vancouver or a three day drive from Whitehorse to Edmonton. The distances are immense. The cost of gas is immense. People still have to eat and sleep and need places to go. Yes, we do need to co-operate.

When it comes to safety, I gave an example of flying from Ottawa to Vancouver where for me the issue was safety. I do not want to fly with pilots who have overworked. I know what I feel like when I am tired. I do not want to be in a bus when someone is tired and driving. I certainly do not want to be in an airplane when somebody is flying who should not be flying and has exceeded his or her hours of work.

I do not see safety as something that can be compromised or about which we can say we will have some sort of voluntary safety standards. Safety has to be clear cut. We have to expect a standard of safety. Now that we have a monopoly does not mean we should not expect a level of safety that will keep us all getting from one airport to the next.

[Supply, May 30th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I find it fortunate that we are having this debate on transportation for a few reasons.

A short time ago I listened to the Minister of Transport say before the merger of the two major airlines that we faced a duopoly which was not very good, that it was a terrible situation to have a duopoly and that somehow having a monopoly was going to be a better situation. I have a couple of current examples since the merger has taken place to show quite clearly that it is not a benefit to Canadians.

The first is a letter I received from a constituent. I have to explain that in the Yukon and all of the north we depend on air travel more than any other mode, beside the one road out of the Yukon which is the Alaska Highway. The Yukon has the Frostbite Music Festival, the Sourdough Rendezvous Festival, the Arctic Winter Games and various conventions. The storytelling festival is coming up, as well as the Dawson City Music Festival.

A very able travel agent managed to negotiate a special rate to assist cultural groups to bring people north. Otherwise one positively could not afford any of this to happen. I will quote from her letter.

Since the merger took place, Air Canada has done the following. Individuals who had purchased regular fare tickets and had asked to change their flight dates by a few days were told that their tickets could only be changed if they paid full fare rates, $1,500, as opposed to the $100 to $200 fee that Canadian Air used to charge for such a transaction.

People who have electronic bookings, tickets, now can't get them changed to hard copy regular tickets.

Canadian Air used to have zone fares for arts groups which allowed tickets to be purchased at less than regular fare rates. Zone fares have now been cancelled.

That is the end of cheap fares to the Yukon. She mentioned that it is almost impossible now to get a booking on air mile points out of the north and that there are rumours that the requirements will go up to 25,000 points. It used to be considered a short haul of 15,000 points out of the north.

I have another example. As a member of parliament, I travel extensively. I was heading home from Ottawa last week. We were told that our regularly scheduled flight No. 3139, which was supposed to be direct from Ottawa, leaving at 6.30, would be delayed. It did not have enough gas so we would be stopping in Winnipeg to refuel. When we got to Winnipeg we were informed that the pilots had already exceeded the time they were allowed to work but out of consideration for their passengers they would continue on the flight all the way to Vancouver.

There is no way they would not have known these pilots would be exceeding their allowed working time before they had even left the airport in Ottawa. The fact is we could not get off the plane in Winnipeg. There was no choice of airline to take.

I would like assurances from our Minister of Transport that this is not the regular practice and that this is not what travellers will face. We are talking about the safety of Canadian citizens in the air as well as the pilots. What kind of choice did the pilots have? Obviously there were none. They were expected to carry on with the flight. The fact that we were given the impression the pilots had agreed to do it at the last moment was completely unacceptable.

Canada does not have a national highway policy. The motion today is a chance for us to highlight that point. It is also a chance to highlight what we are looking for in transportation policy overall.

It has to be linked to a rational energy policy. It has to be linked to our use of fossil fuels. It has to be linked to our environment and the effect of fuels on our environment and on the ozone layer. Canada is a northern climate and is more susceptible to the ravages of environmental degradation from the use of fossil fuels. We should take all those issues into consideration when it comes to transportation.

Another point I wanted to raise is that as a representative of a northern riding I want to stress that the north depends on air travel. Yukon has one road. There is one road into the Northwest Territories. We have to fly into Nunavut. The rest of transportation depends on either water in the summer or airlines in the winter. It makes living extremely expensive.

I mentioned the effects on cultural travel, but the effects on medical travel can be considered a crisis in some situations. In case anybody does not know the cost of a ticket out of Yukon, it is $1,500 just to Vancouver. If one needs to get anywhere eastward one is looking at $4,000 for a regular ticket to Ottawa. There are no bargains for people who have family crises outside Yukon. They have to pay $4,000. The flights are absolutely, incredibly packed and oversold. If one has an emergency one is lucky to even get out.

Very few people can come up with $4,000 for one person to get out of Yukon if he or she has to go to a funeral, attend a family member during a medical emergency, or accompany a family member who has been Medivaced to either Vancouver or Edmonton. Those are the usual places. They cannot afford to do it. I do not think that is fair. I do not think that is what we should be accepting.

I would like to raise one last point. The last part of the motion indicates that the government needs to demonstrate leadership on this issue and provide solutions to the problems shared from coast to coast. We have a third coast. I would like the Conservative Party to think about that today and for the rest of its tenure. Canada goes from coast to coast to coast. We have an Arctic coastline as well.

Part of being a northerner is being forgotten about. It is like a huge piece of our country somehow does not exist. Often I will get maps from different people which completely cut off all three territories. I do not think a political party that claims to represent the complete country should neglect the north and not recognize the third coastline which belongs to this country.

[Species At Risk Act, May 29th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the hon. member's comment that there should be one list and it should be a scientific list.

I would like to give an example and get his comments on it. I just went with the Gwich'in, the first nation people of Yukon and Alaska, to Washington to lobby with them to get protection for the calving grounds of the porcupine caribou herd. The people of Canada depend on that herd yet they calve on the Arctic coast in Alaska. Canada has protected its side but the U.S. has not.

We have a people who are working to protect the habit of the caribou herd on which historically for over 20,000 years they have depended. They have been lobbying for 20 years but year by year the oil drilling creeps closer and closer to the actual calving grounds of that herd. Without that habitat protection the herd will become extinct, and the Gwich'in people who have depended on that single herd for thousands of years will themselves become extinct. I would like the member to make some comments on that.

[Canada Transportation Act, May 15th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to these amendments.

The NDP, as my colleague already stated, is not content to have a powerless complaints commissioner and a vague promise to look at pricing in the future. The time to protect what we have is right now.

I will give an example of pricing. The price of a regular ticket to fly down east from the Yukon is $4,000. The minister mentioned that there are ticket sales. Everyone I know does book in advance, as do I over the summer, in order to get the cheapest flights available, but that was when we had some choices.

Canadian Airlines has always had a monopoly in the Yukon. From time to time, other carriers have come in during the summer months to address the tourist season. Right now everyone is facing less choices, less chance of a flight, less room on the flight and less flights.

Canadian Airlines will not be putting its third flight in over the summer. However, many people have accumulated points. A lot of people in the north do that because it is a way to get themselves and their families out of the north for a holiday. Since they are down at the very bottom of the pecking order, it gets more and more difficult to get a flight out of the Yukon on points.

A lot of people come to me when there is a death or an illness in the family and they have to get back east. They are looking at $4,000 for a ticket and have to pay that up front.

The north also has to deal with the Medivacs that fly to treatment centres in Vancouver or Edmonton. There is generally an escort, depending upon the seriousness of the condition. If a nurse is required, then the nurse travels with the person who is ill and a family member cannot go. Sometimes there are allowances. If the illness is not serious, a family member can go with the person and stay with him or her at the hospital. This is really critical for elders and seniors who become very disoriented and cannot make their way around. If they have to go out for cancer treatment and stay for a long time, they have to make their way back and forth from the hotel and deal with all the consequences of the illness. Most family members cannot afford to fly to and be with that person. Even a bargain ticket costs anywhere between $600 to $1000. A regular ticket from Whitehorse to Vancouver is $1600.

I know of a young woman who needs dialysis treatment every second or third day. She is living in Vancouver completely isolated from her community of Haines Junction. No one can afford to fly out to see her. There is no dialysis treatment in the Yukon. These stories go on and on. Since I have been MP in the Yukon, the prices of flights have gone up by at least $800. People cannot count on the transportation system to get them out in an emergency or during a family crisis.

If one is fortunate enough to plan his or her travel months in advance sometimes it will work out. I was talking to an elderly woman who tried to arrange a flight three or four months in advance. Some flights no longer exist today which means a delay of three to four days for her to get back to the Yukon. Flights into remote communities are limited by time.

The Canadian Alliance has said that the government should not be involved at all in any business. We are talking about transportation over a huge country. It is absolutely critical for the government to be involved and for the Canadian people to have a say in the transportation policy through their government and through their elected members of parliament.

If we do not have the ability to travel from one end of this country to the other, there is no sense thinking we are a part of this country. It is a three day drive to get out of the Yukon. If we need to get out of the Yukon because of illness, an emergency or even to take a holiday to Vancouver or Edmonton, it is at least a three-day drive. It would take a week to 10 days to drive across the country to visit family on the east coast. Transportation is critical to all areas of our lives.

The minister said that a duopoly was unhealthy in this country. I happen to agree but at least we had some choice. Even as a member of parliament, I had some choice on which flights I could connect with to get back home or get down here. I have to travel a day in either direction to be at work. If a duopoly was unhealthy, how healthy can a monopoly be? I have no idea what we will be facing when it comes to price changes. It is nothing that I look forward to.

I think the Canada Transportation Agency should have the power to review fare increases on its own without waiting for action on some other front. It should have the permanent ability to act on pricing. The minister did hint that if he was still minister he would extend it. I do not think as a government or as a people we should be depending on perhaps a promise to think about it. Before we go any further, we should have concrete guidelines and rules set out that people can actually count on and know what they are facing as much as we can know when heading into this next century.

[Aboriginal Affairs, May 12th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, Tombstone Park in the Yukon was negotiated through a land claim with the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'en but mining claims were staked within the park boundaries. While in the Yukon the minister for DIAND made a clear statement opposed to mining in the park saying it was very difficult to comprehend how we could have mining. Yet last week the licensing process went ahead as if the minister had said nothing.

Will the minister act now to protect the ecological integrity of this park and the land claim agreement?