Louise Hardy

[The Late Kirk Miller, February 18th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the minister for EI prefers to dismiss anecdotes about his program, but today in Yukon there is a funeral for Kirk Miller, the father of three sons and a devoted husband to Leslie.

Last week he was killed in a mine accident in B.C. Last fall Kirk left Yukon to work in Alberta. He lived in his truck so he could send all his money home to his family. His wife begged him to return home and at Christmas he did, but he was denied EI benefits because he did not have sufficient grounds to quit his job.

In January he again left his family and went to B.C. to work. In his last phone calls home he told his wife the ground was bad and just days later he was dead in a mine cave-in.

Kirk had no choice. He could not and he would not leave his family without an income. He knew he would get no EI if he quit. Now there is no life for Kirk and only despair for his family.

This anecdote is the tragedy of a man who worked to his death for his family because the minister would not let Kirk live in the same territory as his family.

I ask the House to pay tribute to Kirk and his family.

[Canadian Human Rights Act, February 9th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to support Bill S-11. Although I may not agree with the ideology of having a Senate or with the Progressive Conservative Party, I am proud to stand to support this bill.

This bill is about our Canadian Human Rights Act. Human rights are our finest instincts, our best wishes, our dreams and our visions for now and the future. This is about how we will change this country to make it better; take what is good and make it solid; take the weak parts, look at them and change them to make them better and to bring some life to this act.

Canada has always been a place where we could succeed on our merit, work and determination. Everything is here. It does not matter if we are born poor. We have public schools. We have health care. We have homes. We can do whatever we want in this country. For us to have to step back and look at the fact of social conditions which generally refers to the poor as being an obstacle to anyone accomplishing their dreams is really shocking.

I will give an example. My mother had eleven children. Three died. My father died when I was young. We were poor. That meant there were days when there was no food. That meant there were nights when there was no heat. In the north when it is minus 30 or minus 40, living without heat is no joke. That means living in a room with all your brothers and sisters, every coat in the house piled on top of you and you are praying that somehow you can get some money for food or to get some oil or wood for your house. Poverty is not a lifestyle. It is not anything anyone chooses.

My mother was of a generation that went through the war and they wanted change. They wanted this country to be here for every child, whether born poor or rich. They had an opportunity. They fought for it and made changes.

If there was no public school, I would not have had an education. If there was no subsidized secondary school, I would not have been able to accomplish that. I certainly would not have been able to make it to this House.

As our country recedes in the support we are willing to give to the poor, it means more and more people will be born poor and they will stay poor.

In the last 10 years we have seen family income go down by 5%. Twenty-one percent of our families are low income. Sixty percent of single mothers are poor. There has been a 47% growth in the number of children living in poverty. For me these are not just words, they are not statistics. I know what it feels like and I know what children are going through when they live in poverty.

If my mother were alive I would never bring up the fact that we were poor because it was a matter of shame. For this woman it meant absolute shame that she would have to beg for food for her children, which is what she had to do. She had to go to a food bank. It was not called a food bank at that time but that is what it was.

Adding this social condition to our human rights act is important. It is important because it says of the country that we care enough to think about poverty. We care enough to want to say it, to entrench it and to make change that will make a difference for the people in this country.

We can do it. I think all Canadians want that. We want to make sure we have health care, education and housing. We want to help those who are in between jobs, those who lose jobs, to make sure employment insurance is there for them when they need it so they do not have to go on social assistance, they do not have to be degraded every day they are without a job because we place a lot of value and worth in being able to work and support our families.

Poverty increases depression, malnutrition, sickness and early death. I was poor but I was never without a roof over my head. I cannot imagine living without a home, yet more and more we are seeing people without a blanket or roof of any sort over their heads.

The changes that have gone on in our country in the last 10 years have meant that education is farther and farther out of the reach of ordinary people, certainly out of the reach of the poor.

We have public schools to send children to. If someone cannot afford a school book or running shoes for their children, they certainly cannot afford a musical instrument or sporting equipment for their children to participate in the social life of their community.

It is a human rights issue. It is an issue on dignity. Even though there may be reasons not to include this social condition in the human rights act because it would take a bit of time, it might affect other laws or institutions that we are not sure of, it does not mean we should not do it.

I know my Reform colleague said we could force banks to give a loan to someone who cannot pay it back. That is not the case at all. That would not happen. But we could expect a bank to cash the cheque of a poor working person. I know of quite a few instances where banks refused to cash their cheques.

A woodcutter in Yukon received his payment from the government because he delivered wood to people on social assistance. This man would receive his cheque from the government. His working clothes were torn and dirty because that was the nature of his work. He did not have a bank account and the bank refused to cash his cheque. Why? Because he was poor. Fortunately in this country we are lucky enough to have more rich people than poor people, but more and more people are becoming poor. We need to make changes in public policy to make sure the elements that cause poverty are not there and we also have to recognize the indignity of living in poverty.

We need not multiply the suffering of people in this country in word or in deed. If we exclude poor people from our human rights act then we are indeed heaping more indignity on those who are poor. We also have to realize the aboriginal people of our country are the poorest of the poor. By taking this step forward we would be recognizing their suffering which is far greater than most of ours.

I support this motion and I sincerely hope we will move for change.

[Supply, February 9th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I was pleased to hear the minister's reference to the Arctic. I do not know if she has been there but the Arctic is really very lush and quite stunning with the amount of water.

The Gwich'in refer to water in their name, Gwich'in. The territories have a different standing in our Constitution which heightens their vulnerability to exploitation, plus the fact that there is not a high number of people there to object.

I would like the minister to reaffirm the protection she is stating toward the people and the land and water in the north.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, February 8th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the CBC is essential for the north because there are a lot of places private broadcasters will not serve.

My other concern is around land claims negotiations and the price we pay for them. Our other alternative is to go to court. When we go to court that means we have no control as politicians or as people. We cannot be a part of a legal process. Therefore we would have absolutely no say in or any control over what we would pay.

Would the member rather we take all our treaties to court to have them negotiated rather than have a process that we can actually be involved in?

[Apec Inquiry, February 8th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the new chair at the APEC hearings has recommended funding legal counsel for both sides at the hearings. He believes that this is a reasonable course to follow as there are two sides to every story. In this story, only one side is armed with a fleet of lawyers while the other, the students, have none.

Will the solicitor general accept the recommendations of Mr. Hughes to fund the students so that there will be a fair hearing?

[Equal Treatment For Persons Cohabiting In A Relationship Similar To A Conjugal Relationship Act, February 2nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support this bill. Bill C-309 is an attempt to attain equality, equality for a group that has been left out of the circle.

If this bill passes it would not mean that we would alleviate the fear gays and lesbians live under. It would not mean that we alleviate the discrimination they live under. It would only be an attempt to make sure they got some of the economic benefits that are available to other families. We are talking about people who could be our brothers or sisters or our children and for some of us our friends.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees equality and guarantees that groups will not be discriminated against. It is about human rights. Even though the parliamentary secretary said there is no simple solution, and there never is, it does not mean we do not make an attempt to begin somewhere. When human rights compete with other interests they have to be balanced. Human rights should not compete with other interests. We should make every attempt to make sure the rights of our citizens are guaranteed not just in word but in law.

I also agree with my Reform colleague that this should not be slipped in through any back door and that we should be debating it openly. Being gay or lesbian is nothing to be ashamed of.

A lot of the discrimination is based on fear and it is unbased. Heterosexual couples far outweigh homosexuals. They do not reproduce themselves. They come from heterosexual families. I do not know a single gay or lesbian person who is a threat to my family structure. We need to recognize the benefit that they provide to our community both economically and culturally. They need to be recognized in law.

What we are after are more families that support each other. Heterosexual families break down regularly. It does not mean that the children will automatically be looked after. It leaves a lot of children out in the cold. I know lots of aunts and uncles who happen to be gay and lesbian who look after a lot of young children. They do not shirk their responsibilities to our society or their part in it.

As parliamentarians we do need the courts to tell us what is right and what is wrong. How many times do these issues have to go before the courts? How many times do the courts have to say that this is their right before parliamentarians act on it? Just because it is a more difficult issue, something that perhaps some people do not want to face, does not mean that we should not face it.

We were elected to debate and make decisions on difficult issues. I do not see this one as being difficult. I see it as being an issue of fairness.

What we have faced in the past is making decisions based on fear. But the fear of what? We are not the gay or the lesbian, except for a very few in here. So we are not in fear of being assaulted. We are not in fear of losing benefits. We are not in fear of being stigmatized. Therefore it is incumbent upon us to make a decision in favour of justice.

We should not be allowing fear to determine the lives of gay and lesbian people. We should not be letting it determine Canadian legislation.

I support this bill because I believe it is time to let fairness be our guide.

[Supply, February 2nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I would like the member's opinion on the fact that the government has in effect taken very extraordinary measures to make intervention to the B.C. court. That is extraordinary in terms of legal steps. What I would like to see is something extraordinary along the lines of political action because that is what our job is here in this House.

If it were any other issue rather than the vulnerability of our children being exposed to pornography, I would be satisfied with the steps the government has taken, but we are talking about the most vulnerable in our society. As a social worker, I have dealt with many children who have been abused. The abuse is bad enough but photographing it, dispensing it and selling it is truly horrifying. Many pedophiles use these pictures to get themselves all worked up; they use them as a warm up for the real event.

The government absolutely must take extraordinary action in the political realm so that there is never a question that we support in any sense photographs that are taken of children who are abused.

[First Nations Land Management Act, February 1st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk about the process of consultation that went on for this bill to get to parliament.

Bill C-49 was Bill C-75 in the previous parliament. Just to develop the framework agreement process the chief had to go to his council to be allowed to continue a process. He next had to go to his elders for approval in direction. He next had to go to his community. They developed the framework agreement. We are talking about 13 bands and the 14th joined later. They voted on a framework and a land code. Then it had to be ratified by their community before they could carry on further. We are talking about six years and then into parliament.

For 14 bands out of over 600 in this country, this legislation will allow them or hopefully will let them opt out of the Indian Act. This is not a land claim we are talking about. We are talking about a land management act for 14 bands. It would be in keeping with some of the recommendations by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. It would be something that would give some guts to the “Gathering Strength” document that is now a year old and certainly needs something to show for the vision that it put forward.

This bill would devolve power. It would devolve political evolution for the first nations involved and it would give them some self-determination. We are only talking about one section of the Indian Act and only for 14 bands.

The land management will be the responsibility of the first nations. I will give an example of something that came up at the committee meeting. Some of the witnesses thought that first nations should not be given the burden of governing themselves. I disagree. They have the right to govern themselves and in this small way we can assist them to do that.

There were other comments at committee that the Indian Act was just fine, that in fact Bill C-49 was a racist document and that we were giving them this power because they are Indians. The fact is we took away everything, their language, their children, their land, because they were Indians and enforced the Indian Act because they were Indians. We are saying that it is all right to take it away because they are Indians but we will not return anything because they are Indians and therefore it would be racist. That is just not fair.

This is only a small piece of legislation that will make an incredible difference in the lives of these 14 bands.

The Union of British Columbia Municipalities met on November 13, 1998 and set out an agreement. The meeting was cordial and resulted in a general agreement on a process for mutual consultations between municipalities in B.C. and those first nations in B.C. who are parties to the framework agreement.

This bill covers bands in many provinces and territories so hopefully that will be a standard set for other bands and communities to follow in order to come to mutual agreements. The bands involved, as I said, are in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and New Brunswick. It is a pretty broad coverage of our country.

There is a lot of controversy over this bill, as I think there usually is when anything is in transition and means real change for people. It is a major step in decision making power over land. It has a lot of good points in it. It replaces the Indian Act for these 14 first nations. It gives them lawmaking powers with respect to their land and resources in development, conservation, protection, management, use and possession but no taxation power.

They will be able to develop or lease their land but they cannot sell it. They may expand through negotiation. They can acquire land for community purposes. It sets out very stringent conditions of accountability between the first nations and their citizens both on reserve and off reserve. That includes all their members, not just those who live on the reserve but people who for whatever reason had to leave a reserve to make a living or get an education or who have chosen to live elsewhere.

The federal government retains the fiduciary responsibility for first nations. A lot of these first nations would probably opt out of the Indian Act if they could, but they cannot. This does set out a community process that will be established by the first nations people for their bands.

Another area of controversy is matrimonial breakdown. First nations people have different cultures. My immediate thought was that they should have divorce settlements and laws that are consistent with what I think is just. Perhaps what I think is just is not what they think is just, considering that the property is community and my history is titled and property owned by individuals.

The first nations would have a different thought process on how they would look after families, women or children who do not have the same access to property that I do. The fact is first nations people have not had that process in place because the Indian Act did not allow it.

What this bill will do is that within one year first nations people will have to deal with how they will settle and look after matrimonial property. They will do it based on their culture. It has been explained to me that some are already doing it. This has never been recognized because the Indian Act has not covered it, but the first nations have been looking after their people the best way they can.

The New Democratic Party supports Bill C-49. We hope to see it go forward very quickly.

[Fishers' Bill Of Rights, February 1st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for New Brunswick Southwest for bringing this bill forward. It is an attempt to bring attention to the terrible situation of the fisheries and fishing families. I would like to bring to the debate a northern perspective.

Most people do not think of Yukon as being a place where there is a fishing industry, but it certainly sustains the first nations fishing industry. The Yukon River starts at Skagway, an American city, and comes up through Whitehorse. This year the salmon did not come. The fish ladder was almost empty by the time the river got to Carmacks. Alma Wrixon, a first nations woman, could not put her fish net in and that is part of what she has done every year for generations to sustain her family.

At Pelly Banks they would catch perhaps three fish in a week if they were fortunate.

We are talking about their winter food. In Dawson City they could not fish. By the time they got to Old Crow there was no fish. The Gwich'in people depend on the fishery and the caribou. They have one caribou herd that is under stress. They could not catch any fish to make it through the winter. That is like their savings account, their money, their potatoes, their way of life to get through winter to the next spring when the birds return.

This bill brings accountability to the department of fisheries. It is another mechanism to make sure the public resource of our water and the fish in our water are available to the people who depend on and need them. It is not necessarily for profit, though profit is an important part of it. It is the benefit of having food to make it through a year.

There are families and towns that depend on fish. Again I stress it is a public resource. It is not anything that is privately owned. They have a right to have a say in how our fishery is managed. So far we have not seen a good record of how our fishery has been managed under the federal government.

To allow this fishers bill of rights would be an important in-road in the bureaucracy so that those who live on fish have a say in how they are distributed. It devolves some powers to those who need it.

Since 1988 the federal government has spent $4 billion to restructure the fishery. What it has meant is a total collapse in our fishing system.

On behalf of the folks who depend on fish but who do not get the limelight, and those who live inland and whose resources are dependent on decisions by people they never see, this would give them an avenue to have a stronger and clearer say in their livelihood.

[The Environment, December 4th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I rise to support this motion.

In June 1997 the Arctic environmental strategy, northern contaminants program issued the Canadian Arctic contaminants report. This report was the result of 6 years of scientific research and more than 100 studies. The results confirmed what northerners had been saying for years, that the environment is changing, people are becoming sick by compromised immune systems, thyroid malfunction, tumours and cancer. These are unheard of through thousands of years of northern people's histories. The fish, the caribou, the birds, they too are sick, the very food and sustenance of the north.

The science identified a complete contamination of the northern ecosystem. Persistent contaminants could be found throughout the Arctic ecosystem: air, surface, sea water, suspended sediments, show, fish, marine mammals, seabirds and terrestrial plants and animals.

The most frightening and shocking findings were that contaminants in northern people are in mothers' breast milk. PCBs and other chemicals are there. There are very high levels of thyroid malfunction in the north as well. The science calls it POPs, persistent organic pollutants. They persist and they are unmanageable.

The New Democratic Party recognizes these POPs are an international concern, an issue that threatens ecosystems around the globe, a danger that is all too real for aboriginal peoples through the north as well as anyone else who lives in the north.

We support this motion that calls for strong action on POPs and we commend the hon. member for Davenport for raising this issue, for his persistence and his dedication in doing so. We are truly fortunate to have such a member of parliament among us.

Canada's Arctic is one of the most susceptible and proven dumping grounds on earth for these insidious poisons. The cold climate acts as a sink. These pollutants do not evaporate to be carried elsewhere. They persist and they remain in the north. They are known as the dirty dozen. They are acknowledged deadlies and there are thousands more as yet undefined and unidentified.

The United Nations meeting in Montreal for the elimination of POPs, held this June, is a significant step toward reaching a global treaty by 2000. Canada's environment minister called for the elimination of POPs which do include PCBs.

Yet she refuses to clean up the PCB laden Marwell tar pit in Whitehorse, Yukon. This government owned the land, allowed it to be polluted then transferred it to the Yukon tar pit, PCBs and all. Yet this government refuses any responsibility for these deadly pollutants in the middle of a major city in the north.

I worry that this government has little regard for transboundary contaminants in the north. An excellent example of the obvious indifference demonstrated by this government to the environmental degradation in Yukon and the north is not limited to the mass deforestation encouraged by this government.

I call to the attention of the House a request for information on possible transboundary contaminants related to four decades of the United States military operations in Alaska. POPs and environmental contaminants are known to be carried by the wind and water. These operations were conducted within 200 kilometres of Canada's borders, perhaps carried across our borders.

On September 29, 1998, I asked the Minister of Foreign Affairs to determine if possible cross-border environmental contamination of Canadian territory, Yukon, had occurred. This request was related to the following five points: chemical and biological weapons testing at the Gerstle River site of Alaska; transportation of replacement nuclear reactor cores to Fort Greely in 1964, 1965, 1966 and 1970; the March 1998 bunker bomb testing using depleted uranium bomb cases just across the border from Yukon; chemical weapons testing at Fort Wainright in the early 1990s; unexploded ordinance, nuclear waste storage, landfills and disposal sites at various points in Alaska.

We have not received a response to date, this after the November 30 meeting in Washington D.C. with the minister's counterpart Madeline Albreight. If northerners cannot receive a basic response from this government to concerns related to environmental contaminants such as chemical and biological weapons testing adjacent to the Yukon Territory, how can we expect any leadership related to international efforts related to persistent organic pollutants?

I hope we as a nation can acknowledge the terrible price the north is expected to pay for inaction. Action is needed.

I quote Craig Boljkovak, part of the U.N. treaty on persistent organic pollutants. Canada's moral authority is in peril:

At present Canada is headed down a road where its hard fought gains in the form of a POPs treaty are being seriously undermined by its weak domestic record. Political intervention is necessary at the highest level to put the government back on track. The environment and its human inhabitants deserve no less.

Canada's international reputation belies its lack of domestic action on POPs and other toxics.

The government has done a laudable job of publicizing the plight of the Arctic and the Great Lakes among countries considering action on POPs and Canada can be considered a driving force for a treaty. This high level of international activity unfortunately is not matched by domestic action on POPs.

These are the very citizens in the north who depend on our government to protect them and to protect the environment and food source in the north.

Action is needed. Leadership is needed. Political will is needed to reduce the pollutants, prevent their creation and to clean up old messes.

Yukon has over 200 abandoned military sites that need to be cleaned up and again this government cut funding to the Arctic environment strategy which identified these contaminated sites for clean-up.

The United States has a serious involvement. It has abandoned distant early warning sites, old military sites and airfield sites. The list goes on and on. Much of this was done during the second world war but that does not mean it should not be cleaned up.

I conclude with the words of Norma Kassi, a woman who represented the flatlands of Old Crow for many years. She is a Gwitchin woman:

I was raised on Old Crow Flats in northern Yukon. Old Crow Flats is one of the world's great wetlands, having more than 2000 lakes throughout 600,000 hectares just above the Arctic circle.

The name of my people, Vuntut Gwitchin, means the caribou people of the lakes. We've lived here for thousands and thousands of years.

For a long time I've watched the birds come back to Old Crow Flats every spring.

I remember when I was about ten years old, sitting with my grandfather at the lake where a lot of birds used to come. They would land and play and meet one another after their long trip. They made a lot of noise. They were singing. They were happy. They were telling stories. These birds I only knew in my own language.

My grandfather said to me “You know, someday when you are a woman you are going to see a lot of changes. When there are only loons out there you are going to know that something is wrong with the land and the weather”.

That was 30 years ago. Now I go back to Old Crow Flats every three or four years and I see the changes. I sit at the same spot and I remember my grandfather's words.

Every time I return I see fewer animals, fewer fish, fewer birds. The water is silent and so crystal clear I can see to the bottom. There used to be so much activity, so much aquatic life, insects and little bugs. But now I can't. And now I see a pair of loons only out there and that is about it.

These are Norma's words and I think we should take them as a warning and act before it is too late.

Again I would really like to stress that often the north is overlooked. It is not a large population but people are getting sick. People of Old Crow have suffered an incredible amount of loss through cancer, yet their elders have remained strong, those who lived off the land. The younger generation is suffering. I do not think as a country we should be allowing that to go on.