Chris Charlton

[Business of Supply, February 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the comments made by the member. One would think that with all the glowing accomplishments by the government that it would be supporting a national strategy to fight poverty in our country. The real problem is that she was just speaking about dealing with the symptoms, not with the root causes that we are confronting here in our country every single day.

The parliamentary secretary talked about older worker adjustment. What she failed to address is the policies of her government that have made these kinds of programs more and more necessary.

This country's manufacturing sector is in decline. Where is the auto strategy? Where is the steel sector strategy? What about the softwood sellout that has decimated our forestry sector? That is why we are talking about older worker adjustment. Those policies were put in place by the Conservative government.

The parliamentary secretary also talked about immigrants, the problems they face and the often higher rates of poverty that are confronting immigrants in our country. Of course, she is absolutely right about that, but the reason for that is that the government actually goes abroad advertising decent jobs for newcomers right here in Canada. It makes a comprehensive false advertising campaign luring people over here and when they get here they cannot get accredited. That is why immigrants are facing higher rates of poverty.

The government is not dealing with the root causes of the issues that she speaks about.

There is hypocrisy is terms of what is happening for seniors in the country. I have spoken a number of times on the issue of the consumer price index and the miscalculated rate of inflation. Seniors have been shortchanged by the government for the last five years. Clearly, seniors are not benefiting from the policies of the government.

I wonder if the member could read our motion again, look at the absolute need in the country for a comprehensive anti-poverty strategy and not just recognize that it is not good enough just to deal with the symptoms but rather that we need to get to the root causes of poverty in our country. I would urge her and her caucus to get behind the NDP motion.

[Immigration, February 13th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, on Thursday yet another family will be deported from my riding of Hamilton Mountain.

The Valencias have been in Canada for five years. Sergio and Blanca have established themselves in our community and have well paying jobs and family here. Their children are on the brink of success by excelling at their education.

Last week I delivered petitions with thousands of signatures to the minister asking that the Valencias be allowed to stay. This afternoon I am forwarding even more petitions and powerful letters of support.

In 1990 the Askov decision by the Supreme Court established the right to a trial in criminal matters within a reasonable amount of time as essential for protecting fundamental justice. Refugees deserve the same. No one should have to put their lives on hold for five years.

The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which was passed in 2002, calls for the establishment of an appeals division to deal with cases in a time sensitive manner. The Liberals refused to enact this part of their own legislation. The refugee appeal division, RAD, costs just $2 million to establish. We have a surplus of over $13 billion.

I urge the government to act today, because for families like the Valencias, justice delayed is justice denied.

[Status of Women, February 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, last Friday, my NDP colleagues in Hamilton and I hosted a community forum to discuss the local impact of the cuts imposed by the Conservative government. What we learned was disheartening and shocking. The government is failing the most vulnerable in our communities and it must stop.

Poverty in Hamilton is real. Nearly one in five Hamiltonians live at or below the poverty line. On any given night, 399 people seek emergency shelter, twice the number who did in 1995.

That situation is most grim, however, for the women in my community. In Hamilton, women make up 52% of the population but 59% of the adults living in poverty. Among seniors over 75, the poverty rate for women is 36%, double that of men and, for single mothers with preschool-age children, the poverty rate is an astounding 81%.

Instead of addressing these issues, the Conservatives have abandoned support for child care, affordable housing, pay equity, literacy programs, women's shelters and even the very notion of equality for women by gutting Status of Women Canada. However, they did find $1 billion to give to the oil and gas industries.

My Canada includes more than their wealthy friends. It includes ordinary citizens who deserve their government's support.

[Criminal Code, February 6th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate being here for this afternoon's debate. There is certainly great public interest in this issue.

I wonder, though, in the member's enthusiasm for the issues he raises, whether he has had any conversations at all with police officers, with those folks who need to be enforcing this legislation if and when it passes in the House.

In my community of Hamilton, police officers are under-resourced. They are already feeling the strains of their jobs. Training will be a hugely important aspect of what we as legislators are asking the police officers in our communities to take on.

I wonder if the member can comment a little about consultations that have taken place and whether we can go back to our communities and be absolutely certain that the training and the resources will be in place before we add yet another burden onto the police officers in our community.

[Seniors, February 6th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the government has now admitted on three separate occasions that seniors have been shortchanged for the last five years because Statistics Canada miscalculated the consumer price index in 2001.

Bill C-36 would enhance the government's ability to recoup money from seniors when they have received too much from the government. Well, here we have a case where seniors got too little.

Will the minister commit today to paying seniors as quickly for his mistake as he wants them to pay for theirs? Will he ensure that seniors are reimbursed retroactively for the full five years, yes or no?

[Petitions, February 5th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table a petition today that was circulated by residents of the many housing co-ops in my riding of Hamilton Mountain.

As the House can imagine, these residents are incensed about the financial crisis caused in many co-ops by the cuts to subsidies as a result of a flawed section 95 program.

They are keenly aware of the fact that over two million Canadians are still in desperate need of decent, affordable housing and are petitioning the House to first, repay all law subsidies to section 95 housing co-ops; second, to provide new assistance so these co-ops can help low income residents thereby making up to 10,000 co-op homes affordable again for people in need; third, to build 200,000 affordable and co-op housing units, renovate 100,000 existing units and provide rent supplements to 40,000 low income tenants; and fourth, to extend the supporting communities partnership initiative, known as SCPI, that funds successful homelessness prevention programs.

I am pleased to support their efforts both here in the House of Commons and in our community, and I full endorse their petition.

[Canada Pension Plan, January 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately there is nothing in Bill C-36 that addresses retroactivity. I have a bill on the order paper that speaks to precisely that issue.

This is one of the reasons why the bill needs to go to committee. It has all the punitive provisions whereby the government can grab overpayments. It has no problem doing that in a retroactive way. However, where seniors have been ripped off and shortchanged, there is absolutely no attempt to deal with retroactivity at all in the bill.

Again, it goes back to the same issue that I raised with respect to the mistake made in the Consumer Price Index and the impact that has had on increases in CPP, OAS and GIS. The government has admitted the mistake. It was not even its mistake. It happened under the Liberal administration, but the government admitted it happened. Again, is it willing to deal with it retroactively? Not at all. It owes seniors an explanation.

[Canada Pension Plan, January 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the member is right. Poverty among seniors is disproportionately large for women in our community. The reason for that is that many women were not in the workforce and therefore do not have CPP to supplement their OAS which would make them eligible for the GIS. It is one of the reasons that poverty is rampant and about one-third of seniors who are living in poverty are women.

When we look at policies such as these and legislation that we want to bring forward, we need to do a gender analysis. The reason members of the House supported my seniors charter last June was that it contained provisions to look at income security, to look at affordable housing and to put an advocate in place who could inform seniors of their rights. Those are things that would help senior women in our country tremendously. I would urge all members who voted for the motion to take their commitment seriously and to act on it. I ask them to not let their record on that one vote to be their record on senior's issues.

We need to give meaning to those rights and we need to ensure that seniors access their rights. If we do not do that then the charter will become meaningless. We need to do this together. Members have expressed their will by voting for the charter, now let us walk the walk.

[Canada Pension Plan, January 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, as I said at the outset of my comments this afternoon, we do support the bill in part because we owe it to seniors who so desperately need easier access to the GIS. We know that 130,000 seniors this very minute could access the GIS if the process were simpler.

However, it is a bit ironic for the member to suggest to us that she needs a commitment from me today for speedy passage when I gave a commitment to the government prior to Christmas that we would be happy to debate the bill before Christmas, before the House adjourned for a six week break. If the government had taken us up on that offer, seniors would be accessing their entitlements today instead of the member standing here encouraging me to speed up the process.

[Canada Pension Plan, January 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely right when he says that $10 a month extra out of the pockets of our poorest seniors is simply unaffordable.

As I said in my comments earlier, they would need to spend $1,000 to recoup that money from the 1% GST cut that was also in the budget. They do not have $1,000 a month to spend. In fact, they are in very real danger, and many of them have, of losing their homes, not because they still have mortgage payments that they are confronting but because the their basic costs, such as property taxes, heat and hydro, have risen at a rate that has simply outpaced their incomes.

We have a government that talks the talk about wanting to help seniors but in fact for the most vulnerable seniors in our country they are taking steps back every single day. What we need to do in the House, which we have called for it by putting a motion on the order paper, is to have a comprehensive review of the public income supports on which seniors rely so that they can be lifted out of poverty. Our seniors built this country and they now need this country to stand up for them and ensure they can live out their years of retirement with dignity and respect.