David Christopherson

[Committees of the House, May 6th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I also have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 16th report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts on Chapter 6, Nutrition North Canada—Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, of the Fall 2014 Report of the Auditor General of Canada.

Pursuant to Standing Order 109 of the House of Commons, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response for the 15th and 16th reports.

[Committees of the House, May 6th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, is the 15th report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts on Chapter 3, Mental Health Services for Veterans, of the Fall 2014 Report of the Auditor General of Canada.

[National Defence, May 1st, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, if the member thinks he has such great news, go on down to Oshawa and take that answer.

The report on sexual assault in the military has shocked and outraged all Canadians, and it is more outrageous that the government is only accepting two of ten recommendations in the report. Time to study implementation is one thing, but what we are seeing here is a real resistence to putting an independent body in place to handle complaints.

The military justice system obviously needs a major overhaul.

Since the government has said it fully supports the report, will it now commit to fully implementing the report immediately?

[Employment, May 1st, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday 1,000 people found out they would lose their jobs. One thousand families are reeling, looking to find some way to make ends meet. Yet the Conservatives are more interested in their election scheming than they are in helping them find new jobs. These families are out of work because of the current government's unbalanced approach to the economy, and as a result, we have lost more than 400,000 manufacturing jobs on their watch.

Why did the Conservatives ignore these families in a budget that gives billions in handouts to the wealthy few?

[Employment, May 1st, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the finance minister's foot and mouth disease continues. First he said he would leave problems to our grandchildren. Then he said he has no idea how many jobs, if any at all, his budget would create. Yesterday, when asked about the thousand jobs lost at GM Oshawa, he replied that he is looking forward to October.

Do they have no sympathy for the families who just lost their jobs, and possibly their futures? Why do the Conservatives consistently put their own narrow self-interest ahead of working Canadian families'?

[Privilege, April 30th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I am also a member of PROC and was part of the deliberations in the previous two cases. I have to say, and there is an opportunity for correction, that I was disappointed to hear the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons suggest that somehow there was going to be games played with this in terms of the vote, notwithstanding that the vote is on something that we consider to be very important and we are trying to do everything we can to stop it from passing or being introduced. We are fighting back as hard as we can, but it only takes 50 minutes to conclude the balance of the discussion and have a vote. There is no way this is going to go longer, so I am disappointed the member would suggest that.

Mr. Speaker, I realize you have an opportunity to deliberate and decide whether or not you are going to send this matter to PROC. We would hope you would do it right away. I would hope that given the fact that there is nothing more important than voting and that we have to get here to do it, that anything that impedes any member from getting here is treated as a priority.

Mr. Speaker, I would hope that you would consider standing and immediately sending this matter to PROC. It is a crucial issue. It is complex. There are security issues beyond that affect a member's ability to move around in terms of guests and other such things. However, the notion that we do not have a system that works is not acceptable. I do not like the idea, and the chair of PROC is probably thinking “here we go again”, but the fact of the matter is, here we go again and we are going to stay on this until we get it resolved, because it is a priority.

Again, Mr. Speaker, I hope you will send it immediately to PROC. Let us deal with this. We cannot continue to have this problem coming up over and over again. It needs to be treated as the priority that it is.

[Ethics, April 24th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, while their budget was a most blatant example of electioneering, let us remember what the Conservatives are really trying to hide from: questions about the Prime Minister's appointment of Mike Duffy to the Senate. Senate appointments are the sole responsibility of the Prime Minister, not someone else, as the parliamentary secretary keeps incorrectly claiming.

Could the parliamentary secretary explain how the Conservatives could be the only people in Ottawa that did not know Mike Duffy lived in Ottawa?

[The Budget, April 24th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the reality is that the Conservatives have a no-tax plan for the wealthy and everybody else has to pay for it. They have a TFSA time bomb that funnels billions to the richest. They have kept loopholes to let CEOs skip out on millions in taxes. They have an income-splitting scheme that rewards the wealthy, but does nothing for 85% of Canadians, yet the Conservatives have failed to invest even a cent in affordable child care.

Why are the Conservatives proposing a budget that passes along the costs of their election promises to our children and grandchildren?

[The Budget, April 24th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, it seems the finance minister let the cat out of the bag the other day that this budget will take billions from working families and give it to the wealthy few, leaving a massive burden for future generations, but the Prime Minister said that consequences be damned; who cares if our grandkids have no money for health care, roads or pensions.

The Conservatives are determined to funnel money to the wealthy no matter what the cost. Why do they think hard-working Canadians should pay more so that their insider friends can pay less?

[Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, April 23rd, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to join in the discussion. Given that it is about flying, airports and planes, I am particularly delighted, because I like that stuff. I do not mind sharing that when I was a young boy, my goal was to be a commercial airline pilot. It is hard to feel like I failed, given that I got to have a seat in the House of Commons, but nonetheless, every time I get on a plane I glance over at the pilot and think that yes, that is the place to be.

First of all, I am in support of the motion. While I have the floor may I just say how impressed I have been with the work that the member for Sherbrooke has done on this and every other file.

I mentioned to him in the past how unusual it must be to be walking around here and he is already a historical figure and he is not yet 20. That is not easy. It is tough to be here. It is tough to be here when one is young and have that designation, yet I think the member for Sherbrooke has done an outstanding job. I have no doubt that he is going to be here for a very long time and will make major contributions to our country, as he is doing today with his private member's motion. He is doing the primary work of a member of Parliament, which is to take care of home base, take care of the riding. That is why his motion is here, and it is a good thing.

I realize the motion is not controversial at all and everybody is supporting it. I guess there will not be the usual heckling, which I enjoy listening to and responding to, so it will be a different kind of speech today. I heard my leader at the procedure and House affairs committee comment, “If you could heckle just a little louder so I could hear, I would gladly engage”. It does not have to be bad, but it is more fun that way, I find.

Let me say that the importance of local airports really cannot be overstated. The Hamilton airport when I was a kid was called the Mount Hope airport. Now it is formally the John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport. We are very fortunate that it is an international airport. It has everything one needs, except flights from Hamilton to Ottawa, which would be nice. We had these flights, but the airlines keep claiming that there are not enough passengers. However, and I digress a bit, the strange thing is that every time I phoned to book flights, I was always told they were already booked. I had to call two weeks ahead to get a seat, and yet these airlines would inevitably fold up and say that they just did not have the clientele.

Other than that, it is a great airport. It is beautiful with incredibly reasonable prices all around. Cargo is the area that is sustaining our international airport. It is a very viable entity that continues to grow. The airport is an absolute plus in our community.

One of the things I love about my hometown of Hamilton is that given we have an international airport, we also have a world-class port and a world-class train system throughout, because Hamilton has been around so long that it was part of the original planning. We have great infrastructure. Our highway infrastructure is excellent. We have more farmland than we do anything else. Then we have our beautiful city itself, our beautiful downtown. Quite frankly, if this were Europe, Hamilton could easily be a stand-alone country.

I am always enthusiastic in talking about all that my hometown has to offer, mostly because it surprises people. We know the reputation; we get it, but the fact remains that virtually anybody who comes to Hamilton, even if they come with their eyes rolling saying it was not their first choice, in a very short period of time, they find out it is a community to love, to get engaged in. They end up staying, and they are glad they stayed.

We are talking about airports, and I see my colleague from Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale feels the same kind of pride that I do in our airport. I am not sure if the member represents the airport right now, maybe a little bit of it, but there are going to be some changes. I know how much pride he has in it.

I realize we are not into partisan debate as usual, but I do have a couple of questions.

If it is such a great idea and the Conservatives are all for it, praising our member for Sherbrooke, as they should, why did it take an opposition member's motion to force the government to do something that they think is a great idea and would help?

The Conservatives are all about economic activity, going on and on about it. To them, that is more important than anything. Therefore, I would think, given the importance we all see and are speaking of tonight of airports in our area having the proper designation so they can be used to their maximum, this should have been a priority. For the life of me, I do not understand why the hometown of the member for Sherbrooke was denied.

I was glad the member for St. Catharines spoke first to give more background to it. I listened carefully, but I did not hear anything that made common sense as to why, if the Conservatives thought this was a good idea and they would support the motion of the member for Sherbrooke, they said no to the city of Sherbrooke in the first place. Why are we going through all this? Why is the government not out in front? It is not like this is some obscure little piece of our country. It is airports.

Given the size of Canada, it is an important part of the day-to-day lives of Canadians, part of our economy and part of our hometowns. It is all those things, so why on earth did it take a member, whose request from his home community was denied, to bring it back here and turn it into a motion? Why did all that have to happen? That is the part I do not get. If it is such a great idea and the Conservatives are so supportive, one would think one of their backbenchers would have grabbed onto this. One could argue that maybe they were asleep at the switch, but at the ministerial level they would have received the request and they would have evaluated it. Now they are all gung-ho for it.

Not only that, here is the thing about the proposal that came in from the city of Sherbrooke. As I understand it, the city offered to pay, so there was no cost to the federal government. I have been in government and the first thing that usually stops it is looking at the price tag, and the government has to come to grips with that one way or another. That is not an issue here because the city was quite willing to pay all the costs.

What else could it be? Then we realize that the airport infrastructure is owned by the city. Again, the city wants to do something with its airport to help with its local economic activity and all the benefits that come from that. The city owns it all, the whole kit and caboodle. It is prepared to pay the costs and the government says no. Then the hon. member did what he should do. He came back here and brought in a motion, put it on the floor of the House of Commons and the Conservatives said yes in that case. How did we get here? There is a piece of this missing and it just does not make a lot of sense.

I know the member for St. Catharines and the Niagara District Airport really want this. Even if our desire on our side is not enough to cause the government to do this right away, I would hope and think the Conservatives would want to do it for their own member and for their own re-election.

The last point I would leave is this. Having gone all the way around on this issue only to come right back to where the city of Sherbrooke wanted the government to be in the first place, which is that of supporting the city, the question now becomes this. Will the bill pass before the election and, most important, will the government implement the direction that is contained in the motion? That will be the test.

The first test of whether the Conservatives will support it, we seem to have passed, although it was a bit of a crazy way to get to this point. The test that is left is whether the Conservatives are prepared to ensure this bill not only passes, but that the direction it gives is followed and it is implemented.

It will be interesting, not just for the benefit of my colleague, the member for Sherbrooke. I would hope the member for St. Catharines would put whatever political effort he can into ensuring the bill is passed and implemented to benefit Niagara, Sherbrooke and every other community that needs this.