David Christopherson

[Organized Crime, October 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, last week my constituents in Hamilton Centre were horrified to learn that a federal prosecutor had dropped drug and weapons charges against suspected members of a cocaine ring.

These men were thought to have connections to the Hells Angels and other organized crime gangs across Canada. Their arrest was seen as a major blow to the hard drug market and followed months of investigation. Why drop the charges? Because the RCMP's investigators are on sick leave due to problems with morale in their office.

What is going on here? Could Conservative mismanagement be so bad that drug dealers are going free? Sadly, shockingly, the answer is yes. Over the past year, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts heard hours of testimony about morale problems due to RCMP mismanagement.

The Minister for Public Safety promised change, and now we see he broke his promise. Morale is worse than ever and the result is that accused drug dealers are back on the street. I demand the minister review this case and stop letting poor management be the criminals' “get out of jail free card”.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Mississauga—Erindale for his excellent analysis of the throne speech. It is a shame that he will be unable to give effect to that by having members of his caucus stand up and vote the way they say they believe, but that is another matter.

The issue I want to raise specifically with the hon. member is this. He mentioned a lack of any reference to new Canadians in the throne speech. In Hamilton we continue to have a huge problem with foreign trained professionals being unable to perform the work in the profession for which they are trained. There are far too many. This is not a caricature; this is reality. We have far too many PhDs driving cabs and delivering pizza. Not that it is not honourable work, but we have more important things for them to do.

I would assume the member has similar problems in his community of Mississauga. Perhaps he would like to expand on why he believes, like I, that the government, whatever it is, needs to do a lot more in this area. If we truly want to build our economy and say to the world that Canada is open to having new people join us, then we need to find a way to ensure we are translating their professional skills into jobs in Canada where we need the service and they need the work.

Could the hon. member talk about how it affects his constituents in Mississauga?

[Royal Canadian Mounted Police, June 18th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, that is a minister who is clearly afraid of the truth.

The government's hand-picked ad hoc investigator's report did not finish the job and has not told Canadians the whole story. The investigator did not even provide any evidence to back up his personal conclusions. There were no lists of witnesses, no lists of questions, no transcripts of answers, no copies of emails, no copies of records produced, no transparency, and certainly no accountability.

Canadians deserve to see these documents. Will the minister commit today to tabling every one of those documents?

[Royal Canadian Mounted Police, June 18th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Public Safety today said we do not need a public inquiry to thoroughly examine the RCMP pension scandal because his hand-picked investigator found all the answers. But the public accounts committee has heard hours of testimony regarding murky dealings over pension contracts and his report does not even look into the contracting abuse.

In fact, even while his report was being printed, our committee was hearing new and conflicting testimony. How can the minister claim to have all the answers when he has not even asked all the questions?

[Service Canada, June 15th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, my constituency office in Hamilton Centre has been inundated with complaints about changes at Service Canada. In the past my senior and disabled constituents could receive expert help from staff who specialize in CPP, OAS or GIS. Now Conservative changes mean people can only receive general information about these critical and complex programs. It is just not worth the trip, or maybe that was always the plan.

It seems Service Canada was created to cut services, not improve them. When will the Conservatives begin to provide real services to my constituents?

[Canada Transportation Act, June 14th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member on an excellent speech. He touched on a number of issues that are of critical importance.

What I find interesting, and this will culminate in a question, and what angers me to no end, is this. When we get to this order of government, we tend to get a little further away from the people. Having been a former member of a provincial parliament and on city and regional council, when we talked about things like noise, vibrations and trains affecting residences, that it was politics hitting us where we lived.

It is great that we are dealing with issues of such magnitude in the House. However, we are dealing now specifically with things that affect people. If people want to have their quality of life go through the basement, try having a train by their homes idling and vibrating all night long, for hours on end.

The fact that place would actually give further power or reinstate power to the railway companies angers me. Believe me they are like an order of government unto themselves. When my colleague from Windsor West commented about the order of how the world was created, it is true it was tongue in cheek. Try to find somebody who can be held accountable for a simple thing like trying to get the grass cut around a fence beside the railway line.

Speaking of accountability, that is the other thing that angers me. I want to know who the senator is from Hamilton to whom I can send my constituents. That individual is accountable to my constituents for these decisions. I do not even know if there is somebody designated as a member of the Senate from Hamilton, and I have been in elected office for over 20 years now.

To have the senators send something to the House that negatively affects the quality of life of my constituents is unacceptable. I hope, if for no other reason, that we tell them that they have no business dealing with issues that are rightfully in front of people who are elected, accountable and responsible. For that alone, we should stop this. This is the wrong thing to do.

Is it the hon. member's experience that railways are like a government unto themselves when he has tried to deal with them on behalf of his constituents? How does he feel about this coming from that place and the inability of anyone to hold senators accountable for the decisions that affect the lives of Canadians?

[Infrastructure, June 4th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, that answer was as much a slap in the face as the minister's speech on the weekend. Not only did the minister refuse to offer some funding for transit but the minister arrogantly decreed to mayors and councillors that transferring a share of the gas tax to municipalities for seven years is the same as permanent funding. Well, it is not. Many big municipal projects take two to three years just to plan and another eight to ten to complete.

How can municipalities serve their constituents responsibly if they cannot even get funding for a few short years?

[Infrastructure, June 4th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the infrastructure minister spoke to more than 2,000 municipal leaders at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference on Saturday. He should not have bothered, after all, he had nothing to tell them. The minister's big announcement on public transit was that he planned to get a plan and in the same breath said that there would not be one new cent to support it.

Who does the minister think he is fooling? It is not our municipal leaders. It is not transit users and it certainly is not anyone who cares about the environment. He is not fooling anyone.

[Points of Order, May 31st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to offer up the support of the NDP caucus to the point of order of the House leader of the official opposition in that we believe it should be ruled out of order.

I will not go into the clauses and references. That has been done quite adequately. However, I would add the arguments that the NDP have in support of the point being made.

The first one is that we should not be and cannot be using a routine motion to effectively impose time allocation. In particular, we should not be using a routine motion when there are other motions available.

There are three versions of time allocation that would actually be applicable to this particular situation, of which the government has not availed itself, and there is also closure. As much as we may not like closure, it is still a legitimate tool that the government has available if it wishes to apply time allocation to this matter, rather than again using the routine motion provision.

The other thing is, quite frankly the current Speaker and previous Speakers have reiterated that we cannot go through the back door when the front door is available. For that matter, we cannot go through the back door when the front door is not available. The fact is that the government ought not to try to go in through the back door using a routine motion for something that is one of the strongest powers that the House has, which is to shut down debate.

Therefore, if the government feels it wants to go down this road, it should get this back on track and we should proceed with one of the other tools that is available. However, we do agree wholeheartedly with the notion that this particular route is not appropriate, and in our humble submission to you, Mr. Speaker, we believe also that it should be ruled out of order.

[Manufacturing Industry, May 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, last week, in my hometown of Hamilton, workers rallied to protest the Conservatives' lack of action over our disappearing jobs and that list is still growing.

Stelco's hot strip mill closed on May 10, taking 350 jobs with it. Hamilton Specialty Bar will shut down too, sending another 360 skilled workers to the unemployment line.

Twenty years ago, over 14,000 men and women worked for Stelco in Hamilton and now there are fewer than 2,000.

What has been the Conservatives' response? They look the other way, just as the Liberals did.

The Canadian Labour Congress is here today in Ottawa to offer a practical five point plan to reverse this downward spiral, including a call for a national action plan on manufacturing.

Silence is not saving Canada's manufacturing heartland. It is time for Parliament to do its job so Canadians can keep their jobs.