Madam Speaker, I rise for the first time as the newly elected member for Hamilton Centre. I want to first thank my constituents and say what an incredible honour it is to stand here at this moment and address the House of Commons of our nation.
I am joined by colleagues who were in the class of 1990 at Queen's Park in the Ontario legislature, the hon. members for Sault Ste. Marie, Dufferin—Caledon and Halton. The four of us were together at Queen's Park for 13 years and we now find ourselves fortunate enough to be here in the House of Commons. Prior to that, I had an opportunity to service on Hamilton city council.
I came here elected with the NDP caucus to address a number of issues that are important to this nation, not the least of which is the missile defence star wars, which is about to be thrust upon the people of Canada if the government and certainly the Prime Minister have their way. There are many areas of interest to me, such as environmental protection, health care, education and social services. There is a whole litany of such areas, but there are a couple of them that are of particular interest to me.
One of them is the future of cities across Canada. One of the key things we talk about in virtually every bill is money and the lack of it at every level of government. There is not a study that I am aware of in Canada which says anything other than that the future of our economic growth from coast to coast to coast is focused on the ability to have successful cities and local regional economies.
We have heard a lot of promises from this Prime Minister and this government. I have been fortunate enough to be assigned the cities portfolio as critic and, as I see it, one of my roles is in large part to ensure that the government, at the very least, enacts the minimum promises it made to cities. To that degree, we have already seen the government backing away somewhat, with certainly nowhere near the kind of investment we in the NDP believe needs to be made in our cities.
The other issue is the steel industry. That of course is very germane to Bill C-4, because the bill speaks to the aircraft industry internationally but obviously nationally, too, and it is important to us for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which is, for a member from Hamilton, the steel industry. As my friend from Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale mentioned, a thriving, growing aircraft industry in Canada is good for the steel industry. We, along with my good friend from Sault Ste. Marie and a number of other communities, are the steel capital of Canada. That is not to mention all the support jobs generated by the parts industry in supplying both the steel industry and the aircraft industry and, by extension, the auto industry, which was also mentioned earlier.
This bill should, if enacted in the right way, provide us with a more thriving aircraft industry. Why does that matter to us beyond the obvious? It creates jobs, of course, but what really matters is the kinds of jobs that are created. We are talking about value added jobs. That is where we win. Canada cannot win by underbidding the rest of the world, whether it is in wages, occupational health and safety or environmental laws. We cannot win that game. There will always be someone who is forced, and often exploited, to work at wages that are well below what we would ever ask of any Canadian. So we win here in Canada by the fact that we have a healthy, educated, motivated workforce. We cannot create that through tax cuts or by watering down protection for workers or protection for the environment.
An industry like the aircraft industry is hugely important to us in terms of our future and our ability to provide well-paid, challenging jobs for our children and grandchildren. If this bill at the end of the day is going to make for a stronger aircraft industry, then that is going to create a stronger steel industry and auto industry, because of the availability of disposable income from the people who have these hopefully decently paid jobs with the disposable income that allows them to buy a car and allows them to buy the other things that keep our economy going.
I will wrap up my first time on my feet here--and I am so glad I remembered to do this because it is really important--by paying my respects to and complimenting my predecessor, the Hon. Stan Keyes. Stan served in this place for 16 years with great honour and distinction. He is well respected in our community. Losing an election can happen for a lot of reasons, as those of us who have been in politics for a long time all know, and one ought not to take it personally.
In this case, I want to underscore that this was nothing to do with Stan as an individual. It was the politics of the day and I ran a pretty good campaign to boot, but Stan is someone who is held in a great deal of respect in the city of Hamilton. I am honoured to follow in his footsteps. I will do the best I can to be the kind of representative for Hamilton Centre that I know Stan was in the past and that he would have been had he been here in my place.