Frank Valeriote

[Instruction to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, September 29th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I seek the consent of the House to share my time with the member for Willowdale.

[Public Safety, September 28th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, Conservative priorities are misplaced. Some 10 billion hard-earned taxpayer dollars are being spent on American-style superprisons when crime rates have gone down significantly for two decades.

The Conservatives should be investing in the priorities of Canadian families. In southwest Ontario that means vital improvements and supplying staff to ease border crossings, crucial for the growth of jobs in many Ontario industries and communities.

Why can the minister find $10 billion to satisfy the fetish of the Conservatives for prisons, yet not find the money to speed up our border crossings?

[Corporate Accountability of Mining, Oil and Gas Corporations in Developing Countries Act, September 20th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I stand before you to speak in favour of Bill C-300, An Act respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil or Gas in Developing Countries, as well as recent amendments that serve to incorporate recommendations made by Canada's extractive sector.

The bill grows out of actual recommendations made in the 2006 government round table report on corporate social responsibility and the Canadian extractive industry in developing countries. It empowers ministers to review serious, not frivolous, allegations made against Canadian extractive firms that operate in foreign jurisdictions. Firms found to be in actual violation of the norms set out in this legislation risk losing financial support from the Canadian Pension Plan and Export Development Canada should they fail to make improvements. Currently no investigation is even allowed without the actual consent of the company.

Having briefly described what this bill will do, I will now explain why we need to pass it, and I will begin with a brief quote:

Canada has shown its determination to be a good world citizen.

This quote comes from a children's book on Canada and the world. It is used in schools to teach kids about Canadian identity and about how Canada is perceived internationally. These types of textbooks have a profound impact on our identity as Canadians. They speak of what we once stood for as a country.

When I was fortunate enough to travel to Honduras, Guatemala, and Peru over nine years of being involved in international aid work, I was proud to tell locals that I was a Canadian, and they welcomed me as such. Today our image is changing. Today people in certain developing countries see us as no different from other western countries that are eager to exploit their natural resources, compromising the human rights of indigenous peoples and their ability to manage their own resources, such as water, oil, minerals, and agricultural products.

In voting on Bill C-300, we are being forced to answer a simple question: What do we want our children to read when they are learning about the way their country responded to this bill while we were its decision-makers? How shall we reconcile the legacy we are leaving with the values that we claim are so dear to us: fairness, equity, generosity, and social and environmental responsibility?

Today we could choose to be the decision-makers who continue to provide funding that enables socially irresponsible acts committed by a select few Canadian firms. Instead we could act and cut off funding if and when, and only if and when, firms are found to be in actual violation of the respected norms set out in this bill.

I will now provide examples of some of these socially irresponsible acts to illustrate why action is required. Let us begin with Guatemala.

The Canadian firm HudBay Minerals stands accused of evicting local Guatemalans from ancestral and culturally significant land. When surprised villagers inhabiting the El Estor region of Guatemala protested their forced relocation, violence broke out. Homes were burned and hacked to the ground. Protesting villagers were harassed, beaten, raped, and killed, or they vanished.

Reports of these allegations are extremely difficult for me. We are all partly responsible and frankly, anyone who has contributed to the Canada pension plan, our national retirement fund, is unwittingly supporting this conduct by association. The Canada pension plan has $30 million invested in HudBay.

The situation in Honduras is not much better. The Canadian firm Goldcorp and its subsidiaries are accused of deforestation, of polluting streams, and of illegally altering the course of waterways to support their San Martin mine. Water near the mine has been found to have unsafe levels of harmful metals, and Hondurans living near and using that water have been found to have unsafe levels of arsenic, mercury, and lead in their blood, conditions we would simply not permit in our own country. Goldcorp's environmental record was found to be so atrocious that the Honduran government fined the company for, among other things, allowing cyanide and arsenic to leach into the environment.

Again, we passively support this conduct because we do nothing, while the CPP and Export Development Canada use our money to invest in this company. CPP investments amount to $256 million.

The list continues and is disturbing. Vancouver-based Copper Mesa stands accused of harassing and displacing Ecuadoreans. Contractors for the Toronto-based Barrick Gold stand accused of gang-raping women in Papua New Guinea.

How much can Canada's reputation withstand?

Marcia Ramirez was pepper-sprayed by Copper Mesa security personnel in Ecuador. She described Canada as being a bad country that destroys everything.

Despite these compelling examples, I know that many are still thinking about our economy. Just as some rightfully understand that economic prosperity and environmental stewardship are not mutually exclusive, so too can the human rights of indigenous people co-exist with economic development.

Let me now take a few minutes to explain why passing this legislation will not hamper our economy. First, the United States recently passed legislation to regulate the way their version of the Export Development Corporation invests its money overseas, and mining companies have not boycotted the United States. As with the U.S., mining companies will continue to choose Canada as their headquarters, because we are a stable country with favourable regulatory regimes.

Second, a firm operating responsibly with respect for the environment and human rights will be less likely to encounter resistance from the residents of host states or from its shareholders. As such, firms will be able to operate with greater efficiency, will be more stable in their business operations, and will therefore have access to cheaper money.

In 2003, Talisman Energy was forced to cease its undertakings in Sudan after investors threatened to sell off their shares in light of allegations of human rights abuses.

Shell's operations in Nigeria were also threatened when locals began to sabotage mining equipment in response to human rights abuses and environmental contamination.

Professor Richard Janda, an expert in environmental law and sustainable development at McGill University's Faculty of Law, explains Bill C-300 this way:

There is no evidence that Bill C-300 will unfairly disadvantage Canadian extractive companies, and in fact there is strong reason to believe that the opposite is true. It is more likely to create a regulatory environment that would make Canadian extractive sector companies world leaders in the area of CSR, resulting in a competitive advantage for those Canadian companies when operating internationally.

Instead of continuing to let our once-good reputation be blemished by a few, and I stress “a few”, extractive firms inclined towards such irresponsible behaviour, we have an opportunity to take action and pass this progressive legislation. Today we can show people in the developing world that yes, we are capable of doing the right thing. We can show them that we will no longer be “a bad country that destroys everything”.

Instead, let us vote for this legislation so that we can once again be thought of as international leaders in human rights. Members of Canada's honourable foreign service undergo rigorous training before they are posted overseas to represent Canada to the world. Some, and I stress “some”, of our corporations go into these same countries and with heavy-handed brush strokes undermine the efforts of our foreign service and paint Canada and Canadians as human rights abusers, militia-funding displacers of local populations, environment destroyers, water contaminators, rapists, or killers.

If we do not do something about it, if we do not vote in favour of this bill, it is our children who will read about this in their textbooks as the moment we squandered, the moment when we chose profit over justice when we had the opportunity to choose both. One need not prevail at the expense of the other.

While not posing a threat to Canadian extractive businesses, this bill represents an important first step towards enabling the government, in the most severe cases, to investigate and sanction conduct that is by all accounts irresponsible.

We have a choice. We can either sit back and let our country's identity be shaped by certain irresponsible firms whose objectives do not include the positive portrayal of Canada or the protection of human rights and the environment abroad, or we can do something about it.

Join me in ensuring that our children learn of a Canada and inherit a legacy they can be proud of, rather than a Canada that many in developing countries are starting to question. We must grasp this opportunity to correct this wrong, strengthen our legacy, and re-write the stories that, if we do not do something now, our youth will read and see their country cast in a poor light.

[Agriculture, June 16th, 2010]

They are asking for help, Mr. Speaker, not regulations. These sites remain unprotected.

The government spares no expense to build a ridiculous monument to the Prime Minister's ego, money blown on a phoney stock exchange, fake lakes, sham lighthouses and boats that do not float. The Conservative principles are phoney but the cost to Canadians is real.

The Conservatives' priorities are misplaced and their hypocrisy is stunning. When will the government actually address the security threat posed to Canadians by these dangerous materials?

[Agriculture, June 16th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, Conservative arrogance has stuck Canadians with an absurd price tag for the G8 and G20. Shoddy planning and mismanagement have run up costs well over $1 billion.

Meanwhile Canada's agri-retail sector is pleading for help to secure tonnes of explosive fertilizers that sit without proper security, unprotected from the dangerous plans of terrorists and drug dealers. We have raised this issue for months and still there is no action.

How can the Conservatives spend over $1 billion to secure and promote just 72 hours of meetings, while completely ignoring for years this most obvious security threat?

[Automotive Industry, June 11th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, last year GM terminated 240 Canadian dealerships in a process described as being a “mistake” and “arbitrary” by GM's CEO. Under U.S. congressional pressure, 660 U.S. dealerships were reinstated. Guelph's Robinson Pontiac Buick, cited by GM for over 100% sales efficiency in 2009 and having just spent $2 million on upgrades at GM's request, is being closed for no good reason.

Why, as a GM shareholder, does the government refuse to take action to protect these Canadian dealerships and the jobs and they represent?

[Committees of the House, June 9th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to have my vote in favour.

[International Aid, June 2nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, contrary to the government's smears, CCIC is accountable, transparent and gives world-renowned value for our money. These cuts are from a Prime Minister who silences any group that does not pass the Conservatives' ideological test, and CCIC is his latest victim.

Over 100 aid groups work with CCIC to ensure aid is effective in eliminating poverty in the world, promoting human rights and social justice. CCIC serves the underprivileged and speaks for those who cannot speak for themselves.

How can the government simply cut them off, and who is its next victim?

[International Aid, June 2nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Council for International Co-operation is being left in limbo by the Conservatives. Awaiting what will likely be the end of its funding, it has begun to lay off workers and put its office space up for sale. The head of Oxfam Canada has called this latest ideological cut by the Conservatives “very, very disturbing”.

What can the government not tolerate about constructive criticism and champions of human rights? What does it say about the character of our Prime Minister when those who watch out for the poor of the world have to watch their own backs?

[Public Safety, May 31st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the government's incompetence has already run up a staggering $1.1 billion tab for the upcoming G8 and G20 summits.

Earlier this year the government budgeted security costs at $179 million. That figure has since been eclipsed by this Conservative boondoggle.

How could the Conservatives not anticipate that changing the location on the fly, to the heart of Canada's largest city, would lead to uncontrollable security costs and countless lost work hours for those closed businesses within the security perimeter?

Canadian taxpayers now have to fork out $1.1 billion, more than $100 per family, for just 72 hours of meetings. By comparison, the G20 summit in Britain cost only $30 million.

The Conservatives preach fiscal restraint to justify their crippling funding cuts to Canadian environmental programs, international aid and women's groups. They say they have no money for early learning, EI, pension reform and other real problems affecting Canadians.

The hypocrisy is both breathtaking and obscene.