Jinny Sims

[Canada-Panama Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, November 6th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, as I have said, we will support free trade agreements. We will support free trade agreements—

[Canada-Panama Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, November 6th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure today to rise and make comments on the bill before us, the free trade agreement with Panama. Before I get to the substantive part of my argument, I want to touch on a couple of things.

We have heard a lot about the NDP being against free trade. The NDP has shown that it is for free trade, when those free trade agreements are negotiated in a manner that protects human rights, labour rights, the environment, and that is transparent and sustainable.

We are so serious about free trade that our critic, and it was only the NDP critic, my esteemed friend from Vancouver Kingsway, took 13 substantive amendments to committee. If we were not serious, all we would be interested in saying is that we are opposed to this. We are not. We wanted to make this free trade agreement work. In order to make it work, our critic and our whole team put in a lot of time and took 13 amendments to committee. How many amendments did the other opposition parties make? Zero. However, despite all the hard work, my colleagues across the aisle once again refused to accept any amendment.

One of the key things about being a parliamentarian, and the whole purpose of the committee stage, is for people from all political parties to try to improve the legislation. However, there is arrogance from the other side, and because Conservatives have a majority, they are not open to any amendments. The government has a bizarre idea that anything they propose is so superior that it could not possibly be corrected or amended by anyone else. The Conservatives totally ignored the serious work done by parliamentarians to try to fix their legislation so we could then support it.

If any blame is to end up anywhere, it is on the government side. Once again, Conservatives have failed to allow parliamentarians to do their job. They not only use their parliamentary majority at the committee stage to shut down all the amendments, but today as we saw earlier, they used their majority to shut down debate. What do they have to hide? They just want to read out the same old mantra over and over again.

We also heard from the government that this is all about improving trade and improvements for Canadians. Neither the former government, led by a Liberal, nor my friends across the aisle, can be trusted to negotiate free trade agreements. They did not do and they do not do the necessary oversight that is required. My colleagues across the aisle love to quote dollars and figures, so let me quote some numbers from them. These are the Conservatives' figures.

I was so keen to speak on this that I forgot to say that I will be sharing my time with my esteemed colleague from Surrey North.

As I was saying, we have gone from a $26 billion trade surplus to a $50 billion trade deficit. For our manufacturing, which is a value-added job, the trade deficit has gone up six times, to over $90 billion. Those are decent paying jobs that Canadians no longer hold because they have been given away.

Raw materials are not only Canadians' raw materials, but they are also the inheritance of our children and grandchildren. Once again, the export of raw materials without value-added jobs adds up to $30 billion, but value-added exports are down to $35 billion.

If I were an economist or an accountant, I would be looking at these figures and asking the government to go back to the drawing board to do some homework. That is the teacher part of me.

We also hear the Conservatives talk about opening the borders, free enterprise, and all of that. I am reminded that we hear a lot of that when it comes to big tax breaks for international and national corporations. We hear about it when it comes to free trade agreements. However, when it comes to labour market adjustments, of course, all of that disappears. Then we pass legislation so that employers can pay 15% less to temporary foreign workers who we bring in to ensure the free marketplace analogy is not allowed to work when it comes to Canadians looking for decent paying jobs.

I heard my esteemed colleague from across the way talk about NAFTA and how wonderful it has been. I would remind him of the reality in British Columbia, the beautiful province that I reside in and which is a pleasure to call home. In B.C., we have seen truckload after truckload of raw logs going over the border. Many of our towns in northern B.C. and in the interior have become ghost towns, as they watch those raw logs disappear over the border. Gone with them are the jobs in manufacturing, and, of course, we then buy the manufactured products back.

Let me say that if one mentioned NAFTA in many towns in B.C., one would not get a pleasant reaction. My colleague from British Columbia sitting on the other side knows what a heated topic exporting raw logs from British Columbia is and how it has impacted our communities in a huge way.

The other issue I have to touch on is the environment. One of the key areas for us to address is the environment, and free trade agreements are one of the ways we can do that. However, the Conservative government seems determined to undermine and dismantle environmental protection. Through these free trade agreements, it would also be supporting environmental degradation in other countries as well. I think that is unacceptable. We really have to take a look at where we are going with this.

Members all know that we do not live in isolated cells. Environmental factors and global warming do not recognize borders. They do not stop to show a passport. When pollution occurs in Panama, it impacts us in British Columbia, across Canada and around the globe. We have to be cognizant of that.

Of course, our mining company interests in Panama would be protected and we are happy about that, but there needs to be a balance here. However, it is imbalanced, which makes us not support this particular free trade agreement.

I will quote from Jen Moore's presentation to MiningWatch Canada .

Although [the agreement] includes an environmental side chapter, this is a non-binding declaration that relies on political will for its implementation, of which sort we have not seen in Panama.

Last but not least, I want to mention the money laundering and tax haven in Panama.

The Conservative government talks about security and a halt to drugs. If someone has five marijuana plants, it would give them a six-month minimum sentence. However, it is willing to sign an agreement with a country that even the OECD has recognized as being a tax haven, where money laundering takes place and there is no transparency over those issues.

New Democrats have very serious concerns. We are opposed to this agreement because the Conservatives refuse to accept the very intelligent amendments put forward by our critic.

[Canada-Panama Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, November 6th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to say it is a pleasure to rise today to speak to this particular motion, because it is actually a huge disappointment. We have had so many time allocations that even my head spins, and it does not spin that easily.

Once again the question that comes into my mind is: Why is the government so determined to shut down parliamentary oversight over a free trade agreement with Panama? We have the time. There is no urgency on this. Canadians are not sitting at home wondering when we are going to sign this agreement. When we enter free trade agreements, especially bilateral free trade agreements, which we know are not always the best, it is best if we take time to examine them and let parliamentarians do their job.

My question to my esteemed colleague across the way is: What does the government have to hide?

[Citizenship and Immigration, November 5th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, when they sought asylum in Canada, all Adel Benhmuda and his family were looking for was a fair process. Instead, he was deported and tortured in Gadhafi's Libya. The Canadian Federal Court has ruled that they were subjected to an unfair process and their application was prejudged.

The minister has been pushing for extraordinary powers to block people from entering Canada, but will he use the power he currently has to comply with the Federal Court and ensure that this family is given a fair hearing?

[Jobs and Growth Act, 2012, October 30th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, recently, we have heard a lot from the other side of the House about our voting against this and that and the other thing. However, the Conservatives open up the prospect of such voting because they put so many things in a budget bill that are unpalatable to Canadians, and then insist on holding only one vote.

Here we are again. They wanted us to vote on raising the OAS recipients' age from 65 to 67. They put that into the same budget bill in which they put immigration changes and the gutting of the environmental act.

Let us have transparency. Let us see where each of the parliamentarians stands. Let us split up this budget and vote on these items separately so we can truly hold all MPs accountable.

[Jobs and Growth Act, 2012, October 30th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege of serving with my colleague from Winnipeg North on the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, where we have shared our frustrations.

The member may not know this, but yesterday I sought the unanimous consent of the House to take the portion of this budget dealing with immigration and send it to the committee, where we could give it proper oversight and ensure that we not make our immigration policy on the back of a napkin.

It seems to me that we are sending the following message to people around the world that when one plays by the rules and is waiting in line to get into our country, we can arbitrarily pick a date and delete all of the applicants' files. That is not a message that I and the many Canadians I talk to want to send.

I am also saying that we have to look at the huge increase in temporary foreign workers and ensure that we do not go down the same path that led to the mistakes we made in the past. Let us hope that this does not lead to other apologies that we may have to make in the future.

[Jobs and Growth Act, 2012, October 30th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege today to rise and speak to Bill C-45, a second act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures. I want to start by talking about process, roles and responsibilities.

When I was elected as a member of Parliament to represent my constituents in these hallowed halls of our parliamentary democracy, I came here with the understanding that I had a key role to play in budgetary oversight, holding the government accountable for the decisions it makes in spending the hard-earned money of Canadians, and paying a great deal of attention and due diligence when it comes to fiduciary matters. However, last spring, I was prevented from doing that by the Trojan horse omnibus bill, a bill so thick and dense it is bigger than many telephone directories across this beautiful country.

During this process, the feedback from Canadians was that this was not parliamentary democracy and not acceptable. I heard from hundreds of my constituents and other Canadians who were a little shocked by a government burying so much and making such drastic changes in an omnibus bill, though when it was a government in waiting, it was always talking about transparency and accountability.

One would have thought that after having buried the deletion of immigration files, the gutting of environmental protections and many other areas that were in the previous bill, including changing the age for old age security, the Conservatives would have learned a lesson and decided to do things differently. However, it was a case of oh, no, when we came back this fall to face Bill C-45, the second budget implementation act, still the size of a phone book.

Once again, as an elected parliamentarian representing the beautiful riding of Newton—North Delta, a riding that is struggling with many issues that need to be addressed right now, I am faced with a piece of legislation that purports to be a budget implementation bill, but actually includes many new items.

I was in the House when the Minister of Finance told my colleagues to go and do their homework, that we had the budget and there was nothing new in it. However, it only took until the next morning for the media to pick up on all the new stuff that was in the budget. What became evident was that the minister himself had not done his homework and was not aware of what was in his own budget or was trying to fool Canadians by burying things in the budget and pretending they were not there.

One of those is the changes to our environmental protections such as the Navigable Waters Protection Act. People keep saying that it is not about water. However, as I keep asking: What do boats and ships travel on if not water? What are we thinking about navigating? It is not roads but waterways. Therefore, I do not see why there is that separation. Once again, here we are as parliamentarians being denied the right to exercise our fundamental responsibility and scrutinize and debate a budget.

I have heard colleague after colleague stand in the House to urge the government and the members across the aisle to just give us unanimous consent so that we can take portions of this budget to the appropriate committees—and there are not 45 of them—where these can be given due diligence and we can examine and amend these portions of the bill and engage Canadians in some of the discussions.

Once again, unanimous consent has not been given. My colleague from Halifax tried again today, and I was quite moved by her plea for the other side to be reasonable. However, the Conservatives were not reasonable.

One of the key points I keep hearing of this budget is that it is about job creation. However, the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer says that this budget implementation bill would actually cost over 43,000 Canadian jobs. Here we have an independent Parliamentary Budget Officer saying that, yet I hear colleague after colleague across the aisle keep talking about how this is going to be such a great boon to job growth. We know that is not so.

I am getting a little tired of all the breaks in this budget for small businesses. In my own background my family has been engaged in running small businesses and in my community the engine of our economy is our small family-owned businesses.

What great measure do we have built into this budget? What I am saying is that it does not go far enough. We need to support our small- and medium-size businesses by giving them the breaks, not the wealthy corporations that take the jobs and money out of the country. However, once again the government fails small- and medium-size businesses in this budget. All it has done in this budget is to provide them with a maximum of $1,000 in credits on new EI employer payments. That is it. To add insult to injury, that is only available to employers in the 2012 tax year.

By the time Bill C-45 passes through all stages, this tax credit will actually have expired. I say this even though the government has moved a time allocation motion so that the bill will pass through all of the stages at lightning speed, because the government has majority that it is determined to abuse.

The small- and medium-size businesses I talk to my riding need a lot more attention than this. They are very worried about where the government is taking us.

I am not going to spend too much time talking about environmental issues, because my colleague does such an excellent job on that at committee. She has raised those concerns ad nauseam.

Like other MPs, I get amazing emails from my riding. My colleague from Halifax read some of those into the record today. This morning I was responding to emails from my riding opposing the Enbridge pipeline and the gutting of environmental protections, and also about the lack of support for our young people to go out and get jobs.

I am getting so frustrated and tired of the constantly put idea that we are growing jobs, when I know it is the temporary foreign worker category that has increased by 200%. I want to see a real job-growth strategy by the government, instead of words, words and more useless words.

[Jobs and Growth Act, 2012, October 30th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I am fairly new to this House. I have been here just over a year. I was taken aback when my colleague mentioned 45 standing committees here in the House of Commons. As far as I know, there are only about 25 or 26.

[Petitions, October 30th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition on behalf of Canadians who are very concerned about Canada's Experimental Lakes Area.

The petitioners are calling on the government to reverse the decision to close the ELA research station and to continue to staff and provide financial resources to the ELA at current or higher levels of commitment.

[Jobs and Growth Act, 2012, October 29th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like to seek unanimous consent to move the following motion, and I know my colleagues will give that to me: That notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, clauses 308 to 314 related to changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act be removed from Bill C-45, a second act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures and do compose Bill C-47; that Bill C-47 be entitled “An act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act”; that Bill C-47 be deemed read a first time and be printed and that the order for the second reading of the said bill provide for the referral to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration; that Bill C-45 retain the status on the order paper that it had prior to the adoption of this order; that Bill C-45 be reprinted, as amended, and that the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel be authorized to make any technical changes or corrections as may be necessary to give effect to this motion.

We propose the motion to give the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration an opportunity to ensure due diligence to examine and propose amendments.