House of Commons photoWon her last election, in 2021, with 44% of the vote.
Business of Supply May 14th, 2009
Mr. Chair, the Pesticide Management Regulatory Agency, PMRA, is years behind in its job of taking older, higher impact pesticides off the market and approving new, lower impact pesticides.
Has the minister any work he can show or any funds invested to help the PMRA speed up its process of pesticide regulation?
Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to ask the hon. member opposite, who was laughing along with his colleagues while I was speaking, whether he was laughing about the idea of a police officer entering a home and not having information about whether there was a dangerous weapon, or the tragedy at École Polytechnique where 14 young women lost their lives, or at the idea that the RCMP may wish pay parity and that the pay promise be respected by the Conservative government.
Instead, we heard a laundry list of motherhood statements and generalities. I would like know this. What happened to the skills link program, where 550 spaces in the greater Vancouver area have gone down to 110 spaces for the very youth who are most at risk, those who do not graduate from high school and need that program to help get them into the workforce?
Mr. Speaker, I asked a question in the House and the answer really did not address the question at all.
One of the key comments I made was that the Minister of Public Safety was strong on spin, but weak on crime. Now what I need to add is he and his government are tough on police. That is an unfortunate reality of the decisions and the policies of the Conservative government.
Is it not enough that the government has broken its promise to put 2,500 more police on the street? I had a visit from representatives of the police and RCMP. They advised me that the funding, which would not have covered 2,500 police in either case, was not tied to any additional police being hired. Therefore, the funding the Conservative government claimed was for more police, had no accountability that it would actually deliver more police. I could not get any clarity as to whether one additional police officer or RCMP officer had been hired, based on the promise made by the government. That is simply not good enough. We know how critical police are to apprehending criminals and also to preventing crime, an important objective. This is another broken promise.
Second, the approach of the Conservative government to strangle the gun registry is completely not supported by evidence. It is not supported by members of the public. It is not supported by the Association of Chiefs of Police. Police officers use this gun registry 9,000 times a day. More than 5,000 affidavits have been provided by the Canadian Firearms Registry to support the prosecution of firearms related crime and court proceedings.
Having a gun registry, according to the police, is a matter of personal safety for their officers. If a policeman is entering a residence in a building and does not have access to an up-to-date accurate registry to find out whether he or she can expect that he or she will face a gun, that police officer's safety is compromised.
Guns used in tragedies, like the rampage through the École Polytechnique de Montréal in which 14 women lost their lives, would have been registered by the long gun registry.
Finally, the government is opposing the rights of police officers, and that is enough to make me shake my head. The government rolled back its promise on the wages for RCMP officers, would have brought them to a level that was at parity with other police officers in Canada. Now the government is opposing collective bargaining rights for their front line officers, whose lives are at risk on a daily basis through their activities.
I would appeal to the government. Yes, strong laws for those who are guilty of series crimes is important, and the Liberals support that. However, we need strong prevention measures, including supporting our police forces and RCMP, rather than being tough on police.
Earthquake in China May 12th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, today marks the one year anniversary of the devastating earthquake that struck the Sichuan province of China.
This earthquake claimed more than 69,000 lives, injured over 370,000, and it left 18,000 people missing.
This was an incredible human tragedy that touched us all, and as they often do in times of tragedy, Canadians donated generously.
Incredibly, only three months later, China and its people rallied to host the world at an exceptional Olympic Games in Beijing.
Over the past year, more than 5,000 homes have been rebuilt, 6,000 have been repaired, and almost all roads and telecommunications have been restored. The strength and resilience of the Chinese people during and in the aftermath of this tragedy was nothing short of inspirational.
I am sure I speak for all members of the House when I say our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those who are still missing and those who lost their lives one year ago today.
The Environment May 11th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, the environment minister appears content to be a lap dog of the Americans on climate change.
The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy released a report called, “Achieving 2050: A Carbon Pricing Policy for Canada”. It calls on the Conservatives to move quickly on a nationwide policy to meet the government's own climate change strategy.
Will the Conservative government accept the recommendations of its own advisers? Will it finally take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or is the Conservative plan and targets simply a plan to bamboozle the public and nothing more than hot air?
Foreign Affairs April 29th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, the government has a track record of leaving citizens high and dry when they are abroad. This time it is a family that has been without their father and husband for 13 months while Pavel Kulisek is left to rot in a Mexican prison cell based on spurious evidence.
Will the courts in Canada need to force the indifferent Conservative government to get involved, the same way they did for Omar Khadr, or will the minister stand up for a Canadian citizen who needs his help now?
Business of Supply April 28th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his consistency in this debate and being here for so many of the speakers, the questions that he has asked and his own sage commentary.
Having not seen major points to be resolved, clearly benefits to businesses and consumers have been identified, is there a possibility that since some of the finance minister's former provincial caucus colleagues assert that harmonization is potentially a tax hike, a massive tax increase, and due to the vulnerability of the government on the issue of tax hikes thanks to its taxing of income trusts, might there be a connection between that sensitivity to the provincial Conservative Party's controversy around this and the vigorous negativity toward the motion?
Business of Supply April 28th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Bloc Québécois member for her enlightening comments.
Although the Liberal Party supports tax harmonization and good-faith negotiations between the provinces and the federal government, I would like to know why the Bloc Québécois feels that this measure should be a priority during this time of economic crisis.
Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to have a debate about who protects the taxpayer because it is obvious. It was the Liberal Party of Canada that cleaned up a record deficit left by the Conservative government once before. It was the Liberal Party that left the Conservatives with an enormous surplus which they squandered when times were good so now they do not have the resources to deal with the problems that we have today. The Liberal Party will be cleaning up the Conservative Party's deficit once again. That is who protects the taxpayer.
The member opposite still does not understand our parliamentary system. When a prime minister of a minority government loses the confidence of the members of Parliament, they are entitled to vote accordingly. Instead, we had the embarrassing spectacle of a Canadian prime minister crawling to the public television networks begging for his very job.
Distortion and deception--
Mr. Speaker, when I posed a question for the Minister of Finance some weeks ago, on February 10, he gave me what I felt was an unsatisfactory answer. Today I hope I will get a more detailed explanation of what the Conservatives are doing to address our economic crisis and to answer my question.
We have a very serious economic situation and taxpayers expect us to spend their money wisely because it is their money. We need to be very judicious with public funds at a time of economic crisis and a recession, but first we need a government that really understands the nature and the depth of the problem. So far, we have not have had that.
We have a government that started out by saying that Canada would avoid a recession when it was already clear that we were in a recession. Then it acknowledged that it was a recession but just a technical recession, not a real one. Then it was a synchronized global recession, as though that were an explanation for its past inability to understand the fiscal and financial realities that were obvious to other parties. After that, it was a mild recession and now it is a serious recession. I have a lot of concern that we have a government that is wrestling to figure out what is going on rather than how it can help.
I also want to comment on the idea of this being a mild recession. It is insulting to the 300,000 Canadians who have lost their jobs since January 1 and to the almost 15% of young people who are unemployed.
The finance minister said that his analysis that this was a mild recession related to the fact that most people came from other places, including the United Kingdom, that most came on boats, that many came with nothing and that many died as a result of contracting diseases while travelling to Canada. He was painting a picture of everything but covered wagons and horses and buggies, as though that had to do with the human distress that people are experiencing, people whose life-savings are being drained away, people who built small businesses and are now e bankrupt with the assets they were aiming to retire on gone.
The government's response has been completely inadequate. Where is the $1 billion for the mountain pine beetle that was promised? Why did it cut research at a time when our neighbour to the south is increasing it and we need it, not just for the jobs of today but the economy of tomorrow? Why knee-cap green power by killing the wind power incentive at a time when we need to position ourselves as leaders in the new green economy? Why not provide an employment insurance safety net that will actually address the needs of people who have paid into it for many years?