Laurin Liu

[Employment, April 21st, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives have no more interest in protecting interns than they do in ensuring the safety of our food. Too many young Canadians have to work long hours with no protection and no pay, just so they can break into the labour market.

That is why I introduced a private member's bill to protect interns from sexual harassment, exploitation and dangerous work.

Why do the Conservatives refuse to work with the NDP in order to grant interns these basic protections?

[Intern Protection Act, April 20th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to today's debate on my Bill C-636, which would apply the same employment protection standards to unpaid interns that salaried employees get and establish clear rules and conditions governing unpaid internships.

In an article published in Le Soleil on June 18, 2014, entitled “Prévenir le cheap labor”, Brigitte Breton wrote:

Ottawa had to tighten the rules for its temporary foreign worker program because employers were misusing it to the detriment of local workers. It now has to be vigilant about unpaid interns by becoming aware of the role they play in businesses and protecting them from abuse.

I can tell the House that Canadians who commented on my private member's bill shared that same sentiment.

I invite my colleagues from all parties to vote in favour of this bill. In my five-minute right of reply, I will respond to some of the arguments that were made during the debate.

First of all, according to the Conservatives, the bill will prevent employers from hiring unpaid interns who are new Canadians and those transitioning to new careers, thus taking away a stepping stone to a new job. Essentially, this is the argument behind the idea that there should be no limits on the use of unpaid internships and that they should not necessarily have an educational value. I disagree. Employees, whether they are new Canadians or people transitioning to a new career, must most definitely be paid if they are doing work that benefits an employer. Entry-level jobs must not become unpaid internships. I completely disagree with my colleague from Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, who says that immigrants should not be paid for the work they do.

The Conservative members raised another concern, namely that the bill does not include a definition of training. However, there is already a common law definition of training in the Canada Labour Code, which already refers to training outside of internships. On the face of it, I would not oppose a clarification of what constitutes unpaid training, and we could study this if the bill is sent to committee.

The Conservatives also claim that the bill would make it easier for employers to stop paying some salaried employees. That is absolutely not true. The bill will in no way increase the use of unpaid internships. On the contrary, it will limit the use of unpaid internships as a replacement for paid work.

Lastly, I want to say that I was so grateful to hear that the Liberal Party will support my private member's bill. Although some Liberal members expressed concerns that this bill could prevent non-profits from hiring unpaid interns, this bill will in no way affect volunteer work. The only sectors that will be affected by my private member's bill will be sectors under federal jurisdiction, such as telecommunications, transportation and banking.

The past has taught us that it is very important to have a framework governing the use of unpaid internships, especially within multinational companies that have no shortage of financial resources to hire staff.

While the Liberals would rather wait for the Conservative government to take action, the NDP knows that now is the time to do something. I hope that my response has clarified some of the points that came up during the debate.

Some witnesses testified in committee. They told us that too many young Canadians are being exploited because there is no federal legislation for unpaid internships. Interns in Canada deserve protection, and now is the time for Parliament to take action.

[Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act, March 23rd, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question.

Indeed, the very title of this bill is an indication that the government wants to use it to play politics and spread fear of cultural minorities. We know that violence against women is committed throughout Canadian society, not just within cultural communities.

We also know that the Conservatives have no credibility when it comes to violence against women. They refused to launch a national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women, and they refuse to take other acts of violence against women elsewhere in Canada seriously.

By rejecting our amendments to this private member's bill, the government is refusing to truly take into account the realities that women are facing.

[Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act, March 23rd, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in the House to speak to Bill S-7, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Civil Marriage Act and the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. This Conservative government calls this Senate bill the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act.

Before I talk about the substance of the bill, I would like to make a few comments about its title, which, when studied in the Senate, was severely criticized by stakeholders, the people who work on the ground and community groups that help women in precarious situations. We find that the short title of the bill is xenophobic because of the use of the term “barbaric”, and that it reinforces existing prejudice against certain cultural groups by targeting racial minorities for certain practices that are in fact found in Canadian society. We know that violence against women occurs throughout Canadian society and that we must address this serious problem. However, as several witnesses and stakeholders pointed out, targeting minority groups and using language that instils fear and reinforces prejudice against cultural groups does absolutely nothing to improve the situation.

This is a very serious issue. Polygamy, forced marriage and underage marriage are practices that we must tackle. We must find solutions that help women who find themselves in such situations in Canada. Yes, this does exist and does happen here in Canada. However, we are convinced that this bill is not an appropriate response to the serious problem of gender-based violence, which, I repeat, is not a cultural problem. In fact, we have seen that Bill S-7 could further aggravate the problems that exist in Canadian society with respect to forced marriage and could also jeopardize the safety and autonomy of women in forced marriages. The Conservatives are fearmongering by introducing this bill, which does nothing to solve the problems faced by women in forced marriages.

We have studied Bill S-7 and we believe that it could have some serious consequences. For example, victims of polygamy could be criminalized, children could be deported and families could be separated. The Conservative government claims to want to help women, but it is doing nothing to ensure that women have access to the services they truly need. Groups across Canada that work to help these women are vastly underfunded. I have visited a few of them in Montreal, including the South Asian Women's Community Centre. This group is one of dozens of others across the country that help these women and these families. They work very hard with very few resources.

What do these groups want, so that they can help these women and families, who are often living in precarious situations? They are calling for safe, affordable housing to provide more security for these families and these women. They are also calling for resources to provide psychological help to these families and these women, since, as members will understand, the situations these women are in can sometimes be traumatic. It is important to provide this assistance as well. Groups working on the ground are also calling for assistance for the families, which are often traumatized by having to go through the complicated legal and immigration systems.

Organizations on the ground are also asking for help for families that have, in many cases, been traumatized by complicated processes in the justice and immigration systems. This bill offers none of the much-needed resources to help these families and these women.

This bill will also have some deeply damaging consequences. The Conservative government is used to pushing its bills through without consulting the community or the people who work directly with these women.

On that note, I would like to talk about some of the laws the Conservative government has passed that have had unintended consequences for immigrants to Canada.

In March 2012, the Conservatives introduced new measures to crack down on marriage fraud, including a requirement for a sponsored spouse to live with their sponsor for two years or face deportation and possible criminal charges. Again, witnesses who came to Parliament to offer recommendations criticized this bill because of its negative consequences. It leaves women vulnerable to abuse because they are reluctant to report abuse for fear of losing permanent residency.

What is more, the Conservative member for Mississauga South, who is in the House today, moved Motion No. 505 in April 2014. This motion purported to attack forced marriages by banning marriages by proxy, telephone or fax from qualifying for spousal sponsorship.

Perhaps her intention was good since more measures are needed to address the issue of forced marriage. However, this measure does not help vulnerable individuals, immigrants and refugees, who are often the ones who make use of distance marriages. This measure served to limit family reunification rather than forced marriage.

The measures that I just mentioned thus have a number of negative consequences that put victims of forced marriage, primarily women, at an even greater risk.

I would like to speak about what we would have liked to see in this bill in order to provide real support for women who are victims of forced marriage and abuse.

First of all, we would have liked that the bill allow victims of forced or underage marriages to be exempt from the requirements of conditional permanent residence. This was also recommended by the experts who appeared before the committee. It has become apparent that conditional permanent residence is revoked in such cases. This measure was introduced in October 2012 and applies to spouses, common-law or conjugal partners in a relationship of two years or less with their sponsor and who have no children in common with the sponsor at the time of the sponsorship application. These sponsored spouses or partners have a condition attached to their permanent residence status for a period of two years from the day they receive their conditional permanent resident status in Canada. Once again, this is the measure that was presented by my colleague.

We are proposing that the spouses and children of a person who is deported for having lied to the authorities about their marital status be allowed to remain in Canada where they have settled. Our approach is focused on protecting victims.

I think that any bill must take into consideration the realities facing victims and help and encourage them to report the abuse. However, that is not what this bill does.

Instead, this is a punitive bill, and that is why we are opposed to Bill S-7.

[Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act, March 12th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, we know that the government has no credibility whatsoever in preventing violence against women.

The member opposite cited Bill S-2, which related to matrimonial property rights on reserve. It was actually opposed by first nations and first nations women across the country because it does not protect victims.

We see the same problems in this bill, Bill S-7, which is supposed to prevent forced marriages. We see that this bill would have many adverse effects. Among other things, it would expel from Canada the victims of forced marriages and the victims of potential spousal abuse.

This Senate bill does not receive support from the very groups that represent the women that the Conservatives say they are helping. I hope the government would be open to amending this bill to make sure victims are not expelled from Canada and put into the even more precarious situation that this bill would put them in.

I would like to know why the government has not worked to put in place measures to prevent violence against women, and why it has not put in place services that would help the victims of forced marriages. Why does the government not have a plan to transmit these immigrant women information on services that are available to them, and services that are available to help their integration into Canadian society?

[Removal of Imprisonment in Relation to Mandatory Surveys Act, February 27th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to Bill C-625, An Act to amend the Statistics Act. This private member's bill, which was introduced by a Conservative member, will officially eliminate the possibility of imprisoning someone who fails to respond to a mandatory survey.

I believe that no Canadian should be imprisoned for failing to fill in a survey or census form. Although I support this bill, I am still a bit perplexed, since no one in Canadian history has ever been imprisoned under the Statistics Act. This is not even necessarily a problem and does not affect Canadians' daily lives.

I have to wonder why the member chose to tackle this issue instead of the Conservative government's worrisome underfunding of Statistics Canada. He could have also looked at the elimination of the long form census, which the government replaced with the national household survey—even though this survey does not provide reliable and usable data. I urge my colleague to take a look at these issues that are vital to our country's future and that are essential in making evidence-based decisions.

The Conservative government's decision to eliminate the long form census is fairly high on the list of attacks that the government has made against science and evidence-based decision making. Like many New Democrats in the House and many experts have mentioned, this was an ill-advised decision, given how important it is for governments to have reliable and quality data on which to base their decisions. I am not just talking about the federal government here. I am also talking about provincial and municipal governments.

When the former industry minister announced that the long form census would be replaced by the national household survey or NHS, stakeholders from across the country questioned whether this was a good idea. They were concerned that the elimination of the long form census might undermine Statistics Canada's ability to collect data that the government could use to make a multitude of decisions.

The New Democrats fought tooth and nail to prevent the Conservative government from eliminating the long form census. Unlike the Conservatives, the New Democrats believe that the long form census is a valuable and essential tool for collecting clear and concise statistics, which are important for decision-making in areas such as health, housing and public transportation.

Parliamentarians and politicians use this information to make appropriate decisions on government policy. We heard from a number of experts on economy, statistics, urban planning and health, among others, who clearly stated that the data collected by the NHS were basically unusable.

The Conservative government is undermining the capacity of current and future governments to provide Canadians with essential services. What is more, these questionable and inadequate data will negatively affect the decision-making of businesses and the federal, provincial and municipal governments.

Just as an aside, in 2013, the Government of Quebec published a document entitled The Québec Research and Innovation Strategy . The document heavily criticized the Conservative government's approach to Statistics Canada. At the time, the Government of Quebec argued that it needed a long form census, which it used to deliver health services and make decisions about our education system for example. This Government of Quebec document criticized the political motivation for getting rid of the long form census. It stated that when the government made the decision to eliminate the long form census, it assumed that a state could operate without reliable data about its own population. The Government of Quebec also stated that, in making the decision, the government took for granted that the personal preferences of elected representatives could serve as an adequate substitute for specific facts about the reality on the ground.

As the experts have said, the Conservative government's census is an inadequate substitute for the long form census. It is clearly not an acceptable substitute. However, the Conservatives are yet again refusing to listen to the experts, and they are continuing to govern with blinkers on. The Conservative government's foolish decision was yet another attack on science in Canada.

Data on immigration, place of birth, citizenship, ethnic origin and visible minorities in Canada as well as data on the languages and religions of Canadians are also problematic because of the low response rates. There is a huge problem with the current system that the Conservative government has put in place.

I would like to point out that in 2010, the former chief statistician, Munir Sheikh, could not tolerate the Conservatives' attack on the integrity and independence of Statistics Canada. In fact, he resigned to protest the Conservatives' irresponsible approach. He did try to convince them to use evidence and facts rather than following their ideology. Munir Sheikh said that Statistics Canada data were important and that they were a great help to the government in identifying financial crises and developing policies to respond to them.

I have to say that this is very ironic because this Conservative government claims that it is the best economic manager when, in reality, it is attacking the data that allow us to make reliable decisions about managing the Canadian economy.

Clearly, there is a lack of consistency on the part of this Conservative government. Since I am almost out of time, I would like to reiterate that an NDP government will bring back the long form census and reinvest in Statistics Canada so that we can make reliable decisions and continue delivering services to Canadians across the country.

It is crucial to continue to support science, evidence and data in Canada, rather than ideology.

[Removal of Imprisonment in Relation to Mandatory Surveys Act, February 27th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I support the principle behind this private member's bill, but I am puzzled by it, since we know that no one has ever been imprisoned for refusing to respond to the Statistics Canada census. It is a problem that does not exist.

The real problem is that since the Conservatives took power, they have made cuts to Statistics Canada, which has prevented this agency from collecting high-quality data. The Conservatives also eliminated the long form census, which severely impaired Statistics Canada's ability to gather reliable data to help federal and provincial governments make decisions and provide services to the public.

Could my hon. colleague speak to the fact that Statistics Canada can no longer provide data to assist with making fact-based decisions? Can he also speak to the fact that Munir Sheikh, the former chief statistician of Canada, resigned in 2010 because of the Conservatives' attack on Statistics Canada and because Statistics Canada was no longer able to gather reliable information?

[International Trade, February 24th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, free trade was supposed to be the solution for stimulating the Canadian economy. The least we can say is that we are waiting for the results. The free trade agreement with Korea did not prevent it from closing its borders to our beef, and we are still waiting for the free trade agreement with Europe to be finalized. In addition, we still do not have a guarantee for our cheese producers.

When will the government finally make job creation a key part of its trade policy?

[Public Safety, February 23rd, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, this summer, the National Research Council of Canada network was hacked. Highly strategic information belonging to Canadian companies and scientists was allegedly stolen. Nevertheless, the National Research Council did not inform the public until three weeks later.

Does the government realize that its lack of transparency is undermining the trust needed for Canadian researchers to work together?

[Intern Protection Act, February 17th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my speech, my bill will help marginalized workers. It will help female workers who are under-represented in sectors that offer unpaid internships. As my colleague mentioned, it will also help immigrants, newcomers to Canada, the workers who reflect Canadian diversity. My bill will do so much to help protect workers who belong to these distinct and sometimes marginalized groups.