Mark Holland

[Cruelty to Animals, February 5th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, more than 100,000 Canadians have signed petitions supporting effective animal cruelty legislation such as Bill C-373. They reject Senate Bill S-213 as inadequate and a step backwards.

I wish to thank Tamara Chaney, Saranna Arthur-Erickson, Miles Albrecht, Ron Watmough and many others for all their hard work to raise awareness on this issue.

One of these advocates, 12-year old Shyanna Albrecht from Medicine Hat, asked me to read her letter to the House. She wrote:

I am writing to you because on Friday, October 13, 2006, somebody came into our yard, took my rabbit Midnight out of his cage, stepped on him and mutilated him. I'm also writing to you because of the incident that happened in Didsbury where a dog got dragged behind a car and then got beaten almost to her death. Frustrated and mad is how I feel toward the killers. I am a very strong supporter of the petition to have tougher penalties for cruelty toward pets. It would be wonderful if Bill C-373 could be made into law before the government changes or an election is called.

[The Environment, January 30th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, what is wonderful is the opportunity to manage them properly, not multiply them times five.

Any credible plan to address the crisis of climate change includes participation in Kyoto, yet Canada has a Prime Minister who spent his entire career fighting Kyoto and denying the science of climate change.

Now we learn that in 2002 the Prime Minister wrote a fundraising letter calling on his supporters to wage war on Kyoto, imploring them to “block the...economy-destroying Kyoto Accord” and saying that Kyoto is “based on...contradictory scientific evidence about climate trends”.

When it comes to Kyoto, is this the Prime Minister's version of getting the job done?

[The Environment, January 30th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, on oil sands expansion by 2015 the Prime Minister has touted an increase in production of three to four times. His finance minister, while in China, was even more specific, targeting a rise in production of 4.6 times the current output.

Let us be clear on the implications. With these increases, the Prime Minister is preparing for greenhouse gas emissions to skyrocket. We will have no reductions by 2020 and we will have given up on our international Kyoto commitments. How will the Prime Minister meet even his inadequate, distant targets with his aggressive plan to exploit our natural resources?

[The Environment, January 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the only thing the Conservatives have done is reintroduce Liberal programs.

While our then environment minister was bringing the world together to work on the post-Kyoto environment, they were sitting there pretending that climate change did not exist. In fact, the only thing the Conservatives have done is to copy Liberal programs. If they are going to keep copying us, they should just put on a green scarf and get out of the way.

Two weeks ago the natural resources minister stated that his carbon bingeing was simply not aggressive enough. He said the oil sands should see a potential increase of four or five times. Will the Prime Minister admit his real priority--

[The Environment, January 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the only thing they have done is reintroduce Liberal programs that were working which they had frozen for a year.

In a rush to please the Bush administration, the Prime Minister has offered up an expansion of the oil sands. On October 28 he said that oil sands production was on its way to three million or four million barrels a day. At that rate experts predict that oil sands production will account for roughly 25% of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions by 2010.

While the Conservatives went on a two week regifting spree, giving back some of the environmental programs they had slashed, their “hosed in Canada” plan was revealed.

Given his oil sands plan, will the Prime Minister now acknowledge that even his pathetic targets cannot be met?

[Petitions, December 13th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege of presenting a petition signed by 248 congregants of the Pickering Village United Church on the subject of HIV-AIDS in Africa.

The petition calls upon the Government of Canada to expedite the production and export of anti-retroviral drugs to Africa.

[RCMP Commissioner, December 11th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the question was clear and it was direct and we have no answer. The only answer we have is from the Prime Minister's spin machine.

Why did the Prime Minister's go to such lengths to protect the commissioner? Why did he do nothing when he knew everything in early November? Why did he wait until there was massive public outrage to demand action? The committee and Canadians deserve answers.

Will the Prime Minister confirm that his national security adviser and Mr. Elliott will be available for the committee to question before we break for Christmas, or will they continue to be too busy?

[RCMP Commissioner, December 11th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, we will keep asking questions until we get answers.

We now know that the Minister of Public Safety, the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Foreign Affairs urged the Prime Minister to remove the RCMP commissioner in the fall, this long before the matter became a crisis. The Prime Minister ignored their advice, ignored all evidence and protected the commissioner.

Since the public safety minister has refused to answer this question seven times and since the Minister of Foreign Affairs will only admit to statements caught by Hansard, will the justice minister answer? Will the Minister of Justice now admit that he pushed for the removal of the RCMP commissioner prior to last Monday, yes or no?

[RCMP Commissioner, December 8th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, while we were pushing to get Maher Arar out of prison, pushing the RCMP for answers, and calling the Arar inquiry, the Minister of Public Safety and the Prime Minister were labelling Mr. Arar a terrorist, and still to this day have yet to apologize.

We now know the deputy to the Minister of Public Safety got the letter. The parliamentary secretary got the letter. The commissioner spoke to him about the letter, and in early November the minister knew it all.

Did the minister sit on this information and do nothing or was he muzzled? Is the Prime Minister the reason the commissioner was protected?

[RCMP Commissioner, December 8th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask that the parliamentary secretary take this question seriously: why? Why did the government wait until outrage gripped the nation before it acted?

Despite contradiction after contradiction, a letter foretelling it all, ministerial meetings with the commissioner and urgings from his own cabinet, the Prime Minister did nothing. Worse than nothing, the Prime Minister gave the commissioner his unqualified, unreserved support through it all.

Why? Why did the Prime Minister do nothing when he knew everything?