House of Commons photoLost his last election, in 2011, with 35% of the vote.
Justice February 15th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, we are trying to have a serious debate on crime. We do not want demagoguery and manipulation of the facts.
This government has no plan for the environment. It has no plan for the economy and it has no plan to help less fortunate workers. Furthermore, it has no plan to address crime.
Why is its only plan to ignore the Constitution and consolidate the powers of the Prime Minister?
Justice February 15th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, instead of posturing on the subject of crime, this side of the House would like to be smart on crime.
The government has displayed astonishing arrogance toward the institutions of our country. Its attempt to change the rules for appointing judges demonstrates a lack of respect for the judiciary. As for Parliament, last night the Minister of the Environment called a bill passed by the House a joke. The court system should not be manipulated and no bill passed by the House of Commons is ever a joke.
When will this arrogance stop? When will the Prime Minister begin to show respect for the institutions--
Business of Supply February 15th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, the member opposite has raised issues about the environment. Last night, the House passed by an overwhelming majority a motion that asked the government to get serious about Kyoto. This side of the House is not going to take lessons in environmental compliance from that side of the House.
Everything we have heard from that side of the House has been one long excuse about why the Conservatives cannot do anything. They have been in office for a year. That is the point of this motion: to draw attention to the fact that after their year in office we are still awaiting serious, reliable, credible, deliverable action on the environment.
The hon. member brings up the issue of child care. This seems to me to have been a tactical mistake on his part. That is the charitable way to put it, because I was in this place when specific promises were made to Canadians that the government would create actual child care spaces. Unless I have missed something, my fellow members, I see no child care spaces at all delivered by the government.
Business of Supply February 15th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, I am slightly surprised by this line of attack. In this House there has been consistent bipartisan support for the rights and freedoms of Canadians. The member refers to the legacy of Mr. Diefenbaker. That is a tradition that is held in respect on this side of the House.
It therefore seems strange that he should cast aspersions on the record of Prime Minister Trudeau, a man who commands the respect of all Canadians and left as his legacy a Charter of Rights and Freedoms of which all Canadians can be proud.
Business of Supply February 15th, 2007
moved:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government is failing to act in accordance with the democratic and open values expected of its office by imposing a narrow minded, socially conservative ideology as reflected in its approach to the judicial appointment process to dramatically increase the influence of right-wing ideology in the judiciary, its refusal to honour Canada's international obligations under the Kyoto Protocol including a refusal to act immediately to introduce regulations under the Canada Environmental Protection Act, its misconception that Canadians don’t want or need a dramatic increase in child care spaces on a national basis, its budget spending cuts directed at aboriginal people and silencing advocacy work done on behalf of women and the most vulnerable Canadians even in the face of budget surpluses, its failure to protect and promote linguistic and cultural diversity, and its undemocratic assault on farmers who support the Canadian Wheat Board.
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine.
We have a motion in the House today that calls on all of us to take a hard look at the government's record. It is a moment to ask some questions. What is the big picture? Where is the Prime Minister taking the country?
The official opposition is concerned about the direction the government is taking and this is the day on which the House of Commons gets to call it the way we see it.
We on this bench start with the standard that we set in government. We have been nation builders. We create the institutions that make our country strong: the Canada pension plan, old age security, employment insurance, medicare, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Kelowna accord and a national child care program, that is until the Prime Minister scrapped both of them.
Thanks to Liberal leadership, Canadians benefited from sound public finances and enviable economic growth. The contrast between the Liberal record and the record of this minority government is striking.
This government has no plan for economic growth, no plan for employment, no plan for post-secondary education and no plan for investment in science and research. That means no plan for Canada's future. That means no plan to help Canadians succeed.
This Prime Minister is governing only to win the next election. He has forgotten his country's future, and the future will judge him.
The government just does not understand that we cannot have a successful and united country unless we have a just society and a just society is one that offers everyone in Canada an equal chance.
Canadians have built a society with less poverty and less crime, a society that sends more young people to college and university and fewer to prison.
Canadians have abandoned the 19th century notion of a single dominant culture in favour of a constitutional and institutional framework that promotes a bilingual and multicultural diversity of peoples, including our aboriginal fellow citizens.
We on this side of the House have come to see that our differences are our strengths, unlike the Conservatives who see differences as wedge issues to exploit.
Thanks to the Liberal governments in the 1990s, Canada has had a budget surplus for a decade now. All Canadians should be proud of what we have accomplished together. These achievements are now threatened.
After just one year in office, the government has shown its true colours. The Prime Minister is turning back the clock on the social reforms of the last 30 years. It is not surprising that the Conservative Party decided to drop the word “progressive” from its name. That means we are no longer faced with the conservatism we know but with an ideological conservatism, a movement conservatism that will take Canada backward.
Bit by bit, the Prime Minister is shaping Canada into his vision and it is less progressive, less fair, less just and less equal. He cut funding for women's advocacy groups, and he was wrong to do so. If we want Canadians to have an equal chance, we need to do more to reduce economic and social inequality between the genders and not less.
In the last election, the Prime Minister told Canadians that our court system would protect them from the Conservatives if they pursued an ideological agenda.
But then he cut the court challenges program, the very program that funded a number of important cases that sought to advance equality rights. Abolishing this program is a serious step that directly reduces Canadians' ability to defend their charter rights.
The government also wants to appoint socially Conservative judges and rig the judicial appointment process to shift our courts to the right. Just yesterday, the Prime Minister told the House that he wants to choose judges on the basis of whether they support his criminal justice agenda. This fails to respect the separation of powers that is the basis of Canadian freedom. Governments pass laws, judges enforce and interpret them. One branch does not seek to bend the other branch to its will, except under the present government.
I again urge the Prime Minister to reverse the changes he has made in the way the government selects judges. I urge him to stop trying to politicize our judiciary.
The Prime Minister has even politicized the issue of equality in our country. He tried to reopen the same sex marriage debate and most Canadians regard this as a settled matter. We need to ask why a sitting Prime Minister would want to put into question the equality gains made by his fellow citizens.
The Conservatives have also cut funding for adult literacy programs, calling such programs “repair work after the fact”. For the government, adults who cannot read do not count.
This government inherited a $13 billion surplus, but still made $1 billion in cuts, mainly at the expense of those people who need help the most. These Conservatives have promised to cut another $1 billion before the next budget. What other social programs will be axed? When will it be enough?
This is a government that has plans to build more prison cells instead of child care spaces.
This is a government that has scrapped the historic Kelowna accord between Canada and its aboriginal citizens. For this government it appears to be acceptable to break faith with aboriginal Canadians once again.
Yesterday evening, this House adopted Bill C-288, which requires the government to step up to the plate and introduce a plan to achieve the Kyoto protocol targets. Instead of a plan, all we are seeing is fear and denial. This is not leadership. This is not governance. It is shameful. We need action and a comprehensive sustainable development plan, with accountability and targets, and we need it now.
This is a government obsessed with cutting taxes, not tax cuts that create jobs or enhance Canadian competitiveness or make it easier for Canadians to make ends meet, but tax cuts which weaken our capacity to build a just society for all. The Conservatives will strip back the government until the cupboards are bare in Ottawa and across the country, and that will weaken Canadian citizenship and it will weaken the national unity of our country.
The Prime Minister will try to hold onto power by using so-called wedge issues in the hopes of dividing Canadians. When will these politics stop? Canadians do not want a country where the values of a right-wing minority are imposed by stealth on a progressive majority. Canadians sense the reactionary drift of their government. They can feel the daily descent of their country into a place where opportunity is shrinking.
This is a progressive country, a place held together by faith in compassionate, smart and accountable government, and we are not going to get compassionate, smart and accountable government from a party that loves power but actually dislikes government.
We are not going to get national unity from an ideologue. We are not going to get the country pulling together under a party that governs for its base and not for all the people.
I urge all the opposition members to vote for this motion and send a clear message to this Conservative government and the people of Canada.
Let us declare that it is the opinion of this House that the government is failing to act in accordance with the democratic and open values expected of its high office. Let us draw a line in the sand. Let us say together that enough is enough.
Enough is enough.
My fellow parliamentarians, this country deserves better.
Judicial Appointments February 14th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, Peter Russell, a noted expert on judicial selection, has said the Conservatives have lowered the qualification standards for judges. He said:
--they've changed the role of the advisory committee so now they do not select the most highly qualified...there is really no merit selection going on and that is a dreadful change....
How can Canadians have faith in the judicial system, that it will be fair and impartial, when our selection process is now about politics and no longer about the interests of justice?
Judicial Appointments February 14th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has confirmed our worst suspicions on this issue. The government has changed the selection rules for the judicial advisory committees. It has taken away the voice of the judiciary during the candidate evaluation process.
Why is the Prime Minister changing the rules? Why is he showing so little respect for the independence and authority of the judiciary?
Judicial Appointments February 14th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, the government had no plan to anticipate the obvious increase in passport applications.
It had no plan to address the job losses announced today in our manufacturing sector.
Aboriginal Canadians: no plan. Our cities: no plan. Access to education: no plan. Poverty: no plan.
Instead, the government spends all of its time running an election campaign and looking for ways to push its ideological agenda.
Why does the government have a plan to change the way judges are appointed, but no plan to help Canadians succeed?
Judicial Appointments February 13th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, this minority government is casting doubt on the impartiality of the judiciary and is stacking judicial appointments committees with hand-picked partisans who share his social conservative agenda.
When will the Prime Minister rise in this House and confirm his dedication to the impartiality of the judiciary, which is a key principle of Canadian democracy?
Judicial Appointments February 13th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has a long history of trying to undermine the credibility of the charter of rights and the independence of the Canadian judiciary. Rights are rights are rights and what the government wants to do with judicial appointments is just dead wrong.
When will the Prime Minister stop trying to undermine the independence of the judiciary? When will he stop trying to impose his conservative ideology on the Canadian court system?