Robert Chisholm

[Fisheries and Oceans, June 6th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the attacks on Atlantic Canada and the fisheries continue. Today we hear that no less than six Department of Fisheries and Oceans offices will be closing in Newfoundland and Labrador. These offices provide front line support for the fishing industry on the east coast. They cannot be replaced by a 1-800 number.

When will the minister stand up and do his job, stop these closures that are harming not only the economy but the communities that depend on the fishery?

[Business of Supply, June 5th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's participating in this debate. I wanted to go back to him with a question on the Experimental Lakes Area project and the decision of this government to cut funding for that organization. I mentioned earlier that this is a unique research facility that has been in existence for almost 50 years and has been instrumental in identifying environmental problems caused by acid rain, phosphorus in detergent and mercury from coal-fired power plants. It is one of the only facilities in the world where scientists can look at the impact of contaminants on the whole ecosystem.

I ask the parliamentary secretary if he would explain why the cut to this organization is in any way in the interests of the fishery.

[Business of Supply, June 5th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I had this to say earlier. When somebody said to me, “Do the members opposite just not care about information, facts and knowledge?” I said, “Not for a second”.

The women and men on the opposite side are not stupid. They are intelligent people but the problem is this. What they have shown is if they do not agree with the science and it does not serve their purposes, then they are going to shut it down. The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy is gone. The National Council of Welfare is gone. The Experimental Lakes Area project is gone.

I do not understand why the government does not have the confidence that is necessary, and that Canadians demand from their government, to allow the House of Commons to be filled with differing opinions and ideas so we ensure that the decisions we make in the final analysis are based on sound research, sound facts and sound debate.

[Business of Supply, June 5th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, that is a beautiful example because that is important research. However, nanotechnology is also what the Experimental Lakes Area project is involved in. In fact, scientists around the world have referred to it as the world's only ecological supercollider. In other words, it is all about the use of ecological nanotechnology. I say for the minister of state to support that program, but also to support this program because it is doing equally, if not more, important work and that is the kind of threat the government would put the environment under.

[Business of Supply, June 5th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to engage in the debate. I want to thank my colleague who spoke earlier and did such a good job of outlining the problems that Canadians are facing at the hands of the government as it goes about hacking and slashing away at science, facts and knowledge.

When we raise concerns about various programs that are being cut, the parliamentary secretary to the minister of state gets up and talks about the money that the government is giving to a program or a university or the like. What he is missing is the real crux of the problem here.

It is not that those programs that the government is investing in are somehow wrong or bad; they are not. However, the danger is that it is cutting away research being done by government departments that is crucial in so many ways. I want to talk a bit about that in my few minutes that I have here today.

We are talking about environment science and fisheries science that enable us to understand two things. One is what development is doing to fish stocks and fish habitat—in other words, not just the fish but everything they eat, where they live and how they survive. That is what the government is attacking in the changes to the Fisheries Act. However, it is important science in that it allows us to know what impacts our activities are having on our environment, on other species, on plants and on the air we breathe.

I just participated in a discussion a few moments ago about the decision of the government, through the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, to cut the Experimental Lakes project. This project has been in existence for four decades in northern Ontario and is made up of 58 small lakes. It does not just perform freshwater science in the laboratory; it has access to the ecosystem. It has access to living, breathing lakes on which it performs important research to determine the effects of various things we as humans do and the effects of development on that ecosystem. The government has decided to cut that.

I do not understand it. Scientists from around the world have condemned this decision, because they recognize the kind of contribution this one organization makes to research and science in the world with respect to how the animals within that ecosystem exist.

The other day there was a little story told by a former director of the Experimental Lakes Area, or the Freshwater Institute, as it is sometimes known, at our subcommittee. He talked about a study they were doing on acid rain and the acid rain levels that were being proposed to be set by government. They found that the levels did not affect the actual fish that were under review, so if they limited their study to that aspect, they would find that those levels of concentration were fine.

However, they went beyond that. They looked at the organisms, the other fish that those fish ate. They determined that the concentration level of acid rain that was being permitted did not affect that particular breed of fish, but it affected everything else that fish ate. In other words, if they had approved that concentration level of acid rain as permissible, it would not have directly killed that fish, but the fish would have starved to death, because all of the food that sustains that fish, allows it to thrive and reproduce, would have gone.

He made that point to underline the changes in the Fisheries Act which focus no longer on fish habitat, in other words the whole ecosystem, but focus most specifically on commercially viable fish. He pointed out that it is completely wrong-headed. He also made the point that the research that is being done by this institute, by the Experimental Lakes Area project, is so valuable. It has made so many important contributions, not only to this country, but to countries around the world in terms of its research.

It is just one example of the projects that have come under attack from the government. Just in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans alone there have been $80 million of cuts to the departmental budget. Much of it has been staff cuts to science and research, which undermine our ability to manage threats to the fisheries.

There is a whole host of things in here: libraries, archives, the elimination of DFO's ocean pollution monitoring program, which will cut 75 staff, including Canada's only marine mammal toxicologist. The Centre for Offshore Oil, Gas and Energy Research will not close, but its work will be seriously curtailed as a result of cuts. That makes me crazy.

I am from Nova Scotia, and there is under consideration the development of the old Harry site in the Gulf to drill for oil. There is talk that the government will ram through whatever it needs to ram through this House in order to ensure that bitumen gets shipped out to the west coast. There will be a whole plethora of tankers running up and down that dangerous coastline, running the risk of serious oil spills, on the east coast, on the west coast. We have not even started talking about the Arctic.

At the same time that it is moving forward with that kind of development, without the necessary checks and balances, it is cutting the science that is available to make sure we know what we are doing and how to go about it.

My time is up, but I want to share this with the House. Yesterday the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans was in Dartmouth, the community I represent. It appears from the media that he was not particularly well received. One of the questions he was asked was about the decision to cut funding for the Centre for Offshore Oil, Gas and Energy Research.

People asked him why he would do that, and he said that it would not close and that work would be done by the private sector. I thought to myself, who, Exxon Mobil? Maybe the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers would now be the scientific watchdog with respect to offshore oil development and drilling and the effect it will have on our coastline. These are the kinds of things--

[Canada–Jordan Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, June 4th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite is the chair of the Standing Committee on International Trade and he and I have had discussions. I used to be on that file and participated in those committees. For him to suggest that what I am saying is somehow new, I, frankly, find a bit disingenuous, to say the least.

With respect to the leader of the official opposition, the NDP and our leader is participating in important discussions that affect policy across this country that are meant to ensure that we develop our natural resources in a way that benefits everybody, that ensures that people pay their way and that we do not devastate the environment at the same time we—

[Canada–Jordan Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, June 4th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak for a few moments on this important issue in support of the member for Vancouver Kingsway who was up a little earlier this afternoon and spoke so well, articulating the increased clarity of the position of the official opposition as it relates to international trade. I want not only to support him but to reiterate a number of the very important points he made. I have said in this House before that we are a trading nation, that I am from a trading province, Nova Scotia, and that we have always engaged in trade and we will always engage in trade.

The question is: As a country, how are we going to do that? What is our relationship going to be like with countries around the world? Are we going to go into relationships with a formal economic deal? Are we going to come up with a pattern, with a template? Are we going to ensure we combine economic trade with relations as they relate to human rights, as they relate to the environment, as they relate to other international negotiations on issues relative to global security, for example? Is that the way we are going to go about presenting ourselves in the world?

I think that is extremely important as we consider where we are going.

The government has, on numerous occasions, attacked the NDP, the opposition, as being anti-trade and against any trade deal, saying for some reason that we want to hide our heads in the sand.

We have said in response to that, of course, time and again, far from it. The New Democratic Party has laid out a number of principles we have established that underline the values-based approach we want to take to our relationships on the international stage and how it is that we want to participate in the international economy. That is exactly what I am talking about and what I want to talk about a little more here today, the fact that as a country we are already negotiating deals, we are already participating, our companies are participating in economic relationships around the world.

As a responsible government, then, we need to ensure we are aiding those relationships, helping to encourage them, helping to foster them, helping to make sure they are sufficiently constructive, not only for this country but for the countries that were participating with that. I believe that is the responsibility we have as a nation.

We can stand aside and say that no deal is the best deal, or we can recognize that no deal is going to be perfect but it is incumbent upon us to do everything we can as a government, and as a Parliament I would suggest, to ensure we do everything in our power to make sure our relationship is as positive and as constructive as it can possibly be.

That is why, whether we talk about the free trade deal with the United States or whether we talk about CETA or whether we talk about the deal with Panama, there are certain principles in those deals about which we have had concern. They deal with things like labour rights. They deal with how the country we are participating with honours a principle that is in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms; that is, the right to freely associate and to bargain collectively. That is a principle we should ensure we support with any nation we are going to be working with, and we give some credit that it has been recognized to some degree in the deal with Jordan.

The ILO has recognized that Jordan is moving forward considerably in honouring free collective bargaining in that country. That is a good thing. Human rights is an area in some of the deals about which we have raised concerns. We talked in here about the deal that was passed last year with Colombia and its history with the attack on trade union leaders and human rights abuses that have been waged in that country affecting farmers, small business owners and other people in the community. That is a very serious concern. We suggested Panama has a very serious problem in terms of the lack of transparency as it relates to financial transactions. It has been identified as a tax haven. It has not been sufficiently transparent on the international stage on those matters.

These are contrary to principles that we have as Canadians and that I feel should be the basis upon which we negotiate or participate in relationships with other countries. With regard to the environment, how is it that the country in question administers some kind of control over the activities of companies and the development that happens within the country? Does it appropriately respect the principles that we would suggest are important in terms of environmental sustainability, that it not allow wanton development that destroys ecosystems and the ability of people in its communities to drink clean water, to breathe clean air and to ensure their children are able to play outdoors without being made sick by contaminated soil?

It is important to recognize that these are things that go on around the world in different countries, and we need to make sure we are, in carrying out our activities on behalf of Canadians, reflecting the values we share and hold so dear as a country. That is why in the past and continuing into the future, as these deals are brought before the House, these are the kinds of principles that members of our caucus will continue to be concerned about.

I want to move a little to talk more specifically about the whole question of a framework for future trade. I mentioned earlier that this government and the Liberal government before it tend to have a strategy on trade in which they have a template that they throw down on top of any trade deal or any negotiations, regardless of whether it is the European community or Panama. The contrast between those countries is huge, but they want the same template to apply. I am suggesting that is not appropriate; there need to be nuances and flexibilities, but ultimately we need to have some underlying principles that form the framework we are going to develop for moving forward.

I want to go over a few principles that I think are important. There are five key principles.

Trade needs to lead to more trade. In other words, and I have said this before in the House, most trading nations have an industrial policy so that the government understands where the strengths and weaknesses are in the economy in terms of resource development, manufacturing, biotech and innovation. The reason is that when the government is negotiating with another country, it can evaluate what that country wants and what we want on the basis of its impact on our overall economy. That is extremely important, because any negotiation is a give and take. Trade is going on and choices are being made at the table, in which we want this but we are willing to give up some of that.

We have to understand what the impact is going to be. We need to understand the other nation and the organizations and the companies within that nation. We need to understand what sectors are deemed a priority for the country. If industries are going to be negatively affected by whatever deal is negotiated, then we have to have already prepared an adjustment plan.

If a government has decided in its wisdom based on its industrial policy that whatever it is doing is considered a sunset industry, then it must build in some transition so that workers, for example, can be moved from that occupation to another. If environmental remediation is needed, we need to ensure it is provided for in the agreement.

My point is that when we talk about trade leading to more trade, we need to understand what we are trying to do. We need to understand what the impact will be. We need to engage in any agreement with our eyes open. A key point on this principle is that we need to ensure we are trying to do more than just get a deal signed, that we are building an economic relationship that has social, environmental and human rights aspects to it. We need to understand that this may be just the beginning or the midway point. The relationship is going to develop further as we go forward, so we need to make sure it is a deal that has some flexibility and some enforcement provisions and the opportunity to be improved as we go forward. Trade needs to lead to more trade.

The second thing is reciprocity. Canada is finding itself in the international world at the moment participating in bilateral deals, one-offs with individual countries. However we are not alone. We are trying to gain preferred nation status. We are trying to get in there before China or the European community or the U.S. We are trying to get ahead of somebody else so that we can get a one-up.

What happens with that is we get more short-term deals. We get people selling to the highest bidder, kind of thing. We find that not everybody is engaged and things are rushed and not complete.

Canada needs to work at the World Trade Organization, the WTO, table on the Doha round of free trade negotiations. We need to recognize that it is more important. This globe is getting smaller every day and every year. We need to ensure we are negotiating agreements that are in our best interests, not just the two parties at the table. We had better pay attention because countries in the southern hemisphere are recognizing the importance of that principle. Countries in the southern hemisphere are working together, I would suggest, much more proactively than are countries in the northern hemisphere.

It has been suggested to me that there are two worlds now. There is the developing world in the southern hemisphere and then there is the post-World War II alliance in the northern hemisphere, and that one, I would suggest, is increasing gaining ascendency, and that is the southern hemisphere, but they are working together to build a stronger economy that will benefit all of them.

The third principle is the whole question of job creation and innovation. We need to ensure that our trade deals are not just simply selling Canadian jobs down the road. We need to ensure we are building a stronger economy with family supporting jobs here in Canada, not at the expense of another country, but ensuring that the deals we are doing, the economies of scale that we are working on with other countries ensures a stronger labour force where the wages, benefits and the ability to pay are improved.

We also need to ensure, in our discussions with other countries that the principle of innovation, the principle of technological development, needs to be key and front and centre. Our deal needs to be nimble. We need to ensure that there are productivity targets. We also need to recognize that issues, like intellectual property, copyright laws and so on, are sufficiently protected to ensure we are building our asset value, whether that be intellectual, value added in manufacturing or our resources, for the long term.

The fourth principle is that no deal does damage or undermines the Canadian democracy. We need to ensure that our trade deals do not affect the ability of other levels of government to make decisions that are in their best interests or the best interests of their nation. There have been concerns raised about CIDA and the impact it has on subnational governments.

The final point is the principles with respect to protecting the environment. Trade deals should not weaken environmental laws simply to attract investment.

These are the kinds of things I am suggesting the NDP believes in. We believe in free and sustainable trade but we need to ensure that there is a clear trade agenda that advocates for free, fair and sustainable trading nations.

In closing I will reaffirm the commitment that our critic has made that we will be supporting the bill.

[Canada–Jordan Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, June 4th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, as always, I enjoyed listening to the intervention from the member for Winnipeg North and following on the Liberal critic, which is not an easy task.

I listened very intently to some of the things the member was suggesting. I heard him say that with international trade there will be times when there are winners and losers, and that is what often happens. I heard him say that it is extremely important for the Conservatives to have a plan mapped out for understanding who is going to win and who is going to lose so that they can develop strategies to ensure that the companies and employees who do lose are properly accounted for and that there are adequate transition programs.

Would the member confirm if that is in fact what he believes and if that is the kind of trade policy he would support?

[Canada–Jordan Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, June 4th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my colleague for his presentation and analysis on an important issue and for his appointment to the international trade responsibility, because it is a very serious responsibility.

As he has said so well, and as others on this side have said in this House, we are a trading nation, but we need to ensure that as we engage in negotiations with other nations around the world, we do so not with a cookie cutter approach, as the government would do, regardless of which country it is, regardless of the history of relations and regardless of the circumstances. We need to ensure we recognize the values that exist between the countries with which we are doing business and with which we would engage, in order to make sure it is a positive relationship for the people, the workers and the businesses of our country and of the country with which we are partnering.

I would like to ask the member if he would speak to how important the whole question of values is, in terms of our approach to dealing with international trade.

[Fisheries and Oceans, June 4th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, as the Conservatives barge ahead with their cuts, they are ignoring the growing outcry. Community groups and provincial governments are demanding answers about the cuts to science and the needed research to protect the industry.

Why are they cutting this? Does the minister not understand that his job is to protect fish and the communities that rely on fisheries, and why has he not consulted with provincial governments?