House of Commons photoLost his last election, in 2015, with 24% of the vote.
Questions Passed as Orders for Returns October 17th, 2011
With regard to the implementation of the Community Development program at the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency: (a) how much funding was allocated to support 41 Community Business Development Corporations (CBDCs), from 2006 to date; (b) what changes will take place in the funding of CBDCs, effective April 1, 2011; and (c) how many projects were supported by each of 41 CBDCs, from 2006 to date?
Questions Passed as Orders for Returns October 17th, 2011
With regard to the implementation of the Community Development program at the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency: (a) when does the agency plan to introduce the performance-based funding model to support Regional Economic Development Organizations (REDOs); (b) what consultations have already taken place concerning the launch of the performance-based funding model and how much money will be allocated to launch the performance-based funding model to support REDOs; (c) how much money has been allocated to provide core funding for REDOs since 2006 to date, (i) by province, (ii) by county; and (d) how much money has been allocated to provide project funding for each REDO in Atlantic Canada since 2006 to date?
International Trade October 17th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, that is a wish list. We have to see the government start to stand up for ordinary Canadians. By caving to European pharmaceutical companies, the Conservatives are driving up health care costs by up to $2.8 billion. Many seniors in Dartmouth--Cole Harbour, and across the country, are already having trouble making ends meet. This trade deal would mean that seniors will have an even harder time paying for the drugs that they need.
My question is, why is this out-of-touch government negotiating deals that put the health care of Canadians at risk?
International Trade October 17th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, the government has a track record as a bad negotiator on softwood lumber, on buy America, and I am afraid it is at it again. With respect to the Canada-EU trade negotiation, European officials are saying that Canada would come out a loser. Canadian trade experts are saying that there is not enough in the deal to make it worthwhile.
Why do the Conservatives continue to negotiate bad trade deals that put Canadian jobs at risk?
Keeping Canada's Economy and Jobs Growing Act October 6th, 2011
Madam Speaker, my colleague is also a member of the international trade committee. Economists have acknowledged and supported us in our claim that now is the time for the public sector to be investing in very necessary infrastructure. Now is the time, I would suggest, for us to start focusing on our transportation links across the country. We should look at things like rail service. I have heard from the Port of Halifax about the kind of stranglehold CN has on many industries and employers that are trying to transport goods. It affects our ability to trade, either export or import. Why does the government not make the kinds of investments that are necessary so we can move goods, services and people safely and dependably from one end of the country to the other?
Keeping Canada's Economy and Jobs Growing Act October 6th, 2011
Madam Speaker, I do not know where the member gets the 600,000 number, but the examination that the NDP has done of the numbers on the dates that I have described paint a completely different picture than the one about which the member has talked.
In the opening of his question he mentioned something about the oil industry, refinin, and that kind of thing. Let me respond to what I thought he was going to say. I thought he was going to talk about the Keystone pipeline and the fact that his government was planning to ship another raw resource to Texas. Why we cannot add value to our natural resources in our country and create hundreds and thousands of good-paying jobs for Canadians? Why can we not do that?
Keeping Canada's Economy and Jobs Growing Act October 6th, 2011
Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise and speak for too brief a time on Bill C-13. The bill has the august title of “keeping Canada's economy and jobs growing act”. It is quite a bit of fluffery, frankly, but let me move on to it.
Part of the trouble that I have with this legislation and the claims that government members are making about what it would do is that the government is the same government, with the same Minister of Finance, that had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the realization that the economy was in trouble in 2008 and that the government needed to respond. Only when the Conservatives had a near-death experience did the Minister of Finance bring in a fairly significant stimulus plan that made investments in infrastructure. Opposition parties were involved in ensuring that took place.
Now we have this bill before us. It would implement the budget that was introduced back in the spring, when the economy was at a different point.
Increasingly over the past number of months, we have seen what has happened in the United States, where the economy continues to sputter along. It is not making the kind of growth and the kinds of improvements that we would like to see. We are seeing European countries having significant financial problems and threatening to default on the bailouts they received from the banks in the European community.
It causes us some concern to hear the Minister of Finance continually saying, “Steady as she goes” and that the budget introduced last spring in very different economic circumstances is still the bill that the government is going to move forward.
Bill C-13 is full of half measures. It is a budget full of half measures.
For example, some members opposite were talking about increases to the GIS. We talked about that in June. We talked about the government failing to make the kinds of investments that would lift all poor seniors out of poverty.
We were not talking about ensuring that all seniors would have a home and a two-car garage, for heaven's sake. We were talking about lifting all seniors out of poverty, but the government was not able to go that far. It went halfway. For those people who will receive the $50 a month, it will undoubtedly make some difference, but a lot of seniors will continue to suffer in silence.
That is just an example of the kind of half measures I was referring to.
We have heard government members claim ad infinitum and ad nauseam that the government has created 600,000 net new jobs. My colleagues have put some of the facts on the record to show that this is absolutely not the case. We have seen the addition of barely 200,000 new jobs since the pre-recessionary employment high point in May 2008.
As well, the labour force has grown by 450,000 since then. Those new jobs fall 250,000 short of the number needed just to hold employment steady. The government's claim of creating 600,000 new jobs is just specious. It is wrong. It does not hold water. It is not true, and the facts make that clear.
However, the most troubling thing about it is what these figures say about unemployment in the 15- to 24-year-old age group.
At the high point in May 2008, before the recession, 2,600,000 Canadians between the ages of 15 and 24 had jobs. The participation rate at the time was 67.6%. The official unemployment rate was 11.9%.
In August 2011, there were only 2,400,000 people between the ages of 15 and 24 years of age employed. The participation rate had fallen three percentage points, to 64.7%. The unemployment rate was 14%.
That means that there are almost 127,000 fewer jobs for the 15- to 24-year-old group today than there were before the recession. If we take into account the lower participation rate, that is another 133,000 jobs.
What that points to is the problem faced by so many young people in this country. When I rose in the House the other day, I spoke about how young people in Dartmouth—Cole Harbour invest in their education. As a result of the lack of support from the federal government for post-secondary education, those who can afford to pull some resources together to acquire student loans go into very significant debt in order to try to increase their employability by improving their skills and qualifications. They come out and, as the statistics show, at a time like this the jobs are simply not there.
It is a remarkably discouraging situation faced by young people, who are the talent and the human resource needed to continue to build our country into the future. Unfortunately, they find themselves working at part-time jobs and trying to cobble things together. The problem is discouraging at best; it is creating desperation at worst.
There is a gaping hole in these employment numbers, and the numbers are particularly affecting young people.
As for manufacturing jobs and jobs at NewPage, the pulp mill in Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia, hundreds of middle-aged workers there, women and men, are laid off right now. The provincial government, with no help from the federal government, is trying to put together a transition plan so that company could perhaps be purchased and restarted in some form.
It would be nice if the federal government would recognize that there are Canadians living down in the eastern end of this country and that it should start giving support to those people and communities. However, another several hundred Nova Scotians are going to be either heading out west or staying in Port Hawkesbury and competing with one another for those significant jobs.
In conclusion, let me say that there is another area where there is a desperate need for the government to invest.
I am the international trade critic, as members know, and the government is bullish on all the trade agreements it is trying to negotiate around the world. The one thing that really concerns me, and has concerned a number of business leaders in this country, is that the government is doing this without having an industrial policy in the country, without having a policy that has identified those sectors where good jobs are going to be created. That is where it should be investing, in order to ensure that we do not lose the potential to continue to build our economy and that we do not keep going down the road that returns us to what we were in the 1960s, which was hewers of wood and drawers of water.
We need to have good manufacturing value-added jobs in order to provide the kind of economic activity in our communities, jobs for people in our families that will make our communities strong today and tomorrow.
I am thankful for the opportunity to speak to the bill and I would like to indicate that I will not support the government.
Dartmouth—Cole Harbour October 6th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, there is a buzz in Dartmouth—Cole Harbour right now. There is hope and optimism about our future. Companies are moving from Toronto to Dartmouth excited by the great potential they see. There are amazing new developments happening on the waterfront, bringing people and vitality to our beautiful harbour.
Excitement is building about a successful contract bid from our shipyards. In fact, Nova Scotia Community College just expanded its world-class metal fabrication program. People are talking, taking action and working hard to make life in Dartmouth--Cole Harbour better for themselves and others.
That is not to say that we do not have challenges in Dartmouth—Cole Harbour. We do. There is clearly much work to be done and there is much that the government could do to help if it were able to listen and not be so out of touch.
Despite these issues, despite the challenges and despite the lack of progressive vision and compassionate leadership from the government, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour is growing stronger. We are making a name for ourselves and it is the people of my constituency who should be applauded for that. This--
Business of Supply September 29th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, the first thing we would do is listen to Canadians and Canadians are telling us that it is time to start investing in communities, that it is time to start investing in infrastructure, and that it is time to start committing ourselves to supporting the innovation that is necessary in the communities to get people back to work and to get our young people coming out of universities with training and knowledge back to work.
Those are the kinds of specific steps that the government needs to do. It is what a New Democratic government would do.
Business of Supply September 29th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, I must say that whenever I engage in any discussion with the federal Liberals as it relates to the economy, all I can do is remember the kind of damage they did in the province of Nova Scotia back in 1996-97 when they decided to balance the budget in those days on the backs of the universities, the poor, the people looking for social housing and the health care system.
That is the kind of wrong-headedness that we are trying to deal with in this particular motion. We want the government to recognize that it needs to step forward and start making the kinds of investments that are necessary to get people back to work.