Bill C-293 (Historical)

Official Development Assistance Accountability Act

An Act respecting the provision of official development assistance abroad

This enactment sets out criteria respecting resource allocation to international development agencies and enhances transparency and monitoring of Canada’s international development efforts.

Corporate Accountability of Mining, Oil and Gas Corporations in Developing Countries Act

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Madam Speaker, I am proud to second this important bill, particularly in light of the fact that the member for Scarborough—Guildwood who proposed it has a record of success in private members' business. We recall the way that he worked with Bill C-293, the overseas development act, to make sure that poverty was the focus of overseas development assistance.

I cannot help but react a little to my colleague from the NDP. I understand his concern, but we are trying to do something here. The member for Scarborough—Guildwood has been able to move legislation through the system. It does not happen all that often, as members would know, but he has done it twice now and he is going to work on doing it a third time.

We have to keep in mind that we have to present a bill that can actually pass the House. We want to make a difference; we do not just want to make a point. We cannot let perfect be the enemy of better. This bill will make things better.

Why is the bill important? I think we know why it is important. In Canada we have a unique position. Sixty per cent of the world's mining and exploration companies are listed. There are Canadian companies that have been implicated in practices which none of us would be proud of, both in terms of how they treat the environment and how they treat human rights.

Complaints regarding the impact of the overseas operations of Canadian extractive companies have been lodged with a number of international organizations, so there are problems and Canadians cannot just turn a blind eye to them. We have a responsibility to the people around the world. Canadian companies especially have a responsibility to give something back to the places where they take profit.

In 2007 the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination recommended that Canada take appropriate legislative or administrative measures to prevent acts of transnational corporations from Canada which negatively impact upon the enjoyment of rights of indigenous people outside Canada. We have a responsibility and I think we would all want to see something that would make it better.

As my colleague mentioned, in 2006 the Canadian government was involved in round tables to address corporate misconduct in the extractive industries. There is a whole list of recommendations that were agreed to. I will not bore everybody with the details, but a number of recommendations were agreed to by a wide range of stakeholders: industry, labour, academia and civil society. They agreed on these recommendations and they put them forward, but nothing has happened.

We recognize that there is an issue. We recognize that there are solutions, but we also recognize that the government has done nothing about this issue.

My colleague from the Conservative Party suggested that the Conservatives are going to come up with something that would make this bill redundant. I would suggest that we pass this bill and make whatever they are going to do redundant, if in fact anything is going to come down the pike when it comes to this.

I have had the chance to travel with my colleague from Scarborough—Guildwood and see his commitment to people from other countries, particularly countries that have not been as fortunate as Canada has been. I had the chance to travel to Kenya with him, the former member for Halifax, and our colleague from Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley. He is aware of organizations from Canada that are making a difference, and there are many.

There are many organizations from Canada that are making a huge difference in the third world. There are NGOs that are making a big difference. CIDA can make a difference. Right now my sister is working for WUSC, World University Service of Canada, in Sri Lanka. She is making a difference. We met Canadians on our trip who were with the Red Cross and they were making a difference.

Canada does a lot of very positive things in the world, but we also contribute to the problems that we then have to alleviate. Canadians expect us to do better. There has been some mining of public opinion which indicates that 90% of citizens believe that corporate social responsibility should be a top corporate priority. Sixty-five per cent of surveyed Canadians want companies to go beyond simply obeying laws and become fully accountable for any conduct that might undermine social and environmental health.

Canadians want us to do it. They see there is a problem. I suspect the average Canadian may not know what this means internationally to any great extent, but they have an expectation of Canada to do better. At one point in time Canada had a great reputation, and we still have a good reputation, but I would say it has been undermined to some extent.

I noticed that Canada ranked 10th in the 2007 Responsible Competitiveness Index 2007. A lot of countries ranked below us, but as usual our Nordic friends and many countries in Europe, as well as Australia and New Zealand, are ahead of us in corporate responsibility.

It is possible to do better. My colleague mentioned that there are companies that do a good job for us. I know of one that is based in Nova Scotia, a company called Etruscan Resources. They had a gold mine, one that was not desperately profitable at the time, in Niger, which is very near the bottom of the human development index of the United Nations. At the time, I think it was 173rd out of 174.

There was a potential for mining, but they decided that before they took any profits out, they would make sure there was some social infrastructure there. They came to my father, who had just resigned as the premier of Nova Scotia, and asked for his help. He was delighted to help and very proud of the work he was able to do. They built a health clinic that exists to this day. They brought in the Rotary Club from Dartmouth. They have had some international assistance, and the Canadian government has helped a little bit. They have left a lasting legacy of Canadian goodwill and investment in that community. I believe they are now doing some business in Burkina Faso.

There are companies that take this responsibility very seriously, and I applaud companies like Etruscan Resources. I applaud people like Gerry McConnell, the president of that company, who has taken a responsible view. I say with some measure of pride that the health complex is named after my late parents, John and Margaret Savage. It is a source of great pride to our family. The people in that community have a very high opinion of Canada, and I think Etruscan Resources and other companies like it deserve an awful lot of credit.

That is how Canadians would expect a Canadian company to do business. If we are going to go overseas, make money and mine the land, we should do it responsibly. We should respect the environment. We have all heard stories of companies that have not been so respectful. More than anything else, we need to treat the people with the respect that we ourselves would want to receive. As an international player, I am afraid we are not the gold standard anymore, but we can do better. We should do better. We should live up to the expectations that the people in this country have for us, and we should go beyond them.

We should recognize the work that international aid organizations do in pulling all this stuff together and in keeping us responsible. I hope and expect that support for this bill will equal the support for my colleague's last bill. Organizations like the CCIC, which does so much good work in Canada, Make Poverty History, Development and Peace, the Micah Challenge, and the Primate's World Relief and Development Fund all believe that we can make the world better. Let us get behind this bill and encourage government members to support it. We can get it to the committee stage. We can work on it and do all the things our colleagues want us to do. However, let us remember that we are here to make the world a better place. We are here to make a difference, not just to make a point.

I applaud my colleague for bringing this bill forward. I am very proud to second it and I hope that all members in the House will support it.

Tackling Violent Crime Legislation

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would have been much more impressed by the hon. minister's speech had he not first killed his own legislation in order to bring us to this point in the first place. Every element of the bill that is currently before the Senate was in the Senate prior to prorogation.

In 2006 the Liberal Party offered to fast track this legislation, but we were refused. In 2007 we offered to fast track it and again we were refused. The bills passed through the House and were sitting in the Senate and being dealt with in an expeditious manner. Then the government killed its own legislation by prorogation.

So what we have here is a minister telling us to pass this legislation, to pass this legislation because we must have this legislation, and all he is doing is recycling his speeches from last year because he likes to make those speeches. For goodness' sake, the Conservative government has wasted a year and a half on its own legislation and now it has the gall to tell the Senate to hurry up.

My goodness gracious me. It is an extraordinary circumstance in which a minister kills his own legislation through prorogation, then comes back to the House and says he has a new package and he wants us to pass it immediately. That is my number one point.

My number two point is about the further hypocrisy of the government. Two bills, Bill C-292 and Bill C-293, have been sitting in the Senate since March 2007. Conservative senators stonewall them, divert them and do everything but deal with them. Therefore, I wonder if the minister's enthusiasm to have the senators move on his own legislation extends to other bills that this chamber has in fact passed.

Royal Recommendation--Bill C-474

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, on Friday, December 7, the Acting Speaker invited comments on whether Bill C-474 requires a royal recommendation.

Without commenting on the merits of the bill, I submit that the bill's provisions to establish a new and independent commissioner of the environment and sustainable development who would be a new agent of Parliament would require new government spending and therefore, would require a royal recommendation.

Clause 13 of Bill C-474 would require the governor in council to appoint a new commissioner of the environment and sustainable development. The clause sets out the powers, duties and term of office of the new commissioner. This would be an organizational change which would require increased spending. There are numerous precedents to this effect.

The requirement for a royal recommendation for a new agent of Parliament is made clear in the Speaker's ruling of November 9, 1978, and I quote, “...if this bill is to impose a new duty on the officers of the Crown...these objectives...will necessitate expenditures of a nature which would require the financial initiative of the Crown”.

The requirement for a royal recommendation for organizational changes, such as establishing a new department or a commissioner, is referred to in the Speaker's ruling of July 11, 1988, and again I quote:

...to establish a separate Department of Government and a commissioner of Multiculturalism...undoubtedly would cause a significant charge upon the Federal Treasury in order for the new Department to function on a daily basis.

The Speaker's ruling of September 19, 2006 on Bill C-293 concluded that the creation of an advisory committee requires a royal recommendation since this clearly would require the expenditure of public funds in a manner and for a purpose not currently authorized. I quote from that ruling:

--the establishment of the advisory committee for international development cooperation provided for in clause 6 clearly would require the expenditure of public funds...

I believe this principle should apply to Bill C-474 since the creation of an independent commissioner of the environment and sustainable development would clearly require new spending to remunerate the commissioner and to provide administrative support to the commissioner. Although the bill does not specify these requirements, the Speaker has ruled that a royal recommendation would, nevertheless, be needed.

The Speaker's ruling of February 8, 2005 states:

Where it is clear that the legislative objective of a bill cannot be accomplished without the dedication of public funds to that objective, the bill must be seen as the equivalent of a bill effecting an appropriation.

I would suggest this was the reason that a royal recommendation was required for the 1995 amendments to the Auditor General Act that established the office of the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development within the Auditor General's office.

The office of the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development has over 40 staff and reported spending $2.8 million in 2006-07 for sustainable development monitoring activities and environmental petitions. It must follow that the establishment of an independent commissioner of the environment and sustainable development would require an office of professionals to support the commissioner in carrying out his or her duties, as set out in clause 13.

Since Bill C-474 would represent a change to the conditions and qualifications that were attached to the original legislation that established the office of the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development, a new royal recommendation would be required for Bill C-474.

Page 183 of Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms reads:

--an amendment infringes the financial initiative of the Crown not only if it increases the amount but also if it extends the objects and purposes, or relaxes the conditions and qualifications expressed in the communication by which the Crown has demanded or recommended a charge.

It is clear that by removing the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development from within the office of the auditor general and making the commissioner report directly to Parliament, Bill C-474 is proposing a change to the conditions and qualifications that were attached to the original legislation. Therefore, I submit that Bill C-474 requires a royal recommendation.

Pearson Peacekeeping Centre

[Caroline St-Hilaire, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the motion that was introduced by our Liberal colleague from West Nova and is before us today is very positive, in my opinion. The proposal that the federal government fully fund the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre does not seem like a whim to me, because the centre's mission is fully in line with the Bloc Québécois position on foreign development assistance.

As you know, political, geographical and religious conflicts cause serious harm to people, and even one conflict is one too many. The Pearson Peacekeeping Centre was created at the federal government's request in 1994, when a number of countries bordering Germany and Russia were in a rather unstable and fragile state after the fall of the eastern bloc. The centre's mission is to train civilians, military personnel and police officers for peacekeeping missions and to promote research in order to guide public policy debate.

The increasing demands of conflict prevention and resolution, and the growing scope of Canada's involvement in all aspects of peace operations required the creation of a focal point for education, training, and research activities. The teaching environment needed to be multidisciplinary and international, providing a location where persons from different professional, cultural and national backgrounds could learn together. This diversity reflects actual field conditions. The Pearson Peacekeeping Centre was established in Nova Scotia in 1995 and expanded in 1999, opening an office in Montreal to better serve the international francophone community. In November 2003, recognizing the importance of having a presence close to the seat of government, the centre opened a liaison office in Ottawa. Most of the centre's official courses are given abroad, in Africa, eastern Europe and Latin America.

Unfortunately, the centre has always had funding problems. When it was created in 1994, it was supposed to be financially self-sufficient by 1999. It has proven to be difficult for a peacekeeping training centre to be self-sufficient. The Bloc Québécois thinks it is important for the federal government to subsidize this centre. In March, the Bloc Québécois was pleased with the Conservative government's decision to give the Pearson Centre $13.8 million over three years, from March 2007 to March 2010. This funding was for the basic infrastructure of the centre: salaries, rent, equipment, etc. The funding does not cover the projects and courses offered by the centre. It is piecemeal. For example, CIDA is responsible for funding conferences in Canada and abroad.

Until recently, the Department of National Defence funded training courses on peacekeeping missions at the Cornwallis office in Nova Scotia. Located outside major centres in a small community, the advantage of this site is that simulations for the purposes of exercises can be held without disturbing people in the surrounding areas.

The Department of National Defence has decided to stop funding the training courses at the Cornwallis office, saying that National Defence will provide training itself at the base in Kingston.

The only purpose of the Cornwallis office was to provide training. Without federal funding for these courses, the Cornwallis office may have to close its doors. Training is at the very heart of the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre's mandate. The Cornwallis section is very important and the upheaval that will result from closing this section could be very damaging to the centre.

The importance of the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre should not be underestimated. The training and policy directions there are directly related to the policy Canada has been developing since the days of Pearson, whose goal it was in the 1950s to devote 0.7% of gross domestic product to development assistance—an objective I would point out has still not been met, unfortunately.

The development assistance envelope has not stopped shrinking, going from a little less than 0.5% in 1991-92 to 0.45% in 1993 and 0.25% in 2000.

The decrease was particularly significant when the Liberals were in power, but the Conservatives have not managed to do much better.

Through the debate on the motion, I want to reiterate today that the Bloc Québécois is committed to having the federal government implement a realistic and concrete plan to achieve the UN target of 0.7% of GDP for international assistance by 2015. To reach this, the Conservatives must start increasing development assistance budgets now, at an average rate of 12% to 15% per year.

The Bloc Québécois' desire to see this happen is genuine , since we have worked long and hard to improve Bill C-293 to make the development assistance objectives as clear and effective as possible, by proposing that the federal government make all bilateral assistance dependent on respecting fundamental human rights, but also ensure that the money is not diverted from its original purpose.

The Bloc Québécois believes that, given the importance of the Pearson Centre, the government should work with it to ensure a seamless transition from DND funding of training courses to other funding. The federal government should provide full funding temporarily, until the Centre can find new clients to fund its training courses. The federal government has the means to fund this Centre.

Under no circumstances should the Conservative government reverse its decision to fund the basic infrastructure of the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre.

Because the Bloc Québécois has always supported initiatives aimed at resolving conflicts through dialogue and mediation, the Bloc Québécois supports Motion M-311.

Extension of Sitting Hours

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one piece of legislation which should be certainly the concern of this House is the private member's Bill C-293, which deals with Canada's official aid position and CIDA, and which is also in the Senate. It would guide the work of CIDA in the future in ways which would pick up on the themes of fighting poverty, which have been so important to everybody in this House.

Budget Implementation Act, 2007

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise and take part in the debate on the budget implementation act. It is obviously one of the most important legislation that comes before the House every year.

When I thought what I might talk about today there were a number of things. I have to bypass the easy way, which is to only talk about the Atlantic accord that is resonating throughout Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia. I might touch on the subject of the Atlantic accord, but I want to talk more generally about the budget and how I think it has divided Canadians. It is a very cynical budget.

There is a lot about which we can talk. With the amount of money spent on this budget, the richest budget ever, Canadians would be right to have assumed that everybody should have had Christmas Day on budget day. In fact, it was far from festive for most Canadians. The budget could have done a great many things if it had been focused on helping those who needed help the most, or maybe if it had focused on innovation, the productivity gap, aboriginal Canadians, the environment and other things.

I suspect the response to the budget across the country has not been what the government wants or what the Minister of Finance wants. We can go to the minister's website and see the online poll he has done. He asks Canadians if they have benefited from the budget and 93% of the respondents have said no. That is a pretty significant number.

It is not only the minister's website. A number of other people have done some very open-minded and objective evaluations of the budget. One of the institutes that I go to quite frequently is the Caledon Institute. It does great research and work on a number of issues. I notice that its evaluation of the budget was, as usual, very thorough and effective.

I will read a few quotes by the Caledon Institute. It calls it “Mixed Brew for the 'Coffee Shop' Budget”. It says, among other things:

The ‘new’ child tax credit—in reality an obsolete program resurrected from the 1980s—tops this list. The funds for this inequitable scheme could have been far better spent on increasing the existing progressive Canada Child Tax Benefit or creating additional child care spaces. These...investments would have been much more helpful to ordinary Canadian families than a child tax credit that gives $310 to millionaires who do not need it and nothing to the poorest who do.

That is quite indicting.

Another quote says:

Ottawa has chosen instead to introduce a bundle of tax carrots that will serve a variety of particular groups but will provide little or no benefit to the broader population of low- and modest-income Canadians. The Budget could well have been named “Opportunities Lost.” With a $19 billion price tag, never has so much been spent with so little result.

It seems to me that the leader of our party has said very similar things to that. I agree with him and I agree with the Caledon Institute.

The institute also refers to specifically “The “New” Child Tax Credit: a policy zombie resurrected”. It says:

All non-poor families will receive $310, including the very rich; some low-income families with a low tax liability will receive a smaller amount, while the poorest will get nothing at all because they do not owe income tax.

The poorest families will get nothing. This measure will make income inequality among families worse, not better.

It refers to last year's universal child care benefit and says:

—this Budget’s non-refundable child tax credit are inequitable, wasteful programs that deliver benefits to upper-income families for whom the payments are a meaningless drop in their income bucket, while depriving low- and middle-income families...

The institute goes on in a lot of different ways. For example, it talks about aboriginal Canadians who are noticeably absent from the budget. It says:

The Kelowna Accord was a solemn agreement signed by the provinces, territories, First Nations and Aboriginal organizations, and the previous Canadian government.

It talks about the new federal government rejecting the Kelowna accord and says:

Now it becomes apparent that Canada’s New Government has no plan at all, unless doing as little as possible can be characterized as a plan.

That is a reasoned, thought out, analytical view of what the budget has done. It is not only the Caledon Institute that says this. I suspect if Kelowna is a socialist plot, then the government would think that the Caledon Institute is probably a socialist organization to the government side.

It is a long time since I have heard Andrew Coyne called a socialist. The National Post suggests:

—with this budget. [the Minister of Finance] becomes officially the biggest spending Finance Minister in the history of Canada. That's after inflation and population growth is taken into account. They've now increased under this Conservative government...spending by $25 billion in two years. Is this what Conservative voters wanted? No sense of priorities, not a nickel in real, honest to God tax cuts of any kind. There's a lot of spending programs disguised as tax credits for children...which may be fine programs, but they're programs, not tax cuts.

Nancy Hughes Anthony, president of the Chamber of Commerce, another well known socialist, suggests:

I don't think there's anything new there. [He] actually told us at the time of his income trust announcement in October that he would adjust the tax cuts corporate tax cuts in the future...instead, we saw small little targeted breaks for everybody from lacrosse fans to truckdrivers.

In general, this is an unfocused budget. Most Canadians know that if we really wanted to increase productivity and benefit Canadians, particularly those who might be able to use a bit of a break, we would lower personal income taxes, perhaps to the level the Liberals did in the economic update of November 2005.

What else got mentioned in the budget but got very little action? How about the environment? John Bennett, senior policy analyst for the Sierra Club of Canada, says:

This government has abandoned its obligations to the Kyoto protocol and abandoned its moral responsibility to keep our international commitments...This government has no intention of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It has every intention of trying to sound like it does, but has no intention to actually do it.

That is consistent throughout the budget. The government sounds like it can do something without actually having to do it.

On social programs, Monica Lysack of the Child Care Advocacy Association says:

For a government that identified childcare as one of their priorities, this is an admission of failure.

There was an editorial in the Toronto Star. There are a number of things I could say, but let me quote this. It says:

What is left, then, is not a crafty pre-election budget, but a financial document that is unfocused, that is devoid of a national strategy to tackle any of the major social issues facing this country, and that does little to help the poorest of the poor.

Aboriginal Canadians are perhaps the most targeted group in the budget by their exclusion. Phil Fontaine, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, says:

We're extremely disappointed, frustrated because it's obvious that those that did well today are those that are considered important to this government. Those that are viewed as unimportant did badly, and we did badly.

An awful lot of issues in the budget have not been addressed.

There are a couple more issues in the development area, both regional development and international development. For the second budget in a row under the Conservative government there is no mention of regional development programs like ACOA.

Previous governments had a big plan for ACOA, which in the last number of years has done some amazing work in Atlantic Canada and has invested in research and innovation. The Atlantic innovation fund has driven university research and has helped Atlantic Canada's strong but generally smaller universities to compete and provide innovative solutions and also commercialization of products. There is no mention in the budget.

The minister suggests there have been no cuts to ACOA, and we hear that all the time, but consistently the estimates indicate not only cuts to regional development across the board but to ACOA. The money is shifted from here to there, but there is never any evidence of what is actually happening with the spending. Regional development is a big issue.

On international development, I will tell the House a story about a trip I took to Kenya with three other members of the House, three friends, the Conservative member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, the member for Halifax and the member for Scarborough—Guildwood, who sponsored the great private member's Bill C-293, the overseas development assistance act, to make poverty the focus of international development.

There is so much that Canada can do in the world. It does not all have to be centred on Afghanistan. In fact, we see everyday in countries like Kenya the needs of the developing world and so many ways that Canada can help. Canada has helped and I hope it will continue to help.

When the four of us went to Kenya, we saw some amazing things and amazing people. We met Beatrice, who lost all seven of her children and their partners in less than two years to HIV related issues. She was a grandmother. She was a street beggar. She had 12 grandchildren. What was she going to do? She thought she would have to poison her grandchildren because she could not take care of them. Instead, she got up one day and decided she would do something about it. She borrowed $15 U.S. from a micro credit in the slums of Nairobi, and today she runs three businesses in the slums.

This is the kind of resilience that exists in third world. These are the kinds of people who can make a huge difference.

Susan is a woman who we met in Eldoret in western Kenya. I remember my colleague from Scarborough—Guildwood was particularly touched by her. She worked in a microcredit in a big, open, empty warehouse with some sewing machines and people making bags. We went over to talk to Susan. She looked up at us happy and smiling and said, “Thank you, God” for the blessings he had given her. She is HIV positive and was given up for dead. Now she is living and working because of a microcredit. She makes lovely cloth bags with beads on them. We asked her how many she could make in a day. She said that she could make five bags in a day. How much does she get paid for each bag? Eight Kenyan shillings. She makes forty Kenyan shillings a day, which is the equivalent of 65¢ or 70¢ Canadian in a day.

We all know about the terrible rates of poverty, disease and the lack of sanitation in which people exist throughout the world. Working full time, she makes less than $1 Canadian a day and she considers herself fortunate.

What the people of Kenya can do with little should be such a spur to countries like Canada to invest in making their lives better. We can do so much. We should hit our millennium target of 0.7% of GNI to international aid. I felt that on the government side. We can do this.

In countries like Kenya and other African countries in sub-Saharan Africa there is a resilience, a strength, an entrepreneurial savvy among the people who simply have nothing, but make do. Not only do they make do, but they thank God for what he or she has given them. It is an inspiration.

Canada can do a lot more. I would like to see more mention of international development. I would like to see Canada commit to reaching 0.7%. At the very least I would like to see us ensure that we maintain the work we have done in places like Kenya where CIDA has been active. Its funding may be threatened over the next few years for the work it does on tuberculosis.

Kenya is a country about the size of Canada. Three hundred Kenyans a day die of tuberculosis. How many people in Canada even think tuberculosis is still a disease about which to worry? Five hundred people a day die of HIV. Millions of young African children die of malaria. We can do so much more. The area of international development is lacking in the budget as well.

I want to turn for a second to the issue of the Atlantic accord. This is an issue that has absolutely dominated discussion in Nova Scotia and in Newfoundland and Labrador. We hear about it from Premier Danny Williams and a bit about it from Rodney MacDonald. This is the dominant issue in Atlantic Canada. We can listen to what the premiers have said about it.

We have all heard what Danny Williams has had to say. He has stood up and he has fought for his province. He wants to keep what he fought for. He says:

A promise was made. We expected that promise to be kept by the Prime Minister and, indeed, his government....Even though he is claiming that they are excluding 100% of non-renewable natural resource revenues [they are not]....There is a sense of betrayal, a sense of disappointment.

That just about says it all.

Rodney MacDonald, the Premier of Nova Scotia is not the most fiery of speakers. He is concerned about the accord, though. On March 19, he said:

It's almost as if they want to continue giving handouts to Nova Scotians rather than us keeping our offshore accord and that to me is fundamentally unfair.

A lot of people in Canada do not fully understand this. When we debated it in the House of Commons, people on the other side stood up and asked foolish questions. It does not matter to them. They get briefing notes from some hack in the Department of Finance or a backroom Conservative who hauls it out and says “Go fight the battle”. They have no idea what this actually means.

Let me just educate members a bit on the Atlantic accord. This is the agreement that was reached between the Government of Canada and the Government of Nova Scotia on offshore revenues on Valentine's Day 2005. It says:

—the Government of Canada intends to provide additional offset payments to the province in respect of offshore-related Equalization reductions, effectively allowing it to retain the benefit of 100 per cent of its offshore resource revenues.

Then it says:

The amount of additional offset payment for a year shall be calculated as the difference between the Equalization payment that would be received by the province under the Equalization formula as it exists at the time...

Very simply, this means that offshore revenues are excluded from equalization. If equalization goes up, the provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador would get the improved equalization plus they would keep their offshore revenues. A choice has allegedly been offered to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador which would have the old equalization with the old formula or the new equalization that some in the rest of Canada will benefit from. We should have both. It should not be one or the other.

The former Prime Minister, the member for LaSalle—Émard, the member for Halifax West, who was regional minister, and the then minister of finance and now our House leader, did a great job on that for the people of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador.

If anybody thinks the offshore is just politics, I would like to read a few headlines. I will not go into details. Marilla Stephenson said in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald dated the week of the budget:

Note to Rodney: Stephen played you big time. The Prime Minister has played you like a fiddle. If any theme rang through the Prime Minister's budget delivered on Monday night, it was that the have-nots are to remain, well, have-nots. The Prime Minister stoops to conquer. Jeering from the sidelines were the budget's unlucky trio of obvious losers: Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Saskatchewan. All are now victims of a calculated insult--

David Rodenhiser in the Halifax Daily News said:

Nova Scotians are left asking themselves: Who's standing up for us? Right now, the answer is no one. Certainly not our federal cabinet minister, the member for Central Nova, who's defending Ottawa rather than Nova Scotia on this. And not MacDonald, who's content to pursue process rather than take action. MacDonald repeatedly stated yesterday that provincial finance officials are gathering information and requesting meetings--

Here is a headline entitled: “Atlantic Tories running for cover; Cabinet representatives urged to stand up for region's rights”. Another one says it all. The headline in the Chronicle-Herald reads: “Federal Conservatives shaft province, once again”. There is not much more to be said about that.

Now the topic has even changed a bit because for a while we heard that the provinces did not really get a bad deal because they had a choice of two deals. That lasted about a week.

In the Halifax Chronicle-Herald on Saturday it stated, “It appears that Ottawa and Nova Scotia are now working on an accord deal. Plans said to be a compromise on the scrapped 2005 Atlantic accord agreement”.

There is not much question that Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador were betrayed by their cabinet representatives and by their Conservative members with the dismantling of the Atlantic accord, a deal which provided such hope for the people of Nova Scotia and for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. Apparently, other provinces feel the same way. Having spent two weeks back home, I can tell the House that this is not an issue likely to fade anytime soon.

ACOA, international development, the Atlantic accord, the failure on child care, and leaving the poorest of the poor vulnerable are not acceptable. Some things were not even mentioned in the budget that have come to pass.

Last Friday, members of the Coast Guard in my own community of Dartmouth--Cole Harbour were called to a meeting and were told there were going to be new Coast Guard vessels. They would be made in Canada. They were also told that their jobs would be moved from Dartmouth, where they have been for years, to St. John's, Newfoundland, which happens to be the riding of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and the minister responsible for the Coast Guard. There was no explanation, no business plan, or no idea of where this came from. There was no explanation given to the workers about what was going on. We do not even know if there is a dock in St. John's that could handle them. That is an insult to the people of Dartmouth--Cole Harbour. They are rightly concerned about this issue.

This budget is designed very clearly for the next election, not the next generation. It is political arithmetic, add a few votes here, appeal to a few votes there, pander, troll for votes in bunches where they can be found. If people do not vote Conservative and likely never will, or they contribute too small of a voting block, too bad. There is nothing for them. Aboriginal Canadians, sorry. Low income families, sorry. Atlantic Canada, sorry.

The budget is a cynical concoction of winners and losers. Guess who the real losers are? The real losers are the people who need help the most.

We have benefited as a nation from governments, mainly Liberal but also PC, that have built the social infrastructure of Canada. We are now witnessing a government that is ignoring the needs of the vulnerable and is spending billions of dollars trying to buy the next election. It is not the way good governance is done. It is not the way to inspire a nation. It is wrong and it needs to be fixed.

Official Development Assistance

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as you may or may not know, my private member's bill will be the final hour of debate tonight. It is a bill with respect to official development assistance. It is to take into account the alleviation of poverty for other citizens of this world, take into account the perspectives of the poor, and to meet our human rights obligations.

This bill has enjoyed wide support on both sides of the House. It was at one time, in fact, supported by the Prime Minister.

Over the course of this morning, 10,000 names will be deposited on the floor of this House in support of this bill and other matters.

In the petition that I am tabling, the petitioners request that Parliament enact legislation to ensure that all Canadian development assistance contributes to poverty reduction, takes into account the perspectives of the poor, and is consistent with Canada's human rights obligations.

That is exactly what Bill C-293 is all about. I am hoping for support from all sides of the House, not only in debate tonight but on the subsequent vote.

Bill C-293—Development Assistance Accountability Act—Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

I am now prepared to rule on the point of order raised by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader on February 16, 2007, concerning amendments reported by the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development on February 1, 2007 to Bill C-293, An Act respecting the provision of development assistance abroad.

The parliamentary secretary referred to my previous ruling of September 19, 2006, where I addressed the need for a royal recommendation for this bill. At that time, I identified several clauses in the bill which contained the provisions for the authorization of new spending for a distinct purpose.

To quote from the ruling:

The Chair has reviewed this matter carefully and agrees that the establishment of the advisory committee for international development cooperation provided for in clause 6 clearly would require the expenditure of public funds in a manner and for a purpose not currently authorized.

Similarly, the provisions in clauses 7 to 10, which describe the functions of the advisory committee with regard to the process of petitioning and reporting, are also functions which would require the authorization of spending for a new and distinct purpose.

As such, clause 6 and clauses 7 to 10 cause the bill as a whole in its current form to require a royal recommendation. Accordingly, I will decline to put the question on third reading of this bill unless a royal recommendation is received.

In his intervention, the Parliamentary Secretary asked for an assessment of the effect of committee amendments on the clauses identified by the Chair. He also raised questions concerning the operation of clauses 3 and 4 which he contends affect the terms and conditions attached to the original legislation.

The Parliamentary Secretary cited previous rulings which underlined the need to adhere to the terms and conditions of the royal recommendation and not only to the amount of spending.

Finally, he referred to the fact that the Chair did not consider clauses 3 and 4 in its ruling of September 19, 2006.

The Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development adopted a number of amendments to the bill following my ruling on September 19, 2006. Notably and most importantly the committee deleted clause 6 which created the advisory committee. The committee also deleted clauses 7, 8 and 10 which dealt with the functions of the advisory committee, and amended clauses 3 and 9 so as to remove references to the advisory committee.

Therefore, the provisions which were earlier identified by the Chair as requiring a royal recommendation because they were related to or were dependent upon the establishment of the advisory committee were removed from Bill C-293.

I will now turn to the issues involving clauses 3 and 4 of the bill as addressed by the parliamentary secretary.

Clause 3 is known as the interpretation clause and contains definitions for the terms used in this piece of legislation. The parliamentary secretary notes that the committee introduced a definition for “official development assistance” which reads as follows:

“official development assistance” means international assistance

(a) that is administered with the principal objective of promoting the economic development and welfare of developing countries, that is concessional in character, that conveys a grant element of at least 25%, and that meets the requirements set out in section 4; and/or

(b) that is provided for the purpose of alleviating the effects of a natural or artificial disaster or other emergency occurring outside Canada.

He argued that this definition and similar provisions in clause 4 alter the terms and conditions of the original legislative authority and consequently cause the bill to require a royal recommendation. The parliamentary secretary raised some important points that the Chair wishes to address, the first being that provisions in subclause 4.(2) oblige the minister to consult.

The Chair is of the view that this sort of provision does not create new spending for a distinct purpose. Consultations like this fall within the ongoing mandate of the minister. The Chair, however, does have serious concerns about the claim that provisions in the definition add new conditions and criteria to official development assistance that is, “concessional in character, [and] that conveys a grant element of at least 25%”.

The parliamentary secretary argued that these provisions alter the conditions and qualifications originally attached to assistance for developing countries as found in subsection 10.(3) of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Act which reads as follows:

The Minister may develop and carry out programs related to the Minister’s powers, duties and functions for the promotion of Canada’s interests abroad including:

(b) the provision of assistance for developing countries.

As this is a fairly broad statutory provision, the Chair conducted some further research, to better understand how existing official development assistance, as presently authorized by acts of Parliament, was currently being provided.

The Chair turned to the departmental performance report for the Canadian International Development Agency for the year ending March 31, 2006. On page 8 it states:

In 2005-2006, CIDA's authorized budget was $3.3 billion and its actual spending was $3.1 billion, disbursed mainly through grants and contributions...CIDA's budget is part of the International Assistance Envelope (IAE), a jointly-managed envelope which funds official development assistance (ODA), as defined by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Development Assistance Committee.

I will not give all the letters for those but I am going to refer to them now.

And in footnote 4, it says:

ODA is defined by the OECD-DAC as funding transferred “to development countries and multilateral institutions provided by official government agencies which meets the following tests: (a) it is administered with the promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries as its main objective, and (b) it is concessional in character and conveys a grant element of at least 25%”.

The Chair notes that the criteria presently used for the disbursement of grants and contributions for official development assistance, as explained by the government in the departmental performance report, is identical to the criteria found in clause 3 of Bill C-293.

Bill C-293 at first reading only contained a reference to the OECD-DAC in clause 3. Amendments adopted in committee simply inserted in the interpretation clause the full text of the existing criteria used by the government. The Chair therefore must conclude that the conditions and qualifications, which were attached to the original authorization for spending, have not been altered in any manner. If anything, the bill reinforces the criteria presently employed by the government itself. Consequently, in the unique context this bill presents, and despite an impressive demonstration of scholarly research by the parliamentary secretary who quoted from previous rulings of mine and of Mr. Speaker Fraser, I must conclude that these provisions in Bill C-293, as amended, do not cause the bill to require a royal recommendation.

The Chair has examined carefully all other amendments adopted by the standing committee and can confirm that none of these additional modifications would require a royal recommendation.

To summarize then, the deletions made by the committee eliminated the problematic issue set out in my earlier ruling last September. Consequently, debate on this bill may proceed and the Chair will put the question on third reading of the bill in its present form, which requires no royal recommendation.

I thank all hon. members for their patience in listening to this rather lengthy explanation and ruling.

Bill C-293--Development Assistance Accountability Act

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, on May 13, 2006, you included Bill C-293 in a list of private members' items with possible royal recommendation issues. Following interventions in the House, on September 19, 2006, you ruled that the bill, as it was introduced, requires a royal recommendation.

You found that the creation of an advisory committee and new reporting requirements for ministers:

--require the authorization of spending for a new and distinct purpose.

As such, clause 6 and clauses 7 to 10 cause the bill as a whole in its current form to require a royal recommendation.

On February 1, the bill was reported from committee with numerous amendments.

Without commenting on the merits of this bill, I would appreciate your consideration of whether this bill still requires a royal recommendation under Standing Order 79, for two reasons.

First, while the committee deleted clauses 6 to 8, the bill as amended continues to include clause 9, and the provisions that had been in clause 10 have been substantially incorporated into clause 9. Given that your previous ruling concluded that clauses 9 and 10 required a royal recommendation, I would welcome your ruling on whether the bill still requires a royal recommendation.

A second aspect of the bill that may require a royal recommendation is that the bill would establish new conditions and criteria respecting the provision of official development assistance beyond those in the initial bill.

The committee amended clause 3 of the bill to provide for a definition of “official development assistance”, which includes that it be “concessional in character”, that it “conveys a grant element of at least 25%”, and that it “meets the requirements set out in section 4” of the bill.

Clause 4 of the bill places restrictions on the provision of official development assistance. Clause 4 was amended in committee to change the wording in subclause 4(2), obliging the minister to “consult with governments, international agencies and Canadian civil society organizations” before spending official development assistance. Clause 4 was also amended to provide a new subclause 4(3), which places a new condition on the calculation of official development assistance.

Authority for official development assistance is currently provided in subsection 10(3) of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Act, which provides the Minister of Foreign Affairs with authority to develop and carry out programs in relation to the minister's powers, including for the provision of assistance to developing countries.

You did not consider clauses 3 and 4 in your initial ruling on Bill C-293 on September 19, 2006. However, there have been new developments since that time.

In your ruling on Bill C-303 on November 6, 2006, you found that adding new conditions and criteria to an otherwise authorized expenditure requires a royal recommendation and that the clauses of Bill C-303:

--which relate to the making of transfer payments according to the specified criteria and conditions, require a royal recommendation.

This principle should apply to Bill C-293 as well, which would impose new conditions on government spending.

Other precedents make clear that adding new conditions to an otherwise authorized expenditure require a royal recommendation. For example, on April 23, 1990, Speaker Fraser ruled that a royal recommendation was appropriate because the bill in question would:

--change the conditions and qualifications that were attached to the original legislation recommended by the Governor General.

This is exactly what clauses 3 and 4 of Bill C-293 would do, by imposing new conditions on development assistance.

Therefore, due to the committee's amendments and in light of your ruling on Bill C-303, the government believes that Bill C-293 continues to require a royal recommendation.

I would respectfully welcome your ruling on this matter.

Africa

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, last month I had the opportunity to visit Africa with my colleagues from Halifax, Cumberland—Colchester and Scarborough—Guildwood. Our trip was arranged by RESULTS Canada, an outstanding NGO that advocates on issues of poverty.

We visited the notorious slums of Nairobi and other regions of Kenya to gain insight into the effects of HIV-AIDS, malaria and TB, an absolutely curable disease that needlessly kills 300 Kenyans every day.

We visited a micro credit trust, Jammi Bora, which is doing transformative work with the poorest of the poor. We met remarkable people like Beatrice who has lost all seven of her children and their spouses to HIV in less than two years but who has overcome this to raise her 12 grandchildren.

Africa is a continent of horror but also of hope, of people who are resilient, industrious and entrepreneurial.

Canada must do more. We can do more by passing Bill C-293, focusing our aid on poverty, and by recommitting to our millennium development goals.

The world needs more Canada and Africa needs more from Canada.

Foreign Affairs and International Development

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the sixth report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development in relation to Bill C-293, An Act respecting the provision of development assistance abroad. In accordance with its orders of reference of Wednesday, September 30, 2006, the committee has considered Bill C-293, and agreed on Wednesday, December 13, 2006 to report it with amendments.

The Conservative Government

[Caroline St-Hilaire, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, once again yesterday, the Conservatives demonstrated their insensitivity and their shocking lack of compassion for the underprivileged people of the planet by their overwhelming vote against Bill C-293. We have seen that the Conservative members from Quebec do not in any way uphold the values of other Quebeckers.

This bill does no more than affirm a principle that should govern any international aid from the Government of Canada. That is that the end goal should be the eradication of poverty.

This position is even more difficult to accept because, only a few months ago, the current Prime Minister was a co-signer, along with the leaders of the Bloc Québécois and the NDP, of a letter addressed to the then Liberal prime minister making this very request.

In fact, this attitude of the Conservatives reinforces an impression strongly created by the Prime Minister during the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East. This is a warlike prime minister for whom humanitarian concerns are a foreign language.

You may rest assured, Mr. Speaker, that we will be here to translate for him.