Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to address the Speech from the Throne. I will try to start out on a positive note and end on a positive note.
Let me start by congratulating my colleague from Yukon for his hard work on bringing some light to human rights abuses in Burma. I congratulate all members of the House for making Aung San Suu Kyi the third honorary Canadian citizen. That is something of which we can all be proud.
The second honorary Canadian citizenship was accorded to Nelson Mandela, who did so much to fight against apartheid. He dedicated his life to that fight. After a lengthy period of imprisonment, he started the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and made sure that South Africa could maintain civil society. I congratulate him on that.
The first person to be an honorary citizen was Raoul Wallenberg. He was a Swedish diplomat in Budapest in 1944. His role in fighting to save Jews in the Holocaust from the Nazis and the Arrow Cross is something that is to be admired by everyone. For the people of Canada to make him the first honorary Canadian citizen speaks well for our country. Unfortunately, Mr. Wallenberg died in a Soviet gulag.
I mentioned Budapest. That is the city of my birth. I was born in 1946 and my family came to this country 50 years ago. My father, who was a Jew, lived through the Holocaust. He lived through the brutal dictatorship of Joseph Stalin as well.
Along the way my family gained a very deep appreciation for human rights and civil liberties. One of the things for which I have a deep appreciation and have fought for in my parliamentary career and when our party was in government is human rights. The one document I take my guidance from is our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
I have been here 50 years, 25 years without the charter and 25 years with the charter. I am deeply disappointed that the throne speech and the actions of the government have not made any mention of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is supposed to unite all of us under the law. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is about that. It is very disappointing that there is no mention of it in the speech.
We are talking about citizenship. I hold in my hand a document, which is the report of the United Nations on the stateless. I am very disappointed to see Canada featured in this report because we have citizenship laws in our country that make people stateless.
The Speech from the Throne talks about honorary citizenship. It seems to me that when we have a Canadian veteran who fought for our country in the second world war, the birthright of his child should be recognized. That is not the case.
We have a Canadian veteran's son who is taking this case to the courts, Mr. Joe Taylor. His father fought for the liberty of our country and the government is taking him to court. It said it would take him all the way to the Supreme Court because he won a decision ordering the government to restore his citizenship.
An article was written in the international magazine, The Economist, which says “Lost in Kafkaland”. It mentions a 70-year-old woman who has been kicked out of our country and denied citizenship because of archaic laws. I cannot underline strongly enough, for the importance of our reputation abroad, that we bring the our Citizenship Act in compliance with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This is 25th anniversary and it is time.
When the Prime Minister was in Australia, he said to the Australian parliament and the press, “I have Senate envy. You elect your senators”. The Prime Minister should have had citizenship envy. Australia suffers from many of the same problems we do with citizenship in our country. It enacted its citizenship act on July 1, Canada Day. It is time for us to catch up. We do not belong in a report of the United Nations that lists countries that make people stateless.
The other issues I have, since I cannot be positive all the time, is Kyoto, from 10, from great, from hero to zero. Abandoning the Kelowna accord is inexcusable. The level of child poverty in our country is inexcusable.
I want to touch on some issues like the democratic deficit, which I fought to help eliminate or make better in the previous government. It is back in spades. Members of the Reform Party used to stand and say that they were here to speak for their constituents, and I was sold on that. I stand and speak for my constituents. Now they stand and speak for the government. That is not the role of a member of Parliament. That really has to change.
The promises of the government to bring in a new citizenship act have been abandoned. The promise of the government to never take away citizenship behind closed doors has been abandoned. They are broken promises.
I want to touch on another issue. The Prime Minister says that he wants a mandate from Parliament to do his programs, that he wants to govern as if he had a majority. I have news for the Prime Minister. A mandate for a majority comes from the citizens of our country through an election. It does not come from politicians.
I want to talk about broken promises. The Prime Minister, when he was opposition leader, came up with some good suggestions as to how to democratize Parliament, such as electing committee chairs. The first thing he did when he came into office was appoint the committee chairs.
I will touch on this issue about the neo-conservative crime fighting agenda. The government has said that it will bring crime rate down. The chiefs of police have said that to reduce crime, it will not be done with more prison guards or more police. It will be done through social development. The government is trying to make Canada as safe as the United States of America, the best laboratory to show that the neo-conservative approach does not work.
I said I would end on a positive note, and I will point to my community in the Waterloo region. The city of Waterloo is celebrating its 150th anniversary. The University of Waterloo is celebrating its 50th anniversary. Canada's Technology Triangle is celebrating its 20th anniversary. Communitech is celebrating its 10th anniversary. My community has something from which the government could take a great lesson.
Our prosperity in the new economy is based on investing in education. It is based on investing in research and development. I am proud to represent the riding that brought to this country the BlackBerry, a company that 14 years ago had 13 employees. Now it has over 5,000 employees and growing.
I will close with the spirit of the University of Waterloo. Waterloo does things differently. Innovation has always been encouraged and rewarded, not just in the research centres across campus, but in the classrooms and the studios, on stage and on the playing fields. Waterloo is not a traditional university. It does not ask why, it asks why not? Why not eliminate child poverty? Why not have a plan that includes Kyoto?