Debates of Oct. 19th, 2007

Metallurgy Industry

[Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Conservative, Minister of Labour and Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec]

Mr. Speaker, France, Australia and Quebec all agreed to this transaction. The Minister of Industry also approved Rio Tinto's acquisition of Alcan because it will benefit Canada. Rio Tinto committed to investing $3.9 billion in Canada, $2 billion of that in Quebec. Furthermore, the company's headquarters will be in Montreal, and most of the senior executives will be in Canada.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is clear that the Minister of Industry is not the only one guilty of negligence. The Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec is also guilty of abandoning millions of workers to their fate in my region and even in his very own region.

Does the minister acknowledge that his decisions show just how powerless he is in his cabinet?

[Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Conservative, Minister of Labour and Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec]

Mr. Speaker, I do not understand why the member does not support a $2 billion investment in Quebec. A large part of that money will go to the Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean region to implement Rio Tinto Alcan's new AP50 technology.

Rio Tinto has also promised to contribute $200 million to charities. Furthermore, the company's headquarters will remain in Montreal.

Members of the government, including the Minister of Industry, made this decision because it really is in Canada's best interest.

Privacy

[Garth Turner, Liberal, Halton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, millions of Canadians may have had their privacy breached and their trust misused by members of this House. This is due to CIMS, a database run by the Conservative Party, which each party MP has installed in his or her office.

Unknown to millions of constituents, personal information is routinely fed into this database, which experts are calling a “chilling” breach of ethics. Will the Prime Minister do the ethical thing and release the names of Canadians in this database, giving voters the opportunity, if they wish, to opt out?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Again, Mr. Speaker, I appeal to you in that I fail to see what a political party database has to do with government business.

What I can assure the member of is that no department of this government makes use of that database. It is a party database. I do not understand his concern.

[Garth Turner, Liberal, Halton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will answer that. When the Canadian Press asked the Conservatives if citizens could see their file in the party's secret database, the party asked what the specific reason for that would be.

I will answer that. This is their information. It belongs to them. This is their privacy that the government party has no reason to breach. These are their own members of Parliament elected to serve--

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

The hon. government House leader.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, I will say it again: it is a political party database. How political parties run their campaigns in terms of databases has nothing to do with the administration of government and no department uses it. No minister's office uses it that I know of.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the government has not denied that it obtains and exploits personal information for political purposes. The Conservatives have created a national database that records personal information which was confidentially provided to the Government of Canada.

What Canadians want to hear from the government is that the person elected to represent them is not using the confidential personal information to fundraise for political purposes. Will the Prime Minister cease this unethical practice and stop violating the privacy of Canadians?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Secretary of State (Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity)]

Mr. Speaker, is this not special? The Liberals, who have made an art out of communicating with different communities based on publicly available lists, are now shocked that someone else should do the same thing.

I can see why the member for Thornhill is not asking these questions any more. She very kindly sent out Rosh Hashanah greetings to her constituents: “SHANA TOVA My best wishes for a year filled with peace, good health and happiness”. That was from the MP from Thornhill.

I also got a notice yesterday that members of the Chinese community in her constituency were receiving Chinese New Year's greetings.

Would those members just please stop the hypocrisy?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, invasion of privacy and ethnic or religious profiling is simply unacceptable. If someone contacts an MP with a CPP or passport problem, they do not expect to land up on a political mailing list. For example, we saw this last year when the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke was caught collecting information from passport applications to send out birthday cards.

This type of unethical behaviour is inexcusable and alarms Canadians, who expect their members to represent them, not exploit them. Will the Prime Minister do the honourable thing and stop this unethical practice now?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Secretary of State (Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity)]

Mr. Speaker, only a Liberal could think it is unethical to wish somebody a happy New Year.

Here I have a letter from the co-presidents of the Canadian Jewish Congress, who say:

We commend the Prime Minister for this thoughtful gesture. We are heartened that our elected officials make the effort to extend good wishes to members of other faith communities, communities that make a vibrant contribution to the diverse multicultural fabric of Canada.

That is what the communities are saying, but perhaps that member would like to ask his colleague from Thornhill why she was sending Chinese New Year's greetings to members of the Chinese community in her riding and where she came up with those lists. Probably from the same place we did.

Afghanistan

[Wajid Khan, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Canada is an important member of the international coalition working to rebuild Afghanistan and create stability there. One question on the minds of Canadians right now is this. Are we and our allies winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan people?

I would like the Minister of Foreign Affairs to tell the House now how an average Afghan sees the international mission and does he have any information he can share with the House about Afghan public opinion?

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, the results of a poll conducted by various Canadian media are in. This is a poll on the situation in Afghanistan as experienced by the Afghans.

We note from this poll that 73% of Afghans believe that the women are better off now than they were five years ago. In addition, 84% of Afghans have confidence in the Afghan national army and 76% have confidence in the Afghan national police. Finally, 60% of respondents say that foreign presence is a good thing for their country. Moreover, in Kandahar, where the Canadian troops are centred, six Afghans out of ten feel that some...

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

The hon. member for Trinity—Spadina.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are over 4,000 words in the throne speech and nothing on immigration, nothing on matters that are important for ordinary immigrant communities and families. We have alleged fraud in overseas visa offices in Chandigarh, refugees turned away at the border, thousands of families being split apart and the system is in a complete mess.

Why is the minister ignoring the problem or is the government too busy sending out greeting cards?

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, we certainly take any allegations of fraud or impropriety seriously. Obviously some of the situations arose under the previous government if we were to look at it very closely. However, this government has done more than any previous government in terms of what we do for immigration.

In the last budget, we had $1.3 billion over five years to enhance settlement and immigration programs for newcomers, $13 million over two years creating the foreign credential referral office, $34 million over two years in selecting immigrants with skills and experience into Canada and $51 million over two years to improve the temporary foreign workers program. We are getting something done in the immigration portfolio.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

However, Mr. Speaker, none of that is working because we have thousands of families being cruelly split apart. Let me give an example.

A Vancouver woman cannot bring her husband to Canada because she was born Christian and he is a Muslim. I will quote from a media story. She said, “I never thought my government would try to break my marriage up because of culture and religion”.

Do we have a Minister of Citizenship and Immigration that unites families or do we have a marriage counsellor here?

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, obviously we will not get into the specifics of any particular case but I will say that we treat all cases dispassionately, with merit and on a merit basis. All of the personnel working in immigration treat every case with utmost respect and with appropriate dedication.

Government Appointments

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in 1988, Conservative MP, Lawrence O'Neil, said in the House, about a woman's right to choose:

It appears that there is widespread acceptance of the notion that a mother should have the right to control her body. There is no such right.

Now that same Lawrence O'Neil has been appointed by the government as a justice on the Nova Scotia Supreme Court.

Canadian women fought hard for the right to choose. Will the minister explain how Canadians can believe that he is not packing the courts with Conservative ideologues?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, the individual in question is an outstanding individual who has made great contributions to his community. Similar to the other 117 appointments we have made to the court, all on the basis of merit and legal excellence, any analysis will confirm that this is an outstanding group of individuals who are prepared to serve their sovereign and their country.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is amazing how the only people who seem to be qualified to be judges these days are ideological Conservatives. The former president of the party in Quebec is now a judge, the chair of the Prime Minister's leadership campaign in New Brunswick is now a judge, the party's former chief fundraiser in Alberta is now a federal judge and now a former Conservative MP from Nova Scotia who opposes a woman's right to choose.

How can the minister stand there with a straight face and tell the House that he is not about ideologically based patronage?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, the members of the Liberal Party can in this place, but I would disagree with them doing it, slag and slur the members or the individuals who are prepared to serve on the benches of this country. I invite any independent analysis of the 118 individuals we have appointed to the courts. These are all outstanding Canadians of whom we all can be proud.

Aboriginal Affairs

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, chiefs from the first nation communities of Muskrat Dam, North Spirit, Poplar Hill, Keewaywin and Slate Falls, five communities in my riding, are travelling to Ottawa looking for help from the government. As we speak, the people of these isolated, remote communities are without emergency health care for as many as three out of seven days a week.

This is unacceptable. Access to health care is a basic right that all Canadians deserve. Will the minister meet with the chiefs to solve this blatant double standard in health care for first nations right across Canada?

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary for Health]

Mr. Speaker, the government actually has taken great measures to improve the health care of first nations communities in improving their water quality, making major investments in housing and trying to work with first nations to ensure they get the health care they need in a timely manner.

Quite frankly, first nations people were left in great destitution over the last 13 years and our government is going to clean up the mess left by the previous government.