Debates of March 3rd, 2009

Budget Implementation Act, 2009

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is always an interesting experience to listen to Liberals try to give themselves a clean conscience, as they vote against women's rights, the environment and social and union rights. They try to give themselves a clean conscience by convincing themselves that somehow this is a stimulus package that will help the economy, whereas their member from Markham—Unionville, who has always been with me in committee, has said the same thing; that a lot of this is a pure fiction.

Of the 1.9% of GDP that is supposed to be in this budget, those members presume that a lot of the money will come from municipalities and provinces that do not have the money. That is a fiction. A lot of it is supposed savings in government spending. The Conservatives are the worst public administrators in the history of Canada. Prior to this budget, which has a large deficit, they had already increased public spending by the order of 25%, almost $40 billion a year, with nothing to show for it.

This so-called stimulus package has almost nothing left in it except for the $3 billion slush fund that the Conservatives keep talking about now and that has to be put through with the same urgency. They are using a very real political and economic emergency at this time in the country to try to take away the normal rules of control of public spending.

This is exactly what the corrupt Liberals did with the sponsorship scandal. There was a very real national urgency with regard to national unity in the wake of the 1995 referendum. The Liberals said that we had this unity problem, so they would spend hundreds of millions of dollars of public money. They forgot to say that they would take away all the normal controls and fill their pockets with millions of those dollars. That is the sad legacy of the Liberal Party. That is why no one who actually knows the Liberals is surprised to see them talking about women's rights and the environment and then voting against them.

One of their members, I think Toronto Beaches is the name of her riding, spoke eloquently yesterday, and I congratulated her when I saw her alone. I asked her if she would do like the members from Newfoundland and Labrador and stand up and vote against the budget. She walked away, having nothing to say. I saw her today, shamefully standing up and voting for the Conservative budget because, like all the other Liberals, she is devoid of principles. She talks a good game when it comes to women's rights, but will not back them up when it comes to a vote.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Madam Speaker, I found the comments by the member for Outremont very interesting and I would like to ask him about what I would call the government's deceit. He talks about the fact that the Liberals will probably vote for the budget implementation bill to keep the government in power and says that, at that point, it may even include other laws. That is fantastic because it will pass and there will be no need to revisit it.

There are many such laws. In addition to the Navigable Waters Protection Act and the Pay Equity Act, we find amendments to the Competition Act, the Investment Canada Act, the Canada Transportation Act, and the Air Canada Public Participation Act. And we could name others. Hence, I wonder if the member for Outremont believes that this shows contempt for Parliament.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Madam Speaker, I could not agree more with my colleague from Brome—Missisquoi that there is contempt for Parliament. I would add, though, that the Liberal members have contempt for the voters. They all keep on talking in this House during question period and outside when they are questioned during media scrums after question period. They talk about women's rights and say that it is terrible that the Conservatives are taking away those rights, yet they are voting for that. They say it is terrible to play with the Navigable Waters Protection Act, yet they are voting with the Conservatives to remove that protection.

Another issue we have not had enough time to talk about is creating a new regulatory system, which not many people in Canada want. We must not forget that we are talking about a group that has never been a fan of big government. Yet the Conservatives are creating a new securities regulator. That is really something. It does not address any known problem. We have a passport system that works very well and has been praised by the G7. Canada is a regulatory model.

I would like to ask a few riddles. How many court cases were undertaken by the federal government in the sponsorship scandal? I will give you a hint. The number starts with a zero. Yes, the only court cases were those undertaken by the Government of Quebec, and the people who went to jail went there thanks to the Government of Quebec.

And how many days of proceedings have there been so far under the Criminal Code for Vincent Lacroix? Let us keep in mind that the Autorité des marchés financiers exists at the provincial level, and that it is the Criminal Code on the federal level. He is in prison for many years because of the proceedings initiated by Quebec. There are several hundred criminal charges against him, but how many days in court so far? Let me give you another clue. It starts with a zero. Yes, that is the real performance record of the federal government as far as crimes of this type go, what are sometimes called white collar crimes, that is fraud and the like. I myself have had the pleasure of seeing how the OSFI, the Office of the Superintendent of FInancial Institutions operates, when Ms. Dickson came and testified last year. We had an opportunity to question her about the famous commercial paper, and she was not able to tell us what she had to do with all that and yet this was one of the biggest frauds ever perpetrated in Canada.

So. for heaven's sake, before they start preaching to us about how well the federal government can do things, could somebody at least look at the facts?

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Madam Speaker, I heard the member for Outremont say that the Conservative government, unlike previous minority governments, has not learned to work with the other parties and has not considered its minority status. I think that is untrue since there is a party that has supported it 60 times. I do not understand his earlier statement. I would like him to explain it to me.

[The Acting Speaker, Denise Savoie]

The member for Outremont has 45 second to respond.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Madam Speaker, I do not know if it is the lawyer in me speaking or the politician who hates to admit he is wrong, but my colleague is absolutely right. When the spineless Liberals, who have no backbone, consistently and constantly support the Conservative government, we are, for all intents and purposes, facing a new political party. We all remember the acronym that was invented when they formed the Conservative Reform Alliance Party. The acronym was unforgettable. Now we have the Conservative Liberal Alliance Party. I will let you figure out the acronym. It is very telling.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate at third reading on the budget implementation bill for the fiscal year that will commence on April 1.

We have been on a bit of a roller coaster ride. I would like to bring us to where we are and where some of the indicators may have been had someone's eyes been open, or at least had someone read the newspapers.

Back in the 39th Parliament, there were a number of things going on in the House. There was certainly some sabre rattling by some political parties that if the government did not get its act in gear, it may face an election. Some parties did not have much confidence in the government. They thought that the government could not be trusted, that its credibility was in question, that they could not believe what the government said. Conservative times were tough times. All these things were going on, which is part of the political process that we experience in Parliament.

During the latter part of the 39th Parliament, there was an investigation going on in the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics on the in-and-out scandal. The Chief Electoral Officer had ruled that the Conservative Party had broken the elections law of Canada, had overspent its advertising budget and had laundered the money through candidates, et cetera. I do not have to go through all of that other than to say that there are ongoing legal proceedings as a consequence. We did have committee hearings and we were getting evidence and testimony from people who were corroborating what the Chief Electoral Officer had found, that the government was aware that what it was doing was improper under the Canada Elections Act. This is where the term “dysfunction” came out.

In fact, the standing committee, which I chair, held summer hearings on this issue. Things were getting pretty hot and interesting to the point where we had to subpoena members of the Conservative Party of Canada to appear. They refused to honour the subpoenas of the committee. That got a lot of attention. The committee decided it would deal with it when the House resumed because the assistance of the Speaker of the House would be needed to act on the subpoenas and to determine whether contempt of Parliament issues might have to be dealt with.

Before the summer was over and before the House was to return, the Prime Minister dissolved Parliament. He said that Parliament was dysfunctional. We had an election on October 14, 2008.

The first point is there was no defeat of the government on any confidence issue. Opposition members certainly had a lot of concerns about the integrity of the government, but there was no threat to any legislation. Everything the government had wanted to pass had passed.

In fact one of the things that had passed in that Parliament is a law regarding fixed election dates which had specified that the first election was to be October 19, 2009. The Prime Minister himself said that not ever again would a prime minister have the opportunity to call an election when it was politically advantageous. He said that everybody, every party, every member of Parliament, every member of the public would know exactly when the next election would be held.

What did he do? He dissolved Parliament and called an election one year earlier than the law stipulated. I can remember why. By that time, we were already seeing indications that an economic tsunami was forming. We saw indications that the highest record of employment in 30 years was starting to crack. All of a sudden economic indicators pointed to concerns within the financial institutions and some of the major industries. We started to see some indications in the auto sector. We started to see it in some of the other program areas. Little cracks were forming.

We had that election. We came back. I remember I got a letter from my own broker with regard to my RRSPs. We had a long, good and healthy period under the Liberal government. There were balanced budgets for 10 years, tax reductions, highest employment rate, lowest inflation, lowest interest rates. Things were good, but what was going to happen, as we know now, was foreshadowed by a lot of the indicators that were out there.

In fact one of the key indicators happened to be the Parliamentary Budget Officer. That office was created under the Federal Accountability Act to make sure that the information the government had was reliable for parliamentarians and Canadians. That is a story in itself, the way the government has totally ignored the information and the advice of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

The election was on October 14. On November 18 we were back here and there was an economic statement. That economic statement said, “Life is good. We carry on. Everything is going to be fine. We are looking forward to four years of healthy surplus yet again. Do not worry about it, but by the way, as long as we are at this, we are going to destroy pay equity. We are going to cut out the funding to political parties. We are going to deal with the public service and we are going to do a few other things”.

These were all things that had nothing to do with budgetary or economic measures. The government was playing games. It was poking sticks in people's eyes, trying to make them upset. But all of a sudden, the November economic statement did not have the support or the concurrence of anybody anywhere on the planet.

It was ludicrous. It was so ridiculous. As was pretty clear under the Constitution, if the government was defeated either on its throne speech or on some measure out of that economic statement, we would be into another election. However, there was an opportunity under our Constitution that the Governor General, if there had been an election in the last few months, could have approached the official opposition to form a government if it could demonstrate it had the majority support of the House.

We know where we were. There were indicators. The government said that everything was good. The November economic statement said that everything was going to be great, but I am a little concerned that the government again was saying, “We are getting a little worried about the possibility of a coalition government and getting turfed out of office. We better save our backsides”. What did it do? When it saw that there were problems coming down the pike, that the jobs of Canadians were going to be put at risk, it prorogued Parliament. It shut it down totally. No committees existed. No work was getting done. No attention was being given to the emerging issues of the day.

We came back and there was a throne speech on January 26, and the next day the budget was presented. The budget now shows four years of deficits, not four years of surplus. It shows four years of deficits, cumulatively, $84 billion of deficits.

I do not know about other members, but when we go from four years of surpluses and everything being fine in an economic statement on November 8, then on January 26 the government puts out a document, which was already a month old because it had to go through the approval process, which shows fours years of deficits totalling $84 billion, where is this coming from? How is it that the world could change so much?

The Prime Minister explained it quite simply that it has nothing to do with us, that our banks are healthy and we do not have to do anything, but what he did say also is that it is a global economic crisis. Consider what global means. Everybody who is in business, anybody who has any economic activity in the world is part and parcel of the same thing we are experiencing here.

On November 8, when the Conservatives put out an economic statement that they were having nice surpluses and everything was fine, they had no inkling whatsoever. Then all of a sudden there is this global economic crisis that in the next month they recognized and they changed their numbers and their forecasts and came out with the January budget showing four years of cumulative deficits. Can anyone imagine the ludicrousness to suggest that they did not know about a global economic crisis because it really did not happen until after the economic statement? It is nuts. It is absolutely unbelievable.

The Conservatives think that Canadians are stupid but they are not. They continue to persist that it is not their problem and they did not create that. It is pretty clear that the Conservatives inherited a $14 billion annual surplus from the previous Liberal government that had 10 years of surpluses and handed over the reins of a healthy economy. The Conservatives squandered that by their tax cuts and the spending spree that they went on, the highest spending per capita in the history of our country. They squandered the $14 billion annual surplus. They put us in a condition where we had absolutely no wiggle room. There was no cushion to help us get through difficult economic times.

That $14 billion per year would have gone a long way to handling the so-called global economic crisis. It would not have been so painful.

Now we have this wonderful budget that has a stimulus package associated with it and 40% of that infrastructure. We know that infrastructure is an efficient way to save jobs at risk, to create new jobs, generally being supportive, and to provide support to the financial sector. Other countries are doing it and we are doing it as well.

The government continues to say, in its answers to questions, that the opposition needs to put the public interest ahead of partisan interest and pass this budget, but what does it do? It decides in this budget to address the serious needs of Canadians who are faced with job loss and all kinds of other consequential impacts of a major financial crisis by loading the budget up with a bunch of other things. What is it going to do? It will basically decimate pay equity for women, equal pay for work of equal value. That has nothing to do with a budget but if it is thrown in, the Liberals and the others will not be able to defeat the budget because if they do an election will be called.

That may be true but the Conservatives also put in things like the Competition Act, changes to the Navigable Waters Protection Act and proposals for a national securities regulator that cannot possibly be resolved for years. It will take years to deal with that. They also had changes on equalization, a very sensitive area that affected Quebeckers and Maritimers.

The Conservatives made this an omnibus bill, which means they put in a bunch of things that are not necessarily connected. Why did they do that? Again, this is playing partisan politics, poking a stick and trying to get what they can get because they know that no responsible official opposition party would allow the budget to be defeated because it would probably take until next October before we could get back to the same spot that we are at today. By that time the jobs will be lost, the personal and business bankruptcies will have peaked, the consequences to Canadians will be enormous and the damage will be irreparable.

It would be totally irresponsible for Parliament not to pass the budget. The government knew that. it knew there was an economic crisis and it knew there would be this major downturn. It knew that it could get away with this and it continues to play partisan politics.

Every time the government talks about this, it says that the opposition needs to put the public interest ahead of political interest and yet it is the government's actions, not its words. We need to look at its actions and its actions have been totally contrary to the words that come out of the mouths of government members.

Today a question was asked of the finance minister. He said that the opposition needs to pass this budget quickly so the money can flow and that no money will flow until we pass this budget. That is true, except that this is the budget implementation for the fiscal year that will begin on April 1, 2009. Therefore, even if the bill were to pass at all stages, even in the other place, and receive royal assent, no dollars could legally flow until April 1. We still have a month for the balance of this process to take place.

It is the way the finance minister is trying to insinuate that everyone else is slowing the process down and blocking the money from flowing. What makes it even more ironic is that over the past two years $2 billion of approved, funded and appropriated infrastructure funding was promised but was never sent out. As a matter of fact, we still have another month to go in the current fiscal period. If infrastructure is so important, jobs are so important and stimulating the economy is so important, why are the Conservatives not spending some of that money in this last month? Why are they not getting it out before the books are closed?

I know why. It is because the Conservatives promised they would have a balanced budget in the current fiscal year which ends on March 31, 2009. The current budget implementation bill shows that it will be a small deficit of $1.1 billion. Members should mark my words that we will have a balanced budget reported for the current fiscal year and they will use that to say that they kept their promise. What they have done is taken away the opportunity for Canadians to save themselves, to save those jobs by having $2 billion less for infrastructure funding.

This is not integrity of government. This is not transparency, openness and accountability. The measure of success of a country is not an economic measure. It is a measure of the health and well-being of the people. With the inactions of the government with regard to the infrastructure funding, it is very clear that it does not believe that stimulus funding will do any good. It just wants to paint a picture for partisan reasons that the current fiscal year will look pretty good with a balanced budget and if it delays enough a few other things and the $3 billion slush fund it has set up in this with no accountability strings attached to it, it will be able to manoeuvre.

I wish I could pull out one of the speeches and read it into the record for members, but the Conservatives basically said that we were a trading country and that all of those countries with which we trade, the United States and others, have massive stimulus packages. Those countries have pumped a lot of money into the banks, the auto industry and into infrastructure, et cetera. They said that we would benefit because those countries will begin buying our stuff again and everything will be fine. They said that we really did not need a stimulus package. I honestly think they do not believe that the stimulus is necessary. I think they will ensure that the stimulus package does not get out on a timely basis and maybe never. It will be promised but never delivered and promised at another photo op and promised again and never delivered.

That is what the Conservatives have been doing since they were first elected in 2006. They have not been governing since 2006. They have been campaigning. It is only because of the official opposition saying that we cannot let this happen to the people of Canada, that someone must give hope to the people of Canada, not fear. It is the Conservatives who are delivering the fear to our country.

Today it is reported that the Prime Minister, in an interview with the CNN, said that what is happening right now is just a cyclical downturn but nothing that requires major government intervention. It speaks for itself. The Prime Minister is not on side. He does not believe it. He cannot be trusted. He is not credible in what he says. His caucus is right behind him in lack of credibility, accountability, transparency and openness.

The day will come when we will be able to fix all the damage the Conservatives will do with this budget, but in the meantime, the official opposition will support the budget because the people of Canada need us to be here working for them and ensuring the government is held accountable at a time of Canadians' needs.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Madam Speaker, that was a very entertaining speech that we just heard from the member for Mississauga South.

We all know that the oracle of Omaha is Warren Buffett. He has been a very successful investor over the years. I heard the hon. member comment during his speech that during the election he anticipated a downturn in the Canadian economy. However, during the month of September we saw an additional 100,000 jobs added to the economy. In October, further during the election period, we saw 9,500 jobs added to the Canadian economy when the analysts, unlike the oracle here, had predicted the loss of 10,000 jobs. The Canadian economy produced 9,500 jobs.

The reason for that is that the Prime Minister took action well in advance. He anticipated the downturn long before, unlike our colleagues on the other side of the House. There was a tremendous stimulus in the form of tax cuts to keep this economy going, one of the last countries of the G8 to maintain a positive economy.

He talked about a vision for Canada. His former leader offered a vision of Canada in October called the carbon tax. One can just imagine if the carbon tax had been brought into this country. It would have been devastation.

If the hon. member was predicting the future like Kreskin, where are the comments that we would foresee this massive economic recession during the election? Would the hon. member comment on that?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, Statistics Canada just reported the results of the fourth quarter for 2008: an annualized rate of reduction in the GDP of 3.4%. That is the reality of what happened in the last quarter of 2008 under the Conservatives' watch.

I do not care how rosy the member wants to paint October, et cetera, the fact remains that we lost a record number of jobs in the fourth quarter, the economy has tanked and there is a global recession going on that is very deep and very dangerous. The Conservatives think that all they need to do is say that somebody else will take care of it.

The interesting thing is that the Conservatives feel so little responsibility to do anything about the economy, they have decided to turn their attention to perusing thousands of hours of tapes of the leader of the official opposition to see if they can come up with stuff they can use in attack ads in the next election. That is the priority of that government.

As I said earlier, since 2006, the Conservatives have not been governing. They have been campaigning and they continue to do it.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Madam Speaker, in his presentation, my colleague stated that, in practical terms, in order to avoid elections, the Liberals had no choice but to support the budget. That is not true because, first of all, there was the coalition agreement signed by the three parties, which would have made it possible to take down the government and bring about change without going to the polls. Thus, it is false to state that there was no other option.

I would say that, at the very least, the Liberals could have made significant gains for citizens. What did they get besides a new cloakroom in the lobby and an end to the lawsuit against them? Next to nothing. They made a pitiful amendment asking that the government report on its work. I believe that it is the responsibility of all parliamentarians to monitor the government. Therefore, in general, the Liberal amendment asks the government to do the opposition's work.

Could the Liberals not have seized the opportunity to make substantial rather than trivial changes to the budget?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, the member has a point but sometimes we need to say that this is not a matter of a lust for power, that it is a matter of what is in the best interests of the country and nothing more.

Constitutionally, the coalition was a possibility and still is a possibility. However, the member will also know that the opposition was able to secure a substantial amendment and that amendment called for ongoing economic and fiscal updates, details of the actual implementation of the budget itemized to the actual effects of the budget in respect to protection of the most vulnerable, minimizing existing job losses, creation of employment opportunities for tomorrow, provision for economic stimulus, et cetera.

This was the compromise that was made by the official opposition. The official opposition has a greater responsibility than the other two opposition parties that will never, ever form a government. It is our responsibility to work in the best interests of Canadians. We have taken a decision and Canadians will judge ultimately.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Madam Speaker, let us get this straight.

The Liberals sell out employment insurance, given that 50% of Canadians who lose their jobs cannot access it, and that is okay. They sell out on pay equity, rise in this House and try to defend it, and that is okay. They sell out the Kelowna accord. They did that in the last election campaign, when their election promises repudiated Kelowna, and 14 years in power did not deliver child care.

Basically what we are hearing is that every single time, Liberals sell out Canadians. Every single time, without exception, they sell out Canadians, and they are doing it again. They simply do not have any credibility whatsoever. The Liberals cannot have credibility when time after time they break their promises and sell out Canadians.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, let me remind the hon. member from the NDP that with its vote bringing down the Paul Martin government, the early learning and child care program never happened, the Kelowna accord to help aboriginal Canadians never occurred, and the pay equity changes that we were bringing in never occurred, because that party--

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Acting Speaker, Denise Savoie]

Order. The hon. member for Mississauga South has the floor.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, it was because NDP members decided that they were more interested in going into an election than they were in serving the people of Canada.

In this budget there is $2 billion of infrastructure stimulus, a $495 million base funding program, $250 million for communities, $200 million for green infrastructure, $51 million for Atlantic Canada, $106 million for economic development in Quebec, $175 million in Ontario, $17 billion in the north, $154 million for the west, $1 billion in repairs for post-secondary institutions, $75 million for first nations housing, $125 million for CMHC, support for on reserve housing, social housing, low-income seniors, disabled persons and in northern housing, and there is more--

[The Acting Speaker, Denise Savoie]

The length of the answer has to correspond to the length of the question.

I would like to recognize the hon. member for Dartmouth--Cole Harbour for a very short question and a very short answer without lists, please.

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

Madam Speaker, there was so much in that speech. I listened to every word the member gave, and as usual it was right on the mark.

I would ask him a simple question. I know he is very interested in innovation and research. The government says it has put money into innovation and research. The facts are a little bit different. We even have the case of the university teachers, CAUT, going in to see the minister and being told to shut up, that they had burned their bridges and all that stuff.

Could my colleague tell me if that is a good idea? Is that the way to treat people?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, the member is quite right. Unfortunately, when a minister of state for the Crown starts raising his voice and pointing fingers and telling a group representing 121 Canadian universities and colleges across the country that they do not understand the budget and that everybody loves the budget, it means one thing to me. It sounds to me like yet another example showing that the government really does not care to listen to anyone who does not agree with it. If they do not agree, the government is going to be a bully.

[The Acting Speaker, Denise Savoie]

The hon. member for Jeanne-Le Ber has a few minutes to begin his speech, but I will have to interrupt him shortly.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will do what I can in the time that I have.

Naturally, the Bloc Québécois will not support this budget because the government has broken its promises. Once again, it is encroaching on areas under provincial jurisdiction that fall within the exclusive purview of the Government of Quebec. Take the securities commission, for example. The government's plan to impose a Canada-wide securities commission and centralize the work and the regulation in Ottawa is blatant interference. Quebec does not want this commission, and neither do many other provinces.

One reason the federal government's interference in areas under Quebec and provincial jurisdiction is so surprising is that it cannot even take care of business in areas that are under its own jurisdiction. As I have always said, should the day ever come when the federal government can manage its own affairs capably, it would have nothing more to do. Perhaps it would be tempted to get involved elsewhere. But that is not the case. Take immigration, for example.

Currently, all classes of immigrants are subject to long wait times. For example, immigrant investors are prepared to put up $400,000 to come to this country and invest in our economy. Those who go through Quebec's system get their Quebec selection certificate within a year, but they have to wait many more years for the federal government to do a basic criminal records check through Interpol before they even go to a designated doctor for a physical exam. That takes years.

I would suggest that if the government suddenly stopped interfering in areas that belong to Quebec and the provinces, and started taking care of its own responsibilities and putting a little money into speeding up case processing for immigrant investors selected by Quebec who are still waiting for confirmation from the federal government, thousands of people on these lists would come here in the middle of the economic crisis and contribute to and stimulate our economy.

That is not what the government plans to do. Instead it is getting in the way of members from Quebec and the provinces. Like the Liberals in their day, the Conservatives say they are listening to Quebec. But they are not. One hundred and twenty-five members out of 125—

[The Acting Speaker, Denise Savoie]

I regret to interrupt the hon. member.

It being 6:49 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

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

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

moved that Bill C-300, An Act respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil or Gas in Developing Countries, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.

Madam Speaker, it is a matter of quite considerable pride for me to introduce this bill into the House and to hopefully precipitate a full debate and ultimately move it on to the committee.

We are all proud Canadians. Everyone in the chamber is a proud Canadian. The people in the gallery are proud Canadians. The people watching on television are proud Canadians. We are proud of our hockey team. When the men and women won gold in Salt Lake City, it was an enormous matter of pride for our nation. Students travelling in Europe are so proud of their country that they sew a flag on their backpacks. They do this for a couple of reasons: one, to say they are proud Canadians, and two, to say they are not Americans.

We are so proud at times that we are at pains to tell others that we are not like those Americans, and sometimes we are right. Certainly we have superior banking and health care systems. We do not have a subprime crisis. However, there are times when we are morally arrogant to the point of being insufferable. At times our superiority is unbecoming to a nation of dignity.

Last week I was visited by some folks from Ecuador. They talked about a Canadian mining company that was behaving in a way that was distinctly un-Canadian, and certainly at variance with our sense of self, of our nation and of how we operate in this world. The video they presented showed the ugly Canadian. It was the ugly Canadian corporation trying to gain a commercial advantage over indigenous people. It showed a company willing to engage in violence, use its superior financial resources, abuse the environment and abuse human rights in order to get its own way.

To be fair, the video did not show the company's side of the story. Basic rules of procedure and fairness require that we at least listen to the other side. Nevertheless, this was a pretty damning indictment of a Canadian company using its financial clout to develop a copper mine.

I wish I could say this was merely an isolated example. Unfortunately, I cannot. There are documented abuses by Canadian companies operating in Guyana, the Philippines and possibly in as many as 30 other countries, Canadian companies that are acting in manners that are unbecoming of our sense of self as a nation, our sense of how we operate in this world and our sense of how Canadian corporations should operate in the world.

The Toronto Stock Exchange is the most active mining exchange in the world. More money for mining and exploration is raised there than anywhere else in the world. Sixty percent of the world's mining and exploration companies are listed in Canada.

It is not my intention to overstate the case by painting all Canadian extractive companies with the same brush. Many companies are quite responsible and actively pursue their responsibilities in terms of both the environment and human rights. They are seriously engaged in environmental compliance and respect for human rights.

However, all our reputations are at risk through the behaviour of certain companies. Not only is there a behavioural risk to an individual company, but there is also a risk to our national reputation.

When a Canadian company behaves badly, our national reputation suffers. All of the hard work done by many Canadians, through NGOs and indeed through the government, gets swept aside when our own companies and our own people abuse human rights standards and environmental standards. Our reputation for responsible environmental stewardship gets swept aside when we degrade and we debase the environments of other countries.

So, what to do? Ideally, the government should be presenting this bill or, if not this bill, certainly a beefed up version of this bill.

The national round tables on corporate social responsibility and the Canadian extractive industry in developing countries presented a report on March 29, 2007. Those round tables were actually sponsored by the government. Yet here we are, almost two years later, and we have yet to hear the government's response to their report.

In fact, the round tables re-deposited their report just in the hope, the faint hope possibly, of trying to solicit a response from the government. To date, there has been silence.

These round tables engaged everyone, from government stakeholders, to NGOs, to corporations. In fact, it kind of reads like a who's who of the mining industry. Mr. Tony Andrews from the Prospectors and Developers Association was part of the round table. Jim Cooney from international government affairs for Placer Dome was in on it. The VP for exploration, Dennis Jones, from IAMGOLD Corporation was there. Talisman was represented. Various other corporations were represented at this round table, in addition to various NGOs and in addition to, if I may say so, the usual suspects.

So, this was a series of round tables engaged in by all of the stakeholders. They presented a comprehensive report and yet, we have no response from the government.

As I say, ideally, this would be a government bill because the government could do so much more than can a private member. For instance, a private member cannot propose the spending of taxpayers' money. Only the government can propose, upon parliamentary approval, the spending of taxpayers' money.

The limitation of every private member's bill that is presented here is called a royal recommendation. We cannot, in a private member's bill, present a bill which would require the government to spend money.

The problem in this case is, ideally, the responsibilities for the implementation of this bill would be reposited in an ombudsman, or an ombudsperson. Unfortunately, however, if we do draft our bill so that the responsibilities are deposited with an ombudsman, we would trigger a royal recommendation and so, the bill would be ruled out of order. Unfortunately, we have had to draft around the issue of a royal recommendation. So, the responsibility in this bill is reposited in the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of International Trade.

In a lot of other respects the bill looks a lot like the recommendations as contained in the round tables recommendations. The basic purpose of the bill is:

--to ensure that corporations engaged in mining, oil or gas activities and receiving support from the Government of Canada act in a manner consistent with international environmental best practices and with Canada’s commitments to international human rights standards.

Paragraph 5 provides that:

--the Ministers shall issue guidelines that articulate corporate accountability standards for mining, oil or gas activities.

And make reference to specific internationally recognized standards for the environment and human rights.

So, we set up the purpose, and then we set up the guidelines, and adopt these guidelines.

Once the guidelines are adopted, a scheme is set out whereby the minister or ministers, as the case may be, may receive complaints, conduct examinations and publish their results, presumably in the Canada Gazette. That is where the problem arises.

This does not have the force of law such as the Criminal Code. It is not regulatory. They are guidelines for which there is no explicit sanction such as a fine or imprisonment. The reason is that there are limits to the extraterritoriality of Canadian law. Just as other countries cannot and do not apply their law to our country, so too Canada cannot apply its laws and its regulations to other countries.

Where is the teeth in this bill? What would happen to a company that offends these guidelines?

The first sanction is reputational. I would expect that good companies will work at not finding themselves being gazetted. All of us here in this chamber indeed work at protecting our own reputation. What is true of individuals is also true of companies. Companies spend a lot of money preserving and enhancing their reputations. Being gazetted under this bill would not enhance a company's reputation.

Remember the Nike issue, where Nike was accused of engaging in dubious labour practices? Nike had to not only reverse its labour practices but it spent millions and millions of dollars trying to restore its reputation.

There are some companies that simply do not care. There is just way too much money to be made to worry a little bit about a reputational downside and if that reflects badly on Canada, so be it. There is a certain cynical truth that some companies will conclude that it is a lot cheaper to engage a bunch of lawyers and PR people than to comply with internationally recognized guidelines for corporate behaviour in third world countries.

If they are not overly worried about their reputation, and they are aware of the limitations of Canadian law as it applies to activities in other countries, what additional sanctions should we apply? The proposal in Bill C-300 is that we put a bit of financial bite into these guidelines.

If a finding has been made and gazetted, then the company in question will not be eligible for Export Development Bank of Canada's services, EDC. It may be that such a corporation really does not care and it does not need government help. As well, the corporation cannot expect anything from the Government of Canada other than basic consular services.

In the language of the bill, “no undertaking made through a program developed by the Minister in the exercise of his or her powers under this section shall promote or support mining, oil or gas activities”. In other words, basic consular services and nothing else. If the corporation is gazetted, it will basically be on its own.

Maybe the corporation does not care about EDC or does not care about promotion by the government. Maybe disallowing the Canada pension plan from investing in the corporation will get its attention.

With the passage of this bill, CPP would have to assure itself that it has no assets invested in the offending company, in other words, no CPP money, and because CPP is so heavily weighted in the market, other pension plans may well follow suit.

Money just got a whole lot more expensive for a corporation that ignores this bill. Corporations which have nothing to fear and much to gain, those are good corporations. Those corporations will be enhanced. Their reputations will be enhanced. They will be entitled to assistance from EDC. They can expect support from the government and their money gets cheaper. It does not get much better than that.

Let me conclude by urging all hon. members to support Bill C-300. Good ethics make for good business. Good business makes for good ethics. Everyone should win if these guidelines are adopted in this legislation. Canada should win. These corporations should win, and citizens from around the world should win.

Win-win seems like something to be supported and I would urge all members to support this bill.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would quickly like to congratulate the member for Scarborough—Guildwood on this initiative. We have been waiting for almost two years for the government to respond, and I quite liked the explanation he gave about the bill in terms of royal recommendation.

There were many recommendations in the report from the national round tables on corporate social responsibility and the Canadian extractive industry in developing countries. I understand that the member may not be able to remember all of the recommendations that pertain to royal recommendation.

Is he open to improving the bill when it is studied in committee, especially in terms of a mechanism that would allow the appointment of an independent ombudsman who could pursue complaints?

In his bill, it is provided that the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of International Trade would receive complaints. But that could create a conflict of interest for them.

Would he be open to this possibility if it did not create an issue with royal recommendation?

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

Madam Speaker, first of all, I would like to thank the Bloc member for supporting this bill. If the hon. member can show us how we can avoid a royal recommendation by the appointment of an ombudsman, I would be on it in a heartbeat. That would be the critical question.

He is absolutely right that there is a bit of a conflict of interest or possibly not as much enthusiasm on the part of a minister to pursue complaints as there might be on the part of an ombudsman. I would prefer an independent officer of Parliament to be the person that has the responsibility for the prosecution of this bill.

I agree with the member totally. If we could it, I would do it. If he could propose an amendment which would meet the guidelines of the Speaker, then I would be happy to consider that.