House of Commons Hansard #21 of the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was information.
The House resumed from March 26 consideration of the motion that Bill C-444, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and the Telecommunications Act (broadcasting and telecommunications policies), be read the second time and referred to a committee.
The Deputy Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer
It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-444 under private members' business.
Call in the members.
The House resumed from March 29, consideration of the motion that Bill C-232, An Act to amend the Supreme Court Act (understanding the official languages), be read the third time and passed.
The Speaker Liberal Peter Milliken
The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at third reading stage of Bill C-232 under private members' business.
The Speaker Liberal Peter Milliken
I declare the motion carried.
(Bill read the third time and passed)
The Speaker Liberal Peter Milliken
It being 6:08 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.
The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-311, An Act to ensure Canada assumes its responsibilities in preventing dangerous climate change, as reported (without amendment) from the committee.
The Speaker Liberal Peter Milliken
There being no motions at report stage, the House will now proceed without debate to the putting of the question on the motion to concur in the bill at report stage.
The Speaker Liberal Peter Milliken
In my opinion the nays have it.
And five or more members having risen:
Pursuant to Standing Order 98 the recorded division stands deferred until Wednesday, April 14, immediately before the time provided for consideration of private members' business.
Is it agreed that we see the clock as 6:30 p.m.?
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Madam Speaker, this is a result of several questions that come out of the KAIROS issue. KAIROS has had a funding relationship with all forms of governments over the last 35 years. As far as KAIROS knew, it complied in each and every respect with the government's latest set of priorities. In fact, it was told that many times over by various staff officials at the agency.
Whatever the priorities were, they were complied with, and the officials were pretty satisfied that their funding would be restored. This funding is pretty important to KAIROS because it constitutes 42% of its base funding. It came as a great shock and a bit of a surprise to KAIROS when it literally received a phone call at 10:30 one night from the minister's office, saying that its funding had been cut. No real reasons were given other than that KAIROS did not comply with the minister's priorities, whatever the minister's priorities were at the time.
That was fine. A couple of weeks later, KAIROS learned that it was apparently an anti-Semitic organization according to the Minister of Immigration's speech in Israel. Not only did it have its funding cut after it thought it complied with all the priorities of the agency, but it was given a call in the middle of the night and it was called anti-Semitic as it was being booted out the door.
That is hardly a way to treat an organization representing something in the order of 11 church and para-church organizations who have had a funding relationship over 35 years, constituting about $7 million on an annual basis. That is hardly a way to treat decent people.
The various heads of the church and para-church organizations published a letter to the Prime Minister, asking for an opportunity to clarify the situation. They asked him to sit down and have a chat. Even if they were not going to get their money back, they wanted to at least have a chat about what they were doing, what they were trying to do, and describe their reputation in a variety of communities in which they were working. They wanted to clear the air.
That was in January and we are now in March. We are about to go into April and the Prime Minister has still not been able to find any time in his schedule to meet with the representatives of KAIROS. It really is a great shame because those folks represent something in the order of 70% of the Canadian population. There are a variety of churches from pretty well the entire spectrum, whether it is evangelists right through to Catholics, Anglicans, Presbyterians, et cetera.
They are all in some state of shock that they should be treated in such a cavalier fashion. It is their view, and I think it is a right view, that this is no way in which to treat those organizations that are important and, in fact, critical to the functioning of our society.
It transpires that there is funding that is going to go to the Congo. A newspaper article says that this funding in the Congo by CIDA is buttons and posters on the matters of rape. A $50,000 grant that KAIROS has is cut. CIDA, on the other hand, continues to fund buttons and posters, which is largely considered to be ineffective. This is a complete mess of priorities.
Jim Abbott ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Cooperation
Madam Speaker, I suppose we do reach points of disappointment with some of the opposition members. We have been down this furrow many times. I do not know how much deeper we can dig it.
The member, in his speech tonight, again has made some gross exaggerations, distortions of truth to the point of putting it in a place of unrecognizability. I really do not understand what he does not understand about setting priorities. Our government has set priorities and we have enunciated those priorities in a very public way. KAIROS, along with every other organization with whom our government and previous governments have had a relationship, was aware of those priorities before it ever made its application.
Unlike the Liberals, who just used to take taxpayers' money and kind of shovel it out the door and see what kind of results they could get, we have decided that we are going to be very precise. We want to increase food security. We want to put an emphasis on children and youth, and we want to create a situation of sustainable economic growth.
Further, we have now come to our 20 countries of focus. It might be of interest to the member, maybe not, I do not know, but I happen to have had a meeting with a foreign affairs minister from Africa just yesterday. He came to Canada with a tremendous question in his mind, “What have we done wrong as a nation? Why is our relationship with Canada falling apart?”
It was based, in no small part, on the kind of exaggerations that the member, the Liberals, the Bloc and the NDP have all been creating; this myth, this aura that somehow we are not concerned about countries like Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya and in that area, and other countries of Africa. He came with this big question, “What have we done wrong?”
I sat down and I took 20 minutes with him and I went through our program as to what our 20 countries of focus are all about and what our priorities are. I told him that there was a much bigger picture that he could take advantage of going into the future. After 20 minutes he was totally satisfied because he had been persuaded by me that in fact the distortions that have been created by our political opponents, for their own Canadian domestic needs, was incorrect. When he left with the correct information from me on behalf of the government, he was perfectly happy and perfectly satisfied.
Member organizations that relate to KAIROS, in fact, over the last three years have received $100 million. If KAIROS wishes to reapply in another season at another time, and comply with our priorities, it too would have the opportunity to be successful in receiving funding.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Madam Speaker, my guess is that the person with whom he was talking certainly did not get any money because the African states are, in fact, pretty upset with the Government of Canada. They feel like they have been abandoned and they have a legitimate beef.
However, let us just deal with the priorities. The government is fond of priorities. It has priorities every day of the year and they are new priorities. It is sort of like applying for a grant based upon today's weather for next year. The point is that not only do the priorities change but they bear no relationship to the Official Development Assistance Accountability Act, which was passed by this House in 2008.
There are only three priorities that the government has: poverty alleviation, taking into account the perspectives of the poor, and international human rights. The rest is nonsense. Those are the only priorities for the government. That is the law and unfortunately, the government does not choose to apply the law that was passed unanimously by this House.
As a consequence, we end up putting organizations like KAIROS at risk. This goes on and on, and it has to stop.
Conservative
Jim Abbott Conservative Kootenay—Columbia, BC
Madam Speaker, apparently, I have been speaking to the deaf because the reality is that we have set priorities and these priorities have been well publicized, unlike the Liberals who just used to shovel money out the door.
Furthermore, the member is completely distorting the truth when he says that the countries of Africa are concerned. It was our government, of all of the G8 countries, that ended up doubling our aid to Africa in the last five years.
For him to stand and say that they are concerned because the aid is being cut is simply untrue, and quite frankly unworthy of the member.
