House of Commons Hansard #57 of the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was colombia.

Topics

Jobs and Economic Growth ActGovernment Orders

7:25 p.m.

Liberal

The Speaker Liberal Peter Milliken

I declare Motion No. 3 defeated. The next question is on Motion No. 4.

Jobs and Economic Growth ActGovernment Orders

7:25 p.m.

Conservative

Gordon O'Connor Conservative Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON

Mr. Speaker, if you seek it I believe you would find agreement to apply the vote from the previous motion to the current motion.

Jobs and Economic Growth ActGovernment Orders

7:25 p.m.

Liberal

The Speaker Liberal Peter Milliken

Is it agreed?

Jobs and Economic Growth ActGovernment Orders

7:25 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

(The House divided on Motion No. 4, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #61

Jobs and Economic Growth ActGovernment Orders

7:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Speaker Liberal Peter Milliken

I declare Motion No. 4 defeated. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 5 to 15 defeated.

Jobs and Economic Growth ActGovernment Orders

7:30 p.m.

Whitby—Oshawa Ontario

Conservative

Jim Flaherty ConservativeMinister of Finance

moved that the bill be concurred in.

Jobs and Economic Growth ActGovernment Orders

7:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Speaker Liberal Peter Milliken

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

Jobs and Economic Growth ActGovernment Orders

7:30 p.m.

Conservative

Gordon O'Connor Conservative Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON

Mr. Speaker, if you seek it I believe you would find agreement to apply the vote on this motion with the Conservatives voting yes.

Jobs and Economic Growth ActGovernment Orders

7:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Speaker Liberal Peter Milliken

Is there agreement to proceed in this fashion?

Jobs and Economic Growth ActGovernment Orders

7:30 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

Jobs and Economic Growth ActGovernment Orders

7:30 p.m.

Liberal

Rodger Cuzner Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Party will be voting against.

Jobs and Economic Growth ActGovernment Orders

7:30 p.m.

Bloc

Michel Guimond Bloc Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC

Mr. Speaker, the members of the Bloc Québécois will be voting against this motion.

Jobs and Economic Growth ActGovernment Orders

7:30 p.m.

NDP

Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB

Mr. Speaker, the members of the NDP will be voting against this motion.

Jobs and Economic Growth ActGovernment Orders

7:30 p.m.

Independent

André Arthur Independent Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC

Mr. Speaker, I will be voting in favour of this motion.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #62

Jobs and Economic Growth ActGovernment Orders

7:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Speaker Liberal Peter Milliken

I declare the motion carried.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

7:35 p.m.

Liberal

Judy Foote Liberal Random—Burin—St. George's, NL

Mr. Speaker, on April 14, I asked a question of the President of the Treasury Board about why the government was under so much secrecy, why it was refusing to be transparent, as requested under the Access to Information Act. In fact, the Information Commissioner, who was interim at the time, reported that the right of Canadians to timely access to information was at risk of being totally obliterated because delays threatened to render the entire access regime irrelevant in our current information economy. In fact, she said that she had seen “no evidence” of a culture of transparency in the government.

My question as well was prompted by the fact that the Prime Minister's chief of staff had refused to provide a response to the House ethics committee as to whether political staff had intervened with access to information requests to stop information from being released.

At the time, the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board assured the House that the government was working to improve its numbers on responding to access to information requests within 30 days. However, the critical problems of censorship, secrecy and blocking the release of information have only escalated in recent weeks.

The Prime Minister made a commitment to an open, transparent government when he campaigned in the last federal election. However, it is impossible to find any area of his administration where that commitment is indeed being upheld. The Prime Minister prorogued his government to avoid testimony concerning allegations of torture of Afghan detainees. Despite countless requests, he refuses to tell Canadians why he fired a cabinet minister and referred the matter to the RCMP.

The Prime Minister has muzzled staff members, blocking their appearances at committees and the delivery of a subpoena to political staff has been blocked, including to the PM's director of communications. The bailiff has been prevented from entering offices in order to do his duty.

Withholding information appears to be the top priority for the Conservative government. Canadians want to know what the government is trying to hide. The recent report of the Information Commissioner, “Out of Time”, indicates that access to information processing times have exploded under the government. The law says that access to information requests are supposed to be completed within 60 days, however, nearly 60% of requests take up to 120 days to complete under the government. A full 13% of them take more than 121 days.

For example, the March 2008 access to information request by the National Liberal Caucus Research Bureau for all documents concerning Canada's decision to stop Afghan detainee transfers was denied in December 2009, a staggering 639 days later, only after the issue had become a full-blown political controversy for the Conservative government.

As well, a senior aide to the former public works minister stopped the release of a sensitive 137 page document that had been requested by the media. The aide ordered officials to unrelease the report after the access to information office at Public Works had already determined that there was no legal base for withholding it. What the media got instead, 82 days later than allowed under the law, was a heavily censored version that had been reduced to 30 pages. The House ethics committee's efforts to question the senior aide about his actions have not been able to proceed, as the Conservative government has barred staff members from appearing at parliamentary committees.

Canadians have a right to information. The Conservative government has an obligation to be responsible and responsive to requests—

7:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Deputy Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board.

7:35 p.m.

North Vancouver B.C.

Conservative

Andrew Saxton ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board

Mr. Speaker, since this government came to power in 2006, we have fought to strengthen the openness and transparency of public institutions in Canada. Since then we have not backed away from our commitment one bit. If anything, we have strengthened it. We believe Canadians have a right to know what goes on behind the scenes in government, departments and agencies. Our record demonstrates our commitment to that principle.

In 2006 the first thing we did in coming to power was to introduce the Federal Accountability Act, the toughest anti-corruption legislation in Canadian history. That act made public institutions in Canada more open, accountable and transparent than at any other time in this country's history. Through this act we broadened the Access to Information law to include crown corporations, foundations and agents of Parliament.

As a result, 70 more institutions are now accountable to Canadians through the Access to Information Act, a step the Liberals never took. That means that more than 255 federal institutions are now subject to the act. For the first time, Canadians can see how these institutions spend their tax dollars.

Some of these institutions are finding it challenging to adapt to the requirements of the act as the Information Commissioner noted in her report last week. But overall we think this is a step in the right direction and we did not stop there.

While we took steps on the front end to increase transparency, we acted to improve things on the back end as well. Expanding access to so many new institutions means that staff need proper training. We needed to have the right policies and directives in place to ensure that right decisions are made by the right people. Of course, I am referring to the designated officials across the government who actually make decisions when it comes to access to information; people like Denise Brennan, Ann Wesch and Tom Makichuk who process these requests every day.

Let us be clear, each of those officials I just named clearly told the ethics committee that they do not encounter political interference in their work. The member opposite may be confused by that as she thinks back to the practices during the previous Liberal era. But our record speaks for itself. Is the system perfect? No, but few things are.

We should not let that blind us to how good our access to information system is and how much work the government has put into making it that way. I am proud to be part of a government that fought for the right of Canadians to know how their government operates, that can point to solid achievements in access to information, and that is committed to making the system even better.

Our record is clear. Our commitment has not evaporated. We will continue to uphold this fundamental pillar of Canadian democracy.

7:40 p.m.

Liberal

Judy Foote Liberal Random—Burin—St. George's, NL

Mr. Speaker, as I listened to what my colleague across the way had to say, I could not help but wonder whether or not he actually heard what had been said at the ethics committee. It is clear and it was made clear that day that, in fact, political staff did tell bureaucrats and officials to unrelease a report.

When we have people who are responsible for ensuring that the Access to Information Act is followed, how is it possible we can have political staff tell them to unrelease a report? That information was already deemed to be something that should be in the public domain, but again we have political staff saying that is not the case.

How can the Conservatives possibly say that the government is being open and transparent, and have political staff do that? It is not what is happening under the government. Again, I can only repeat what the Information Commissioner has said, that there is no evidence of a culture of transparency in the government and she cited example after example.

7:40 p.m.

Conservative

Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC

Mr. Speaker, I find this rather ironic coming from the member opposite. The Liberals opposed efforts to expand access to information when they were in government, opposing even their own members' bills.

In 2005 the Liberals voted against a Conservative Party motion to extend access to information laws to crown corporations.

Our government passed historic changes to the Access to Information Act making 70 new crown corporations and institutions accountable to Canadians. We got rid of the system used by the Liberals to centralize control of access to information.

Our government also increased the Information Commissioner's budget from $8.5 million to $10.7 million a year. That is a 25% increase.

We look forward to continuing to work with the Information Commissioner to improve access to information for Canadians.

7:45 p.m.

NDP

Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the parliamentary secretary for taking the time to respond to questions on the very important matter of funding decisions regarding Status of Women Canada's two programs: the women's community fund and the women's partnership fund.

On April 27, I asked the Minister for Status of Women to tell the House who was responsible for the funding decisions made by her department and why groups with projects that met the funding requirements and were eligible for funding were denied. In her response, the minister avoided the topic of the funding distributed by her department and insisted on speaking about the current situation regarding women in Afghanistan.

While the topic of women in Afghanistan is very important, it was not the subject of my question. On May 26, the Standing Committee on the Status of Women began its study on the funding decisions of Status of Women Canada. At this meeting, we heard from four organizations whose projects met the program criteria yet were still denied funding by Status of Women Canada.

The groups that appeared at the meeting were CRIAW, or the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women, the Conseil d'intervention pour l'accès des femmes au travail, the New Brunswick Coalition for Pay Equity and Womanspace Resource Centre. These are all very credible organizations and I do not think that anyone would question the work that they do for women in this country.

Some of these groups spoke of the influence of Status of Women Canada on their creation and development as women's organizations. For example, in a special publication on the 20th anniversary of CRIAW, the president at that time noted that had it not been for the financial support of Status of Women Canada over the years, CRIAW undoubtedly would not exist. Status of Women Canada has provided these organizations with some funding for an extensive period of time. It has provided CRIAW's funding since its creation in 1977.

Over the years, these organizations have proven their value and demonstrated expertise in the field. Their programs are highly reputable with proven results and have truly bettered the lives of women. Yet this year, the government decided to deny funding to CRIAW, the council, the coalition and Womanspace for the first time in their histories.

For most, this is a death blow. Because of these decisions, most of these organizations will shut their doors and cease servicing the women who have come to rely on them. The Minister for Status of Women has said that her department is choosing to fund new organizations over old. While I agree that the funding of new organizations is incredibly important, I do not agree that their funding should come at the expense of older organizations with proven track records.

If there is a greater need for funding from Status of Women Canada, then the budget of the program should be reviewed or the amount of funding allotted to each organization should be reconsidered to accommodate both new and existing organizations. However, I do not believe that this is the sole reason that these organizations were refused funding. The significance of these decisions runs much deeper than a choice between old and new. It is part of the mounting evidence that the government does not seem interested in funding programs for women equally or in funding feminist organizations with a track record for advocacy.

I will ask my question again. Could the parliamentary secretary tell us who is responsible for the arbitrary allocation of funding from Status of Women Canada and why funding has been denied to eligible groups?

7:45 p.m.

Beauport—Limoilou Québec

Conservative

Sylvie Boucher ConservativeParliamentary Secretary for Status of Women

Mr. Speaker, our government remains firmly committed to promoting women's equality and their full participation in the democratic, social and economic life of our country. We have taken concrete measures to achieve that goal, including increasing the financial resources available to the women's program at Status of Women Canada. Our funding levels are unprecedented. Funding through the women's program supports programs that promote women's equality.

Funding from the women's program cannot be used to finance the operating expenses of organizations working in this field.

Since 2007, 372 projects have received a total of nearly $67.5 million in funding from the women's program.

The latest call for proposals issued by the women's program resulted in an unprecedented number of project proposals. The response was remarkable.

There is no doubt in my mind that these projects have positive aspects and that they have the potential to improve women's lives.

However, for a project proposal to be eligible for funding, the organizations must show that the proposed project meets all the eligibility and evaluation criteria, including the criterion that the project address one or more of our funding priorities, which are as follows: increasing women's economic security and prosperity; ending violence against women; and encouraging women's leadership and democratic participation.

Even though it is simply not possible to fund all projects, as deserving as they may be, we have supported many important projects, including the project to disseminate CEDAW tools to improve the economic security and opportunities of women living in northern Canada; WEConnect Canada's project to open doors to corporate markets through education, training, coaching and mentoring to improve women entrepreneurs' business literacy; the Women in Municipal Government National Program of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities; and the Uniting to End Violence against Women project, whose goal was to bring together provincial and territorial shelter organizations across the country to improve services for aboriginal, immigrant and rural women who experience abuse.

If the hon. member really wants to do something for the women and girls of this country, she should applaud our efforts and achievements instead of criticizing them and voting against all the measures that can help Canadian women.