Debates of Oct. 25th, 2012

Job and Growth Act, 2012

[Leon Benoit, Conservative, Vegreville—Wainwright, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed the speech by my colleague very much, but he made one error that I want to point out. He indicated that a favourite activity in the Penticton area is floating down the river on tubes, and that is fun. In fact, my wife and I are very much looking forward to taking our grandkids on that trip because it will be a lot of fun.

However, I have a brother who lives in the Okanagan and I go there most summers for a week's holiday. We have another favourite activity, which is probably favoured by more people than floating down the river, and that of course is a wine tour and drinking wine. That is a wonderful activity. There are some terrific vineyards in his area. They are a wonderful part of the history of the area and have really brought the quality of Canadian wine up quite remarkably.

I am delighted to be speaking on this bill today and I want to remind people of exactly what this bill entails. It is the second part of the budget implementation act. The budget was passed last spring, but generally budgets deal with a lot of different issues, as that budget did. There was one large bill implementing part of the budget and there were complaints about it being so large, but we are doing a lot. We are doing a lot because, quite frankly, it is needed. The world is in very difficult economic times. In Europe things are in a terrible mess and I worry about the future of the United States. Canada has fared much better, but we cannot take it for granted that this positive momentum is going to continue because the world is in a serious economic downturn and at some point we certainly could be affected.

The government is taking a proactive approach. We are doing what we can to ensure that the positive forward movement will continue. We have been successful with a lot of what we have done. For example, since 2009 the good business people and citizens of our country, with the framework that the government has helped put in place, have created some 820,000, mostly full-time, good jobs.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

How many?

[Leon Benoit, Conservative, Vegreville—Wainwright, AB]

It is 820,000. That is a remarkable number when in many other countries the number of employed people is not going up. It is something that Canada is successful at whereas many others are not.

One of my colleagues who spoke before me pointed out that the opposition should be a little more positive about what we are doing, because we are being successful. When compared to many other countries in the western world, we are extremely successful. I wish opposition members would take a little more positive approach to this and work with us on the budget's implementation. That would help an awful lot.

I want to focus on the same issue that my colleague touched on, the Navigable Waters Protection Act. The member for Halifax has made statements over the past couple of weeks that the Navigable Waters Protection Act is really about protecting the environment. She is completely wrong on that. This act was put in place in 1882, an awful long time ago, and it is clear that it was about navigation on Canada's waterways. Of course, in 1882 navigation by river was particularly important; it was certainly one of the major modes of transportation at the time. The act remained largely unchanged until about three years ago when our government finally made some important changes to it. Those changes were very much needed. I want to talk a bit about the process that led to those changes.

I have been in the House for 19 years today. This is my 19th anniversary. About 12 years ago, I was doing my usual tour of county councils, municipal district councils and listening to councillors about the issues that were important to them and how the federal government might work with them to improve things.

Something that started coming up on a regular basis during my tours, and brought to my attention, was that the navigable waters act was causing them problems in areas where there was clearly no navigable water at all. They used the example of a culvert, just an 18-inch culvert across a country road, not even a heavily travelled road, which might normally cost $75,000 to replace. However, because of the navigable waters act and the process that municipalities were required to go through, that cost would double in most cases. That burdened municipalities, which just do not have a lot of money. Many of these municipalities have maybe 2,500 residents, and so that kind of cost, multiplied by perhaps 10 or 20 projects a year, was creating serious difficulties for them.

I want to make clear what the so-called navigable waters were. They were waterways that farmers farmed through in the spring and actually seeded crop in, in many cases. The waters would just be a little stream going through for maybe two weeks in the spring. One has to wonder how this ever got started, but we had people from the transport department who dealt with the navigable waters act come in and say, “We must have a study done on this. Clearly, there is a problem here”. That is not exaggerating. It is exactly what was happening. From a little waterway, with water only running for a couple of weeks a year, this serious problem was created, costing these municipalities hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Clearly, changes had to come about.

I pushed for changes when the Liberals were in government and nothing happened. When we first formed government in 2006, many of my colleagues and I brought the issue to the transport minister . The transport committee took this issue on and was successful, because the changes made back then made a lot of difference. What they did was to clearly define what a navigable water was. Water like those little creeks that would run two or three weeks of the year, or a month of the year, were not navigable and the act no longer applied to them.

In about 2008-09 I went back to the same councils and they said the issue had been dealt with.

However, about a year later, around 2009 or 2010, I toured the municipalities again and they said it was unbelievable but that the fisheries department had filled that void and was coming in and requiring a study, because water was running for a couple weeks a year and might affects the fish habitat. Again, it was a complete misapplication of what should have been happening.

Our government is dealing with that. Things will get better.

Certainly, the changes that have been made to the navigable waters act, including changing the name to the proposed navigation protection act so the act deals with navigation and nothing else, are extremely important. It means a lot to the councils in my area, right across western Canada and, I believe, across the country.

The member for Halifax can continue to make false statements about what the existing act's intent was. It is clear that the intent had nothing to do with the environment; it had to do with navigation. This is the final step in fixing that problem for the good people of my constituency and across the country.

It is a small change. I could talk about maybe 200 other changes in the budget implementation bill that are just as important. However, for a particular group of people and a particular group of taxpayers, it has meant an awful lot, because in the end the taxpayers pay for this extra cost.

I want to commend the Government of Canada for making this change. I thank it for finally putting this issue to bed once and for all and to say that this budget really will lead to prosperity and jobs and will continue to lead to growth. Our government should be commended for that. I am thankful for what our government is doing.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Cape Breton—Canso, Employment Insurance; the hon. member for Thunder Bay—Superior North, The Environment; and the hon. member for Scarborough Southwest, Science and Technology.

I will now recognize the hon. member for Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I heard the member ask the opposition members to try to be more positive about the bill and to work with them in government, but ever since the government tabled this we have not seen any willingness on its part to actually work with the opposition.

Our leader, the Leader of the Official Opposition, asked the government yesterday to split the bill among 12 committees, which it refused to do. We have also been asking that committees be able to propose amendments and change the bill. The government has been dismissing our concerns as only futile discussions about process. To prove my point, I will quote the member for Saint Boniface from yesterday. She said: “From the opposition members, we will hear a lot of talk about process and procedure, or what some would call 'inside baseball', that appeals to a small number of Canadians, mostly located in Ottawa”. Later she also said: “In other words, it is really meaningless to the everyday lives of the vast majority of Canadians--”. I was really disappointed to hear that, because discussion and process is actually the basis of our democracy—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please. I know there are other members. We have five minutes for questions and comments, so we will need to go to the response now and the hon. member for Vegreville—Wainwright.

[Leon Benoit, Conservative, Vegreville—Wainwright, AB]

Mr. Speaker, that is an important question because there clearly was a lot in our budget, as there usually is. Budget implementation bills are usually large omnibus bills and this is no different. However, the one thing we have committed to, in my understanding anyway, is that the bill will go to the finance committee. It will be divided from there and other committees will examine parts of the bill. Other than process maybe, I believe that is basically what the Leader of the Official Opposition was asking for. To me, what we are proposing is a reasonable process to follow.

Nonetheless, I do know that if the bill were divided into several parts and we tried to pass it through the House piece by piece, our budget from the last spring and summer would not be implemented within the next two years. It would not be implemented.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the member on one point then ask a question.

The point on which I congratulate him is this. I always hear Conservatives saying, “We created all these jobs” as if government had created the jobs. Particularly for a Conservative, that is a weird thing to say. I congratulate him because he made it clear that it was not the government that created the jobs but the people and the companies of Canada. That is a pleasant change from what we usually hear from that side of the House.

On the process, I do not think this gesture of handing stuff out to committees goes anywhere far enough to what the opposition wants and to what is appropriate in a democracy. If we were able to split it into two by taking the MPs' pensions out, we can also split it into 10 parts. It could then go to committees where amendments could be proposed and then it would go through. That is the normal democratic way to do it. It would not take until next summer. The government has a majority; it has the means to get things done. It could have been done expeditiously but democratically.

[Leon Benoit, Conservative, Vegreville—Wainwright, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am not going to bother responding to the member's comments on process, because most Canadians really do not care an awful lot about process. However, they do see it as a very positive step that this budget implementation bill will be examined by as many committees as makes sense. That is important to note.

Conservative MPs really do give credit where credit is due when it comes to creating jobs, and that is to large businesses, medium-size businesses and especially small businesses. They are the ones that drive the economy; they do create the jobs. Government creates the framework, along with some stimulus programs, which I admit I hesitated about when they were first announced. However, they do work. On that we have to be pragmatic. The framework our government has put in place, along with the stimulus package, clearly has worked in setting the framework. However, it is the business people of our country who create the jobs. I wish the opposition would remember that when they are beating up on business.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise the House that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Malpeque.

It is a pleasure for me to speak to the jobs and growth act, part of economic action plan 2012, and to talk about how economic action plan 2012 is playing out in my province.

I will give a little refresher for those here. Prince Edward Island is the birthplace of Confederation. It is still a province and thereby an equal partner in Confederation, although sometimes we wonder. Prince Edward Island has 140,000 people. It has a seasonal economy. Its biggest industries are agriculture, the fishery and tourism. Not many potatoes are dug in January, not many fish are caught and not many tourists land in Prince Edward Island through the winter. As a result, through the winter months about 27,000 of its citizens rely on the employment insurance system. The second largest employer in my province is the Government of Canada. One in twenty of all workers is employed by the Government of Canada. The economic policies of the Conservative government as they relate to the civil service and as they relate to employment insurance are absolutely critical.

I want to start with the policies of the government with respect to employment insurance and talk about three of them in particular: the working while on claim provisions that we have heard so much about from the member for Cape Breton—Canso; the frequent user provisions that are part of economic action plan 2012; and something that was quietly done last month, the changes to a pilot program for high employment areas.

I want to tell the House a story about a gentleman by the name of Roger Byers . Roger Byers has given me permission to use his last name because he wants his story to be told. In fact, Roger is going to be at a rally on Saturday in front of the office for the minister of the Canada Revenue Agency and he is going to be telling his story in front of a large crowd.

Roger Byers is a real person. He lives in a real apartment on Hillsborough Street. He works for the city of Charlottetown sweeping streets. He makes $17 an hour, works 40 hours a week, six months of the year. In addition to that six month full-time job, Roger works 20 hours a week calling bingo at a local bingo hall. For six months of the year Roger Byers works 60 hours a week. He is not lazy. For the other six months of the year, he works at the bingo hall making $10 an hour, $200 a week. Under the provisions of economic action plan 2012, $100 of his $200 a week will be clawed back through the winter.

Late on a Friday afternoon on a break week, the government announced that it would make changes to the working while on claim provisions. Mr. Byers had the opportunity to elect under the old rules, which was a much smaller clawback of only about $6 a week. However, those changes will come into effect January, February and March of the new year. Therefore, Mr. Byers, through the winter, will be in a situation where one-half of his wages will be clawed back. That is how he will get through Christmas thanks to economic action plan 2012.

Economic action plan 2012 also targets frequent users of the employment insurance system. Prince Edward Island has 27,000 of them. This will have a devastating effect on our economy.

There is a trend in the country of people moving from small communities to bigger centres and people moving from east to west. Apparently it is not happening fast enough for the government. The economic policies of the government will gut small communities, eastern communities and places that rely on seasonal economies, as it will in my community.

Finally, I want to talk about something that happened just last month.

There was a pilot project to help in areas of high unemployment, such as my province. Quietly, without notice to the participants, without notice to the provinces, this program was cut. This means that people who rely on employment insurance in areas of high unemployment, such as Prince Edward Island, will get five weeks less in benefits. Their benefits will run out in the middle of the winter.

If this is not bad enough for the citizens of Prince Edward Island, what about the provincial government? These people are invariably headed for the welfare rolls. We have the downloading of a social program to another level of government. The provincial government will have to look after these people on the welfare rolls.

However, this is entirely consistent with what the Prime Minister said in 1995, “Caring for the poor is a provincial responsibility”. Now that he has his majority, we see that being played out.

I wish to invite all hon. members to a rally that will take place in front of the office of the Minister of National Revenue on Saturday afternoon at one o'clock. We expect a big crowd. The leader of the Liberal Party will be there. It would be great for members on the government benches to come and listen to how the economic action plan is working on the ground in Prince Edward Island. I would very much appreciate seeing some Conservative members there to listen to how their policies are working.

I indicated at the outset that the second largest employer on Prince Edward Island is the Government of Canada. On page 221 of the budget, there was an indication that when the civil service cuts took place that no region would be unfairly treated, that the regional distribution of civil service jobs would be largely unaffected. However, the cuts to the civil service across the country was 4.8%, but not in Prince Edward Island where it was 10% to 12%. Therefore, when the axe was applied to the civil service, it was applied in the province of Prince Edward Island twice. This is the continuation of a very disturbing trend that we have seen in recent years.

In recent years, the civil service actually had grown across Canada from 2009-2011. There was a growth in civil service jobs in the country of about 2.9%, with 5.1% in Ottawa, but not in Prince Edward Island where it had declined by 3.5%. Therefore, the budget is a further insult to a gradual withdrawal of jobs from my province and it is a direct hit on our economy.

As I have indicated, we have a seasonal economy. We have 27,000 people dependent on employment insurance for their livelihoods during the winter. Some of the good paying jobs in my province are federal civil service jobs, but they are leaving at a rate twice the national average because of the economic policies of the Conservative government.

However, worse than the impact on the civil servants themselves and the businesses they frequent in my community is what is happening to front line services.

In every province in the country, if taxpayers wants to talk to a live person about their income tax returns, they can go in to a Canada Revenue Agency office and speak to a live person, but not in Prince Edward Island. If veterans want to talk to a live person at a district office, they can do that in every province in the country, but not in Prince Edward Island. If immigrants want to talk to a live person about their situation, a person employed by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada, they can do that in every province in the country, but not in Prince Edward Island.

Prince Edward Island is still a province. The economic policies of the government are punishing Prince Edward Island. In our country, that is not right.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to share with the hon. member some of the things that have happened in Nickel Belt with all of these cutbacks.

At one time, immigrants could go to a government office and talk to a live person. At one time, the people in Sturgeon Falls could visit a Service Canada office. However, I received a note a couple of days ago about people in Sturgeon Falls visiting the Service Canada office. They were seniors who were not capable of operating a computer as they did not know how. They were told by the people in Service Canada to come back with somebody who knew how to operate a computer next time as they could not help them.

Could the member comment on that please?

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, it is a problem that we have seen in Prince Edward Island, really in the last year or two, as a result of the policies of the government.

As I indicated, in every province in Canada taxpayers can talk to a live person but not in my province. In every other province in Canada veterans can access services in person.

Now what we will hear from the Minister of Veterans Affairs and from the parliamentary secretary is that they will deliver services through Service Canada and they will take our case managers and move them to New Brunswick, but they can be accessed by phone, and all of this is available on line.

At the same time, the government is withdrawing funding from CAP sites. In Prince Edward Island we have 140,000 people and last year there were 88,000 sign ins at CAP sites and the government is closing them.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague is the critic for veterans affairs. Quite a number of veterans affairs people employed by the federal government are in his riding, in the city of Charlottetown, and many of them live in my riding as well.

Could the member expand on the damage that is being done to federal government services at Veterans Affairs and the impact the layoffs are having on Prince Edward Island, on the business community and on the lives of individuals affected by the cut-and-slash policies of the federal government?

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, if I could, I will focus in on the cuts at veterans affairs for a moment.

There is no question that good paying permanent jobs have a multiplier effect in the community in terms of the economic impact. There was an excellent study done by one Canada's leading law firms, McInnes Cooper, with respect to the economic impact of the job cuts on Prince Edward Island. A lot of the statistics that I cited came from that study.

With regard to Veterans Affairs, the government does not justify the cuts by saying it has to balance the books, although we know it is balancing the books on the backs of veterans. What it says is that traditional veterans are dying and therefore its needs to change the way it delivers services.

The Auditor General, in his report of last week, indicated that Veterans Affairs' forecasts did not take into account information about the increasing number of Canadian Forces members with mental health issues, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. Basically what he said was the basis on which the cuts were happening at Veterans Affairs was flawed.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to apologize to my colleagues on the far side. A while ago I had my back to them and they were yelling at me. I want to apologize for that.

What does the member behind me think about the Conservatives turning their backs on Canadians?

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, this gives me a chance to redo my speech, but I am sure you will not allow me to do that.

In Prince Edward Island we feel left out. With respect to the economic policies of the government, they seems to relate to the oil sands and economies that are blessed with natural resources. We are in a situation where we are being overlooked and social programs are being gutted. The civil service, which is extremely important to us, is being reduced at a rate greater than the national average.

We would like to remind the government that we are still a province. Regions should be treated fairly. There should not be this income inequality between individuals or between regions in the country.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for LaSalle—Émard on a point of order.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I ask for the unanimous consent of the House to move the following motion: “That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, clauses 9, 27, 28 and 62 to 64 related to the scientific research and experimental development tax credit be removed from Bill C-45, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures, and that these clauses do compose Bill C-47; that Bill C-47 be entitled Income Tax Act and Related Regulations; that Bill C-47 be deemed read a first time and be printed; that the order for second reading of the said bill provide for the referral to the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology; that Bill C-45 retain the status on the order paper that it had prior to the adoption of this order; that Bill C-45 be reprinted as amended; and that the law clerk and parliamentary counsel be authorized to make any technical changes or corrections as may be necessary to give effect to this motion.”

We are moving this motion to ensure that some parts of Bill C-45 are properly examined by the respective committees. We are of the opinion that the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology is in the best position to examine these specific provisions of the legislation.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Does the hon. member for LaSalle—Émard have the unanimous consent of the House to propose this motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

There is not unanimous consent.

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Malpeque.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to Bill C-45. However, I admit that I am saddened by what the first omnibus bill did in the spring and by what this omnibus bill would do to the ability of the federal government to do what it is there for, which is to provide services for Canadians. They undermine the government's ability to do that.

I want to review what my colleague from Charlottetown outlined when he said that much of this bill, previous bills and previous policies by the current government will have and have had an impact on P.E.I. and the seasonal industries and, indeed, all of Canada, but specifically on Prince Edward Island. We are the only province without a passport office. We are the only province without a Citizenship and Immigration office, which the government closed. We are the only province that will not have a local office to serve veterans in person, as the government will close it. We are the only province that will have no CRA counter service because that minister who is from Prince Edward Island will close it. We also are a province that is being severely punished with changes to employment insurance, punishing our seasonal workers, our seasonal industries and our economy.

I see that the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food is here listening intensely. His actions recently in cutting AgriStability from 85% of the reference margin to 70% and cutting AgriInvest from 1.5% to 1% destroys the safety net for the farm community. His government has provided no assistance whatsoever for the hog industry, which is in serious trouble. We have lost researchers at the research station in both the potato industry and the grain industry, important to our number one industry, the agricultural industry. As well, we have had serious cost recovery fees at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency which affect our number one industry, which is potatoes.

I will read the notice to the potato industry on September 19 from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. It reads:

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) will be phasing in user fees for potato cyst nematode...sample collection and analysis activities related to export certification of seed potatoes.

It is another instance of taking away services and downloading costs on to the primary producers in that particular case. It kind of makes one wonder where the regional minister from P.E.I. is because the services to Prince Edward Island have been decimated since 2006 when the present Prime Minister came into office.

However, let us look in general terms at Bill C-45 because we should mention some of the general areas where there is huge concern. It is a huge bill affecting some 60 pieces of legislation. This is a way for the government to take away the democratic right of Canadians to analyze each piece of legislation, to have a vote and to have their say on it. This bill rewrites the laws protecting Canada's waterway. It slashes tax credits for research and development and an investment tax credit that I once used myself on the farm. They are very good ways to invest and bring technology up. The government would cancel those measures. It would kill the investment tax credits in mining and in Atlantic Canada that have helped keep our economy strong.

Bill C-45 redefines aboriginal fisheries without even consulting the first nations community. The bill would eliminate the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission. It corrects numerous mistakes in Bill C-38, including some relating to environmental assessment and fisheries. It also would suspend the EI financing board. It also would undermine the ability of the Canadian Grain Commission to do its job in this country.

We are seeing serious cuts to front line government services and a direct attack on those who require some kind of assistance. My colleague talked considerably about the changes that were made to employment insurance, such as the clawback while on claim and taking 50¢ on the dollar out of people's pockets who need it most. It is a change that did not need to be made and a change on which there was no consultation with employees or employers. It is a change that hurts our economy and our seasonal industries. It hurts them in four ways: first, the employees by leaving them less money; second, the employer who will have more difficulty finding employees; third, the economy; and fourth, it will cause problems because if a farmer, for instance, needs workers for a day and people say that they cannot work for half wages because the Government of Canada will claw back half their wages, then they will demand cash, and we do not want to get into that kind of an economy.

In fact, the minister of innovation and advanced learning for P.E.I. stated the following:

Our seasonal industries -- fishing, agriculture and tourism -- are the backbone of our economy.... We need the federal government to consider the strong seasonal nature of our province and work with us to ensure changes to the EI program do not negatively affect Islanders and our economy. Seasonal employees and employers are skilled workers who ensure our province's livelihood and they rely on employment insurance to bridge the gap between seasonal employment. Negatively impacting our seasonal workers and their employers will negatively impact our province as a whole.

That statement is absolutely true. With the actions of the government on employment insurance, this act should instead be called the drive people into poverty act. It likes simple names for acts and that is what it is doing in this case. The clawback is hurting people and now, after losing the five week pilot project, I do not know how people will to survive the consequences of that action. It is a serious problem and the government did not need to do it.

This bill follows on the spring omnibus bill, which went after old age security. It upped the age from 65 to 67. Now we know, with the information coming out, that the system was secure, as we said at the time. There is no real saving to the government as a result of that decision. Three one-hundredths of a per cent of the GDP of the country by 2030 is just a rounding error for the way the cabinet spends money. There were, as I said, changes to the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act in the spring which hurt services to Canada. There were changes to the environment and the National Energy Board, slashes at Parks Canada, and the cutting of the community access program. Those actions were done in the spring and now we have this, which will slash government services even more.

The last and most important point for Canadians is a quote from a report that was in the press on September 28. It states:

A new report from a federal spending watchdog concludes the Conservative government’s changes to health funding will ultimately download billions of dollars in medical costs annually to the provinces, something premiers and opposition parties say will erode public health care and provincial finances.

That is a hallmark of Canada's health care system and the government is cutting services to the public, downloading costs to provinces and not living up to its obligations as a federal government for the good of the country. It is a shame and the government should be ashamed of itself.

Alleged Misuse of Email Accounts

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment now to respond to a question of privilege that was raised by the hon. member for Vancouver Kingsway today.

The member does rightly point out that there have been letters on this issue. My office decided to send these letters to the member across the way so that he was quite honestly aware of them.

I learned earlier this afternoon that unfortunately and accidentally, when the email address was entered, the personal account instead of the public MP account was selected. I am sure those who have used Outlook email would know from experience when dealing with several similar addresses that this could happen.

That the emails were sent to his personal account was not intentional and certainly far removed from anything resembling a malicious intent. It was simply to make sure he, through his office, was aware of these Canadian messages.

Nonetheless, I want to extend my apologies to the hon. member. I am disappointed, quite honestly, though, that he chose to make a bit of a public spectacle out of an administrative error instead of just coming over and asking me for an explanation.

While I support the submission made earlier by the hon. government House leader, I trust my apology will settle this matter in the finest traditions of this House.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I thank the hon. member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex for his comments and intervention on this matter and will take those comments under advisement and get back to the House in due course as necessary.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-45, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures, be read the second time and referred to a committee.