Mr. Speaker, I rise in this House today to oppose both the form and the substance of Bill C-38.
This bill is a jumble of dangerous legislation rolled up into an omnibus bill. In the time allotted to me, it will be impossible to identify the multitude of problems this bill contains, but I will nonetheless try to address as many of them as possible, because these legislative changes will hit my constituents in d'Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel hard.
Among other things, this bill raises the eligibility age for old age security and guaranteed income supplement benefits; repeals the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act; weakens the environmental assessment system and the measures to protect fish habitats, to expedite approval of large projects; changes the definition of interested parties, to narrow the scope of public participation in the environmental decision-making process; eliminates the Auditor General’s oversight of a number of agencies; repeals the Fair Wages and Hours of Work Act, which will allow employers to circumvent the wage rates set by unions for construction workers hired on projects funded by the federal government; amends the Employment Equity Act so it does not apply to federal contracts, which is a direct attack on women, aboriginal people, persons with a disability and visible minorities; and amends the Seeds Act so that private businesses can then be allowed to perform food inspections.
This bill does a lot of other things, but these aspects in particular are really going to hurt my constituents in Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel.
I want to talk in greater detail about the fact that Bill C-38 repeals the Fair Wages and Hours of Work Act. That act has protected construction workers who work on federal projects since 1930. It guarantees them reasonable hours and a decent wage. But the government is now attacking these workers and their fair and equitable wages. Without that protection, we will be going back to the standards that were in effect in the 1930s.
As well, the Employment Equity Act will no longer apply to federal contracts. The role of that law is to protect the rights of women, minorities, aboriginal people and persons with a disability. Even with that legislation, those groups continued to suffer discrimination. And now, the government wants to take away what little protection there is.
I very much hope for the day when we live in a world where that act is no longer needed, but that is absolutely not the case. In 2002, in fact, it was recommended that this House strengthen the act, not narrow its reach.
These changes to the rules governing government subcontractors can be based in nothing other than the Conservative ideology that wants to demolish Canadians’ rights by allowing discrimination and unfair wages.
The federal government should be an exemplary employer. How can Canadians trust a government that attacks the rights of workers and its subcontractors when it comes time to protect them from the abuses of faceless megacorporations?
The current government loses on all fronts when it attacks its own employees and does nothing to protect others from brutal layoffs by companies chasing huge profits overseas.
This omnibus bill is not only dangerous for our institutions and for workers, but it also attacks the health and safety of all Canadians. Environmental deregulation and cuts to food safety are similar in their impact and, accordingly, the entire food production chain will be affected.
With environmental deregulation, we will no longer be able to protect our air, our water and our soil. Opening the door to privatizing the Canadian Food Inspection Agency will open the door to having seed inspections done by a subcontractor. That means less control and less information for the government, which could always deny knowing anything if things go wrong. This could also apply to food inspection. The government keeps offloading its responsibilities.
Ultimately, this deregulation and whittling away of checks and balances could have an effect on the health of Canadians. What is more, the government is weakening transparency and responsibility within government in the area of health.
This bill is bad for the Canadians in my riding. From Oka to Montpellier, Canadians want environmental regulations that protect them. From Mirabel to Ripon, farmers want to be able to count on the government to have regulations and inspections that are solid, fair and meaningful. From Morin Heights to Thurso, Canadians are fed up with this government, which has shamed us by withdrawing from the Kyoto protocol and is now waging a full-blown war on all the sectors of government that are responsible for providing a healthy environment for all Quebeckers and Canadians.
And just when we thought that the government could not stoop any lower, in the same bill it is attacking pensions by raising the retirement age from 65 to 67. As elected representatives, we cannot reduce the deficit by stealing Canadians' pensions. The OAS and the GIS are crucial to our public system because they help to fight poverty. The Conservatives are stealing two years of Canadians' pensions for reasons that do not make sense. There is no old age security funding crisis in Canada.
The government's most recent actuarial report indicates that the OAS and the GIS accounted for 2.37% of GDP last year, in 2011. This percentage will rise modestly to 3.16% in 2030, but will then fall below the current level to 2.35% of GDP in 2060. Clearly, there is no problem with long-term viability, and yet the Conservatives are trying to fool us by saying that these changes are intended to ensure the long-term viability of the program. However, these programs are efficient and economically sound, and the government's statements are unfounded.
In closing, the Conservatives are claiming that this budget focuses on job creation. In reality, however, a third of this bill is dedicated to scrapping regulations that protect the environment. Moreover, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has indicated that the legislation will result in the loss of 43,000 Canadian jobs. And on top of all that, we are going to have to vote on a bill without having an opportunity to engage in a proper debate on it.
I would like to draw the House's attention to what Hélène Buzzetti wrote in Le Devoir on April 27:
Yesterday the Conservative government introduced a mammoth budget implementation bill.... Everything will be examined as quickly as possible by a committee that specializes in finance.
Each of these issues could have been dealt with in a separate bill and analyzed by the appropriate parliamentary committee. Instead, the government lumped them all together in one document that will be studied all at once...
A mammoth bill, that is what the media is calling it. I would remind the Conservatives that the mammoth is an extinct species. I hope the members across the floor realize that this omnibus bill should suffer the same fate and die when it comes time to vote.