Debates of March 8th, 2013

Status of women

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Minister of Public Works and Government Services and Minister for Status of Women]

Mr. Speaker, first I would like to wish everyone a happy International Women's Day.

Of course, Canada has been named the best country in the world to be a woman, but we all believe there is much work to be done, especially in the area of ending violence against women and girls.

We have taken a concerted effort on this level. Just recently we launched another call for proposals for innovative projects to ask men and boys to take a stand to end violence against women and girls. We have increased the funding to these programs to the highest level ever in Canadian history. However, we also want men to take a stand on International Women's Day to end violence against women and girls.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will continue with my suggestions. The Conservatives decided to increase the eligibility age for old age security and the guaranteed income supplement to 67 without providing any financial justification.

Do the Conservatives not see that this will hurt a very large number of women who struggle to get by below the poverty line? Old age security represents almost 30% of the income of women between 65 and 67 years of age. Why not eliminate this unjustified and heartless Conservative measure in the next budget?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Minister of Labour]

Mr. Speaker, I am puzzled by the member's question because we know in our government that seniors have done so much to contribute to our country and build our country, which is exactly why we have done more for seniors than any other government, including the one he led.

We have created the position of Minister of State for Seniors, an independent ministerial position to look after our seniors and their issues. Our government has made sure we have one of the lowest poverty rates among seniors in the world, lower than it ever was under the Liberals.

I have to say, he is completely wrong—

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Saint-Maurice—Champlain.

Aboriginal Affairs

[Lise St-Denis, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of talk about women as victims within aboriginal societies, but what about aboriginal women in the criminal justice system?

Will the government have to build more prisons to house the ever-increasing number of aboriginal women? The reconciliation meetings made it clear that there is a lack of services and support for aboriginal women who are incarcerated. Does the government have plans for rehabilitation programs for aboriginal women in prison?

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Now the Liberals are calling for us to build new prisons, Mr. Speaker. I do not know if they know what they want.

The fact is that our prison systems are working to help aboriginal women. We are a leader. Correctional Service of Canada is a leader in terms of the services we are providing for aboriginal women who are serving sentences.

We need to look at the whole issue of why women are getting involved and becoming criminals. I think they are in a vulnerable stage. When the opposition is not supporting Bill S-2, which empowers women on reserve, it is not helping aboriginal women.

Parliamentary Budget Officer

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it has become increasingly clear that Conservatives prefer to keep Canadians in the dark on how public money is being spent.

The PBO analyzed the estimates and the cost of the war in Afghanistan and the F-35s. Instead of strengthening the PBO, Conservatives are making it weaker. Instead of welcoming oversight, Conservatives are hiding the numbers.

Instead of being more transparent, why are Conservatives breaking their promises?

[Tony Clement, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board and Minister for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario]

Mr. Speaker, on the contrary, we have some very firm rules in this House about the delivery of estimates, public accounts and reports on plans and priorities, which are the accountability reports by the various departments of the Government of Canada. We adhere to those standards. We are pleased to share those. I tabled the estimates myself just over a week ago and we will continue to do so. Of course, the Parliamentary Budget Officer will be a credible non-partisan choice in the future as well.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in response to this nonsense, I want to quote a document from 2006. “Governments cannot be held to account if Parliament does not know the accurate state of public finances.”

Who said that? The Conservatives did in their election platform. Was that just meaningless rhetoric? Instead of strengthening the Parliamentary Budget Officer's powers, they have attacked him and undermined him at every opportunity. Instead of being transparent, they forced him to go to court to obtain documents.

Why have they abandoned their promises of transparency?

[Tony Clement, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board and Minister for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario]

Mr. Speaker, as I have already said, we want a non-partisan Parliamentary Budget Officer who provides credible opinions on tax matters. The Library of Parliament is currently searching for a new Parliamentary Budget Officer.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, again Conservatives are making things up and running full speed away from accountability.

Yesterday I asked the immigration minister about the disappointing numbers around refugee resettlement. Instead of taking responsibility, he just made excuses. Instead of living up to their commitments to increase refugee settlement, Conservatives settled 25% fewer refugees than the year before. They failed to meet even their own target.

When will the minister stop the spin and fix this problem?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps the member opposite is not aware that our by far largest refugee resettlement program was for Iraqis who were in Syria. There is a civil war in Syria. As a consequence, we had to shut down our embassy and immigration office in Damascus last spring, thereby effectively suspending the resettlement of our largest refugee program.

We are trying very hard to get that back on track by processing out of Amman, Beirut and Ankara. However, even our government is unable to overcome the problem of the civil war in Syria when it interrupts the processing of those applications.

That said, we continue to resettle one out of every 10 resettled refugees worldwide and lead the world in per capita terms.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, they failed to make their own settlement targets, but all we get are more excuses and much more spin.

For some reason, the minister still refuses to meet with leading Syrian-Canadian organizations. He will not meet with the Syrian National Council, the Syrian Canadian Council, the Syrian Expatriates Organization, Canadian Relief for Syria, the Syrian Student Association or Watan.

The Syrian refugee crisis is worsening. Why will the minister not meet with these groups?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think anyone can criticize me for having met with an inadequate number of Canadian cultural communities and organizations.

It is true that I have not met with every single one, but I can say that I have met with many groups of Syrian Canadians and dozens of Syrian Canadians on this issue in the recent past.

This week, I was the first minister in 37 years to go to Iraq, in part to meet with Syrians dealing with the refugee crisis and to work with them, our embassy and our local officials on how we can help in that local situation.

Status of Women

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, despite the Conservatives' lovely promises, true pay equity is still a long way off. Women's economic standing will not improve under a Conservative government.

The minister responsible for butchering employment insurance is even looking for new ways to further restrict women's access to benefits. Believe it or not, pregnancy is now considered to be refusal of employment. Just as many women work part-time as men. That means the minister is targeting them with her quotas.

Will the Conservatives stop punishing women just because they are women?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Minister of Labour]

Mr. Speaker, the accusations made by the member are completely ludicrous. The reality is that our government is focused on jobs, on economic growth and on long-term prosperity, which I believe is incredibly important to me as a woman.

We have created 950,000 net new jobs. Our unemployment is 7%. These are all positive factors that help us all, including my gender. However, more specifically, I am very proud of the work we have been doing with employment insurance to ensure that the product is there for people when they need it most, when they lose their jobs through circumstances no fault of their own.

Employment Insurance

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the minister responsible for butchering employment insurance wants to fix something that is not broken.

The provinces get $2 billion for training programs to help unemployed workers develop the skills they need to find work.

Even though nobody objects to that, the Conservatives are once again eliminating a program that works.

Why not just renew the training transfer?

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, it is fair to say that this government has done a lot to help people acquire the skills they need to find jobs.

Here are some of the programs we created: the apprenticeship completion grant, which the NDP voted against; the apprenticeship incentive grant, which the NDP voted against; and the apprenticeship job creation tax credit, which the NDP voted against.

In addition, this government has just created 50,000 more jobs, for a total of 950,000 net new jobs in Canada since the recession.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we always get the same answers.

The minister responsible for butchering employment insurance has never set foot in Joliette.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order.

The hon. member for Joliette.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, she is sending inspectors to spy on the unemployed, close Service Canada offices in the regions and axe training programs for the unemployed.

She claims her reform will improve our regional economies. If she knew how our seasonal industries operate, she would know that they are functioning quite well.

Why is she so bent on punishing people who lose their jobs? Just how far will she go with the Conservative policy of abandoning the regions?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Minister of Labour]

Mr. Speaker, in the spirit of International Women's Day, I would like to remind my counterpart on the other side that calling ministers names that do not correspond with their positions does not help decorum in this House whatsoever. Quite frankly, those members should know better.

What we are doing with respect to employment insurance is just making some common sense changes. The context of the program is not changing whatsoever. We want to connect Canadians with available jobs, available jobs that we have created since 2009, 950,000 net new jobs. We want to provide them with information to get them back to work.

Government Appointments

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I encourage the minister to go look at the rates in my region, which went up.

According to a report just days before—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!