Debates of April 29th, 2013

The Environment

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, as I have said any number of times, the minister has reiterated time and again in any number of venues just how important this government considers the issue of climate change.

Climate change is a global problem that requires a global solution. I would remind the member that our government is the first Canadian government to actually reduce greenhouse gases.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, first, the Conservatives took aim at science, and now they are taking aim at environmental assessments.

Natural resource development projects have just been given carte blanche. Heavy oil and oil sands processing facilities, pipelines and industrial mineral mines will no longer be subject to environmental assessments.

Are the Conservatives aware that this new attack on environmental protection will have negative economic repercussions?

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, responsible resource development is a cornerstone of the work that we have done to ensure stringent environmental protection. A publication of the amended project list I believe shows that we have achieved the right balance.

When it comes to protecting the environment, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency will review and assess those major projects that have the greatest potential for significant impact.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the right balance? What the government is now proposing to do is to take away environmental assessments for heavy oil and oil sands processing facilities, pipelines, electrical transmission lines, chemical explosives plants and industrial mineral mines, just when we thought our environmental assessment regime could not get any weaker.

Why are the Conservatives only listening to industry on this file? Why are they rejecting a responsible approach to environmental assessments?

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is simply wrong. Included on the project list, for example, are those projects which would involve expansion of oil sands mines and exploratory offshore drilling, just to name a couple. We have consulted with the provinces, with industry and we offered, although to no avail, to hear from first nation groups on this matter.

That said, the gazetting of these regulations will begin a 30-day consultation period, which will inform our decisions when we finalize the project list.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives seem much more interested in controlling the RCMP than they are in controlling pollution.

On Friday, the Conservatives categorically denied that meetings between the RCMP and members of Parliament had to be approved by the minister's office. Now we know that the Conservatives told the opposite of the truth and that, furthermore, the minister is counting on this form of censorship to prevent the RCMP from contradicting him.

Is the minister aware that the RCMP's mandate is not to protect his political agenda?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, the Commissioner of the RCMP will meet with whom he chooses when he chooses. It is also appropriate that he approve meetings of his staff.

The appropriate place for parliamentarians to interact with officials, RCMP or otherwise, is at parliamentary committees. If that member has concerns relating to the RCMP, I would encourage her to bring them to me.

However, let me be clear. None of this impacts the ability of any member to speak with his or her local RCMP or law enforcement on other local matters.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, well, if censoring meetings with parliamentarians is the only way the minister can keep tabs on this file, then we have a serious problem.

The RCMP must be able to operate without the shadow of political interference. Instead of encouraging transparency and open communication with parliamentarians, the minister has made negative consequences for the government, which is something they need to worry about.

When will the minister stop muzzling the RCMP to protect himself from accountability?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, if the member has any concerns about the RCMP in her riding, she can either bring those concerns to me or she can deal with the RCMP directly.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if the RCMP could speak freely to parliamentarians, we would hear a lot about the failure of the government's law and order agenda.

The provinces are starting to feel the pinch of all those downloaded costs. For example, in Alberta, overcrowding in prisons and employee safety issues have led to unprecedented job action. The government's job is to listen so that it can implement the best public policy decisions, not keep the minister happy. Is the minister aware that muzzling the RCMP is bad for public safety?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, that party indicated that our tough on crime approach would increase the cost of the construction of prisons by $19 billion. In fact, it was $500 million. That member, I know, opposes any measure to hold prisoners or criminals accountable through the utilization of prisons. We take a very different approach than that member does to keeping Canadians safe.

Privacy

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives want to control everything, but the one thing they cannot control is privacy breaches.

Thousands of Canadians have had their confidential information compromised by the Conservatives. It took more than 3,000 data breaches before the Privacy Commissioner was informed. She did not know about them. That is serious.

What did the Conservatives do when they found out? Nothing.

The commissioner has made it clear that these breaches are very disturbing.

Will the government commit to systematically informing the commissioner of all breaches? And when, for heaven's sake, will they take real steps to keep these breaches from happening?

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

Mr. Speaker, the majority of these breaches happened years ago, and they resulted in measures to ensure that Canadians' privacy is protected.

Of course, we take any loss of Canadians' personal information seriously. It is unacceptable, which is why we are and have been taking action to strengthen privacy protection.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is pretty clear that the minister does not seem capable of protecting the privacy information of Canadians. The extent of these breaches is staggering. They are losing Canadians' personal data almost every 48 hours.

When Canadian seniors file their taxes online, they should not have to worry that their SIN number, their address and their financial information is going to be lost or hacked. So will he agree to the New Democrats' proposal that he turn over these cases to the Privacy Commissioner and then come clean with the more than one million Canadians who have had their data lost, hacked or stolen?

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

Mr. Speaker, I have done better than that. I am already in the process of arranging a meeting with the Privacy Commissioner to discuss the situation, and certainly I will take seriously her recommendations, more so than their recommendations, because theirs are tainted by ideology, of course.

What we have done so far, of course, is that we have the veterans privacy action plan, mandatory reporting of breaches to the Privacy Commissioner and new guidelines to prevent and stop privacy breaches. We are taking this seriously. We have taken it seriously, and we will take it seriously in the future.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it took the New Democratic investigation into his incompetence, and he is going to hold the meeting.

When he bragged about creating open government, he did not tell Canadians it was open for fraudsters and cyber thieves. The extent of this breach is staggering. More than one million Canadians have had their data lost or stolen, and in only 13% of the cases has he come clean with the Privacy Commissioner, which means that he has left Canadians in the dark about their information being stolen. It is not good enough in an age of cyber fraud and identity theft. Will the minister come clean with Canadians and tell them who has been affected, how much data has been lost and why they have been left high and dry by the minister?

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

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned, we have new procedures in place. Since this government was elected in 2006, we have taken these privacy breaches seriously, and I am looking forward to engaging with the Privacy Commissioner to see what else can be done. That is how leadership works.

They can stand in the House and try to impart motives to us. We are actually taking it seriously. We have done things in the past to improve privacy. We will do things in the future as well.

Taxation

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we know the Conservatives are nickel and diming middle-class families, but the Prime Minister also continues to target the pockets of seniors. This all started when he announced that seniors will have to wait longer to get their OAS, a move that will cost pensioners approximately $12,000 each. Now tariffs have been added to this burden, as if they did not have enough, forcing seniors to pay even more for everything from blankets to home heating oil to food and housewares.

The Prime Minister has lowered seniors' already stressed incomes while increasing their daily expenses. Enough is enough. Could the Prime Minister please show some compassion—

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. Minister of Finance.

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, preferential tariffs are a form of foreign aid that are designed to help underdeveloped countries. Countries such as China now have an economy four times the size of the Canadian economy. I would expect the hon. member to support Canadian workers, Canadian manufacturers and Canadian businesses and not Chinese businesses in China, which, as I say, is a much larger economy.

Employment Insurance

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

Mr. Speaker, these are taxes on Canadian families, not the Chinese.

Changes to employment insurance are penalizing middle-class income earners and their families. Instead of helping those who have lost a job through no fault of their own, the government is forcing people to take low-paying jobs, travel long distances away from their families, and incur increased transportation costs and child care costs, all at a time when money is already tight.

Will the government finally reverse these reckless changes to EI?

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour]

Mr. Speaker, as the member opposite knows, those are actually completely false statements. The government has been focused on making sure the changes to EI provide opportunities for Canadians. Budget 2013 actually provides a significant number of opportunities for Canadians to gain skills and enter into the workforce.

I encourage members opposite to support the budget, support the Canada job grant, support apprenticeships and support youth, because those are the things we need to do to make sure Canada's economy is growing.

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

Mr. Speaker, did the parliamentary secretary listen to the 50,000 protesters in Montreal on Saturday? Did she hear their cries? Did she hear the concerns of employers who may well lose their skilled workers? Is she insensitive to all that? Is she so bent on following her Prime Minister's orders that she is covering her ears?

The government has made changes that have diminished the protection provided under employment insurance to middle- and low-income families. The government did so with no consultation and no studies. Can the parliamentary secretary cite a single study to support the completely crazy proposals her government is making to Canadian workers?

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour]

Mr. Speaker, whether it be the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development or me or others in this government, we have done extensive consultations across the country. I can list every single place I have been for the member opposite, if he would like.

Really, what is important here is making sure that Canadians have access to employment insurance when they need it, and that is guaranteed with this government. I encourage members opposite to support the budget and make sure that Canadians get the skills they need so they can enter into the workforce and grow the economy of this country.

Employment

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are still unconcerned about Canada's youth employment crisis. Yet the long-term impact can have disastrous ramifications.

The salary gap among young people, which will take years—if not decades—to fill, means billions of dollars less for our economy. Nonetheless, the minister is still not meeting the expectations of 280,000 young people who lost their jobs during the crisis. Most still have no job today.

When will the minister come up with a concrete plan to address this crisis?