Debates of April 1st, 2014

Government Response to Petitions

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's responses to 11 petitions.

Interparliamentary Delegations

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1), I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fall report of the Canadian delegation to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in the European Parliamentary Assembly respecting its participation at the 22nd annual session of the OSCEPA in Istanbul from June 29 to July 3, 2013.

Experimental Lakes Area

[Bruce Hyer, Green, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, petitions continue to pour in from Canadians across the country who are urging the government to save the Experimental Lakes Area. The government revoked funding for the ELA in 2012, but it has been negotiating to save the research facility after public outcry.

It gives me great pleasure to remind my fellow parliamentarians that the Experimental Lakes Area is not yet dead and hopefully we can still save it.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I also have a petition from Canadians who are interested in saving the Experimental Lakes Area. It is a place where science is done for the good of all of society, indeed, the whole world, because of the importance of freshwater to human beings.

It is my pleasure to present this petition to the House today.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[The Speaker]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Opposition Motion—Government Aircraft

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

moved:

That, in the opinion of the House, government planes, and in particular the plane used by the Prime Minister, should only be used for government purposes and should not be used to transport anyone other than those associated with such purposes or those required for the safety and security of the Prime Minister and his family.

Mr. Speaker, as always, it is a great honour to stand in this place and be chosen to speak on behalf of the people of Timmins—James Bay. I am certainly proud to rise today on the issue of the abuse of the public trust in taxpayers with the misuse of government resources, particularly the use of the Challenger jet.

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier.

This issue needs to be debated in the House because we see within the government the continual and deliberate blurring of the lines between the use of government resources that are meant to serve the people of Canada and the partisan narrow interests of the Conservative war machine. Whether it is the misuse of government resources or the redrawing of the websites, everything the government seems to be doing is taking public resources and turning them to the personal use of the party or its friends. That is something the Conservatives used to rail against in the old Liberal regime.

Very clear rules about the use of flights were set up by the Board of Internal Economy. For members of Parliament who do have to charter planes into isolated regions—for example, I have had to charter flights up into James Bay—there are clear rules. Number one is, we have to ensure that the only people on those planes actually are government staff. Anyone else on the plane would have to be put on the flight manifest and would have to pay the full charge. The Board of Internal Economy is very clear on this, so when we find out that a guy who raised $3.5 million for the Prime Minister gets to fly back and forth from Calgary, that is simply not acceptable. That is an abuse of trust.

I would like to read a few quotes that will put this into context:

We have seen the Prime Minister flying around the country on Challenger jets doing a few hours of government work, then spending the rest of the time campaigning and fundraising…. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. The…culture of entitlement goes on. The public must be given a chance to put an end to it.

Who said that? It was our present Prime Minister when he was in opposition. Yes, meet the new boss; same as the old boss over there. The issue here is that this is a government that is telling the rest of Canadians that the cupboard is bare and yet the Prime Minister can fly one of his buddies down to watch the New York Yankees at a ball game, where the Challenger jet cost taxpayers anywhere between $8,000 and $11,000 an hour to run. When the government is telling senior citizens in my riding that the cupboard is bare, while it is flying its friends to ball games, I would ask the Canadian people if they think that is fair.

A number of people have spoken out on this issue. I would like to quote them now:

Mr. Speaker, while Canadians are barely coping with higher gasoline prices, the…ministers do not share such mundane concerns. They prefer going from Ottawa to Toronto aboard a luxury jet that costs $11,000 an hour to operate…. How can the Prime Minister justify such a waste of public funds?

Who said that? It was the present Minister of Employment and Social Development.

There are a few others:

Mr. Speaker, if $1 million on airfare were not enough, it turns out, through access to information, that of the 141 flights taken on the Challenger jet between January and July, over $71,000 was spent on food. That does not include the bar bill. That represents an average of $508 per flight, just less than the monthly grocery bill for a Nova Scotia family of four. How does the Prime Minister justify spending the equivalent of the cost of a monthly family grocery bill on an air flight? Just what was on that menu?

Who said that? It was the present Minister of Justice. We all remember him when he was minister of defence. He is the man who ordered a search and rescue helicopter to pick him up from his hunting camp because he was too lazy to come out on his own. He used our military government resources to fly him from his hunting camp.

[Robert Chisholm]

He had to get to dinner though.

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

Oh, he had to get to dinner, yes. He had the lobster dinner he had to go to.

Here is the man who is the Minister of National Defence, using taxpayers’ resources to go to court to tell veterans of our country that this government has no obligation to them. If we asked any Canadian on the street what they think of our obligation to veterans, they would say that it is shameful that the Conservatives are using taxpayers' dollars to argue that they have no social contract with veterans.

Yet the Minister of Justice had a total social contract with the military when he needed to be picked up from hunting camp to be flown to his lobster dinner. This is the kind of abuse that Canadians-—

[Robert Chisholm]

Got any more?

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

We have got lots of them, Mr. Speaker. I have been holding this one back, because it comes from one of the most quotable and most ridiculous members of Parliament that have ever sat in this House in the last 150 years.

…the minister has been at his post for five years…. The Sea Kings are no closer to being replaced.… Instead there are Challenger jets to fly the Prime Minister and his cabinet around in luxury.

Who said that? Think, folks. It was the member for Calgary West.

We are having fun with this, but this is not a funny issue. This is about a contempt for the Canadian people. The Prime Minister told Canadians in 2006 that he would clean up this culture of entitlement. Instead, his attitude was that he would clean up the Liberals, and once they were done, then he and his friends would pork out at the trough.

That is not what Canadians voted for. This is not about saying that the Prime Minister and his family should not use the Challenger for security reasons, although I note that the present Minister of Industry said:

There is something else the government can do. If the government wants to show confidence in the commercial airline industry, here is a suggestion. Will the Prime Minister park his Challenger jet and fly commercial skies as other Canadians do as a sign of faith that security works?

That is what the present Minister of Industry said when he was in opposition. He wanted the Liberal Prime Minister to fly commercial air, but he has not said that in cabinet because they enjoy the perks.

Again, this is abuse of the public trust from a government that said it would do something better. The Conservatives are doing it at a time when they are telling senior citizens that the cupboard is bare; when they are telling veterans who served our country, “Hey, buzz off, we are done with you, and we will go to court to fight you”; when they are telling first nations children in the north, “You do not deserve schools because we cannot afford them”. However, when it comes to looking after their pals, there is all the money in the world.

Speaking of which, I go back to the Minister of Justice and his complaint about the cost of food. He wanted to know how they could justify wasting that much money on a flight. Yet we just found out that the Prime Minister spent $32,000 feeding his hand-picked crew who went to Israel. That was $150 per meal, and if we look at what they were serving, oh, man, those sandwiches looked pretty brutal. If they are going to blow money like that, at least they could serve people well.

We Canadians expect better from this Prime Minister and we are not getting it. That is why we brought this forward, and we are doing it in a non-partisan manner. This is what the Conservative Party stood for. We are asking Conservatives to return to their roots. Perhaps they have forgotten where they came from. Perhaps they have forgotten how they used to be offended by the use of taxpayers' dollars to help friends, insiders, and buddies.

This is a moment where we reach out across the aisle to our poor, wayward, lost children of the Conservative Party and try to bring them back into the fold of accountability and say, “This is just one little way of doing this”.

[Robert Chisholm]

We could rehabilitate them.

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

We can rehabilitate them, Mr. Speaker. I do not know if we could rehabilitate all of them, but we are willing to try. That just shows the kind of people we have on our side; that we believe that people can be reformed, even the old Reformers, who have certainly given up on their sense of accountability.

We are asking for all-party support on this. We are not saying the Prime Minister cannot fly the Challenger. We are not saying his family cannot fly on it, but people like bagmen and buddies have no business getting free and cheap flights on the taxpayers' dime. Let us have some rules. Let us follow the rules. Canadians follow the rules. It is time the government followed the rules.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I was a little surprised when I saw that the NDP has brought to the floor an issue it has decided is one of abuse of public trust. The reason I am having a difficult time with that is because we need to appreciate what the leader of the New Democratic Party has been up to lately.

We can talk about the millions of tax dollars that have been abused through the direct mail that has gone out. We can talk about the outreach office. The outreach office is supposed to be in Saskatchewan where the NDP does not have any members of Parliament, and it is there to service constituents.

The NDP does not have any right to give lectures regarding the issue of public trust. It has done a disservice to public trust. Remember how it had to be dragged kicking and screaming on proactive disclosure because it did not want to tell Canadians where it was flying and the prices it was charging? It had to be dragged, kicking and screaming on this issue.

Why does the member feel that the NDP has to have an outreach office in Saskatchewan and have the taxpayers pay for that, as opposed to its own political party that should be footing the bill?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am not surprised that I struck a nerve with the Liberals when it comes to the abuse of the taxpayers. This is the party that invented it. My colleague is jumping up and down like an angry man. I am not surprised. I have certainly touched a chord with the Liberals.

The member has the gall to refer to mailings and to Bourassa, when Elections Canada has ruled that we did everything perfectly legally. That is different from what happened with the Liberals. It was a government that was corrupt from the beginning. It is as corrupt now. The Liberals are certainly angry.

When their new leader came in, they were going to do politics differently. All they have done in terms of their politics is continually attack the New Democrats for the fact that we stand up for regions, that we go to the House of Commons and talk with them about what is legal and how to do things right so that we can represent people. At the same time, the new Liberal leader is off selling Keystone XL for the oil lobby. We talk to average Canadians; he talks to oil lobbyists.

I know that the member is angry. He is an angry old man, but that is because his party has been relegated to the wilderness for its contempt of the Canadian people.

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

Mr. Speaker, I first wish to congratulate my hon. colleague on his eloquent speech.

As entertaining as his quotations were, I find the current state of affairs quite unfortunate. People spent years criticizing the Liberals when they were in power. Some Liberals are even making a lot of noise. I have a new seat in the House, and I had forgotten how loud it can get in this part of the House.

People have been having strong reactions; they feel as though they are being attacked. There seems to be a culture of corruption and an abuse of Canadians' trust.

My colleague already mentioned this in his speech, but I wonder if he could elaborate. Could he comment on how the NDP would respect the trust that Canadians have placed in us to represent them, as well as the trust they will place in us in 2015, when Canadians vote in a new government to replace both corrupt parties?

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

Mr. Speaker, I will try another one:

Madam Speaker, the government each day and every day continues to show the Canadian taxpayer that it does not care. [...]

One of the most recent examples of this is the use of the Challenger jets as flying limos, as party taxis, as a way of not having to sit with the regular folk.

[...] In just a few hours of travel the government has spent the annual earnings of a family in Canada.

[...]...if a year's salary spent on these flights home is okay. Let us ask seniors or farmers who just had the oil tank filled for the winter if these flights are okay.

Who said that? That was the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London. Come on down and show us that you stand for accountability and that you are not going to hide behind a government of corruption. Stand up and stand with us. We are calling on you. This is your chance.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

The member for Timmins—James Bay has been here long enough to know that he should address his questions and comments to the Chair, not to other members in the House.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would appreciate the indulgence of all members, because I have a touch of the flu. I may need a few breaks.

I am pleased to join the debate on the motion before us today. Considering the commotion it is causing in the House, we seem to have touched a sensitive spot that needs to be explored. I am pleased to have the opportunity to do so. It can be hard to have to speak following my colleague from Timmins—James Bay, who is always so eloquent and who was able to present various examples of abuse of power by the other two parties, but I will do my best. He already gave all the best quotations, but it would be worth hearing them in both languages. This is an important moment for my colleagues from Quebec.

Even though I have the opportunity to rise in the House to discuss the motion before us, I am disappointed because the motion speaks to something so obvious and so logical that I do not understand why we are even talking about it today.

When the Conservatives were in opposition, they complained about this type of abuse of public trust and public money. Still today they are trying to pass themselves off as great defenders of the use of public money. They ask Canadians to trust them with their money and to give them the responsibility to run the country. They say that they will not be like the Liberals, they will not betray Canadians and they will use the money wisely. If the Conservative Party had truly adhered to that principle, we would not be here today talking about this and instead might be discussing things that Canadians are interested in and concerned about.

My colleague was talking about the cuts to veterans' services. CFB Valcartier is in my riding of Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier. That base sent an incredible number of soldiers to the front lines in Afghanistan. I have had the opportunity to welcome a number of them home since being elected. Every time, it is an unsettling and difficult experience for me. I am 28 and I see people younger than I am returning from Afghanistan, where they experienced things I cannot even begin to imagine. They need help from our government, but our government tells them that it has to balance the budget by 2015, in time for the election. The government tells them that they will have to wait a while because it does not have a social contract with them. That is a matter for another speech. It is terrible to say such a thing. It is even worse to try to use such a defence to create a legal precedent.

I am straying somewhat from what we are debating, but I am using this example to illustrate the Conservatives' bad faith towards those truly in need. There have been more than 10 cases of suicide among soldiers who needed help. According to the DND ombudsman's most recent report, we need 15% to 20% more mental health care professionals.

Just recently, we heard that our francophone soldiers in Afghanistan had to obtain psychological services from the U.S. forces. DND did not even have the decency to provide them with services in their official language. We are told that it is not possible to deploy psychologists and other professionals. That shows a poor understanding of national defence. That is the argument that I heard and I could not believe it.

The U.S. can deploy psychologists and provide essential services to their troops. DND says that there was a problem, that it was not an ideal solution and that there might be a cultural or language shock, but that it would eventually resolve this situation when it has the time to consider it.

Such terrible things are being said. Then the government tells us that it supports our troops, but that we all have to tighten our belts. It says that everyone has funding problems and that everyone has to make sacrifices. Everyone has to tighten their belts, except for the Prime Minister's cronies. That is another class of Canadians, the pampered elite. Personally, I do not get to pay the equivalent of economy class for flights worth $11,000. That never happens. I cannot afford that kind of luxury even with all the Aeroplan points I collect because I travel a lot.

It is a whole different story for people who raise over $3 million for the Prime Minister's election campaigns. Those people can travel on the Challenger. They are spoiled and can go wherever they want at very affordable prices. I should spend more time talking to the Prime Minister so that maybe I too can enjoy these privileges. I would like to experience that luxury sometime. I find the whole thing mind-boggling. There are no other words to describe how I feel about this situation.

I am going to follow my colleague's example and give some quotations. I find them delightful. Here is one that we have not heard yet today. I will start with the Prime Minister. At the time, he was an entrepreneur. He has worked hard in his life, and he understands the issues facing the middle class, people who do not have very much money. At the time, he and his wife owned a small business. He said:

My wife, Laureen, and I ran our own small businesses. We had to pay our own health care premiums. We had to purchase our own supplemental health care coverage, like most people in the country. We cannot afford to fly to clinics in the United States to get health care when things go wrong and we certainly cannot afford to get on Challenger jets to do it.

He said that on October 1, 2005. Much has changed since then. Apparently, the Prime Minister can now afford to travel all over the country for various reasons. If I am not mistaken, he travels to many different places, not only in Canada but also abroad. That is a problem. In the quote that I just read, the Prime Minister was trying to show Canadians that he truly understands the problems of the middle class and that he is there to listen to them and to ensure that their money is spent wisely. However, now that the Conservatives have a majority, it is too late to go back. We are stuck with them until the next election. We are stuck with people who regularly betray our trust.

I feel shortchanged, and so do the voters in my riding. People voted for the Conservatives because they hoped to see something new. The Conservatives played the game right, and many people put their trust in them. I can understand that. Unfortunately, people very quickly became disillusioned.

It is rare to see people looking forward to another election. People are realizing that a lot of money is being spent and a lot of time and energy is being wasted. People want their elected officials, their members of Parliament, to work for them, to represent them in the House and to be genuinely deserving of their trust. When I visit my riding now, people ask me when the next election will be so that they can toss this government out. The Conservatives have told them so many half-truths and have regularly shaken their confidence.

Voters do not want an election so they can bring back the Liberals. On the contrary, my constituents want something new. They have not heard any policies from the current third party. I am still waiting. I would like to be able to debate policy, since that is my job. I was sent here by taxpayers and Canadian citizens to debate issues, present ideas and try to put forward solutions to make Canada a better country. I am still waiting for proposals from the Liberals to give me a little something to debate. I imagine that we will see something in 2015, which is still a ways away.

Regardless, people are looking forward to a change and to getting the government they deserve: a New Democrat government that will defend their interests and ensure that the taxes it collects—because taxes will have to be collected, as they are now—will be used properly to provide services to the public. Furthermore, a New Democrat government will not use public funds to help Conservative friends and backers live in the lap of luxury. That is completely unacceptable. We saw that under the Liberals, and it is still going on under the Conservatives. In 2015 it will be time for a change, time to elect a New Democrat government.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, we are listening to this debate today and it is a wonderful attempt, so to speak, by the New Democratic Party to deflect attention from what actually is happening. We all know that the leader of the New Democratic Party travels using taxpayer funds, for example, to Washington to lobby against Canada. Perhaps I will provide a little reminder to the NDP members that when they and their leader travel outside the country, they should be travelling in support of Canada, for which Canadians elected them to the House.

However, more importantly—and more poignantly, I would like to say—let me point this out. Parliament ordered the leader of the New Democratic Party to appear before the procedure and House affairs committee to respond to questions about the misuse of funds by the New Democratic Party to set up satellite offices in regions of the country where there is no elected member of Parliament from the New Democratic Party. This is the party that has been called upon to appear before the PROC committee, and the motion today is simply a partisan attempt to deflect attention from the fact that the NDP members have to respond to these actions.

I ask the member the following question. How does she feel about her leader being called in front of the PROC committee to respond to the misappropriation of taxpayer dollars?

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk about two things. First, I can see that the Conservatives are trying to sidetrack debate by accusing the NDP of certain things, but Elections Canada has already cleared the party of those allegations. I would like to point that out to the member.

Second, the people who sent me here did not elect me to represent oil and gas industry lobbyists. They sent me here to represent their interests. Many of my constituents are concerned about this issue, and they are very pleased to hear the questions that the NDP is putting to the government and the concerns being raised about obvious abuses in the oil industry.

I believe that I do my job quite well and that I represent my constituents quite well. I have no issues on that front. No one in my riding has come to me to say that Keystone XL is an excellent idea and that it will create a lot of jobs in the area. No one has said that. My constituents feel they are very well represented, but I thank the member for his concern, all the same.

However, we should be focusing on today's debate. That is what is important right now. I would like to see the Prime Minister appear before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to explain his use of the Challengers. If my leader has to appear, the Prime Minister should have to respond to questions as well.

It is unfortunate that I cannot hear my colleague's thoughts on that.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, indeed, the issue today is about the abuse of trust, abuse of the way in which tax dollars are being used inappropriately. We have heard it from the mover of the motion and the second speaker from the NDP on this issue.

I want to again highlight where a lot of that flagrant abuse has taken place, which is right from the office of the Leader of the Opposition who, in essence, is using a budget that has been allocated for leader's staff here in Ottawa. That is fully paid for by the taxpayer. He is taking staff from Ottawa and building an office out in Saskatchewan, where the NDP has not seen representation since 2004. New Democrats are, in essence, trying to set up a publicly funded political party. This is something that the party should be paying for, not taxpayers through the Leader of the Official Opposition's office.

My question to the member is this. How does the member defend her leader's approach to abusing the trust of tax dollars by creating this office?

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

The hon. member for Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier has 40 seconds to answer.

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

Mr. Speaker, it sounds as if the member thinks that the louder he is, the better his point is, but it is not.

Right now, the offices are there to serve Canadians. Those people are not doing partisan activities. I see the work that is being done and I have no qualms about standing up for the work those people do. Their work is in no way partisan.

Whether we have MPs in a place or not, there is no reason not to go talk to Canadians, to see what their concerns are and to try to stand up for them properly. I know that is different from what the Liberals and Conservatives are used to doing. They assume that they know what is best for Canadians. However, we in the NDP want to know what is best for them and we will go on the ground to find out.