Debates of Dec. 1st, 2016

Opposition Motion—Cuba

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have read the Conservative resolution, and it is the problem. How does the member support that resolution while at the same time the following is what Prime Minister Stephen Harper said:

On behalf of all Canadians, Laureen and I offer our sincere condolences to the family of King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz and the people of Saudi Arabia.

King Abdullah was recognized as a strong proponent of peace in the Middle East. He also undertook a range of important economic, social, education, health, and infrastructure initiatives in his country.

I had the pleasure of meeting King Abdullah in Toronto when Canada hosted the G-20 and found him to be passionate about his country, development and the global economy.

We join the people of Saudi Arabia in mourning his passing.

He cannot have it both ways. If he does not like what our current Prime Minister says, he cannot say he likes what the former prime minister said.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are employing a smart strategy today by reading into the record the comments made by the former prime minister on King Abdullah. It exposes and makes a mockery of the Conservative motion today. Where was the Conservative moral outrage when the comments were made by the former prime minister? Today they are levelling it at a prime minister from a different party. It is quite obvious that this is to score political points.

The other odd thing is the fact that the Liberals are using the King Abdullah defence. As we know, Canada just settled a $15-billion arms sale to the very regime they are now calling out for its human rights record.

I want to get to a more substantive question. Canada only sends about $2.42 million in aid to Cuba. I want to know if the government is planning to do more to give real help to the Cuban people as they manage their transition on the road ahead.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, we have a government that is looking at ways we can help the people of Cuba and also contribute in the world in a tangible way that reflects the values Canadians have.

When we compare today's Prime Minister to former Prime Minister Harper and evaluate the necessity of this opposition motion, I would suggest that at the end of the day, maybe there is something else we could have been debating.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things the member mentioned today was that when ministers are travelling abroad promoting Canada, they always have those issues of human rights in their dialogue. Lord knows, the government is good at sending its ministers and the Prime Minister on these trips, spending hard-earned taxpayers' dollars all across the world instead of here in Canada.

When those ministers, especially the Prime Minister, as he just did, are making public statements, such as the one made regarding the death of Fidel Castro, do they take those human rights issues equally to heart? In this case, I clearly do not think they did.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Party, at its core, is a party of Canada's charter of rights.

I had the good fortune of travelling to Israel a number of years ago. One of the things that came up was the recognition of how important Canada's charter of rights was. I cannot remember exactly where it was. It was on the outskirts of Old Jerusalem. I saw a plaque that made reference to the charter of rights.

I believe that our party reflects the wide spectrum of our nation. It is a party that truly believes in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Whether we are here in Canada or travelling abroad, I believe we consistently send a message about human rights. That is something that is not going to stop. We are very much aware of the expectations Canadians have of us on this issue. We will not let Canadians down.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague spoke about the importance of not politicizing foreign policy. I wonder if he could continue that thought. I think it is tremendously important. Canadians expect us as a government, and any government, not to politicize foreign policy. I wonder if the member could continue those comments.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things it is important to recognize is that members on the government benches, including the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of International Trade, have an obligation to represent Canadians as a whole. When members are abroad, they are doing things based on what is in the best interests of all Canadians and are hopefully making the world a better place to live.

When I was sitting in opposition, quite often we would have situations arise when the hard lines might come out. Sometimes it is justified, and sometimes it is not. That is why many felt that at times the former government used foreign affairs as a way to get domestic votes. That is what I was referring to. Maybe at another time—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Questions and comments.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent, and I am very proud to do that. I notice we have members who want to speak. I see the members opposite can hardly fill in their list. They have members speaking for 20 minutes and do not have anyone to share with.

This is an interesting debate today. I am fascinated by the fact that the NDP is neutral on this one, and I suspect that it is probably because they have never seen a socialist or communist dictator they did not love, so they are having a hard time getting involved in this debate.

I just heard the NDP member talk about how the Cuban people are going to manage the transition. That is how far removed they are from this discussion. I could talk for hours about the damage socialists and communists do wherever they are found, but we do not have that time here today.

It would have been better if the Liberals had been neutral on this issue as well. If they had been, the eulogy that was presented probably would have gone unnoticed, but that is not what happened. The comparison they are making today is a bit ridiculous, but they will go ahead and continue to make it.

It is probably the language of such strong personal support that Canadians and people around the world have noticed. When our Prime Minister referred to “Cuba's longest serving President”, I think that caught people's minds, because they knew how it was that he served. He served at the point of a gun.

The Prime Minister said that Fidel Castro was larger than life. I know that he was larger than life to the people who were on the ground in front of him. He talked about how Castro served his people for half a century. Well, he oppressed them for half a century, ruled over them, and dominated them. He did not serve them for half a century. Our Prime Minister talked about how he is a legend, supposedly. It was more of a nightmare for the Cuban people. He talked about his tremendous dedication and love for his people, and I say especially for those folks who had to go before the firing squad.

We get to the nub of the issue later in the eulogy when he talked about what an important person Fidel Castro was to his family. He called him his father's friend and offered condolences to the family, friends, and many supporters of Mr. Castro. Certainly he was not talking about the Cuban people at large in that eulogy. He concluded with another adjective of admiration, talking about him being a “remarkable leader”.

It is not surprising that we had eulogies around the world, #trudeaueulogies they were called, for people like Mussolini, Pol Pot, John Wilkes Booth, Kim Jong-il, Genghis Khan, and Darth Vader because of the Prime Minister's foolish choice of words.

Perhaps the Cuban hardships should have been recognized by the Prime Minister rather than his private loss.

I do not think the debate is actually about the eulogy. It is about leadership. It is about a failure of leadership and about much more than just a few words on a piece of paper that came out of the PMO, because there are so many issues the government faces on which it is failing to lead Canadians in a proper way.

At question period just two hours ago, we had to listen to the electoral reform minister stumbling all over the place after she put a committee of all parties in the House together that worked hard for six months. I could not believe the amount of time people dedicated to that committee through this summer and fall. They went into the evenings. She stood and basically mocked the work they have done. That is an example of the failure of leadership we see in the government.

We saw failure two days ago when the Liberals made an announcement on the pipeline. They were trying to tell Canadians that they based one pipeline on science and will approve the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline and then said that they will not approve the northern gateway pipeline. They set science aside. Science has said that there is nothing wrong with approving the northern gateway pipeline, but the Liberals took it off because of politics. That is just another example of a failure of leadership Canadians have to put up with from the government.

Certainly the whole carbon taxation discussion is turning out to be a huge disaster for the government. Liberals knew nothing about carbon taxation, carbon pricing, or cap and trade issues when they started, and they are finding out that it is not working out the way they planned. It is going to be a disaster. We are going to find ourselves in the same situation as Ontario in the last few years, where the leadership has now had to apologize for its own carbon taxation schemes that have just about driven the Province of Ontario into bankruptcy.

There are all kinds of things. Can I mention fundraising? Can I mention how inappropriate it is? All of us do fundraising. It is inappropriate to have cabinet ministers, who are the ones making the decisions, charging $1,500 a ticket for people to get access to them.

The finance minister is selling access to people involved in the financial industry. The justice minister is selling access to lawyers when she has the power to appoint them as judges. We watched the innovation minister hosting fundraisers for people who want to come to him for funding. Is that appropriate?

Canadians are getting sick and tired of this. It was good to see on the weekend that this foolish statement that came out of the PMO highlighted to Canadians once again the failure of leadership we see in this country.

I want to talk about the people of Cuba. Across the way today, members kept talking about the people of Cuba.

A friend of mine sent me an email. He said that he was holidaying in Cuba and decided to spend some extra time wandering around to see what it was like away from the resort. He said that he talked to people, and all he saw was basically the economic devastation that has been caused by Fidel Castro's communist regime.

I have heard all week from the Liberals celebrating the free health care in Cuba. The reality, he said, was that there was nothing on the shelves. He could not even find an aspirin on the shelves. That is what the Cuban medical system was like when Fidel Castro and his brother were done with it.

My friend said that when he went to the government grocery stores, there were only three things on the shelves, and they are subsidized: rice, beans, and rum. That was on the shelves he found in the government grocery stores.

He said that it was obvious the government provides labour to the resorts, and the people who are working there get paid about $20 a month to do this work, while the government takes the rest of those wages.

People keep talking about the Cuban medical system, but medical doctors in Cuba are earning $25 a month. My friend said that as he toured the country, he saw abandoned farmland growing nothing but weeds. Where is the help? Where is the assistance? Where is the aid that is supposed to come in to help people learn how to farm? That regime has taken all of it. He talked about farming still being done with animal power, and we all know that it is pretty easy to find a 1957 Chevrolet in Cuba, but we will not find a car much newer than that.

There has been a history of political repression and a history of internment. The firing squads were hopefully from years ago, but that is part of the history, the legacy, of Fidel Castro.

We know that there is continuing political repression. It has one-party rule. My friend talked to me about walking around Havana and seeing how many pimps there were pimping out teenage girls for tourists to come to take advantage of them. Cuba has become known as one of the leading places for child sexual exploitation in the world.

Are those the kinds of things we are talking about to celebrate the regime of Fidel Castro? There is ongoing religious pressure and persecution in Cuba. That is what the Prime Minister is celebrating, and it is wrong.

The member opposite wanted to talk a little bit about foreign affairs and global affairs. We can talk about that as well. There is a failure of leadership, and not just on this Cuban issue.

Last spring, the foreign affairs minister, on one of his junkets, went to Myanmar. He walked in there and said that we will give it some money, $44 million, and then he flew out again. Since then, the situation in Myanmar has completely disintegrated.

There is a democratically elected government there, but it is dominated by the military. In the last month, in the Rakhine state, there has been a conflict that has gone on, and it is escalating. We hear nothing from the Liberal government. It started with a border clash, where nine Myanmar police were killed by militants. The army has moved in there and has been controlling the area. It has shut down access to the area.

We have heard nothing from the Liberal government. Canadians are getting tired of this failure of leadership in every area.

In terms of what is going on in Myanmar, the head of the United Nations Refugee Agency said that as far as it can tell, the troops are “killing men, shooting them, slaughtering children, raping women, burning and looting houses, forcing these people to cross the river” into Bangladesh. There are 30,000 people who have left the country and fled to Bangladesh. What do we hear from our government? Nothing.

Another issue, of course, is the persecution of the Baha'i in Iran. It is a good example of a place where the current government is silent one more time. The government has decided it wants to normalize relationships with the regime in Iran. There is cradle-to-grave persecution going on there. The Baha'i are the largest non-Muslim minority in Iran. They are being persecuted. Their businesses are being stripped from them. They are being shut down. We just had someone shot in the street strictly because he was Baha'i. What do hear from our government? Nothing. We want normal relationships with Iran, and we are not speaking out.

Therefore, when the member opposite talks about the government defending human rights, that is not happening. It is one more indication of the failure of leadership that was just indicated by the example we saw last weekend.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Consular Affairs)]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to that long speech and I could not help but smile. The hon. member was part of a government that really could not help any of these problems he is talking about. Not only that, he is misleading Canadians. He is saying that this current government has been silent. He knows that is not the case. We have been very vocal about human rights issues around the world and here at home.

Let me ask the member this question. When his own party's foreign affairs critic, the member for Thornhill, was invited to a round table with NGOs and the president of the Saudi Human Rights Commission, and while all the NGOs raised important issues with the president of the Saudi Human Rights Commission, why did his foreign affairs critic not say a word? Instead, after leaving, he issued a press release with respect to all of these issues. He missed an opportunity. He should have raised these issues.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, on the one hand, the member said there was a press release, which means that he did raise the issues, and, on the other hand, he is trying to say there was no press release.

When our government was in power, we were respected around the world because of the capacity we had to lead. It was not because we would go around taking pictures of ourselves and sharing them with people around the world.

We are disappearing from the international scene. It is time we got some of the courage and leadership back that we had in the past. All we have now is a lot of talk and rhetoric but no action. We saw last weekend where the heart of the current government actually is.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, my great-grandfather was the CCF candidate against John Diefenbaker in 1957. However, I will acknowledge that Prime Minister Diefenbaker made a very wise decision not long after that to maintain diplomatic relations with Cuba after the revolution rather than participating in the American embargo that contributed to a siege mentality in Cuba and that worsened repression.

I would like to ask my fellow Saskatchewan MP whether he thinks the Diefenbaker government made the right decision in maintaining diplomatic relations with Fidel Castro's government.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, one of the problems with dealing with socialist governments is what they do to us. As my colleague from Saskatchewan knows only too well, we have suffered the consequences of that for 50 years and find ourselves almost in a situation similar to Cuba because we were never able to reach our potential. Cuba never came close to being what it could be. In Saskatchewan 10 years ago we finally found ourselves with a change in government, but with an economy that was one-third the size of our neighbour. We were equal to Alberta at one time. Choosing to follow the NDP for far too long meant that we fell far behind. Finally, the people of Saskatchewan came to their senses and elected a government, and we have moved ahead ever since then.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot about history, and I will touch on that in a moment. It is well-known that in his recent visit the Prime Minister raised human rights concerns. The member opposite has a great deal of concern about human rights problems that exist in Cuba. We are quite fortunate that on this side of the House we take human rights seriously, and that when we engage with countries, human rights issues can be put on the table.

I also would point out, and this is where history comes in and is very important, that it was the Mulroney government in 1985 that took the unprecedented step of enacting the Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act. This law made it illegal for firms operating in Canada to comply with any U.S. attempts to destabilize the Castro regime. This was an indication on the part of the Mulroney government, and the then minister of foreign affairs, Mr. Joe Clark, to engage in warm, friendly relations with Cuba. They were Conservatives, but they were Progressive Conservatives, so I guess there is a bit of a difference there.

I would love to hear the member's comment on that.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the member wants to talk about the photo affair that the Prime Minister had in Cuba when he was there. What Canadians heard coming out of that was not about his human rights stance. That is not what was emphasized. If we look at the news reports, that is not what it was about. Rather, it was about him meeting and celebrating with Raúl Castro and his sons, and then lamenting the fact that he did not get to meet with Fidel. That was what the general public heard about that visit. They did not hear anything about him standing up for Cuban human rights. I would suspect that is because he did not.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is with mixed emotions that I rise today. I am always very pleased to rise in the House, but I would have preferred not to today because of the profound malaise the Prime Minister created on Sunday. To be quite honest, I have never felt more embarrassed to be Canadian than I did on Sunday, when the Prime Minister issued his statement that was so very unfortunate for democracy, human rights, and for the rights of gays and lesbians. I will come back to that later.

The Prime Minister spoke for himself and not on behalf of all Canadians. The Prime Minister spoke for himself and not as a head of state. That is the shame of it. We can all have a personal opinion on any given situation, an opinion that reflects our family or our emotions. However, when we assume our responsibilities as head of state, we must do so in accordance with the state and not in accordance with our personal feelings. Unfortunately, that is where the Prime Minister failed in his duties.

What Fidel Castro did 60 years ago is one thing, but what he did in the past 60 years is another. That is why the Prime Minister never should have issued Sunday's press release on the news of Fidel Castro's death.

Let us come back to this infamous and unfortunate comment. This is what the Prime Minister of Canada wrote:

...Cuba’s longest-serving president.

Does the Prime Minister realize that Castro killed his opponents, assassinated them, tortured them, and put them in prison? Killing one's adversaries certainly helps keep a man in power. How could the Prime Minister keep a straight face when he wrote that Castro was “Cuba’s longest-serving president?” The Prime Minister lost all credibility at that point, but he went on:

...his tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people who had a deep and lasting affection for “el Comandante”.

I am not sure that all the Cuban people held him in deep admiration. When a fifth of your population leaves your country, it may be that not everyone is happy. However the Prime Minister writes that Mr. Castro had “tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people who had a deep and lasting affection for ‘el Comandante’.” With a gun to the head, anyone is liable to say, “Yes, I love you.” It does not mean a thing, however. The Prime Minister is in his Care Bear world, never once considering the consequences of his actions. To top it off, he ended his sad news release by referring to this dictator as a “remarkable leader”.

I just want to put things in context. If the Prime Minister were to be informed of the death of Mr. Castro while at a press conference or some public event, he might react with emotion, because he is personally affected. He is entitled to do this in his personal life. But when you are a head of state, you are a head of state. To say such foolish things as this, one might think he is being moved by emotion, he is not prepared, he is acting on the spur of the moment. But these comments were considered, studied, written, approved and released.

We know this, we are politicians: we can sometimes be driven by emotion to say things—that is one thing. But when we take the time to write, that is different. Writing such foolishness makes no sense, especially coming from the Prime Minister’s Office. Is there anyone at the PMO who rereads what the boss is saying? Is there anyone there who might bother to say that it may not be a good thing to talk about a remarkable leader when the man had thousands of people killed? That it may not be a good idea to say that he was the country’s longest-serving president, since he had his opponents murdered? How did no one catch on? It wasn’t because he was overseas. We now have modern means of communication. Texts can be sent and checked. The Minister of Foreign Affairs has far more respectable self-control. The Prime Minister has dishonoured Canada with his unfortunate remarks, last Sunday.

What is so appalling about that “remarkable leader” comment is the cruelty with which Fidel Castro ruled his people for nearly 60 years.

When someone has 5,600 people executed by firing squad, when he murders 1,200 people without leaving a trace, when he put tens of thousands of people in forced labour camps, and when a fifth of the population leaves the country, I am sorry, but he is anything but a responsible and admirable leader. He is a pitiful leader and a dictator. That is the word the Prime Minister should have used on Sunday morning, not on Monday when a journalist prompted him with it and he used it. We know that word did not come from the bottom of his heart. What came from the bottom of his heart was the boundless admiration he has for the dictator. However since he is a head of state and the head of a free country, there is no place for that, especially here in Canada. Canada is a country that deeply cherishes the principles of freedom and democracy. Those principles are dear to us, because 70 or 80 years ago, people took part in World War II and sacrificed their lives so that we can live in a democratic world that is able to eliminate dictators.

The Prime Minister says one thing but does the opposite. He got himself elected saying that his government would run a $10-billion deficit, but it is now running at $30-billion deficit. That is not nice, not smart, and not good.

From a human standpoint, however, there are certain things that worry me even more. The Prime Minister presents himself as a great and ardent defender of the LGBT community. He is proud to say that he is the first Canadian prime minister to have ever participated in gay pride parades. In Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, there he is with the flags. He believes in and defends gay rights.

Seven months ago, however, on March 21, in the House, I personally delivered a letter to the Prime Minister from a woman I know from the Quebec City area. The letter was addressed to the Prime Minister. In it the woman said that she was a victim of homophobia in the army. I put this letter in the Prime Minister’s hands myself. I looked the Prime Minister in the eye and presented him with the case of this woman in the army who was a victim of homophobia and who wanted the Prime Minister to take action on her letter. The Prime Minister thanked me and said he would look into it.

Seven months and two calls to the Prime Minister’s Office later and still nothing has been done. This woman's situation was also the subject of a feature story on the television show J.E., which was broadcast on TVA and watched by a million Canadians. Our party has asked the Prime Minister about this case on four separate occasions, but he has not done anything. The last we heard, the Prime Minister has still not been in touch with the victim.

When the Prime Minister says he has the rights of gays and lesbians at heart, when he participates in fine demonstrations and raises the pride flag in front of Parliament, people believe that is coming from the bottom of his heart. However, when the time comes to defend real-life cases, he is not there.

Here we have the same prime minister speaking about a remarkable leader who locked up tens of thousands of gay and lesbian Cubans. He sent them away to re-education camps, as they were called. That is the true face of Fidel Castro, the true face of this “remarkable leader” admired by the prime minister.

The prime minister’s attitude on Sunday, in paying such a fawning tribute that embarrassed Canadians and those who love democracy, made absolutely no sense.

Cubans are becoming increasingly aware of the problems caused by this dictator and his family. Cubans established the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, which reported that there were 8,616 cases of arbitrary arrests last year.

It is this prime minister paying tribute to this head of state? No, it is against human decency to pay tribute to a dictator. The way the prime minister behaved was unacceptable. To the world, Canada looked ridiculous. People around the world came up with “trudeauisms,” jokes made up using the words of the prime minister. There are situations more alarming and more disappointing than that.

Marco Rubio, an American senator, asked whether it was actually a joke.

He said, “Is this a real statement or a parody? Because if this is a real statement from the PM of Canada it is shameful....”

Unfortunately, it was shameful. However, it was on behalf of the Prime Minister, not on behalf of all Canadians.

This is why I strongly disagree with the comments made by my prime minister. The prime minister is the prime minister of all Canadians, even for those who did not vote for him. This is how strong a statement is when we are faced with this kind of difficulty. However, when faced with this kind of difficulty, what did the Prime Minister do? He did it all wrong. What he did was pay no respect to Canadians and no respect to democracy. He has paid no respect to the real fight for human rights, because Fidel Castro was the enemy of human rights, and that is not Canadian.

[Kamal Khera, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, since the member loves quoting people, let me quote the former prime minister, Stephen Harper, on the death of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia:

On behalf of all Canadians, Laureen and I offer our sincere condolences to the family of King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz and the people of Saudi Arabia.

King Abdullah was recognized as a strong proponent of peace in the Middle East. He also undertook a range of important economic, social, education, health, and infrastructure initiatives in his country.

I had the pleasure of meeting King Abdullah in Toronto when Canada hosted the G-20 and found him to be passionate about his country, development and the global economy.

My question for the member is this. Can the member please tell me how this statement was any different from the statement made by our Prime Minister on the death of Fidel Castro?

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is most unfortunate. This government got elected by saying that we were the worst in Canadian history, that we were wrongheaded and that we were an embarrassment to Canada. I even remember the Prime Minister one time saying on a Radio-Canada program, in all seriousness, that Prime Minister Harper made him feel like becoming a separatist. He campaigned by saying that we were the worst in the world, and now today they are bringing up something written by the Prime Minister of Canada a few years ago. I would like to remind the parliamentary secretary of the reality.

The reality is that tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Cubans were murdered and have suffered under the dictatorship of a man who, until very recently, laid waste to his country. Canada did not deserve to have the Prime Minister issue such a eulogy.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is clear to the Bloc Québécois that the Prime Minister was wearing some very rose-coloured glasses on Sunday in his statement. However, it is just as clear to us that, this time, the glasses the Conservatives are wearing are very black. In fact, in their motion they contradict highly respected figures who spoke favourably of Mr. Castro.

In 1991, Nelson Mandela personally travelled to Cuba to thank the Cuban people and Fidel Castro for their help in bringing down the apartheid regime. Before that, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a Nobel laureate in literature, also had good reasons with respect to Mr. Castro’s policies. As well, Mr. Castro was awarded the Health-For-All gold medal by the World Health Organization. Mr. Castro also got rid of another dictator named Batista.

Does my colleague really not know that for some, Castro was a liberator of the people, while for others he was an oppressor?

The Bloc Québécois wishes to offer its condolences to the Cuban people.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my speech, what happened 60 years ago is one thing, and what he did for 60 years is quite another.

While the member is bringing up Nelson Mandela, I wish to remind her that if there is ever a country in the world that stood out for its leadership in fighting apartheid in South Africa, it is Canada, and it was under Brian Mulroney’s leadership that Canada managed to persuade the entire world that apartheid was unacceptable. I am sorry, but in the hierarchy of influential figures in the fight against apartheid, Fidel Castro is far behind the Right Hon. Brian Mulroney.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is a spirited orator. There is no question about that. However, he would do well to pay more attention to historical fact.

There was a prime minister named John Diefenbaker. I take it my colleagues have heard of him. He was a Conservative. He refused U.S. demands to break relations with Cuba after the Castro regime came to power in the aftermath of the overthrow of the Batista regime.

He also refused to put Canadian troops on combat-ready alert, despite the fact that the Kennedy administration asked for this during the Cuban missile crisis.

More recently, Brian Mulroney engaged in warm and friendly relations with Cuba, as did Stephen Harper toward the end of his tenure.

I wonder if my hon. colleague would comment on this record of Conservative leadership?

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his question and I salute the NDP member from Saskatchewan that he spoke of, his grandfather, who was a victim of the Right Honourable John Diefenbaker's popularity. However, as we say back home, we see that the apple has not fallen far from the tree.

With regard to Mr. Diefenbaker, we have to consider the context of the times. The decisions in 1958, 1959, 1960, and 1962 were made in a particular context.

However, the context of last Sunday, when it was the month of November 2016 and we were well aware of all the crimes against humanity committed by Mr. Castro, would allow many things, but not the description of “remarkable leader”.

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

Mr. Speaker, as always, it is a great honour to rise in this august institution and speak. For the folks back home who are wondering just what the heck is going on in Parliament today, it is Thursday afternoon and it is the time of the month when the Conservatives have to release the pressure valve, let all of the backbenchers off the chain, let them run around, howl at the moon, pound their chests, light the big bonfire, and throw red meat to their base.

Today, for people watching, we are now back in the cold war. The cold war is a place the Conservatives love to be. Those were glory days for the Conservatives. The fact that the world has moved on means they are a little lost. They need something. This is their day to bring an issue of great importance to Canadians. For folks back home, all Parliament stops today so the Conservatives can bring forward a motion. It is the right of the opposition—New Democrats do it—to have a debate on an issue of substance.

The folks back home whom I represent would probably want us to talk about the pension crisis. That would be a good debate here. There is the fact that many families that I represent do not have doctors. A lot of that is provincial, but with the health accord and the transfers, that is a debate we could have here. People are deeply concerned about the brutal bombing in Aleppo and the role Canada could play. That would be a matter for debate in the House. However, the Conservatives figure they have a gotcha moment on the Prime Minister, so they will have a special debate to re-fight the cold war in order to try to embarrass the Prime Minister of this country.

I will be sharing my time with the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, by the way.

It is not my job to defend the Prime Minister on any given day, although people on the other side probably know I am always more than fair, more than reasonable, and more than willing to bend myself into a pretzel to understand some of the inane comments I have heard. However, I am not going to lose any sleep over his comments on Mr. Castro.

I listened to the Conservatives invoking Marco Rubio, of all people, saying we should be outraged. I do not know; I may classify myself as one of the few Canadians who has actually never visited Cuba. Everybody else I know goes to Cuba all the time. They tell me about the Havana nightlife and the great people, but the Conservatives make it seem as though they are flying into some kind of death camp. The only reason I have not visited Cuba is that I do not deal with a warm climate very well, being a northern boy.

I was listening to the Conservatives invoking Marco Rubio, of all people: if Marco Rubio is upset, Canadian people should be upset. One of the statements that was made on the day of Castro's death was, “Upon receiving the sad news of the death,...I express my sentiments of sorrow to...family members of [Mr. Castro]”. The Pope said that. Pope Francis did not mind saying something nice about the guy, so if Pope Francis said something nice about the guy, let him rest in peace.

We have more important things to talk about here than the legacy of Castro and the Bay of Pigs and the legacy of the cold war. We have issues that have to be dealt with. If we are going to get to whether the Prime Minister should have said a little more this way or a little more that way, I am not the kind of guy who loses too much sleep over prime ministers or politicians speaking off the top of their head. If they are in front of a microphone 24 hours a day, they are going to say some stuff and get called out. That is fair play.

I am more interested when people make statements that are supposed to mean something and they do not actually live up to them. That is when I think debate should happen. For example, I remember the Prime Minister, when he was in the third party, saying 2015 will be the last election using the first-past-the-post system. He was not equivocating; he was as clear as could be.

Now Liberals are saying that all of the work of the all-party committee, which was told by the Prime Minister to go across the country, was too rushed, too radical, unnecessarily hasty. Then we had the disgrace in the House this afternoon when the Minister of Democratic Institutions insulted the work of politicians and Canadians who participated in those hearings, saying they did not work hard enough. That is what I would hold the Prime Minister to account on.

We have a tradition in the House. It is this old gentlemen's club and, now that there are women in the House, there are gentlewomen. It is very unparliamentary to ever accuse someone of lying. We can never do that, but it seems perfectly parliamentary to lie, because someone could say that maybe the member misunderstood.

We need to call the Prime Minister out on promises that he made, that he told people he would keep, and that he had no intention of keeping; for example, on democratic reform, and on cash for access.

The Prime Minister's mandate letters to his ministers said not just to follow the law but to go above it, and they were under the Conflict of Interest Act. Now they are saying that every other party has done it.

For all the years I have been in Parliament, no one on the Conservative side ever once said that I took their side. However, when Bev Oda tried a cash for access scheme, she gave the money back. The Conservatives knew it was wrong and they gave the money back.

It might be the finance minister. Maybe he believes that actually being in a billionaire's living room and getting paid $1,500 might be democratic consulting. Maybe it is just the way he thinks.

God forbid I should say great things about Jim Flaherty. Jim Flaherty and I went at it like brass knuckles, but he was a democrat. He knew what meeting people was about. We disagreed on a lot of stuff, but Jim Flaherty did not need to raise his money sitting in a corporate boardroom with six or 12 friends paying $1,500. There is something wrong with that. That makes people cynical. When the Prime Minister promises to do better, he has to do better.

I am thinking mostly about what he said to the residential school survivors. I was there when he said:

Moving forward, one of our goals is to help lift this burden from your shoulders, from those of your families, and from your communities. It is to accept fully our responsibilities...as government....

Yet, this week, the justice minister was in court trying to overthrow a ruling of compensation to a child survivor of sexual abuse. The government, the feminist government, said that a residential school survivor had to prove intent of an adult. There is no legal standard in the world that accepts that, except when it is applied against Indian people.

Last month, the Minister of Justice tried to throw out a case. The Ontario Superior Court called it a perverse misapplication of justice on a child who was raped in a residential school but could not remember the date, and the justice department believes it can have that case thrown out.

We had the Department of Justice knowingly suppressing thousands of pages of police testimony. When it was forced to hand over the documents, it took out the names of the perpetrators, including a serial pedophile at St. Anne's Residential School who abused children for 40 years. The person who came forward for compensation had the case thrown out because the Department of Justice had that thrown out.

I go back to this again and again, because either we have one set of laws in our country or we do not. That the justice minister believes they can undermine and establish a second set of rights for Indian people in this country is absolutely appalling and is a breach of all legal duty.

I was there when the Prime Minister made that promise. I teared up. I believed him, Canadians believed him, and the residential school survivors believed him. There are many promises the Prime Minister made, and he made them with full heart, and people trusted him

I could talk about Bill C-51. The Liberals did not like it, then they were afraid not to vote for it, and then they said “Don't worry, elect us and we'll change it”. Nothing happened.

They talked about a nation-to-nation relationship, and the justice minister said Site C did not meet the standards and ran roughshod over aboriginal title, and they approved it anyway. A politician's word has to mean something.

We are having a lot of fun today debating something that I do not think most Canadians are going to care much about tomorrow, or the day after, or probably even after the debate is over, but we have issues that we need to debate in the House. The debate has to be about how we start talking in a way that Canadians can start to trust us.

With all due respect to my Conservative colleagues, they are having a lot of fun. They are taking the pressure off. They are feeding red meat to their backbenchers. They are howling at the moon, jumping up and down, beating their chests, and denouncing the reds and the commies. In fact, I have not been called a Bolshevik yet, but I am sure that is coming too. That is all right. Meanwhile, we will get back to work.

Yes, I will be taking numbers on that one.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the motion is not about the cold war nostalgia. The motion is very much about current events, the events of this past week.

The member spent quite a bit of time in his speech talking about the importance of credibility, and the credibility of the Prime Minister. My hon. friend called out the Prime Minister, rightly, for his lack of credibility on a variety of issues. I thank him for doing so.

Does the member not agree that the eulogy the Prime Minister delivered on behalf of the Canadian people upon the death of Fidel Castro compromises his own credibility when he is on the world stage on a variety of issues, including as an advocate for democracy, human rights, and values that Canadians hold dear?

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

Mr. Speaker, if we are looking at the Prime Minister damaging his credibility on human rights, then we could talk about his deal with the Saudi Arabians.

The Saudi Arabia human rights commission rubber stamped the mass killings last January of a series of dissidents and said that it was perfectly legal. It met on Parliament Hill and we flew its flag. To me, that damages our credibility on the international stage. If we cannot deal with terror regimes like that, which are killing people now, then all of these other issues that we talk about mean nothing.

I understand that the Minister of Status of Women met as well with members of the commission. She wanted to talk with them about how women and girls would be agents of change in Saudi Arabia. Is that not ridiculous? This is like making pusillanimous a party policy when it comes to dealing with international dictators.

With all due respect, we can debate back and forth what happened in Cuba, but deals are being made with the Liberal government and a pusillanimous attitude toward killers and state repression needs to be called out for the benefit of all Canadians.