House of Commons Hansard #74 of the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was citizenship.

Topics

Safe and Regulated Sports Betting ActPrivate Members' Business

6:05 p.m.

NDP

The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes

Do we have unanimous consent for the House to see the clock at 6:35 p.m.?

Safe and Regulated Sports Betting ActPrivate Members' Business

6:05 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

Message from the SenatePrivate Members' Business

6:05 p.m.

NDP

The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes

I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed the following bill, to which the concurrence of the House is desired: Bill S-225, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (substances used in the production of fentanyl).

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

The SenateAdjournment Proceedings

6:05 p.m.

NDP

Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK

Madam Speaker, every time we turn around it seems the Senate is costing Canadians another million dollars. In question period, I have asked about the Privy Council Office spending more than a million dollars a year to fund the supposedly independent advisory board for Senate appointments. I have also asked about the government leader in the Senate requesting almost a million dollars to manage these independent senators on behalf of the Liberal government.

I am very interested in hearing the government's explanation as to why it has a leader in the Senate requesting all of these managerial resources if its senators are truly independent of government direction.

The broader question that I would like to explore is whether we need to have a Senate at all. The classic argument for bicameralism is that the upper House provides a sober second thought. There are very few examples in Canadian political history of the Senate actually performing that role.

An interesting point of comparison would be at the provincial level. I do not think many Canadians are saying, “If only we had an upper house in our provincial legislature, our province would have better laws. If only our premier appointed a group of people to review the work of elected members of the legislative assembly, the governance of our province would be improved.”

That is not what we are hearing in the coffee shops in Regina, and I do not think we are hearing it anywhere else in our great country. In fact, all of the eight provinces that ever had upper houses in their legislatures have abolished those upper houses. Therefore, it seems that the consensus in favour of abolition is actually quite strong.

We sometimes hear the argument that while we do not need upper houses in our provincial legislatures, we should have one at the federal level to represent the diverse regions of our great country. In our very decentralized federation, the real source of regional representation is strong and legitimate provincial governments, not senators here in Ottawa.

It would be very interesting to put that concept to the test. The Government of Canada could initiate a Senate abolition transfer equivalent to the $90 million a year currently spent on the Senate. Those funds could be directly transferred to provincial governments in proportion to the number of Senate seats that their province currently has. For example, Prince Edward Island currently has 4 out of 105 senators. Therefore, it would be entitled to well over $3 million per year from the Senate abolition transfer.

The government and the people of Prince Edward Island have far better things they could do with more than $3 million than to support four senators here in Ottawa. However, an interesting thing would be to put that concept to the test by giving provincial governments the choice to either maintain the Senate or to abolish it and use the money for other purposes.

The SenateAdjournment Proceedings

6:10 p.m.

Winnipeg North Manitoba

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Madam Speaker, it was not that long ago that I was afforded the opportunity to respond to a very similar question from one of the member's colleagues. I am more than happy to share with him some of the things I talked about or attempted to explain about a week ago.

The issue the member raises is related to the eternal issue of the Senate. What the member needs to recognize is that it is no more appropriate for us in the House of Commons to deal with the issue that he is hoping we can deal with, than it would be for the Senate to look into issues surrounding the House of Commons, the Board of Internal Economy, and members of Parliament making decisions on the allocation of monies.

For example, the Government of Canada, through the Board of Internal Economy and discussions that take place among all political parties in the chamber, made a decision. It made a decision that the New Democratic Party is going to get a few million dollars every year. That few million dollars every year is to assist New Democrats in addressing issues and performing the duties they feel are necessary in order to be the third party in the House. It is the House of Commons, through the Board of Internal Economy and House leadership teams, that discusses what resources are required in the House for parties to perform their duties. That same principle applies for the other chamber.

Where we are going as a government on the issue of transparency and accountability is, at least indirectly, what the member wants to talk about. He wants more accountability and transparency in the other House. In terms of Liberals demonstrating transparency and accountability, the Prime Minister of Canada has been very clear. We have progressed significantly.

In fact, the member was here, no, I am sorry, he was not here. Many of his caucus colleagues were here a couple of years ago when the then leader of the Liberal Party, now Prime Minister, moved a motion for proactive disclosure. If he checks with his colleagues, he will find it was the New Democrats who actually opposed the motion. What were we asking for? We were asking for proactive disclosure of what MPs were spending money on, things like travel and hospitality.

Even though New Democrats did not agree to be more transparent and accountable in how tax dollars are being spent, we took it to the next step. Even though it was not the law of the land for us, we still acted on it and provided proactive disclosure to the constituents we represent. I was pleased that the Conservatives took a few months to catch on and then accepted it while in government. It took a motion in the chamber, ultimately, to embarrass the New Democrats, but eventually they too came onside.

We recognize the importance of transparency and accountability and on this side of the House we are going to do what we can to enforce it.

The SenateAdjournment Proceedings

6:15 p.m.

NDP

Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK

Madam Speaker, I will take it as a compliment that the member for Winnipeg North assumes that I am a veteran MP who was here in the last Parliament. That is very kind of him.

To get into the substance of this adjournment debate, the argument that we heard from the member across the way was that it is inappropriate for members of the House of Commons to second-guess the functioning of the Senate. This is a very convenient way for the member for Winnipeg North to not actually address any of the specific arguments or analyses that I presented. It is also the ultimate circular argument on his part, because, essentially, what he is saying is we have to accept the Senate's legitimacy because the Senate is legitimate. What I am arguing is that the Senate is not legitimate and, indeed, we should do away with it.

When the member talks about accountability and transparency, that is not what I want. I think we should abolish the Senate.

The SenateAdjournment Proceedings

6:15 p.m.

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB

Madam Speaker, at the end of the day, it is the adjournment proceedings show, which means that we follow up questions that were asked at a previous time. If that is what the member really wanted to talk about, that is maybe what the question should have been when he originally posed the question, and then we would be able to have that discussion.

If the member wants to talk about the future of the Senate, or if he wants to talk about the future of democracy for Canadians, we just agreed to a wonderful all-party standing committee that is going to be taking in all sorts of ideas, in which we surrendered the majority of government so that the opposition would feel that much more empowered. If those are the types of things that the member wants to talk about, and in particular the issue of the Senate and the role of that institution in the years ahead, I would suggest that the member might have that discussion among his caucus colleagues and encourage maybe an opposition day on it, or encourage a question on it in question period.

Small BusinessAdjournment Proceedings

6:15 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON

Madam Speaker, the Liberals have been talking an awful lot about the middle class lately. In fact, they produced a cool chart in their budget to try to demonstrate that middle-class incomes have grown almost not at all in 40 years. That claim was surprising because Conservatives had previously produced data showing that middle-class incomes had skyrocketed over the last decade alone.

So I secured the Department of Finance Canada data that were used to create that funky chart I mentioned earlier, to try to reconcile the claims. From at the data, who was right? Was it the Conservatives, who claimed higher incomes for the middle class in the last 10 years; or was it the Liberals, who claim that the middle class has had almost no real raise at all in four decades? The answer is both.

How is that possible? How is it possible that Liberals can say, truthfully, that incomes have not gone up in four decades and Conservatives can simultaneously say, truthfully, that they have gone up dramatically in the last 10 years? Let us look at the chart. In 1976, the median income in Canada, in constant inflation-adjusted dollars, was $46,300 under a former prime minister, Pierre Elliott Trudeau. However, that dropped by $2,800 or 6% down to $43,500. It then took 30 years to recover incomes back up to $46,500.

In other words, the first Trudeau did so much damage to middle incomes in this country that it took almost three decades for the Canadian economy to undo that damage. Then, during the subsequent Conservative government, incomes did rise from $44,700 to $49,602, an increase of $5,000 or 11% after inflation. That is according to Liberal budget data. That is the largest increase in median incomes in 40 years. In fact, under our recent Conservative prime minister, median incomes grew faster than under the Trudeau, Clark, Turner, Mulroney, Campbell, Chrétien, and Martin governments combined. Again, that is according to data in the Liberal budget.

The question really is this. Given that this chart, which comes from page 11 of the Liberal government's budget book, demonstrates the overwhelming damage that the first Trudeau did to middle income, why would his son produce economic policies that are nearly identical? Those policies include rising taxes, spiralling debt, massive government interference and control in the economy, and bail-outs for incompetent corporate leaders.

Why would the current government want to repeat the mistakes of a previous Liberal government that took 30 years to reverse? Are the Liberals suggesting that we should sacrifice another generation to the damages that always flow from over-intervention of government in the economic life of Canadians?

Small BusinessAdjournment Proceedings

6:20 p.m.

Winnipeg North Manitoba

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Madam Speaker, I thought we were going to be talking about small businesses today, but I am very much interested in the subject matter that the member has raised.

It is always interesting. I enjoyed statistics courses. I did not have very many of them, but I did have the opportunity to have discussions with individuals who loved to talk about statistics. The numbers always look great and they can be twisted in different ways, no doubt.

However, I listened to the member when he said that the Liberal Party said this or that the Liberal Party budget said that and tried to give an impression that things were going in the right direction. Then he said the Conservative Party did this when it was in government and it appeared as if it were going in the right direction. Then, I think he went back to the seventies and early eighties where he said it was Pierre Elliott Trudeau that kind of set us back.

I would tend to disagree, especially on the latter point. I think that if we take a look at it and ask people what the difference is today, if we talk to our constituents, put the numbers to the side, and talk about the seventies and the eighties, I was a teenager back then. I can tell members that when I was a teenager, things were going along pretty good not only for me but also for my peers. We had a sense that we could move out of our parents' house. We could acquire assets and buy a house. We had these dreams and so forth. The general feeling, at the time, was that people had a disposable income and that disposable income was enabling them to fulfill their dreams.

How does that compare with the last 10 years? Check how many parents will tell us, “I love my son” or “I love my daughter, but they're 28 years old and still living in my basement”. They are still living in their homes. We love our children and we want them to be able to stay with us as much as possible, but the point is that the disposable income is something that is of critical importance, in terms of lifestyle and so forth. If members were to check with my constituents, I believe they would concur with me that it seems they have not had the same sort of money to be able to do the things they want, and their generation is feeling somewhat left behind at a very critical time in the last 10 years.

I think what we need to see is a government taking a proactive approach at trying to build hope and to demonstrate that it believes in the middle class. This Prime Minister and this government, more than any other government, even over the last 10 years, have put so much focus on the middle class and building the middle class. Two great examples of that are, first, the Canada child benefit program, a very progressive program that is tax free and that is going to lift literally hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty, and second, the first initiative that we took in terms of legislation coming into the House, the tax break from which over 9.6 million Canadians are going to benefit directly.

Both policies are going to see literally hundreds of millions of dollars of disposable income being put into the pockets of Canadians in every region of our country. That is going to benefit, I believe, all Canadians. Most important, I believe it will change the attitude and hopefully provide more hope for Canadians as they see a government that truly believes in the middle class and wants to support it.

Small BusinessAdjournment Proceedings

6:25 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON

Madam Speaker, the hon. member tries to replace the statistics in his government's own budget with hypothetical and unnamed anecdotes of people who may not even exist outside of the four walls of his own head.

I am quoting data, not from some Conservative source or think tank. I am quoting data from the Liberal budget. It not only shows that middle incomes grew by 11% under the previous Conservative prime minister, but that the greatest growth was among female income earners, who saw a 14% increase, an increase that was five times the rate as under the Chrétien and Martin governments and five times the rate of the previous Trudeau government.

For the party across the way, which talks a lot about the middle class and talks a lot about gender equality, it should look back at the successful outcomes that, according to its own budget, were secured under the previous Conservative government in lifting up the middle class, and in particular, hard-working women who went into the workforce and saw their opportunities expand along with their horizons.

Small BusinessAdjournment Proceedings

6:25 p.m.

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB

Madam Speaker, as I indicated, I was somewhat expecting we would be talking about small business. I had a lot of wonderful things to say about small businesses. Instead, the member comes forward, has all these statistics and says that he wants me to use statistics.

If I reflect on statistics during the former Conservative government, the one that comes to my mind is the issue of jobs. Imagine the not tens of thousands but hundreds of thousands of jobs that were lost in the manufacturing industry, while the Conservatives had the reins of power over the last 10 years. Those are statistics, real statistics that affected people.

If a person is making $35 or $40 an hour at a manufacturing plant, is 45 or 50 years old and then becomes unemployed, he or she will have difficulty finding another comparable job. To what degree did the Conservative government assist that person? It did not. Instead, that person would have had a substantial shift from that $35 or $40 an hour job to a $17 an hour job, more often than anyone would like to see. Therefore, if we want to talk about statistics, I would invite the member to come back and hopefully I will be able to provide a response where we can do some comparisons strictly on statistics.

Human RightsAdjournment Proceedings

6:25 p.m.

Conservative

Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB

Madam Speaker, earlier I had an opportunity to raise the situation facing the Rohingya Muslim community in Burma. I have not received a response at all with respect to the conditions of the Rohingya people in Burma. I hope I will be able to get more information about what the government is doing with respect to leadership on human rights in that country.

I have asked questions before about process, about my concerns, about changes that have been made with respect to the public service around human rights, specifically the elimination of the Office of Religious Freedom. However, this question is about what the foreign affairs minister has done, and is doing, to raise the very concerning human rights situation facing the Rohingya Muslim community.

At the time that I asked the question, the minister had been in Burma, making a major announcement about spending on democratic development. Yet we did not hear any public mention at all with respect to the Rohingya. It is important to not just have the capacity within foreign affairs working on these issues, but to have real leadership, leadership that we have not seen at all at a public level from the minister when it comes to international human rights. He was present at a press conference where the Chinese foreign minister berated a journalist for asking a human rights question, and we did not see leadership from the foreign affairs minister on that. He opposed a motion to recognize the genocide faced by the Syrian Christians, other Christians in other communities, as well as the Yazidis in the Middle East, which is very disappointing.

Specifically with respect to the situation of the Rohingya Muslim community, the issue with Rohingyas in Burma is that Burma is at this democratic moment. It very recently transitioned from a military rule dictatorial situation toward a democracy. Yet it is a democracy in which the very large Muslim community within Burma is significantly disenfranchised. The very citizenship and the right to participate in basic democratic activities within the new state of Burma are denied to them. This is tragic.

As Canada and other western countries are building their relationship with Burma, as we provide the kind of support for democratic development that the minister announced, it is so important that we have clear public leadership from the minister confronting this issue. The funding that was provided was for strengthening institutions, which is always important. However, the issue here is not about the strength of the institution, but about a political choice that has been made to disenfranchise this community in violation of the international human rights obligations, which Burma and all countries have.

It is concerning the kinds of things that have been done and said by the leadership. When Aung San Suu Kyi took over, when her party came to power, she announced the release of political prisoners but did not include in that Rohingya and other Burmese Muslim political prisoners. There is this ongoing issue of lack of citizenship. The government claims that the Rohingya people are not really properly Burmese. It calls them Bengalis, to suggest that they are not citizens but are actually from somewhere else. Therefore, the removal of citizenship from this community has created the largest stateless community of people anywhere. I could go through and list all of the human rights abuses, but I do not have time.

The core issue is leadership. Is this minister and the government prepared to stand up, lead, and advocate for the rights of the Rohingya? I hope they will say yes.

Human RightsAdjournment Proceedings

6:30 p.m.

Mississauga Centre Ontario

Liberal

Omar Alghabra LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Consular Affairs)

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his ongoing efforts in promoting human rights and for pushing the government to action. It is really important that we work together to promote human rights, no matter what party we belong to.

Our government agrees with everybody who wants to promote human rights around the world. Perhaps what is different between the style of our government and the style of the previous government and my hon. colleague is that our objective is really to make a tangible difference on the ground. It is one thing to score a public point and make sure we are using a megaphone, and it is another to approach a problem in a pragmatic way, to find ways that our government can act to make a tangible difference on the ground.

Let me state clearly and unequivocally that our government is committed to the promotion of human rights. The minister announced last month the creation of the Office of Human Rights, Freedoms and Inclusion, an expansion of the work that was done by the previous office. The budget has also been tripled. We have now mandated all of our missions abroad to make sure that the promotion of human rights is an integral part of their approach to engaging governments abroad.

Let me be clear. There are concerns about human rights in Burma. When the minister went to Burma, he did not hesitate to discuss these issues with officials and NGOs. He not only met with government representatives, but he took the opportunity to meet with members of civil society to listen to them, to hear about the issues and the challenges that they are facing.

My hon. colleague referred to the announcement of the investment of $44 million. It is an investment in civil society for the promotion of an inclusive society that will help Burma as it matures. Burma now has its first democratic government in 50 years. That is a step forward.

We should not lose sight of the much more work that still needs to be done, but we need to be constructive. We need to offer our support. We need to share lessons learned. We need to provide them with support and with ideas and suggestions, which is what the minister did when he went there.

I am proud of the work that our minister has been doing around the globe. He has never shied away from talking about human rights.

We are always looking for opportunities to make a real and tangible difference on the ground, to help people, particularly oppressed people, to find their way in to full citizenship, to participate in their country, and to have full rights.

I agree with my hon. colleague about the importance of promoting human rights. What we disagree on is the approach. Do I want to score points publicly but not make a difference on the ground, or do I want to speak about human rights but also find a way to work together constructively to promote human rights, certainly domestically, but equally importantly, around the world?

Human RightsAdjournment Proceedings

6:35 p.m.

Conservative

Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB

Madam Speaker, let me be clear. There are cases where it makes sense to work through back channels. Also there are cases where speaking clearly and publicly is necessary. I happen to think that the case of the Rohingya is a case where strong public action and public identification of these issues is necessary. After all, if we cannot be clear and public about our convictions with a country to whom we are giving tens of millions of dollars, then what exactly are we afraid of?

Maybe the parliamentary secretary could correct me, but the issue with the minister is that I cannot think of a single case in which he has spoken clearly, specifically, and directly to another country in a public way about the abuse of international human rights. If the government wanted to do something concrete, it could support the Magnitsky sanctions. It could find some case where it could speak publicly.

What is happening in Burma is a political choice by the government. We need our government to speak clearly to the Burmese government and say that the treatment of Rohingya Muslims is totally unacceptable.

Will the parliamentary secretary accept that some cases at least require strong leadership from the—

Human RightsAdjournment Proceedings

6:35 p.m.

NDP

The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

Human RightsAdjournment Proceedings

6:35 p.m.

Liberal

Omar Alghabra Liberal Mississauga Centre, ON

Madam Speaker, I am not saying that we do not publicly record our interests in promoting human rights and our disagreement with the treatment of minorities in particular in other countries around the world.

As I said in my opening remarks, we recognize the deplorable way minorities in Burma and other places around the world are treated. We want to make a difference. We want to make sure we work with those governments in promoting human rights. The minister has never shied away from speaking publicly, regardless of which country he was visiting that has a questionable record on human rights. He has taken the opportunity to speak with governments at all levels about promoting human rights.

Our commitment to the promotion of human rights is solid, unquestionable, and unshakable. The difference is that we want to be constructive about it.

Human RightsAdjournment Proceedings

6:35 p.m.

NDP

The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 6:39 p.m.)