Debates of Dec. 11th, 2019

Procedure and House Affairs

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

(Motion agreed to)

First Nations Child Welfare

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

Mr. Speaker, at the outset, let me formally congratulate you on the important role of the Speaker, representing the wonderful region of northern Ontario, and my next-door neighbour. I want to welcome you in your new Chair.

I believe if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for this motion:

That the House call on the government to comply with the historic ruling of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ordering the end of discrimination against First Nations children, including by:

(a) fully complying with all orders made by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal as well as ensuring that children and their families don't have to testify their trauma in court; and

(b) establishing a legislated funding plan for future years that will end the systemic shortfalls in First Nations child welfare.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

(Motion agreed to)

Iraq

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am tabling two petitions today, both about the situation in Iraq where peaceful protesters have taken to the streets seeking an end to corruption, sectarianism and foreign interference. They want a strong, peaceful, pluralistic Iraq. Their response has been met with terrible violence.

The first petition calls upon the House of Commons and government to strongly condemn the use of violence against protesters and asks the Government of Canada to pressure the Government of Iraq to investigate and stop this violence while bringing those accountable to justice.

The second petition calls upon the government and the House to engage with the Iraqi government to promote pluralism and national unity. It also asks the Government of Canada to impose Magnitsky sanctions on those in Iraq who have committed gross violations of human rights.

This is a critical human rights issue, and I look forward to reading the government's response to these petitions.

Questions on the Order paper

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

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

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Motions for Papers

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask that all notices of motions for the production of papers be allowed to stand.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Softwood Lumber Industry

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 52, I am rising to seek leave for the adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing an important matter requiring urgent consideration.

As members know, British Columbia is facing a crisis in the softwood lumber industry. Communities across my province are reeling from mill closures and layoffs that have occurred over the past several months. At least 20 mills have been shut down or have curtailed production. As a result, thousands of people across 27 communities in B.C. are out of work, and we understand that further layoffs are expected before the Christmas holidays.

As reported by the Financial Post, the Council of Forest Industries said that the industry has been a “cornerstone of the B.C. economy for more than 100 years and the well-being of 140 communities is closely linked to the health of the sector. It said forestry supports about 140,000 jobs and generates about $4 billion in revenues annually for the province.”

Despite the crisis, Canada still has no softwood lumber agreement with the United States, and Canadian companies are facing devastating tariffs. Further, softwood lumber is absent from a revised version of the USMCA signed on Tuesday and continues to be left in limbo.

Canada's Deputy Prime Minister told the House of Commons on December 6, 2019, that the federal government is taking the issue of increased tariffs to the World Trade Organization. However, yesterday we learned that the future of the WTO's appellate body is in serious jeopardy because the United States continues to block new appointees and that panel no longer has quorum.

I am sure members will agree that the softwood lumber crisis is a prominent issue facing the House this winter. It is the number one issue facing the impacted workers, their families and their communities, yet there has been no opportunity to debate actions undertaken by the Government of Canada. There is no clear plan of action presented to the House to support workers, communities and the industry.

Mr. Speaker, I would appreciate your attention to this matter, especially as we head into the Christmas break. I am hoping that you will consider this request.

Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I thank the hon. member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo for her intervention. I must inform her that it does not meet the requirements of the standing order.

I would point out that the House is presently debating the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne. The debate is a very large one and permits the raising of issues of importance for hon. members, and I am sure this will be one of them.

On a point of order, the hon. member for Calgary Shepard.

Conservative Party Caucus

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to subsection 49.8(5) of the Parliament of Canada Act, I rise to discharge my obligations to inform you of the recorded votes of the first Conservative caucus meeting: whether sections 49.2 and 49.3 are to apply in respect of the caucus, yes; whether section 49.4 is to apply in respect of the caucus, yes; whether subsections 49.5(1) to 49.5(3) are to apply in respect of the caucus, no; whether subsections 49.5(4) and section 49.6 are to apply in respect of the caucus, no.

I believe this fulfills my obligation as national caucus chair for the recognized Conservative Party in the House to inform you of the recorded votes under subsection 49.8(5) of the Parliament of Canada Act.

Mr. Speaker, I trust that the other recognized parties will follow suit and their caucus chairs will inform you of their vote results in the House.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Duly noted.

The House resumed from December 10 consideration of the motion for an address to Her Excellency the Governor General in reply to her speech at the opening of the session, and of the amendment.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, a gentleman with whom I served on Barrie City Council. I am happy that he has joined us in the House.

Tributes have already been done for the hon. Deepak Obhrai but I want to say how much he will be missed not just by our party but by all parliamentarians. A member mentioned that he was quite quotable. I used to sit here in amazement every time Deepak would speak and how many times he would say “Mr. Speaker” or “Madam Speaker”. I think he said that more in his speeches than the content, but it certainly showed the level of respect he had for Parliament and for the Chair.

Since this is the first time that I have been up to speak in this 43rd Parliament I have a few people I would like to thank.

First and foremost, I would like to thank the people of Barrie—Innisfil for electing me for a second term. I am humbled. I am appreciative. I certainly will continue to work hard and smart on their behalf.

I also want to thank all of my volunteers who helped throughout the campaign, and my campaign manager. Most importantly, I want to thank my family, my wife Liane, and my children for their unwavering support and understanding for what I do as the member of Parliament for Barrie—Innisfil. I appreciate all of their support during the election campaign and their ongoing support as well.

As I rise today to speak about the Speech from the Throne, what I am going to focus on more than anything are the things that were not in the Speech from the Throne. There were a lot of things, a lot of platitudes and a lot of words, but there are issues that are facing this nation that were not in the throne speech and I am not quite sure why, because those issues that were not in there are issues of significant importance to this country. These are issues like national unity.

Coming from a province like Ontario, I do not think the people of Ontario really understand the magnitude and the depth of what is going on in western Canada. Obviously, we work with colleagues from western Canada and we hear on a daily basis what is going on there, and it is dire.

What we did not see in the Speech from the Throne from the government is how we are going to deal with the situation with respect to natural resources and how we are going to get our products to market. How are we going to deal with some of the legislation that was passed in the previous Parliament that is going to continue to affect our natural resource sector? This is causing significant unity issues.

Just this week the Premier of Alberta brought a delegation to Ottawa. We have heard the Premier of Saskatchewan and others speak about just how dire the situation is and yet the government is seemingly not paying as much attention as it should. Certainly it is not doing what it should and that is to repeal some of the pieces of legislation that are impacting our colleagues and our friends in western Canada.

Other things that were not in the throne speech were issues of economic and fiscal policy. There was no end in sight, nothing mentioned with respect to debt and deficit situations and the fact that the Liberal government will continue to spend. Although the Liberals call it investing, they are continuing to spend billions and billions of dollars. That is increasing not only the debt but it is also increasing the deficit. In a minority situation, we will be under tremendous amounts of pressure from the other opposition parties to increase that debt and deficit situation. That is quite concerning as well.

What concerns me the most and I know coming out of the election what concerns the people of Barrie—Innisfil is our fiscal capacity to deal with a downturn in the economy. That is going to be one of the biggest challenges. By all indicators the economy is stalling. We saw that there were 71,000 job losses last month. Canada's position in the G7 is diminishing in terms of the debt-to-GDP ratio. We are quite concerned about the government's ability to deal with that going forward if we do face those strong economic headwinds.

Our role in the world was not addressed in the throne speech. The Canada-China crisis is worthy of attention, but that was not mentioned in the throne speech, and it took an opposition day motion to move the government in the direction we need to deal with those issues.

Those are some of the things that were not in the throne speech that caused me concern. The amendments that were put forward by the Leader of the Opposition will address a lot of the issues that were not addressed in the throne speech. These include economic and fiscal policy, natural resources and how to work to make sure that we see an uptick in the economy of Alberta and western Canada and Saskatchewan. I am asking that the government take very seriously the amendments that were put forward in order for us to deal with those situations.

What we did see was a government that seemingly went all-in. Just as if it was a game of poker, they went all-in and splashed all their chips onto the table on the issue of climate change. There is not one person in this House or one person across Canada who does not believe that man-made climate change is having an effect. The challenge we are having right now is that we need to have a national conversation about it.

In the election there was a lot of rhetoric and political posturing of the parties with respect to climate change. I agree with the former premier of New Brunswick, Frank McKenna, on this issue, that if we are going to go to a zero-based carbon economy, we need to understand what the implications of that are on not just Canada's economy, but also Canada as a place around the world and how it can impact a global change.

Canada, quite frankly, is punching above its weight when it comes to the issue of climate change. We need to be free of that rhetoric. We need to get back to having a discussion of what that impact is going to look like and how we are going to position Canada to be economically competitive going forward when seemingly the rest of the world is not moving in that direction. That is a conversation that we should have and could have in this minority Parliament. Looking at the rest of the world, just recently China built a rail system. The sole purpose of that rail system is to move coal to coal-fired electrical plants. One of the things that we talked about throughout the campaign was that Canada has the ability to impact the global climate crisis. Even the Prime Minister acknowledged the fact that even if we were to go to a zero-based carbon economy tomorrow, it would have zero impact around the world, unless and until Canada leads the way when it comes to the type of technology and innovation that we can offer.

The other thing that I was disappointed in is the fact that during the campaign, one of the ministers came up to Barrie and announced that the Liberals were going to invest $40 million into Lake Simcoe. This was after the Conservatives had already promised an investment into Lake Simcoe and to reinstate the Lake Simcoe cleanup fund. I want to make sure that the government is aware of how important the health, vitality and sustainability of Lake Simcoe are to central Ontario and our ecosystem. We are going to continue to push the government on that.

Finally, the voters of Barrie—Innisfil asked me to represent them here. I am asking that the government listen to the voters of not just Barrie—Innisfil, but across Canada to protect our national unity, to protect our economy, protect our environment, protect the energy and agricultural sectors and keep life affordable for Canadians. I ask the government to support our amendment going forward so that we can move forward.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Madam Speaker, I neglected to do this earlier, but I should have said in my first intervention a couple of days ago that I am very happy to be back here to represent the folks of Fleetwood—Port Kells in Surrey.

A thought that came up about our oil and gas sector is that the problem a lot of people have with it is when we use those products for energy, when we burn them. Their contribution to greenhouse gases and climate change is something that we may differ on the extent of, but we know that it does exist.

I wonder if my colleague could speak to the other uses that we could put those products to. The fact that we can use compound plastic to 3-D print a house in a day suggests that we have opportunities here to open up new markets, new products and new ways of using what Alberta produces so well in a way that does far more productive things.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, one of the things that we talked about throughout the course of the campaign was using Canadian ingenuity, technology and innovation around the world to help reduce global emissions and combat climate change.

The challenge that we have is this apparent attack on the energy sector. It is speaking to our economic competitiveness. Any thought that the world is going to move away from fossil fuels or natural gas is foolhardy. There is an insatiable demand around the world that will involve not just fossil fuels and LNG but clean technology as well, including solar and wind power.

It is not a question of one or the other; it is all of the above. Canada can lead the way with respect to innovation and ingenuity and make sure that we export them around the world so that we can help other countries reduce their emissions.

As I said during my speech, we are punching above our weight when it comes to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Barrie—Innisfil. We have worked together on standing up for veterans, those people who have put their lives on the line so we can enjoy the freedoms we have today.

With respect to the Speech from the Throne, there was very little mention of veterans. The government made a commitment to end homelessness for veterans in June. It was supported unanimously in the House. It also supported an NDP motion to end lapsed spending a year ago November. We still have not seen it honour that commitment.

My question is about homelessness and ending veteran homelessness. We have a place called Cockrell House in Victoria that is serving veterans who have fallen through the cracks, making sure they have a safe place to live. It receives no money from Ottawa. It might be a good idea for the government to use all lapsed spending not just to meet the 16 service standards it is not meeting, but to end veteran homelessness for good and to use that money to build housing for veterans.

Would my colleague in the Conservative Party support that idea?