Debates of April 4th, 2019

Official Languages

[Alaina Lockhart, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Tourism]

Madam Speaker, I have the honour of being in the House tonight to speak about Canada's official languages.

I would like to remind my colleague, the member for Drummond, that education is the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces. That is why, for almost 50 years, the Government of Canada has worked closely with the provinces and territories to support minority education and second language education.

Our government recognizes the crucial role played by institutions to ensure the rights of Ontario's citizens according to the French Language Services Act. That is why we are supporting the Franco-Ontarian community as an official language minority community.

As part of the action plan for official languages, we approved $1.9 million in funding to enable the team working on Ontario's French-language university to continue its efforts until January 2020. Clearly, the ball is in the Government of Ontario's court.

It is incumbent on the Government of Ontario to apply for federal funding, not the reverse. On several occasions, from November 2018 to January 2019, our government contacted the Government of Ontario to gauge its intentions and to urge it to apply for funding under the current call for projects. Unfortunately, the province confirmed that this was not its intent at this point.

The communications of the Minister of Tourism, Official Languages and La Francophonie with her Ontario counterparts were clear. In a first letter dated November 16, 2018, she expressed her disappointment with the Ontario government's decisions to cancel the proposed French-language university and to abolish the position of French language services commissioner for the province. In her second letter dated January 13, 2019, she reiterated the federal government's commitment to contribute up to 50% of the total cost of Ontario's French-language university if the Ontario government were to apply for funding.

We should note that the Government of Canada has received a request for one-time funding directly from the team that is developing the Université de l'Ontario français project, concerning preliminary work to be done for the establishment of the Francophone knowledge and innovation hub in Toronto. This unifying project could host the Université de l'Ontario français once established.

The Government of Canada worked with the provinces and territories to help build post-secondary infrastructure in Ontario and other areas of the country, and we plan to continue that work with Ontario's French-language university.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, yes, the minister wrote letters, but since this was a crisis, we would have liked to see her pick up the phone to request an urgent meeting and sit down with her provincial counterpart. We would like the Prime Minister to call for a federal-provincial-territorial forum to talk about the situation.

We are in a crisis and this calls for the appropriate action. Unfortunately, the government has not taken strong enough action and has not demonstrated enough leadership. That is what we need.

[Alaina Lockhart, Liberal, Fundy Royal, NB]

Madam Speaker, with the funding for the Francophone Hub of Knowledge and Innovation, we hope that the preliminary work for creating the university will continue until at least 2020. We want to publicly reiterate to the Government of Ontario that we are fully prepared to help fund this project.

Let us be clear. The responsibility to carry out this project lies with the Government of Ontario. That being said, the Franco-Ontarian community will always be able to count on the Government of Canada's unwavering support as a partner in this project and to help ensure the vitality of the Francophone community in Ontario and across Canada.

Fisheries and Oceans

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

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to speak to a question that I brought forward to the attention of the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard regarding the herring fishery in the Strait of Georgia, which is the Salish Sea in indigenous language, and familiar to people who live in that region.

As we know, our oceans are under enormous pressure. There are huge threats to our Chinook salmon and to the southern resident killer whales, which the government has identified and is concerned about, it claims. Right now there is only one herring fishery that is open between the state of Oregon and Alaska. That is just off my riding, between north of Nanaimo and Comox, to make it easy instead of using navigation terms on the water.

This fishery is open. The government, DFO, goes out, does assessments and allows a harvest of up to 20% of the biomass. Herring are a dominant forage fish in British Columbia waters, meaning they are a critical prey base, serving as an intermediary between plankton at one end and sea birds and Chinook salmon, southern resident killer whales and northern resident killer whales, as I identified.

The fishery, as I talked about, opened on March 9, and it is where seine netters and gillnetters go out and catch female herring for their eggs, which are sold as kazunoko in Japan. The rest of that fish, after the roe is taken out, is, like the males, ground up and used for pet food and as food for farmed salmon.

There are a lot of people in British Columbia who think this is of huge concern. They question the whole idea of a reduction fishery, because that is what it is. Actually, over 90% of it is used for pet food or animal feed or fish farms. They do not think it is acceptable at a time when there is so much pressure on our oceans and our ecosystem.

The herring fishery is closed off of the west coast of Vancouver Island, off of the central coast, off of Haida Gwaii, off of Prince Rupert because of low stocks, which has occurred because of fishing based on DFO models and DFO predictions that have resulted in overfishing. In fact, with DFO's own modelling, they have overfished six of the last 13 years. They got it wrong.

As members can imagine, there are huge concerns in our region about DFO getting it wrong on the last remaining herring fishery on our coast. It is vital to all of the species that rely on our forage fish. In fact, in the science community, this concern is even backed up in a sense by DFO's own staff. Jaclyn Cleary, head of the Pacific region herring stock assessment program for Fisheries and Oceans, said there are differing opinions, even among scientists, about whether there should be a fishery for forage species such as herring.

We are hearing that a lot of scientists do not believe we should be fishing over 10%, if any, of our forage species, and even DFO is raising concerns.

The minister talked about relying on local and indigenous knowledge. I have talked to Chief Recalma, chief of the Qualicum First Nation, right off of where the fishery is. Nobody has consulted him. DFO has not even reached out. He thinks the herring roe fishery should be suspended. In the case of the Tla'amin Nation, Clint Williams, the Hegus or chief, has basically said they do not want the herring fishery off of Powell River, where the herring were decimated in the 1980s.

The Comox Valley Regional District Islands Trust is bringing a late motion to the association of Vancouver Island municipalities. Nature conservancy on Vancouver Island, the Courtenay fish and game club and Pacific Wild are all calling on the government to listen to local communities and indigenous knowledge and suspend the herring roe fishery in the Salish Sea.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries]

Madam Speaker, our government takes the conservation and sustainable use of the Pacific herring fisheries very seriously. We are committed to ensuring the conservation of fisheries resources, and I would like to assure Canadians that this is central to the mandate of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

The decisions we make about setting catch limits and implementing a fishery management plan for Pacific herring are informed by a rigorous and thorough process informed by science and input from a wide variety of first nations, commercial fishing interests and the broader public.

Each year, scientific surveys are conducted in each of the five major Pacific herring stock areas, one of which is the Strait of Georgia. These surveys, along with biological sampling, inform the annual development of a peer-reviewed stock assessment by scientists at DFO. This stock assessment provides up-to-date advice on the health of each stock, which managers use to draft a fisheries management plan for each stock area that is consistent with the department's sustainable fisheries framework policies, which requires that we take a precautionary approach.

Our draft management plan goes through a public consultation process to ensure that we account for important indigenous and local knowledge before making final decisions about fishery planning.

This year, the peer-reviewed stock assessment estimates for Pacific herring indicate that the biomass of the stock in the Strait of Georgia is in a very healthy state. A limited roe herring fishery was proposed for the Strait of Georgia that ensured that a minimum of 80% of the estimated biomass was left in the water. This will ensure that there are enough herring left to spawn and sustain fisheries into the future and ensure that herring can continue to play an important role in the ecosystem as a source of food for many other species, such as salmon, seals, sea lions and humpback whales.

Where evidence of concerns have emerged in the Strait of Georgia, we have responded. For example, we have implemented several closed areas where no herring fishery will be permitted to occur to protect sensitive spawning areas of localized Pacific herring populations. I can assure everyone that the decision to close an area is not taken lightly and is always grounded in scientific advice.

Furthermore, over the past three years, the department has initiated a comprehensive renewal of its Pacific herring management regime through an extensive consultative process with first nations and fisheries stakeholders to ensure that it reflects the broadened goals Canadians have come to expect from fisheries resource management and the best available scientific advice about how we can achieve those goals.

Our approach to the management of the fishery in the Strait of Georgia this year explicitly reflects this comprehensive work. More details about this can be found in the fishery management plan that was developed by way of a public consultation process and that has been widely circulated to all stakeholders.

In closing, I would reiterate that the management decisions we made this year for the Pacific herring fishery are based on careful consideration of the concerns raised and the best available science.

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

Madam Speaker, as I stated earlier, they have not actually consulted indigenous communities. The chief of the Qualicum First Nation has not even had a phone call from DFO to be consulted. In fact, they are concerned about DFO science, and for good reason.

Four of the five fisheries in British Columbia are closed. Chief, or hegus, Williams, as they go by hegus in the Klallam language, says, “I'm still not a one hundred per cent believer in their science. Their science said they could fish on the inside here and it's just devastated the fishery here.”

It is closed, and the herring have almost vanished. There are concerns from indigenous communities and around the world about DFO science. Stephen Hume's article, in Focus on Victoria, says that in the 1950s, overfishing of Japan's herring led to a collapse. In the 1960s, it was the California sardine. Herring fisheries in Alaska and B.C. were closed in the 1960s. Overfishing destroyed herring stocks off Iceland, Norway and Russia. In 1972, they overfished the Peruvian anchovy fishery. In 1992, it was the Atlantic cod.

We do not want it to be the herring roe fishery in the Strait of Georgia in the Salish Sea. We are calling on the government to do the right thing, listen to local knowledge, trust indigenous knowledge, and do not make this the final chapter of the herring roe fishery on the coast of British Columbia.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Madam Speaker, as I indicated in my remarks, all decisions with respect to fisheries management, including the decisions with respect to the herring fishery in the Strait of Georgia, are grounded in science. If my hon. colleague does not believe in science, that is up to him. We have also engaged in an extensive public consultation process.

As I indicated, all of these things are factored into the management of the fishery, but first and foremost is that foundation in the best scientific advice available, which is in fact peer reviewed. We have and will continue to rely on science in these matters.

Housing

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Madam Speaker, 235,000 Canadians experience homelessness each and every year. In Saskatoon, a point-in-time count found that 475 individuals, including 26 young people and 11 children, experienced homelessness one night in April 2018.

In Toronto, 6,800 people experienced homelessness last night, including 523 young people and 802 women.

These are not numbers; they are people. We know the face of homelessness is changing. The fastest-growing population accessing homeless shelters in Canada are families with young children and women and children fleeing violence in shelters. Young people who identify as LGBTQ2S are overrepresented among those who are homeless, as are youth who have aged out of foster care and indigenous peoples in urban centres

For these reasons, and others, the New Democrats believe that all Canadians have a right to safe, affordable housing.

Why does it matter if Canadians have a right to safe and affordable housing enshrined in our laws? Tim Richter, the CEO of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, said it best in a public comment he made last year. He said:

We know that rights-based housing approaches are the most effective approach to resolving homelessness and housing need...Without these rights-based approaches, I think, the national housing strategy will not be as effective as it could be and may not meet its objectives.

In other words, we need a rights-based housing policy, because it is the most effective approach to solving homelessness. Without taking this approach, the government's housing policies and programs are likely to fail.

Why has the Liberal government failed to enshrine the right to housing into law, something we had expected from it? The obvious reason is that perhaps it does not believe that safe and affordable housing is a right. If it does not believe that, as a government it is under no obligation to uphold or protect that right. That is exactly what the government is doing. It is refusing to change our laws to ensure housing is a right, and I believe it is choosing to tolerate homelessness in Canada today, tomorrow and in the future.

The stated goal of the government's own plan to address homelessness is to reduce, by 50%, the number of chronic users of homeless shelters in 10 years. How can we end homelessness if ending homelessness is actually not the goal of the government?

If we fast forward a decade and assume that the government's homelessness policy is 100% successful in achieving its goal, what would we expect on April 4, 2029? We would see 3,408 residents still staying in homeless shelters in Toronto; 169 people would be homeless in Hamilton; 700 people would be homeless in Ottawa; over 1,000 people would be homeless in Vancouver; and in my community in Saskatoon, there would be 288 people homeless, including 13 young people and six children. That is if the current plan works.

I find this unacceptable. Therefore, my original question still stands. Why will the government not enshrine the right to safe, affordable housing in legislation? Why will it not commit to ending homelessness once and for all?

[Alaina Lockhart, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Tourism]

Madam Speaker, the member for Saskatoon West points out some of the housing challenges that Canada faces. These challenges are well known to our government, which is why, from day one of our mandate, we made it a top priority to ensure that more Canadians have a safe, affordable place to call home. We began funding solutions to these problems from our very first budget in 2016.

Canadians do not have to wait for results. We have invested $5.7 billion to date and have improved housing for close to one million families. This includes young families, seniors, women and children fleeing domestic violence, indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, persons with mental health and addiction issues, veterans and young adults. At the same time as we were responding to immediate housing needs, we have begun delivering a comprehensive long-term plan, Canada's first-ever national housing strategy.

Many of the main initiatives of this 10-year, $40-billion plan were rolled out last spring. New homes and shelters are already being built and existing homes are being repaired and renovated.

We have launched an updated and expanded homelessness strategy with dedicated funding for indigenous homelessness and more flexibility for communities to develop solutions that meet their needs. We are also investing in better data to get a clearer picture of the issues across Canada and to develop innovative solutions.

We are working in close collaboration with the provinces and territories, with seven bilateral agreements in place and others well under way. These agreements are unlocking further investments for housing, like direct benefits for low-income Canadians and funding to stabilize community housing.

Finally, I want to take a moment to specifically address my colleague's comments regarding indigenous housing. In February, we announced $638 million in investments to ensure that indigenous peoples living in urban, rural and northern communities have better housing outcomes now and for generations to come.

One-third of this funding will be delivered through the Canada community housing initiative as part of the bilateral agreements. It will help preserve and improve the condition of community housing units for urban indigenous families living in cities or urban centres across the country. Two-thirds of the funding will address indigenous homelessness. This represents an increase of almost 70% in dedicated indigenous funding for homelessness. The funds will be delivered through Canada's new homelessness strategy, “Reaching Home”, which I mentioned earlier.

A part of this funding will also flow through the national housing co-investment fund, which will lead to more indigenous housing projects, new and renovations, whether they are projects to create new homes or to repair and modernize existing ones.

Finally, we are also working closely with our indigenous partners to finalize distinction-based housing strategies. These first nations, Inuit and Métis strategies will address the unique needs of their communities and they are backed by a significant investment of $1.5 billion.

I am extremely proud of the work that we have achieved, but we know that there is much more work to be done. To keep that momentum strong, we need to keep housing on the agenda for the long term. That is why we will soon be tabling legislation to protect the national housing strategy.

The legislation will include measures to ensure accountability and to ensure that those most affected by Canada's housing challenges continue to have a strong voice in solutions going forward. It has strong support from Canadians across the country.

I hope we can also count on the support of members from both sides of the House for the legislation. We have an opportunity to make a lasting change for housing in Canada, a change that will create a strong economy and strong communities, where everyone in Canada has a safe and affordable place to call home.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Madam Speaker, I do want to make some comments. I take some issue with the government's response and their boasts about the infamous $40 billion we keep hearing about. I think it is important for Canadians to recognize that much of this money was promised under the previous federal government and this government has taken a great deal of credit where it is not owed. We have had lots of announcements and very little investment, especially since the $40 billion includes matching funding, not only from provinces, territories and municipalities but also from private partners. It is not $40 billion invested by the federal government.

As usual, Liberal words do not match actions. When it comes to homelessness though, I think we can do better.

I do hope that the legislation that the parliamentary secretary spoke about does enshrine the right to housing in law, commits the resources, develops policies in support of this goal and measures their effectiveness as well. New Democrats know this is needed and we are ready to do just that.

[Alaina Lockhart, Liberal, Fundy Royal, NB]

Madam Speaker, the bottom line is that everyone in Canada deserves a place to call home that they can afford and that meets their needs. Our government has made this a top priority since the beginning of our mandate and we are already seeing the results.

Already close to one million people in Canada have benefited from our investments in housing, and momentum is strong to reach our ambitious goal of lifting 530,000 out of housing need and reduce chronic homelessness by 50%.

The national housing strategy's main programs have been rolled out and new projects are already breaking ground. We are working to finalize new first nations, Inuit and Métis strategies. New, more progressive bilateral agreements are being signed. We are close to launching legislation to keep housing on the agenda for generations to come.

Yes, housing needs continue to be great and, yes, there is still lots of work to do. However, Canadians are already feeling some relief. We are on track to making a lasting difference, giving more people a safe and affordable place to call home.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

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

(The House adjourned at 7:35 p.m.)