Debates of March 11th, 2021

Justice

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, I have two petitions to present today.

In the first one, the petitioners are concerned about the rise in domestic violence and are calling on the government to make the necessary changes to the Privacy Act to allow the RCMP to fully use Clare's law, which would allow the disclosure of information to an intimate partner who may be at risk. This is just one of the many tools needed to combat domestic violence.

Natural Resources

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, the second petition is from the great people in my riding who are concerned about the government's lack of support for the oil and gas that provides jobs, affordable and reliable energy and valuable investments to our community organizations, among other things.

Therefore, the petitioners are calling upon the Government of Canada to take immediate action at every opportunity to support and promote Canadian energy projects and industry, domestically and internationally, for the benefit of workers, families and communities.

Transportation Safety

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to present three unique petitions, all citizen-driven, from constituents of Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon.

The first petition is regarding truck stops in B.C. The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the importance of keeping our domestic supply chains operable. Truck drivers' work has been essential during the crisis, and they deserve our utmost appreciation. Drivers, owing to the necessity to cover long distances, must frequently stop to rest, both for their safety and the safety of others on our highways.

Drivers are unable to stop just anywhere. They must stop at rest areas or designated truck stops. The distances between these stops are not equal and, as a result, lead to the increased risk of accidents due to truck drivers' lack of rest. Without action and the resources we need, there will be more accidents.

Therefore, these citizens call upon the Government of Canada to work with the Province of British Columbia to improve truck stops and to give truckers a dignified place to rest and recharge, so they can do their work on behalf of Canadians.

Human Trafficking

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Speaker, the second petition is regarding human trafficking.

The U.S. Department of State's 20th Trafficking in Persons Report indicates that Canada meets the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. The TIP report notes the Canadian government did not provide comprehensive data on investigations, prosecutions, convictions or victim services. The range, quality and timely delivery of trafficking specific services vary across Canada, including persistent funding shortages.

These citizens call upon the Government of Canada to strengthen the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act to address Canada's shortcomings regarding human trafficking.

Medical Marijuana

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Speaker, I will now present two petitions today from concerned citizens in Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon regarding the use of medical marijuana licences for industrial medical marijuana production in our neighbourhoods.

People across my riding are very upset that medical marijuana licences are being used in neighbourhoods where kids live, close to schools. The smell is horrible. They are really upset that these loopholes exist, which are being used by organized crime. The petitioners are demanding that the laws change to keep our communities safe and to prevent medical marijuana from being grown in our neighbourhoods.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I do want to remind members that we need to keep these brief because there are still others who want to present petitions.

The hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.

Human Rights

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

Madam Speaker, I have a mere three petitions to present today.

The first petition draws the attention of the House to the Uighur genocide. It calls on the House of Commons and the Government of Canada to recognize that Uighurs in China have been and are being subject to genocide. It also calls for the use of the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, or the Magnitsky act, to sanction those who are responsible for this genocide.

Conversion Therapy

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

Madam Speaker, the second petition deals with Bill C-6, the government's conversion therapy bill. The petitioners note they are very strongly opposed to allowing conversion therapy and support a ban on conversion therapy. They also have concerns about the definition of “conversion therapy” that is used in Bill C-6. Due to serious drafting problems, this bill could end up banning private conversations that would take place between individuals and create other kinds of problems.

The petitioners call on the government to ban coercive and degrading practices that are designed to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity, amend Bill C-6 to fix the definition and allow parents to speak with their own children about sexuality and gender, and to set house rules about sex and relationships.

Human Rights

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

Madam Speaker, the third and final petition highlights the human rights and humanitarian situation in the Tigray region in Ethiopia. The calls to action are for the Government of Canada to immediately call for an end to violence and restraint on all sides involved in the Tigray conflict, humanitarian access to the region and independent monitoring to be allowed, international investigations into credible reports of war crimes and gross violations of human rights, engaging directly and consistently with Ethiopian and Eritrean governments on this conflict, and promoting short, medium and long-term election monitoring in Ethiopia.

Medical Assistance in Dying

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, I have three petitions to present today.

The first petition is on the prime importance of human life and Bill C-7. The petitioners are calling for the current amendment to protect those suffering from mental illness to be supported. They call on the government to support these measures to protect human life and that all human life should be respected. We should support Canadians who are most vulnerable and defenceless, not facilitate their deaths.

Pornography

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, the second petition is on mandatory age verification. I rise to present petitions from hundreds of Canadians from across Canada. These petitioners are concerned with the accessibility and impacts of violent and degrading sexually explicit material online and the impacts on public health, especially on the well-being of women and girls. They recognize that we cannot say we believe in preventing sexual violence toward women while allowing pornography companies to freely expose children to violent sexually explicit imagery day after day, which is a form of child abuse.

As such, they note that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child requires Canada to develop and maintain the means to protect children from forms of media that are injurious to their well-being. As such, these petitioners are calling on the House of Commons to require meaningful age verification on all adult websites.

Mental Health

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, the final petition I have to present today is on mental health and suicide. We have seen throughout the COVID transition that death rate for 18-year-old to 35-year-old males, particularly in Alberta, has gone up significantly. The petitioners are calling on the government to support things such as the Trans Mountain pipeline, the northern gateway pipeline, the Keystone XL pipeline and Line 5 pipeline to ensure that the Alberta economy can continue to flourish and so that folks can get jobs and not be brought down by mental illness.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I would ask that all questions be allowed to stand at this time.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I wish to inform the House that because of ministerial statements, Government Orders will be extended by 30 minutes.

The House resumed from March 8 consideration of the motion that Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (additional regular benefits), the Canada Recovery Benefits Act (restriction on eligibility) and another Act in response to COVID-19, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Employment Insurance Act

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

Madam Speaker, as always, I am incredibly honoured to rise in the House to represent the people of Timmins—James Bay and to speak to Bill C-24, a bill that we need to pass as quickly as possible. There is an urgency to act because so many people are out of work and their EI is running out.

This is the anniversary of the calling of the pandemic. I think of how our world has been turned upside down and how it has been fundamentally transformed 365 days ago. I look back to a year ago today when we realized Parliament was going to be shut down. We thought it would maybe for two weeks. It was just impossible to think that it could be shut for three weeks. We did not have the cultural or historic imagination to find ourselves and understand ourselves in a pandemic.

I think of the first time I walked the streets wearing a mask and how strange I felt. We did not understand how the pandemic had such a powerful effect.

I have been reading Camus throughout this pandemic, because I though there had to be a way to understand it. What Camus said so powerfully of his people, his village, was that they were not any more arrogant or dismissive than anyone else, but they had forgot to learn to be humble in the face of a pandemic. We understand wars, Camus said, but we do not understand pandemics because we cannot see them, yet they upend and transform us.

Over the past year, we have seen a complete upending of so many of our preconceived ideas. A year ago, when the pandemic was called, within two weeks, millions of Canadians could no longer pay their rent. That is a staggering thing for a Prime Minister who talked about the middle class and those wanting to join it. The Prime Minister's line again and again was the middle class and those wanting to join it. What we have realized from the pandemic is that the middle class has been wiped out, that middle class no longer exists. What exists is precarious work, people without pensions, people working on contract. It is not just a blue-collar issue. Professors working in universities, without any kind of tenure, without any kind of support, get paid basically what people get paid at Tim Hortons. People have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on their education. They are burdened with student debt. When the pandemic came, they, like front-line workers and people who work in groceries stores, could not pay their rent if they were not able to work.

The pandemic showed us that our notions of our Canadian health system were based so much on hope and myth of this ideologized system, yet we were unable to protect the lives of hundreds of senior citizens who died needlessly in long-term care homes that were run for profit. We learned that we did not have the capacity in a nation as big as ours to produce our own PPE to keep workers safe, and we had to beg for it from other countries.

Of course, we suddenly remembered all those great ideas that Brian Mulroney, Pierre Trudeau, Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien had about not needing our own system, that we could rely on global markets, that we could not produce our own vaccine. A hundred years ago, Canada established the Connaught Labs to be a world leader in vaccine production, and it was. However, the privatization agenda of the Liberals and the Conservatives erased that.

I have been thinking about my grandmother, Lola MacNeil, who was a tough woman. She same from the Ottawa Valley and went to northern Ontario where the mining camps were booming. She met my grandfather who was a Cape Bretoner, Joseph MacNeil. He had broken his back underground in the mines. My grandmother was in the first graduating class of St. Mary's Hospital, working under the nuns, and she nursed my grandfather back to health.

My grandmother worked 12-hours shifts. When I was a child, my grandmother was hard with me sometimes. In those 12-hours shifts, she had dealt with diphtheria, small pox and she was haunted by polio.

I remember that she did not want us to go swimming up at Gillies lake, which was a little lake in Timmins. It was an offshoot of the water from where the Hollinger mine used to dump its water. My grandmother would tell us not to go swimming there, that this was where we would get polio. I asked my grandmother what polio was. When we would go to the doctor because we had a little toothache, we would get penicillin. We thought we were immune from all these things.

We did not have the cultural or historic imagination to understand the pandemic. I have been conjuring my grandmother Lola. She would know what to do. She would know how to prepare

I would like to say that we have learned things that will transform how we see the world for the coming generations and this young generation, generation Z. This generation has been schooled and transformed and will never see the world in the same way again. The many the things of this pandemic is the failing to generation Z, to this young generation coming up that is living in such precarity. This is why we need to get Bill C-24 passed.

I know many people who have no work to go back to, people who are doing precarious work, people who are working in the arts, the incredible arts network that we have across Canada. People have gone a year without working and their EI is running out. I think of people who worked multiple jobs in restaurants, but restaurants are no longer around. Their EI is running out.

The Conservatives always talk about the debt that we will be leaving. The biggest debt that we could leave would be the debt of destroying the family and personal economies of Canadians. Through no fault of their own, they were victims of a pandemic that upended the economic system that had existed through the 20th century.

Coming out of this pandemic, we need a vision for a 21st century economy and to understand the old 20th century ideologies of trusting the market, that things will be okay, that we will give to the big boys, such as the Prime Minister cut a deal with Amazon, one of the crappiest corporations in the world. It is a corporation where the billionaire class has made more and more money, while their workers have suffered on the front lines, keeping the economy going.

We need a 21st century economy coming out of this, one that is resilient, one that understands that we have to rebuild some of the social supports our grandparents built coming out of the Second World War for a proper social safety net so no one is left behind. We need to rebuild a strong health care system, one that the profiteers are unable to exploit our parents and our grandparents in long-term care, so no one ever has to call in the army again to keep senior citizens from dying. We need to build that type of economy. To get there, Bill C-24 is one of the intermediate steps that we need to have in place.

While we reflect on the issue of our society suddenly having to deal with precarity and insecurity, many people in the country have lived with precarity, insecurity and failing health systems for decades. They are the first nations peoples of our country, living in reserves on incredible territories of natural wealth. The treaties took them off their territories and put them on what are essentially internal displacement camps with substandard housing, substandard infrastructure and no access to clean water. I mention that because yesterday the Minister of Indigenous Services made an announcement that he would create a new website to deal with the water crisis, a website.

When the Prime Minister was first elected, he said that his number one priority was to guarantee clean water to first nations. People across Canada said, of course. How could one of the richest countries in the world not guarantee clean water for its citizens? Citizens questioned how it was possible that in a country with so much beautiful, natural clean water people would have to drink from dirty and polluted water, not just in one community but in community after community. The Prime Minister said that we would have mission accomplished by March 2021. We are not even close to that. Last week, the Auditor General put out in a damning report that it would be years. The website that the minister is bringing out is to show the successes that the government has had, to turn away the attention from the ongoing systemic failures.

I mention this issue with respect to the pandemic because of the insecurity, the precariousness and the need to get these false 20th century ideologies that somehow it is the fault of the first nation communities for the fact that they do not have access to clean water. These systems have been put in place by Indian Affairs. They remain in place despite the fact that in 2005 the auditor general wrote a condemning report about Indian Affairs and the crisis in water. I remember when Paul Martin announced that he would spend billions of dollars to clean the water systems. Was his mission accomplished? Not a chance.

In 2011, the auditor general wrote a damning report on the crisis of water. People might not remember, but one of the very first acts prime minister Stephen Harper brought in when he was elected was a plan to get clean water to reserves, yet in 2011 the Auditor General report read just like in 2005.

In 2018, the parliamentary budget officer issued a report that said the government would not meet its promise. Of course, last week we had the damning report by the Auditor General.

This is not a great mystery, and I would like to walk people through why these things happen. It is structural, it is systemic and it is based on a system of racist colonialism. What happens with first nations communities is that the federal government will always insist on spending the cheapest amount of money to fix the problem. This policy of the lowest bid has meant that we have had in community after community operators come in and say they will do the job for cheap, because other more credible companies will not touch the project. They are doing them in isolated fly-in communities, where the costs are elevated. These companies know this. They will take the bid, there will be cost overruns, there will be delays and if there are problems, they will just cut corners.

That is the first failing. The minister has refused to change the policy on that.

The second issue, as the Auditor General points out, is that the government is using the same failed funding formula that goes back over 30 years, which is the refusal to put in proper operations and maintenance funding. Indian Affairs wants to keep the ministers happy and the ministers want to cut a ribbon. They want to announce “mission accomplished” and move on. However, if we do not have an operations and maintenance budget, the plants fail.

In Marten Falls First Nation, lightning hit the sewage lift. It is an isolated community, so how will it fix that on its own? The government says that it is not its problem. A failed sewage lift begins as a problem, then becomes more systemic and then the government will spend upwards of $2 million a year flying bottled water into a community like Marten Falls, but it will not deal with the systemic failings in the first place. We need to have operations maintenance training to ensure these plants work.

The other issue that the government has is that it will build a plant and declare victory. Plants have been built that do not meet building codes. If that happened in a provincial jurisdiction or in a municipality, there would be an investigation. When it comes to Indian Affairs, it is just another day at the office. The company that did not meet the building code at one project can get hired at the next project. Why? Because it will do it on the cheap.

We had a community in the northwest where a water plant was built, the ribbon was cut, an announcement was made and people left. The next day grandmothers had to walk to the river with buckets for water. Why? The water plant was built but no money was set aside to get pipes into the homes. Again, if that was done in a municipality, there would be an investigation. If it was done at the provincial level, people would be fired. If it was done at Indian Affairs, someone might get promoted, because it is another day at the office.

These inequities are not just in the far north. I will talk about Maniwaki. It is just up the road. There is a municipality in Maniwaki and there is the Kitigan Zibi reserve. One has clean water and one does not. How is that possible? One is under the provincial jurisdiction in Quebec that has water standards and the other is under the federal government.

In Attawapiskat, as well as in many other communities, they will not look at the source of where the water comes from. They want to take it from the cheapest source. If we take water from a stagnant pool, we are going to have problems. However, if the stagnant pool is close to the plant, then Indian Affairs says that is the water source. There might be a much cleaner source down the road, but Indian Affairs will not spend that money. They will take a stagnant water pool, run it into the plant, which means they will have to use an enormous amount of chemicals to keep it clean, and then they will run it through substandard pipes that cause more chemical contamination. The point is that by the time the water reaches people's homes, it is toxic.

Every region of this country has water standards that have to be met. The only place where water standards do not exist is on reserve. Why is that? The reason is that if the federal government actually had standards, it would have to spend money, and it will not spend money.

The other issue is that with the website the government is going to create, every community is going to have its own page on a website. We already have a website and the government lies on the website. The government has, for instance, Bearskin Lake as “under construction”. Bearskin Lake is not under construction. We have been waiting over a year to get the feasibility report agreed to.

I have a report here called “The Project Implementation Procedures Manual for Water and Wastewater Systems” by the Public Works and Government Services Canada client service team for Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. I run out of breath just saying that title. If we look at this report, it consists of page after page of hoops that indigenous communities have to jump through to satisfy the department, despite many of these communities being impoverished and in the far north.

Chief Shining Turtle, who has been a very strong voice on the need to listen to first nations and to put in place coherent systems, has told the government again and again that these manuals are manuals for failure. When I hear the Minister of Indigenous Services say that the department does not want to impose a solution and wants to work with them, he is making it sound like he is their best life coach. What he is really doing is gaslighting communities by making it seem as though it is their fault that bad decisions are made. We look at these reports and the number of hoops communities have to go through, and yet we still see communities ending up with underfunded systems that fail.

I want to give people a couple of more examples so that they really understand how this failure works systemically. The government will say that a community will get clean water, say in Attawapiskat, but it does not want to look at the whole system. The fact is that we might build a water system, a water plant, but we do not have the proper pipes to actually get clean water, so by the time the water runs through the plant to the homes, it is already contaminated with chemicals.

The government says it will get the mission accomplished on that, but what does that mean? That means that a little girl who heard that I was coming to Attawapiskat met me on a street corner. She was wearing a cardboard sign that said that she had only one kidney and needed fresh water to live. No child should have to put on a cardboard sign to say how their very life is threatened by bad water. Why does that child have only one kidney? It is because in Attawapiskat the children have been poisoned for decades by toluene and benzene that was underneath a school. Kidney damage is one of the fundamental symptoms of that.

I think of the little girl in Kashechewan whose skin rashes are so bad that the international media covered it and said that this is Canada. Every few months, my office sends her medication because they are 600 miles from a pharmacy. That is the failure of government. These are children whose lives get cut short by a precarious failed system. We are here today to push through the legislation to keep workers safe, but my call to the government is that it needs to stop playing games with the lives of first nations people when it comes to water and that we need to get a credible system in place.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his excellent speech. I appreciate his extensive knowledge on boil water advisories and learned a lot from his remarks. I also appreciated his story about his grandmother. It was very inspiring and I can relate to that.

My question about Bill C-24 is as follows. I agree with the member that it is important that we pass this bill. I am glad to see the parties in the House come together on this.

Is the member of the opinion that the Liberal government should have introduced this bill far sooner? I would love to hear the member's comments on that.

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

Madam Speaker, yes.

We remember when the Prime Minister came in, when we were dealing with the first crisis with CERB running out. The Prime Minister was talking about jail sentences for people who had been overpaid. The fundamental problem, and we have dealt with the department on this, was that people were not getting clear answers and yet the government wanted to jail them. The government backed down on that.

The fact is that the government knows that EI is running out, and we know that many people cannot go back to work. It is the same issue we had with small business, when the government decided to give the money to the landlords. Small businesses were going under. We told the government, again and again, to fix it and to work with small business.

We have to get small business and workers through this so that when we come out of the pandemic, we have enough people who are not economically devastated to start the rebuilding and restructuring our society, so that we are able to compete and to ensure that everyone has work.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

I would like his thoughts on EI sickness benefits. Bill C-24 would extend EI regular benefits to 50 weeks for those who apply by September 25, 2021. That is very good. However, EI sickness benefits remain capped at 15 weeks.

My colleague from Salaberry—Suroît introduced a bill to have the government extend this 15-week period to a total of 50 weeks. I think it is necessary. Earlier, the leader of the Bloc Québécois said it well: the pandemic has exposed just how much people who were already vulnerable are even more so today. I am thinking in particular of people with recurrent cancer who have to return to work against the advice of their doctor.

Does my colleague not think it is high time this change was made for people like that?

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her very important question.

It is clear to me that during a pandemic, we need to ensure that workers are protected, but we must also bring in adequate resources to ensure that families and the health care system are protected.

Let us talk about the Liberals and their promises. Year after year, there is no movement on pharmacare. The government has to recognize the importance of supporting the system to benefit workers who have health problems during the pandemic.

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

Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague's speech. I want to probe his thoughts on this particular issue.

He talked at certain points in his speech about failed 20th century ideologies, in particular failures of markets, in his view. Then the member spoke very well and very eloquently about the failures of government in the context of indigenous issues, and not just the failures of particular policies but the structural failures that exist within the department. He talked about the problems of having people who are far away making decisions for communities they are not part of and do not understand.

Implicit in the member's criticism is the idea that it is not just a problem of spending, because he pointed to examples of governments willing to spend money in ways that do not address the problem, and who are unwilling to direct resources in ways that would address the problem. Consequently, I thought it was interesting that while the member sort of made points about the failures of markets or decentralization, he then also spoke very pointedly about the failures of centralizing government.

I would like to hear the member's reflections on that. I do not have an answer to the question, but I would like to hear his reflections. If markets are failing in his view and if national governments are failing, what is the structural solution to the problem that he has identified?

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

Madam Speaker, that is an excellent question.

I was not saying the failure of governments in regard to decentralization, I think the failure of the 20th century ideology was the belief, simply, in globalization, that global markets would meet all needs. What we have learned is that we actually need to have a national vision for our economy, and that has been made very clear.

The issue with government failings in indigenous affairs is with another fundamental 20th century ideology, which is colonialism. This is a racist system. This has never been done in concert with first nations. This has never been done with a vision for the long term.

If we are going to spend money, and we have spent enormous amounts of money, it has to be done with an actual coherent policy that we are going to get to another level of equilibrium. The failure of 20th century ideology, in terms of Indian Affairs, has been evident since the get-go, and it is still there.

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

Madam Speaker, I listened to the speech of the member for Timmins—James Bay with great interest. It is very clear that his knowledge of and passion for the indigenous issues, especially on the boil water advisories, are very much there for all to see.

In his earlier comments on Bill C-24, he mentioned that we have to start investing in a 21st-century economy that is there for workers. Throughout the pandemic, we in the NDP have been highlighting the impossible choice that many workers often have to make between their health and their source of income.

When we look at Bill C-24, there was a missed opportunity to extend the sickness benefits of employment insurance from 15 weeks to 50 weeks. I have met many constituents who approach the end of the 15-week mark and have to go back to work when they are not quite ready to do so. I think the pandemic has taught us some serious lessons there.

In the context of his comments on how we build a 21st-century economy, could he expand a bit more on the kinds of supports we need to put in place to make sure workers are not making those impossible choices?