Alexa McDonough

[The Budget, June 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, despite Conservative obstruction, Bill C-48, the NDP's better balanced budget bill, is back in the House for third and final reading. What is the Conservative contribution to delivering much needed investments in every region of our country so far? To delete all the clauses of the bill.

Conservative MPs, including from Nova Scotia, are asking the House not to invest in lower tuition fees in post-secondary education, not to invest in affordable housing, not to invest in public transit or cleaner air, not to invest half a billion dollars more in international aid, despite their own members' voting at the foreign affairs committee to support an NDP motion to increase Canada's ODA to 0.7% of our GDP. What hypocrisy.

Canadians deserve better. Canadians elected a minority Parliament. I am proud to be part of a caucus that has worked relentlessly to make this Parliament work and to deliver the investments Canadians need. It is past time for the official opposition in the same spirit to stop the huffing and puffing, get to work and deliver Bill C-48 to Canadians.

[Department of Social Development Act, June 8th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I thought I heard him say “we didn't need it”. He had some appreciation for the fact that some of the smaller provinces and the have not provinces do indeed need to be sure that the federal government is there to assist with advancing more progressive social policies than would otherwise happen. We can think of a number of provinces in which that is true.

I would like to pursue further the position as expressed by the member opposite that one recognizes there are less prosperous and less populous provinces that do need the assistance of the federal government. If that is the case, how does the Bloc Québécois justify taking the position that it has no interest in ensuring the adoption of a budget that would make available not only significant funds for child care, but for affordable housing which is desperately needed in have not provinces, for better post-secondary education and training, moneys which are desperately needed in less prosperous and less populous provinces? I could go on.

Those are all things that are very much recognized as priorities in Quebec. There is no question about that. I have no trouble acknowledging, and often have, that in social policy terms the Quebec government very often is in the lead with respect to recognizing the human priorities.

How can the Bloc Québécois members of this current Parliament deny the flow of resources that are desperately needed in those other provinces as they are doing by taking a position to try to defeat the better balanced budget that has been negotiated by the New Democratic Party?

[Department of Social Development Act, June 8th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to ask the member for Mégantic—L'Érable a brief question. I listened very carefully and as someone from Nova Scotia, a smaller have not province, I appreciated the comment from his colleague that even though Quebec does not seem to think it needs and does not want the federal dollars, which surprises me, that are required for child care--

[Department of Social Development Act, June 8th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I am somewhat worried by the answer of the member for Davenport. He said that while eliminating child poverty is a goal, and I do not know that he used the word laudable goal but I think that was the intent in what he said, it was questionable whether it could be attained.

This is exactly the mentality that has created the failure of the government to make progress in the elimination of poverty domestically. It continues to be the appalling position of the government with respect to its failure to commit to making poverty history, globally.

The reality is, in the absence of having serious targets and timetables and serious strategies to eliminate poverty, we will not do it. Post-1989 the government committed to the eradication of child poverty. At that time, and I hope I am correct, child poverty was at 16%. What happened under the watch of the finance minister, it went to 18% by the year 2000, the year it was supposed to be eliminated.

During the exact same time period, the government of Sweden, among others, set a serious goal of eliminating child poverty and put in place targets, timetables and a specific plan for implementing it. It reduced a child poverty level roughly equivalent to Canada's, maybe a little less, down to 2%.

Would the member not agree that in addition to the kind of building block approach that he talks about, we cannot be taken seriously and we will not make serious progress in eliminating child poverty unless we set clear targets and adopt a comprehensive, multi-faceted strategy for eradicating child poverty?

[Department of Social Development Act, June 8th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to raise a question or two for the member on the government side.

To put my question in context, I am more than a bit interested that we are dealing with a bill that creates the Department of Social Development. My first job after I graduated from social work was to work for the department of social development provincially in the province of Nova Scotia.

The member who has expressed an interest in having a focal point for social policy in the federal government will know that again today in question period I raised a question, probably for the 25th time in my almost decade here in the House, about the complete failure of the government to deliver on the 1989 unanimous motion approved in Parliament to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000.

The member represents a riding in Toronto. I am sure the member is aware that in numerical terms there are probably more poor children in downtown Toronto than any other city in Canada. There are appalling concentrations of poor children in many other communities, particularly first nations communities, in outlying regions and in the north of the country as well.

He talked about a new focus. Would it be his view that a number one priority to be tackled by the government should be the unmet commitment to move on the elimination of child poverty? Instead of having eliminated child poverty by the year 2000, under the government's watch and under the policies of the former finance minister now the Prime Minister, child poverty in numerical terms has increased to over one million children in that period since the 1989 parliamentary consensus that this should be the number one priority.

[Make Poverty History, June 8th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, today in Ottawa UN Special Envoy Stephen Lewis once again pleaded with Canada to live up to our millennium development goal commitment to set targets to reduce poverty, hunger, illiteracy, discrimination against women and environmental degradation by the year 2015.

Canada has the fiscal capacity to meet our international obligations. What is lacking is the political will. Canada must also address our failure to eradicate child poverty here at home, a commitment adopted unanimously by Parliament in 1989. Yet one million Canadian children still live in poverty.

Today we congratulate the Make Poverty History campaign dedicated to ending poverty around the world and here at home in Canada.

Let us sign on as full partners.

[Petitions, June 1st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to table petitions signed by thousands of people from across the country, especially young people, in reference to Darfur.

The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to pressure the UN and gather international support to broaden the mandate of the African Union to allow for intervention under chapter 7 of the UN charter, providing multinational resources to the African Union and provide a strong peacekeeping presence in Darfur.

They also call on the government to provide peacekeepers, training observers and logistical support to complement AU forces in the region to protect innocents, in keeping with the concept of the responsibility to protect.

Further, they call on the government to press the UN and gather international support to bring civil servants implicated in war crimes to trial in the International Criminal Court, to bring perpetrators to justice, and uphold the standards of international law.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, May 30th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the government member for his comments. I am aware that he is very concerned and committed in trying to repair the damage and to do better with respect to the level of education and core funding.

I know in particular that the member has had a good deal to do with pressing the government to deliver on increased research funds. That has been a very good beginning and in fact one that is seen by education stakeholders as something of a model. I think there are some challenges in it, particularly for smaller regions and smaller institutions but, nevertheless, if the government could begin to do for post-secondary education generally what it has done for research, we would actually begin to get back on the rails.

I am disappointed that the member has not spoken about what a disaster it is for us to continue with a block transfer. We know that education was trumped again and again by urgent acute health care needs when we had a combined health and social transfer. We need to break it down to a single--

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, May 30th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, on February 25 I rose in this House to express my dissatisfaction, and not only mine but of many people, with the paltry funds allocated to post-secondary education in the Liberal's original budget introduced for 2005-06. This represented an astonishing betrayal of a promise made by the Prime Minister during the last federal election.

Specifically, Canadians will remember that during the great Canadian job interview held with the Liberal leader and the NDP leader in St. John's, Newfoundland, the Prime Minister, before a national audience, promised to restore $8 billion to core funding for post-secondary education in Canada.

The failure to make even a modest down payment, even a small installment, toward that promised $8 billion was one of the major reasons why the New Democratic Party was not able to support the Liberal's original budget. The failure to deliver on even a portion of that promised $8 billion, and no one expected it would be delivered in full but at least a significant portion, left education core funding in this country below the level it was at in 1995.

It was not surprising, therefore, that students all across this country were infuriated. This occurred nowhere more so than in Nova Scotia, where 37,000 students face almost $1,800 above the national average for tuition fees. This is the highest by far in Canada.

A few weeks in politics can make quite a difference. That brings me to the better balanced NDP education budget measures negotiated on behalf of many, not just education stakeholders in the narrow sense but Canadians who care about the future of this country and understand the importance of post-secondary education.

We have here amendments to the Liberal's budget as set out in Bill C-48 that would provide for an investment of $1.5 billion for post-secondary education and training. It is true that $1.5 billion does not exactly come close to the $8 billion promised, but at least it is a start and can begin to repair the damage from those massive unilateral cuts.

Let me say what it means for Nova Scotia alone. It means a minimum of $22.5 million in two successive budget years. The Nova Scotia legislature, led by the NDP official opposition leader Darrell Dexter, deserves a great deal of credit. All the parties deserve credit for having come together and passing a bill that specifically dedicated the money that will flow from Bill C-48 to improve training opportunities, provide needs based grants and reduce tuition fees for Nova Scotia students.

Over the last 11 months since I have had the privilege of being the post-secondary education critic for the NDP, I have met with countless numbers of students, faculty, support staff and administrators. They have all furnished examples of the serious crises they face in regard to the education system. Their examples differ, but the source of their problems is the same, namely the chronic underfunding since 1993 by the federal government in post-secondary education.

I hope we will hear from the government's spokesperson today that this government will commit to a pan-Canadian post-secondary education act, where we can establish objectives--

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, May 30th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I have already said I acknowledge that this is a bit of a risk. I acknowledge that this is a fair question to raise, but I also think that in the interests of making progress we have to find some ways to get beyond some of these games, roadblocks and stonewalling.

I think that in this instance a case could be made. It is not the most critical thing one could come up with, but it seems at the moment to be the only thing we can come up with, and that is to say, “Look, let us at least get this dealt with and move on in good faith to dealing with Bill C-43 and Bill C-48 in their entirety”. In other words, let us move on to the other 28 measures that we are dealing with. Let us get on with it. Let us take away the very club, the very basis on which the official opposition is stonewalling and saying that this is just not going to go anywhere until we deal with this.

I agree with the hon. member that the opposition could turn around and try to say “now let us split off something else and something else and something else”. We do not have to agree to that kind of nonsense. We can say that there can be a reasonable case made with respect to the Atlantic accord because it is a fairly specific bill that deals with something quite different and quite unusual, pertaining only to the treasuries of two provinces, really, although the Atlantic economy in general will benefit, there is no question. My plea is to say that if someone has a better idea of how we can finally get on with doing what we are here to do, then let us hear that too. I think that--