Alexa McDonough

[Canada Education Savings Act, November 30th, 2004]

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-5 be amended by deleting Clause 3.

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-5, in Clause 13, be amended by adding after line 32 on page 10 the following:

“(l) establishing a process for defining the conditions that constitute undue hardship under subsection 9.1(1) for a beneficiary or the primary caregiver of a beneficiary.”

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, November 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to answer that question because it illustrates the point I have been trying to make.

The millennium scholarship fund stands as one of the best examples of the most misguided policies the government has ever introduced on behalf of post-secondary education students today and tomorrow. Let us use Nova Scotia as an example. It is literally true that there was no net benefit to Nova Scotia from the millennium scholarship funds. With every dollar of millennium scholarship funds put forward, it was clawed back by the province, which brings me to the second point.

I am glad the parliamentary secretary brought this up, perhaps inadvertently, but if it was wilful I thank him for his sense of fairness and even-handedness. I made a note when the parliamentary secretary of finance said earlier that I would be delighted that an extra $151 million would be going to Nova Scotia for it to spend as it saw fit.

What is a serious problem is that when the government introduced the millennium scholarship fund it did nothing to protect the funds against a provincial government clawing them back. Clawbacks are happening with the child tax credit where dollars are needed by the most needy families. Clawbacks are happening with respect to education funds. Clawbacks are happening with respect to housing funds.

The government eliminated the best social housing program in the world. Canada was seen as an example of what a national housing strategy should look like. The budget of 1996 eliminated the national housing program. Canada is the only industrial nation in the world that I know of that does not have a national housing strategy to this day.

No, I do not agree that $151 million going to the provincial government, to use in whatever way it sees fit, is the way to go. We need national standards such as those that supposedly exist in the Canada Health Act, only the government will not actually implement the Canada Health Act by taking any measures when provincial governments violate it.

We need a pan-Canadian post-secondary education act that would establish standards and principles on which students could depend, wherever they happen to live in the country, so they will have access to post-secondary education. We need to do the same with respect to the other critically important elements of modern living that one should be able to depend upon wherever they happen to live in the country.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, November 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it is a strange ritual that goes on with questions and answers when the parliamentary secretary spends the first half of his time seeking clarification as to whether we are supporting Bill C-24. As I said in my speech, yes, we are.

Secondly, he wanted to know whether we favoured the new formula that is contained within the bill. Yes, we do, which is why we are supporting it. However we can turn around a lot of figures, and to every single household, especially low and modest income households, it sounds like a pile of money to say that as a result of this new formula that Nova Scotia will get $151 million extra dollars. That is a large amount of money but it absolutely pales in comparison to the massive blows, and we are not just talking cutting and slashing, but almost death blows that have been dealt to a good many basic services that had to be cut back or eliminated in Nova Scotia over the last number of years.

I will cite one example. While I was in my riding on Friday, I met with a tremendous young woman who heads up an organization that works on behalf of persons living with disabilities. It is devastating what has happened to persons living with disabilities on their own and to the families working to support family members living with disabilities as a result of the combined impact of the cuts to education funding, the cuts to health care funding and the cuts to public transit. For persons living with disabilities to get to a doctor's appointment with three weeks' notice on accessible transportation is challenge enough, never mind the persons living with disabilities who are ready, willing, able and qualified to fill jobs in the community but cannot fill those jobs because they have no way to get to work.

If that does not demonstrate how pathetically short-sighted, never mind mean-spirited, the hacking and slashing has been over the last eight years, I do not know what else does. Yes, $151 million more into Nova Scotia's coffers will be welcomed, but they will not come close to repairing the damage.

I could cite a lot of other statistics about the size of the student debt load. The average debt load for a student graduating in Nova Scotia the year before last was $25,000, and we know that has been growing significantly. It is a disaster at the undergraduate level and an even bigger disaster at the graduate level.

I had representations over the last while from people in the health care field who said that high tuitions have made it virtually impossible for young people from low and modest income families to seek professional training and then to go back to the communities where they are desperately needed, communities ethnically and geographically, returning to rural areas where there is severe underrepresentation of trained health care personnel. The reason for that is that graduating students with debt loads are compelled to go to the bigger and more prosperous centres to try to get that debt load off their back but they end up not returning.

The tuition for students going into medicine rose 16.7% last year and for law it rose 19.4%, which is on top of previous massive increases. This simply means that we will not have representation on our health care professional teams from those lower income areas, from ethnic minority communities and from rural communities, because they simply cannot leap that gap. Nothing in the short term, even with the $151 million extra that would go to Nova Scotia under this new equalization formula, will begin to clear away those obstacles to accessibility that had been erected by the government's reckless short-sighted decisions over the last eight years.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, November 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, qualifications, as my colleague has reminded us, have been made so restrictive that it is not rocket science to figure out why in 2004 we actually have to take note of an increase in child poverty in this country today.

It may seem like a big step from the discussion about the fiscal arrangements act to the increase in child poverty, for which we now suffer the embarrassment and low income families suffer the burden, but there is a connection. It has to do with the misplaced priorities. It has to do with the fact that the policies that have been consistently pursued by the Liberal government have enriched the wealthiest corporations and those in the higher income categories at the expense of those who most need to know that the community and their governments are there for them.

We hope this is the beginning of a repair job. It does not address at all the unfulfilled promise made by the Prime Minister during the last election. We have not yet seen any signs of the promise being honoured by the Prime Minister to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador with respect to the share that is owing to our provinces which needs to be invested in the future economic prosperity of our provinces from our natural resources.

It is important on this occasion to recognize that further legislation will be needed. We are not talking about an amendment to the bill before us. We are talking about a companion piece of legislation that would honour the commitment made, but not yet kept, by the Prime Minister to ensure that we become the beneficiaries of the offshore resources that currently overwhelmingly are going to the federal government.

That is not only the fair thing to do, but it is also the only honest course of action that can be pursued by the government. The Prime Minister so transparently came to Atlantic Canada desperate for votes. The Liberals were so desperate to hang on to those Liberal seats and to take the seats out from under the NDP everywhere they could possibly do so. A commitment was therefore made to allow us to invest the benefits from our offshore resources in order to build our own more solid, sustainable economic base for the future.

Let us not lose sight of the fact that needs to be done. This legislation does not address it. However, it is no less urgent than the changes that are proposed here in the fiscal arrangements which now ensure that Canadians can expect there will be some kind of floor below which nobody in this country should sink, starting with the over one million children who remain in poverty. Sadly, in the last set of statistics available from the previous year, that number looks as if it is on rise, not on the decline in the direction of the eradication of poverty as promised by this Parliament in an all party resolution a full 15 years ago.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, November 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased today to have an opportunity to participate in the debate on Bill C-24, an act to amend the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts that are impacted by the changes in the fiscal arrangements act.

All members of the House are aware that this is a bill that received first reading in late November. It essentially reflects the new equalization and territorial funding formula framework that was agreed to by the first ministers in late October.

I have been listening to the debate so far and there is no question that there is a certain amount of acrimony and a certain amount of frustration being expressed on behalf of a great many Canadians, not because of the provisions of the bill before the House but because of the context in which this bill is being introduced.

A tremendously acrimonious environment has been created by the tremendous hardship that was imposed by the massive unilateral measures, the massive cuts that were introduced by the Martin budgets of 1996 as well as those that followed.

Everyone knows it was a big job to get us back on a more constructive course. It is important, as we get into this debate, that we remind ourselves that equalization payments are not a handout from one province to another. Often that is the sense that is created. There is a sense that it is the wealthy provinces that give money to the have not provinces, either cheerfully or reluctantly and sometimes it is expressed as reluctant.

That is not what is meant by equalization payments. It is important for us to remind ourselves of that. Equalization payments are from taxes that are paid by people in all parts of Canada, not a payment from richer to poorer provinces. We are committed to the important concept that we should have equality of access to the important programs and services that make up the quality of life. It is to ensure that we have a floor below which Canadians cannot fall, given the immense resources of this nation as a whole. It is important that we think of it in those terms.

It is truly what creates a situation in this country where we do not have, or we have no excuse for having, the kind of growing gaps between haves and have nots that we have seen in recent years as a result of the massive unilateral cuts that were imposed in transfer payments and then the arbitrary cap that was set on equalization payments.

I had the privilege in the early nineties of being at the Constitution table. Some would say it was a questionable privilege because it was a very dragged out process, to say the least. However, at that table, one of the things that was established was that the equalization formula should in fact become part of our constitutional framework. It is extremely important that it now exists.

It would be easy to spend the short time available to go on at great length about the immense damage done as a result of the massive unilateral cuts at the federal level, the damage done to our health care system and education system. The cost of that is being borne more and more and being heaped onto the shoulders of our post-secondary education students.

It would be easy to dwell on what a setback this was for environmental remediation and environmental protection measures for public transit, in particular, the advancement of the cities agenda. The federal government turned its back on promising a national child care program and then said that it could not be afforded for now, even though Canada reached a level of 3% growth within a couple of years of the Liberal government taking office and it could indeed have been afforded.

I want to take a few minutes this afternoon to focus on a couple of positive developments that I see across the country and in particular in my own riding, which I think is typical of many of the areas that have been so hard hit by the federal arbitrariness in the cuts and constraints applied to our equalization payments and transfer payments.

I speak directly about a community consultation this weekend. Basically a chamber of commerce exercise has been conducted over the last couple of years addressing the whole question of the economic potential, in this case focused on what is called HRM. I have to say honestly, I am delighted to be the member of Parliament for Halifax, but to live in a city which now calls itself HRM and not Halifax I think raises the question of how a city called HRM can actually have a soul, because it is just such a nebulous, meaningless notion.

Looking at the greater Halifax-Dartmouth area and all that includes, there has been a wide consultation process conducted to look at the future potential for growth and, one hopes, meaningful development and genuine economic progress. It is not just growth for growth's sake, because growth can be positive or negative depending on how the benefits of that growth are redistributed and how the growth is achieved. On another day we will have more opportunities to talk about that.

The engagement in the community and the leadership shown by the chamber of commerce in bringing many different elements of the community together around these issues helps to focus on not just how much damage has been done as a result of the massive unilateral cuts of the federal government starting in the mid-1990s, but also to focus now on some of the solutions.

It is extremely instructive and I welcome this. We needed to turn the corner on this. I welcome the recognition that some of the greatest impediments to genuine economic progress in many parts of the country and in this instance on my community of Halifax have been the major erosion of funding to things as critically important as education.

It was highlighted over the weekend that we need to be very careful not to lose sight of the fact that the tremendous burden of debt heaped on our post-secondary education students sadly has also been mirrored and paralleled by a serious erosion, at least in the Nova Scotia context, of the quality of our public education system from primary through to grade 12. We have a repair job to do here. We know how incredibly important education is to the future economic growth of our communities and the future genuine progress of our communities.

In supporting the bill that is before the House, we acknowledge that this is a step forward from what we have experienced, the harsh effects of the inadequacy of the formulas. It is not perfect, but it is an improvement. It has been arrived at through the agreement reached with all provincial premiers.

What is now important is that we make sure the lessons of the past are acted upon, with the government turning the corner on its treatment of equalization and transfer payments. We need to make sure that we repair the damage done to the education and health care systems.

We are getting there. Important steps have been taken in that direction. The same kind of pan-Canadian context provided by the Canada Health Act is what is needed with respect to education as well, something that has standards and enforceability mechanisms. That work remains to be done. The bill before us with respect to fiscal arrangements does not get us to where we need to be in that regard.

It was very encouraging over the weekend at the economic potential consultation wrap-up held in Halifax when it was acknowledged that there is a critical central role for arts and culture. There is an economic impact of arts and culture on community. We must recognize that it is the kind of creativity which is stimulated by having a very solid commitment to funding of arts and culture that will allow us to make the kind of judgments that are needed and come up with creative solutions that are desperately needed in this very complex challenging world in which we live.

There are similar considerations with respect to the erosion of our public transportation system, and that applies especially to public transit in the urban context, but also more regionally. Tremendous damage has been done by the massive cuts and frankly, in many cases the blind embracing of purely market driven solutions with respect to an area such as transportation. It clearly does not work for the less prosperous areas and the less populous areas in the country. That certainly is the case for the Atlantic region in general and certainly for my own province of Nova Scotia.

It is important for us to recognize that a lot of damage has been done. Even in instances where it was clear that the government's cutting and slashing was going to heap burdens on the most vulnerable citizens, the government was not prepared to back off, even after it began to introduce surplus after surplus. After seven straight years of surplus budgets the government continued to resist repairing the damage and making the changes needed in the fiscal framework that would enable us to get on to a path of rebuilding.

One cannot speak about this subject without recognizing the massive gutting of employment insurance benefits to create a false impression about the size of the surplus. This has yet to be repaired. It seems so easy for the Liberal members to beat on their chests and talk about the great job they have done in generating this surplus. They conveniently ignore the fact that the surpluses have been achieved by heaping the burden on those who should least likely have been asked to bear the costs of the mismanagement of the Liberal government over the last decade.

The government has conveniently ignored the fact that a big chunk of that surplus has actually been generated by taking money directly out of--and I am going to say--the mouths of children in a lot of cases. This has happened in families where members of the workforce have found themselves without employment through no fault of their own. They have contributed in good faith to the employment insurance fund over the years and have built up that surplus. Then they have found that such restrictive eligibility measures have been introduced that they simply have never been able to draw from the employment insurance fund.

[Supply, November 25th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I listened very carefully to the minister and I must say that I have rarely heard more hyperbole and more excessive rhetoric in this chamber on any occasion. I am tempted to say that he should just take a psychological Valium so we can get on with having a sensible discussion, but I am not sure if that is parliamentary.

I have a question arising out of the minister's insistence that in this debate he is hearing a lot of inconsistency and contradictions. Applying that test to the minister's own excessive rhetoric, I have two very specific questions.

I am quite sympathetic to the argument that we need to have a view to the future of the use of that Mirabel land. However, how is it not contradictory in this instance to be rejecting a proposal that 6,000 acres remain for the future use of Mirabel, when we know that the Toronto airport has 4,200 acres, the Ottawa airport has 4,500 acres, Heathrow airport, keeping in mind the size of Heathrow, has 2,700 acres, and Los Angeles airport has 3,500 acres? How is 6,000 acres for the future of Mirabel not sufficient?

In terms of contradictions, I am sure the minister knows that the government is about to eliminate over 500 units of family housing in the Halifax regional municipality. Housing that was in use by DND for military families will be eliminated from use. How is it consistent to argue that we should have a view to the use of land owned by government for future needs when there is a desperate need for affordable housing in my riding and in Nova Scotia, in fact all over this country, and the government is prepared to take those right out of public use?

[Ukraine, November 24th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I want to indicate at the outset that I intend to share my time with the member for Timmins--James Bay.

I want to begin as my colleagues have done throughout this debate by thanking and congratulating the member for Etobicoke Centre for bringing forward tonight's motion. This is one of those rare occasions when there is a high degree of consensus, what would appear to be near unanimity, among all parliamentarians. This is a moment in history when we are bound together and share in common cause a responsibility to take a stand and do so in solidarity with the people who need our support.

Canadian Ukrainians and all Canadians have good reason to be worried about the situation that is unfolding in Ukraine. Just a short while ago Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian opposition leader, called for a national strike after the country's Central Electoral Commission declared his rival, Viktor Yanukovych, the incumbent prime minister, the winner of last weekend's disputed presidential election.

Speaking to hundreds of thousands of his supporters at a mass rally in the streets of Kiev, Mr. Yushchenko rejected the Central Electoral Commission verdict saying that it put Ukraine “on the path to civil war”. Mr. Yushchenko's ally urged that the crowds avoid violence, to wrest power at the local, district and regional levels, that the situation was grave. However President Leonid Kuchma has made the situation worse still by accusing the opposition of preparing “to throw their own people into a bloody fratricidal whirlpool for the sake of power”.

The world simply cannot sit by without signalling its strong displeasure at last weekend's election farce. As the first nation in the world to recognize Ukraine after it split from the former Soviet Union, Canada made the right decision today to refuse to lend legitimacy to the farcical election outcome.

Tonight's parliamentary debate reflects Canadians' concerns with an election that violates the Ukrainian people's right to a fair and transparent election process. Today we join the European Commission and the United States in signalling our rejection of that election outcome.

Years ago the global community, spurred on by Canada, came together and said no to South Africa's apartheid. Canadians are justly proud of the role that we played in bringing about an end to that brutal, vicious apartheid regime. The global pressure that built led to the end of apartheid and the democratization of that proud country today.

When the global community comes together within a multilateral context and speaks with one voice on the need to bring forth open and transparent democracy, that pressure can and will be felt.

Ukraine is not immune from such pressure. We have an opportunity here and in the global community to press for true democracy in that country before the situation disintegrates into further instability and civil strife. We owe it to Ukrainian Canadians here at home who are deeply worried about the future of their homeland. We owe it to the majority of Canadians who believe, as I and my colleagues do, that true democracy is absolutely critical to achieve equality and justice for all citizens.

Regrettably my colleague from Churchill was right earlier this evening when she said that sometimes the government has a history of being strong on rhetoric but not so strong in following through with deeds. This is an important test. Canada's rejection of the Ukrainian election results must not end here with tonight's debate. Parliamentarians from all political parties will be looking to see exactly what consequences Canada will impose to signal our rejection of those results.

I want briefly to share the following true story with my colleagues in the House this evening.

A constituent of mine came to Nova Scotia from Lebanon 24 years ago while that country was still in the midst of its devastating civil war. He was a young teenager at the time. Years later at the age of 18 he made a decision to join a political party in Canada, and it was not my political party at the time.

Upon hearing that news, his grandmother, who was on a visit to Canada at the time, literally broke down in tears and became hysterical, begging him not to involve himself in the political process. She was absolutely convinced that it would lead to nothing but penalties and punishment and even believed in the possibility that it could lead to his untimely death. Such had been her experience in Lebanon.

I am proud to stand in the House and say that today, that young man is my parliamentary assistant. He is working passionately to try to support the quest and the pursuit of democracy and free, fair and transparent elections everywhere in the world where we can have even the tiniest bit of influence.

Democracy, hon. colleagues, is not as prevalent as we hope and dream it should be. No one wants to see the situation in Ukraine disintegrate into violence and bloodshed as it has in many regions of the world. There is no reason to believe that civil disobedience by those who reject the results of this fraudulent election will inevitably lead to or result in violence. But do we want to do nothing, hoping against hope that there will be no violence? I think not.

We must stand in solidarity with Ukrainians who are exercising their democratic right to protest. We must work to ensure that their courage is rewarded. We must let them know by our debate here tonight but more important by our deeds that will follow that they are not alone. We must take action to ensure that one day, sooner rather than later, they will wake up in a democratic Ukraine. Canada can help. We are in a position to help. Therefore, we are bound to help.

As parliamentarians who enjoy the privilege and benefits of living in a democracy, we have a responsibility to roll up our sleeves and work with the international community to find ways to ensure that the abomination of the democratic process that happened last weekend in Ukraine is reversed and never happens in that country again.

[Aboriginal Affairs, November 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, is that why the government is now talking about taxing the education benefit for aboriginal students?

In her scathing report, the Auditor General reminded us today that the education gap was already highlighted four years ago. Yet, since 2000, the do nothing Liberal government has made no meaningful progress. Education is absolutely key to meaningful equality, yet we have seen four more years of second class status and a growing gap for first nations students.

Why is aboriginal equality always the subject of rhetoric, which we heard again this afternoon, but never--

[Aboriginal Affairs, November 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, today the Auditor General once again condemned the Liberal government's empty words toward Canada's aboriginal people, specifically on post-secondary education. According to the Auditor General, the glacial speed of Liberal commitment to aboriginal people will result in the education gap between aboriginal and non-aboriginal students being closed in 28 years.

Why must our first nations wait 28 years for education equality?

[National Defence, November 5th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians want our policies guided by Canadian values, not Bush's. They do not want tax dollars spent on shilling for weapons in space.

James Fergusson was in town this week shilling for a new arms race. He calls outer space “the fourth dimension of war”. He actually said that there is great political benefits to this.

How can the Prime Minister defend bankrolling Fergusson's star wars lobbying? Why is the government paying cheerleaders for George Bush's weaponization of space?