Alexa McDonough

[Member for Hamilton East, May 14th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the hon. federal member for Hamilton East, a true steel town fighter, a passionate partisan, a devoted wife, mother and daughter, and a ferociously patriotic Canadian.

When she presented legislation to protect gays and lesbians, a rock was thrown through her office window but she did not back down. When her hometown steel companies were angry about her outspoken support of widowed pensioners, she did not back down. When she was under fire from Mulroney's Conservatives, the rat packer did not back down, although she did jump over a chair or two.

When her critics, among them New Democrats, forced her resignation over the GST, she did not back down, although I backed down from running against her in Hamilton East because I knew that would be folly.

When her own party conspired to oust her, she did not back down.

The hon. member for Hamilton East launched her leadership campaign in Canada's first Tim Horton's to demonstrate her commitment to speak for ordinary people.

In her beloved hometown of Hamilton, she is best known for her devotion to new Canadians, always seizing the opportunity to lobby for family reunification, to amend Canada's arcane immigration laws and to open doors to employment and education opportunities. For this alone, her presence on the national stage will be sorely missed.

I know the member for Hamilton East loves this place, and she should leave knowing that more members than she knows, love her, will miss her and celebrate her compassion, her chutzpah and her devotion to our Canada.

[Health, May 14th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would request unanimous consent of the House to make a brief statement celebrating the commitment of our colleague, the hon. member for Hamilton East.

[Government Assistance, May 14th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, as Acadians and non-Acadians gather this summer to celebrate 400 years of l'Acadie, the magnificent musical adaptation of Antonine Maillet's novel, Pélagie , begins its journey on the Canadian stage. Pélagie , chronicling the epic journey from deportation to the U.S. and back to Acadia, is currently showcasing in Toronto and Ottawa theatres. Tragically, Pélagie will not arrive at its final destination in Nova Scotia next door to historic Grand Pré because the federal government has unbelievably pulled funding at the eleventh hour.

Would the government today reverse that decision so Pélagie can be--

[Income Tax Act, May 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted this evening to have the opportunity to address Bill C-210, introduced by my colleague from Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore. It is not the first time that he has introduced this particular bill. In fact, he did so two years ago and it died on the Order Paper.

In his usual inimitable way of being very proactive, determined and dogged in pushing forward priorities on behalf of working people and children in our society, he reintroduced the bill, which is today in its second hour of debate. Very simply, we are dealing with an amendment to the Income Tax Act that would allow the deduction of fees paid by an individual for the participation of a family member in amateur sport or physical activity.

I noted with interest that the previous speaker critiqued the bill by saying this was a tax deduction for physical activity with sports involvement, but why was there no advocacy for lower taxes? It seems to me that typically the Conservative member has totally missed the point of the bill.

The bill is about addressing the reality that we have a major challenge in this country. As parliamentarians we have a major responsibility to be addressing ourselves not just rhetorically and with empty words but in concrete measures to deal with the issue of health promotion and prevention of ill health.

This is not just about families having more dollars in their pockets. This is about recognizing that it makes perfect sense to give people the opportunity, by financially removing the barriers for lower income families, to enroll either as adults or their children in sports activities that are specifically part of a comprehensive health care strategy.

I was very pleased on Tuesday, honoured in fact, to have the federal leader of the New Democratic Party in my Province of Nova Scotia launch the health care platform of the New Democratic Party.

I know the government is pushing off an election for as long as it thinks it can possibly do so. One cannot blame it for that because its focus is entirely on how to clean up its image in view of the scandals. Somehow then, it will make a run for it in an election campaign, where it has somehow persuaded people that it simply came back to life and discovered a lot of things it has been neglecting. In fact, it has been tearing things down for the past 10 or 11 years.

The reality is we are going to have an election. The election campaign is already underway. The writ has not been issued, but Liberal cabinet ministers are flying around the country at public expense announcing electoral goodies and gimmicks. The election is underway and that is why we have launched our health care platform.

I think this serves as one concrete example. It is not exhaustive. It is not going to change the state of health of the entire population. However, if we are serious about promoting good health and healthy fitness activity, then we should ensure that it is not denied to families who are going to have difficulty paying for the registration of, for example, a child participating in gymnastics at the YMCA or YWCA or a child joining a local sports team and so on. It is a very concrete measure.

The question has also been raised, and I welcome the question, about why this deals only with physical activity? Why does it not also deal with a proposed tax deduction for participation in artistic and cultural activities? This would also strengthen the health of our communities and give an opportunity for families to equally have access to that kind of participation for their own enrichment and creative development.

My colleague from Dartmouth introduced a similar private member's bill to achieve that. Of course, the Liberals voted it down, as they would no doubt on this occasion as well if we were having a vote today. This is a vote that will not take place today. I think that is obvious, but would be carried forward.

I regret to say that I see no sign that we have that kind of support from Liberal members for this measure to provide for a tax deduction for those participating in sports activity, any more than they were prepared to provide that kind of recognition for the involvement in artistic and cultural activity. One aspect was to strengthen the body and the health of the individual. The other was to support the mind, body and spirit through artistic and cultural activity.

I know some people are skeptical when they look at a private member's bill like this. They say, “Oh well, what is the point anyway in an opposition member introducing a private member's bill?”

The member for Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore has demonstrated on several occasions the value of members introducing a private member's bill, and keeping at it and at it until it finally finds its way into public policy.

Let me mention a parallel private member's bill. It can be seen as one that acts in parallel to the bill that has been introduced here. It deals with the compassionate leave provisions that are actually now in the process of being implemented.

One of the things about being in opposition is that a member has to be prepared to be stubborn, persistent, and constantly out there trying to persuade the public that this is something that can be dealt with. Finally, the government gets it sometimes.

It finally gets it because one of the things that we do as New Democrats is encourage people to ensure they let the government members know when they do support a private member's bill. In the instance of the provision for compassionate leave, this was an absolute passion for the member for Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore.

He kept coming back and back to the government, saying it was surely revolting for family members--in the final days and weeks, and we believe it should be months--of loved ones coming to the end of their life, facing terminal illness or in palliative care, not to be at their side because financially it was prohibitive for them to leave employment.

The government finally responded to this pressure, albeit inadequately and not as comprehensively as it should have. It has provided for six weeks of such passionate care. We believe that six months should be the minimum.

We think the bill should be extended so that it is not just the immediate parent or spouse of a dying relative, but the family member in the family unit who is in a position to leave employment and be there providing that care.

Let me return by way of wrap up to the specific tax deduction measure proposed here that would support healthy activity, participation in health promotion activity, physical activity, and involvement in sports to serve as a preventive measure in order to drive down the costs of health care. Those costs would get spent in the end because of chronic and acute illnesses that could have been avoided in the first place.

I urge all members to think about the plain good sense of this bill. The bill has a concrete application to a big problem that we have in this country. There is a very high and escalating health cost to care for people suffering from illnesses that could have been prevented through such measures.

[Petitions, May 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased today to table a bundle of petitions from close to 2,000 Canadians committed to building a peaceful world based on human security.

These Canadians are pleading with the government to, first, withdraw from any participation in a national missile defence; second, to condemn the destabilization that star wars will inevitably create in our world; and, third, to work with our partners in peace for more effective arms control, and to put an end to production and sale of weapons of mass destruction.

[Petitions, May 5th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, it is my privilege to table a petition this afternoon calling for a public inquiry into the violation of the rights of Canadian citizen, Bhupinder Liddar, who, when his October 2003 appointment as consul general to Chandigarh was frozen, damaging his reputation and leaving his livelihood and his life in limbo, without benefit of due process, transparency or accountability.

Mr. Liddar deserves to know and Canadians want to know what role government officials, agencies and departments have played in freezing Mr. Liddar's appointment so that his name may be cleared, so that his life may resume and so that similar occurrences can be prevented in future.

[National Defence, May 4th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, there is no connection between what the Prime Minister says and what he does. He may have gotten some tips from George Bush on how to rewrite history, but the facts remain. He never said anything to keep Canada out of the war in Iraq.

How can the Prime Minister slam the Conservatives on the Iraqi war and missile defence, while pursuing the exact same policies?

[National Defence, May 4th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister attacked Conservatives for supporting the Iraqi war, yet he never showed his face at anti-war rallies and he hid behind the curtain while debate raged here in Parliament.

Now he apes the Conservatives on ballistic missile defence, despite pleas from every member of the Canadian Council of Churches and the Canadian Islamic Congress, along with growing numbers of Canadians, that Canada not participate in NMD.

How can the Prime Minister slam Conservatives on the Iraqi war and missile defence while pursuing the exact same policies?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2004, May 4th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech by the member for Toronto—Danforth. I do not want to be unfair, but it was a combination of defend the indefensible and blame the messenger. By the time we heard about how it was the problem of news stories not properly written that people had a figure of $100 million in their minds, I was left wondering if the member failed to understand the clarification provided by the Auditor General yesterday.

As I understand, the $100 million figure is not the right figure for people to have in their minds. In fact, the right figure for people to be concerned about is $250 million because, as the Auditor General said, in fact $250 million is unaccounted for. It is only, and I say “only”, $100 million that appears as though it may actually have gone straight into the patronage pot and to line the pockets of Liberal friends, but all of the $250 million needs to be accounted for.

I would like to ask the member something much more specific and something I hope he would be concerned about on the ground. I am sure he is aware that there is a vast range of charitable organizations--community based, non-profit organizations--providing various programs and services to Canadians who are absolutely nickeled and dimed to death to account for every single solitary penny that they spend. So much so that sometimes it seems as though there is a make work project for hard pressed understaffed community agencies to have to account for every single cent.

Can the member indicate whether he shares the concern of a great many hard working citizens working through non-profit and volunteer organizations, that as a result of the whole ad scam--

[Budget Implementation Act, 2004, May 4th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond directly to a couple of matters the parliamentary secretary spoke about.

The child poverty rate in this country is higher today than it was in 1989 when this Parliament resolved to eliminate child poverty in Canada. The child poverty rate at the time was 15%. Today it is 16%.

Maybe we need to have a debate on that alone, because the reality is denied by members opposite, not just by the parliamentary secretary--I do not want to pick on him--but by other members as well. The reality is that they deny the fact that we have a deepening of child poverty, that we have a racialization of child poverty in this country and that we have a feminization of child poverty. But however it is described, child poverty is at a higher rate today in the country than it was in 1989 when the Broadbent resolution was adopted unanimously by Parliament.

The government in power for the last 11 years has been the Liberal government, and the more it has implemented the Conservative policies of the Alliance, the more we have seen a deepening of that child poverty.

I want to speak briefly about the privatization that the parliamentary secretary applauds and lauds. He spoke about privatization in Great Britain. I have just received a report on the disastrous effect of privatization of the British railways. It is a disastrous report; they are in such trouble with that railway that they are trying to figure out how to re-nationalize it.

Then we have the airlines. In New Zealand airlines were privatized and deregulated. The airlines turned into a total disaster, looking a lot like Air Canada looks today, and what did the new Labour government in New Zealand do? What was it forced to do when it got back in power? It was forced to re-nationalize the airline because no other way of turning around the situation could be found.

So that member may know of a lot of privatization successes in terms of the corporations making big money: it is public money for private gain. That is what privatization is. When it comes to health care privatization, this government keeps speaking out of both sides of its mouth on that issue. I have to say that if this government thinks it is going to run an election on the contention that it is the champion of public and not for profit health in this country, I say bring on that election.