Lost his last election, in 2011, with 36% of the vote.
The Environment February 2nd, 2001
Mr. Speaker, the minister's weakness shows. He is hiding behind the bureaucrats, and that is not good enough. The science is clear, yet the minister is hedging. In fact he is implying that approval of Sumas 2 is possible.
If ever there were a test for the government to resolve to defend all of Canada, this is it. Will the minister use his rightful powers and stop Sumas 2? Yes or no.
The Environment February 2nd, 2001
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of the Environment.
The Sumas 2 gas fired electric plant has British Columbians really upset. The Americans get the electricity and Canadians get the pollution. The hapless provincial NDP government missed its opportunity to defend the province.
Will the minister wait for more deliberations, or will he use his powers now to defend British Columbia and stop Sumas 2?
Speech From The Throne February 2nd, 2001
Mr. Speaker, on page 13 in the throne speech, it says that the government will focus on three priorities: clean air, clean water and the conservation of Canada's natural spaces.
Last December the Government of Canada signed an agreement with the United States to significantly reduce emissions that cause smog. The spinning wheel turns. How do those statements square with the minister's apparent lack of resolve to send a strong signal regarding the Sumas 2 power project?
Instead of just letting bureaucratic processes roll on, will the minister send a strong signal that Sumas 2 is not on? The Americans get the electricity and we get the pollution.
Canada Health Care, Early Childhood Development And Other Social Services Funding Act October 17th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, for the member for Fraser Valley, within the context of health care spending, while other countries are using their taxation policy as a lever for economic growth, our current government is content with the status quo. The status quo gives Canada the dubious distinction of having the highest personal income tax rate in the seven most industrialized countries and the second highest corporate taxes in the OECD.
Even the Liberal government's spending priorities do not rank any better. In fact, its own pollster, Pollara, revealed that in a recent survey of 5,300 Canadians, 73% of those polled thought the government was spending on the wrong priorities. We certainly have to look at the fact that without the EI surplus there would be a deficit of $6.8 billion in both 1999-2000 and 2000-01. It is about misplaced priorities: wise health care funding versus the current Liberal administration.
The health care bill is before us today. We must realize that any budget surplus comes not from the government but at the expense of overtaxed Canadians. What should we be doing here instead of rushing this kind of spending bill through the House at the last minute, at the dying end of parliament?
Canada Health Care, Early Childhood Development And Other Social Services Funding Act October 17th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, many other countries have gone through the same agony of trying to update their divorce and separation laws. Certainly Canada is far behind developments in the western world on that issue.
The road map is there, but the response of the federal government is that it is just one more study in the ongoing debate. The federal government has absolutely no political commitment to take action on the review of family law.
No matter where we go, from province to province, there is an agenda out there in the public, that is, the family law system is broken and in a mess and it needs leadership from the federal government, not an excuse saying that it is a complicated problem of shared federal-provincial jurisdiction and we must discuss it further.
I want leadership from the justice minister and the government with regard to taking some action and bringing the provinces along. We can restore the balance and fairness in family law.
Where appropriate, we can make family law much more child focused. We can develop shared parenting plans instead of seeing children as property. We can work with the shared jurisdiction of the provinces to enhance conflict resolution, non-court processes and unified family courts across the country.
We can implement specifically the recommendations of the report “For the Sake of the Children”, including the specific principle of shared parenting and mutual parental responsibility.
We have to improve the process whereby grandparents have to go through an extra barrier if they feel they have to get legally involved with the situation.
We also have to get the courts to enforce their own orders.
We have to deal with the issue of false allegations in the whole family law context.
There is a tremendous agenda but unfortunately the Liberal government has a track record of no commitment to getting anything done in the family law area.
Canada Health Care, Early Childhood Development And Other Social Services Funding Act October 17th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, my colleague has made the point. I do not need to repeat it. However I can add to what he has said.
Typically when governments are heading into elections government departments spend taxpayer money on soft advertising or image building for government services. People understand that as being quasi-political advertising.
I will give another example of that. We have these soft, warm, fuzzy commercials that talk about how we are glad that the family law system and child maintenance are there because children are first. Then there is the web page number and so on.
I look at the expense of producing those commercials and at how many thousands of dollars it costs every time those commercials are run, yet the government has done nothing to implement the joint Senate-House of Commons committee report on child custody and access and has done nothing to reform family law.
Instead of fancy commercials to make us feel warm and fuzzy about the federal government, that money should have been put into providing real services to children, to establish unified family courts across the country and all kinds of relief that could be directly provided to children and families.
Canada Health Care, Early Childhood Development And Other Social Services Funding Act October 17th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, I tried to very quickly go through details to try to provide a different perspective on the general conversation around health care. I tried to say that concerning our international commitments, when we compare what we are doing with the commitments we have made under the UN convention of the child, Canada comes up very short.
What the member has talked about goes a bit in the right direction but is still very short of what could have been delivered in the current fiscal envelope. Under our solution 17 package the child care expense deduction is still there and the child tax benefit is still there, but where is the standard deduction for children that is not means tested, that as a society recognizes the value of children, and that provides freedom and opportunity for parents to decide how they will look after their own children?
I think I have painted quite a stark picture of how Canada boasts internationally and makes proud commitments but within these domestic borders falls very short.
Canada Health Care, Early Childhood Development And Other Social Services Funding Act October 17th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, the purpose of Bill C-45 is to implement certain of the Government of Canada's commitments in respect of health care and certain early childhood development commitments arising from the meeting of the first ministers held in Ottawa on September 11, 2000.
The bill provides funding for the acquisition and installation of medical equipment and funding for health information and communication technologies. The amendments to the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act provide for increased funding over five years to the provinces and territories through the Canada health and social transfer for health, post-secondary education, social assistance and social services, including early childhood development.
Canadians have to ask themselves why the Liberals have to be so reluctantly dragged into reality. In view of the bill before us, the angle I am going to take for the moment is to put in perspective children's and human rights legislation, entitlements versus privileges and health care spending.
While the UN declaration of human rights recognizes that all beings are born free and have equal dignity, it gives minimal recognition to the unique nature of childhood. Most of its articles refer to everyone, but article 25(2) states:
Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
There is no other reference to childhood and age is notably absent from article 2 in the list of human characteristics for which discrimination is precluded.
The 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms also makes no reference to children per se, either their specific freedoms or any limitation of them, except to recognize age as among the human conditions for which discrimination is specifically precluded.
Neither of these declarations mentions any responsibilities that adults should or must have toward children when asserting or using their rights. Article 3 of the charter states that every citizen of Canada has the right to vote and to be a qualified member of a legislative assembly. Since children cannot be members of a legislative assembly it seems possible they were overlooked in the legislation. Their special vulnerabilities were certainly not acknowledged.
The 1991 Canadian ratification of the 1989 UN convention on the rights of the child was thus of key importance for Canadian children. The convention challenges the signatories to seek to attain benchmark behaviours toward the needs, rights and freedoms of children. As a co-signatory the Canadian government is obliged to report on its progress toward full implementation of the convention.
In 1999 the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children reported on compliance to convention articles in six selected areas. These areas are education, fundamental freedoms, treatment of abused and neglected children, refugee children, children with disabilities, and Canada's response to its international obligations with regard to children.
A number of articles were assessed for this compliance: article 4, which is international co-operation; articles 13, 14 and 15, which prescribe fundamental freedoms; article 19, which requires protection from maltreatment, abuse and neglect; article 23, which outlines the rights of children with disabilities; articles 28 and 29, which are directed to ensuring access to education; and article 22, which requires countries to offer protection and humanitarian assistance to refugee children.
Examination of these articles has shown seven areas where children's rights are being systematically violated in Canada. Action is required in 26 situations before compliance can be said to be achieved. This lack of compliance is clear. One example is the lack of both adequate national data on the extent of disability in childhood and resources for children with disabilities and their families.
In Canada the rights of children under the UN convention are not fully recognized in many other ways. Article 3 requires that the best interests of the child shall be of primary consideration. When much of the information is examined in the light of the best interests standard, it is clear that in many instances it has not been attained. The lack of environmental standards specifically directed to the protection of the fetus and growing child is an obvious example. Likewise, data on school age children and youth reflect the difficulties they encounter with regard to violence and sexuality.
Article 17, while recognizing the social and cultural value of the mass media, also directs states to develop appropriate guidelines for the protection of children from information and materials injurious to their well-being. A day spent watching television or surfing the Internet confirms that such injurious material is readily available to developing children, reflecting the extent to which adult rights and freedoms continue to be exercised without regard to the possible impact on the child.
Article 18, while recognizing the responsibilities of parents for the upbringing and development of the child, also asks states to ensure that children of working parents have the right to benefit from child care services and facilities for which they are eligible. Clearly we have performed indifferently in this regard. The Liberal record is very poor.
Article 24 recognizes the right of children to enjoy the highest attainable standards of health. Article 24(e) seeks to ensure that all segments of society, especially parents and children, are educated and supported in such basic aspects as health, hygiene, sanitation, prevention of accidents, nutrition and breast feeding. While the rates of injury have fallen over the years, the relatively high rates that persist among young children reflect the continuing attitude that the young child must adapt to the adult world, oftentimes a developmentally impossible task.
While the advantages of breast-feeding are today more widely known, rates of breast-feeding rapidly diminish in the weeks following birth through the lack of ongoing support for this natural process. Similarly the record of Canadian hospitals in adopting the World Health Organization 10 step breast-feeding support program can only be described as abysmal.
Article 26 recognizes the right of every child to benefit from social security. Article 27 calls on states to recognize the right of every child to a standard of living that is adequate for the child's physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development. It also states that while parents have primary responsibility to secure these standards, states will assist where necessary through material assistance and support programs, particularly with regard to nutrition, clothing and housing.
With food banks that serve thousands of individuals, with extensive dependency on clothing exchanges and donation programs for those in need, with school nutrition programs essentially dependent on non-government agencies, and with the number of homeless children and families increasing in large cities, it is clear that Canadian governments have much work to do before compliance with these articles is achieved.
Under article 31 children are entitled to rest and leisure and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic and recreational leisure activities. Chapter 7 demonstrates that such activities are viewed not as universal entitlements in Canada but as privileges dependent upon adequacy of family income.
Sexual abuse of children and adolescents is all too common, especially for those who have disabilities or who live on the street. Article 34 charges states to protect children from all forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse and includes in this protection from inducements or coercion. Measures must be taken to protect them from prostitution, unlawful sexual practices and exploitative use in pornographic performances and materials.
The apparent acceptance of high rates of prostitution as a means of survival among the youth living on the street, the horrendous revelations regarding official suppression of evidence of sexual abuse of children in both residential schools and recreational and sports activities, and the 1999 decision on the possession of child pornography in British Columbia are all examples of our delinquency as a society toward children and of the consideration of adult freedoms over children's rights. It is a record of the Liberal government's failure.
Many of the articles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child challenge the age-old attitude to children that regards them solely as parental property. This is a particular tension in North American society, reflecting attitudes that must be questioned in today's rapidly changing family demographics.
A comparison of the facts of the health of Canada's children with the provision for child health and well-being in the UN convention is a sobering but worthwhile exercise. It becomes clear that the rights and freedoms of children are generally dependent upon the goodwill of adults. When this fails, children often lack ready mechanisms to redress situations of concern. The old style Liberal government has failed the country.
While Canada has ratified the UN convention, it unfortunately is not part of domestic law, has yet to be used in Canadian courts and is not legally respected. These circumstances leave many children in society still lacking in many basic human rights. We have a government that has failed children and should be denounced.
The Canadian Alliance supports the increased funding of health care for Canadians, especially children, but it does not believe just putting more money into the issue will solve all the problems in our health care system, again, especially the situation for children.
While the funding is welcomed by our party we also oppose the Liberal government's opposition to attempts by the provinces to find new, different and more creative ways to deliver services within the Canada Health Act. Our party has greater respect for provincial jurisdiction of health care under the constitution and would work with the provinces to find more effective and efficient ways to deliver health care services.
The current Liberal government cannot continue to denounce the provinces for trying to establish less top heavy, bureaucratically inefficient, Soviet style health care delivery systems. It is a position of the Canadian Alliance that more money does not necessarily solve all the problems that arise from inefficient delivery models. Restricting how the provinces may use the money does nothing to help heal our health care system.
My community wants better governance than we have had. I will continue to be their voice for higher standards, a more comprehensive consideration for families and children, and an accountable, optimistic vision for the 21st century.
Questions Passed As Orders For Returns October 6th, 2000
For the riding of Port Moody Coquitlam—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam for the fiscal years 1996-97 to the present: ( a ) what federal grants, loans, and other financial provisions were granted; ( b ) in each case, what was the name of the associated program; ( c ) what was the originating agency or department; ( d ) what was the amount; and ( e ) what was the name of the recipient?
Return tabled.
Question Passed As Order For Return October 4th, 2000
For the riding of New Westminister—Coquitlam—Burnaby from January 1997 to January 2000: ( a ) what the federal grants, loans, and other financial provisions were granted; ( b ) in each case, what was the name of the associated program; ( c ) what was the originating agency or department; ( d ) what was the amount; and ( e ) what was the name of the recipient?
Return tabled.