Gordon Earle

[Elimination Of Racial Discrimination, March 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, racism wounds. It hurts, it stunts lives, it weakens us all.

Sunday, March 21 is the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The United Nations declared this day in 1966. Canada was one of the first countries to show its support for this declaration.

I am saddened to stand in this House, the first black MP ever elected from the province of Nova Scotia, knowing that discrimination on the basis of race still exists today and that it has negatively affected so many people in so many ways. We see it in legislatures, in our law firms and in our schools.

I am heartened however to stand in the House knowing that people all across my riding, my province and my country are working hard to end racial discrimination, especially young people like those working with the Youth Against Racism project in Nova Scotia. I also commend the organizers of the Harmony Brunch being held at the East Preston Recreation Centre in Nova Scotia.

The March 21 campaign for the elimination of racial discrimination aims to make Canadians aware that the scourge of discrimination exists in our communities. It also serves to inspire each of us to take action against racial discrimination.

Let us all strive to do our part, not just on special days but every day of our lives.

[Criminal Code, March 17th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government's treatment of many Canadian veterans is simply appalling.

On November 24, 1998 in the House of Commons I asked the Minister of Veterans Affairs to finally commit to a just settlement with Canada's merchant marine. I had hoped he would make some commitment to act. I had expected that he might indicate a willingness to do something. Instead the response of the minister was simply that he would listen.

It is not the time to listen. It is the time to act and to make a commitment to these Canadians deprived of justice by this government. I have become thoroughly appalled at the Liberal government's handling of this matter and of the matter of Canadian veterans who were prisoners of war at the Buchenwald concentration camp.

These brave Canadians played a central role in Canada's war effort. Many lost their lives and their health for our country. Families suffered. Communities suffered. As a result our country was poorer for the loss of so many merchant mariners, yet so much richer for the role they played in bringing victory to all of us.

This government has seen fit to provide an ex gratia payment of $23,940 each to Hong Kong veterans who were Japanese prisoners of war. This payment was promised just last December and strikes me as at least an effort to achieve a just settlement.

It is simply a disgrace that this government has betrayed Canada's merchant mariners by refusing to compensate them for the discrimination the merchant mariners faced upon their return home from serving Canada's war effort.

This issue is to be raised tomorrow at the House of Commons veterans affairs committee on which I sit. It is disgraceful that this government has abjectly refused to negotiate a settlement with these Canadians. While I am glad that the committee may make some headway where the government has failed, it is unacceptable that this government has repeatedly rejected calls for negotiation on compensation.

Assuming that the committee comes forth with a recommendation, I worry that this government will then take its time to respond and make an announcement.

How many more honourable Canadian merchant mariners must die before this Liberal government does the right thing and provides just compensation? How many? It has been estimated that merchant mariners are dying at the rate of about 12 per month. From where my New Democratic colleagues and I sit, one more death before proper compensation is provided is far too much.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to encourage the government to move to improve the health care package available to all veterans, especially those whose advanced years make them particularly vulnerable.

As I conclude, I am pleased to take a moment to pay tribute to Gordon Olmstead, a man who fought for his country and then continued to fight for what was right for the merchant mariners. The efforts of Gordon Olmstead and others like him helped bring about Bill C-61 and helped restore for the merchant mariners their rightful place in history.

Canada's veterans deserve nothing but the best.

[Parliamentarians' Code Of Conduct, March 15th, 1999]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-488, parliamentarians' code of conduct.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to table my private member's bill, the parliamentarians' code of conduct.

The purpose of this bill is to establish a code of conduct for all parliamentarians, that is members of the Senate and the House of Commons, and to provide for an officer of parliament to be known as an ethics counsellor, to advise members, to administer disclosures of interest and to carry out investigations of complaints under the direction of a joint committee of the Senate and the House of Commons.

I believe the passage of this bill would provide a framework to assist parliamentarians to carry out their responsibilities with honesty, integrity, transparency and in a manner that dignifies the trust placed in them by the electorate.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[National Defence, March 12th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the 35 year old Sea King helicopters continue to be plagued with problems causing legitimate concern for the safety of those who fly in them.

I now have parents of a pilot writing to me expressing concern for their son who flies these aircraft.

The minister indicated yesterday that he would bring in a strategy to replace the Sea Kings very shortly. Defence procurement is a very large, complex business with many steps involved.

Will the minister advise the House as to what precise stage in the procurement process is the maritime helicopter project at present?

[Young Offenders Act, March 12th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday new legislation concerning young offenders was introduced. There was concern expressed about offenders younger than the age of 12 being lost between the cracks with respect to receiving opportunities for rehabilitation.

The minister pointed out that these children would not be lost but would be caught up in the social services and mental health systems. I certainly agree that these would be the appropriate systems for dealing with these young children rather than the criminal justice system.

However, I would strongly urge that the federal government, if it is serious about children, ensure adequate funding for the social service and mental health system so that these young children are not simply dumped on an already overburdened and underfunded child welfare system.

[National Housing Act, March 11th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am not as familiar as my hon. colleague may be with people who make good salaries and live in subsidized housing. In most instances where subsidized housing is involved, there is a means test and an income test in terms of whether people qualify. If programs are being abused, then I would be the first to say that there has to be a better way of checking up on those programs to make sure they serve the needs of the people who need the services most.

Again we come back to whether or not the departments and the people administering the programs are adequately resourced to make sure these programs are carried out properly. That comes back to the huge amounts of cuts that have taken place. In many departments and agencies people are carrying caseloads well beyond the norm. They cannot devote the time and effort required to make sure the programs run smoothly. It comes back to the federal government's withdrawal of payments that were formerly transferred for these kinds of programs.

[National Housing Act, March 11th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question.

The problem is not that simple. There were many cuts to federal transfer payments which affected the areas of housing, social services and so forth. The provinces were put in a position where they were not able to handle a lot of these problems. The cuts to social housing go back much further. Even before the deinstitutionalization process began, there were very serious cuts to the social housing program.

I can recall many years ago when I was in my late twenties there was a co-operative housing program under the federal government. It seemed to find a fair degree of support in a lot of small rural communities. People would band together and build housing under this program. That program no longer exists. That program could meet a lot of the needs today if the federal government were serious about capping the housing problem.

It is a bit of a folly to blame the provinces and their programs of trying to bring about the deinstitutionalization of people. We know that concept would not work unless proper supports were there for the people who are deinstituionalized. Again, that support needs funding, much of which has been cut by the federal government.

[National Housing Act, March 11th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, first, I must tell you that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Yukon.

I am very pleased to speak to this bill, an act to amend the National Housing Act and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation Act. This bill does a number of things. It is very important that we understand exactly what this bill does.

This bill in amending the National Housing Act and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation Act, gives more options to CMHC in carrying out its mandate, such as increased ability to enter joint ventures and the ability to offer more financing options to borrowers.

The bill gives CMHC broad powers to set eligibility and other conditions for social housing grants. This broad discretionary power replaces the very detailed definitions and restrictions that have been laid out in the old act which causes us some concern.

The bill increases the ceiling of capital CMHC can control and gives the privy council the power to modify this ceiling through orders in council.

Finally, this bill commercializes, and take note of the word commercializes, CMHC's mortgage insurance function. Any losses CMHC incurs from underwriting mortgages will come out of CMHC rather than the general government revenues. CMHC would use a mortgage insurance fund to cover these losses.

Giving CMHC the ability to enter into joint ventures is the first step toward privatization of social housing. This causes us great concern. We see today this great trend toward privatization and we know that the bottom line in privatized ventures is usually profit. Usually privatization is aimed at profit, quite often to the sacrifice of the very important human values of compassion, affordability, accessibility and so forth. We have some concern about this.

We note that definitions such as those for “public housing project” and “eligible contribution recipient” are being taken from the act. This opens the door for private for-profit corporations to be recognized as social housing providers. The statutory requirements that social housing be safe, sanitary and affordable are also being eliminated.

We see along with the trend toward privatization the removal of standards which should apply to housing for Canadian citizens. This caused me great concern as well. In the city of Halifax, and I am sure in many other cities across the country, there are many what we refer to as slum landlords. People have properties that are really not fit for human habitation, yet they are renting out these properties to people who are in unfortunate circumstances, who are drawing social assistance. Quite often people are living in wretched conditions. They are unable to advance themselves beyond that state of housing. The move to privatization facilitates this. We are very much concerned about that. We would certainly be opposed to this bill because it enables that to take place.

There is also the commercialization of mortgage insurance. This is something that might have eventually been forced on CMHC by a NAFTA challenge from a foreign insurance provider. We know that the GE corporation, which has large interests in the insurance industry, has been lobbying the Liberal government for these changes to remove what it calls CMHC's “unfair competitive advantage”.

It is true that CMHC had a big advantage in providing financing to high risk borrowers such as low income people. This was very necessary to enable people in less fortunate circumstances to have housing. Removing this advantage will hamstring CMHC's ability to fulfil its mandate to provide mortgage insurance to people who need it, such as high risk customers that the banks will not touch, and people living in remote areas without the full range of financial services available to them.

These changes really concern us because we know that today there is a great problem with homelessness. We also know that housing itself is a very basic human right. It is right up there at the very top along with the right to food, clothing and medical care. Every woman, every child and every man in Canada has a right to live in decent, affordable, secure and safe housing. This is a very important human right. The declaration of human rights in article 25(1) bears this out:

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care—

Yet we can look around today and see that homelessness, a very unnatural disaster, is present with us. All I have to do is leave this place and walk down Rideau Street. On my way home I pass by many homeless people, many people who through very unfortunate circumstances have no shelter, no place to rest at night, except on the cold streets in which they find themselves living.

This is true right across our country. It is becoming more and more serious every day. We see people dying on the streets. People without homes and without proper shelter are dying. This is a very disturbing thing in our society.

More than 100,000 Canadians are homeless. Some find temporary beds in shelters. Thousands of others sleep on park benches or huddle in doorways for warmth. Still thousands more live in ramshackle substandard housing in the urban core or on remote reserves. Homelessness is a national emergency.

The homeless are men, women and children. The streets and the cold do not discriminate against these people. The government does. The government has cut all funding for social housing.

I recall in 1993 when I became the deputy minister for housing in the province of Nova Scotia, it was right around the time when the federal government had withdrawn its financial support for the social housing program. Over the years it continued to get worse. Eventually the federal government withdrew from social housing to the point of devolving all the responsibility to the provinces. In 1996 the government started downloading to various provinces. It has concluded downloading agreements with seven out of ten provinces, with B.C., Alberta and Ontario being the only holdouts.

It is a disturbing situation when our federal government does not accept any responsibility in the area of housing. We hear from time to time the minister speaking about the various things that the government is “doing” in providing more money for grants, RRAP and programs of that nature, but this does not get to the core of the problem.

Last month members of our party took to the streets to find out what was actually happening. We found that many people are homeless. The trip resulted in a very important report by one of our members who deals with these issues. We gathered opinions of people on the streets who are making a difference, activists, local politicians, volunteers, people seeking refuge from the streets, people living in shelters, rooming houses or substandard housing on reserves.

Our intent was to raise awareness, strengthen coalitions, present recommendations and to force the Minister of Finance to make housing a priority in the last federal budget, but this was not done. There was no real commitment to the homeless. There was no real commitment to those people who are living on the streets without adequate shelter.

Until 1993 the federal housing program helped contribute to the stabilization of low income neighbourhoods through the development of social housing. Regrettably, the Liberal government's retreat has meant that the vulnerable communities are increasingly defenceless with more and more people becoming homeless.

I want to emphasize that homelessness is not something that happens in isolation. Homelessness is very much connected with the unemployment situation and with the lack of benefits through EI. Today a bill concerning young offenders was tabled. Young offenders are sure to appear in our society if there are people who do not have adequate housing and adequate protection. Health problems are connected as well.

What has actually happened over the years is the Liberal government has sacrificed our social safety net for the sake of balancing the budget. This has been done on the backs of the most vulnerable.

We urge today that we not be fooled by this legislation and that we do not support something that will antagonize the problem. Rather, let us look for real solutions to the problem of homelessness and housing.

[War Veterans Allowance Act, March 11th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of my New Democratic colleagues in support of Bill C-61.

As veterans affairs spokesperson for the federal NDP, I am pleased that part of the stain on the record of how Canada treats its veterans has been removed. This bill should become law so that in word and from now on in deed merchant mariners will be treated as full equals to other Canadian veterans instead of being relegated to the margins of Canada's official military history.

These brave Canadians played a central role in Canada's war efforts. Many lost their lives and their health for our country. Families suffered. Communities suffered. As a result our country was poorer for the loss of so many merchant mariners, yet so much richer for the role they played in bringing victory to all of us.

While many of those whom we remember and honour today are those who served in the regular military, we must not forget the many others who served their country in a unique yet very important way, either as special construction battalions or merchant marines.

I am pleased to once again take the opportunity to commend the merchant marine veterans, their organizations, families, activists and supporters for bringing this bill into being. Without their tireless and for the most part thankless work, we would not be discussing this bill today.

What happened to the Canadian merchant mariners upon their return to Canada? In Britain they returned as full and equal veterans with equal access to post-war programs, services and benefits. In Canada they returned to virtually no support. They were denied upgrading courses at technical, vocational and high schools offered to regular forces veterans. They were denied health support and employment opportunities available to army, navy and air force personnel.

I am proud to support Bill C-61 which declares as law the equal status of merchant navy veterans with regular forces veterans.

I am not proud of this Liberal government's abject failure in providing just compensation for these Canadians. I mentioned at the outset of my comments that part of the stain on Canada's record of honouring and dealing with merchant mariners is to be scrubbed clean with this bill. The issue of compensation, one of paramount importance, remains a dark blotch on our record.

This government saw fit to provide an ex gratia payment of $23,940 each to Hong Kong veterans who were Japanese prisoners of war. This payment was promised last December. It strikes me as at least an effort to achieve a just settlement.

As mentioned earlier in my comments, it is a disgrace that this government has betrayed Canada's merchant mariners by refusing to compensate them for the discrimination that the merchant mariners faced upon their return home from serving Canada's war efforts. It has been estimated that merchant mariners are dying at the rate of about 12 per month.

On November 24, 1998 in response to a question I put to the Minister of Veterans Affairs, the minister said concerning compensation negotiations for merchant mariners “I am there to listen”. I already mentioned earlier that debating Bill C-61 before this House signals a time to act. Justice delayed is justice denied, particularly when the death rate among these veterans who served Canada so nobly is so high.

The Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs is slated to explore this compensation issue after the passage of Bill C-61. Assuming that the committee comes forth with a recommendation, I worry a bit that the government will then take its time to respond and make an announcement. How many more honourable Canadian merchant mariners must die before the Liberal government does the right thing and provides just compensation?

Even today as I am speaking I am reminded of Mr. Gordon Olmstead who has fought long and hard on this issue and is currently in the hospital dying of cancer. It is just a matter of time probably, unless the good Lord sees otherwise. From where the New Democratic members sit, one more death before proper compensation is provided is one too many.

Further to this point, it is high time that the government supported improvements in the health care package available to all veterans, particularly those at a venerable and often vulnerable age.

I sincerely hope that the spirit of justice in Bill C-61 has an effect on the government's treatment of other Canadian veterans. What about Canada's aboriginal veterans? First nations men and women served their country well alongside non-native forces personnel despite the fact that when World War II ended, they were not allowed to vote or even own their own land.

Many first nations veterans were never told they were entitled to educational opportunities or that they were able to purchase land at a cheap price. Some even returned to Canada to learn that their reserve lands had been seized by the federal government to compensate non first nations veterans.

I also think in particular of the Canadian veterans who were wrongly sent as prisoners of war to the Buchenwald concentration camp by Hitler and the Nazis. This government disgraced those brave Canadians when they were sent cheques for $1,098 to compensate them for the horrors they faced in the concentration camp, horrors which are in some cases relived in the minds of these veterans over and over again.

Our Liberal government has failed miserably where so many other governments have succeeded. I hope the spirit of Bill C-61 has some effect on the government so that it moves to ensure the Buchenwald survivors find the justice they so richly deserve.

I am indeed pleased that this bill provides for the continuation of disability pensions for victims of the 1917 Halifax explosion. As the member of parliament for Halifax West, I am all too well aware of the horror of that tragedy and the pain, death and destruction it wreaked.

I am also pleased this bill clarifies which merchant navy veterans of the Korean War will be eligible for benefits.

[Competition Act, 1998, March 10th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of my constituents in Halifax West to raise with this government the issue of the future of the port of Halifax. In response to my question in the House of Commons on November 19, 1998, the Minister of Transport said “We are certainly open to suggestions”. I do have a number of suggestions and a number of questions that I know many people in Halifax would want this government to answer.

Late last month the intergovernmental affairs minister claimed there would be federal cash available for Halifax if it won part of the super port pie. I am concerned about the impact on Halifax's ability to win part of the super port contracts if this federal government is unwilling to show to the industries concerned in more detail the depth of its commitment to this economic development opportunity for Halifax.

This could be a half billion dollar investment in the economic future of Halifax. Estimates suggest that already the port of Halifax supports 7,000 jobs directly and indirectly and generates almost a third of a billion dollars in economic activity annually.

Upgrading the port to handle post-Panamax super ships would do much to help with the economic development of the region. These super ships are too wide to navigate the Panama Canal. One encouraging fact is that Halifax has natural harbours deep enough to accommodate the 50-foot depth that the Maersk and Sealand container companies suggest is needed to handle their super ships. At 45 feet New York hits bedrock.

People in my riding have already raised the issue of the environmental impact of a super port. I want this government to be clear that it will support a complete, fair and thorough environmental impact assessment before it moves one teaspoon of earth should this project go forward. While I join others in looking forward to a major economic boost for the region, it must be done in such a way that protects long term environmental interests. The assessment must be fully open to public participation and the public must easily have all the relevant information available to it. No corner cutting can be allowed if we are to properly ensure that long term economic planning walks abreast of long term environmental planning.