Ed Broadbent

[Industry, October 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry.

In today's Globe and Mail , Harry Wu, a leading expert on human rights in China, has revealed that Minmetals, as recently as the 1990s, was exporting metals produced by forced labour from that country.

Is the minister aware of this abominable practice, and if so, will he assure us that Minmetals will not be allowed to take over Noranda until its history is thoroughly investigated?

[Senator Jean-Robert Gauthier, October 22nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, members of the House will not be entirely surprised, since I am a New Democrat, to learn that this is the first time I have ever publicly stood up to praise a senator, but I do so with a great deal of pleasure for my friend and former colleague for many years in the House and for his continuing work, I will add, as a senator in the other place.

It has been pointed out that Senator Gauthier has made a distinguished contribution to the battle for human rights in general, which he has, and I want to emphasize that. He is well known in particular for the struggle for minority francophone rights right across the country, as well as in the city of Ottawa, and in struggling for official bilingualism in the province of Ontario. He was an excellent worker for all of these causes.

Senator Gauthier is well known in our community. He served as honorary chair of the S.O.S. Montfort Legal Defence Fund in 1998. He is the recipient of such distinctions as the “Prix Boréal” from the Association canadienne-française de l’Ontario. Senator Gauthier also received the title of Grand-Croix de l’Ordre de la Pléiade in 1998.

He was, and will remain, I am sure, a terrific advocate for human rights. He has been dedicated to his community and his country. I join with all others here in the House in wishing him and his family a joyful and, indeed, an exuberant retirement.

[Industry, October 22nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister did acknowledge yesterday “the whole issue of human rights...obviously should be taken into account” in reaching a final decision. Since China has no freedom of speech, no freedom of association, no freedom of assembly and no right to an independent union, my question for the minister is this. When the Prime Minister said, “I'm a nationalist...we've got to build this country into a superpower”, was he referring to China or Canada?

[Industry, October 22nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry. Yesterday, the minister acknowledged that he had some concerns. He was not sure about the proposed Chinese conglomerate takeover of Noranda. He said precisely that it was a state enterprise. The state in question has one of the world's worst records when it comes to the health and safety of its workers and it denies completely the UN based right to an independent union.

Would the minister agree that the Prime Minister virtually gave carte blanche to this deal yesterday with the incredible statement that the deal would--

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 7th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of our leader who was also a party to the discussion, I give the consent of the New Democratic Party.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 7th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, as one old war horse to a middle-aged war horse, I want to say to her what I said a minute ago. These are parliamentary games.

She knows that the words they have used indeed reflect our values, but she also knows that these votes in this context in our system constitute or set in motion confidence in the government. We have no intention at this point of bringing down a government that the people of Canada want to see produce something.

We are not going to play games. We are going to work for concrete reform on child poverty, on the electoral system and on many other things.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 7th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, as the member knows, it is a long and complicated question to answer in 30 seconds. I would be glad to take that up with him on another occasion.

I would, having received a question from a Liberal member, like to use the occasion to remind him that we will be coming up to the 15th anniversary of that motion. A similar motion is going to be presented to the House. This time I hope that when his party supports the motion, it will act on it, because in 10 of the 15 years that I have been out of the House of Commons, poverty among Canada's children has increased in spite of six surplus budgets by the Liberals, who did almost nothing to get rid of it when they had the power. I hope we will see some changes now.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 7th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to use the occasion to at least address part of what the question is intended as I see it. The subamendment did in fact refer to a citizens' assembly of the kind my party has advocated and I hope the government will take it seriously under consideration.

My reason for coming back to politics, by the way, was to get away from playing games. Canadians are fed up with the politicians who come here, whatever side of the House they are on, playing nice little rule games that they know the outcomes are going to be different from the words they use. If we were to accept the subamendment that is before us, the government would be defeated, and the people on the other side of the House, both the Conservatives and the Bloc Quebecois, know that very well.

I did not return to federal politics to indulge in this hypocritical, silly kind of politics and I will have nothing to do with it.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 7th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by complimenting my colleague from Nanaimo—Cowichan for making such an exceptional maiden speech reflecting the long traditions of her own area, going back and including, but not restricted to, Tommy Douglas who was a distinguished member and leader of our party coming from the same region. It was a great speech, reflecting not only the great variety of her own riding but also concerns which she made clearcut right across the country. I congratulate her.

I am pleased to have this opportunity to briefly address the issue of electoral reform, something we have implemented in five provinces in Canada. Once again, the provinces have led the way. I must say that I am very glad to see that a federal government has, for the first time, referred to this important topic in the Speech from the Throne.

I want to note in my brief comments that my party and I have been advocating an electoral system for Canada that would combine single member constituencies with members elected on the basis of proportionality since the 1970s. I want to emphasize that such a system or a variety of systems like this is in place in the large majority of stable democracies around the world.

The evidence clearly indicates that a mixed system, combining single member with proportionality, does the following. It elects more women than we do in Canada. It elects more minorities than we do in Canada. It produces a generally higher level of voter participation than exists in Canada. It also allows new parties to gain a place in the electoral system and then grow if they have support. It is, I would add, profoundly democratic because the vote of every citizen, wherever that vote takes place, counts in some sense in shaping the government, which our voting system does not do.

Because I am going on to other matters, I want to conclude with this brief list of advantages of such an electoral system by saying that such a system is long overdue in a country called Canada. In my limited comments I want to concentrate exclusively on another of its advantages, namely its contribution to national unity.

The first time I noticed that the Canadian electoral system was obsolete, pre-democratic, regionalist, fractionary and non-inclusive was after the 1980 federal elections.

In doing so I want to illustrate why our present system is profoundly divisive, deeply harmful for national unity and alienating in its effect on border participation throughout the land.

After the 1980 election, the then prime minister, Mr. Trudeau, asked to meet with me as the leader of a minority party to discuss our participation in the government. I found this strange because he had just obtained a substantial majority and we were a minority party. In spite of the 25% of the vote his party won in western Canada, if we were to look at the results of the seats, we would see a completely different percentage. No Liberal was elected in British Columbia, none in Alberta, none in Saskatchewan and only two in Manitoba. The Liberals won two seats out of 25% of the vote and became the governing party.

The New Democratic Party had 26 seats in western Canada. Mr. Trudeau told me of his intention to bring in what was to amount to the national energy program and the repatriation of the constitution and he definitely felt his party was a so-called eastern party and, with the NDP being strong in the west, he wanted our participation because, in broad outline, he knew we were sympathetic philosophically to the directions on those issues in which he was going, although we differed in some details.

The point I want to make is that here is a party that has governed in Canada for most of my lifetime and yet systematically our system produces a set of MPs in the governing caucus that nowhere represents the strength that they got in western Canada.

The same pattern prevailed in the three elections that took place since I left the House in 1989. We have a governing party that does not reflect at all the very nature of the country. I would submit that if it did then the national energy program would almost certainly have been different if the governing party had elected members actually from the west proportional to its strength as well as other legislation at the time.

The other point I want to make is that our electoral system and its impact on governing is counterproductive in terms of the opposition parties. I want to mention the Reform Party, not exactly one ideologically to which I am sympathetic but the Reform, the Alliance and the Conservatives had negative impacts comparable to the Liberals in terms of vote.

Preston Manning was said to have been blanked out in Ontario. Mr. Manning received 20% of the vote in Ontario. In the large majority of democracies he would have had seats proportionate to his vote as a democracy should do. In spite of that 20% of the vote, no seats and his party was then regarded as simply “in the east a western party”.

Also, the 20% of people in Ontario who actually voted, not by political friends but they were equal citizens who actually voted for his party, became more alienated from the system because they did not see their desires reflected in the outcome.

I am deliberately choosing parties different from my own. I will just say in passing that if we had seats today proportionate to our vote we would be in excess of 40 seats in the House of Commons. However I am talking about other parties.

The point I want to make is that our system, as the Pepin-Robarts documented very clearly, is counterproductive to national unity. Our national caucuses, whether on the government side or on the opposition side, do not reflect accurately where their votes come from and therefore they see Canada through highly distorted, highly conflictual lenses that almost always come into the debates.

I want to stress this as a key point to leave with governing members and opposition members in the House as we approach the subject, and we will, of electoral reform in this session. I want to use my concluding moments to give particular praise, not to a government of my party but to a government in British Columbia that did introduce a citizens assembly process that has worked remarkably. It is one that my party would like to see duplicated at the national level. It is one that has involved in that province two citizens from each constituency, plus two aboriginal peoples. They have met for over a year, met in their communities, have professional experts so-called and real who give them advice, and have had systematic deliberation. Not one of the 160 citizens of British Columbia participating in this process has dropped out.

It has been inspiring and empowering for them and it has generated support wherever they have held meetings in the province of British Columbia. They are making electoral reform an issue that is engaging people throughout the length of that province.

I and my party believe that we should have this process at the national level. It could become exciting and it could engage Canadians.

In Canada's provinces, not all Canadians can directly take part in a process that is supposed to provide a fair system for everyone.

I deeply believe that if we were to engage our citizens, have them deliberate, think seriously about it and make a recommendation for a new equitable electoral system, we would finally get the electoral system the people of Canada deserve. Let us get on with it.

[Electoral Reform, October 6th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. I want to begin by complimenting the Prime Minister for finally including electoral reform in a throne speech.

In this context, considering that the present electoral system almost invariably produces parties both on the governing side and on the opposition side of the House that do not in any way reflect accurately the regional votes in Canada and thus, this in itself, contributes to regional conflict, will the Prime Minister promise that before the Christmas recess the government will take concrete action to implement this commitment?