Marlene Catterall

[Ethanol Industry, April 22nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday at Iogen Corporation here in Ottawa, the Prime Minister witnessed the launch of the first tanker truck full of cellulose ethanol fuel on its way to market.

Given that the government has invested $21 million in bringing this technology to this stage, is the government now prepared to act according to the Speech from the Throne and the budget and assist in the commercial expansion and development of cellulose ethanol?

[Holocaust Memorial Day, April 19th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday on Parliament Hill and across Canada, Canadians gathered in solidarity on our first national Holocaust Memorial Day, Yom ha-Shoah.

I want to congratulate the member for Charlesbourg—Jacques-Cartier; the government House leader, the member for Brossard—La Prairie; members of the House from all parties; and senators who made it possible for the bill to establish Holocaust Memorial Day to pass unanimously and quickly.

The Jewish community is again under attack with the desecration of sacred places and even the burning of a school library. We are painfully reminded that the evil of hatred and the horrible acts it generates are not in the past. They can be turned against any group at any time and when they are we must speak out and say “never again”.

[Princess Juliana, April 1st, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, last week when her Royal Highness Princess Juliana of the Netherlands died, and later this week during her funeral, the people of the Netherlands were joined by many Canadians, and in particular the people of Ottawa, in mourning her passing.

During World War II, Princess Juliana and her family lived among us. Her daughter, Princess Margriet, was born here at the Ottawa Civic Hospital, in an area of the hospital that was dedicated as soil of the Dutch people. The Woods family members were displaced from their home so that the royal family could have suitable accommodation in which to live.

We have lived with the memory and with a souvenir of that time ever since. In the fall of 1945, Princess Juliana presented Ottawa with 100,000 tulip bulbs. Every year since, those tulip bulbs have kept arriving and now over one million tulips bloom in Ottawa every spring in memory of her time among us.

We join the people of the Netherlands in mourning her passing.

[The Budget, March 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to speak about the member's region in particular because, obviously, I do not know it as well as he does. However I do not approach this budget by looking at what is in it for my constituency. I approach it by looking at what will create the best future for the entire country so all our citizens can benefit.

As one who has been here through the cost cutting, getting the deficit under control and so on, and as one who certainly supports a strong social infrastructure, I can only say that had we not balanced the budget and had a surplus budget, had we still been dependent upon foreign borrowing to pay for our social programs when the Asian monetary flu hit, we would not have the social programs we have today. We pay off debt because it frees up interest payments, so we have money to put into the programs that matter to me and to the member's constituents.

[The Budget, March 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the member who just spoke of the comments I made earlier about the huge reduction in employment insurance premiums that people and companies will be paying this year.

I would also remind him that our focus, through the tax system, has been on helping the lowest income Canadian families. I know he is as concerned about them as I am. I represent a large number of low income families with children in low income households.

I would remind him again that we have taken about one million low income Canadians off the tax rolls since 2000, and that we are, through the tax reduction program that is continuing into this year, reducing the taxes by 60% over that five year period for a family earning under $40,000.

In my view these broad based measures that are helping over a million Canadian families are extremely important for both the people he described and people who are of modest income for other reasons as well.

[The Budget, March 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to engage in some dialogue with the member for Peace River, but if that is not possible, I have quite a different perspective on this budget than he does.

One of the key themes of the budget clearly is not spending beyond our means. It is spending within our limits, ensuring that we do not go into deficit again. Those of us who have lived through that once do not want to have to go through it again: the cuts, the damage to programs and the impact on lives of people that were necessary to get us to the point of balanced and then surplus budgets.

There is no question that in recent months the issue of management of public money has been at the forefront of the public's mind. I would like to reflect on the history.

The member for Peace River talked about the need for fiscal prudence. The party for which he was originally elected, the Alliance Party, recently merged with the Conservative Party, a party that never could quite manage fiscal prudence.

I sat in the House in opposition through five Conservative budgets. Terrible cuts were made to programs and to the jobs with the promise that it would get the deficit under control. Well, the deficit did not get under control. That party kept adding more and more every year to the debt and more and more to the amount we were paying out in interest, leaving less and less for programs that were important to Canadians.

Let me contrast that five years up to 1993 with what happened since. We no longer have a deficit. We have begun paying off our debt to the tune of $52 billion. We are now paying $3.5 billion less in interest every year, leaving money available for things like health care, education of our young people and investment in research and our economic future. We now have low interest rates. We have low inflation. We have three million more Canadians working now than were employed in 1993.

We are the only G-7 country since September 11 that has managed not to return to deficit financing and adding to our debt. Notwithstanding the struggle to get to a much better fiscal situation for the country and establish a sound foundation for the future, we have been able, through two provincial agreements with the provinces and the territories, to put over $60 billion back into health care. That is in addition to the $2 billion added through this budget.

We have been able to start the first new national social program in a generation, the national child benefit. In the budget, notwithstanding new investments that are being made, we have been able to restore a contingency fund that has provided a cushion to ensure that unexpected circumstances, SARS and BSE through this past year, and unexpected downturns in what we think will be economic growth will not again force us into taking decisions that would put us back into deficit financing.

These are important accomplishments. They are the foundation on which this budget starts. Yes, it is a modest budget. People have criticized us for what we are not doing. However, the essential message of this budget is we will live within our means. We have a program. It was delivered in the Speech from the Throne, and we will deliver it as we can afford, as most Canadians do with their own personal and household budgets.

There has been much made of the fact that there are no tax reductions in this budget. May I remind Canadians and those in the House that we are in the fifth year of a five year tax reduction plan that has reduced taxes by $100 billion. In this year alone, personal income tax will be $22 billion less than it would have been had these changes not been made.

The member for Peace River spoke about the employment insurance fund. He seems to be unaware that every year employment insurance premiums have gone down. The reduction in employment insurance premiums this year alone is $15.2 billion.

Let me talk about what this tax reduction plan means for Canadians, particularly for Canadian families.

The actions taken on taxes since 2000 have removed one million low income Canadians from the tax roll completely. I make no apologies that our emphasis has been on low and modest income Canadians. For instance, a typical family of four, with one individual earning $40,000, will pay $2,000 less in annual net federal income tax, a saving of 60%, over what they would have paid this year had the changes not been made.

Full indexing of income tax brackets is something that has not happened for a number of years. For families with children, these changes have been especially important. In combination with the child tax benefit, for a family earning under $35,000, in general their child benefit exceeds any tax payable. This is not only an investment in the income of households. It is an investment in our children, especially those children living in families with the most modest incomes.

There is another important message in the budget. A sound economy depends on investing in our social infrastructure. A sound society depends on a solid economy. The two are interdependent. We cannot have one without the other, as the old song goes.

The budget continues some of the themes of the Speech from the Throne in firming up our social foundations. I am particularly pleased about the investments in children and in more early childhood programs. As a former teacher and as a mother, I know that a child's prospects for life are shaped in those first years before they begin school generally.

We are investing more in those early year initiatives, and we have already started in partnership with the provinces and territories. We are investing more in identifying children at risk at an early age so we can do the best to ensure that when they are finally school age, they will be able to benefit from the opportunities that education offers and to become productive citizens.

There are a number of measures in the budget for Canadians with disabilities, and that is extremely important. The proposal to focus on public health is vital to the long term sustainability of our health care system. We all know we face an aging population and increased health care costs. A smaller proportion of our population will be working and contributing through taxes. The initiatives in the budget to establish a chief public health officer for Canada and a Canada public health agency are vital.

I will admit that one reason this is happening now is because of the experience with SARS and the need to be better prepared to address unexpected epidemics. However, in my view the goal has got to be to promote a healthier population. Hopefully, what we do this year, by investing in a Canada public health agency, will lead us to focus on developing a healthier population and prevention programs. In the budget alone we provide money for immunization programs for children. By developing a healthier population, we will be able to reduce the burdens on our health care system and continue to offer fully publicly funded accessible health across Canada to every Canadian who needs it, not just to those who can afford it.

There is a fair bit in the budget as well about strengthening our economy. We all know how important research is to creating the knowledge on which our future prosperity depends. We also know, however, that a good proportion of research is done in Canada. It is excellent work, and it is something that the government has invested in quite generously. However, that research by and large is not getting developed and commercialized in Canada by Canadian companies to the benefit of Canadians and the Canadian economy.

One of the themes in the Speech from the Throne and one of the things on which we deliver in the budget are measures to help the commercialization of research in Canada.

My friend from Peace River made disparaging comments about the venture capital fund of $250 million. I am not sure though if he has talked to small and medium sized companies in his constituency or in his region about the difficulty they have in bringing their products to market or about the difficulty companies with bright new ideas have, in a country that does not have a huge market, in going that step from brilliant ideas, and the research that has gone into it, to getting them on the market. The investment in research can pay off in jobs and in prosperity for those companies and for their communities in which they are located, and for the Canadian economy.

I encourage the member to speak a little more to the companies in his riding and in his region about how important venture capital is. This is not just government money. This money is intended to leverage another $750 million in venture capital; in other words to generate a total of a billion dollars for investment in those companies.

There are a number of measures in the budget as well to assist small companies. Smaller companies still provide 80% of the jobs in Canada. There are measures to assist them by speeding up the increase in how much money can be earned before it becomes taxable, better access to the scientific research and development tax credit for small companies and a more economical tendering process for small and medium sized companies.

Finally, in the few minutes I have left I want to speak a bit about a subject that is important to me and to all my constituents. As I said earlier, the budget recognizes that a sound economy and a sound society are interdependent. It also recognizes we cannot have economic progress at the expense of our environment, that we have to invest in a way that is sustainable.

One of the key measures to be taken in terms of more responsible decision making is to incorporate environmental indicators into all decision making. That is a landmark decision that will change how government programs, decisions and legislation are founded. If we cannot breathe the air, drink the water and have clean soil in which to grow our food, and if we destroy the biodiversity of our planet, then we will be leaving a poorer future for our children.

The money we are putting into sustainable development technology in the budget is extremely important; investing in the technologies that will help solve our environmental problems, that will help prevent environmental problems so we can leave our children a better world.

Developing these technologies is a good economic investment because the world is looking for these technologies. It is a theme of mine often when I speak about this country that Canada does well in the world by doing good in the world and encouraging the development of sustainable development technologies, and a way to clean up or prevent damage to the environment is one of those.

Our Kyoto commitments are crucial because we are destroying the atmosphere on which life on this planet depends by our activities as human beings and particularly by our use of fossil fuels. The $3.7 billion we have already allocated for meeting our Kyoto commitment is vital.

What we have done in this budget, by committing an equal amount to clean up contaminated federal sites, is extremely important. I am particularly happy about the $500 million that has been set aside to share with others in the clean up of other sites that are not federal sites. This means we will leave many communities with a cleaner neighbourhood in which to live and less concerns about health problems. I only need to mention the Sydney tar ponds as the priority site for this funding and Canadians will know that this is an important initiative. We have left federally contaminated sites across our north and this fund will help clean up those sites.

Socially, environmentally and economically, I am proud to talk about the budget today and I am proud that this is the budget we have produced for Canadians.

[Dairy Terms Act, March 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, although I know it is against all the rules, I have to note the absence of the member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, who could not wait to leave the House because there is cheese in the lobby, and cheese does not last long when the member is around. I have the same fondness for milk and I have absolutely no interest in drinking something that pretends it is milk or is like milk.

I think all of us are much more aware of what we eat and how it affects our health, not only immediately but over the long term. A good part of that is wanting to know what is in the food we are eating, what really is behind what it may appear to be, what it may be coloured to look like or what it may be described as.

There is certainly a very strong interest in the public in knowing what is in the food we are buying, as there is for me. Labelling is a very important component of that. I recognize how extremely important the dairy industry is to the country. It is an industry that produces $4.1 billion worth of farm cash receipts in a year. It accounts for nearly 14% of all processing sales in the food and beverage industry. It employs 38,000 people on farms and another 26,000 workers at the primary processing level, and it imposes strict quality standards at both the farm and processing levels so that we are assured of quality food when we buy dairy products.

However, the bill would affect more than the dairy industry. It would affect other areas of the agrifood industry. It relates to how the industry develops new products. It may in fact limit some of the potential for innovation in the agrifood industry as a whole. Because it is not only the dairy industry that would be affected by the results of the bill, I would suggest that the approach taken by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, that is, to look at labelling more broadly and to consult with processors, consumers and other segments of the food and agrifood industry, is perhaps the more responsible one to take.

In fact, that approach would take into consideration a number of different points of view and different interests that would be affected by the content and the intent of the bill. It would indeed move toward responsible and honest labelling of food, but in a way that does not favour one segment of the industry over the other, that does not go so far in protecting one industry that it may harm others and may in fact go beyond what is needed for the kind of accurate and fair information that consumers are looking for in their packaging.

I do applaud the intent of the bill. However, I do think it is important that we look more broadly at the issue of labelling food and not have a number of bills coming forward to deal with this sector of the agrifood industry and another bill dealing with another so that we would have a mishmash of labelling requirements that may in fact run contrary to one another.

I do believe in the approach the agency is taking in trying to bring all these requirements together in order to bring forward something that is comprehensive and integrated and also respects the kind of information consumers want as to nutritional value, fatty content and all the other things we have started taking an interest in, both for our own personal health and for the health of the generations to come.

I believe that a broader approach is needed here. It may take a little more time but I think the end product will be much more to the benefit of the dairy industry, of consumers and of the agrifood industry in Canada as a whole.

[The Acadians, March 9th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the parliamentary secretary. I just want to emphasize again that this is a new problem. It is surfacing in my constituency office and in constituency offices elsewhere.

I am pleased that there are some efforts to address this situation. I encourage the minister to continue being aware that this is a new problem. It does need to be addressed or we will end up with a backlog that will be a much bigger problem.

[The Acadians, March 9th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, on February 11, I asked the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration what measures were being taken to speed up citizenship approvals.

In my 15 years as a member of Parliament, I have very seldom dealt with any complaints from constituents about the citizenship process. Recently, many constituents have been approaching my office because approvals are taking more than a year. The standard in this region is approximately 15 months.

For people who have made great personal sacrifices to come here and contribute their skills, or who face danger to escape persecution in their own country, the delay in becoming a citizen now creates further barriers to becoming fully integrated, contributing Canadians.

Many jobs require Canadian citizenship. The delays in approving citizenship mean that many are employed well below the level of skill that would allow them to contribute more fully to the Canadian economy. With increased security at the Canada-U.S. border, many are concerned about travelling on business without their Canadian citizenship.

Many did not apply for a permanent resident card in the last year because their citizenship application was already in. They quite rightly assumed they would have it long before they would need the permanent resident card to travel outside the country.

The result was, of course, a problem for members of our own staff, when people suddenly found that their citizenship was not coming through and they would have to apply on an urgent basis for the permanent resident card.

Delays in the citizenship process are causing an additional workload for CIC employees.

Often security clearances lapse before the application process is completed and may have to be redone. Often security clearances once they are done then sit in the CIC office for a number of months causing further delays and again perhaps having to repeat the process.

In Ottawa approximately 500 applications are received a week. The capacity is to process 150 to 200 a week. We seem to be working toward building up a backlog.

For many this has been a long wait. In my constituency there are many Somalis who came here at a time of terrible crisis in their own country. They were not able to even become landed immigrants for eight to ten years because acquiring the proper papers to prove who they were was impossible. Here they sit 10, 12, 13 years after their arrival in Canada unable to achieve citizenship.

Finally, new Canadians are looking forward to exercising that most precious right of citizenship, the right to vote. It is normal in the period leading up to a major federal or provincial election to take measures to speed up the approval of citizenship so that they can enjoy that right.

I ask the minister to clarify what is being done to improve the citizenship approval process, to avoid building a huge backlog and to let new Canadians become full members of Canadian society.

[Petitions, March 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join my colleague from the Bloc Quebecois in presenting copies of the Signatures of Hope petitions circulated by the United Church of Canada. These petitions contain 18,000 signatures from every part of Canada.

The petitioners call upon Parliament to take action to help in the fight against HIV-AIDS by cancelling bilateral debt and urging the cancellation of multilateral debt, by increasing Canada's overseas development assistance and by doubling our own domestic HIV-AIDS strategy.