Peter Adams

[Canada Grain Act, April 18th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, our government is committed to ensuring that employment insurance remains responsive to the needs of all Canadians, including seasonal workers. The Government of Canada pledged to take action to address the most pressing challenges facing the employment insurance program, and that is what we have done.

We have a long history of ensuring that the employment insurance program remains responsive to the needs of all Canadians. We are giving careful consideration and will respond to all the recommendations concerning changes to the program.

As recently as last spring, the government introduced a pilot project, providing five additional weeks of EI benefits to assist workers who face an annual income gap. The EI program enhancements we announced in the budget of this year represent an investment of over $300 million. The changes in the EI program will assist over 225,000 Canadian workers and their families.

Those announced changes will reduce the eligibility threshold to claim EI. We will also now calculate benefits based on workers' best 14 weeks of earnings. We will better enable workers to work while claiming benefits. We announced that we will extend benefits to specific areas of especially high unemployment.

We have in fact been reducing premiums every year for 11 years. As a result, the premium rate has dropped from $3.07 in 1994 to $1.95 in 2005, the lowest level since 1940. Our objective is to balance revenues and expenses and we believe we will achieve that this year. Employment insurance continues to provide temporary income support to people who involuntarily leave employment. For example, in 2002-03, 1.4 million people received $8.2 billion in regular income benefits.

May I remind the member for Acadie—Bathurst of all the changes the government has already made to the employment insurance program, so that it can continue meeting the needs of Canadians and a rapidly changing labour market. For example, the intensity rule was repealed because it did not help increase labour market participation. The clawback provision was amended and now no longer applies to Canadians who seek temporary income support for the first time or who receive special benefits.

The government has understood what Canadians need and that is why I am proud of the improvements we have made so far, and the improvements we will continue to make to this program. It is clear that we are committed to helping workers in this country. That is precisely why the government has kept its promise and announced these changes that I have mentioned.

[Canada Grain Act, April 18th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, like my colleague I believe very strongly that we should do everything possible to nurture and protect agriculture in all its extraordinarily diverse forms in Canada.

If we think of Quebec and Ontario, it is amazing to consider that at one end there are wine growing areas and at the other end there is salmon farming and seal hunting. Commodity groups in those provinces alone are absolutely extraordinary and each of them is different. Grains and oilseeds farmers have particular needs. There are also farmers involved with soft fruits, greenhouse industries, and market garden industries. My riding has beef, sheep, and goat farmers. There is also a very large bison herd.

We have to nurture all of those industries not only this year or next year but nurture them in such a way that each of those areas remain attractive to farmers. The success of us feeding ourselves depends on the success of farmers in all of these areas.

My colleague mentioned the point that this is a small country. Canada has a population of 31 million people. There is only a certain amount that 31 million people can eat even if they eat five meals a day.

The province of Quebec is by far the largest province in this huge country of ours. We have an incredible amount of productive land, some of it in production some of it not. We have a moral duty to produce food for the world.

I wonder if my colleague would care to think aloud, perhaps a little philosophically, about how we, as a small country, could produce vast quantities of food for the rest of the world. How could we do that on the world scene?

[Employment Insurance Act, April 12th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I think if you were to seek it you would find unanimous consent to change your last order so that the vote would be held at 3 o`clock tomorrow, Wednesday, following question period.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, April 12th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I was a bit shocked to hear my colleague proudly say that he would vote against the budget bill.

I understand that in some sort of an ideal world we would be able to do everything for everybody every year, but that simply is not the case. If ever there were a budget that did its best to reach out to people, this budget is it. Some of the media have said that this is the greenest budget there has ever been, yet he will vote against the environment.

The child care measure alone is a first step. It is a huge amount of money. We are moving forward and that is the sort of thing a federal government should be doing.

The member also mentioned seniors. I know seniors deserve more, but improvements have been included in the budget for the seniors' secretariat and seniors programs like New Horizons, et cetera.

The Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador accord are also in the budget. The member will be voting against that.

The budget also includes a new deal for cities and small communities like mine, Asphodel-Norwood and the village of Lakefield. They will benefit from the gas tax rate.

The northern strategy, which my neighbour from Yukon mentioned earlier, is also included in the budget.

The NDP will be voting against all these things.

I would like to ask my colleague some questions with respect to his remarks about post-secondary education. We know this is a provincial jurisdiction. The province with the lowest tuition in the country, all to its credit, is the province of Quebec. In recent years the province of Quebec has moved to not only having the lowest university tuition in Canada, but to providing two free years of college. That is an extraordinary thing. That is something which is within the provincial mandate.

My colleague mentioned high tuition costs in the rest of the country, and they are truly shocking. However, this is not a result of the actions of the federal government. This federal government, and I say this unequivocally, has put more into post-secondary education than any federal government since Confederation. If the federal contributions to higher education were to be added up, we would find them approaching the sum of all provincial contributions.

I am really pleased with the budget. We are starting to move away from the emphasis on the student loan program toward grants. The student loan program is very good, but it does have its limitations. Grants are available in every year of undergraduate studies for disabled students. Grants are available for first year studies for low income students. The millennium scholarships were grants. This surely is a step forward.

The Canada learning bond is deliberately meant for low income children and for families to build up equity in the education of their children. They receive $500 at birth and $100 every year until the child is 15 years old. All the accumulated interest on that money is put into an RESP account. If the family were to put in, for example, $100, the federal government would match that by $40. This also is a grant.

Does my colleague have any suggestions for controlling what the provinces do with the money that the federal government transfers to them for post-secondary education instead of them just taking the money and raising tuition?

[Peterborough City Soccer Association, April 7th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the Peterborough City Soccer Club, known today as the Peterborough City Soccer Association, was established in 1980. Since then this relatively small club, playing in the tough GTA soccer environment, has won many titles and cups. These include league championships in the Toronto and District Soccer League First Division, premier league titles, promotion to the Ontario Soccer League, and various league cups.

Equally important, the association has attracted thousands of boys and girls and men and women to soccer. For many years it has run the highly successful Peterborough City Youth Soccer Camp. Today 350 players, male and female, younger and older, play regularly on 25 teams.

Congratulations on 25 successful years to the Peterborough City Soccer Association.

[Department of Human Resources and Skills Development Act, April 6th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I always appreciate my colleague's remarks. I do appreciate the time she puts into our committee work, both in connection with Bill C-23 and in other matters, many of which she discussed.

We are debating Bill C-23, legislation which redesigns a federal government department. The member from the official opposition who spoke made the point that it was a bureaucratic exercise. I do agree that it is, but I disagree with him in that I think it is a very important bureaucratic exercise, one which will ensure that all Canadians get better services from the newly designed department. I can give one simple example. The privacy provisions in the legislation which replace four or five different privacy codes and which protect Canadians who are involved in employment insurance, Canada student loans or whatever it is, are better.

I have to say to my colleague from the Bloc that in Bill C-23 we are discussing the redesign of a department. I would repeat that the standing committee recommended this some years ago, and the House of Commons unanimously supported the report of the committee to redesign this particular department, and the Bloc supported that. We are carrying through with something the Bloc wanted.

It is a bureaucratic exercise. For example, my colleague mentioned provincial jurisdiction. There is no change in provincial jurisdiction. We have divided one department and created two more. The legislation does not affect the relationship between the federal government and the provincial governments at all. It is simply the same jurisdiction, the same services, but delivered in a different way.

I do not think through Bill C-23 that there is any impingement on provincial jurisdiction. It is simply better delivery of the same services in the same way as before. That is very important, in part because unanimously the House, including the Bloc, supported it.

The hon. member mentioned EI. I know she is passionate about EI, but under the Standing Orders when a committee is given a bill to study, such as Bill C-23, it cannot increase expenditures associated with that legislation. It simply cannot. It cannot say that it will change the department, it will redesign the department, and by the way, it will add a billion dollars to EI or whatever it is. I know my colleague knows this, but I want her to comment on that. It is not possible through our process to change the things she was describing through Bill C-23.

[Department of Human Resources and Skills Development Act, April 6th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I wish to thank my colleague for his support. I do not look forward to the occasion when he will oppose us on some legislation.

We can all use statistics and I think constructive criticism is what this place is all about. I do not want to go through the various items that he put forward in great detail. I would point out however that the expression “brain drain” here in Canada, which only a very few years ago was a very common expression, brought great fear that we were losing talent from this country far more than we were bringing it in. We do not hear it anymore and I believe one of the reasons for that is the action taken in several of the areas that my colleague talked about.

The other is with regard to post-secondary education. I think if he did the calculation, he would discover that the moneys being spent now by the federal government are getting into the order of magnitude of the amount of money being spent by all the provinces combined in the area of post-secondary education which is traditionally viewed as an area of provincial jurisdiction.

I have greatly regretted, and I must be very careful how far I go on this, the fact that on a number of occasions, when the federal government has done something positive in the area of post-secondary education, various provinces have clawed back and have not followed-through. So, I have some empathy with at least one of the things that he said.

I would like the member to comment on the origins of the legislation. First, it is true that it sounds like a bureaucratic exercise, but in fact, it is an attempt to deliver better, and they should be delivered better, the sorts of services and programs that he has such great concern about.

I believe that the new streamlined department will do that more effectively for years to come. However, the idea did not come from the government. It came from a standing committee of the House which unanimously recommended that the old department be divided. The House and members of all parties supported the recommendation. It was not something that the government initiated. It was something that the House of Commons recommended and is being followed-through on by the government.

Does he think that he should have gone against the views of his party in committee and in the House of Commons at the time when this recommendation first appeared in this place?

[Peterborough, April 4th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, last summer, Peterborough and surrounding municipalities were hit by disastrous floods. Thousands of homes, businesses and not for profit groups were devastated.

The community's response to this disaster was extraordinary. Neighbours helped neighbours. The county-city emergency measures organization, led by Mayor Sylvia Sutherland, swung into action in a remarkable fashion. It coordinated the work of volunteers and professionals, of firefighters, police and a variety of other local groups.

The national emergency measures protocol, through which first the province and then the federal government back up municipalities, worked well and is still working.

I thank the Government of Ontario, the federal emergency measures organization, the Salvation Army, the Red Cross and others who helped us. I thank all the volunteers who came to help us. I thank the federal departments, notably HRSDC, Industry Canada and the national museums, which gave us aid outside of the disaster protocol.

Our community is still recovering from this tragedy but I am proud to say that we have grown as a result of it and we are fully open for business.

[Department of Human Resources and Skills Development Act, March 23rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I tried to make that point. As it happened, I was chair of the standing committee concerned and was very involved with it. Although this is a minority Parliament we are used to consultation and discussion to a certain point, in those days that was not common. There was a great deal of consultation in committee and it was agreed that a revision of some sort was one of the solutions to the problems at which the committee was looking. The House of Commons agreed to it.

I would agree that this was a large example of individual members of the House of Commons having an influence all the way through to massive changes in a structure which involved $60 billion in the previous department.

[Department of Human Resources and Skills Development Act, March 23rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am faced with very well-informed people today because they are members of the committee. I thank my colleague for his work on it.

I will say first off that a big difference between the two legislations, and I know less naturally about the other legislation, is that this legislation has its roots in a unanimous report of a standing committee fully supported in the House of Commons. There was an inquiry into the previous department, as was mentioned by my predecessor.

We are looking at something which the House can be proud of because the House of Commons said that one of the recommendations of the committee report, which was accepted by the House, was that the old department should be divided. This is a serious matter from that point of view.

From the point of view of public policy, which goes back to the previous question, it is almost inevitable in our society that government departments operate on a silo basis. They work within themselves and have a mandate. One of the difficulties is reaching out between them. In this case, we have two more effective silos, but we also have useful links between them which help us with the problems which silos create.

It is a product of the House of Commons, not a government initiative. It has been carried out in an effective way. For this one department, it is my great hope, if one reads the mission statement of HRSD, that this will department become not the delivery mechanism but the point of contact for everything to do with lifelong learning in the federal system. That alone is something needed in Ottawa.