Peter Adams

[Resumption Of Debate On Address In Reply, February 16th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague's interest in these matters with respect to international students.

As he knows, tuition is a provincial jurisdiction. I am sure he would join me in my support of the idea that in the transfer that we make to the provinces there be a designated transfer for post-secondary education that could only be spent on that.

He mentioned the higher tuition. In Ontario, which just recently had a Conservative government, tuition is the second highest in Canada. We just got rid of grade 13, which was an essentially free college or university year. We replaced it with a year in college or university, which has the second highest tuition.

In the adjacent province, the province of Quebec, as my colleague knows, it has two years of free college. This is with the same transfers to that jurisdiction as others. If we go to British Columbia we would discover that tuition has been kept low for a number of years.

I strongly support the lowering of tuition in the provinces where they have raised it to an extreme extent.

Going back to the international students, my view is that we benefit in at least two ways. We benefit from future contacts with those 200 or so countries around the world from which they come and our students benefit from them being on campus. I do think, though, that the federal role in those things should be better co-ordinated, in the way I tried to describe in my remarks.

[Resumption Of Debate On Address In Reply, February 16th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I am delighted to join in this debate on the Speech from the Throne. It is very special because it is the first speech of a new Prime Minister and a first speech for a new cabinet. Although all speeches from the throne are important, this one will be particularly important because it will be carried through to an election.

I want to speak particularly on the parts of the Speech from the Throne that deal with post-secondary education and research. In my remarks, I am going to be referring to the open letter that was published, long before the speech, by the government caucus on post-secondary education and research and circulated very widely in the country. It can be found on my website at www.peteradams.org.

Before dealing with the speech itself, I want to comment on the new cabinet and the way that it has been structured from the point of view of post-secondary education and research and the federal government's involvement in those things.

First, we greatly appreciate the division of the former department of HRDC into two departments, including the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development. We believe and we hope, when we look at the vision statement of that new department, that it will become the depository for information and resources to do with lifelong learning as we know it today. It is not, by the way, that this department will take over everything the federal government does in lifelong learning, but it will become knowledgeable about what is going on and as a result make the federal programs, whichever departments they are coming from, even more effective.

We realize that post-secondary education in particular, as well as research, is a shared jurisdiction with the provinces. We are very conscious of that. We want the federal government to be much more proactive in dealing with the provinces and so we hope that the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development will in the future become the permanently designated representative for the federal government with the Council of Ministers of Education of Canada.

In the past, senior federal cabinet ministers have attended that particular council, which is the nationwide group dealing with education. I think they have been well received but they have been different ministers representing different departments. We think now that this one minister should be briefed on all those matters by all the federal departments and should be our representative on that council.

Second, we were delighted that the parliamentary secretary to the new minister that I have just mentioned has particular responsibility for the Canada student loan program and for student loans in general. We think this is particularly important. We have supported the development of the Canada student loan program to where it is and we would support further development of the program, but we, like many others, are concerned about student debt.

The time has come for us to wean ourselves away from heavy dependence on loans. We were delighted to see in the Speech from the Throne that there will now be grants for lower income students to cover their expenses in the first year of university or college. These will be grants and those grants will be added to grants that go with the RESP program. We are glad that there is now a parliamentary secretary doing nothing else but looking after student loans.

We know that in the new structure of cabinet there is also a parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister who is responsible for science and small business. From the point of view of research, this is extremely important. Having this person, one of our colleagues, reporting directly to the Prime Minister is very important for science, that is to say, science in the universities and colleges and other schools in Canada and science in the private sector.

For example, the R and D tax environment has greatly improved in recent years for small business and larger business. It needs to be even further strengthened so that the private sector is encouraged to participate in real research.

It also includes responsibility for in-house federal science. Groups like the National Research Council, which work with small business and maintain vital government labs, deserve support. Groups like the Geological Survey of Canada and researchers in Environment Canada and other federal departments need a voice to deal directly with the Prime Minister. This parliamentary secretary has been named and we hope that he--and perhaps in the future it might be a she--will deal with this.

I referred to our open letter. There were various sections in it. One dealt with the north. We do notice that the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs now has a parliamentary secretary dealing specifically with northern economic development and other matters related to the north. In research and development, we believe that the federal obligation in the north, both in the territories and in the near northern parts of the provinces, is particularly important. We hope that this new position will help with that.

Also mentioned in the Speech from the Throne but existing before then is the appointment of a science adviser to the Prime Minister. This is the first time in Canadian history that such a person has been appointed. The actual individual involved is currently the President of the National Research Council, a very distinguished scientist. He will be reporting directly to the Prime Minister on science in general. My understanding is that he will start in April.

For those of us who are interested in research, whether it is within the federal system or whether it is within the colleges and universities or in the private sector, this appointment of a permanent person who will report directly to the Prime Minister and future prime ministers is going to be a major step forward.

As is known, our objective is that by 2010 Canada will be in the top five countries in the world as far as research and development are concerned. We believe that is quite feasible, but only if we coordinate better. By the way, there are many things we still need to do, but if we could coordinate better what we are already doing, it would be a major help toward achieving that objective.

In the open letters I mentioned, which we have had for a number of years now, we have always mentioned international studies and internationalization on the campuses of colleges, universities, high schools and so on across the country. We believe the federal government has a very special role in research and development in the international sphere.

We hear about the Canada corps that the Prime Minister is proposing. My understanding of it is that it will be as we have had in the past: a youth corps doing volunteer work and so on overseas. I think this is admirable and I look forward to that happening very actively again to reinforce Canada's roles overseas.

We also hope that this Canada corps will become a sort of repository of knowledge of what is going on in civil society, in high schools, in colleges, universities and in government departments, be they provincial, territorial, or federal, in the international sphere all across the country, so that in this one place, in addition to equipping teams that will help in developing countries, they will have some knowledge of what is going on in a particular developing country. Again, this will focus better what is happening already in the international sphere across Canada.

In regard to the Speech from the Throne, let me say that in our letter we mentioned other investments that happened before this. I would like to express our feeling of great relief that some years ago the government invested in a number of foundations, for example, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the climate change foundation, human Genome Canada. We invested money that will flow in millennium scholarships and graduate student scholarships over a period of years so that they are no longer subject to the economy or to the annual vicissitudes of the government. We think those early investments are going to stand Canada in good stead.

[Resumption Of Debate On Address In Reply, February 16th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I was pleased to hear my colleague mention the city and county of Peterborough in his remarks. This is something, Madam Speaker, that you can relate to and which may be of interest to you: Toronto is somewhere to the southwest of Peterborough just in the same way, I understand, that Vancouver is somewhere to the west of Kamloops.

I believe that the downloading of responsibilities, as it is called, which has occurred in recent years generally has been appropriate. My colleague mentioned homelessness in particular. My riding is partly rural and partly urban, and I believe that the only way to deal with homelessness in my community is at the local level. What we have not done, until now with regard to the GST, as he mentioned, is also download the resources to deal with those local problems.

I would like to ask my colleague to comment on that, because I know that with respect to transit, my colleague supported VIA Rail to Peterborough. I would like his comments on that from the point of view of smaller communities in Canada.

[The Environment, February 12th, 2004]

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

The Auditor General has said that many national historic sites in the country are showing serious signs of deterioration. She also mentioned that this issue must be addressed within the next two to five years. Three of the five sites described as being seriously impaired are in Ontario, including Fort Henry in Kingston.

What is the government planning to do to preserve these sites of great historic significance?

[Committees of the House, February 11th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I have here the report establishing the committees, which has been signed by all five whips. Discussions have taken place between all parties and I believe you would find consent for the following motion. I move:

That the first report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs concerning the membership and associate membership of committees be deemed tabled and concurred in without debate.

[Insurance Industry, February 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State for Financial Institutions. A year ago, I first asked for a national inquiry into the insurance industry. This weekend the CBC devoted a program to the problems of this industry.

I ask now that the government work with the provinces to regulate the percentage of premiums that insurance companies can invest in highly speculative stocks. Will the minister agree to look into this matter?

[Kenaston, February 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, in January following a period of record -40° weather, my wife Jill and I found ourselves driving in blizzard conditions. We were forced off the highway south of Saskatoon. With many others, we spent the night on the floor of Kenaston Place, the community centre of Kenaston, the aptly named “blizzard capital” of Saskatchewan.

We want to thank all those who helped stranded travellers during this emergency: the mayor, emergency preparedness people, teachers, restaurateurs, and pool hall operators.

To Kenaston, home of the super hockey draft and of the Blizzards hockey team, we storm survivors say thanks, and we join Kenaston in saying, “Go, Blizzard, go”.

[Radiocommunication Act, February 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in support of Bill C-2, an act to amend the Radiocommunication Act to better combat illegal decoding of direct-to-home satellite television signals.

The bill deals with the growing problem of piracy of signals for direct-to-home satellite television. It aims to strengthen our ability to protect one of our most important cultural industries. I am particularly glad to speak on this because I, like many Canadians, love television and good movies. We are speaking particularly with respect to the cultural industry in Canada. Piracy of any sort of artists' work, of illegitimately taking the benefits of creative work, is something we should be trying to stop all around the world.

Having said that, I will not speak greatly about the penalties. One of my colleagues has said that in this case the penalties for this should fit the crime. As the crime is piracy, I want to be on the record as saying that although I agree the penalty should be commensurate with the crime, the normal penalties I have heard for piracy are keelhauling and hanging people from the yardarm. I do not support penalties of that type, but I do support severe penalties for those who pirate these signals.

The theft of such satellite signals denies legitimate Canadian broadcasters, content producers and programmers millions of dollars a year. It robs money from an industry that supports thousands of jobs. That, by the way, is the financial measure of what is going on. What is much more significant is that this piracy, by denying some income to artists, stultifies creativity. It is creativity of human beings, whether it be in the arts, business or wherever, that we as a government should be trying to nurture and encourage.

The existing legislation is simply inadequate to deal with the growing problems which we are seeing. Law enforcement officials in the industry lack the tools they need to deter the criminals who are importing, manufacturing and selling illegal technologies. We do not want to target individual Canadian viewers, but rather those men and women who are making piracy of signals a business.

The industry estimates that there could be from 500,000 to 700,000 users of unauthorized direct-to-home services in Canada. That is a shocking figure. I believe that many people who do this do not think of the true consequences to creativity in Canada.

Research in the industry concludes that these activities imply a loss of subscription revenues of about $400 million each year to the Canadian industry. These companies need a fair marketplace to recoup the considerable investments they are making.

There is also a public safety component to the bill. The use of pirated receiver cards has been found to create signal interference with communications systems used by search and rescue services and the police. By committing this illegal act of downloading the signals, these people are also putting at risk police, fire people and others. It is like someone who rings a fire alarm illegally. The fire engine and the fire crews go out to the non-existent fire while there is a fire occurring somewhere else.

The bill reinforces existing laws in Canada. It has received widespread support from all the actors in the Canadian broadcasting system as well as law enforcement and customs officials. The bill will help to provide a level playing field for Canada's cultural industries and ensure sustainable competition in broadcast programming to benefit all Canadian consumers.

The bill proposes to discourage satellite piracy in three ways.

First, it will make it more difficult to obtain the hardware required to steal a satellite signal. This will be done by providing for better control at the border by requiring an import certificate issued by the Minister of Industry for anyone who wishes to bring satellite signal decoding equipment into the country. That is a very appropriate action.

Second, the bill would increase the penalties prescribed in the act to a level that provides a meaningful deterrent to this type of piracy. I made the joke about it before. In our law I do not believe in keelhauling for this type of piracy, but I do believe in very strong penalties for it. It is a serious matter, not just a financial matter but something that goes to the heart of Canadian culture.

Third, the bill would strengthen the existing right of civil action. It is difficult to prove a direct causal link between illegal conduct and the extent of the losses they actually suffer. Under the bill, it would be provided that there is an option to seek statutory damages rather than being forced to prove actual damages.

We are talking about preventing the erosion of Canada's broadcasting system by stopping activities that are clearly illegal. We all agree Canada's broadcasting system is one of the bases of our nation. It is one of the important vehicles of culture in Canada.

I urge all members of the House to support Bill C-2.

[Petitions, February 5th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition on behalf of the people in the Peterborough area. They are concerned about kidney disease and problems associated with kidney disease. They point out that this is a huge and growing problem in Canada. They know that real progress has been made in dealing with various aspects in preventing kidney disease, in curing kidney disease and coping with kidney disease. They know that the Canadian Institutes of Health Research has done a good job in this matter.

However, they call upon Parliament to encourage the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to explicitly include kidney research as one of the institutes in its system to be named the institute of kidney and urinary tract diseases.

[Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, February 4th, 2004]

Mr. Chair, I listened with great interest to my colleague from Quebec and also the member for Acadie--Bathurst. While I do not agree with everything that they said, I can relate much more to what they said than I can to my colleagues in the alliance.

It seems to me that this talk of western alienation does not serve the Canadian public or the industry well. This is a serious national tragedy. It is a tragedy which affects the entire ruminant industry and which is spreading out to affect the entire farming community. As my colleagues here were trying to say, it is already going beyond the farming community into our economy in general. To talk of it as a western problem and something to be dealt with in the west, that it is mainly a beef packing problem, does not serve the Canadian public or the farm community well.

I was interested in what my colleague had to say. To use one example, it is not just beef cattle we are talking about; we are talking about sheep, goats and the dairy industry. For the people out there, and there are many farmers watching, the dairy industry of Quebec is famous. I would like my colleague to explain in further detail the impact this BSE problem is having on our dairy industry, the famous milk industry of Quebec. I would be grateful if he would explain that as distinct from the tragic effects it is having on beef cattle and the other animals that I mentioned.