Catherine Bell

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek.

I really was looking forward to the government's throne speech. The government said when it prorogued the House that it would chart a new course for this country. I expected it to live up to those words. The government prorogued this House. That is a very serious act. That turned back the clock on many bills and motions that had been worked on for months by the members of this House.

I thought that since the government took this step, it would truly have a new direction, a new course, but I was disappointed. Once again the Conservative government looked in the rear-view mirror. It missed an opportunity. It is taking Canada in the wrong direction, the wrong direction on climate change and the wrong direction for seniors, for children, for first nations and for ordinary Canadian families.

The biggest disappointment was the government's complete and utter failure to address climate change. Last spring, my colleague, the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, worked hard in an all party committee to improve Bill C-30, the clean air and climate change act, so that Canada could begin to move in the right direction.

All parties agreed that Bill C-30 was going to be a good start, but the government is not even bringing it back. In fact, it is bringing back only a small portion of it even though the majority of the House agreed on the changes to Bill C-30. What arrogance. What contempt for this House the government has. Once again it has broken the trust of ordinary Canadians.

I and many others from my riding and across the country are disappointed in the government's stance on the environment because we are running out of time. Ordinary Canadians are doing their part. They are changing their light bulbs. They are conserving water. They are converting to hybrid cars. However, no matter how many of us change our light bulbs, if the government does not change course all our efforts will be futile.

The government could have made a big difference if it had implemented hard caps on large carbon emitters. That would go a long way to meeting our emission targets. It decided to go with intensity based measures instead. With the expansion of the oil sands looming on the horizon, intensity targets will do nothing to reduce Canada's emissions. When we produce more oil from the oil sands, we also will be producing more greenhouse gases.

Another opportunity was missed by the government when it came to addressing the needs of seniors. My colleague, the member for Hamilton Mountain, introduced the seniors charter last year. It was debated and passed by the House, but the government has never enacted it. The government had an opportunity in this throne speech to implement the priorities of the charter, including primary care, long term care, home care and free pharmacare and dental care. These things would all enhance the quality of life for seniors.

However, once again the government has let seniors and all Canadians down. It is another broken promise. The governmentt said it would act on what was passed by the majority of this House.

When it comes to hope and fairness for ordinary Canadians, the government has done nothing on the issue of affordable housing and homelessness. We have just seen $14 billion in federal surplus. The government has announced that this year's surplus will be twice what it had anticipated. Quelle surprise.

With all that extra money in the coffers and with all the need for housing in my communities, and in fact with nearly two million Canadians across this country who do not have what is deemed to be acceptable housing, why did the government not make it a priority to invest in a national housing strategy?

I have been to many first nations communities in my riding. The housing situation there is even worse. For example, in Port Hardy, the Gwa'Sala-Nakwaxda'xw are in dire need of acceptable shelter. They live in mouldy homes. Sometimes as many as 25 people are living in one house and three families live together in a home built for single family occupation. These are deplorable conditions and they need to be addressed immediately.

The same goes for child care. I have been talking with parents and child care workers in my riding from Port McNeill to Courtenay, and they are telling me that there is a crisis. Failure on the part of the government to address the crisis has resulted in longer wait times for child care space and increasing costs. There is up to a two years wait for a space. That means we have to register our child before it is even born.

Child care centres need reliable, long term funding to provide the kind of access that parents and their children are looking for. That is why the NDP proposed the child care act that will soon be voted on at third reading. That is the kind of solution today's families are looking for, real commitments to child care in this country.

I would like to address two things that are crucial to Vancouver Island North, two things the government mentioned in its throne speech that it would protect. It said it would stand up for forestry and fishing, but on these two files, the government has a very bad track record.

The Conservatives sold out forestry communities and forestry workers in my riding and across this country when they signed the sellout softwood agreement. Because of that agreement, it is not profitable for companies to mill logs in Canada, so they ship raw logs to the U.S. or abroad and we get to buy them back as finished lumber.

The irony is not lost on the constituents of Vancouver Island North. Our communities are surrounded by forests, yet lumber mills are closing from B.C. to Atlantic Canada as more and more raw logs and jobs leave this country. Pulp and paper mills and fibre mills are having a hard time getting fibre because there are very few sawmills left to provide it.

I introduced Motion No. 301 to curtail raw log exports and to encourage value added and manufacturing right here in Canada. The natural resources minister said he recognized that something needed to be done about the situation that is killing our resource based communities, but again, the government has failed to act. I do not call that standing up for an industry, for workers or for our communities.

The other issue that I would like to mention is that the Conservatives said they would stand up for the fishing industry, but again, they are going in the wrong direction. Last spring, they introduced Bill C-45, a new fisheries act, without consultation with fishermen, first nations or anyone from our communities. That bill has gone now because of prorogation, but why did they bring it forward in the first place? No one wanted it.

They also said that they would decentralize the DFO and have more decision making on the coasts of this country. After almost two years there has been no movement on this promise. Instead, I have to ask the government if they are trying to kill our west coast fisheries.

Just a few weeks ago an order came down from on high to cut the Chinook egg take for the entire west coast. When asked why, the Conservatives said it was due to a lack of funds, but I remember last year when I asked the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans about a budget cut, I was told that it had not been cut, so there should have been lots of money there.

Thankfully, the decision to cut this egg take and to kill the Chinook fishery was turned around, but a decision like that should never have been made in the first place.

Also, a recent barge spill in my riding in Robson Bight is causing grave concerns because the fuel tank and vehicles are on the bottom of the ocean continuing to leak oil and diesel to the surface. Environmental groups, local businesses, students and concerned people from around the world donated money to carry out an investigation. We called on the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to also carry out an investigation, but the ministry waited a full two months and finally, after the environmental organizations announced that they would do carry out an investigation, the government was embarrassed and had to come forward and say it would do one too. It finally did the right thing.

These oil spills are having a devastating effect on the waters and on the salmon in the Strait of Georgia. Salmon are the canary in the coal mines of our oceans. They feed whales and people, and are a source of cultural and ceremonial significance to first nations of B.C. The health of salmon is important to the west coast and we are in danger of losing them.

Enhancement must be increased. Monitoring of sport and commercial fishing must be increased if we are to have a clear picture of what is going on off our coast.

There are many reasons not to support the direction in which the government is going. I am speaking for the thousands of Canadians in my riding who oppose this direction. I and they have little confidence--

[Aeronautics Act, June 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague from Burnaby—New Westminster for his hard work on this file and for keeping it alive, and also my colleague from Burnaby—Douglas for his remarks that he just made.

However, I also want to touch on some things that my other colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley mentioned. He talked about the north coast and the air taxi industry where loggers, miners and fishermen have to use air taxis to get back and forth to work. That is something that is very common in the riding of Vancouver Island North.

Several years ago in 2005, a small airplane crashed into the ocean and all five of the loggers who were on their way to work lost their lives, but a very brave woman, one of the spouses of the men who were killed, has continued to raise awareness about air traffic safety and what is happening in this industry. She has tried to come to the committee and make a presentation, but has so far not been successful.

Therefore, on behalf of her, her name is Kirsten Stevens, I bring this issue up in the House to talk about air safety. What she said to me was that the concerns are very real. There is a general feeling in the industry that the air taxi sector suffers from a considerable lack of effective oversight and enforcement.

Many concerns which were addressed by Transport Canada in the safety of air taxi operations task force's final report of 1998, which related to the problem of occupational health and safety as well as oversight in this sector, have never been corrected.

This sector suffers from a high accident rate. I find that appalling. My question for my hon. colleague from Burnaby—Douglas is this. When we see the amendments and this act which is asking for more oversight by the industry, and in this case the industry is not living up to the commitments now, what happens when they are in full control of it? Would he not think that we need more oversight and not less?

[Fisheries and Oceans, June 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, my constituents are very concerned about the appalling lack of conservation for wild salmon and halibut. Numbers are down and fishermen cannot get their quota, yet DFO insists on extending their openings. The wild salmon policy is clear: conservation first.

Is the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans trying to eliminate the fishing on the west coast or will he commit to increasing funding and staffing for conservation measures to maintain sustainable fish stocks for west coast sport, commercial and native fishermen?

[Criminal Code, June 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I heard a lot of the comments from my hon. colleagues tonight. I listened to my colleague for Trinity—Spadina talk about December 6 and how we got into this gun registry program in the first place. Every year on December 6, I too go out and honour the women who were murdered at École Polytechnique, and I remember them.

I also live in a rural riding. In my riding of Vancouver Island North, there are a lot of small communities and hunting, fishing and farming is a way of life. I come from a family where we had guns in our house. I have hunted myself. I have owned a gun, but not any more. I absolutely understand the changes in the bill and I will vote for them.

The hunters and people in my riding are concerned about the over expenditures in the gun registry over the many years, the millions of dollars that were wasted. They have asked me why the government has taken so long to bring it about. Why has it taken a year and a half to bring this out on the eve of the end of this session?

[Aboriginal Affairs, June 14th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, after 140 years of attempted assimilation, being stripped of their lands, their rights, their hopes and their dignity, we understand the frustration of first nations communities. For too long the Government of Canada has broken its promise to address this injustice.

First nations communities are challenged with high unemployment, inadequate housing and the effects of the residential school system. They are looking forward to the day when the Prime Minister apologizes for residential school tragedies. They are looking forward to signed treaties and the recognition of their languages and history. They are looking for an end to poverty and social injustice.

Next Thursday, June 21, is National Aboriginal Day. On Vancouver Island, first nations people will be celebrating their heritage and culture, and they have much to celebrate. Their roots are strong and their will to succeed is unwavering.

I will be there to celebrate with them, to assure them that the NDP is committed to working to ensure fairness and equality for all first nations in Canada.

[Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act, June 12th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the bill that aims to protect our heritage lighthouses. I also want to acknowledge the work of my colleagues, the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore who has spoken on this issue and is in support of it, and the member for Halifax who understands the value of maintaining our heritage.

I listened to the previous member speak and although he is from the east coast and talked about the beautiful scenery and the crashing waves on the coast of the Atlantic provinces, I want to talk about where I come from on the west coast of British Columbia where we also have some lighthouses that are no longer in use because of advancing technology and other ways of protecting and monitoring our coastlines. It is also with some pride that I talk about the beauty of my area and the crashing waves on the west coast.

When I look at the “whereases” in this bill, the first whereas says:

WHEREAS lighthouses have long graced Canada’s rugged coastlines and majestic shores, providing and symbolizing direction, hope and safe harbour to generations of mariners;

To me that conjures up so many images of seafarers of long ago and currently who ply our coasts in trade and just thinking of how the lighthouses were a beacon of hope in a dark and stormy night or when they see land and knew where they were. So our lighthouses have long been part of our coastal history.

In protecting these monuments to our past, by designating them a heritage site and protecting, maintaining and ensuring they are there for future generations, we can continue to have these images in our mind and remember and reflect on what it was like in days gone by when we relied on lighthouses to keep us safe and to get our bearings.

The bill explains in great detail how a lighthouse would be designated and what would happen with it. It also sets out some parameters under which it should be restored. It is important to protect the lighthouses that we deem to be heritage property but we also need to ensure they have adequate funding. For many of our heritage buildings and heritage properties, we see volunteer groups working very hard and raising funds to keep these projects going to ensure they are there for tourism and economic diversity in our small communities but we do not see a lot of funding from the government.

If the bill were to pass, I would certainly hope that the government would see fit to ensure there is adequate funding because these lighthouses, in many cases, are in very remote areas, especially the ones in my riding of Vancouver Island North. We have the Nootka light, the Cape Scott and the Cape Mudge which are located in places that are only accessible by boat. If they were deemed heritage sites, considerable funding would be necessary to maintain and keep them in a safe operating condition for tourists and other economic generation.

I want to talk briefly about the west coast where my parents lived for quite a number of years. In the winter they were the caretakers of a fish camp out on Nootka Island, which was basically the point of contact for Europeans when they came to Canada because it has a lighthouse that is located at the remote end of Nootka Island. When one looks out across the ocean and thinks of the vastness of it, one knows that the next stop across that ocean is Japan. The lighthouse is on the very edge of the Pacific.

My parents lived there for a number of years during the winter months and got to know the lighthouse keepers at Nootka light. Those people were always on call. They were always there for mariners, sailors, ordinary fishermen, commercial fishermen and anybody who happened to be out on the waters on the west coast, making their living or enjoying their lives. That lighthouse has changed hands. There are other people there now.

The people who were there at that time spoke so often of the need to have staffed lighthouses on our coast, because sometimes the technology just does not work, especially in that remote a location. Satellites may work, but quite often cellphones do not work in those areas. Satellites phones do not always work. There is a need to make sure there is safety on our coast and that some of these lighthouses remain staffed and are there for protection. If it takes a few hours to get from point A to point B by boat and people are in a crisis out on the wild Pacific Ocean, they would not have to wonder if help is going to arrive in six hours or in two hours. I think it is important to make sure we keep some of our lighthouses staffed.

I also want to touch on something that my colleagues from Nanaimo—Cowichan and Victoria have talked to me about. They also have lighthouses in their ridings. There are many volunteer groups and a huge broad base of support for heritage lighthouses. These people have watched the bill through all its manifestations over the years. It has been introduced five or six times in the House and has been spoken about, but it never goes anywhere.

We know that there are many people in our communities who would be ready to start working on the preservation of heritage lighthouses if this bill were to pass. I want to let everyone know that there is broad community support for the bill. I hope we can actually get something done with it this time, as the member opposite said in his remarks.

I agree that preservation of heritage lighthouses on our east and west coasts can be an economic draw for some of our smaller communities such as Port Hardy. We have Cape Scott, which is the beginning of the north coast trail that is being built, and we are seeking more funding for that trail. As I said when I spoke in the House last week, the trail draws thousands of people a year. We know about the west coast trail and how popular it is with wilderness hikers from around the world. The trail I am speaking of would not be connected to that west coast trail, but it would be an extension. With a heritage lighthouse on it, at some point it may draw even more people.

These are things that we can do in Canada to preserve our heritage. We can showcase ourselves in a way that no other country can. We can make sure that we diversify our economies by increasing our tourism base in hiking trails and walking trails and by exploration in areas that we may not have thought of as popular tourist destinations in the past.

Again I want to thank the member who introduced the motion, and I also thank Senator Pat Carney, who did so much work on the bill in the Senate. I thank her for her work in pushing it forward and making sure that it got to the House. I support this bill.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, June 12th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I knew it would be hard for my hon. colleague to keep it short, but absolutely, we have to wonder at the Conservatives when they keep leaving British Columbia out. As I said in my remarks, their Canada goes from the Rockies to the Atlantic, unfortunately, not from coast to coast to coast.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, June 12th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, absolutely, I will stand up for British Columbia and vote against the budget, because we know there is precious little in it for British Columbians.

We probably will see the passage of the budget, with the Bloc support. Bloc members get up day after day to speak against the budget, yet at every turn they vote for it. Unfortunately, we know it will pass.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, June 12th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I have to disagree with my hon. colleague. I did not see much that is great in the budget. The government sees its budget as the best thing since sliced bread, but unfortunately, we in the NDP do not see that at all.

Over 250,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost. This is a crisis in our country. Yet there is no auto strategy in the budget to address some of those jobs.

The government is selling us out on so many fronts in the manufacturing sector. In British Columbia, where I come from, everyone knows about the softwood lumber sellout, another reason we cannot support so many things the government does such as when it takes our resource sector jobs and sells them out at alarming rates. Around 5,000 jobs have been lost since that sellout.

The member should know that 250,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector are gone from Canada, and that is a complete sellout.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, June 12th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for this opportunity to once again speak about this Conservative budget.

The last time I spoke, I outlined what we see as the government's true agenda, driven by its five priorities: first, help the rich get richer and pretend the prosperity gap does not exist; second, privatize at all costs, including municipalities and infrastructure; third, treat first nations with disdain and ignore their advice; fourth, invest as little as possible in social programs, no matter how high the surplus; and fifth, ignore the crisis situation in the forestry sector.

These Conservative priorities are doing little to address the needs of everyday Canadians, however, they are in the best interests of the corporate sector.

Today I want to talk about the significance of rising inequality in Canada, but I also want to address another important issue facing Canadians that the government failed to address in the budget, and that is the failure to live up to our commitments to the world on foreign aid.

According to a study done by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Canadian economy is doing great and we have not seen it this good in over 40 years. We have sustained economic growth, low interest rates, a low inflation rate, the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years, and years of back to back surpluses in the federal budget.

Yet, there is a growing gap between the richest 10% and the poorest 10% of families raising children. Despite nine fiscal surpluses in a row, the gap between the rich and the poor is growing in this country and it is at its highest that it has ever been in 20 years.

What about those families in between? With this greater polarization of incomes, middle class working families are losing ground. Families today are better educated. They are working more for longer hours, but they are feeling the squeeze of rising housing costs in all our cities and communities, a lack of child care spaces, rising prescription drug costs, no relief from tuition fees for post-secondary education, rising bank fees at a time when bank profits are at an all time high, and rising gas prices when the industry is making record profits, not to mention getting record subsidies.

It is an embarrassing list that impacts hard-working families. Their real incomes are stagnant or decreasing in the face of economic growth. Most Canadians are taking on greater levels of debt for mortgages, tuition fees and child care expenses. They are virtually only a couple of paycheques away from hard times and with all those stresses, everyone working more and earning less, our society is at the breaking point.

With the surplus in the federal government's coffers, the government could have made the choice to address the real concerns of hard-working Canadian families, but it chose a different path. It threw a few crumbs to those hard-working families, but its corporate friends got the biggest pieces of the pie.

What ordinary Canadians wanted was assistance up front, not a refund. Everything in the government's budget is designed to make hard-working Canadians part with their hard-earned cash first, then apply for rebates or tax credits. The problem is that most families are stretched to the limit, making it hard for them to participate in the government's consumption plan. These are just some of the reasons why we in the NDP will not be supporting this budget.

I would like to switch gears now and talk about my second topic, the failure on the part of the government to live up to our commitments to the world, just one more broken promise in a long list.

When we talk today about committing 0.7% of our gross domestic product to foreign aid, we are actually referring to an international agreement made many years ago. In September 1969, Lester B. Pearson, the former prime minister of Canada, unveiled a report for the World Bank entitled “Partners in Development”.

This report reviewed the results of how wealthy nations had distributed development assistance over the past 20 years. The report clearly stated that there was a great need to increase the amount of resources that were going to developing countries. The commission recommended that funds equivalent to 0.7% of the GNP, or gross national product, of developed countries like Canada flow to developing countries.

In October 1970 the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 2626, the international development strategy for the second United Nations development decade.

Through this resolution Canada and other developed countries agreed to increase our foreign aid contributions to developing countries to a level equal to 1% of their GNP and that a minimum of 0.7% of the GNP would be provided by 1975.

This was the commitment that we made in 1970, 0.7% of GNP was the minimum that we had promised to the world and that is our responsibility. However, we are not even coming close to meeting our promises of assistance. The closest that any Canadian government has ever been to meeting our goal was in 1975 when 0.53% of our GNP was committed. Since then, our contributions have gotten smaller.

In 1993, when the previous Liberal government came to power, our contribution went from 0.44% of GNP down to 0.22%, our lowest point since 1970. All of these cuts were in the name of balancing the budget.

The most recent calculations show that our contribution lies at less than 0.33%, better than in 2001 but well below our commitment. In fact, it is not even half.

One might ask if anyone has ever met these commitments. The answer is yes. Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden have all met their commitments and they have gone above it. As well, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Finland, Spain and Belgium all have timetables to meet their obligations, all before 2015. Many of these countries have almost identical economies to ours, so we know that it can be done.

Canada has no timetable. Neither the previous Liberal government, nor the current Conservative government have committed to meeting our promise. In fact, out of the 22 most developed countries Canada ranks 14th in terms of development aid, an embarrassing fact and one that questions Canada's image as a model of leadership in the world.

Canada must face up to the shameful record the country has had in the last 15 years on foreign aid. The NDP strongly believes that reaching 0.7% must be a priority. With surpluses every year, it is blatantly unfair to deny and turn our backs on the promise that we made to the world.

The NDP's foreign affairs critic, the member for Halifax, described the state of affairs most clearly when she said:

Millions of people are dying unnecessarily of hunger and disease because of the grinding poverty in which they are living. Canada is a contributor to those killer conditions. Instead of the Liberal government moving us forward with a level of overseas development assistance that would allow Canadians to hold their heads up high, it took us from 0.5% of ODA, which was in place under the previous Conservative government, back to where it was at .23%...then in the name of heaven let us agree and commit ourselves to fast track a bill that the government would introduce so we could then get on with taking action.

Canada can afford to do better. In fact, all parties of the House of Commons agreed with the member for Halifax in 2005 that the government should set up a plan and a timetable to achieve the 0.7% target by the year 2015. That included the Conservatives and this Prime Minister.

With a record federal surplus and after promising Canadians and the world that we would live up to our commitments on foreign aid, we see nothing in the budget, no plan and no commitment.

The government knows that its budget falls short on many fronts. In B.C., the province the Conservatives forgot in their speech, I guess they really meant it when they said their Canada goes from the Rockies to New Brunswick. Whatever happened to “from coast to coast to coast”? In B.C. the budget falls short.

In the Atlantic provinces the government chose to turn its back on yet another previous commitment, forcing one of its own members into a corner with no way out except to sit on the other side of the House.

In the north, where it is even more costly to live, the government could have given some relief by changing the northern residence tax deduction, an allowance that has not been changed in almost 20 years. On so many issues where they could have made meaningful contributions, the Conservatives did not.

Some things can be done: a national housing strategy to make sure ordinary families do not have to live in poverty just to put a roof over their head; a national child care program to provide security, stability and affordability to parents when they go to work; and lower tuition fees so young people do not have to start their careers with enormous debt loads.

These are just a few of the ideas that the NDP is happy to share with the government. These are some of the things that the government could have done with the record surpluses. Unfortunately, it did not.