Wendy Lill

[Petitions, December 1st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to introduce a petition today signed by several dozen people from Dartmouth who would like to see the Senate of Canada abolished.

They believe that it is undemocratic, unaccountable to the people and a colossal waste of money to the taxpayer.

[Recognition Of Crimes Against Humanity Act, November 30th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, when you say the subject matter being the crimes against humanity act, I understood the subject matter of the bill to be an exhibit of crimes against humanity. I need clarification on what exactly we are asking the committee to deal with.

[Recognition Of Crimes Against Humanity Act, November 30th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today and speak to this important Bill C-224, an act which would direct the creation of a genocide exhibit at the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

I would like to start my remarks by thanking the hon. member for Brampton Centre for bringing this important matter before the House. I would like to thank also the hundreds of Canadians who have expressed opinions to members of parliament through cards and especially through thoughtful letters which many of us have received from national organizations on this matter. It is clear that this matter has received a lot of thought from a lot of Canadians.

Among New Democrats there is no dispute that our society should honour the victims of all crimes against humanity, no matter when and where in the world this has occurred. We know we must increase our efforts to educate our children and to remember those who have fallen to genocide and encourage all of the national institutions dedicated to providing such assistance to fulfil this important mandate.

I am proud to be part of a political movement which has always stood up for domestic and international human rights, even when such stands were not particularly popular. The CCF, the forerunner to the NDP, spoke out against the racist immigration policies of previous Canadian governments, such as the Chinese head tax and the confinement of Japanese Canadians in the second world war.

In 1970 the NDP was the only voice in the House of Commons to question the suspension of human rights by the government under the War Measures Act. NDP policy has always called for the respect of human rights as the primary consideration in our foreign policy. On the whole, and there are exceptions which I will not get into in this debate, Canada is now seen as a country which supports human rights and which fosters peace by most other countries and by most of the world's people.

Many associate the word genocide with places far from Canada. But we have our dark moments in our history, moments which many try to forget, moments when our forefathers and foremothers committed massive human rights abuses, which I would define as crimes against humanity. I specifically think of the shameful slave trade which took place 200 years ago in Halifax or of the barbaric actions taken by colonial powers against our aboriginal populations from coast to coast to coast.

We should never forget the practices of slaughtering the Beothuk in Newfoundland or the reallocation of the Inuit, the destruction of the Potlatch or the policy of residential schools. These practices were also a form of genocide.

These are things which we must recognize as part of our history and which Canadians should be educated about by our national institutions devoted to remembering the victims of crimes against humanity.

Sadly, it is easy to develop a list of all those who have been victims of genocide. Our century has been the most barbaric in history. As we have developed as a civilization with technological and scientific leaps, we have seen individuals, groups and whole societies use that technology to find better ways to kill their neighbours. The Holocaust and the famine in Ukraine are but two examples of how modern methods which were meant to raise our standard of living have been used to mass murder men, women and children.

I believe it would be of benefit to Canada to have a national institution which recognizes these facts. I believe that we need to educate our next generation on how these evils occur. We need a showcase which allows Canadians to confront our past both as Canadians and as citizens of the world. We need a place to mourn the millions who have died. We need a place where we can learn from our history and so that it cannot be repeated.

Is Bill C-224 the best way to recognize the gravity of the subject? I want to raise two questions on this issue. First, should parliament dictate to a national museum the content of an exhibit? That issue has already been raised tonight in the House. Is a gallery at the current Museum of Civilization the most appropriate national forum for this subject?

On the first question, I would have to answer with a firm no. Politicians should not get directly involved in telling museum directors and especially curators how to do their business. Politicians have a responsibility to provide a framework for appropriate expressions of our heritage. The result has been the Museums Act which establishes our national museums and our national art gallery, and gives them arm's length government structures and states their goals in law. These institutions report back to parliament on how they are meeting their goals and account for their expenditures of public funds.

This is our tradition. That is the way it should work. But if parliament says to a museum “Above and beyond your current responsibilities you must have the following specific exhibit with specific content objectives and meeting the specific following time line”, which is what clause 2 of Bill C-224 says, I have a real problem with that. If this passes, then the tradition of the arm's length relationship with a national heritage agency is broken, and I do have a problem with that. I do not want politicians telling cultural agencies what art is or what history is. That would be a danger.

I have a problem with the current bill based on the wording in clause 2 which breaks the arm's length relationship between parliament and the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

Is an exhibit at the museum of civilization the most appropriate forum? I am proposing an alternative approach. Why not ask the government to establish a genocide museum under the current structure of the Museums Act.

A separate institution would allow for the kind of meaningful discussion which I know would be required to have the best institution of this kind in the world. Many views exist on what form a museum dedicated to victims of genocide should take. I am aware that discussions have taken place between various parties, notably the groups proposing an institution, to remember the Holocaust and others in an appropriate forum.

I wish all concerned success since I know that no group is approaching this debate with an agenda of exclusion. The purpose of a stand-alone museum could be, as is set out in Bill C-224, to recognize the victims of crimes against humanity. A separate institution would have a permanence, something that an exhibit at the museum of civilization may not have.

A separate institution would allow for a special place for those who go not only to learn, but for those who go to remember and to mourn.

I am optimistic about this as a possibility, partly based on the work done by the member for Brampton Centre. Many of the groups which have expressed support for the gallery included in the bill have also expressed support for a separate institution. When the member for Brampton Centre asked the question of the Minister of Canadian Heritage about this matter on November 18 of this year, she stood in her place and encouraged all MPs to support the initiative.

To me this is a clear signal that the government is open to a proposal for a stand-alone institution. In the end, the success of an exhibit, gallery or separate institution would be based on adequate funding from the government.

Having a proposal from the government would guarantee that the resource question has been dealt with. I believe that having such an institution will not break the bank. I remind members that the total cost of all our national museums and galleries is less than $4 per capita. I think it is a bargain, quite frankly.

It should be noted that more Canadians visit museums than attend professional sports events every year. The museum of civilization and its affiliate museum, the war museum, received over one and a half million visits last year alone. While all such institutions cost money, they are used and they are valued by Canadians.

In closing, I regret not being able to support Bill C-224 because of how it breaches the arm's length relationship which I believe parliament should maintain for our cultural institutions or agencies, but I am proud to add my voice to those calling on the government to create a museum which can deal with this important matter.

[Marine Conservation Areas Act, November 24th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to the report stage of Bill C-8, an act respecting marine conservation areas.

The group one motions for the Bloc Quebecois are to delete in full the reference clauses in Bill C-8. We agree with the Bloc that the bill cannot be supported in its current form, but for differing reasons.

The New Democratic Party spokesman for parks, the member for Churchill River, Saskatchewan, is in his constituency today and asked that I present the following remarks.

The NDP supports in principle the marine conservation area concept. There is a definite need to preserve representative marine areas similar to the terrestrial national parks program.

Unfortunately, it became obvious throughout the committee hearings on Bill C-8 that the proposed bill requires further work. We regret that the NDP cannot support Bill C-8 in its present form. We believe that we cannot support weak legislation just for the sake of enacting legislation.

The following points were raised in committee and through New Democratic Party meetings and correspondence with stakeholders. Questions were raised repeatedly in relation to the proposed interdepartmental structure of the national marine conservation areas and the roles of Environment Canada, Heritage Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. These concerns include a lack of clarity between the Department of Fisheries and Oceans marine protected areas, MPAs, and the proposed marine conservation areas.

Concerns on the siting and size parameters necessary to protect and conserve marine biological diversity in national marine conservation areas remain unanswered.

There is also a deficiency in prohibitions. The NDP continues to support prohibitions to ensure the long time preservation of marine areas, efforts that were denied through the committee process. These deficiencies include no prohibitions on bottom trawling or dragging or fin fish aquaculture in national marine conservation areas. By refusing to prohibit such destructive activities, the national marine conservation areas cannot be sufficiently protected. We beg the question, what is being conserved?

I will address the issue of the maintenance of ecological integrity. The Liberals refused to include this NDP amendment as a primary consideration for management plans, although the NDP was successful with the same amendment in Bill C-29, the Parks Canada Agency. This refusal in Bill C-8 demonstrates an inconsistency between Heritage and Parks Canada legislation.

The NDP is also concerned about the departure from the Bill C-7 Saguenay—St. Lawrence marine park model. Bill C-8 will establish near exclusivity for federal powers in proposed national marine conservation areas, a concern raised by our opposition colleagues and thus an imposition on provincial and community participation in national marine conservation areas.

Bill C-7 was based on better co-operation between all government levels, especially in matters related to subsurface seabed rights, and therefore enjoyed all-party support.

On the issue of off-site impacts, the government continues to ignore ecosystem impacts from areas adjacent to the national marine conservation areas, such as pollution sources from land or waters.

This repeated NDP concern for marine areas has been proven correct on numerous occasions, the most recent being the series of fish killed in Prince Edward Island this summer from agricultural runoff.

The NDP has also been proven correct about off-site impacts with the recent discovery that a key source for the continuing contamination of the St. Lawrence beluga population is found adjacent to the Saguenay Park, a beluga food source. We have seen the spectacle there of eels feeding on contaminated sediment in identified toxic hot spots, which the Liberal government continues to delay cleaning up.

My Churchill River colleague will be pleased to explain further our position on Bill C-8 and its deficiencies at greater length during third reading.

[Shipbuilding Act, 1999, November 23rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak today to Bill C-213, a bill which I support because of my party's longstanding support for the creation of a national shipbuilding policy for Canada.

I thank members of the Marine Workers Federation who came here en masse last spring, from coast to coast to coast, to present 100,000 cards demanding that the government implement a national shipbuilding policy. I am glad to see many of them here tonight for this important debate.

Why do we need a shipbuilding policy? It seems so obvious to many of us, but it cannot be reiterated enough.

I come to this place from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, a community which sits on the shores of one of the finest working harbours in the world. Shipping is part of the economic lifeblood of my community. It is part of our history, culture and who we are.

From my home I can see crews working on ships on the shores of Dartmouth Cove. They are blasting the hulls or repairing and refitting the superstructures. Across the harbour I can see the naval dry docks where our navy is being fit with the latest technology, and as I cross the bridges I see the huge Halifax shipyards, major employers in my community.

These are jobs in a vibrant and necessary industry. I see this from my home, I hear it from constituents, and I know it from the things I am told by the workers in the industry. However, I am troubled by the fact that the government has a different view of the industry. It sees the industry as one which is on the way out, a sunset industry. That is why it is letting the industry die. It sees this industry and the workers involved, and the communities which rely on shipbuilding, as being expendable.

That approach is reflected in the government's indifference to a shipbuilding policy. It is astounding to me that the indifference exists, given the fact that such voices as Buzz Hargrove, J.D. Irving and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce are now all singing from the same song book about the need for a shipbuilding policy. But indifference is what we have seen from the government, or at best mixed messages.

The Liberal Party has a long but not very proud tradition of saying one thing in opposition and doing another when in government. The Prime Minister was firmly in favour of a national shipbuilding policy when in opposition. At that time it was the Conservatives in government who were dragging their heels.

During the election of 1997 the Liberals trotted out kind words about shipbuilding, but when my colleague for Halifax West raised issues surrounding shipbuilding with the Minister of Industry after the election, his position was against the shipbuilding policy. He admitted that his biggest worry was spending any money to support the industry. Why? Because this could see Canada participating in a subsidy war. Once again we saw our government abandoning our industry to avoid potential trade irritants with our powerful neighbours.

We clearly heard that the government's policy was to allow our shipbuilders to disappear, while other countries like the United States were prepared to protect theirs. The difference seems to be that other countries understand the importance of having a cutting edge shipbuilding industry. Contrary to our government's view that shipbuilding is a sunset industry, other countries understand that shipbuilding is using the most up to date technologies in the world.

Other jurisdictions are not content to rely on the third world for their transport needs as a matter of policy either. Unfortunately, that is the case in Canada. Halifax harbour rarely sees a Canadian built ship with a Canadian crew. We instead see ships like the Maersk Dubai. These are common vessels in our waters, ships with no labour standards and questionable safety and environmental practices. It is shameful that this is the policy of Canada.

Very recently we have seen new developments in the Liberal government's waffling on its shipbuilding policy. We have heard the government leader in the Senate, a newcomer in cabinet but a Liberal hack of the oldest order, say that he wants a shipbuilding policy that not only supports the current shipyards, but which can compete for foreign and domestic business. However, across the cabinet table the Minister of Transport is delivering yet another slap to the face of Canadian shipbuilders. He has chosen to abandon any pretence of having a Canadian first procurement policy. An example is that the Minister of Transport has gone offshore to buy the much needed ferry for Newfoundland to Labrador, while the St. John's shipyard is currently idle. Why is that?

It seems to me that the solution to the problem is obvious. Build the ships here. Create the jobs here. Keep the skills here. Support the communities here. Develop the economy here. Instead, we see the Minister of Transport going offshore to get the ferry. How can we trust anything the government is saying when it behaves like this?

I support this bill, not because it is perfect, but because it moves in the right direction. It recognizes that we need public investment, using all public policy tools, such as government loan guarantees and tax credits to support a national shipbuilding policy. That is why I support the bill.

However, as a country we need to go further than this bill. We need to look at shipbuilding as part of a larger shipping policy. Our policy toward shipbuilding should not just create employment, it should set some terms on that employment. We have to establish some environmental terms for that employment. Shipbuilding and refitting can be a dirty job. It involves a lot of heavy industrial activity. Many of my constituents have expressed concerns about the environmental problems related to activities such as blasting hulls and the use of chemical solvents in refitting ships.

For the sake of our workers and the sake of residents who live near shipyards, we need to have more comprehensive environmental controls and protections for these worksites. They should be regulated and the regulations should be enforced. We need to have fair labour standards in the shipbuilding sector which encourage the democratization of the workplace and better treatment for labour organizations. We need basic social rights to be protected by shipbuilders.

We should be looking beyond this bill to having a national policy that requires international shipbuilders to live with acceptable social, environmental and labour standards if they want to use their products in Canada.

We also need to change our overall shipping policies to allow the enforcement of health, safety and environmental standards on all ships which ply Canadian waters.

We need to use a national shipbuilding policy to encourage other industries to add value to our raw resources and not just ship out the raw goods. I believe we must re-approach our dealings with out trading partners and reject subservient relations with other countries, such as we get from NAFTA and the WTO.

While I support the bill, I will remind the House that the root of our problems in many sectors, such as shipbuilding, comes from our decreased ability to use subsidies and tax incentives to promote domestic economic development. These restrictions are a result of trade agreements put in place by both Tory and Liberal governments which restrict our ability to have a national policy in areas like shipbuilding.

We need a national shipbuilding policy: Dartmouth and Halifax, Nova Scotia; Marystown, Newfoundland; Saint John, New Brunswick; and Lévis, Quebec need it. Canada needs the thousands of family-supporting jobs that a vital shipbuilding industry will create. I hope the government will finally commit to action on a national shipbuilding policy for the sake of all of those communities.

[Rights Of Children, November 23rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, over 50 community groups have condemned Canada for its treatment of children with disabilities under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In Canada children with disabilities are not getting enough early intervention, teachers' assistance, physio, occupational or speech therapy. Their families are not getting enough income support, home care, respite care or parental leave, and it is getting worse all the time.

This report says that the government does not care enough for the half million children with disabilities. When will the government start meeting our international obligations and make life better for children with disabilities?

[Cape Breton Development Corporation Divestiture Authorization And Dissolution Act, November 15th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, that is a question that sort of throws me for a loop. It is fair to say that I have a rather poetic attachment to Cape Breton and to the people whom I see as being resourceful beyond the pale.

I guess the issue is the myth that people in Cape Breton do not want to work, want to collect government money, and the whole money pit thing. That is so absolutely far from the truth that there is no one I have ever seen who wants to work harder and longer and live harder and longer than the people of Cape Breton. They want to do it with integrity, with enormous chutzpah, with humour and with black humour. I think the culture of Cape Breton gives the country a colour that we would be sorely lacking without.

[Cape Breton Development Corporation Divestiture Authorization And Dissolution Act, November 15th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, we are certainly in agreement that what is required is local solutions to a problem which has existed for a great length of time.

Going back to the point when the Lester B. Pearson's government looked at Cape Breton, it said it would continue to work with Cape Bretoners until it was successful in growing some new economic roots after coal mining was no longer an option.

Quite frankly everybody that has been speaking today has been saying that we want local solutions. There are local solutions. There are fabulous community development efforts and thinkers who are there right now willing to take the ball and run. However, they need a credible, decent amount of money and investment on the part of the government which committed long ago to this very effort.

We are simply asking for the government to keep its commitment to the people of Cape Breton which was started many years ago with Lester Pearson.

[Cape Breton Development Corporation Divestiture Authorization And Dissolution Act, November 15th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-11, which would authorize the divestiture of the assets of the Cape Breton Development Corporation. This bill is very important to me and to some of my constituents, as well as to many of my colleagues.

One of the legacies of the federal policy toward Cape Breton and its citizens is that the young people leave. They go down the road to find work. They go to Montreal, Toronto or Alberta. Many of them come to Dartmouth because it is closer to their families. I have neighbours and friends who leave Dartmouth most weekends to make the four hour trek back across the Canso causeway.

The problems which face industrial Cape Breton are misunderstood by many. This bill shows that the group that is most ignorant of the history and reality of industrial Cape Breton is unfortunately the federal government.

I sometimes find it useful to look into how misconceptions are created. Many in Ottawa follow mantras. These mantras are not real. They are not based on fact, but they are followed with a religious fervour by both the government and the opposition. The latest Ottawa mantras include such best sellers as “Cuts are Always the Best Policy”, “Public Sector, Bad—Private Sector, Good”, “Corporations are Always Right”, and “Cape Breton is a Financial Money Pit”. It is interesting that not only has this last mantra become government policy, but the same chant has been taken up by the Reform Party. I guess members of the Reform Party have finally become Ottawa insiders as well, adopting the bureaucratic mantras just as the frontbench opposite.

I want to bring the fallacies of these last mantras to the attention of the House. Cape Breton has been producing coal for 300 years, long before Ottawa bureaucrats existed to criticize the enterprise. The coal which was produced in Cape Breton fired the steamers which helped to build the British empire. It was a critical component of industrial expansion in the early days of Canada.

The contribution which Cape Breton coal made to our war efforts in both wars cannot be underestimated. At the end of the second world war, 17,000 workers kept Cape Breton coal moving, but there was no doubt that, as with many other industries, after the war there would be big changes to coal production in Cape Breton, and there were. The mines declined substantially and by 1965 they were ready for a closure which would have thrown 6,500 miners out of work.

The government of the day, a more progressive government than the one which has brought in Bill C-11, understood that allowing the collapse of the coal industry was against the public interest for two reasons. The Pearson government understood that there was a viable economic need for coal production to continue in Cape Breton. It is almost eerie how the setting up of Devco seemed to have foretold the oil crisis of the seventies. Until Devco, power in Nova Scotia was produced by oil generating stations. If these stations had not been changed to coal fired stations in the late sixties, the impact of the OPEC crisis would have decimated the Nova Scotian economy.

I have heard both Liberals and Reformers whine on about the money pit of Cape Breton requiring this drastic legislation, but I never hear them talk about the billions of dollars saved by businesses and residents of Atlantic Canada because of cheap Cape Breton coal being used to create electricity.

Neither am I hearing any argument coming forth from either the Liberals or the Reformers which explains where the coal for Nova Scotia's power plant is supposed to come from. Does the Reform Party want us to import electricity from New England or to just buy the coal? Does the government hope the lights just go out, or does it care?

The Pearson government understood that the impact of an economic collapse in Cape Breton would threaten the whole economy of Atlantic Canada. It understood that there were two sides to an economic equation, both expenditure and revenue. It knew that cutting back on a single line of the budget does not necessarily save taxpayer money. It knew that if it had no one working then everyone goes on EI and then on welfare. These are increased expenditures created by cutting expenditures. It also knew that no jobs means no paycheques, no taxes, no small business and no GST, creating a downward spiral which has significant costs associated with it. Cutting expenditures in this case means cutting revenues as well.

I have not heard members opposite crediting Devco with making $6 billion. The bill could see 6,000 lost jobs in relatively small communities and 1,500 direct layoffs with up to three times that many lost due to the downward spinoffs. The impact is astounding. I firmly believe that economically destroying a community is what really creates a money pit, not working to preserve it. It not only fails to make economic sense, but it fails to make moral sense.

That is why there were provisions put into the act which created Devco to compel the government to ensure that all reasonable measures were put in place by corporations to reduce the possibility of economic hardship which can be expected from a closure.

There was an obligation set into law that the economic development of the area was part of the responsibility of the Devco Corporation. Devco was to plan not only for the production and sale of coal, but for local enterprises to take root and to have sustainable communities created for those who have given their blood, sweat, tears, their sons, their husbands and their environment to coal.

The people of Cape Breton were to have the opportunity to diversify their economic base. They were supposed to be allowed to try another way to contribute to the economic well-being of their communities. The government of Lester Pearson seemed to grasp the importance of federal assistance in this matter. There used to be an understanding that part of the public responsibility of the government was to help Canadians, not just guard corporate rights in an unfettered marketplace.

In question period today we heard again from the minister who keeps harping about corporate viability this and market value that. When will the government look into community viability? When will he recognize that we need consumers for a marketplace? When will he recognize that labour is required to create market value? These are important ideas and we need to work with the wonderful people of Cape Breton to establish alternatives which build their communities.

Atlantic Canada is seen by many as a one way street, a money pit. Nothing could be further from the truth. Atlantic Canadians work very hard and they like to work hard. They want to be productive, but government policy seems to have been designed to ensure the failure of our economy. It has reduced the availability of EI to workers who need it, which has disproportionately affected Atlantic Canada.

TAGS is a joke, again a joke of which Atlantic Canadians have borne the brunt. Now we see in Bill C-11 an increase on the attack toward Cape Breton. Let us have a meaningful dialogue with Atlantic Canadians on ways to fix our economic problems, on ways to help keep our children in the region, on ways to use government policy to help, not hurt Atlantic Canada.

I would also like to point out some other costs to closing Devco which have been ignored by this government and by the provincial Conservative government and which do not fit easily on to an accounting sheet. How do we cost the fear of cancer because of the environmental legacy of the coal and steel industry? Where on the government balance sheet would we put the anxiety that older workers feel seeing their years of service reduced to a buyout or the equity they have in their homes evaporating due to the economic effects of this legislation?

I heard the hon. member for Broadview—Greenwood ask my colleague who represents most of the affected miners how much money would be required to make her happy if there was a blank cheque available. I found it a very difficult question to hear put in this place. It showed ignorance of Cape Breton and demonstrated the mindlessness of the mantras put out by this government.

I would ask hon. members opposite where the supposed and probably modest savings which may be seen by killing the economy of Cape Breton will be placed. Do they believe that Cape Breton's savings should go to subsidize more corporate boxes at Maple Leafs games? Should savings made by destroying Glace Bay go to the NHL subsidies, or perhaps to big tax cuts for wealthy Canadians? This approach to government, punishing a poor region and giving more to the wealthy, is divisive and morally bankrupt.

We need to be working on ideas such as community economic development, alternative approaches to financing small business, tourism and jobs, and the urgent clean-up of the toxic legacy which existed in industrial Cape Breton.

My colleagues have talked about renewable energy industries. We have talked about national shipbuilding. There is no end of good ideas and people in Cape Breton who want to execute them. These are the kinds of ideas that we need government policy to support, not the short-sighted approach taken in Bill C-11.

In conclusion, I urge the government to scrap this punitive, mean-spirited piece of legislation and to go back to the basic principle of working with Cape Bretoners to develop a fair funding package which will give Cape Breton a future and not just a past. The responsibility of parliament in this matter is to assist the people of Cape Breton in developing new economic roots which will sink into their beautiful earth. We owe them that much and much more.

[Supply, November 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I was aware of the Prime Minister's speech and that was why I asked him today. I was quite excited by what he had to say.

I wanted to get clarification on whether he meant that the WTO and the NAFTA agreement would have no binding relationship to culture in the country any longer. I did not get the answer to that. I still remain unconvinced.