Brenda Chamberlain

[Kyoto Protocol, December 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, we must be conserving energy in the Chamber today because it is really cold in here. I was wondering if we could get some heat in here.

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Mississauga West.

My colleague across the way made the point that Quebec was doing everything and working toward a solution to cure the world. I am really glad that the Bloc is on line with Kyoto.

I do not think there is anyone in this Chamber, including the Alliance members, who are really torn on this particular issue, who does not think pollution is a bad thing. I do not think we would find a member of Parliament who would not agree on that.

We all recognize that carbon emissions are bad and that they are harmful not only to us but to the rest of the world, which is really what is at the heart of the whole Kyoto debate. We do not live in isolation. We must think about the rest of the world and what is happening. We are polluters. We have to step up to the plate. We have to know that we create some of the problems.

The member across the way talked about numbers. About 70% of Canadians right now support Kyoto. However, having said that, there are a large number of people who are unclear about just what Kyoto is, along with many members of Parliament.

I think ratification of the Kyoto protocol is absolutely paramount. However, has the plan been as clear as it could be? No. Do we have all the answers to the questions? No, we do not. Do we even know all the questions? No, we do not, but it is important to lead.

The Alliance member wants to know why we are signing it. We are signing it because we do think as a country it is important to lead. We do think it is important to stand up to the plate, take a number and do something. To do nothing, as the Canadian Alliance members are suggesting, is wrong. That will not help Canada and it will not help the world.

Some of the concerns out there are legitimate. I have heard them from members across the way and from organizations in my community, like the chambers of commerce and others. People are worried. They want to know what this will do to growth in the economy, which is a fair question to ask.

We have to understand that there will be an impact but that there will be a positive impact as well as a negative impact. The positive impact is when we do things like we have already started. For instance, in my community in Guelph we have a company called Linamar Corporation. It has 18 sites in Guelph. It employs a lot of people, does a lot of business and we think a lot of the company. In partnership with the federal government it wants to work against climate change. It is already underway in Guelph. We received $9.3 million in a repayable Technology Partnership Canada climate change action fund investment for the development of cleaner running small engines.

Is that not what it is all about? Is it not a good thing that we become a leader in technologies, that we become a model for the world, that we do develop new technologies, that we do hire people and that we do expand and lead? Quite frankly, I think that is what it is all about and I think that we are well positioned to do so.

The government, in this plan, has to continue to focus on that. Maybe everything has not been said as clearly as it should have been or could be but as we go along those are the kinds of things that we must focus on.

One thing that has been brought up, which is important, is our relationship with the provinces. Obviously all the provinces are not on line with this. Ontario, where I live, is not on line. It does not like this plan. In fairness, it worries that the costs will be put on it. It cannot do this alone.

If the federal government is to lead, it also has to have the dollars. Clearly, to have the dollars to sustain this, we have to monitor it. We have to work with the provinces on a really close basis to work through this. If we do not, this will be doomed to failure and it will not work.

We must not make any mistakes on that. We have to be clear that we need to work with the provinces. When Canadian Alliance members are worried about this, particularly those from Alberta, I understand from where they are coming. They do not want an made in Ottawa solution. They want a solution made by Canada with Alberta being a part of it, and I understand that.

I see an hon. member nodding his head. He says that I am right and I thank him for that.

There is no one answer that will fix this. It is a multitude of things. It is a process that we have to continue to work through, but it is a process that is worthwhile. It is a process that will help make the world better, not only Canada. That seems like a worthwhile endeavour. It seems worthwhile for us to stick our necks out for it. It seems like we should go to the light, follow it and work with it.

We need to constantly work on this plan, though. There is no question about that. The plan is not set in stone. The plan needs to evolve. There have to be hearings and continual work with parliamentarians to asses where we are at. That will be vital for this to be successful. If we do not do that, we really will have shirked our responsibilities. This can be a good, strong partnership and it is in the best interests of all.

My community has received a number of dollars for many things. We received $275,000 for studying the link between climate, water and water-borne illness and the projected impacts of climate change. I do not think anybody in the chamber would say that is not a good thing. We have to move toward this.

We also received $125,000 to house the coordinating office of the Canadian climate impacts and adaptation research network for agriculture. Again, agriculture is very important for the country. There is not one of us who does not eat. If we eat, then we should be interested in agriculture. It should be that simple. This does not have to be hard. It should be simple. We should just think about where we want to go and how we will get there. The Guelph Tribune , a local paper, summed it up. It stated:

Ideally, humans would not find themselves in a stark situation where their activities--some essential and some not--are threatening to cause havoc for people and other species on the planet. Having realized that's the situation we appear to be in, though, we need to do something about it. And Kyoto is the agreed-upon international vehicle for travelling down that road. It would be a momentous decision at this point for Canada not to get on board that vehicle to a more hopeful world...People might well have to change their behaviours significantly as a part of the effort to minimize the causes of global warming. The government should try to ease that burden, but it should keep its eye on the big picture.

The big picture is what we are talking about today. This is why the government feels we must move to sign Kyoto, but in that we must be mindful of all the things our colleagues across the way are telling us. We have to be mindful of what people in our communities are telling us and what provinces are telling us. If we are not mindful of those, this plan will not work in the manner it should. However make no mistake, we must sign Kyoto and we must do it now.

[University of Guelph, November 20th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, last week Maclean's magazine released its annual university edition. The magazine evaluates Canadian universities according to three categories: primarily undergraduate, comprehensive, and medical doctoral.

I am pleased to say that Maclean's this year has ranked the University of Guelph as the number one university in its comprehensive category. However, I must say that many of us in Guelph--Wellington have known for a very long time that our university is indeed number one. Maclean's states:

What distinguishes Guelph is a strong sense of community... it places a high priority on ensuring students' academic success... and ensures that students have a chance to become involved.

I am pleased that the values of my community are reflected in our university. The University of Guelph is an outstanding institution and I applaud it for receiving this recognition.

[Petitions, October 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, today we have 1,500 signatures with the coalition formed within the House by 26 members of Parliament now and 32 senators.

This past June we also tabled 2,300 signatures calling on the Minister of Justice to keep the process moving in a timely fashion for the re-examination by the Hon. Fred Kaufman and that justice be restored to Mr. Steven Truscott.

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, October 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated, more of these things have to be explored but the hon. member knows it is a provincial jurisdiction. This is not just a federal area. The hon. member knows that the Province of Ontario is ruled by the Conservative government. It is duly elected and we have to work with it.

I hope we will continue to explore all options and, as I said early on in my speech, that would be one of them.

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, October 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, certainly I think everything has to be looked at and I would agree with the hon. member on that. However having said that, I would really be against user fees for low income families.

There are families, even if we were talking about $5, who could not pay it. I have three sons who used to get a thing called red ear. If treated with penicillin, it was no big deal. It was cured without a problem. However they had to be taken to a doctor to get the penicillin because we needed a prescription. If a young family with three, four or five kids who had this, which is highly contagious, and they had to pay a user fee each time of $5 or whatever might be proposed, that family might not go to the doctor.

That would be extremely terrible because children who could be cured within a matter of days by taking penicillin might not get it because perhaps the mom did not have the $5. That red ear could go into the ear and the child could go deaf. That would be terrible thing and we cannot do that to Canada. We have never done that to Canada and we must not embark on that.

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, October 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to welcome everyone back. I am glad to be here with everyone else.

The Speech From the Throne, which was given yesterday by the Governor General, but of course is the Prime Minister's thoughts and ideas on where he wants to take the government in the next period of time, was an excellent speech. It covered many topics that were of real importance to Canadians. In my opinion, the Prime Minister probably gave the best throne speech since the early Trudeau era. He was really visionary. He talked about a map for Canada.

The Guelph Mercury phoned me and wanted to know how we were going to pay for all this. That was a good question and it is a question that is not answered in the throne speech. A throne speech is something that maps out where a government sees itself going. It is a good thing to have a strategic plan, a vision, a map.

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for York West, who has been instrumental in the throne speech. She worked on a special task force to recommend to the Prime Minister that he look at funding our cities in a different way.

What we have been doing with infrastructure has been a tremendous success. The City of Guelph has benefited from it greatly, as have cities, communities and rural areas all over Canada. However, more is needed. As the member for York West said in her task force, new ways of doing business need to be looked at. My policy planner from the City of Guelph really welcomed this inclusion in the throne speech.

One of the things I have been most interested in over the last three to four years has been the health care issue. I have certainly spoken on it time after time in caucus. I have written to the Prime Minister a number of times on the issue and have spoken with the ministers of health. I really feel that Canada needs to continue to have a first rate health care system.

A national poll on health care, which, oddly enough, was released today, stated that 85% of Canadians across the country were very happy with the delivery of health care. However that is not to say that there are not problems. There is no question that communities, such as mine in Guelph, and Kitchener and in many areas around, are short of doctors. It is a serious problem.

I know this is a provincial issue. I also know that my counterpart, the member from the legislature in my area, actually led a task force on this. However no solution came out of that, and I do not think that is good enough. I think people have a right to universal health care. We say they do and I think they do. I think when one cannot get access to a general practitioner that is not fulfilling everything that all governments want to fulfill in every province across Canada.

My hope is that in this throne speech, with the desire to do more for health care, we now will look to working closer with the provinces, to get them to do things like opening up rather than capping the medical schools so tightly, and to try to find other avenues to help bring in more general practitioners, perhaps from other countries, to help service Canada.

There is a multitude of things that need to be discussed and explored to fix this bottleneck. Will it happen overnight? Probably not. Should we be trying harder? Yes, we should.

The other thing I have seen for quite some time as a problem in health care, and I have spoken on it a number of times, is the waiting lists to see a specialist if some help is required. That is serious. If people are sick or someone in the household is sick and that person is unable to get in to find out what the problem is, they become afraid. They do not know what is happening. These are two very concrete areas that are governed by the province. We have little say over this.

As a federal government we need to push the provinces harder and try to help them find solutions.

I also want to say that my experience with doctors, nurses and the staff in the hospitals has been tremendously positive. I was at St. Joseph's Hospital recently for the opening of a new unit. Many of the staff at St. Joseph's are nuns. I told them that somebody was watching over the hospital. I told them also that I believed in angels and in this hospital I had seen angels helping the sick.

The people who do this on a daily basis and give of themselves, the doctors who go out in the middle of the night, the nurses who stay after their shift to help someone or come in after someone has died or go to the funeral, are the people who really care and genuinely make a difference in society day after day, sometimes by the minute. I think they are tremendously undervalued and not thanked.

I want to thank them all for all they do on a daily basis to make our health care system what it is. We all know the health care system is nothing without the people who work in it.

In this particular initiative of the throne speech health care is paramount to me. I want to see movement. I want to see the provinces opening up avenues to help us get doctors. I want to be more responsive, even though 85% of people say that this is a good system.

I recently did a survey in Guelph on the health care system. I found that it was consistent with this 85%. The people in Guelph spoke of the system as generally very good. They said that some reorganization was needed to increase efficiency and effectiveness. They also said additional resources were needed, but not at the expense of other priorities. My constituents were concerned about user fees and paying for quicker access. My constituents believed that quality of care and timely access to services were the two most essential aspects of health care.

I found that my survey was very much in line with the national survey. I am pleased to say that the people of Guelph are right on the money as usual. They know exactly what is going on.

In the Speech from the Throne the skills and training at the University of Guelph of course are very important. On the subject of the environment the throne speech spoke of 10 new national parks.

These are all things that are a road map to make our lives as Canadians better. I ask the House this. Is this not what a throne speech is all about?

[Petitions, June 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I have several petitions. I presented petitions personally to the minister yesterday. The petition I present today asks the Minister of Justice for a timely review of the Steven Truscott case. As we know, he was 14 at the time when he was sentenced to death. The petitioners want a judicial review of this case and they want it done in a timely fashion.

[Petitions, May 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is signed by Canadians who support a national teachers day on the first Tuesday during education week in May. It is a day to honour and thank all of our teachers and to recognize their invaluable contribution to the lives of our children and to show our appreciation and respect for the teaching profession.

[Petitions, May 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to present two petitions today. The first petition is signed by Canadians who support a national day of prayer. The petitioners propose March 8 as a day to unite all Canadians to pray for our nation, its people and its leaders.

[Order of Canada, February 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate three of my constituents who have been appointed Members of the Order of Canada.

Mr. T. Sher Singh, a leader in the Sikh Canadian community, has shown through his endless hours of public service how a vibrant multicultural landscape enriches our nation.

Mr. Ken Danby is recognized as one of Canada's best realist painters. His images of familiar and cherished Canadian themes have earned him an international following.

Mr. Robert W. Gillham has made one of the most important contributions in decades to groundwater science, developing a process of cleaning contaminated water.

These great Canadians will be outstanding Members of the Order of Canada. They truly are great Canadians.