Adam Vaughan

[Statistics Act, June 20th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, as a former member of city council who had to endure the Ford brothers and listen to probably two of the smartest Conservatives who have ever had to speak about any issue, talk about facts and evidence, we often said in Toronto that when those two very proud members of the Conservative Party spoke, that—

[The Budget, June 15th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I just spoke in the previous 10 minutes about concrete, real action, real dollars, real investments, real commitment, and real progress on the seniors file.

The member opposite talks about CARP, but I do not think she has actually read the entire response to the budget CARP presented. If she reads the real response from Wanda Morris, what she will see is that they were pleased that five of the seven recommendations CARP made to the government were acted upon. They were not spoken about; they were acted upon, with real dollars, real delivery, and real movement on seniors' issues.

We will see if the NDP supports the budget or votes against it. The one thing that bothers the NDP the most in this House is not when we talk about the issues it thinks about. It is when we act on them and the NDP fails to get credit. This side of the House is actually delivering real results to seniors: CPP reform, GIS increases, making sure that the age of 65 is the retirement age, seniors' housing. It is real dollars for real houses to house real seniors in real vulnerable situations. We have not only acted, we have delivered. I will put my record up against the NDP's language any day, because we have delivered. The NDP talks.

[The Budget, June 15th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the answer to whether this government is prepared to step up for seniors in this country, and commit to a strategy was evident in the vote that was taken in the House just a few weeks ago. Motion No. 106 is being studied at committee now, and this government is committed to making sure a national seniors strategy comes into existence. We are not waiting for gestures or symbolic statements, or even criticism from parliamentarians who seem more intent on criticizing than producing for seniors based on their voting record.

When this government took office, significant improvements were made to the quality of life for seniors right across the country, in particular, vulnerable seniors living in poverty. The first thing we did was move toward the guaranteed income supplement increase, and targeted in particular seniors who are single, the majority of whom are women. We lifted them straight out of poverty with a 10% increase to the GIS.

The second thing we did, against all predictions and expectations, is negotiate a national framework to improve the Canadian pension plan, not just for now but for generations to come. That move is historic, and was predicted to fail by all the opposition parties. They told us not to even try, yet we did it.

The third thing we did, which is just as important, is recognize the move by the previous government to change the age of retirement from 65 to 67 with no consultation, no input from Parliament, let alone Canadians and seniors. We reduced that, because that particular move put seniors in the most vulnerable category even further into an area of precarious income. We helped seniors live out their retirement in a positive way with support from the government, support from the country, the country they helped to build.

Those three measures alone would be good enough for most people, but we did not stop there. The next thing we did, as part of our movement toward the national housing strategy, is we did not wait for the strategy and agreement with the provinces, we moved immediately to put $200 million into new seniors housing. Why? Because seniors need to be cared for and to live in safe environments, supported in those safe environments primarily through shelter support.

That is why this government moved on the seniors housing file immediately. We did not wait for two years or 10 years, we did it in the first budget. That money was put into last year's budget 2016. It was a two-year commitment that now leads to an 11-year commitment to provide a permanent, and for the first time in this country's history, national housing strategy. It is not just extending past the next election, it extends past the next two elections, and is bound with legal agreements with the provinces.

The parties opposite think that somehow when we sign agreements with the provinces, some election can rip it all up. The Martin health accord showed how extraordinarily effective federal-provincial agreements are at sustaining core funding, base funding, and new funding for the period of a decade. The national housing strategy will also move toward supporting seniors in their vulnerable years.

In this year's budget, we have also committed to renewing the operating agreements for public housing. We know, particularly in the co-op sector, that many people who started co-ops 10, 15, and 25 years ago are now seniors. They are on fixed incomes. As their incomes drop, these operating agreements are becoming even more critical in order to support their lives.

We also augmented the health accord, again opposed by the opposite side, a health care accord that guarantees funding for palliative care and home care. We have invested real dollars into housing supports, service supports for home care, as well as mental health care. We know that seniors, with the onset of Alzheimer's and dementia, are increasingly finding themselves in that situation. We have put additional dollars into health accords targeted specifically, binding provinces to spend in terms of priority areas of requirement, a policy to make sure that those needs are met, not just with medical dollars but also with housing dollars.

When it comes to seniors and taking care of Canadians in precarious situations, and Canadians with low income dynamics, this government is not just committed to removing poverty, it is committed to making sure that seniors thrive in our society, and that we care for them, because that is our duty as parliamentarians.

[Points of Order, June 15th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order. In a debate earlier today, I identified a donation made by a Governor in Council appointee by the Conservative Party, and I described it as an illegal donation. It in fact is not an illegal donation; it is a donation that the standards authorize against. The standards explicitly say they “should not“ show partisan support or donate to political organizations. I just want to correct the record in that, while Mark McQueen did made donations after the appointment, it is not illegal to make those donations; it is just highly suspect. When people do it, they are showing partisan support when they are Governor in Council appointees. I just want to correct the record.

[Canada Elections Act, June 15th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, putting aside the debate about moral ethics, virtue ethics, and the sense that we can somehow promote a moral utopia by having no rules and regulations and just imply that people act in an ethical way and the challenges of that philosophical bent, as I said, I still fear the member's parents read too much Ayn Rand to him as a child at bedtime.

The issue is this. I would like the member to reflect on the port authority, again, because I did not go through the full list of Tory patronage appointments. We used to call it the “pork authority” in Toronto. The port authority also had the member for Milton run her campaign out of a federal agency, using the fax machine to solicit donations, until she was caught. That same body, which had Jim Flaherty's campaign manager, Tim Hudak's spokesperson, and the wife of Jim Flaherty's campaign manager, also hosted somebody who hosted a pay for play or cash for access, whatever the Tories want to call it, donation scheme where if people paid $1,100 per person they got to be appointed to the port authority, apparently, under their reasoning.

With all of this patronage around, the port authority of Toronto had so many Conservatives, if the member for Parry Sound—Muskoka had had that many in his campaign, he might have been on the final ballot at the leadership campaign, but he could not raise them a second time. I guess because he was out of power, he could not get them back into his fold.

The issue is this. As they run cash for access themselves, as they hand out federal appointments to campaign staff, campaign managers, campaign official agents, advisers of the Harris government, as they conduct all of that, how does that fit into his moral view of the world as being ethical?

[Canada Elections Act, June 15th, 2017]

Ayn Rand.

[Canada Elections Act, June 15th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I have just listened to the member for Parry Sound—Muskoka list the virtues of the behaviour of his party. I would like him to reflect and answer a couple of questions about the Toronto port authority, an agency that the former government and the party opposite has spent no shortage of time prosecuting its case for a business change to the model.

The Toronto port authority is composed of the following people. There is the outgoing chair, about whom in the last term of Parliament we raised the issue that as a government council appointee he made illegal donations to the Conservative Party after being appointed. That was dismissed as being a constitutional right that people have, to make donations after getting appointed. That was Mark McQueen, who subsequently threatened to sue us for raising the issue. That board also included Mark Curry, a former adviser to the Harris government and someone who has donated to the Conservative Party. Sean Morley also was a policy adviser to the Harris government, but also happened to be the official agent for Jim Flaherty's wife in her leadership campaign bid while Mr. Flaherty was the minister responsible for Toronto. It also included Jeremy Adams, known here as a tobacco lobbyist, but actually somebody who was also the campaign manager to Jim Flaherty while Jim Flaherty was the minister responsible for Toronto and the person recommending these appointments. It also included the past president of the Albany Club, Amanda Walton, another Conservative donor. However, the most interesting person appointed to the port authority in the last term was the chair, Robert Poirier, who hosted an $1,100 cash for access event for the member for Parry Sound—Muskoka while he was the minister of transport; $1,100 per person at the Albany Club while he was the industry minister.

All of these Conservative appointees with direct ties to ministers, to ministers' campaigns, and to ministers' fundraising campaigns were appointed to the port authority. Is that the level of virtue we are supposed to attain as a party?

[Indian Act, June 13th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the fallacy in that presentation is that there is unanimity among the aboriginal communities as to what the right way forward is, quickly. When we do not have unanimity, we do not act quickly and rationally.

There are many of the amendments that we do accept. There are some we are troubled with. I use the words of Judge Sinclair, one of the authors of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, who had problems with the wording on one of these, and to listen to that senator as he said he looked seriously at how he could put an amendment together to make it say 6.1(a) all the way. He supports the position of quick change, but he also cautions against quick change that has unintended consequences. He said he could not come up with the wording.

When there is a lack of unanimity, acting quickly can impede progress. I share the sentiments that it has been too long, that Parliament should have been seized with this 150 years ago, let alone 300 years ago when we first landed and created the mess that we are now trying to untangle.

I am taken back to another phrase by Cindy Blackstock, who said that they have survived their mistakes for 10,000 years; it is our mistakes that indigenous people do not survive. I am guided by that. We all want to do the right thing. Getting there with unanimous thought is what is evading us, so there is part of this bill with which we have concerns, and we will go slower.

[Indian Act, June 13th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, maybe it is not good getting in the way of perfection; maybe it is adequate getting in the way of perfection.

It comes back to the notion that we have to proceed carefully. If we make wholesale changes quickly, it will be like turning a sailboat too quickly. If the sail has not been tended to, if the waves have not been checked, if everything has not been done right and there is a quick turn of the rudder, the boat will be pitched into catastrophe and people will be put at risk. That was not necessarily the intent; the intent was simply to turn the boat around.

We have to change course as a country, but as we contemplate going about and changing course, we need to make sure that the sails are trimmed properly, that the boat is seaworthy, and that the crew on board and those we have carriage of are safe and know what is about to happen.

The challenge with the Indian Act is that it has set up some complex and very dynamic relationships in the country, and if we turn quickly, it would have the unintended consequences of loading expectations into people's lives and placing demands on institutions that have no capacity. We would be back where we started, because the boat would not actually turn. It would simply stall. We cannot stall on this issue.

If I could continue with the sailing analogy, we are looking for that better wind and that better water. We are not there yet, but it is time to make sure that we sail a little stronger and make a little more progress.

[Indian Act, June 13th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, as I referenced in the comments I made to my colleague, it is impossible, as a Canadian, to stand in the House and speak proudly of the tradition the country has etched in the soul of its aboriginal people and not feel shame, not want to fix, change, and move to a better place with new laws that, quite frankly, in many cases, just have to eliminate past laws.

My family is from Australia. I am the kid of immigrants. People may think they arrive in this country free of that history, but the minute they become citizens, they inherit the responsibility to do right. We have not done right yet in our country. Until the Indian Act is abolished, I do not see a way of achieving that.

Even as we speak of that, we know, as I look across the way to my friend who is a proud member of the House but also a proud member of the Métis nation, it is just one step in a long march toward truth and reconciliation. We have obligations to achieve that. Perhaps we can do much in this Parliament, but my sense is that a country that was founded on 400 years of colonialism, racism, and theft, it will take a long walk out of those shadows, a long way out of that forest before we get to a clearing where we have common ground, and it will be painful.

I will be splitting my time, Mr. Speaker, with the member for Winnipeg Centre.

One of the things we encounter very quickly when we have the responsibility and privilege of governance in the House is that we have the capacity to fix things, but in fixing things we have the unintended impact of also breaking things simultaneously. The challenge we face with this law and the challenge being delivered to us from the Senate is that as we seek to fix one part of this colonial tragedy and this colonial knot, we have to acknowledge we are not fixing all of it. In fixing one piece of it we may actually make solving other parts of the problem that much more difficult.

As we think we move toward reconciliation with aboriginal peoples with treaties, we have to understand that may leave the situation of people of nations without treaties in a more difficult situation. As we acknowledge we have the Métis nation and the responsibility to another group of people, differently configured, with different culture, that leaves behind conversations we should be having with our Inuit brothers and sisters. We have inherited a difficult, troubled history.

However, what gives me hope that we are moving in the right direction is we are getting criticized in a way that is fair, legitimate, and responsible. It is the personification of Loyal Opposition. The issues that were just enunciated, the poignant testimony from my colleague across the way, shows that we have not got it right. However, what we do have is a commitment from this side of the House, and I believe it is shared by all parliamentarians, to keep working at it until it is right. The failure to do that would be the failure of the country.

The challenges we have in dealing with the specific legislation in front of us right now is trying to decide whether we are trying to get better or whether we are trying to achieve perfection. The risk of perfection getting in the way of better is that perfection has been criticized by many people, including some of the strongest voices from the first nations community, in fact, some of the voices from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission itself.

Judge Sinclair, the senator from the other place, has said, “I looked seriously at how we could put an amendment together to make it say 6(1)(a) all the way, and I couldn’t come up with wording. This is not the wording that I would have come up with, and I don’t approve of this wording myself.” He voted against the amendment.

If one of the authors of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission says do not do something, we have to listen to that wise counsel. He voted in favour of the amended bill to ensure it came to Parliament, to ensure we could meet the July 3 deadline, to try to find resolution to this issue, but he cautioned us. This is the reality. Every time we move on indigenous issues in the country, we unintentionally put someone else in jeopardy, somewhere, somehow.

We have yet to find a perfect way to walk out of the forest quickly into a clearing, into common ground. Those of us who favour a process of incremental, persistent, and consistent improvement and persistent and consistent negotiation and consultation with as wide a range of people as possible are speaking in support of the motion tonight, and that is important. It is not that we do not recognize the harrowing, discriminatory, racial, and patriarchal dynamics that have been clearly highlighted. It is that we cannot solve all of it quickly without knowing in our hearts that we are going to make other mistakes that put other people in harm's way. It is hard to put people in harm's way as legislators, so we try to do things cautiously and carefully. That is why this process of incremental but persistent and consistent advancement is the one that has been chosen.

All of that being said, the thing we need to caution ourselves against most importantly is that we need to be very careful not to position competing perspectives from different aboriginal organizations and individuals against one another and somehow suggest that one is right and one is wrong. It is quite possible that when we propose solutions, they are both right and wrong simultaneously. I hope this process of the last two years, as well as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the legislation that has been coming from the government on a consistent basis, negotiations that have been held on a consistent basis, and consultations that have been held on a consistent basis, is showing those who have no reason to trust the Government of Canada that they can trust this process and this government to make sure that every time it moves it does so cautiously, conscientiously, and carefully.

We will make mistakes and we will not move fast enough for every person who has been affected by colonialism in this country. That is as true as the sun rising tomorrow, but I want to assure people listening and my colleagues in the House that those of us who have taken the notion of truth and reconciliation to heart, soul, and mind are moving forward with our brothers and sisters, even if we do not always agree on every single tactic, every single clause, every single rule and regulation. We will get there. We probably will not get there in my lifetime. We probably will not get there in the lifetime of most members in the House, but I am comfortable in knowing that we are moving in the right direction.

I had the privilege in the last year of consulting with aboriginal elders, Inuit elders, as well as Métis nation authorities and elders in that community, about housing in urban settings across this country. I have talked to folks from coast to coast to coast about what they see as a good housing program and everyone asked me at the beginning of the process to check in with an elder first, before doing wider consultations with the community at large second. It was wise advice that I received and good advice that I followed.

A couple of thoughts, gifts of wisdom, that were imparted to me stick with me to this moment and these are why I am comfortable supporting the government's position on Bill S-3. It was this: every time INAC or the government makes a new rule or regulation as it relates to aboriginal people, the roots of colonialism and racism grow a little deeper in this country. There is truth to that. What happens when a tree's roots grow deeper is that the branches have the capacity to grow wider, tangle, and create even more complex problems. What is really needed is the clearing that I spoke about. We need common ground to emerge and not to grow the roots deeper or the branches more complex.

We need that clearing for new life to spark and take root, a new relationship to grow, and for that to define the relationship between those of us on this side of the treaty table and those on the other side of the treaty table, those who have lived here for thousands of years and those of us who are new arrivals. We need that space to emerge. We need new opportunities, new ideas, and new life to take root, and we need a new future to emerge from the common ground, the clearing ground, in the forest. Otherwise, this country shall remain in shadows and the people who will be hurt the most from that are our indigenous brothers and sisters right across the country.

I said I was from Australia. Australia has also travelled through this painful process and has also struggled to find truth and reconciliation with its aboriginal peoples. Eddie Mabo, who is one of the great warriors for justice in that country, once asked, “What more can they do to me that they have have not already done?”

We can do more harm if we are not careful. That is why I implore this House to take the careful steps to embrace Bill S-3 and to remain committed to truth and reconciliation, because that is the way forward.