Adam Vaughan

[Business of Supply, March 8th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, putting aside the fact that the City of Toronto never ordered an environmental assessment, nor would it ever pay for one; putting aside the fact that the port authority said it would not and could not meet most of the 25 stipulations put in place to even consider this issue; putting aside the fact that the City of Toronto had five opportunities to approve this application, including a deadline that it had to be done by July 3, 2013 or else the deal was off; putting aside all of those factual realities not present in the speech that was just made, the member opposite raised the issue of Air Canada and WestJet having open access to this airport.

Have you ever met with Air Canada and WestJet to discuss the fact that they have completely limited access, that there is a near monopoly that has been granted to the operator of Porter Airlines? Have you discussed that WestJet and Air Canada have grave reservations about how Conservative appointees to the port authority configured this airport in a near monopoly setting, which is so restrictive that they are not allowed to compete with Porter Airlines with flights? In fact, the U.S. airline industry has refused to fly in and out of this airport because of the restrictive conditions put in place to benefit one airline over all others.

Are you aware of the fact that WestJet and Air Canada are silent on this issue and want nothing to do with this process?

[Business of Supply, March 8th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, putting aside the fact that the conditions for an environmental assessment, to start, were never met, and putting aside that the City of Toronto protested strenuously at the beginning of the environmental assessment and that the terms of reference were never completed and never consulted on, the issue that the member opposite raised was the need to respect municipal planning.

My question is about the federal planning around this issue. When a report was tabled on November 2013 at the City of Toronto, it showed that the land-side cost to configure the airport, to even begin to think about expanding it at its current configuration, would cost close to $600 million. The proponent of this project, the airline, not the port authority and not the City of Toronto, said that the city could use the money from the new building Canada fund, $600 million from the federal government, to pay for all the changes that were required on the city's property.

The federal government at the time was given the choice. It could fund the port authority and the airline's request, but it chose a different course. It actually funded transit in Scarborough with that money instead of acquiescing to Mr. Deluce's request. In light of the fact that the previous federal government did not support this project when given the opportunity, does the member think that the current opposition should support its previous position on the file?

[Business of Supply, March 8th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member raised the issue of land-use planning, which is at the heart of this controversy. It is as if the industrial strategy to help the auto industry ought to be to build more parking lots. It is a ridiculous proposition to reconfigure an entire city and an entire neighbourhood for one business at the expense of all the others.

Is the member opposite aware that within 500 metres of the end of the runway, the most significant impact is being felt by a low-income community, largely Toronto Community Housing co-ops, but in particular a group of housing units, not people in condos sipping lattes as the member opposite suggested yesterday, but senior citizens and people with severe disabilities?

This airport has now been identified in a public health report on the record at city council as the single largest source of air pollution in the entire GTA. The report notes that the asthma rates are starting to spike among school children who live in this neighbourhood, and that the most vulnerable population is bearing the brunt of the existing operation, let alone a doubling of the size of this airport.

Is the member aware of the extraordinary health impact this will have on a low-income and vulnerable community?

[Business of Supply, March 8th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the city of Toronto has debated this issue for three years and the city council of Toronto has had five opportunities in those three years to make a formal request to open the tripartite agreement: in April 2013, July 2013, November 2013, February 2014, and March 2014. At no time in any of those public meetings, at which I was a voting member at some, did we ever request the opening of the tripartite agreement.

As well, the port authority, or PortsToronto as it is now known, has been meeting for three years and at no time in its three years of existence, while this debate has gone on, has it ever asked for the tripartite agreement to be opened to consider jets. In fact, the only person who wants this is the owner of a single operator at the island airport. That individual, in a letter to Rob Ford, then mayor of Toronto, pursued this with great vim and vigour.

Why have the signatories to the tripartite agreement, the Government of Canada, the port authority, and the city of Toronto, never formally requested that this issue be opened?

[Business of Supply, March 8th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am curious as to whether the member opposite has read any of the 25 reports that have been tabled with the City of Toronto, which include reports from the Board of Health, the executive committee of the planning department, as well as the economic development committee. I am curious whether the member opposite has talked to any of the residents, businesses, or stakeholders on the waterfront, including whether or not she has met with Mr. Deluce or Porter Airlines.

I am curious whether or not she is aware that the cost of doing this project has been estimated at close to $1.6 billion, of which there is no source of funding. This would include the cost of filling half a kilometre of Lake Ontario and paving it over for the extension of the runway; the cost of a 20-foot wall that would run the entire length of the runway from Bay Street to Dufferin Street, which is almost a mile in length across the waterfront; the fact that the reconfiguration of this airport would require fitting an airport the size of the Ottawa International Airport into one-seventh of its mass, again with no funding source at all to pay for the land site improvements that would be required to move 4.3 million passengers; and it would also require additional dollars to be paid through an airport levy tax to do the lakefront.

I wonder if the member has read any of those 25 reports and whether she has consulted with any of the stakeholders on the waterfront besides Mr. Deluce.

[Income Tax Act, March 7th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, on October 19, the Montreal Canadiens were in first place and Carey Price was the player of the week. We are now watching a play-off series about to start where the Montreal Canadiens are not going to make the play-offs simply because they were leading on October 19, and Carey Price, much like Joe Oliver, is no longer in a position to defend anything.

The situation is this. The previous Liberal government paid down $90 billion on the national debt, but the previous Conservative government added $150 billion to the national debt. Under former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, the debt was 2.9% of the GDP, but under Brian Mulroney, it was 6.7%, and it goes on and on. The bottom line is that the former prime minister, combined with Mr. Mulroney, have created three-quarters of Canada's debt since Confederation.

If the Conservatives are so concerned about the record of debt that their government left, why have they not all resigned and joined a party that actually fights deficits?

[Income Tax Act, March 7th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague opposite and I share some similar values in terms of taking care of each other and trying to find ways to take care of each other. I appreciate that this bill does not reach into some of the areas where he thinks attention needs to be paid, such as raising incomes and the outlook for people of first nations, aboriginal, Métis, and Inuit descent. We share those concerns. It is not in this bill because this bill is focused on income tax and not necessarily on those specific issues.

On the issue of helping low-income children and low-income families in particular, again the tax credit focuses specifically on raising children out of poverty, as with raising seniors out of poverty. They are not part of this bill; they are part of the budget to come.

Would the member opposite not agree that the focus of this bill is to deal with tax measures that had to be in place before the calendar year began, because that is the time in which one fixes the tax code and that is why this bill is so narrowly focused?

[Canada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISIL, February 24th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great concentration to the comments made by the member opposite. I agree that the signing of the treaties will bring even more pressure to bear on the situation. It needs to be done as soon as possible, and I share his sense of urgency on that issue.

However, I also heard the member say that the mission we are debating here, which is not a combat mission but a training and intelligence mission and support for stabilizing the region, is being presented as a fait accompli without being debated in Parliament. Is that not what we are doing right now, debating that change and debating the nature of that change? Is that not the motion that is on the table in front of Parliament? Is that not the decision we are making?

The second question I would like addressed is this. I have heard from the NDP several times now the call for deradicalization, not just in relation to this mission but also in relation to Bill C-51 and other issues that seek to provide security for Canadians. We share that commitment to trying to bring those programs to bear. Beyond talking to religious groups, to community centres, and to mayors, what precise steps on deradicalization would the New Democrats see as appropriate and effective and would suggest to us to pursue as government policy?

[Canada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISIL, February 24th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I listened to the member opposite and I agree that his comments were aptly described as ridiculous. We do not take foreign policy advice from generals on the ground. We negotiate with our partners in NATO. We do not take a bombing mission and say that it is the only way to deal with the situation. In concert with our allies, we have constructed a way to solidify and make permanent the ground gains that the bombing have provided us with an opportunity, and we are now moving forward with a training exercise.

Why would the members opposite not understand that a change in tactics is not walking away from the fight, and a change in tactics to invest in even more resources is not lessening our impact in the region, but simply changing our mission, investing more into the mission and trying to accomplish more than simply bombing targets, trying to actually set up a stable and livable environment so that ISIS does not have the ability to recruit or sell its oil?

[Canada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISIL, February 23rd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the comments from the member opposite, and I thank her for acknowledging that we are stepping up and stepping toward a significant increase in our contribution to dealing with the challenges in Syria and Iraq, by doubling and tripling both our intelligence and our training methods, to consolidate and to make permanent the gains that the campaign has achieved in the last year.

I am curious why a change in strategy constitutes walking away from our allies when they have embraced that change in strategies. Also why would a democratic process, which elected a government with a commitment to change the approach, be something that our democratic allies would not understand? Why would they not understand exactly what had happened, that an election happened; and why is it not a legitimate way to test a foreign policy with the Canadian people and with our allies?