Adam Vaughan

[Infrastructure, November 27th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, federal infrastructure spending has dropped by 90% this year. The money that the government has promised municipalities will not arrive until after the next election. Many of the roads and bridges were built by the federal government almost 50 years ago, and it is those roads and bridges that are now falling apart and need help now. Calgary's infrastructure deficit is $3.2 billion. Clearly, sending Conservatives to the House of Commons has not helped that city.

If the federal government knows that its own roads and bridges need repair, why does it not know that cities in this country need the same help? Why will it not fund those cities now? Why will it not step up to the plate now? Why is it missing in action?

[Business of Supply, November 27th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I had the honour to talk to a number of the individuals directly affected, people who were subjected to this horrible drug and lived with the consequences all their lives. As well, I spoke with some of the people doing the legal work around this issue.

One of the questions I had as was why compensation had not been asked for in as direct a way as presented today. The response I received was that they had now organized as a group. There are 95 remaining victims. With aging presenting new problems, this is why they have come forward in a very focused effort to renegotiate compensation that was once offered back in the early 1990s, but has not been revisited since.

Now that we know aging is the specific problem, what concerns do we have that unforeseen problems may not be anticipated by the committee? How will we ensure that the committee goes forward on a consistent basis and not only generously addresses the issues in front of us now, but sets up a process by which new issues that emerge as this community ages are also dealt with?

[Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act, November 26th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to ask a question about the common sense component of this bill. When I started to read it, the only place it is actually mentioned is in the introduction. There is no common sense in the bill, which is interesting.

The question I have is a very simple one for the member. I am trying to figure out, and the House needs to know, how allowing people to drive around cities with a gun in the trunk, where I assume no hunting is being done, is a safe thing to do. We have some big raccoons, but they are really not that dangerous. Cars are stolen, and we have had reported and repeated incidents of people being followed home from gun ranges and being robbed.

How does allowing guns to be driven around a city more easily make cities safer? I am not speaking for the four or five million legal gun owners who are law-abiding citizens. I am talking for the 26 million people who do not own guns, many of whom live in those cities and are looking to the government to make their cities safe from the illegal use of guns, particularly assault rifles.

[Infrastructure, November 26th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, last week local leaders from across the country were on Parliament Hill asking all of us to make hometowns proud.

The request of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities was dead simple. It needs funding for housing, for transit, and for water systems. There is a $400 billion infrastructure deficit in this country, and what has this government done? It has announced a cobbled-together group of plans that essentially are scheduled state of good repair budgets for federal assets, with nothing for cities and municipalities and towns across this country—nothing. In fact, all they get is a 90% cut to their budgets this year.

When is the government going to make its hometowns proud? When is it going to make hometowns built perfectly again and fixed again?

[Rouge National Urban Park Act, November 25th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the issue of consensus and trying to emerge not only with an all-party agreement but with an agreement with the provincial government has been raised several times in debate today. The question that remains is this: Why does consensus require us to do what the government says as opposed to bringing the stakeholders around the table to come up with a common way forward?

Why is the provincial Government of Ontario being left at the side of the park? Why are the issues that have just been raised around the first nations and aboriginal communities not included in the plan? Why is something that has never been proposed by anyone, the eviction of farmers, suddenly seen as the one thing that has been achieved in this set of negotiations? No one has asked them to leave. No one has proposed evicting them. No one has ever suggested that they are not part of the park, yet the reason we are being told to support the legislation is that there is a consensus that they should leave. The one thing there is consensus on is that they should stay.

However, where other things are required, such as environmental standards and recognition of the first nations community, there is no consensus support around the government bill, yet we are being told to support it, because there is consensus.

[Rouge National Urban Park Act, November 25th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, we heard in some of the speeches earlier today that there is a disconnect between the provincial Government of Ontario and the federal government, and I am curious as to whether or not you are aware of any attempts to get the two governments together. Perhaps the Premier has written to the Prime Minister and is looking to meet, or maybe ministers are having those connections.

If there is a disconnect between these two levels of government, what steps are you aware of that have been taken by the government to try to bring the sides together to reach consensus on this important issue?

[Aboriginal Affairs, November 20th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, my question was very specific and has not been addressed with the answer that has been provided. In fact, it is almost exactly the same answer that was provided to me the first time I asked this question.

I asked about cities. I asked about urban settings. During the debate on this issue that was brought forward under a different motion, we heard a member, I believe it was the member for Sault Ste. Marie, talk about the fact that 30% of the women had disappeared at the hands of strangers.

In our criminal justice system, we know that the rate for the general population of stranger violence is 0.4%. In other words, 0.4% of the people who die violently in our country in a criminal act die at the hands of a stranger. However, for aboriginal and first nations women, it is 30%. That tells us very clearly that this is not a family violence issue. What this tells us very clearly is that when these women are looking for safety, they are not finding it. Where they are not finding it in horrific numbers is in urban settings, in cities.

Everything you just talked about is on reserve and traditional lands. What are you doing in cities to protect women?

[Aboriginal Affairs, November 20th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, when I first took my seat in Parliament, the first question I asked was related to the tragedy that has befallen this country, in particular the missing and murdered indigenous women. My question was when would the government spend as much effort finding what happened to these women as it had spent searching for the Franklin expedition.

The response was that new money had been put into the program and that steps were being taken to protect these women's lives and that all was in order because this announcement had been made just days before I took my seat.

The trouble is that the minute we start to do the research on this issue, we find out that it is not new money. It is existing programs bundled under a new name, which have quite clearly failed both this country and, more particularly, the women involved in this horrible tragedy.

My question for the government is, where is the new money? One of the issues for those of us who represent urban ridings and ridings that do not have treaty lands or traditional territories identified is that the shelters we have for these women do not get a penny of federal funding. We know that when women are escaping violence, they quite often flee to major urban centres for safety, but there is no place for safety; there are no spaces being created to house that safety. There are no programs dealing with the dynamics that happen on our city streets, which are deadly.

When will the government deploy meaningful resources, new dollars, to deal with this issue and provide us with a real response to a real crisis that we see on city streets every day in places like Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Montreal, Halifax? The list is sadly so long. I do not have all the time in the world to name them.

[Housing, November 20th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, National Housing Day is Saturday, and across the country, events and rallies are being planned. They are asking—in fact, they are demanding—a very simple thing from Parliament: Canadians want a national housing strategy.

Last week in Vancouver I attended a national conference on ending homelessness, and a new report pegs the number of people who are sleeping on the streets at 35,000 people. The junior minister for housing spoke at that conference, and she stated that once we get people off the street, the next thing we need to get them is a job.

This is a bizarre statement. In Calgary, 80% of the people sleeping in the shelter system have a job. They do not need a job; they have one. What they need is housing.

In Vancouver, the fastest-growing cohort of homeless people is seniors, most with disabilities, yet what they get is a sneering response from the government: get a job. Really?

In Toronto, most of the people sleeping in shelters—in fact, half of them—are children. Is the Conservative government's response to the housing crisis to get children into workhouses? Is that what it has come to?

We need to get a national housing program. We need it now. Listen to the mayors. Listen to local leaders. Canadians want a national housing program, and if the Conservative government will not deliver one, the Liberals will.

[Infrastructure, November 19th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, a bridge collapses in Montreal, and the government offers a tax break. Public housing built in Toronto by the federal government starts to fall apart, and it cuts the program. In Calgary, the city gets flooded, roads are washed away, and the government says, “Wait until the budget is balanced before we help.” Vancouver needs transit, Halifax needs a water system, Iqaluit needs housing, and the list is getting longer and longer.

When will the government finally answer the calls of cities and towns across the country? When will it fund the programs now? When will it deliver the money now? Why will it not stand up for Canada's cities and towns?