Andrew Cash

[Respect for Communities Act, November 18th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House to represent the good people of Davenport in the great city of Toronto.

I have listened to this debate all day with great interest. It must pain the Minister of Veterans Affairs to get up and hector the opposition around an issue that he very much knows, based on his past work experience, is an incredibly complicated, complex issue that interweaves both public safety and public health. This is why we are here today, to debate this issue, but it must pain him to have to get up and try to present the ultrasimplistic description of the bill in the talking notes that the Conservatives foist upon their members, including their cabinet ministers.

What we are dealing with today from the Conservatives vis-à-vis this bill is a document that they use for fundraising. Of course, we see this time and time again with the Conservative government. They isolate refugees, limit their access to health care, and then send a fundraising letter out to see what kind of manna falls from heaven.

This reminds me of several issues that are at play in my own community. People everywhere in Canada, I think it is fair to say, want safe streets. Everybody wants to be able to walk their kids down the street and not have syringes lying around. I think it is fair to say that we like to see our streets safe. That is why it is important to have safe injection sites in Canada.

I find it amazing that we have a government that cannot brook any kind of large-scale public engagement plan when it talks about, for example, line 9 reversal in Toronto or when it talks about, for example, a nuclear fuel processing facility in the riding of Davenport, which, by the way, exists and has existed there for 50 years. Section 2.5 of its operating licence says that it must engage in a comprehensive public information program with the residents. For 50 years, very few people knew that the plant existed. Even the folks that I have spoken to, who have lived there for at least 40 years, were never once informed of what was going on in that factory.

Some folks on the other side of the aisle might start wondering why I am exposing their lack of interest in public information and public engagement. It is because they are not interested so much in that. In fact, with the line 9 reversal, they made it so difficult for people in my city to depute during those hearings that the hearings became a sham, yet the principles around public consultation for the setting up of a safe injection site are exhaustive.

Let us go through some of that. It requires a letter from the provincial minister who is responsible for health. It requires a letter from the local municipal government. It requires a letter from the head of the police force outlining any issue that it has. It requires a letter from a leading health professional organization. It requires a letter from the provincial minister responsible for public safety. It requires a statistical analysis. It requires police checks for people. It requires extensive public consultation.

All of this has to be gathered, in addition to a 90-day public notification period that the minister herself can also conduct. There are two streams of information coming in, and even then, as we can see from the bill, the minister does not have to even consider the application. In other words, once all that rigorous public engagement happens, the minister can decide whether he or she wants to even entertain the application.

I read that and I think that is very rigorous public engagement. I can tell the House that in my community, we are looking for rigorous public engagement when we are debating and considering very serious development projects in our community.

That public engagement is lacking. What is also lacking is a willingness on the part of the government to hold the relevant agencies to account to ensure safety in our communities. The reason is that it does not play well politically for the government members in their base, whereas this is a whole different story.

I want to go back to an issue that is very important in my community, and that is refugee health. We have people in our community, people living here in Canada, who cannot access health care and have to rely on volunteer doctors and nurses and donated medicine in order to deal with their illnesses. What is happening with these decisions to cut the federal interim health program for some refugees is that it is creating a public health issue as people delay care for illnesses until those illnesses get worse. Some of them are communicable illnesses. We have pregnant women who are not getting the kind of care they need because they are not able to access health care.

However, that is okay for these guys over here, because for them it is all about fundraising, as we saw very shortly after decisions were made with respect to safe injection sites, with a letter going out to the Conservative base and a website set up to scare Canadians.

That is national leadership. That is the kind of leadership that we are getting from the current Conservative government. Instead of a government that understands the complexity of issues like drug addiction, we are seeing it writ large and played out in public today. I am sure that the Minister of Veterans Affairs and members of cabinet and certainly the Prime Minister are good friends with a well-known public figure who is struggling with drug addiction right now, yet what they are trying to do is vilify people who are often poor and powerless, people who cannot access the kind of care they need. Sometimes it is folks struggling with mental health issues as well.

The debate we are having today is about safe injection sites, and it is about something bigger than that. It is about who we are as a country. It is about who we look after. It is about what the role of government is if we are not attempting to solve complex issues with rigorous consultation, with scientific fact-based arguments, with a view on public health and public safety. That is what this debate is about, that is why this is so important, and that is why Canadians who are watching it are not buying the simplistic argument that people are going to have heroin in their backyards.

I represent a downtown Toronto riding. I get people calling my office constantly, asking me what kind of programs we have to serve addicts and help them get off the street and have the streets safer. They want to see real solutions. They do not want to see another attempt by the Conservatives to divide Canadians in order to fill their party's coffers for the next election.

[Petitions, November 18th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I have another petition here from members of my community who are increasingly concerned about extra fees on their phone, cable, and telecom bills, especially the $2 fee that is charged when they get their bill in the mail.

Many people in our country do not have access to the Internet. Many seniors who are on fixed incomes cannot afford the extra $50 or $60 a year that accumulates for these $2 fees. We want to see those fees gone from those bills, and this petition speaks to that issue.

[Petitions, November 18th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, today we hear news that Walmart has embarked on a food drive for its own employees. That fact underscores the reality of the economy today. More and more workers are living in very precarious circumstances without access to a pension, benefits, or any modicum of job security.

I have a petition here on behalf of members of the city of Toronto who are calling on Parliament to support my national urban workers strategy. I would like to submit that.

[Toronto, November 18th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the world has been hearing a lot about Toronto, but not the “Toronto the Good” that we know and love.

While the mayor, the Prime Minister's fishing buddy, has become an international embarrassment, I want people to know that Toronto is so much more than Rob Ford.

Toronto is a safe, vibrant, and welcoming city, one of the world's most multicultural cities. Toronto is key to our country's finance, telecom, aerospace, and arts and culture sector, and so many other industries.

Toronto has spectacular beaches, Rouge Park, the Humber River, an excellent public school system, universities, museums, and theatres.

It is home to the Argonauts, the Blue Jays, the Raptors, the Rock, and Toronto FC. Heck, even the Leafs are having a good year.

Toronto is more than a mayor who has lost the moral authority to govern. We are one of the world's most livable cities, and I am so proud to call Toronto my home.

[Petitions, November 4th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, my second petition flows from our initiative to get the government to weigh in and stop the extra fees customers are charged when they get a paper bill in the mail. We were pleased to hear in the throne speech that the government would end pay-to-pay fees. This petition demands that this happen, and we look forward to hearing when that happens.

[Petitions, November 4th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to present two petitions. The first petition pertains to support for a national urban workers strategy. This petition, in particular, is signed by many university students who are concerned about graduating into a job market where jobs that come with a pension, benefits, and job security are scarce for young people. In fact, many young people are working for free for much too long.

The petition urges the government to support my national urban workers strategy.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2, October 24th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it is no secret that the first priority of our plan is to get rid of the Conservative government. That is the first step.

To the member's point, people come into my office who are working full time through a temp agency. Do you know how much they are making? They are bringing home $8.00 an hour. One cannot live on that.

If you want to talk about full-time jobs, come to Davenport and talk to people who are working in temp agencies and find out whether you can live on $8.00 an hour. Come to Davenport.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2, October 24th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in this place on behalf of the good people of Davenport in the great city of Toronto to speak to Bill C-4, the budget implementation act.

This is another example of a missed opportunity for the current Conservative government in terms of job creation and in terms of accountability and transparency. It really underlines the mean-spiritedness in which the government participates in the process of bills and law-making in this House.

I have been listening very carefully to some of the debates and comments from my hon. colleagues on the government side, and it is almost as though they live in this fantasy world where they give the greatest gifts to the wealthiest corporations and keep saying over and over what neo-conservatives have been saying for 30 years, that these wealthy corporations will just trickle that money down like manna from heaven and we will all just be fine.

I listened with particular interest to my colleague from Mississauga who talked about her father's small business. I also listened to the member across the way, who grew up in the town named after him, talk about his family and small business.

Where I come from in Toronto, small businesses are one- and two-person operations. Small businesses are operated out of people's kitchens and basements. Small businesses are a mother and father working 12 or 13 hours a day running a store on Bloor Street. They are looking for some relief and what they are hearing is that the government has been doling out these wonderfully handsome tax breaks to the wealthiest corporations in Canada, who are not investing back into the economy but are sitting on the money. There is nothing in this bill that deals with one of the most significant issues of our time, and that is how we deal with the explosion of precarious work in our society.

In Toronto, in the GTA right now, in the member's riding of Mississauga South no doubt, almost 50% of workers cannot access a full-time, stable job. That is an outrageous statistic, which should engage this entire House, not just because it is my city but because it is an outrageous statistic. We are letting down and failing workers, and in particular we are failing young workers.

This budget implementation act, which would again throw in more than 70 law changes with everything but the kitchen sink in here, has not a single thing to address precarious work in our society. We listen to the rhetoric of job creation on one hand and we see the stats on the other hand where 15%, 16% or 17% of young people are unemployed, and that is the official rate that does not include those who have given up and those who are working very marginal, part-time jobs. This is the reality for so many urban workers: precarious work. People cannot find a full-time job. We are talking about folks who are now working as independent contractors.

The Conservatives are so consumed, almost obsessed, with their attack on organized labour that they cannot understand that people who run a small business want customers to come in. Those customers actually have to make a living wage in order to spend some of their money in the store. This is what the Conservatives do not understand. They do not understand the realities of urban workers today. They do not understand the reality of small business today.

We proposed many measures that would make it easier for small business owners to deal with their business.

We have a consumer program this government has borrowed some ideas from. They should actually take the whole thing. We would be willing to give it to them, because there are some excellent ideas, and they would actually deal with some of the main problems small businesses face with things like transfer fees for credit cards at point of sale, and that sort of thing. These are the issues many small businesses bring to us, which is why we have brought our proposals to the Canadian public on some of the very important issues for small business.

This is a government that, along with the Liberals, pillaged the employment insurance fund to the tune of about $57 billion and that is making it harder for Canadian workers to access the program to which they contributed. This is not the government's money. It is workers' money. We have legions of workers who cannot access basic employment insurance, basic income security, in times of need. Those times of need for many people are right now.

The Conservatives talk about job creation. They never talk about the kinds of jobs they are creating. In the GTA, we have a preponderance of $10.50 an hour jobs. I do not know, and I would be interested to find out from the member from Mississauga, if people in her riding could live on $10 an hour. Could they pay their rent? Could they raise a family? Can people raise a family on minimum wage in Toronto or in this country? The answer is absolutely not. It is very difficult. That is why people are working multiple jobs. It is why the fabric of our society is in such turmoil. It is because people in our large cities are working day in and day out just to survive. It is impacting on people's health.

We now know that precarious work adds incredible stress to the body. We have not calculated the health care costs of ripping the support from under workers today. I do not see that calculation in this.

We have not seen the government actually focus any attention on youth employment. The other day, the minister said, in answer to a question on precarious work, that if young workers have a problem in their workplaces, they should complain to the various tribunals out there. They are putting the onus on young people who, right now in Ontario, for example, are graduating, on average, with about $37,000 of debt. Then they are being welcomed into a workforce where they are either offered jobs that do not pay any money, as interns, or piecemeal jobs. They cannot get into the fields they studied for. The other day the minister said that they could blow the whistle on their companies if they feel that they are being treated poorly.

We are failing young workers. The government has utterly failed to address some of the key issues that affect urban workers. The fact is that too many people cannot access a workplace pension. Too many of us cannot access any kind of workplace benefit, and there is absolutely no job security for urban workers. All the bill does is make it worse.

The member from Mississauga talked about key tax cuts that would reap benefits for all Canadians, but what we are seeing in reality is that the tools the government uses to deal with the economic issues have just made things worse.

Bill C-4 is the fourth attempt in two years by the Conservatives to evade scrutiny by parliamentarians and the public. Canadians are watching. They want to see the government and this place function the way it is supposed to, which is with proper scrutiny. This side of the House, the official opposition, is doing its job. We would like to see the Conservatives start to do theirs.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2, October 24th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member extols the virtues of the our Minister of Finance. It reminds me of a time when the finance minister sat on the front bench of the Government of Ontario. Many front bench members of the Conservative cabinet also sat on the front bench of the Conservative Government of Ontario of that time.

One of the most amazing things that happened is this, and it underlines the whole narrative, the whole foundation of neo-conservative, neo-liberal economics. When that Conservative government took office in Ontario, a subway line had already begun on Eglinton. The hole was dug. One of the first things the Conservative government of the day did was to spend millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars to fill that hole. That is what they did. That is the kind of economics and support for small business that the member extols today.

I wonder if she could speak to the disconnect between her speech and the reality of the economic policies of this government?

[National Urban Workers Strategy Act, October 21st, 2013]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-542, An Act to establish a National Urban Workers Strategy.

Mr. Speaker, it used to be that when a person left school, he or she could get a job, work for the same company for 30 or 40 years, earn enough to raise a family and then be able to retire with a pension. However, all of that has changed. More and more Canadians are working as independent contractors, are self-employed, or free lance or working multiple part-time jobs and a growing number of particularly young workers are working for free as unpaid interns. These are what I call urban workers.

This diverse group of workers have a lot in common. They have no access to a workplace pension, no benefits and no job security. Today, with the tabling of this bill, we would begin to change that.

A national urban workers strategy would lay a new foundation in order to prevent the misuse and abuse of unpaid interns by working with the provinces to fill in the gaps in our laws that leave interns without protection, to increase access to employment insurance for all workers, to bring more fairness to the tax system for the self-employed and for workers with fluctuating incomes and to ensure that all Canadians could retire with a livable pension.

This proposed national urban workers strategy will support all Canadians in big cities, small towns and rural areas who are struggling with the issues of precarious employment. It is time our policies reflect the reality of work in the 21st century and that is why Canada needs an urban workers strategy.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)