Andrew Cash

[Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act, January 29th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, we on this side agree that non-citizens who commit serious crimes in Canada should be dealt with quickly. We have to understand that the examples the minister just gave were of individuals who had sentences of more than two years. Therefore, the measures he is referring to are not necessarily contained here anyway.

There is no question on this side of the House that we need to deal with violent criminals. The issue is the broad sweep of the bill. If the government were actually serious about working with the opposition, we tabled nine prudent, measured amendments to the bill that would have dealt with some of these issues that the minister referred to, but it rejected these out of hand and so here we are.

[Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act, January 29th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House and speak on behalf of my constituents in the riding of Davenport, in the great city of Toronto. This issue is one of grave concern to many people in Toronto. It is an issue that strikes at the core of families in our cities.

There seems to be some confusion on the other side that somehow we on this side are not in favour of a system that really deals with violent criminals who are not Canadian citizens. That is just a fabrication. If the Conservatives want to speak about partisan politics, that is partisan politics at its worst because it is a gross mischaracterization.

I want to talk a bit about two stories that are very close to me. These people both come from my riding. I had a call from a very distraught mother whose 14-year-old was violently assaulted, in fact so much so that this young person will need a couple of years to recuperate. Those who were arrested for the crime were not Canadian citizens. The mother was in pieces, as anyone could understand a parent to be. She wanted to know how this could happen to her child on the streets of Toronto, which by the way are generally safe streets.

It brings to mind the fact that if the government is serious about dealing with violent criminals, then how can it justify the cuts that it has made, for example to border services? In the 2012 budget there were cuts of $143 million to the Canadian Border Services Agency.

The bulk of guns, for example, that are used in violent crimes in the city of Toronto are illegal guns, smuggled in from the United States. What does the government do? Instead of protecting Canadian citizens and communities, the child or the mother who phoned me last week, it has cut at the very spot where we actually need more protection and security. We need more thorough checks because it is easy to smuggle in a gun, evidently, because we are awash in them and the government has systematically cut the very agency that we need.

When we talk about Bill C-43, we heard time and time again from stakeholders, who held a variety of opinions on this issue, that the most important thing was to deal with the system we had and make it more efficient. The government has a lot to answer for to the woman in my riding. This legislation is not the answer. This is cold comfort for my constituent and her child.

This is part of the reason why we on our side rejected this. We presented balanced, prudent, moderate amendments to the bill that would have dealt with the very thing that my constituent called me about, which was a regime that was more efficient in dealing with violent criminals who were not Canadian citizens.

That is one story that came to me over the course of the break.

The other story came earlier. It was from a parent who came into my office extremely concerned because her child had been picked up by the police in what sounded like a random pickup. This was a young person, a racialized youth from an immigrant community and a newcomer to Canada. The family was just getting a foothold in our country. This young person was extremely scared and acted a little inappropriately. These things happen with young people from time to time. Mistakes are made.

The concern that the parent had was that if the son was sent back to the home country, there would be nobody there for him. If he was troubled, he needed the support of his family. I think that is something everyone in this place would agree with, that for young people in trouble one of the biggest issues is family support.

This person came to me with a real concern. It is a concern that our party shares. We are concerned about the broad sweep of the bill. We are concerned about the fact that more and more power is being requested by the minister.

This is a government with ministers who do not have a great record of the kind of behaviour that would make Canadians feel secure and safe in giving them even more power and less accountability and transparency. We have a minister who writes a letter to the CRTC, another minister who has overspent in his election and another who likes to take helicopter joyrides. There is a laundry list of transgressions by ministers on that side.

Now we have legislation, and this is not the first one, where the minister is trying to gather more and more power for himself or his office, with less and less accountability. We have heard from stakeholders who hold a variety of views on this issue. They have raised those concerns and they are legitimate ones.

When we talk about public safety, we have to underscore that the government's actions undermine public safety. They undermine communities' desires to be safe and secure in their communities.

The Conservatives are saying that cuts to border services do not have any impact on front-line services at the border where guns do come across. It is wishful thinking. We know from the Customs and Immigration Union that over 300 jobs on the front line of border crossings will be cut. A lot of them are happening in the GTA. We have a multicultural community and many newcomers.

Let us be clear. The government is speaking as though newcomers to Canada are some kind of troublesome thing for Canadian society. The bulk of newcomers to Canada are peaceful, peace-loving, hard-working, positive additions to the Canadian family. We should be proud of this and we should embrace that fact.

We should be looking for ways to support them, to support their families, to support family reunification and not to pick out a very small important sector of Canadian society that does commit violent crime. We should think more about those families that really need the support so they can get the firm footing in Canadian society that we promise them. That is the most important thing.

[Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act, January 29th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to welcome you and everyone else back. This is my first time speaking in this venerable place this year of 2013.

I have a question for her. We often hear, where I am from in Davenport and in Toronto, parents concerned about some of the measures contained in the bill, because of the fact that sometimes young people make the wrong choices and get into a little trouble. Some of these immigrant parents are concerned that because of measures contained in the bill that their youth are at risk of falling within the confines and ultimately being sent back to their home country. This is will create further problems for families. It does not seem like the right way to go about this kind of approach.

Could my colleague speak to the issue of young people and the concerns that have been raised?

[Canadian Heritage, November 27th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding the fine words, this is another example of how the Conservatives have abandoned the cultural communities of this country. Many young people learned about the postal service and its importance to the history of our country through this museum. Basic decency would mean at least an official announcement of closure and a recognition of the contributions Canadians have made to this museum. None of that happened.

Canada's history is more than just the War of 1812. Canadians know that. Why does this minister not?

[First Nations Financial Transparency Act, November 20th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians understand that the government's record on consultation means that it phones up some of its friends, gets a consensus and then imposes legislation with time allocation, rushing it through saying that it has properly consulted Canadians. This is a sham.

On our side, we introduced over a dozen amendments to the legislation in committee. Not one amendment to the bill from the NDP caucus was accepted or considered by the government. That is not broad consultation with Canadians. That is the government imposing its understanding of what is appropriate for first nations. It is the same paternalistic approach that governments of Canada have done with first nations throughout our history. It is not the way to go and it is not the way an NDP government would go.

[First Nations Financial Transparency Act, November 20th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, one of the fundamental ways in which communities access and get accountability is through dialogue and structures that are in place that are agreed upon by the community and not imposed upon them by the government. This is a huge issue. It is a historic problem and the government stepped right in that very same quagmire.

[First Nations Financial Transparency Act, November 20th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to have this opportunity to speak to Bill C-27, An Act to enhance the financial accountability and transparency of First Nations.

Those watching this debate at home may be scratching their heads about the title of the bill. Canadians know that if there is one thing the government has failed on, it is accountability and transparency. The Conservatives attack every group in the country that does not agree with their right-wing agenda and they enforce transparency and accountability rules that they refuse to follow.

We only need remind ourselves of the $50 million spent in the G8-G20 debacle in the riding of the President of the Treasury Board. We are now debating the fact that the government spent millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, of dollars on a botched F-35 process that did not go out to public tender. The government has no credibility with regard to accountability and transparency. Canadians are right to be concerned about this. Certainly first nations communities have almost unanimously rejected the proposal before the House today.

A concern that we and many leaders in first nations communities have is the gathering of more power in the minister's office. We see this as a trend with the government. The Minister of Canadian Heritage is telling museums how to curate. The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration wants to be the sole arbitrator on who is allowed to come to our country and who is not. The Minister of Public Safety wants to look at emails. Now, with this legislation. the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development would be allow to withhold funds to first nations communities if these onerous accountability and disclosure rules were not followed the way in which the legislation would require them to do.

This is the kind of thing the government does routinely. Whether it is an NGO, union or first nations community, the government looks for ways to keep these groups under the burden of massive accountability and disclosure regimes in order to hamstring them.

There are real issues in first nations communities, which first nations have brought up with the government. They and we on this side of the House expect the government to work with first nations communities to solve these problems and not just impose arbitrary rules on them, rules that are already in place. First nations communities are some of the most transparent organizations in the country and the rules are already on the books. However, what is not on the books is the fact that the government has failed first nations communities. It has failed to discuss issues and engage with first nations communities. It cannot simply impose these requirements on communities that have their own systems and governance, which are extremely transparent.

I also want to discuss the fact that while the government refuses to address key issues in first nations communities, in some cases it requires the governance of those communities to, for example, post private information on websites. How does this enhance accountability, especially when the First Nations Regional Health Survey found that only 51% of first nations homes had Internet access and that dropped to 36% in homes with incomes under $25,000, the majority of which is on reserves?

That speaks to the issue of poverty and the lack of economic development and the lack of meaningful engagement on the part of the government with first nations communities to address the key concerns.

The government has told the management of band councils that it has to run through a million more hoops, put its information on a website in order to allow members to properly peruse the financial statements of first nations communities, when by and large the majority of the members on reserves would not be able to access that information online anyway. It begs the question as to how serious the government really is about this issue and what the real motivations are behind this kind of bill. We see this time and time again. The government uses one small example and casts a shadow over an entire organization, or an entire group or an entire nation in this case.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation, another right-wing Conservative-friendly group, likes to make outrageous claims about first nations salaries. The average salary for chiefs is $60,000 and the average salary for councillors is $31,000. Fifty per cent of chiefs earn less than $60,000 and only five per cent earn more than $100,000. We are not talking about a system of financial abuse here, but this is the spin that gets put on this to justify this kind of legislation.

It is also important to look at this in the context of other legislative bodies in our country. For example, in Nova Scotia summaries of ministers' expenses are located at the legislative library for public viewing. In the Northwest Territories the government only publishes travel expenses of ministers and does not require salary disclosure of elected officials or senior public servants.

More important, the rules are already in place that very much adjudicate the fulsome transparency that is required, that first nations communities expect for themselves. These requirements are strong and muscular and they also require communities to make these disclosures available to members.

What is confusing is the government has not really answered a question. If the government's intent is to make these disclosures more available to members, then we can have that discussion. However, nowhere in this have we had that discussion, especially if the way the delivery of this public information is online when roughly only 36% of those on reserves can access the Internet. That is not a plan for more widespread access to this information.

The government is not really being serious about this issue and part of the reason is because the information is already available. Under the current requirements, first nations must submit to an annual audited consolidated financial statement for the public funds provided for them. These include salaries, honoraria and travel expenses for all elected, appointed and senior unelected band officials. The latter includes unelected positions such as those of executive director, band manager, senior program director and manager. First nations are also required to release these statements to their membership.

We have heard throughout the day that rules are on the books right now for proper disclosure, but that this is about making it accessible to the membership. First, the rules are already in place to make this information available and accessible to the membership and this legislation does not nearly address the key concerns of the communities.

The fact that the minister himself or herself would have the ability to arbitrarily withhold funds for schools, for social services, for water is unacceptable to us on this side of the House.

[First Nations Financial Transparency Act, November 20th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if the hon. member realizes that there are already policies in place that require first nations to submit to the Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada annual audited consolidated financial statements for public funds provided to them. These include salaries, honoraria and travel expenses for all elected, appointed and senior unelected band officials. The latter includes unelected positions such as those of the executive director, band manager, senior program director and manager. First nations are also required to release these statements to their membership. That seems pretty thorough to me.

[First Nations Financial Transparency Act, November 20th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with a lot of interest to my colleague's dissertation on public accountability. If the Parliamentary Budget Officer was listening to his comments on the open accessibility and transparency of his government, I wonder whether he might have choked on his ham and cheese sandwich, if that was what he was eating for lunch today.

Could my hon. colleague truly stand in the House and claim that the government is a model of accountability and accessibility? Further, how can he and his government hector and cajole other organizations that are trying to do their own due diligence and already have in place adequate and thorough transparency and accountability methods?

[Canada-Panama Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, November 6th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, speaking of Canadian workers, after listening to this debate, I have to think that the Conservatives' response to a flood would be to provide a thimble and say it is going to help. We have seen a gush of well-paid manufacturing jobs leave the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, presided over by the government.

Conservatives come before the House today and talk about good jobs and job creation. Let us see a job-creation plan from the government. We have been asking for this since we got here in 2011 and we have not seen a single one. Conservatives want to talk about good jobs. Let us put a plan on the table and not play around with the facts about jobs. I would like my colleague to respond to that.