Andrew Cash

[Petitions, February 8th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to present a petition from the residents of my riding of Davenport in Toronto. The residents want to add their voices to the growing momentum in our country expressing concern around the government's plans to introduce what we call “lawful access legislation”.

The petitioners state that this legislation would require all telecommunications companies to collect and store personal information about their users and hand over the information at the request of law enforcement without a warrant. They state that Internet and phone providers would pass the cost of this spying program on to consumers. They state that Canadian authorities have not provided the public with evidence that they cannot perform their duties under current regulations. They also state that the Canadian Privacy Commissioner has stated that the legislation would substantially diminish the privacy rights of Canada.

The petitioners, therefore, call upon the Government of Canada to respect the privacy rights of Canadians by maintaining the need for law enforcement to secure judicial warrants before receiving personal information from telecommunications providers.

[Committees of the House, February 8th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, any time the Conservatives hear something they do not like, they just run and hide.

Yesterday, in the heritage committee, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage blew a gasket and ordered all eight witnesses out of the committee room. It did not matter that they had come from all across the country to give expert opinion. What seemed more important was the parliamentary secretary's own personal temper tantrum.

Unfortunately, that is how the government treats the important legislative work that should be done in committees. Committee after committee is shut down and held in camera anytime the Conservatives do not want Canadians to know what is going on.

Canadians elected all of us but the government believes it is entitled to shut down those voices. It is an insult to Canadians and democracy.

It took the Liberals 13 years to get this arrogant. My goodness, the Conservatives are a quick study.

[Housing, February 7th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the finance minister showed an interesting display of affection yesterday for the mayor of Toronto. The Conservatives and Mayor Ford generally share a lot in common. They both want to cut services that families rely upon. They both want to cut the arts. They both failed to get the job done for Toronto.

When will the finance minister please stop the Ford love-in and get serious about reducing the huge lineups for affordable housing in Toronto?

[Petitions, February 6th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by the good folks of my riding of Davenport in Toronto. This petition deals with what we call lawful access legislation that the government attempted to introduce in the last Parliament and which we expect it will introduce in this Parliament.

The petitioners state that this legislation would require all telecommunications companies to collect and store personal information about their users and hand that information over to law enforcement at their own request without a warrant. They state that Internet and phone providers would pass the cost of this spying program on to consumers. They state that Canadian authorities have not yet provided the public with evidence that they cannot do their duties without this expanded flexibility. They also state that the Canadian Privacy Commissioner has stated that the legislation would substantially diminish the privacy rights of Canadians.

Therefore, the petitioners in my riding, who have joined over 75,000 others who have signed the “stop the online spying” petition, call upon the Government of Canada to respect the privacy rights of Canadians by maintaining the need for law enforcement to secure judicial warrants before receiving personal information from telecommunications providers.

[Housing, February 6th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, while the Minister of Finance lectures Canadians about debt, the Minister of Human Resources tells us that the solution to the rental housing shortage is for Canadians to buy a house and take on more debt.

That is not going to help 70,000 Torontonians on affordable housing waiting lists. It is not going to help seniors trying to stay in their homes. It is not going to help middle-class Canadians trying to buy a house in Toronto. The Conservatives have simply failed Toronto.

How can the minister try to peddle a housing plan that her Minister of Finance will not even buy?

[Pooled Registered Pension Plans Act, January 31st, 2012]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise today and speak to this bill, because so many Canadians do not have a pension and they are looking to the government for some kind of leadership. This is a hugely important issue and the government is offering a solution that is going to be excellent for the banks and lousy for Canadians who do not have a pension at this point.

In my riding of Davenport there are hairdressers, taxi drivers, carpenters, bricklayers, web designers, women who clean offices overnight. None of these people have a pension. There is nothing in this scheme to help those people or to protect an investment that these people make in a pension. However, there are going to be some excellent returns for the banks, which is why the banks are falling over themselves with glee over this proposal. Regular workers have been left out of the pension scheme and have been abandoned by the government and by many large employers. The government, in the wake of the shedding of massive amounts of retirement savings, is inviting Canadians to roll the dice again with the market. How is this a plan that Canadians can bank on?

Many members opposite talk about their experience running small businesses, and some of them might be running small businesses as we speak. However, none of them talk about the real issues that face working people in this country who do not have a pension, do not have benefits, have no job security and no way of accessing the kind of supports they need to raise a family, pay the rent and plan for the future. This is a narrow focus, and I would venture to say it is not focused at all.

If the government really thought it had an excellent plan it would not have limited debate on this bill. Canadians really want to talk about pensions. Why would we have to limit debate on this? This is certainly an issue in my riding. On Thursday night I will be leading a public forum on pensions, on this very issue. I would be very happy to invite members opposite to come to the meeting so they can meet people who do not have the resources to risk in the market. In 2008 Canadians lost billions of dollars in pension savings. Why would we invite Canadians to roll the dice once again?

This is the very lack of care and focus on the real issues of Canadians and Canadian families. Increasingly, workers in Canada do not have a pension. Increasingly, workers are left out of our employment insurance scheme. Increasingly, workers do not have access to parental leave. Nothing the government is proposing would be an answer to the pressing issues for many Canadians. It is a failure on many levels.

[Housing, January 31st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the minister should read the FCM report. Renters make up a third of the housing market. However, in the last 15 years, according to the report, only 10% of new housing starts have been for rentals. Because of the utter failure of this and previous governments to actually deal with the situation, Canadian renters have been left out in the cold.

What is the government saying to Canadians who are struggling to find an affordable, decent place to rent? It is saying, “Sorry, if you are a renter, we do not care about you”.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, January 30th, 2012]

With regard to applications made under the Toronto G20 Summit compensation fund: (a) what is the total number of applications made under the Toronto G20 Summit compensation fund by (i) individuals, (ii) businesses, (iii) non-profit organizations, (iv) other groups; (b) what is the total number of applications in (a) that were deemed eligible for compensation; (c) what is the total number of applications in (a) that were deemed ineligible for compensation; (d) what are the names and addresses of all applicants in (a); (e) for each individual application in (a), (i) what were the claim amounts submitted, (ii) what were the revised claim amounts, (iii) what were the amounts offered by Audit Service Canada as payment, (iv) what are the reasons for any variations in the amounts in (e)(i), (e)(ii) and (e)(iii); (f) what type of appeal process was or is in place for applicants who were not satisfied with the result of their application; and (g) what was done with the remaining money that was set aside for compensation but not awarded to applicants?

[National Flag of Canada, January 30th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to be here this morning, representing my riding of Davenport in the great city of Toronto where people put up flags just about everywhere. Displaying the Canadian flag in my riding is very important to many of my constituents. In fact, it is a unique event, a unique habit of theirs. They often request the flag from their member of Parliament and on every occasion I am happy to facilitate that request.

This very weighty bill is not about the ability of Canadians to display the flag. It appears to be one step in an endless, escalating direction of the government to criminalize Canadians. I am sure the member opposite who drafted this legislation either did not think about this or this bill is more malicious than it looks on the face of it. We have volunteers who are sitting on condo boards, we have seniors and retirees sitting on tenant associations of the buildings they live in, and this bill requires these volunteers to make a decision whether to uphold the municipal fire regulations or risk being charged under this act for refusing to allow people to hang a flag on their balcony. Where is the fairness and foresight here?

If the government stopped borrowing from the Tea Party in the United States, maybe it would put forward sensible legislation Canadians actually cared about. We all know the government loves to wave the flag when it is convenient for it to do so, and it also loves to say that it cannot do this or that because it is a provincial or a municipal matter. These are the government's great excuses for refusing to acknowledge the desperate need for a national affordable public transit strategy. It claims this is somehow not its jurisdiction. Yet the government puts a piece of legislation before this House that will expect and facilitate Canadians in overreaching municipal bylaws and doing its bidding.

It is hard for me to really understand where this legislation is coming from, other than from the government's friends in the Tea Party. However, there is one other issue that might be at play here, because we know that the government in the face of declining crime rates has said to Canadians, yes, the crime rate is falling but the unreported crime rate is rising. Perhaps in an effort to fill the prisons that the government wants to build, it needs to criminalize more Canadians so it has a purpose for this.

We have serious concerns about how volunteer residents' associations are going to deal with this bill, and the member opposite has not spoken to that at all. The member opposite and his government like to flex their muscles and try to characterize their party as somehow the most patriotic body in the country. This is another example of how the government tries to pit one group against another in an endless toxic debate on who is more Canadian.

Here we all are on the first day back in a new session, costing taxpayers a whack of dough to have us all here, and are invited to talk about a piece of legislation that is not on the radar of Canadians, certainly not in the riding of Davenport or in Toronto where this member also comes from.

Instead of trying to lock up landlords for not allowing a resident association to put up a flag, why not try to put landlords' feet to the fire around the issue of bedbugs in the city of Toronto? That would be something constituents in the member's riding would appreciate.

If the member wants to overreach municipal jurisdiction and do something meaningful, why not pursue a national affordable housing strategy? That would help a lot of people in the hon. member's riding. I can say that because I get calls from people from all over the city of Toronto who are desperately in need of housing. I come from Scarborough, which is not very far from the hon. member's own riding. That is where I grew up. The houses were a little smaller than they are in Don Valley, but the issues of affordable housing are huge.

The member had a great opportunity to make his mark in the House with his first private member's bill and really connect to the issues concerning the constituents he claims to represent, and what we have is a watered down facsimile of a Tea Party manifesto on flags. This is what the government is about. It should come forward with some meaningful issues.

How can we support this obvious attempt at throwing a wedge issue in the body politic at a time when seniors are concerned about their pensions and middle class families cannot afford mortgages, let alone buy a house in the city of Toronto? That would be an issue for the member to consider.

I know there are some people who have not been able to fly the flag on their balconies. That has happened. However, we have not heard any conversations with respect to fire and safety or municipal bylaws.

There is a municipal bylaw which would be very interesting to change. It is in the building code around making sure that new buildings are accessible to seniors. That would be something on which the member opposite could really get some support, certainly from his Toronto colleague on this side of the House.

Let us see some meaningful private members' bills that really make a difference in the lives of Canadians. Enough of this phony, toxic, partisan bickering at the beginning of a new session.

[Copyright Modernization Act, December 12th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the issue here is that if digital locks worked and if the downloading of music were the sole issue that was troubling the music industry, then maybe we would have a conversation here. However, they do not work and there are many issues troubling the industry.