Anita Neville

[April 26th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, during question period on March 21, the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development neglected to answer my question on aboriginal poverty. His responses were a deflection whereby he falsely claimed that I had committed to certain positions that in fact I had not committed to, and he neglected to speak to the issue of aboriginal poverty.

At one time though the same minister called aboriginal poverty the most pressing social issue that we faced as a nation. I too agree with the minister's comment, but I am dismayed that this meanspirited government has failed to take action to combat this very pressing issue.

First nations people experience horrific poverty across the country and it is not disputed by anyone. One in four first nations children live in poverty. This is compared to one in six children of the non-aboriginal population. Twenty-seven thousand first nations children are in care, most often because of the impoverished circumstances in which they live. One in eight are disabled, double that of the non-aboriginal population of Canadian children. Suicide rates are incredibly high, accounting for 38% of all deaths of first nation youth.

Their homes are unbelievably over-crowded. In some instances, 28 people live in a two bedroom home. This is in large part due to the lack of social housing in first nations communities and a lack of commitment by the government to remedy this issue. Many of their homes are contaminated with mould.

Many first nations people have to boil their water. Responses to a water strategy only comes about when there is a diversion of funds from other capital projects, such as education.

First nations people are more susceptible to disease. We know that diabetes and tuberculosis in particular are rampant. We heard earlier today and this week about tuberculosis in residential schools in the past century. I hope the day does not come when aboriginal peoples will come to us to ask for an apology for the neglect that has been imposed on them by not dealing with tuberculosis at the moment.

Eighty per cent of first nations people have personal incomes below $30,000 and more than half are unemployed.

These living conditions are unacceptable. This is a country that the minister likes to speak of as being a compassionate country, but it is a compassion that the government certainly lacks as it has failed aboriginal Canadians. It has not done enough.

It says that it has spent $10.2 billion, but it has miscalculated because it includes legal obligations. It will not apologize for the residential schools legacy and has totally ignored the Kelowna accord, which we know from aboriginal people across the country provided an opportunity for hope.

Aboriginal people across the country area starting to speak out in peaceful protest. Collaboration and consultation seem to not be available with the government. The role seems to be one of intimidation, and peaceful protest seems to be the only way of responding.

[Aboriginal Affairs, April 25th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, today on the grounds of the Manitoba legislature a peaceful and lawful protest is taking place. Led by the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, first nations, Métis and others from Manitoba are gathered.

They are there to speak out against two successive federal budgets that ignore aboriginal issues and to speak out against the injustice of abject poverty in their communities.

They gather to protest the government's unwillingness to apologize for the legacy of residential schools. They gather to insist the government acknowledge and respond to the 27,000 children in care. They are there to object to the amount of time it takes to settle land claims.

They gather peacefully to show that intimidation is not collaboration. They come together to show Canadians that the government has failed them.

They ask members of this House and all Canadians to support their efforts to improve the lives of aboriginal Canadians across this country.

[Aboriginal Affairs, April 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the United Church finds it “completely unacceptable”. A Roman Catholic administrator, along with a bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Ontario, says it is “totally incomprehensible”. The Anglican Church of Canada expressed its “strong disappointment and sadness”.

They are sorry. When will this meanspirited government, for once, show respect and apologize to aboriginal Canadians for the legacy of the residential schools?

[Holocaust Memorial Day, April 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House to pay tribute to the innocent victims of the Holocaust, the courageous survivors, the allied troops who freed the camps, and the righteous gentiles who risked and sheltered, saving lives.

But even more importantly, I rise in the House to remind my colleagues that anti-Semitism is still with us, that history will repeat itself unless we learn from it, and to remind our government that vigilance should translate into concrete action.

Canada still does not have a comprehensive strategy to combat anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. At-risk communities still shoulder the burden of extra security, alone.

Remember and act, Mr. Speaker. We must all remember and act.

[Committees of the House, March 28th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, this is a textbook case of how not to operate in a democratic system.

[Committees of the House, March 28th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, let me begin by saying that I am absolutely astounded to hear a member say that we represent only the very narrow community that we come from, that in this House we can speak only about the issues that are in our own backyard. We are elected as members of Parliament to represent and to speak for all of the issues of all of Canada.

My colleague, the member for Malpeque, has a distinguished career in the farm industry. To hear that kind of attack, that kind of slur on his good name and his longstanding commitment to the farmers of this country, is absolutely outrageous.

Let me also say this. Sure, I care about downtown Winnipeg, and I care about downtown Winnipeg a lot, but I also care about the many farmers and the many farm families with whom I have met over the course of the last number of months and who have great concerns about what is going to happen to them, to their farms, to their futures and to their children's futures if this happens.

As for the narrow, narrow approach of my colleague opposite, I challenge him to ever speak out on an issue that is outside of his own backyard, outside of his community and outside of his province.

[Committees of the House, March 28th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in the House to speak on the concurrence motion moved by the hon. member for Malpeque as it relates to the Canadian Wheat Board, particularly its marketing of barley and the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food's barley plebiscite.

Let me begin my speech by repeating the question I posed during question period today, but before I do that, Mr. Speaker, I want to advise you that I will be splitting my time with my colleague from Saint Boniface.

I asked the minister the following question:

--the result of the Canadian Wheat Board's plebiscite on barley is in and, due to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food's meddling, the victim is democracy. Never before has Canada seen such a farce, fraud and betrayal of core democratic values, with traceable ballots, no available voters lists and no transparent scrutineers to monitor.

The government is mocking democracy and does not seem to be concerned. When will the government give farmers an honest vote on an honest question?

I ask, when will the government apologize to all Canadians for its blatant disregard of democracy and when will it allow an honest vote to be taken?

Being a member of the House of Commons and having to ask that type of question is not an easy thing to do. To have to question a party's commitment to democracy and freedom of choice is not something I take lightly, but given the government's actions as they relate to the Canadian Wheat Board, I was given no other choice.

People can disagree. It happens every day in the House. It happens in our homes. It happens in our communities. We argue, we discuss, we listen, we retort, and we acknowledge differences of opinion. The party I am part of believes in the Canadian Wheat Board. The party opposite does not. Let it be. People can disagree.

Unfortunately, the minority government has chosen a course of action as it relates to the Canadian Wheat Board that can only leave me questioning its commitment to democracy when it fears that the end result of a fair, legitimate vote will be contrary to what it wants to do. Let me repeat “fair and legitimate” because what the government has undertaken to do in regard to the Canadian Wheat Board has in no way been fair and has in no way been legitimate.

From the outset, the government has engaged in tactics that would have made the most corrupt dictator applaud: rigging voters lists; appointing a sham task force to write a report and issue an opinion that probably was written before it began; imposing gag orders to prevent the Canadian Wheat Board from advocating for and explaining its preferred option; firing pro-Wheat Board directors; cancelling the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food meetings that were to hear from the pro-Wheat Board president and CEO; later on firing that same president and CEO; numbering the ballots on the barley vote so they could be traced back to farmers; issuing more than one ballot to some farmers and then calling the farmers to see which ones they want counted--is that open voting?; asking farmers a muddled, unclear question when a simple yes or no would have sufficed; and finally, today when the results on the barley vote were released, interpreting the numbers in a skewed way so it could claim, and incorrectly I might add, that the majority of voters wants marketing choice.

Let us look in a little more depth at the numbers released today by the Minister of Agriculture. The minister likes to, and I will add falsely, claim that an overwhelming majority of farmers wants to see marketing choice. For the minister's sake, I hope his fingers were crossed when he made that preposterous statement.

What the numbers really show, when looked at in a vacuum, is that there is no clear majority. What the minister chose to do in making his preposterous statement is add two of the options together to form his overwhelming majority. Unfortunately for the minister, when the two supportive Wheat Board numbers are added together, they trump what he would call an overwhelming majority. “Facts be damned,” says the minority government, “we will get our desired results from somewhere, someplace”.

By including a question that allowed farmers to believe that the Wheat Board could co-exist in a marketing system, the Minister of Agriculture is perpetrating a fraud on the farmers he purports to represent. Absolutely no study has said that the Wheat Board can exist in a dual marketing scheme. Even the minister's tainted task force said the Wheat Board cannot co-exist in an open marketing scheme.

Why then was this option included? Was it because the minister knew that had only two questions been asked, he would have lost, and badly, I might add, so he rigged the questions and thus the vote? He did not listen to the farmers. He did not hear the question that they wanted. He disregarded anything coming from the farmers who wanted to speak in a forthright way.

The minister should be ashamed. It was about actions and half-truths. In fact, the numbers show that only 13% of voters support the full dismantling of the Canadian Wheat Board. What that really indicates is that the second question was a false question, because we know that the Canadian Wheat Board cannot last when there is marketing choice.

Let us look at the figures from my home province of Manitoba. The Canadian Wheat Board is based in Winnipeg, so nowhere in the country will the Conservative government's actions be felt more harshly than in downtown Winnipeg, although I remember a member opposite saying that “it doesn't matter, Cargill can do it”. One might ask why the Manitoba Conservative MPs are refusing to defend the city of Winnipeg. I have asked that question many times, but that is another issue for another day.

In Manitoba, 3,703 votes were cast. Of those who voted, 50.6% voted in favour of retaining the single desk system of marketing barley. Now I might not be much of a math major, but to me this indicates that a majority of those who voted in Manitoba voted to retain the current system, not when adding two numbers, not when skewing the numbers to one's advantage, and not when abusing democracy. Rather, a clear, albeit slim, majority of Manitoba farmers voted for the status quo. Yet for some reason that I cannot imagine, the Minister of Agriculture in the minority government did not talk about that clear majority. One wonders why.

The government does not have to take my word. The minister of agriculture for Manitoba, the hon. Rosann Wowchuk, confirmed my analysis of the numbers. She also said the questions were flawed.

Since the Conservatives came to power it would not be a stretch to say that they have played loose with the truth, facts be damned. A colleague of mine referred to it as “truthiness”. Today's announcement by the Minister of Agriculture is just another example of the government's embrace of the concept of truthiness: keep spinning; never stop to let people see the facts; if we get them busy enough and repeat the same falsehood over and over they are bound to believe us; keep it spinning; cajole the facts to suit us; and massage the evidence.

This is no way for a government to act. It is time for the government to cease with this charade. The masquerade is over. Canadians can see the facts no matter how hard, how fast and into what shape the government tries to change them. It must stop. The Minister of Agriculture should uncross his fingers and admit that no clear majority exists and that the entire process has indeed been flawed. I would submit that Canadians can see through this spin.

The people of Manitoba know the impact of the demise of the Canadian Wheat Board on its city, on the farmers of rural Canada and on the families of rural Canada. I was just looking at a report from the farm women's association, which talks about the importance of the Wheat Board for them. Everybody understands the importance of a single marketing, strong Canadian Wheat Board. The government is playing with the facts.

[Canadian Wheat Board, March 28th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the result of the government's tainted plebiscite on barley is in and, due to the Minister of Agriculture's meddling, the victim in fact is democracy. Never before has Canada seen such a farce, fraud and betrayal of core democratic values, with traceable ballots, no available voters lists and no transparent scrutineers to monitor.

The government is mocking democracy and does not seem to be concerned. When will the government give farmers an honest vote on an honest question?

[Public Safety, March 27th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to express my disappointment, disappointment because the government forgot Canada's most vulnerable communities in its budget.

Some Canadian communities face a disproportionate risk of being attacked by terrorist organizations or racist groups. For example, every synagogue, community centre, Jewish school and community festival requires continual security presence. Mosques and gurdwaras have been targeted.

The financial implications of this unprecedented level of security are great and the federal government's first priority is to protect Canadians. Members on our side have called on the government to establish a fund to help these communities pay for security costs when Canadian law enforcement agrees that a disproportionate risk exists.

This party's leader endorsed this idea. That government did not. We have a crime prevention action fund. Why do we not have a security fund for at risk communities?

[Aboriginal Affairs, March 26th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the federal interlocutor for the Métis nation makes excuses for his government's betrayal of aboriginal Canadians by saying that it is not about the money. Does this mean his government need not live up to financial commitments?

The Manitoba Métis Federation remortgaged assets to continue delivering programs and services because it has not received funding for the year that is ending in nine days. Why is the government forcing aboriginal organizations to rely on lines of credit instead of delivering funding in a timely and responsible manner?