Anne-Marie Day

[Safer Witnesses Act, May 30th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I will repeat my question.

What will happen here in Canada when a witness is foreign and is no longer receiving protection from his own country?

[Safer Witnesses Act, May 30th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, my question will be very short.

What will happen when the witness who needs protection is foreign and is no longer protected by his own country?

[Safer Witnesses Act, May 30th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, authorities who work on combatting street gangs welcome this bill and say it will allow them to protect witnesses who are members of street gangs but want to leave that lifestyle. They see it as another tool for their toolbox.

As we know, protecting witnesses costs money; in fact, it is very expensive. We also know that the government has not made any plans to transfer additional funds to the provinces that have witness protection programs or to the RCMP.

My question is as follows. If the government wants to create a cardiac unit at a hospital and forces the hospital to create it, how is the hospital supposed to balance its budget if it does not eliminate another service? It is a question of credits and debits.

Why did the government not plan any transfers to pay for these changes?

[Employment Insurance, May 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, what the member just said is so interesting, it is incredible.

First of all, it is all false, because we do talk about job creation on this side of the House. The member really stepped in it. Just think of Canada's manufacturing sector, which is steadily declining. That is what we referred to as Dutch disease, and our leader talked about it. Canada has suffered as a result. The NDP does talk about the economy.

The solution is the job creation program, not cuts that hurt unemployed workers. Half of the Canadian provinces oppose the program because it is bad for economic recovery in provinces with a lot of seasonal employment.

These provinces are not lucky enough to have oil wells or a knowledge economy based on something like pharmacology.

Currently, 50% of the population is experiencing a recession and job loss. We fully support the idea of finding work for employment insurance claimants, but the government has to stop scaring them, showing up on their doorsteps and accusing them of fraud, because most of them are not fraudsters.

[Employment Insurance, May 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives see crime everywhere, even where there is none. They send inspectors to spy on the unemployed in their homes. They suspect everyone of being a criminal. What are the unemployed guilty of? Are they guilty of losing their jobs or of living in a region where seasonal employment is predominant?

On March 5, during question period, I asked the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development about the home visits and the techniques one might describe as spying on employment insurance claimants by government representatives. In my opinion, the Conservatives are becoming more fierce in their attack on people's rights, and that is unacceptable.

We now know that thousands of randomly selected claimants were visited directly at their homes by Service Canada representatives. Apparently, the purpose of those visits was to ensure that the unemployed workers were seriously looking for employment.

Although the techniques for verifying the integrity of the system were implemented a long time ago and using the necessary means to prevent fraud is entirely justified, one has to wonder about the legitimacy of the current approach. There is a fine line between a legitimate verification and outright bullying.

We have even heard stories of EI claimants who had to explain to Service Canada why they were not home, when they were out looking for work, applying for jobs or doing an interview.

Unfortunately, it seems clear that this system is not designed to verify whether a claimant is eligible. Instead, the Conservatives want to covertly send unemployed workers the message that the government is keeping an eye on them. The vast majority of Canadians would rather see the Conservatives focus their efforts on the many scandals that abound in the Senate and in the Prime Minister's Office.

There is no data to support the claim that home visits are an effective way to uncover fraud, and Canadians have every reason to question what is going on, since all of the Conservatives' arguments are filled with half-truths.

I remind Canadians that, although the government claims it could recover millions of dollars from fraud, errors with EI benefits payments come from three sources: from the claimants themselves, from employers and from the administrative system. The government claims there is $330 million in potential fraud, and that includes errors, improper payments and future corrections or claims processed incorrectly.

Service Canada employees say that there is no indication that the number of cases of fraud in the system has increased. The most recent data analyzed by the Auditor General, along with the numbers that have appeared in the newspapers, show that less than 1%, approximately 0.6%, of the budget allocated to the employment insurance system is attributable to fraud. That money is nearly fully recovered, except for about $21,000. Those figures come from the 2012 Public Accounts.

There are relentless attacks on honest workers, the vast majority of whom pay their taxes and ask for nothing more than to work and live with dignity in the regions of this country. The thousands of workers who are proud to participate in a diverse economy are victims of stereotypes perpetuated by the Conservative Party, yet a senator had to give $90,000 back to taxpayers.

Fraud is never acceptable.

[Not Criminally Responsible Reform Act, May 27th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, what the minister is doing is exactly what we want to do—that is, discuss the content of the bill. However, the content of the bill is not the current order of business. The current order of business is the fact that the debate is being cut short.

This is the 34th time the government has done this. For the sake of democracy, the government must give us a chance to discuss this, just as it replies and addresses its comments to its members. It was not speaking to you, Mr. Speaker, but rather to its members. You must have noticed this.

We want to have a debate. The government needs to stop shutting down debate and let us speak. In any case, we plan to support this. The Schizophrenia Society of Canada has asked for more time in order to meet with the minister on this issue. People also want to discuss it, and that is what we want to do.

[Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act, May 27th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, we heard from the member for Miramichi, the parliamentary secretary and now the Minister of Health, both in committee and here in the House.

In terms of the legislation itself, this bill has a huge flaw, specifically concerning common-law spouses in some provinces such as Quebec and Saskatchewan, if I am not mistaken. In fact, the law is unenforceable in cases where spouses do not have access to property rights under provincial legislation. That is a serious problem. It means that this bill can hardly be described as equal or fair.

Another important point is the fact that first nations have spoken out against this bill. Perhaps we should listen to them. Furthermore, two votes were already held, when first nations representatives were here. I could quote Michel Audet, among others. We could look at the record. Two votes were called in the House to prevent these people from speaking out. All they said was that they did not have enough time and that we should wait to pass the bill.

What are the member's thoughts on that?

[Employment Insurance, May 22nd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, apparently, it was not enough for the Conservatives to go after just the workers and seasonal industries.

Now they have also ordered Service Canada officials to have no direct communication with the organizations that provide assistance to unemployed workers. The Conservatives require organizations to communicate solely by fax or mail. This is 2013. They need to get with the times.

Why are they trying to muzzle the public servants who follow up on claims with all of the groups of unemployed workers?

[Committees of the House, May 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for her speech, which was excellent and very clear, as always.

In this time of globalization, a strong and competitive economy requires well-trained workers who have jobs that match their skills. Businesses want well-trained workers too. It is not really acceptable to have doctors and lawyers working as taxi drivers in downtown Montreal. This leads to other problems.

The government, in its wisdom, wants to send EI recipients to where the jobs are, yet it does not take skills into account. It also wants persons with disabilities who are available for work to take a job to the extent their disability allows. It wants to do the same for temporary foreign workers and aboriginal people too.

Obviously the Conservatives have completely ignored the fact that workers need to have the skills to do the job. No one can learn a trade overnight. The government needs to come up with a comprehensive worker training plan.

I think the hon. member is well aware of this and I would like to know a bit more about her thoughts on the issue.

[Committees of the House, May 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the committee repeatedly heard evidence and was provided information about the job market. We heard that there will be a labour shortage—something we have known since the 1990s—and that we do not have sufficient data about businesses, employers or the population. Furthermore, the data is not released often enough, nor are high-quality forecasts.

My question is about future shortages. We need more workers in the labour market. Does the member know whether this government has made plans to fill that labour shortage? What does his party suggest?