Anthony Rota

[Hazardous Materials Information Review Act, March 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, Bill S-2 originated in the last session of Parliament under the sponsorship of the Liberal leader of the Senate. It was passed by the Senate, but had only received first reading in the House when Parliament was dissolved.

The bill seeks to change the process by which the manufacturers of hazardous materials can become exempt from providing full disclosure of the composition and characteristics of their products in order to avoid economic harm that would result from the publication of trade secrets during the disclosure process.

At the centre of this process is the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission, the body that grants the exemptions to full disclosure. The amendments to the act have been requested by the commission itself, which has been restructuring over the past three years to allow it to perform its work more effectively and more efficiently.

The Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System was set up in 1987 as a collaborative effort among labour, industry, the federal, provincial and territorial governments. It was designed to facilitate the disclosure and appropriate handling of hazardous materials in the workplace. It requires product labels and safety documentation to include identification of hazardous ingredients in a chemical product, the specific hazards posed by the product, the precautions to be taken when handling the product, and the first aid measures to be applied in the event of exposure to this product.

However, full disclosure of the chemical composition of products does not have to take place if revealing such proprietary information would likely cause economic loss to the claimant or economic gain to the competitors.

As I have mentioned, the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission was created to review such claims against full disclosure. It reviews the health and safety documentation of those products, issues compliance orders, and provides appeal mechanisms under federal, provincial and territorial legislation. The operations of the commission are overseen by a council, consisting of 17 members who represent organized labour, industry, each provincial and territorial government and the federal government.

When the commission receives a claim, it must determine if the information to be concealed is indeed proprietary and whether disclosure would indeed be economically determined to be detrimental to the claimant. If the trade secrets claims is not upheld, then the ingredients must be disclosed, otherwise the product cannot be sold in Canada.

The commission also ensure that the health and safety information supplied to employers and workers accurately and completely describes the hazards of the product and its ingredients. In the event of a claimant or any affected party challenging a decision of the commission, an appeal is begun and is heard by an independent board made up of representatives from government, labour and industry.

Bill S-2 makes three amendments to the current process. The first amendment is aimed at reducing the administrative burden on claimants who currently must gather and present substantial supporting documentation, and on the commission that must review each detailed submission.

In the 17 years that the commission has been in place, no claims have ever been deemed invalid by the commission and only one in 500 claims have been found to be non-compliant.

Under this amendment, a claimant's declaration will be deemed valid and the production of supporting documentation will only be required if requested by the commission, or if a claim is challenged by an affected party. This will lighten the administration burdens of both the claimant and the commission, allowing the commission to focus its resources on the dissemination of health and safety information to workers and employees.

The second amendment in Bill S-2 shortens the time to get health and safety information out to workers and employers. Currently, when claimants are found to have inaccuracies in their safety documentation, a compliance order is issued and published in the Canada Gazette. This amendment allows claimants to undertake to correct these inaccuracies without having a compliance order issued. This will reduce the delay in dissemination of corrected information to employers and workers.

The final amendment with Bill S-2 is also aimed at increasing the efficiency of the claims process, this time with respect to appeals. With the amendment the commission will be permitted to respond to requests by appeal boards for clarification of the record. Current legislation prohibits the commission from providing input at this stage, even for the purpose of clarifying what are often scientifically complicated details. By permitting the commission to assist, when needed, the appeals process will be expedited.

All affected groups, including industry, labour groups and the regulators support the changes to the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission's process contained in this bill.

More specifically, the amendments would reduce the documentation required to apply for an exemption, would reduce the delay in disseminating accurate health and safety information to those workers who use the product, and would enable a prompt appeals process by allowing the commission to respond to requests by appeal boards for clarifications of the record.

For these reasons, I will be happy to support Bill S-2.

[Hazardous Materials Information Review Act, March 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, if you seek it, I believe you will find consent that I split my time with the hon. member for Oakville.

[Government Accountability, March 27th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, they made the rules. They just cannot explain them to us.

The Prime Minister's friends, his lawyers, his strategists and all those close Conservative ties are lining up to sell access to the government, and now the health minister is getting on the bandwagon.

In 2005 the Prime Minister said, “I told my own MPs and parliamentary staff, if any of them harboured any illusion about lobbying a future Conservative government, they had better leave or make other plans”.

Why did the Prime Minister so blatantly break his own accountability pledge?

[Government Accountability, March 27th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, a constituent of mine says that when he attempted to raise serious issues on mental health services in northern Ontario with the health minister, he was told he needed to have a lobbyist registration number. When I approached the minister, I was told the same thing.

Could the minister explain this new policy? Why should MPs or their constituents have to become or hire a Conservative lobbyist to get the ear of any minister in this government?

[The Budget, March 27th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member did a very good job of giving a synopsis of what the government has done, which is precious little.

We talk about the tax cuts. The tax rate base for lower income Canadians was 15%. The Conservatives came into government bragging about how they were going to lower taxes. What did they do? They raised the rate by half a per cent on the most vulnerable people in Canada. That is unacceptable. That is just not Canadian, for lack of a better thought.

What I look at what the Conservatives did cut, it was the GST. The GST cut of 1% is where we see where the Conservative government is going.

Someone who orders a lobster dinner will save 1% on the bill for that lobster dinner. That is pretty luxurious and it might be a fair amount, but someone who can only afford a hamburger will not have the same amount of saving. The real difference can be seen there. We can look at the price of cars. Someone buying an expensive car saves a substantial amount. Someone who buys a cheaper car does not save that same amount.

When we look at it we can see the real difference in where the Conservatives are concentrating. If people have money, then the Conservatives are really there to help them out, but if people are struggling and trying to get ahead, I am sorry but the Conservatives are just not there.

In talking about cars, my hon. colleague mentioned the environment. We heard about the Conservatives' great tax credit. There is going to be a levy of $4,000 on a vehicle if it produces too much carbon or burns too much fuel. There are very few cars that qualify. What I find very interesting is the way in which the levy will be implemented. CTV reported that it will be implemented by the manufacturer. It will be buried in the price and it will not be seen. On a $100,000 vehicle, $4,000 probably will not make a difference to the buyer.

Let us look at the other extreme. On a cheaper, low end vehicle, if people qualify for the $2,000, it is graduated. Most who do qualify will only qualify for perhaps $500 or $1,000 and not the full $2,000. In that situation it will not be buried in the price. People will apply and they will get a cheque from the Government of Canada, which is the Conservative government. We can see the optics of this and how the Conservatives have engineered it so that they look like the ones that are handing out the cheques.

The Conservatives talk about accountability and honesty in government. I am sorry but I really have to question what kind of accountability and honesty there is in that program.

[The Budget, March 27th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, in 2006 the Conservatives promised 125,000 new child care spaces over five years. Fourteen months into this mandate Canadian families are realizing that this promise was not worth the paper it was printed on. There have been zero spaces created in this past year.

What is worse, the so-called universal child care credit, which is neither universal nor child care, is fully taxable and the government will rake in an average of $400 per family.

The reversal by the Conservatives on income trusts caused Canadians $25 billion from their savings. The softwood lumber deal left $1 billion, money of Canadian businesses, in the hands of their U.S. competitors. The Conservatives decided to cut $1 billion from crucial social programs despite a $13 billion surplus.

Now the Conservatives are on a spending spree, repackaging many of the programs that were originally cut. They are misleading Canadians by re-announcing the programs as new, in a cynical strategy aimed at calling an early election.

The restraint that the Conservatives preached while in opposition is nowhere to be found in this budget. The $4.4 billion in new spending announced in this budget for 2007-08 comes on top of a normal rise in the cost of government and items announced in previous budgets. In all, it means that spending will rise by 5.6%, from $189 billion to $199.6 billion. It is interesting that the government kept the spending under the $200 billion. This may be something that it wants to brag about. The spending will go up again in 2008-2009 to $206.8 billion. It will lose its bragging rights then.

In other words, the Conservative government which pledged to keep a cap on expenses will have overseen close to an 8% growth in spending on new federal initiatives during its first year in office. Although the Conservatives tried to rationalize the numbers by including projections in future years, the fact is that 8% growth this year and 6% next year far exceeds the economy's projected growth.

It almost goes without saying that this kind of big spending approach is both irresponsible and unsustainable. In the words of one analyst, the budget demonstrated “a massive unconservative and fiscally irresponsible expansion of government”.

When the Liberals took office in 1993 they inherited a debt and deficit ridden economy from the Conservatives and turned it into the best economy in the G-7. Thanks to 13 years of Liberal government fewer Canadians now live in poverty, the unemployment rate is the lowest it has been in 30 years, and a strong economic base allowed us to build a better Canada.

What we are witnessing is a regression of epic proportions; an inflationary budget that could have devastating consequences on the Canadian economy for years and possibly generations to come.

In short, Canadians were expecting the Conservative government to put the long term economic growth and prosperity of the country ahead of whatever plans they may have for an early election. This budget clearly falls short.

On behalf of the people of Nipissing—Timiskaming I will be voting no on this budget.

[The Budget, March 27th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Labrador.

I am pleased to have the opportunity today to comment on the recent Conservative budget. Like most Canadians, I was hopeful that the budget would provide substantial measures to address issues such as social justice, the environment, and economic development and prosperity. Like most Canadians, I was extremely disappointed when the budget failed to deliver on any of these priorities.

As the member of Parliament for Nipissing--Timiskaming, I was also looking for some kind of indication that northern Ontario and rural Canada would no longer be overlooked by the Conservative government, but once again, the budget proved that the Conservatives have all but abandoned the people of northern Ontario.

The budget made no mention whatsoever of regional development programs such as FedNor. Rural issues were simply ignored and precious little was done to address the needs of farmers.

What I find truly astonishing is that the Conservative government has increased federal spending by more than $24 billion over the past 14 months and yet the average Canadian has very little to show for it.

While the Conservatives are willing to invest millions of dollars to encourage youth participation in Canadian heritage sports like three down football and lacrosse, they seem unwilling to put money toward high profile areas such as municipalities, post-secondary education, and the fight against climate change.

Like most Conservative initiatives, the budget is big on rhetoric and small on substance. It serves as further proof that the Conservative government is more concerned about electioneering for the short term than helping the average Canadian succeed now and in the long term.

Take for instance the Conservative government's proposal to encourage Canadians to use fuel efficient vehicles. The Prime Minister would like us all to believe that this is a formidable way of addressing environmental concerns and promoting greener initiatives. Upon closer examination, however, we quickly discover that only eight vehicles will be subject to the full green levy of $4,000, seven of which have an initial price tag of $100,000.

Furthermore, for Canadians who are interested in buying more fuel efficient vehicles in the hope of qualifying for the highly touted rebate, most will be very surprised to learn that only 21 vehicles in all qualify for a rebate, and of those only four qualify for the full $2,000 rebate.

In truth, the Conservative budget that promised something for everyone neglects those who are most in need.

There is little relief for single taxpayers or childless couples. New cash for aboriginals and affordable housing is conspicuously scarce or missing altogether. The $250 million a year being spread among the provinces that agree to create child care spaces falls well short of the $1.2 billion promised by the former Liberal government in each of the next three years.

One only has to scratch the surface of the Conservative budget to recognize that the Prime Minister is aiming tax cuts and fiscal perks at politically popular targets rather than those who need it most.

For instance, new spending committed this fiscal year for aboriginal causes totals a paltry $21 million. The budget contains no new cash to repair, let alone replace, housing on more than 600 reserves that the Auditor General has warned is increasingly decrepit.

It is also worth noting that a Conservative government, that seems convinced that tax cuts are the only solution to the world's problems, has refused to provide any broad based reduction in Canadian personal income tax.

Lower personal income taxes are far superior to cutting the GST in terms of Canada's longer term prosperity and productivity. Lower income taxes induce people to save more and to invest more in improving their skills and education, whereas lower consumption taxes simply encourage spending.

Furthermore, the finance minister did not see fit to permit full income splitting whereby couples could file joint tax returns and split their combined incomes evenly between them, thereby reducing their total tax bite by thousands of dollars.

The promised tax exemption for reinvested capital gains is also nowhere to be seen, with the finance minister left saying he will do something at some time. That is not very specific.

In short, the Conservatives have implemented tax policies that look helpful on the surface, but their benefits are cancelled out by the tax hikes on low and middle income Canadians hidden in last year's budget which have still not been reversed.

During the last campaign, the Conservatives ran on a platform of fiscal discipline and economic prudence. The budget further emphasizes what Canadians have already come to expect from the Prime Minister and that is that he simply cannot be trusted to deliver on his commitments.

The Harper government wasted a year slashing funding and breaking promises instead of making--

[Hockeyville 2007, March 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I stand today to congratulate North Bay on being chosen as Hockeyville 2007.

North Bay was one of five finalists vying for the coveted title, which was announced during the CBC'S Hockey Night in Canada broadcast on Saturday evening.

North Bay's entry in the competition was spearheaded by Chris Dawson and showcased the Canadian Pond Hockey Face-off and Tom Hedican's Coach for Food Program.

People throughout Nipissing--Timiskaming and from across Canada demonstrated overwhelming support for the North Bay entry and it was thanks to their online votes that the community was crowned Hockeyville 2007.

The award is more than just a title. North Bay will play host to an NHL exhibition game, the community will be featured in a CBC television Hockeyville special and Memorial Gardens in North Bay will receive $50,000 in arena upgrades.

On behalf of all hon. members, I wish to thank Chris Dawson, the committee that organized North Bay's entry, as well as the countless people who endorsed the bid.

I congratulate North Bay, as it truly is Canada's Hockeyville.

[Cabinet Ministers, March 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the three musketeers of the Harris government are back on the political scene, but now they are operating at the federal level.

We have seen how they governed in Ontario and left the province with a $6 billion deficit.

Now we get to see them in action in the federal government: from flip-flopping on the income trust issue to breaking wait times promises, not to mention big contracts for their friend, Gordon Haugh, and, to top it off, an environment minister who does not believe in climate change.

The return of these three musketeers is a real nightmare.

[Business of Supply, February 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, a lot of the comments being made referred to historic things that are happening.

Let us take one case in particular which is happening in my riding. It is the case of Deirdre Pinto who has been waiting for two years. I am not going to try to throw the blame on one side or the other. She is a married woman who has been waiting for permanent residency for two years. The hon. member talked about how much has been done over the last year, but not much has changed and in fact things have probably gotten worse. Ms. Pinto has been waiting and each time she calls she is told there are 20 cases ahead. This is being done in northern Ontario.

The hon. member comes from a rural riding and I am sure he appreciates how rural ridings sometimes get overlooked. In the case of immigration there is one person in Sudbury covering all of northern Ontario. Any time there is an immigration case, it goes on that person's desk. That person does not cover just immigration. That person has a number of things to do. I hear the Conservative government say how it is pumping more money and more resources into it. There is one person in Sudbury. And please, I do not want the member to tell me that it is the Liberals' fault.

I want to know what the government is doing to help rural Canada and northern Ontario do well as far as immigration and helping process people so that they can come to Canada and lead fruitful lives and actually add to our society and not just sit there waiting for their card to come in. In the case of Ms. Pinto, she has been sitting for two years waiting for the opportunity to work and to be a contributing member of society.

I would appreciate an answer that actually is an answer and not one that says it is the previous guys' fault.