Bill Siksay

[Business of Supply, June 8th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad my colleague mentioned as well the need for increased funding for the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. As a matter of fact, I was at a talk this morning, sponsored by the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, on the important issue of racial profiling. It highlights some of the very important work that needs to be supported by the federal government.

I want to come back to her comments about literacy and the importance of literacy as a human capital issue, an issue that goes to the whole importance of social cohesion and justice in our society. I was shocked to hear that she heard this morning in committee that the rate of illiteracy in Canada has actually risen over the past year. I wonder if she could comment further about that revelation this morning and about the situation regarding literacy in Canada.

[Business of Supply, June 8th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by acknowledging that both the member for Nanaimo--Cowichan and I represent ridings that are in the traditional territory of the Cosalish people.

I would like my colleague to comment on an aspect of the Kelowna accord, which often gets lost around here in debate, and that is the fact that there is a signed agreement between the first nations of British Columbia, the federal government and the province of British Columbia to implement the Kelowna accord, which is called the transformative change accord. Part of the actual structure of the document sets out defined goals and measurable outcomes.

We have heard in the past the Minister of Indian Affairs saying that he wanted to work toward an agreement that had measurable goals and definable outcomes. We have that already. We have a signed document that all of the first nations representatives, the First Nations Leadership Council, which is composed of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, the B.C. Assembly of First Nations, and the First Nations Summit, all signed onto. It is structured in just the way the Minister of Indian Affairs has asked it to be structured.

Does my colleague know why the government will not recognize this important agreement?

[Business of Supply, June 8th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I want to reinforce that immigrants to Canada, whose credentials are not recognized and who are not in the workforce, need more than just credential recognition. They need positions in the workforce. One of the problems with our system lately is that we have a myriad of wonderful pilot projects, all working on that issue, but nothing has been put into place as an overall program for getting people into jobs that recognize their credentials. This is a pressing issue. Every day that passes makes it more difficult for them to take up work in their fields. We need to move on that quickly.

I want to come back to the member's comments on freedom of choice around post-secondary education. The budget is a real failure around freedom of choice. The only real choice it offers students is to go further into debt. It opens up the possibility of increasing their student loans. We already know students are coming out with $20,000 and more in debt at the end of their educations, which is totally unacceptable.

The other possibility was a tax credit on textbooks. That is great, but it will not enable one person to get a post-secondary education.

Neither of the main solutions that have been proposed really do anything to enable anyone in Canada to get a post-secondary education. When will the government take some real measures to reduce tuition, which is the barrier that Canadian students face when it comes to post-secondary education?

[Business of Supply, June 8th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to follow up with the Minister of Human Resources on that very issue.

Last week it was revealed that up to 60 foreign workers were doing tunnelling work on the new rapid transit line in Vancouver and that they were being paid as little as $5 per hour, that they were working nine to 10 hour days and six days a week. That is in violation of all of our labour and employment standards. It is a wage rate that no Canadian would find acceptable and is in fact illegal under our minimum wage laws.

The other side of that is that Mark Olsen, the business manager of local 1611 of the Laborers International Union of North America said that he “has a stack of resumes of qualified workers who are experienced, willing and able to do this tunnelling work”.

How can it be that the minister's department would give a labour market opinion allowing bringing in those temporary foreign workers to do work that Canadians are available and ready to do, and there is a whole stack of them waiting to do exactly this kind of work?

[Questions on the Order Paper, June 7th, 2006]

With regard to the Canadian Armed Forces presence in Afghanistan: (a) how many persons taken prisoner or detained by the Canadian Armed Forces in Afghanistan have been turned over to (i) Afghani officials, (ii) American officials, (iii) officials of other countries or organizations; and (b) how many of these persons remain in custody?

[Questions on the Order Paper, June 7th, 2006]

With regard to the Canadian Armed Forces presence in Afghanistan: (a) how many humanitarian, restoration or development construction projects has the Canadian Armed Forces participated in during its deployment in Afghanistan; (b) how many have been completed; (c) how many are currently under construction; (d) what is the specific nature of these projects; (e) what are the locations, by province or region, of these projects; and (f) how many of these projects have subsequently been attacked or damaged by insurgents or others, and, of those affected or damaged, how many are under repair, damaged and waiting for repair, destroyed, intact but unused, or intact but being used for purposes other than originally intended?

[Kelowna Accord Implementation Act, June 2nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate this afternoon on behalf of the New Democratic Party.

I want to begin by acknowledging that my constituency of Burnaby—Douglas is in the traditional territory of the Coast Salish people. I want to state from the outset that the NDP supports Bill C-292. I want to thank the right hon. member for LaSalle—Émard for bringing the bill forward.

I also want to say that I hope he does not confuse our concern about the failure of Canada to acknowledge its signature on other agreements with our hope that the Kelowna accord is acknowledged and followed up on, and that it is acknowledged by the House and the current government.

We acknowledge the importance of the Kelowna accord and we want to see those provisions go forward. This is an agreement made between the five national aboriginal organizations, the Assembly of First Nations, the Métis National Council, the Inuit Tapirit Kanatami, the Native Women's Association of Canada, the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples and the first ministers of the provinces, territories and Canada.

The accord represented progress in key areas: health, life long learning, housing, economic opportunity, negotiations and accountability for results.

We want to acknowledge and recognize that there were long negotiations and discussions that preceded it, particularly since the Aboriginal Peoples Roundtable in April 2004.

We also want to acknowledge that it is not a perfect agreement. It was clear that more consultation was needed, for instance, with national and regional aboriginal organizations; organizations such as the Council of Yukon First Nations whose self-government agreements make them unique for first nations south of 60.

The Kelowna accord's main intention was to address the gap in the standard of living between first nations, Métis and Inuit people, and the rest of Canadians. The intent was to close that gap. I think that is an important objective that Canadians support overwhelmingly.

We had been making progress in that regard up to 1996. Unfortunately, that year the Liberal government chose to cap increases for Indian and Northern Affairs Canada core programs at 2%. That capped spending on key programs in education, roads, social services and drinking water. The Auditor General has pointed out that there was a key problem with the 2% cap. In the period since 1996, spending has increased by only 1.6%, while the population has increased by 11%.

That in itself represents a significant shortfall. As the Assembly of First Nations points out, most Canadians receive services from differing levels of government: municipal, provincial or territorial and federal.

First nations people, however, living on reserve, only receive funding for federal government services. This makes for a huge difference. Most Canadians receive government services at a rate two and a half times that of on reserve first nations residents.

Specifically, for every dollar spent on reserve for health care, $1.60 is spent on average Canadians for health care. For every dollar spent on housing on reserve, governments in Canada spend $5.60 for other Canadians. For every dollar spent on the education of first nations children, other Canadian children have $2.10 spent on their futures. Clearly, that situation is not tolerable.

What is worse, because of the fact that many reserves are in remote or northern areas, the cost of delivering successful programs is even greater. Just the cost of providing materials is substantially greater, and then there are the special social costs that first nations communities face, the costs of a very young population, the costs of dealing with the legacy of residential schools and attempts at assimilation, and the costs of poverty, displacement and disenfranchisement.

I wish to draw attention to another particularly regional aspect of this. In British Columbia the Kelowna accord also meant the signing of a specific regional agreement. I want to emphasize that this is a signed agreement, signed by the right hon. member for LaSalle—Émard as the Prime Minister on behalf of Canada, signed by the premier of British Columbia, and signed by the representatives of the first nations of British Columbia. It is called the B.C. transformative change accord.

The folks who signed it on behalf of the first nations in British Columbia were: Regional Chief Shawn Atleo, representing the B.C. Assembly of First Nations; Grand Chief Edward John, Grand Chief Doug Kelly and Grand Chief Dave Porter on behalf of the First Nations Summit; and Chief Stewart Phillip, Chief Robert Shintah and Chief Mike Retasket on behalf of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs.

This is no press release. This is a signed accord, the transformative change accord between the Government of British Columbia, the Government of Canada and the leadership council representing the first nations of British Columbia. The transformative change accord dealt specifically with how the Kelowna accord was to be implemented in B.C. and established goals for closing the socio-economic gaps over a specific period of 10 years.

I and our NDP aboriginal affairs critic, the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan and the member for Vancouver Island North, recently met with B.C. first nations leadership council. They include the executive of the first nations summit, the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, and the B.C. Assembly of First Nations. They represent 203 first nations in British Columbia and about one-third of the first nations in Canada.

It was clear from that meeting how crucial the B.C. transformative change accord was to the future of our province and to the first nations and not any less to the future of Canada.

As further evidence of the importance of this signed accord, the B.C. legislature recently unanimously called upon the federal government to live up to the financial commitments made in the Kelowna accord. It is crucial to the development and the future of British Columbia and to first nations. It is crucial to the development of treaties, to the social development of B.C. and to first nations and to our economic stability and development.

The accord mentions achievable goals. The minister said earlier that he wanted to see achievable goals and clear benchmarks. The transformative change accord does state achievable goals and does point out clear indicators of clear benchmarks.

We cannot step away from the important steps forward represented by the Kelowna accord. We cannot ignore the fact that it represents a way forward. We cannot say, just because we were not the ones responsible for negotiating it, that we will not honour it. Where is Canada's credibility in that situation?

We cannot say that it was just a pre-election gimmick. As much as we would have liked the former government to have acted sooner, to have implemented different policies during its long period in power, to have not capped spending on programs in first nations communities, we cannot ignore the achievement that it represents and the hope and the guidelines for the future that it puts forward.

The Conservative government might have had a leg to stand on if it had another plan, if it had a better plan and if it had a plan that had the support of first nations. However, it does not and there is not one on the horizon. We cannot say that two wrongs make a right. Maybe the former government did not take the initiatives that were necessary, but the current government is not taking the initiatives that are necessary either. Two wrongs do not make a right.

The agreement must be recognized and implemented. In particular the signed agreement between Canada, B.C. and the first nations of British Columbia must be honoured and pursued.

[Criminal Code, June 2nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, there has been some sentiment that judges exercise their discretion around conditional sentences improperly, that their inclination is to be too lenient, that somehow that leniency is built into the system and that it is an automatic inclination of some judges.

Could he comment both on the use of discretion by judges and if he thinks that there is a built in tendency in the system to somehow take serious and violent crimes leniently when it comes to sentencing?

[Criminal Code, June 2nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for yet another thoughtful intervention in this place. She always manages to do that.

I was very interested to hear her talk about the economics of this bill and the costs associated with it. When I spoke earlier today, I talked as well about the increased cost of incarcerating people, the increased cost to the provinces of incarcerating people, and how I would rather see that money go into crime prevention programs.

Quebec has been a real leader in crime prevention programs. Many years ago Quebec undertook to put money into that kind of process rather than into incarcerating, especially youth who commit crimes. I wonder if the member could comment on that program in Quebec and generally on what the $250 million, which some estimates are that this will cost the provinces, might be better spent on to prevent crime in the first place.

[Foreign Workers, June 2nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, excuses aside, this exploitation is happening in Vancouver as we speak and at a time when there are Canadians available to do the work.

Mark Olsen, business manager of Labourers Local 1611, says that he has “a stack of resumés of qualified workers, who are experienced, willing and able to do this tunnelling work”.

Why is the government approving applications for temporary foreign workers when qualified Canadians are ready and willing to do the job? When did cheap, exploitable foreign labour become the government's bottom line?