Bob Rae

[International Co-operation, February 15th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the difficult part is that for a full year the minister's answer and the answer of her parliamentary secretary in the House was that the decision that was taken was taken by CIDA, as an organization, that it was taken according to its priorities and that it was its decision. For a full year she hid behind CIDA making that decision.

Suddenly, in December she said, “No, I made it myself”, but she did not admit in December who it was that put the knot in the “not”.

How does the minister justify this kind of subterfuge?

[Points of Order, February 14th, 2011]

I am sorry, it is. I can show you the transcript, Mr. Speaker. It is a completely different explanation.

The minister has to explain how it would be that three signatures would appear on a document, all of which would appear to be agreeing with the “not” when, in fact, the minister is stating today that two of the officials did not agree with the decision she has made.

[Points of Order, February 14th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I still do not think the minister has satisfactorily answered some questions about how it would be that the document in question would contain three signatures, two of which she now states did not accord with her decision and one of which is her signature.

The minister is giving us a different statement today than she gave in committee. When she was directly asked the question, “Who put the “not” in the document?”, she replied “I don't know”. She is now stating that in fact the document was doctored on her instructions. This is a different explanation from what we had in committee.

[Citizenship and Immigration, February 14th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, although the minister did not reply in the spirit of Valentine's Day, I would like to ask him another question in the same spirit. Today is a day of love and reconciliation. So why did the minister announce a reduction in the number of people who will be allowed to immigrate to Canada in the family reunification category? They will have a harder time helping their families.

Are family values no longer important to the Conservative Party?

[Citizenship and Immigration, February 14th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, last week the Minister of Immigration announced a 5% reduction in the family class of people coming to Canada.

I will give just one example of how discriminatory that decision is. It directly contradicts a statement made by the Minister of Human Resources who said last week that people did not need to send their kids to child care centres, but could have their parents and grandparents and their loved ones take care of them.

The minister is stopping those loved ones, is stopping those grandparents, from coming to Canada. How does he justify that kind of discriminatory practice?

[Business of the House, February 10th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the House leader, in his comments, made some remarks completely out of character about the retiring president of the press gallery and reporter for the Toronto Star, who is returning to Toronto. If I might, I just want to add one or two words on that subject.

When I was in Queen's Park, not exactly parallel to the time that the House leader was there, both while I was in opposition and while I was in government, Mr. Brennan was a very dogged and determined reporter for the Toronto Star.

I must confess that when the people of Ontario thought it would be a better idea if I took a sabbatical from political life in 1995 and I decided to step down as leader of the party in 1996, I thought that I would be saying goodbye to politics and also be saying farewell to Mr. Brennan from the Toronto Star. Imagine my surprise, not to say something else, when I returned to the world of scrums, of impossible questions and aggressive interrogations outside this place, and found that no one but Mr. Brennan would be there acting again on behalf of the Toronto Star.

He is a terrific person and terrific reporter, a person whose integrity and good humour have stood him and all of us who are involved in politics in good stead.

We wish him well on his departure from this place. However, I certainly would not want him to leave without at least saying goodbye this one time and reminding him, as I have in personal correspondence, that 1 Yonge Street happens to be at the very southern point of the riding of Toronto Centre. Thus, once again, I am locked in this very unhealthy embrace with Richard Brennan of the Toronto Star.

[Rights & Democracy, February 10th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the fact remains that we are witnessing a ridiculous spectacle; Rights & Democracy is spending $1 million of a $9 million budget on unjustified private investigations and lawyers' fees. There is no reason for this.

How do you explain the fact that the government reappointed to their positions on the organization's board of directors the two men who were responsible for the witch hunt that so greatly affected this organization?

[Rights & Democracy, February 10th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, at a time when the issue of rights and democracy is at the heart of politics in Egypt and the Middle East, we now have the spectacle of the government admitting that Rights & Democracy in Canada has spent $1 million on gumshoes connected to the Tory party, on accountants, and on lawyers.

How does the minister justify this gross waste of public money at a time when there is a crisis in world democracy? What is the minister going to do to finally restore credibility to our own approach to rights and democracy?

[Situation in Egypt, February 2nd, 2011]

Madam Speaker, the minister's intervention, as always, is a thoughtful and lively one that expresses so very clearly a profound point of view, which I think in most respects is very widely shared in the House and in the country.

My question will be remarkably parallel to some of the ones I have asked other members of the government.

I find it interesting that the government has identified a clear priority for Canadian foreign policy, the Prime Minister stating very clearly that the promotion of democracy and human rights is a clear priority for Canada, all over the world and in particular now in the Middle East. This comment was repeated by the President of the Treasury Board and by the chairman of the foreign affairs committee.

I plead with the minister, and I know a little about this, when we look at where there are significant gaps in how we actually invest through DFAIT and through CIDA, what will be found is that the great gap now is in this area of governance and in this area of democracy promotion.

I will give the minister one very practical example. In my previous life I was involved in a series of initiatives in Iraq, where the Forum of Federations was working with the national assembly of Iraq and dealing with the question of its constitution, dealing with federalism, but, generally speaking, dealing with how to create a better system of governance in Iraq.

Funding for any project involving governance in Iraq was cut off. It was not cut off for ideological reasons, for whatever. I am not alleging any political interference. It was cut off because there had been a bureaucratic decision that governance was no longer a priority. CIDA no longer did governance.

My colleague from London can share the same experience with respect to Sudan. When we go to Sudan, the people who are on the ground in southern Sudan are begging for assistance on governance. It is a real challenge. We see this again. We are going to be talking to people in Pakistan. The people in Pakistan are looking for assistance in governance, which looks at federal structures, pluralism, diversity. The government is gladly supporting the Aga Khan Foundation in the establishment of the Centre for Pluralism, which is a great thing.

However, I would ask the minister, in quite a non-partisan spirit, with his colleagues, to have another look at this question of how we do the interventions on democracy. I appreciate his comments today. They were Burkian, thoughtful and engaging as always. In listening to the comments of the President of the Treasury Board, while I did not agree with all of the conclusions he reached, when he said that we needed to match our passion for freedom with our sense of historical experience, I spent several years writing a book on that very subject so I agree entirely with that spirit.

I really reach across the House and say for the minister that I would desperately like us to be able to get a point where we could in fact make a common move on the question of democratic governance.

[Situation in Egypt, February 2nd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated my colleague's comments. In continuation of the questions I have been asking this evening, I find it interesting that members of the government would be affirming the fact that there needs to be a stronger institutional response from Canada. What is striking for me is that the government has not always been consistent in its support for those institutions in our own society that have already been in the field and already engaged in dealing with governance questions in the world.

If we now realize that governance is such a critical issue in this part of the world and indeed in other parts of the world, I wonder what the member would suggest we do as a country to ensure there are not just a series of one-offs as we respond to the Egypts and the Tunisias and the others that may arise, but that we have a more consistent approach to governance. Perhaps we should give the mandate to either CIDA or Foreign Affairs, but give it clearly to one of them and say that this is their responsibility to run with this. It cannot all be run out of the Prime Minister's office, as was being suggested by the President of the Treasury Board. It is something that has to have the stronger institutional support of the Government of Canada.