Bradley Trost

[Canadian Human Rights Act, October 18th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, with just two minutes left in the debate, let me put on the record my opposition to Bill C-16 and say very clearly that I am opposed to this legislation because it is impractical, unworkable, and it is legislation that, both as a social Conservative and as a free speech libertarian, I am opposed to.

While I was not all that well prepared for it, I will state those particular views.

I have noted a couple of cases in my questions and comments which have indicated my problems with it, in particular the Vancouver Rape Relief Society that was in opposition, and had some legal issues. It would have more legal difficulties with this going forward.

I would also note that there are some free speech issues. We see them with University of Toronto clinical psychology professor Jordan Peterson who has been discussing this bill.

We need to understand this and we need to talk about it. This legislation would affect all Canadians, not just people who are being specifically noted and brought forward in this bill. I want to make this clear. As Conservatives, me included, we do not support discrimination against anyone in our country, but this legislation has impacts that are not always seen and that will actually promote discrimination against people who want to support more traditional values or who want to engage in free speech.

I see the time is coming up fairly close to the hour, so I will wind up my rather short speaking remarks on this legislation. This is a big government solution to a problem that does not exist. As Conservatives, we should be opposed to big government solutions. The purpose of human rights legislation should be, by and large, to restrain the government, not to actually input new discriminations against other people. I realize that is not the intention or the argument the hon. members are making on the other side, but it is something I firmly believe this legislation would do. I am prepared for questions and comments.

[Canadian Human Rights Act, October 18th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my hon. colleague's remarks and her thoughtfulness.

There are some real practical issues. I wonder if the member is familiar with the Vancouver Rape Relief Society v. Nixon, where the rape relief society lost at the human rights commission but later on prevailed in the courts, because they had denied someone who had transitioned from being a man to a woman. They said, “Look, we want to have only people who were born and raised as women as rape counsellors.”

If the member is familiar with that case, does she understand the concerns that organizations like the Vancouver Rape Relief Society and members in the House who are opposing the bill have that legislation like this will actually impinge upon the rights of people across the country who want to do something different and who do not necessarily agree with some of the philosophical constructs that the government is putting forward as it supports the legislation?

[Canadian Human Rights Act, October 18th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, let me give a specific illustration in my question of why I will not be supporting the bill.

There was a rape counselling group in the Vancouver area that was hauled into the legal system because it refused to take, as a counsellor, a gentlemen who had transformed into a lady. The organization said it violated its principles. It only wanted someone to be a rape crisis counsellor whose entire life was as a woman.

Why should organizations like rape counselling organizations be discriminated against under legislation such as the government is proposing?

[Natural Resources, October 6th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, first, let me remind my hon. colleague that pipelines did get built under the previous government, the Keystone pipeline and the Clipper pipeline being two of several examples.

I also want to remind the hon. member that the Conservative government did nothing to impede or hurt the construction and growth of these industries. The carbon tax grab just announced by the Prime Minister will do grave damage. We cannot build an economy by taxing natural resources. If we hurt natural resources, we hurt the steel industry. If we stop the steel industry from growing across Canada, people lose jobs. Because of the Liberal carbon tax grab the other day, good, hard-working Canadians in the steel industry will be unemployed.

[Natural Resources, October 6th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to follow up on my remarks of June 7, when I addressed the issue of pipelines and pipeline development, in particular the steel industry. I asked the original question because of my interest in and understanding of how the Canadian economy interlinks.

Our manufacturing sector, represented by the steel manufacturers, is often related to and linked with our natural resource sector. That is very important, because the Canadian economy is linked from coast to coast.

We see this most clearly in the steel industry, the industry that I was urging the government to support. I was urging the government to support it by approving and standing up for, if not necessarily directly but at least in principle, the energy east, northern gateway, and other pipelines. I understand that the regulatory system has to go through the process but, in principle, a government can stand behind it and say, “If environmental conditions are met, we support the underlying principle”.

Let me talk about and note the value of the Canadian steel industry and why we should support pipelines in order to support steel jobs.

The Canadian steel industry employs 22,000 Canadians in 19 plants in five provinces, with spinoffs in iron ore mining from Quebec; processing in Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Alberta; manufacturing in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta; and recycling in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. This does not even include the hundreds of jobs in Alberta and British Columbia involved in the production of metallurgical or coking coal. It is truly a national industry that we need to support.

My home province of Saskatchewan has a big part in making pipe for Canada's oil and gas pipelines. This is the safest way to transport oil across Canada, and natural gas, as well.

The average steel industry job brings each worker $75,000 a year. Yet, Canadians in steel industries are losing their jobs and Canadian metallurgical coal mines are being shut down.

What do we need to do?

We need to support pipelines that can be built across this country, to support steel jobs.

An employed steel industry worker can earn enough to pay for a mortgage, to support their family, and to build a life in a community. These jobs cannot be replaced by lower income jobs elsewhere.

In my home province of Saskatchewan, dozens of high-paying jobs were lost in Regina when steelworkers were laid off from the Evraz plant in Regina.

If we look at other places, like northern Ontario, these are good-paying jobs.

In the riding of Sault Ste. Marie, the steel industry, including companies like Essar Steel Algoma Inc. and Tenaris Algoma Tubes, would surely welcome more business.

Our domestic steel producers across Canada should be buying thousands of kilometres of specialized steel pipe, but they need a government that is willing to speak out for them. They need a government that is willing to say, “Once the environmental processes are taken care of, we will support pipelines across Canada, pipelines to Vancouver and pipelines to New Brunswick”.

Pipelines are there. The private industry will pay for them. We in the government, we in the House of Commons, we in the opposition need to be supportive of these good jobs for hard-working Canadians.

[Special Olympics, October 6th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, three weeks ago I attended the breakfast kickoff for Special Olympics Saskatchewan.

Special Olympics Saskatchewan is dedicated to enriching the lives of people with intellectual disabilities through active participation in sport. It is part of Special Olympics Canada, an organization with over 40,000 special Olympians and 20,000 volunteers. The Special Olympics builds community inclusion and is good for everyone.

At the breakfast, I promised to challenge my fellow MPs to get involved with the Special Olympics across the country. To each and every member of the House, I challenge you to meet special Olympians in your riding and during their Hill Day on October 25. Have them tell you why the Special Olympics is so valuable, and post it to your Facebook and web page. Their story of success and inclusion needs to be told. I know you will enjoy meeting these admirable Canadians as much as I did.

[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Privatization Act, September 29th, 2016]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-308, An Act to provide for the incorporation of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is very simple. It takes the CBC and moves it from being a state broadcaster to actually making it a public broadcaster such that Canadians can actually participate and own it. It is good for the taxpayers, and it brings CBC into the modern era. I do hope the House will support it.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Food and Drugs Act, September 20th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, we are in a bit of a unique situation here in Canada. The political trends, particularly in Europe and in the United States, now tend to be away from freer trade.

In Canada, we have not yet seen that, possibly because we have had such a good experience with growth, and also possibly because it is a smaller economy than others, either the trading block of the European Union or the United States. We are more trade dependent.

I think it is an important signal. First, it helps to send the message to poorer countries in the world that Canada wants to engage in trade, and we want to grow their economies and our economy, back and forth. Second, it sends a political message out to the world—in a minor way, but we are working on that with other things, encouraging the government to back other trade legislation—that there are historically growing, prosperous countries that continue to support a basic fundamental principle of economic growth.

[Food and Drugs Act, September 20th, 2016]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I will conclude. I understand we are getting close to question period.

The trans-Pacific partnership has been talked because this involves trade rules and trade rules naturally are one of the fundamental issues being discussed. As much as I have encouraged and been supportive of the government ratifying the TPP, having been our party's Canada-U.S. critic for basically the last year, I am very pessimistic about the probability of the TPP being ratified. I base this upon the reality of the American political system.

There are two candidates, one who is vocally opposed to it and one who previously supported it and now does not. I also have had conversations with congressional leaders. This leads me to give the following advice to the government and to our party as we begin to take a look at our positions going forward.

With the likelihood being very small that the TPP will be successful, while continuing to urge its acceptance, we need to begin to position ourselves for the future. Acceptance of Bill C-13 helps us to do that, but we need to begin to think not where the puck is, but as Wayne Gretzky always used to note, where the puck will go. That means we need to begin to think about how to position ourselves on bilateral trade agreements with countries that are involved in the TPP if this agreement does not pass. If the United States is not going to be part of this agreement, we need to think about how we can begin to open up markets and expand markets, not just with current trading partners with which we have agreements, such as Mexico, but countries like Japan and other countries there.

This is a technical legislation, but it is necessary legislation. It is based on two basic things: free trade is good and the rule of law is necessary to have that free trade.

After question period I will be more than happy to take questions from my colleagues.

[Food and Drugs Act, September 20th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to rise, and according to the clock, I will be taking us to question period.

I have to admit, I always enjoy talking about subjects involving trade. Frequently when we talk about issues in the House, they tend to be fairly specialized. Ironically Bill C-13 that we are talking about today is very specialized.

However, trade is one of those aspects, one of those things, that affect all of us in Canada. For a country approaching 40 million, it seems a bit odd to characterize it this way, but Canada is a small, open economy. We do a lot of trading. If we look at our history, this is how Canada really started and got going as a geographic, national entity with the fur trade pushing out, starting in New France, Quebec, and pushing through Rupert's Land through all of western Canada.

One thing that has been observed throughout the years is that people sometimes forget the obvious about trade. The same principles that involve individuals, one person to one person, actually apply to nations.

Trade works. I trade with the Government of Canada. It gives me a salary. I do a certain amount of work as a member of Parliament. I then go out and trade. I go to the grocery store. I give people at the grocery store a piece of paper, known as a $20 bill, and they give me some products back, perhaps milk, bread, pizza, or whatever. Those obvious interactions that we see in our day-to-day lives are the same basic principles that need to be applied as we go forward, as we look out to the entire world. The idea that I have something of which I have too much or that is not useful to me, pieces of paper, for example, dollar bills, money, and someone else has some food, etc., that idea works in both directions.

Trade is good. Economists have long recognized that free trade in an idealized state is the absolute best. Although for reasons of national security and other reasons like that, we may not always have pure and perfect free trade. We know that as far as economic conditions are concerned, the freer the trade, the better the conditions.

This brings us today to a bill known as Bill C-13. It has a fairly long name, talking about the various amendments it is bringing forward to a variety of acts. What it is really doing is helping us fulfill some of our agreements that we have as far as the trade facilitation agreement goes. It is a bit of a technical issue.

What it basically says and what we know is that, in the modern world, trade needs to have some sort of rules. For countries like Canada that operate under the rule of law, not just in theory but in practice, this is a good thing because there is so much information, so many different standards, and so many different products and ways to measure things, that it is difficult to understand. In the old days when we had a considerably less sophisticated economy, considerably fewer products, less product depreciation, and not quite international trade, rules were not so much necessary. However, now if we are going to trade something, be it electronics, be it herbicides, be it certain forms of foods, we need to understand what we are getting on both sides.

That is ultimately what the purpose of the legislation is. It is to help bring Canadian standards, in the few ways that they do not conform, into a way that other countries can understand, that we can work with, and that we can mutually benefit from.

It is interesting reading the background literature, and no other members have brought this forward. These technical standards, these technical issues, some exist just because different countries do things in different ways. Some, however, are used to deliberately discriminate and favour local businesses for political purposes. However, these technical issues, these matters of interpretation and understanding of how to trade across borders are actually more costly than the standard tariff barriers that we often think about. These are often they key issues when it comes to trade negotiations between countries, so it is very important that we get these right. Again, this benefits Canadians.

When we have these debates and when we talk about free trade, I admire and I listen to the good stories of my colleagues who talk about the small businesses, the medium-sized enterprises who are held up by these barriers. However, the one thing I always listen for and I do not usually hear it, sometimes I do, is how this benefits consumers, because each and every Canadian is a consumer, every day. We do not always know where our products come from, but of course, we are happy and proud when a product is made somewhere close to home.

I love to buy things made in Saskatchewan. I am from Saskatoon, so that is quite natural. However, if we can get better quality products by trading something we have that is superior to something they have that is superior, this is a win-win. We need to remember this whenever we engage in a trade negotiation.

The more efficient we can make the system, the better we can make the trade rules, the more the consumers win. This needs to be emphasized over and over again. Canadians need to export but when we export, we will import more. If we import more, that will help our consumers. Therefore, both exports are a win and imports are a win for Canadian consumers.

This also brings me now to the next thing which has been talked about today. This legislation does not deal directly with the trans-Pacific partnership trade deal, but is somewhat viewed as a—