Brian Masse

[Windsor Wildcats Tragedy, January 31st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today with great sadness in my heart. On Saturday in Rochester, New York, three people from the Windsor area, who were travelling with the Windsor Wildcats women's intermediate hockey team, and the driver of a transport truck were tragically killed in an accident.

Wildcats coach Rick Edwards will be remembered as a leader and an enthusiast for hockey in our community. His son Brian will be missed by his own hockey teammates in LaSalle and all those in the wider community that he and his dad were part of, both during the season and in the off season. My deepest condolences go out to the Edwards family and their friends.

On a personal note, I send my heartfelt sympathies to my former colleague Mike Roach, with whom I sat on city council, and to his daughter Erin and two sons for the loss of their loving mother Cathy. I will remember Cathy, who died on Saturday, and I know she will be deeply missed in the community.

The Windsor and Essex County community is proud of these young women ambassadors from our country playing our national sport and showcasing our best to the world. I hope that the bonds of teamwork will help the Wildcats and their families and friends through this difficult time.

I would like to send to all those still recovering and the many grieving families and friends our best wishes and prayers, not only from my colleague, the member for Windsor—Tecumseh, and from me, but from all my colleagues in the House of Commons. Canada is thinking of them.

[Aerospace Industry, December 14th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, if Bombardier does not have the immediate attention of the minister on aerospace policy, it will be without pension parachutes. The departure of Paul Tellier and the free fall in that stock have created great concerns for the industry. In fact, the Liberals are once again coming in for a crash landing with Bombardier because they do not have a national aerospace policy.

When will the Minister of Industry have a national aerospace policy, so that we do not have the Liberals circling above again and creating a weakness in our national trade policy which puts our companies in this situation?

[Automobile Industry, December 10th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, on November 2 the Canadian Automotive Partnership Council tabled its report, “A Call for Action: A Canadian Auto Strategy”.

Once the report was made public, I asked the Minister of Industry when he would act on recommendations. He stated, “Over the next couple of weeks we will be putting together the final touches on an automotive strategy for Canada”.

Nearly another month passed when I again pressed the minister about inaction and he said, “In terms of cabinet consideration I don't know the degree to which I can be open about that, but I would like to think that we can get feedback before Christmas”.

For the record, all I want for Christmas is a Canadian auto policy.

The CAPC report was more than two years in the making and had significant government involvement. The recommendations, therefore, are no surprise. We need to move on investment opportunities like the GM Beacon project so we do not lose more investment.

It is time to move on the CAPC recommendations; fight back against international subsidies that steal Canadian jobs; question markets that are closed to Canadian automobile sales, yet sell in our markets; and take this opportunity to be the pioneers of the manufacture, design and assembly of a new wave of environmentally friendly vehicles that Canadians manufacture and assemble and have those jobs.

[Supply, December 9th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I find it amazing that the government members are questioning opposition members about following committee recommendations. I have sat on many committees where there have been unanimous recommendations and the government has yet to act on them. It has been unacceptable practice.

However, I want to focus on one particular aspect, which is the difference between the independence of a judicial inquiry versus that of the business of Parliament. What are the particular benefits of having an independent judicial inquiry to help with this problem?

[Department of Social Development Act, December 7th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, we believe it is appropriate for the government to be looking at this as a national strategy, but in my context I was validating some of the concerns that the member is expressing in terms of provincial jurisdiction. That is why I specifically focused a lot of time on some of the regional elements I have experienced. I believe the same thing would apply for Quebec. I think that is very important, because to be successful this agency will need to have the ability to communicate effectively and have empowerment for the local communities.

I think it is a very valid concern that is being expressed, because if it is detached or if it is done as a broad brush above Canada with programs and services that are very much silos, then it will be dysfunctional. It will not address the concerns being expressed by the Bloc or by me and I think many other Canadians. As for our social problems, although we may have many things in common, sometimes the solutions to those problems are very diverse and very localized.

I think this also provides us with an opportunity to deal with some of the worst issues of provincial jurisdiction, which are actually very harmful. I point out Ontario's clawing back of the national child care benefit from persons who were receiving social assistance. That was deplorable. It is an example of how sometimes there has to be an oversight of the federal jurisdiction on things that are supposed to be happening for those most impoverished.

That was one of the worst things the provincial government in Ontario was a part of, in both my former municipal and now my federal experience. This bill may give us an opportunity to tackle that issue. If the government is not going to do it from the forefront on the cabinet side, perhaps through the committee and the oversight through this department there might be political pressure from those people who want to see changes for clawbacks that are unacceptable. They might be able to get changes.

The question is well put in terms of concerns. I think there is a role for a national government here, but if the structure is such that it does not involve regions and also if it does not have the required flexibility, then the new changes will be for naught.

[Department of Social Development Act, December 7th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I want to resume by noting that in my prior work experience I worked for the Association for Persons with Physical Disabilities. We worked quite well with Human Resources Development Canada at that time. I particularly would like to note Yvonne Renaud and Irene Kent, two wonderful public servants who helped to participate in creating the opportunities fund for our area.

The opportunities fund is a good example to show how, if the government does have political will to push an issue forward and appropriate resources are put there, we actually can change lives. More important, we can also even the playing field for people who have traditionally had a lot of barriers put in front of them in regard to being able to reach their fullest potential in Canadian society.

The opportunities fund was an initiative to help persons with disabilities find employment or start a business. What was interesting about this approach, and I do give the government of the day credit for it, is that the government actually did go down to the grassroots levels and talk to all the different associations and groups related to persons with disabilities. We were asked whether we wanted to apply for individual funding or look at a special program that encompassed all of us. We worked with Essex and Kent counties so we covered a lot of geography in southern Ontario. To start with, we had over 20 organizations serving persons with disabilities.

What we were able to come up with, through negotiations with public servants who did their due diligence and also up the line, was support to create two programs.

One program assisted persons to use an incentive program to maximize their opportunities to take advantage of employment opportunities and get employment. The employer got a small dividend to assist a person with a disability get into the employment stream. That would dissipate over time and the person would be taken on as a full time employee. We had a lot of accountability built into the model. The hours were provided first, we checked to make sure that full and gainful employment was happening and then the incentive would follow. That then would dissipate over time as this permanent employment was fixed.

It was a good opportunity for some flexibility at the local level in being able to assist people to actually get to the positions and for them to be effective as individuals, marketing themselves to employers to get positions. We ran a program out of APPD called “Equal Ability”, in which we assisted people in doing that.

At the beginning, there was also a small program to assist persons with disabilities in starting their own businesses. I am proud to say that some of those businesses are still operating today, several years later. Brian Fitzsimmons, for example, is one of our former clients who was very much involved in creating a disc jockey service that now has gone into a full-fledged business. He has now had an opportunity to start a family. This is someone who, before this program, wanted to chase after a dream and had the capabilities to do so, but he needed the structure in place just to help give that push.

Therefore, when we create this agency it is very important to have an understanding that this should be for the facilitation of the not for profit sector. If we get into a mandate that is going to be very constrained, with no flexibility, what we are going to see is the lessening of local involvement and also the elimination of solutions that would otherwise seem palatable to local people and also to local organizations.

I give some credit to the Bloc for being concerned about this interfering in terms of provincial jurisdiction. I think there is some merit there. That is why it is very important for this structure to have not only the provincial flexibility but also the regional flexibility, so we can deal with these social issues in ways that are very important to those local communities and so local problem solving will be influential.

Similarly, following that, I had a chance to work for the Multicultural Council as a youth coordinator. It was a very good program. I would once again like to mention Yvonne Renaud, who helped set it up, as well as Glen Shuba. Once again, those two individuals were very influential at the local level in facilitating the local not for profit sector in being able to bid or to be part of a practice to acquire a Youth Service Canada project. We had over 90% success ratios with those projects in regard to getting young people off the streets and either back to employment or to school.

The problem we had with these programs, which a lot of not for profit organizations are facing with the way the government is handling its initiatives right now, was a lack of sustainability. What the government is requesting from the not for profit sector is unreasonable in the sense that it wants them to get partners, it provides little operational support for ongoing funding, and there are also very short windows. One ends up doing a lot of research, which is fine, and a lot of partner building, which is fine, but the problem is that the programs complete themselves far too quickly and the renewal process is very difficult.

So even when we have those high degrees of success ratios and greater accountability than many private sector organizations as well as government sector organizations, because there is such a limited pool of resources available, it is right down to the penny and it is very bureaucratic to renew those successful programs.

Therefore, my colleagues in the New Democratic Party and I are interested in seeing how this is going to evolve in terms of the actual policies related to the new organization. If the social development Canada act leads to a larger bureaucratic structure that has no connection to and is not going to address the big issues that not for profits are facing or the sustainability of funding for the programs Social Development Canada wants to roll out, then we really will not have done much anyway. That is really important, because we have had very successful programs.

For example, on the homelessness issue in our community we put together a number of initiatives with partners and groups. It was not enough and it still is not enough to deal with the problems we have in my constituency in Windsor and Essex County. Our local groups have done the research and have been very supportive, but due to the way the program has been rolled out we actually had funding delayed, so that announcements and things came later and passed into the area where people were vulnerable in the wintertime.

Those were inappropriate measures when we first rolled out that program. That type of stuff has to stop. There has to be greater sustainability and there have to be more resources available.

I think it is important to look at this context of our social policy and framework as an opportunity to seize the improvement of Canadians' lives. Once again, that has to be done with the prioritization of this department. If it is not provided with the appropriate resources or if it is just going to get the leftovers at the end of the day, then it is not going to be able to fulfill its mandate.

We are looking at very significant opportunities to help different individuals move forward. For example, I know that the environment and some of our Kyoto commitments today provide wonderful opportunities for retraining and also for new employment for some of these different groups and organizations that traditionally have had difficulty in finding employment. That is the type of ingenuity we are going to need.

I would like to point out that it is very important for us to look at some of the categories that the department is going to work on. This is very significant in terms of where the Canadian economy is going and also our demographics.

One of the issues is seniors. This country has yet to address seniors' issues. This is very significant in terms of what is happening to our seniors right now. They have fixed disposable incomes. In Ontario, for example, many municipalities have had to raise property taxes because of downloading by the provincial and federal governments. That really squeezes people on fixed incomes. If their property values have risen as well during that time their taxation would have increased. They really get pinched. As well, oil and home heating costs have gone up, as have insurance costs.

All of those things have really pressed on seniors' disposable incomes, let alone drug costs and health care. We now have a huge population that is moving into the category of vulnerable seniors. The proposed act is also going to have involvement with caregivers. There is another opportunity to alleviate some of the burden on our system if we actually are going to be proactive on it.

However, once again I have seen very little from the government in regard to dealing with those issues and, more important, in regard to tying together all the things necessary to ensure that the disposable income is there for seniors. It is going to be very important to ensure that we have a full-fledged plan. I am not yet convinced that there is the realization of our aging population.

One of the things I am getting support on is my private member's bill to eliminate the notice of compliance, the automatic injunction, for the drug companies. Without any type of evidence whatsoever, without providing anything, the drug companies can get this. After 20 years, they are supposed to have the generic for a drug available for the market, but after 20 years and without any proof they can get an automatic stay for 24 months at a minimum. That prevents another drug from getting into the market, it raises the price of pharmaceuticals and seniors get pinched again.

Are these issues going to be discussed? Is there going to be the mandate for the government to deal with the complications on a broader range of issues? Will the government actually roll out the programs that are going to be sustainable and comprehensive enough to deal with the issues? I have some reservations about that.

At the beginning of my speech, I mentioned the issue of disabilities and my past personal experience with that. It will be interesting to see if this legislation is going to lead to a mandate to create a very upfront and accountable persons with disabilities act that will be effective for Canadians, one that is going to bring us up to standard with the United States and provide for greater rights and access. It also relates to other seniors' issues because mobility and the way we actually go about inclusion in our society are related to an aging population. As people age, they acquire different types of disabilities.

Last, I do want to touch briefly on child care. We New Democrats feel that this is very much a part of our social economy. The member for Sault Ste. Marie has been working on the file very diligently for us. He got out in the summertime to start his campaign across Canada. He started to consult with people.

We believe this is a great opportunity to have the demonstration of an effective program for Canada, a program that will provide some improvements for women and children in our country especially and that also will be very much an important part of our industrial strategy. This has been played out by other OECD nations that have taken advantage of providing better day care to move their economies forward.

I will conclude by saying that I do have some reservations on how the government is going to prioritize the department. That is a big thing, which I am going to be watching. Aside from that, it does leave us with the opportunity to be able to discuss very serious issues that need to be changed for our social economy.

[Department of Social Development Act, December 7th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak today to Bill C-22, the Department of Social Development Act.

This is the creation of a special department that we are interested in pursuing as New Democrats. We wish to see whether or not we can fulfill a strong mandate of Canadians to have social development as part of our economic strategy.

I was pleased to participate in my past life with a number of different movements and not for profit organizations that had some access to government programs, which successfully led to changing people's lives. I would like to reference a few of them because I think Bill C-22 might provide that opportunity. I use the word might because I do have some hesitation.

The only concern I have in moving to the next stage is that this particular department could at the end of the day become a leftovers department. If the government does not truly believe in the mandate of the department and the effect that it could have on people and the social economy, it might not get the budgetary support that is required to make sure things could be fulfilled.

I want to define specifically the department's responsibility. Social Development Canada will have responsibility for children and families, persons with disabilities, seniors, caregivers, the voluntary sector and the social economy.

Those elements are very important, not only in terms of how they can affect individuals and their lives in either turning things around or improving them significantly through services that then lead to greater steps, but they are also very much a part of our economy.

Our voluntary sector, which is a huge sector that does wonderful work, has a lot of great professionals who often go with less pay. They actually need higher accountability in some respects than in other jurisdictions because they do not have the resources to make mistakes. I, fortunately, participated in my employment field at the Association for Persons with Physical Disabilities--

[Question No. 22, December 2nd, 2004]

What was the cost to the government of the independent security audit of the Census Test operations site and what are the costs for the de-scoping of the contract with Lockheed Martin for the 2004 test run and the 2006 Census?

[Food and Drugs Act, December 1st, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I am sure Canadians really will be impressed that the government has a commitment from the American ambassador who is stepping down. That is again another problem with this file. The Liberals are never up to speed on it.

I will quote specifically from the testimony of the Privacy Commissioner at the ethics committee. She said:

--that the Privacy Act is not up to the task of protecting Canadians' information, of setting an adequate standard in the face of this new phenomenon of the international circulation of information.

She said that we were not up to the standards and that we had a problem. The government needs to act. If it is interested in working with the Privacy Commissioner, why did it not act sooner, as this was called for years ago? We should have had better action. In my opinion, the government still is not taking a responsible stance because it is not coming forward with any correspondence.

Is there specific correspondence that the Liberals can table today which requests the U.S. government to fix the patriot act to ensure that Americans keep their hands off Canadians. Who are the Canadian citizens who they are holding information on right now?

[Food and Drugs Act, December 1st, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to continue to press the government on an issue that I believe is very important to all Canadians, their personal privacy, which is at risk because of the U.S. patriot act. It was introduced by the Bush administration a number of years ago and now threatens Canadian privacy. It is doing so today in a context that I think it is very important for our government to move on to protect Canadians.

Specifically, section 215 of the patriot act provides for the FBI to go to any U.S. company or subsidiary and request personal information about people. Let us say, for example, that the CIBC contracts out its information and data gathering and storage management to an American subsidiary, which makes Canadians vulnerable to the records taken from them. The CIBC does not know about this. It is not allowed information on when the data is being accessed from that company. Second, the customer does not allow access to that.

This has been challenged in the United States by the American Civil Liberties Union. It won a case on section 505 of the patriot act and now it is actually pushing on section 215. We are waiting for decisions on that.

In the interim, the real issue here is why we are letting a foreign government have access to Canadians' personal and private information. We literally do not have to leave this country to have our information accessed by the FBI. We can be sitting here right now watching TV, never leaving Canada, and our information can be accessed by the FBI. We do not even know how many people are actually being investigated.

It is an issue of privacy that speaks to the heart of democracy. If we do not have the ability to have our information protected, it threatens our privacy, our freedom of movement and also our rights as individuals, because we have seen what governments do with information.

There is no due process. That is the problem. This is all done in secrecy. When the information on Canadians is collected and taken, we do not even know where it goes. We do not know what other agencies it is shared with. We do not know how it is stored. We do not know what they do with it at all. That is a problem.

In the United States, we have seen some high profile cases involving Senator Edward Kennedy and another congressman who were put on a no-fly list through mistaken information related to the patriot act.

We also do not know whether the United States has had an influence on other significant cases here in Canada, cases that have led to some Canadians having trouble abroad, because we do not know about that situation.

This brings me to the questions that we have been pursuing. The government has a duty to act on this. Other provincial governments have done so because they know what has happened. They know it is a threat that affects their citizens. We have witnessed this federal government doing a lot of outsourcing to American companies. That provides the opportunity for all that information to be lost in terms of control and security and the government has to act on this.

The Privacy Commissioner has asked the government to do so. We have not seen that yet and that is a real problem. There have been rumblings about a potential summit with the provinces on this, or on having an international treaty, as the American Civil Liberties Union has testified about in British Columbia.

This government needs to act to protect Canadian privacy. I would hope that with the recent visit by the president and the delegations that there would have been some correspondence, some objections and also an inquiry as to how many Canadians are being affected by the patriot act and what the government is going to do to stand up for our information to be protected.

I live in a border community. I know right now that some of my citizens are being fingerprinted up to 2,000 times when entering the United States. They are Canadian citizens and this happens over and over. They do not even show their ID sometimes anymore. They are known by name. They are just fingerprinted and sent right through. We want to know what happens to that information. And the patriot act is even more obtrusive, because we do not know what is being accessed and when.