Brian Masse

[Statistics Act, October 20th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to show the support of the New Democratic Party for Bill S-13. One thing I would like to highlight is the bill clarifies and corrects a situation which we have had with previous legislation going back in the country's history. It also sets an example and deals with how we will handle census information in the future. It is important to note that.

Census information is important not only for genealogical and historical reasons, but also for the decisions we make in the country. In fact today there is a story in the Globe and Mail with the title, “--Census statistics save Ottawa $1-billion”. It reviews the census information over the past year. The reallocation of funds are determined by the census data. It affects social policy, government decision making about expenditures and all the different things we do in terms of legislation, which at the end of the day will have a result upon the services that we will provide as a country.

Bill S-13 would remove a legal clause that was ambiguous at best in relation to the access to census records taken between 1910 and 2003. It would give all genealogical and historical researchers access to the records under certain conditions for a 20 year period, beginning 92 years after the census.

The important thing, which I think we sometimes forget, is it also sets the terms and conditions past 2003, and that is where we decide enlightened consent about whether we as citizens will allow that information to be released.

I have noted this before and I will take a little time today to identify what we are doing with statistical information in terms of the actual decision to accumulate that data through private tender outsourcing, outside government hands, to Lockheed Martin, one of the world's largest multinational arms manufacturers. It is not even a Canadian company. It plays to the whole issue as to how confident Canadians will feel about making personal decisions to release information not only about their age but also about gender and other issues related to their lifestyles that would then be accumulated for decision making.

Specifically on this amendment, genealogists or their authorized representatives would agree in advance that they would release only tombstone information pertaining to their own family members. Tombstone information includes such information as name, address, age and/or date of birth, sex, relationship to head of family or household, marital status, country, place of birth, year of immigration to Canada if an immigrant and occupation or trade.

It is very important for them to be able to trace those specific aspects. It is not uncommon as members of Parliament to receive many different questions from people looking to track their family histories, for health reasons, for historical reasons about their status, for reasons about their own cultural history and background that was previously contained outside the realm which we want to now open up for them. This is a reasonable compromise that has been achieved by the experts who sat down and discussed this very sensitive issue relating to privacy.

Historical researchers would have the public and scientific nature of their proposed research confirmed by appropriate peers or community leaders prior to starting their work. Again, only tombstone information would be released.

The conditions would be in effect for a 20 year period following the release of the historical census records, 92 years after the census. After 112 years, the conditions would be removed and access and release would be unfettered.

The period of 112 years sounds like a long time. I hope we all in this room live to 112 years and have long and prosperous lives. Maybe some people do not. There is the fact that people could agree to have their information released but other family members would then have their data exposed. That is a very sensitive issue for those existing family members.

[Statistics Act, October 20th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, one of the interesting aspects of the bill is that it is correcting a mistake. It corrects an oversight which did not quite align to what we have right now. That is why we have a number of different changes with Bill S-13 which will clarify what could have been done before.

One of the comments of the member is a concern that I have heard from other people that too much information is being gathered in new census data. This goes back to an important issue which is the confidentiality and the reliability of the data.

How does the member feel about Lockheed Martin winning the contract for future census gathering? The bill does talk about that. There is enlightened consent for the new data. We could be setting ourselves up for another problem that the bill is correcting right now. My concern is that is what the contract is going to do and this bill crosses over into that.

This is going to provide some good improvements. We have heard some great arguments that deal with the sensitivity about privacy and also what historians and genealogists need to do. At the same time, the government's actions by not insourcing to Statistics Canada and putting it out to private tender to Lockheed Martin is going to potentially repeat a problem and cause us some great concern.

[Statistics Act, October 20th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, as correctly identified, Bill S-13 attempts to strike a balance between access to data and confidentiality. Well noted in the details was the concept of enlightened consent for 2006.

I was the chair of the complete count committee for Windsor and Essex County for the 2000 census. It was critical to get reliable data because as a country we make a lot of decisions about where we spend money and resources on census data. It was important that the data was very thorough, was very strong and was as good as it possibly could be. To do that, we had to build up public confidence. We had to go door to door, as one of six places in Ontario, to ensure that confidence, especially when we were dealing with multicultural communities where people who had come from abroad were being counted for the first time not only in numbers but also in very personal and sensitive information. Canadians in general are very concerned about privacy matters, whether they be in the government itself or outside in the private sector.

My concern is about the way the government has handled the next stage of Canada's census by outsourcing it to Lockheed Martin. I believe it would create a real crisis for Canadians to give information about themselves, their families and their lifestyles to a multinational arms manufacturing company that could quite literally have been responsible, if they had come from another country, for damaging their property, injuring them or killing a neighbour or a family friend with products that the company actually sells abroad to a number of different nations.

My concern is that we would witness a slow erosion of the confidence. To instill that confidence again, will we cancel that contract that is due in 2004 by Lockheed Martin and do it in house? It is not acceptable to say that we have no control over this because of NAFTA and the fact that it is an American multinational corporation that is an arms manufacturer and can bid just like anybody else. It does not have to do that because we can do it in house as we have done before.

Will the parliamentary secretary work with me to ensure that Canadians are doing this job and that it is in house so we can restore the confidence in our census data?

[Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, October 20th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague's question relates to an individual employed in my office, Mr. Andrew Sadler, who is part of that whole situation between reserves and cadets. He has done a great job of adding that component to his life, and that expertise has helped the service of my office by far. This individual has had the opportunity to participate, to make choices and to build friendships, not only in the place where he lived but in our local constituency.

I believe the reserves and cadets deserve proper respect and encouragement that can build the nation. For young individuals to be involved in an organization from the grassroots all the way to the top is very important. It builds a long established relationship of protocol and an understanding of history.

As a former city councillor the one thing I have seen is that our municipal services lost a number of very experienced individuals who retired early because of cuts and downloading. We lost their mentorship and a world of knowledge.

Where I believe we can be really effective in terms of having not only highly trained professionals but a competent and very informed group of people in the reserves and cadets is by providing them with better opportunities so we can prosper as a nation. I think they would add a lot more to the nation if they were given the opportunities.

[Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, October 20th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure, on behalf of the New Democratic Party, to speak to Bill C-37, an act to amend the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

One of the most important themes of the bill is that it would improve the quality of life of those individuals who serve in our military and, whether they are reservists or not, they have the right and entitlement to pursue good employment and living standards. The bill would assist them in their pensionable earnings and give them a higher quality of life once their service is completed.

I would like to touch on a recent experience that hammers home the importance for us to show leadership and support for our military personnel. I attended the recent commissioning of HMCS Windsor in Halifax, the submarine that will soon go on its first mission to the Bahamas. I was there to show my support for our men and women in service who will be putting themselves at risk. Our community is steadfastly behind them and supporting them, whether it be in correspondence, in goods or in having them come to our city if they cannot be with the submarine itself to view it themselves, so that quality of life is enhanced.

The pensionable improvement in the bill shows that we can as a country afford things that will instill confidence and provide some sense of security in our military personnel. That has been lacking. When we look at quality of life we define it in many different ways. It could be housing for example. We have heard a lot of discourse about the housing conditions for our men and women in the service and what they have to endure on the bases and that their involvement in terms of creating their own communities is often not ideal. They do not have the standard of living that we should be proud of as Canadians. We know we can do better but we have not. I believe we have been making the wrong choices on where to allocate our resources. That is a simple thing we can do to increase the quality of life of our service personnel living in those residences.

Pay is another issue, although when people enter the service their number one priority for entering is not necessarily the pay but that they want to serve their country and ensure that we have freedom and democracy, not only here but around the world. However the pay is something that is important because they have families and their families depend upon having earners who will provide the means so that they can make choices in the future. Whether it be a different education path, experiences, family vacations, personal growth, investments or opportunities, they need those aspects behind them. That certainly has not happened in the past 10 years in terms of the amount that they have been receiving. It certainly should be more and we have been supporting that.

The government has shown that it has not done a good job of providing the right infrastructure investments. We know for a fact that there are helicopters, ships, jeeps and planes that we have to look at in terms of the cost that we will have to pay to provide the right tools and resources.

I know we discussed the fact that we are not a superpower like the United States. I do not think Canadians are comparing themselves to that. They are asking for a government that will provide the adequate support, equipment and tools so that people can be trained, have good morale and we can actually have an element of pride coming not only from the people serving but also from the citizens who are backing them.

That leadership has been lacking. We should not be looking at item after item and what is coming up. We should be showing some leadership, but I do not think that has happened.

We have made those choices. The former minister of finance decided to provide $100 billion worth of tax cuts. We wonder where the money is coming from. We know where it went. We will need to make some very difficult decisions because we have lost those revenues and resources. I think the choices should have been different, and this is a good example.

The pension funds would provide people with some confidence and, I believe, convince youth to enlist and members of the forces to stay in the service because there will be amendments.

It is quite correctly noted that the improvement in pension benefits is driven to some extent by the desire not only to improve the quality of persons currently serving in the Canadian Forces but to assist in the recruitment of new personnel. I think that is important.

I have spoken a number of times about the challenges youth will face because of the lack of direction we have had over the last 10 years. Our youth are concerned about pensions. Many people who are currently employed have vulnerable pensions, such as the employees at Air Canada and other corporations where pensions have not been funded correctly.

We have another group of young Canadians, which goes directly to this issue, coming out of school a lot later in life and more in debt. Because they begin working later in life their pensionable earning years will be greatly reduced, which creates a challenging environment for them. They may not have a sustainable pension to retire early and live out their dreams. Like most Canadians, after working hard they want to retire with dignity. I believe it is important for the bill to provide more security because young people will be faced with this issue more and more.

It is quite a sleeper out there because we have not seen the first wave through, and we will. Over the next 20 years we will see a lot of vulnerable people who will not have the years needed for an appropriate pension. The bill would certainly be an improvement.

However the bill does raise a couple of questions about the pensions and the way they will be set up. It deals with how the government has handled the whole Canadian pension fund. We know for a fact that 30% of these funds can go overseas for investment. The other funds will be invested in Canada. The government will not agree to an ethics screen or a green screen on where those pensionable earnings go. Quite literally, we could have men and women, who have paid into the pension plan, go to places where they have either served against regimes or have seen terrible situations with human rights issues. We do not know, because they only have to report back once every two years to the Minister of Finance himself. I do not believe that is an acceptable situation.

We need to show confidence. According to the new section 25(4) of the act as amended by clause 15, it states that if a contributor with two or more years of pensionable service dies, the survivor and children will receive the annual allowances. After 10 years or more of pensionable service, individuals released from the military for health reasons because they are no longer able to perform their duties would be entitled to an immediate pension.

I congratulate the government and all members of the House who support this because this builds confidence.

We can do things that make sense and that give confidence. At the same time we have to battle it out, like the VI program for veterans' widows who do not get the support they need to keep them in their homes. It is actually a saving to the whole system but the government cannot find the funds to do that. We have a bill here where we can find the funds, which is a good thing, but why can we not find the funds for other things?

I will conclude by saying that this is a small positive step forward. I will not get into all the other different things on which we have wasted our money. If governments make the right decisions and invest in people, instead of tax cuts, we can build a nation that will be much better off in the future.

[Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, October 20th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, one of the underlying themes that we have been discussing, and I would like to get the hon. member's opinion on this, is we have a number of different issues stacking up in the military, be it helicopters, ships, planes or jeeps. Not only am I concerned with this issue, but I am concerned with the history of the government over the last 10 years on other hard infrastructure, whether it be bridges, roads, water treatment plants or other infrastructure issues, which have been left to derelict for so long. I am concerned that young Canadians who enter the workforce later in life, who have a more difficult time securing full time employment and saving for the future will have to pay for this with limited resources.

How does she feels about this situation?

[Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, October 20th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it is important to recognize the lack of resources that have gone into the military over the last several years. This is all about choices. Decisions have to be made about where we want to spend money. A good example is the well noted $20 billion shortfall and that is one-twentieth of the long gun registry.

What choices would my colleague suggest be made to allow those resources to go to the military? For example, we are in the stage of tax cuts of $50 billion or $100 billion. What other suggestions does he have for getting those resources to our military personnel and also the equipment that they need?

[Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, October 20th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, there have been reports recently of the United States becoming so desperate to gain public support about the missile defence, or star wars program, that it has actually floated opportunities for the public to be involved. One suggestion that has come back, in terms of a national missile defence fund, is that the Americans use interceptor balloons to hit the missiles.

Could the government have made different decisions about the use of tax cuts, for example, those which have gone to a select few, and instead invested more into our military to provide the rightful resources? It is a matter of choices. Does the member feel the government has made the right choices?

[The Income Tax Act, October 9th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for the question and for his eloquent and passionate speech.

What would we do with $250 million? We could do a lot of things. The first thing I would do is make sure our war widows actually receive the support they need to live in their own homes with the dignity and integrity they so deserve. That is the one thing we should do right away without any hesitation.

I personally would like to debate a lot of things on which we all need to get together and debate. I had a private member's motion, which failed to pass this week, that called for the creation of a process for the federal government to assist in the clean-up of toxic and environmental contaminated sites and areas where we see pollution and degradation happening.

I once again point to sustainable technology like wind and solar power. Those are good examples of where we could create jobs across the country to build those facilities that would actually produce clean energy and clean jobs.

[The Income Tax Act, October 9th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to address the comments about this not being the forum. I would suggest to the hon. member that he take that up with his colleagues who have been in the House of Commons today speaking against the bill, including the chair of the environment committee, as well as other distinguished politicians who have had many years of service in the country. They have eloquently identified that Kyoto has a significant connection to this bill. It sends the wrong message.

A little while ago, there was a very good discussion about that fact. I do not think the member can say that this is not the forum. This is the forum. There is a connection between the use of this product and the effects it has not only on our community but on the world.

There is also an effect on the revenue stream that is available to the government to be able to make decisions. We hear time and again in the House that the government does not have the money. Last night when we voted on a bill, we heard that there was no money for volunteer emergency workers to get a tax credit. There is no money for those things but there are billions for this. There is no money for SARS compensation for workers. There is no money for Atlantic Canada, or it never shows up. There is no money for forest fires, BSE, infrastructure, all of those things.

It is ironic that we are talking about this issue. There is a relationship between the use of this product and roads and services. Right now the government is considering giving part of the gas tax to municipalities. It is talking about this, finally after all this time. It could certainly have put this money toward hard infrastructure. A lot of the vehicles that use this product are having problems moving about because the government has not put enough in to help with the $56 billion deficit in infrastructure.

The provinces have long been cheated out of transfer payments. That is the reason they are struggling for resources, that and downloading. We have seen what has happened to the provinces and the municipalities because of downloading. Of course they want resources.

The government has been swimming in surpluses. It has been doing boondoggles like the long gun registry. Yet it does not have any resources to distribute to the other levels of government while it usurps their taxes. That is why they are asking for more resources.