Charlie Angus

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, March 13th, 2020]

With regard to the Department of Finance and the Advisory Council on Economic Growth: (a) when and where were each of the council’s meetings held; (b) when were each of the council’s (i) in-person meetings, (ii) phone or video-conference sessions with stakeholders; (c) how much funding was allocated for (i) salaries, (ii) expenses, (iii) council operations, (iv) any other categories of funding not captured by the preceding; (d) how much was spent on (i) salaries, (ii) expenses, (iii) council operations, (iv) any other category of funding not captured by the preceding; and (e) for each of the recommendations in the council’s three reports, (i) what was the recommendation; (ii) which department or departments were tasked with actions following up on the recommendation, (iii) which team or teams within the department or departments were tasked with follow-up actions, (iv) was the action tasked further analysis of or implementation of the recommendation (e.g. feasibility studies or reports), (v) what actions were taken by these teams to implement or further analyze the recommendations?

[Indigenous Affairs, March 12th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, if PowerPoint decks could stop a pandemic, the government could be the world champion in preventive health. I am not saying that to be flippant, but two months into this crisis, isolated first nations are waiting for the basics, like hand sanitizer, gloves and masks, let alone ventilators.

If COVID-19 hits a community like Bearskin Lake or Kashechewan, we are in a nightmare scenario because how do people self-isolate in a home of 21 people full of mould? The minister's plan is to bring in tents. In James Bay in March? That is not going to cut it.

When are we going to see a sense of urgency to protect the lives of first nation people?

[Indigenous Affairs, March 11th, 2020]

Really, Mr. Speaker. This past week a little child from Attawapiskat had to be flown to Kingston, because of the damage tap water is doing to her body, and a little boy in Kashechewan suffered horrific burns. The only thing the medical clinic could do was send him home. That is the face of third world health in the north.

Therefore, when the Prime Minister does not even bother to give a permanent seat to his indigenous services minister at his COVID-19 table, indigenous people know they are going to get a third world response.

Does the Prime Minister have any clue what COVID-19 is going to do when it hits the overcrowded reserves in northern Canada?

[Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement Implementation Act, March 10th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, that was certainly a fascinating way to spend part of my afternoon listening to the Liberal fiction of the open process that never existed until the American Democrats finally stood up on their hind legs and defended Canada, and we came back and got a better trade deal than the Liberals were willing to sign off on. They were willing to sign off on anything they were so desperate to please Trump.

What concerns me is that the future of the economy is data. Everybody knows that. Everybody knows that except the Prime Minister because the Liberals traded away our data rights under chapter 19. The National Research Council has said that Canada's economy is turning into a data cow for Silicon Valley. Under chapter 19, we cannot establish our digital sovereignty, even though that is where the EU is going. We cannot tax the big Facebook, Google and Amazon giants, even though they are getting a completely unfair trade advantage. We cannot go after them for the harmful content that has been generated through the algorithms of YouTube and Facebook, because the Prime Minister is more willing to bow down to the Google and Facebook lobbyists than even Washington is.

Why is it that the government cannot come clean, stand up and explain to Canadians why it sold away our digital sovereignty?

[Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement Implementation Act, March 10th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, I am certainly glad we finally got rid of the investor-state provisions that negatively impacted Canada's jurisdiction and our ability to put forward policies that benefit our citizens.

However, what concerns me is that chapter 19 reads like a wish list for the lobbyists of Google, Facebook and Amazon, who spend as much time in the halls of the Liberal government as they do in Washington. There is a fundamental issue of data sovereignty emerging around the world in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The right and need to have data sovereignty to put in proper privacy protections have been stripped away. The Liberals have given that over to the Google, Facebook and Amazon lobby in Washington.

Canada has an inability to actually hold the data giants to account through safe harbour provisions or to look in the black box of algorithms that are pushing extremist content. It is an issue that is driving legislators in Europe to take action, yet we have stripped it away to become a branch plant of Silicon Valley without the right of legislators to protect our citizens.

What does my hon. colleague think about this?

[Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement Implementation Act, March 10th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I certainly want to thank the Democrats in the United States for standing up for Canada and ensuring we got some better deals than the Liberals were willing to sign off on. We got rid of the investor-state provisions and we support that.

What the member did not talk about was chapter 19 and the fact that the government has traded away our right to data sovereignty. When I spoke with U.K. colleagues in Washington recently, they were really disturbed that we no longer have the right to protect our data sovereignty, that we have lost the right to put in privacy provisions that the EU is moving toward and that we do not have the power to tax the Google, Facebook and Amazon giants. Certainly, their lobbyists are dancing and popping the champagne.

I am really concerned about the safe harbour provisions, which do not allow Canada to hold YouTube or Facebook to account for the drive of extremist content that is happening through their algorithms on their sites. We do not have the power to take them on. I would ask my hon. colleague why Canada has dropped the ball so clearly on the issue of data rights and the rights of our citizens in the digital realm.

[Opioids, February 27th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, the opioid crisis is causing havoc and heartbreak.

Back in 2009, my office helped establish the first OxyContin task force in Timmins. Those front-line groups were doing incredible work, and then we got hit with a new generation of nightmare drugs such as fentanyl, carfentanil and purple heroin. There is now an unprecedented medical emergency across North America.

In Timmins, I would like to thank the work of the situation table, the front-line workers in police and in medical and mental health, and the Living Space. In Kirkland Lake, my office is working with the opioid task force. In James Bay, we have states of emergency that have been declared, but we need the federal government at the table.

We need more services for harm reduction. We need a commitment to start going after the illicit trade in fentanyl on the dark net. We need to have a gut readiness of the government to go after big pharma to make them pay for the damage that they have done. We need to declare a national medical emergency because this crisis is affecting us all.

[Criminal Code, February 27th, 2020]

Madam Speech, we do not hear the word “hope” very often in this place and it is something that is very important. I would like to make two comments. One is that death is hard, death is very hard, but it does not mean it is without hope. When my sister died it was brutal, it was unfair, but it was life. We brought her out in the old Celtic way with singing and celebration because that is what we do. There is hope in that, and hope has to be about compassion and doing what is right.

Second, I would like to ask my hon. colleague about the lack of action she mentioned on the horrific suicide crisis we are facing. Year in, year out we are losing hundreds of young people. We lose young people in my region all the time, and it never seems to be a priority. When I hear the Prime Minister talk about losing patience, I think of the patience that has been lost by children as young as nine years old, 10 years old and 11 years old who do not even believe that this country cares about them enough that their lives are worth living.

What does my hon. colleague think we can do to address the horrific hopelessness in so many young people who are giving up?

[Criminal Code, February 27th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague, for whom I have a great deal of respect.

On the issue of the advance directive, when we think in advance, I think all the individuals I have ever known have talked about how they want to go and how they want to be. My friend was going to sit in the snow, listen to Bob Dylan and drink a bottle of whiskey on his last day. It is a great way to go, but we do not end up getting those options.

When we are faced with death, and I saw this with my sister and her horrific suffering, and her husband just before that, both very young, the will to live is so incredibly strong. People do not realize how much they want to live and how much they want to stay.

I know this is not so much the purview of the bill, but I want to ask about the reasonable limits of advance directives so we are not signing off and saying, “In future if it happens, this is how I want it to be.” When it happens, we are in a very different place and in a different world than we ever imagined we would be.

[Criminal Code, February 27th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. minister for her work on the coronavirus crisis. She has been very clear on a number of issues.

I am concerned with this debate. When I was working on the palliative care motion, our Parliament voted and everyone supported the issue of palliative care. I met with groups across the country about end of life. What we heard again and again about dignity in dying and the rights of people was they needed the right to access palliative care. I heard that from every group I met with. However, the only movement we have seen from the government was mandated by the Supreme Court.

I understand we had to put this legislation in place, but I am still concerned. The Parliament of Canada voted on a national palliative care strategy to work with the provinces and territories and put in place the opportunity for people to truly die with dignity next to their families in a much more healing and holistic manner, yet we have only heard a lot of talk about that and only as an addendum to the conversation about assisted dying. We have seen no resources or commitment on palliative care.