Charlie Angus

[Indigenous Affairs, January 28th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, it has been four years since the government was found guilty of systemic discrimination against first nation children. The Prime Minister has seven non-compliance orders, millions spent on lawyers, is going to Federal Court to try to quash the ruling, and now he has blown off tomorrow's deadline for negotiating while refusing to support the class action that he said he was going to support.

The Prime Minister has built his political reputation fighting the most vulnerable children in this country, and kids have died. When is he going to call off his lawyers, sit down with Cindy Blackstock and negotiate a just solution for all these children and their families? When is he going to do it?

[Business of Supply, January 28th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, what is really concerning me in representing regions in northern Ontario is that many of our communities are completely dependent on winter roads. However, right now, because of changes in weather, the winter roads are not operating, which means that the supplies that are needed for the entire year are not getting into communities. That will create an economic catastrophe in communities, whether it is Pikangikum, Cat Lake or Kashechewan, where we are trying to deal with the crisis of a lack of basic housing.

One of the opportunities we have is to commit to permanent roads that will run up through northern Canada, particularly in Treaty 9 and particularly along the coast of James Bay. We see on the Quebec side that they have built the roads up, and the difference between poverty on the Quebec side and poverty on my side is night and day because of the infrastructure.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague if he supports making long-term investments to bring indigenous communities out of the fourth world by building the roads they need so that we can get supplies in at a reasonable rate.

[Business of Supply, January 28th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, over the years, I have seen all kinds of egregious abuses by the Conservatives and Liberals. When they say they are going to work with us, it is like being invited by a crocodile to come down and have a nice little luncheon by the riverside.

The Liberals are saying we should be nice to them and trust them and they will smother us like Teletubbies. However, what I have been really concerned about with the government, despite all the smiles, is the undermining of the officers of Parliament. The Parliamentary Budget Officer is the one tool we have for accountability. If we cannot find billions of dollars in infrastructure spending, I am sorry, I am not going to trust the Liberals. I trust the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

I would like to bring this to the point of when the Ethics Commissioner investigated the Prime Minister with respect to SNC-Lavalin and was denied documents by the Prime Minister's Office under the issue of cabinet confidentiality.

How can we investigate a government if it refuses to turn over the main documents to the parliamentary officers who work for all of us? They do not work for individual parties, the opposition or the government. They work for the people of Canada. Therefore, this motion is very important, because we need the Parliamentary Budget Officer to not be interfered with or undermined by the smiling Teletubbies or perhaps, behind those Teletubbies, the alligators in the Prime Minister's Office.

[Business of Supply, January 28th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest. What really concerns me is that I remember in 2015, the Liberals made such beautiful promises about everything and they got elected. They were going to deal with the infrastructure crisis and it was the most beautiful plan we had ever seen. Then they set up the Infrastructure Bank with our finance minister, who is pretty much the finance minister for the 1%, and it turned into an open bar for the lobbyists to come in with no oversight.

The privatization of key public assets is what the Liberals have been spinning to their friends. One has only to look at the LRT in Ottawa, run by SNC-Lavalin, where it cannot even get the doors to open. It did not even meet the criteria, but they are friends of the Prime Minister.

Therefore, I am deeply concerned when I see that we cannot even account for billions of dollars. We do not even know where it is. I am also concerned that the Liberals are against oversight by the Parliamentary Budget Officer, which is the one opportunity that we have as parliamentarians to get straight answers.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague this. Why does he think that the Liberal government came in with such good promises and ended up in such a cynical place?

[Business of Supply, January 28th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, during the 2015 election campaign, the Liberals made many wonderful promises in response to the infrastructure crisis everywhere in Canada.

What the government actually did was create the Canada Infrastructure Bank, which will privatize Canada's infrastructure. For lobbyists and the government's good friends, it is an open bar.

I am worried about the potential privatization of municipal water systems across Canada. The NDP will fight to defend this principle. Is the Bloc ready to defend this principle and the need to ensure that water infrastructure across Canada remain in public hands?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, January 27th, 2020]

With regard to the First Nations Child and Family Services program: (a) how much funding has been allocated in each fiscal year since 2009-10, broken down by province or territory, fiscal year, and category of expenditure (i.e. operations, maintenance, prevention, and community well-being and jurisdiction initiative); (b) how much has been spent in each fiscal year since 2009-10, broken down by province or territory, fiscal year, and category of expenditure; and (c) how many apprehensions of children have been undertaken in each fiscal year since 2009-10, broken down by fiscal year, province or territory and by on- and off-reserve apprehensions?

[Questions on the Order Paper, January 27th, 2020]

With regard to the First Nations Child and Family Services Program: (a) how much money has been spent in total on legal proceedings pursuant or related to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal since 2007; (b) how much money has been spent in total on legal proceedings pursuant or related to the decision of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal concerning the program (2016 CHRT 2), including but not limited to appeals, motions to stay, hearings regarding compliance orders or preparatory work for the same, since January 26, 2016; (c) in reference to the total costs in (b), what are the total costs broken down by (i) the CHRT, (ii) the Federal Court?

[Indigenous Affairs, December 12th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, since the Prime Minister began his legal vendetta against the Human Rights Tribunal, we have lost over 100 first nations children in Ontario alone, including 16-year-old Devon Freeman, who hung from a tree for seven months outside the group home. It has been over a year since the Prime Minister's lawyers told the Human Rights Tribunal they were not going to negotiate with Cindy Blackstock about compensation. They would rather litigate. They are still in court trying to quash this decision.

Parliament has ordered the Liberal government to stop this vendetta. When are the Liberals going to call off their lawyers?

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, December 11th, 2019]

Madam Speaker, I want to welcome my friend to the House. I listened with great interest. I do represent a resource region, but we need to start talking about ever-rising emissions. I think that is one of the fundamental problems with what I have heard from the Conservative Party.

My family and my wife are from Alberta. Her family all worked in the oil patch. When I door-knocked throughout the election in blue-collar neighbourhoods, I heard people who were very concerned about the crisis of catastrophic climate change.

Year in and year out, Canada's emissions continue to rise. If we are going to find a solution, it is a national solution and Alberta is part of that. The problem is to start addressing the ever-rising emissions that are coming from that sector. We are not hearing anything from Jason Kenney, certainly, and we have heard nothing from the present Conservative leader.

How will my hon. colleague and his party bring this to the House so that we can start to deal with the issue of needing Canada to finally start lowering emissions?

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, December 11th, 2019]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased we are discussing the issue of catastrophic climate change and the need to mitigate. There is not a greater symbol of climate in the north than the polar bear. We see in James Bay region where polar bear habitat has been affected.

That is why the work of the Canadian Polar Bear Habitat is so important as a research facility, to give understanding of where we need to go in protecting polar bear climate habitat and also to mitigate the effects of climate change.

In terms of the government's position, are the Liberals willing to support science-based regional opportunities to work to mitigate the effects of climate change, particularly when it comes to something as important as the Canadian Polar Bear Habitat?