Charlie Angus

[Latin American Heritage Month Act, June 13th, 2018]

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I was not sure if the Speaker was referring to me, but I want to apologize if my singing of Latin American songs interfered in any way. I have enormous respect for you, so I will take my singing outside.

[Department of Public Works and Government Services Act, June 12th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to rise and speak to Bill C-344 about amending the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act regarding the issue of putting in community benefit agreements.

I am very interested in the proposal. I want to speak to it from a rural perspective, from a northern industrial perspective, and then from an urban perspective. We are dealing with differing issues.

In terms of rural issues, and I represent a region that is bigger than Great Britain, infrastructure investments by the federal government are extremely important. Over the last number of years, our region has been left to fall behind, as the government has not kept up its commitments at the federal level.

I am very pleased that since 2015, my region of Timmins—James Bay was the third-largest in the country in terms of the number of projects that were approved. These are good investments. Whether it was Timmins Transit or investing in local bridges, these kinds of investments have a clear community benefit. In a rural region, in some of our small northern communities, putting another layer on an analysis coming forward on why a project is important could be difficult. These are legitimate questions, because many of our small municipalities have to outsource. They do not have the in-house engineering. This would be a question.

In terms of when we do development in the north, we have a number of major infrastructure projects that require government investment. An example is the four-laning of Highway 11-17, which is the major trucker route across Canada. All goods across this country travel through northern Ontario on winding two-lane roads that are often very dangerous, particularly in winter. The federal government treats this as local. They treat it as provincial. However, this is part of national infrastructure, and we need to see an investment there.

I represent regions that are very involved in the mining sector. In the last 12 years, there has been a complete transformation of how mining agreements are put together. The mining sector understands that if it is going to have development in the north, it needs social license. It needs to have a clear commitment to indigenous communities, so impact benefit agreements have become the norm.

When I was working for the Algonquin nation in Quebec, in 2001-02, companies refused to meet. There was a lot of confrontation in the forest, because the right of communities to benefit from the resources on their traditional territory was a principle that had to be understood. I can say that from my talks with the mining sector and indigenous communities now, these agreements are starting to transform, economically, many communities that had been left on the margins.

My good friend, Chief Walter Naveau, of the Mattagami First Nation, said that the government always talks about their sitting at the table, but for all their lives, they were not even allowed to look in the window. That has changed, but government is still not at the table most of the time. I will say that industry will come to the table much sooner than government will ever come to the table in terms of developing a coherent plan for the development of resources and the development of communities in the indigenous territories in my region of Treaty No. 9.

I want to talk about the benefit of this in larger urban areas. If we are looking at major investments, such as in public transit, a community benefit agreement should be fundamental to the discussion. We can talk about the Eglinton LRT. That is a massive investment in a city that has been choked with traffic, where people are being forced out of neighbourhoods because of high prices. Many of the people I know who grew up in Toronto cannot even afford to live in the city where they work anymore. They have to commute back to their own cites, because they cannot afford livable neighbourhoods. My old neighbourhood of Riverdale, which was a beautiful mixed working-class neighbourhood, has become a neighbourhood very much for the super-rich, particularly closer to the Don Valley.

When we are looking at the government putting $1 billion or $2 billion into an LRT or a subway in any city across Canada, we can ask who is going to benefit. Right off the bat, real estate speculators will be along that line, because they know that if they have real estate there, that real estate will dramatically bump in value, because there is good access to good urban transit. We could say to a city like Toronto that we will invest at the federal government level in a plan like the LRT. However, there will need to be some set aside so that we can have community housing and mixed-income housing.

That would be a fair trade-off for the massive investments the federal government makes to ensure that there is some kind of quid pro quo so that it is not just the speculators and the real estate developers who are going to make out from this infrastructure. Working families could still have access to neighbourhoods that are liveable and have access to good-quality public transit. That is where a community benefit agreement would be a very reasonable thing to bring to the table. It would not be onerous, because we are dealing with urban areas and a much larger size, where this kind of planning could be done in a coherent manner.

However, I have a number of concerns about the bill in terms of the lack of clarity and where we would need much clearer reporting mechanisms and transparency. If we are going to have a credible community benefit agreement plan, it cannot be just tick the box. Whenever a company just has to tick the box, or a large municipality just has to say that it did it and it is done, we do not know what that benefit is.

If we are looking at economies of scale, such as for a major investment in urban public transit, we are going to need clear accountability mechanisms to say that it is a credible community benefit agreement. Part of that requires consultation. I am very worried about the lack of obligation for consultation, because the consultation process would involve a community. An investment in, say, a major bridge in an urban area may have an impact on the community. Does the community have a credible response? Can we do this in a reasonable manner?

I think we would be looking at much more progressive notions of urban development if we had a strong, transparent, usable community benefit system in place. That being said, we would have to also look at the economies of scale in terms of smaller communities. For example, the federal government may invest in the community of Iroquois Falls in changing its sewage and water. Would we need to put an extra level of negotiation on that? We probably would not, because the benefit would be clear. Building that community infrastructure would benefit that community.

The other argument we could bring to this, of course, is the question of whether communities need more control over how they utilize federal investment. Federal investment can be very limited and very targeted to meet federal criteria but not necessarily municipal criteria.

For example, in the city of Timmins, there has been a plan to build an aquatic centre to serve the needs of people who will move to the city to meet a growing city need, but there is no federal program to deal with programs like building an aquatic centre. All that cost would be put on the ratepayers, which is an enormous cost for a mid-sized municipality to undertake. There would be a clear community benefit. In the case of the city of Timmins, if the city believed that it was in the city's interest to build that aquatic centre, and it could work with the feds and the province on it, there would be a long-term benefit for the community. This is something we should look at.

Having looked at the bill, there are some very interesting aspects of it. I think we need to look at it going forward. We need to have a little bit of flexibility between rural and mid-sized communities and large, urban municipalities. We need to be able to put a lens on it in terms of whether it is an indigenous community or not.

Public works has been an institution that has been very reluctant to apply a community lens to projects that would have a major community impact. There are a number of projects that could move forward with new kinds of partnerships, such as indigenous and municipal, working together to build community infrastructure.

When we talk about community benefits, that lens should be applied to those kinds of federal projects. If they were under the municipalities, I would leave mid-sized and smaller municipalities to handle what they know how to do. For larger urban municipalities, if we were doing major investments, we would talk about how it would benefit the whole region, because that would be a major financial investment. How would we do this with indigenous communities? It is possible. I am very interested in this bill going forward.

[Business of Supply, June 12th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, let us be clear. When Kinder Morgan gave that ultimatum and said “If you don't give us a really safe environment, we're leaving”, that meant it was leaving. The potential for confrontation was very clear.

We saw the Prime Minister jump up and say, “Before you go, we'll pay off all your investors to the tune of $4.5 billion.” That is the best payout. If I were the CEO, I am sure my investors would be giving me a slap on the back for that. That is a heck of a lot of money to pay for such little effort.

[Business of Supply, June 12th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague has been here a long time. I am always surprised he does not understand basic conversation. The basic conversation we are having is that the environment and the economy of Alberta is the national interest, because so many workers are there. However, to create a transition economy, Alberta is not going to be left to do it by itself. Where is that commitment to those jobs? Where was that commitment when the oil boom went bust and Calgary and Edmonton were left on their own? The government had nothing for them.

He is trying to say that the Government of Alberta talked the federal government into buying a leaky pipeline. The Government of Alberta said that it needed an energy plan. Part of that is environment. The federal government failed on that and refused to address the legitimate issues. Now we are stuck with a leaky pipeline. If the member thinks his Prime Minister has the wherewithal and the vision to build a new pipeline to go parallel to that, who would invest in that? No private sector would invest. Is someone going to invest in a son of Pierre Elliott pipeline project? I do not think so.

[Business of Supply, June 12th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise and speak to this issue about the necessity of starting to talk about putting a plan in place to build a true green economy. It is about putting workers back, front, and centre in the discussion on climate change, something that they have been left out of deliberately by both the Conservatives and Liberals for years.

In a low-carbon future there will still be oil and gas. We need to start looking at a credible transition, and that transition is important because Canada should not be known as the country that threw a generation of workers under the bus. Margaret Thatcher's government did that. I know the hagiography of the Conservatives for worshipping old iron lady, but the devastation that did to England, to a generation, we still see.

How do we get a credible transition? We could listen to the Conservatives, who are proving us correct in that people still believe the earth is flat. I will give the Conservatives credit, because they understand how important the oil and gas sector is economically. It is a major driver of our economy.

Canada is a petrostate and has been for a long time. A decision in this country to benefit the advancement of the petrostate makes sense from an economic point of view. The problem with my Conservative colleagues is the fact that we are reaching, and maybe we are reaching beyond, the tipping point of catastrophic climate change. Anybody who has a credible vision of the future knows we have to deal with that. The Conservatives will simply look at the financial aspect of oil and gas and say, “Keep drilling baby, keep drilling.”

I compare that to the Liberals. I have seen them on this issue for 14 years. They believe if they say nice things about the environment that things will get better. They have been telling us that we have to massively expand oil and gas in order to create another economy. That does not make any sense at all. Creating a new economy would require making investments.

I come from a working-class, resource-based region. When I talk to the workers who work in the mines, many of whom work up in Fort St. John and Fort McMurray on the flying crews, they tell me they are concerned about the state of our world and where we are going.

I was so proud to be in Edmonton talking with the IBEW workers, who are building a transition economy. They are building and doing the retraining. They asked me where the federal government was on getting serious. One IBEW worker said something to me that I thought was fascinating. He said when Stephen Harper said that Canada was going to be an energy superpower, he was right but he was wrong about what source of energy.

The greatest opportunity for solar in the world, bar none, is in south central Alberta and Saskatchewan. My friends in Calgary told me that the moment to start building a new economy was when the oil boom went bust. When the price of oil tanks, that is when investments should be made. The federal Liberals at that time did not make any investments because they were counting on Rachel Notley to do the job. Rachel Notley has done an amazing job in trying to put the pieces in place for a new economy but in order to get there a strong federal component is needed.

The Liberals tell us to just let them keep expanding oil and gas, to let them keep expanding emissions, and somehow that money will be used to create a new economy. It is simply not a credible response.

Then we saw the Kinder Morgan debacle. When the Texas oil company threw down this arbitrary ultimatum, it was telling Canadians that it was not going to build the pipeline, it wanted to be paid off. People at the beginning of major resistance to a project never say they are thinking of leaving. By doing that, they are guaranteed to face major resistance.

Why was there major resistance? It was because the Liberals did not answer the fundamental question of concern about safety on the B.C. coastline, where there is a strong and economic issue in terms of preserving that coastline. They did not answer the legitimate questions from indigenous peoples.

The Prime Minister had an opportunity to show leadership then by saying his government should sit down with the Notley government and the Horgan government, and with affected indigenous people, and ask them how to address the very legitimate concerns about a bitumen spill. The government could ask them how it could show it is actually serious about building a transition economy. Whenever we hear just economy, any worker I know says it means they are going to get thrown under the bus. Where is the money?

The government did not have any money for that. However, suddenly to appease Kinder Morgan, the investors, the Liberals had $4.5 billion to buy a pipeline that was built in 1953.

In 1953, the prime minister was Louis St. Laurent. He went down to defeat in that term on the famous TransCanada pipeline debate. The Liberals were so arrogant and they blew it so badly that they were tossed out of office. Now that the Liberals have bought themselves a 65-year old pipeline that leaks, they also have maybe bought themselves some pipeline karma.

Where were those $4.5 billion that could have been used in the downturn, in the collapse of the oil sector in Alberta when so many thousands of families were being affected? In the downturn, the Liberals could have said that it was time to start to build the transition, so they would will still have people working in oil and gas, but they would start to take advantage of huge opportunities in the green sector.

All we heard from the Liberals was that the environment and energy “go hand in hand”. Their environment minister went to Paris. She brought a huge camera crew with her, got a lot of photos, and said wonderful things. The Prime Minister said that Canada was back and he showed off his Haida tattoo. The Liberals ignored their own reports that said they were nowhere close to meeting the targets of Paris. They will not meet them because they brought in the same energy plan that Stephen Harper had.

We need to talk about the importance of getting serious about what a new economy looks like. That new economy involves workers who will be paid decent wages. Building that new economy is a conversation we have had in Leap. Other organizations talk about the “Leap Manifesto”. Leap is the beginning of a conversation. It is a conversation that has to include working class people, blue collar workers, the people who are on the front lines. They understand how a transition should work. We have seen none of this from the government. All we have heard is spin. Now it tells us that it has spent $4.5 billion, and we are all investors in a 65-year old leaky pipeline.

I can give the House another prediction. There is no way that the pipeline will be built by the government. Why? Who will overpay to cover up the cost of the existing pipeline for which we paid $4.5 billion, a pipeline that is worth only $2 billion, as my Conservative colleague pointed out?

Can we really see the Prime Minister sitting on a bulldozer, running through indigenous country? The Liberals can talk and they have the bluster. However, if the government really thinks that it will con anyone into believing it will be leading that pipeline through British Columbia, I would certainly not bet a cent on it

That leaves us with a question. We bought an old pipeline. Kinder Morgan has left. Alberta is still looking for a partner to start building the transition economy. The spin from the Liberals is not going to get us there, unless we as a House say that it is time we get serious about the impacts of catastrophic climate change facing our planet now, that we say we are going to build a future for workers and children. If the government can find $4.5 billion to buy a pipeline that was built in 1953, they can find $4.5 billion to work in partnerships with communities across the country to start building that transition.

In that transition, where we still have the oil and gas sector, we can start to say to the world that we actually are credible, that Canada is back. Right now, we have a lot of a talk from the Prime Minister. Canadians are on the hook for $4.5 billion, and no other pipeline will get built.

[Indigenous Affairs, June 12th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, on this 10th anniversary of the residential school apology, the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs continues to fight the survivors of St. Anne's. She has instructed her officials to target their lawyer, Fay Brunning, the lawyer who exposed how justice officials suppressed evidence and had cases of child rape and torture thrown out of the hearings.

Here is the thing. I was in the meeting when the minister promised to their faces that she would end those intimidation tactics. She gave her word. I am asking her this. Will she tell the House why she told Angela Shisheesh that she would end these tactics, and yet she continues to attack the lawyers and representatives of survivors?

[Business of Supply, June 12th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, in my 14 years here, I have learned the Conservatives are at least honest. They know that oil and gas is a huge driver in our economy and they defend it. The Liberals tell us it is a huge driver and if we keep driving and driving we will somehow build a new economy that will replace it. This is what we heard today, that we need to keep expanding and expanding and will somehow get a new energy economy.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague about the insincerity and hypocrisy of the Liberal position to pretend that they are creating a new economy when they are not putting the investments into Alberta, not putting the investments into creating alternative energy. They are simply saying let us keep expanding the present one because it is very good for driving the economy, but it shows they have no plan to get us to the new economy they keep talking about.

[Business of Supply, June 11th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague. I am certainly glad that Canada has consistently spoken up for the rights of Canadians who have been held in Iranian jails and face torture, and we will continue to do that.

I was very surprised by my colleague's comments on Gaza, the horrific shootings by Israeli snipers against civilians, and the fact that Israeli military targeted a Canadian doctor, Dr. Tarek Loubani. Under the Geneva Convention, the targeting of medical staff is a crime, yet we have had numerous medics shot by Israeli snipers. I did not hear the member mention anything about Dr. Loubani when he talked about Gaza.

The Prime Minister said it was inexcusable. The international community said the shooting was inexcusable. Does the member support the call for an independent investigation into why Israeli military targeted a Canadian doctor who was doing medical work for civilians being shot by the Israeli army?

[Business of Supply, June 11th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague as she laid out the obvious human rights abuses very deep within the Iranian regime. She also talked, though, about the role that Canada could play in the Middle East, and I want her to elaborate a little more.

One of the most surprising things I found with the former Harper government was when it decided to close the Iranian consulate. It made a political point and then left us completely outside of any credible conversation, especially at the time of the nuclear deal. The Harper government also abandoned the very large Iranian community in Canada, which should not have been demonized by that Conservative effort. It has done enormous work in building a better Canada. The Iranian community is involved in every aspect of our society and it deserves consular services.

Given her work, does hon. colleague have concerns about the Conservatives continually demonizing this issue and its effect on the Iranian-Canadian community that looks to us to defend its rights?

[Instruction to Committee on Bill C-71, June 4th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, did she say “fascist”? Was that the word she used? Did I hear that? If she said that, then she misinterpreted. I certainly would not want her to say the word “fascist”. Maybe she said something else, but that is what I heard.