Charlie Angus

[Aboriginal Affairs, February 14th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, happy Valentine's Day.

It is also Have a Heart Day, and as I speak there are children standing on the steps of the Parliament Buildings calling on the government to protect the rights of first nations children. Can we imagine that? Children have to come to Parliament to call on the government to protect children.

It has been two years since the House unanimously passed Shannen's Dream motion in honour of the late Shannen Koostachin, promising to close the funding gap for children in schools on reserves, yet children are still waiting.

It has been nine years since Jordan River Anderson died in a hospital far from home while the federal government and the provincial government bickered about who was going to pay for his home care.

Despite the promises, our first nations children are still falling through the cracks while the government bickers and denies its legal obligation to children.

Young people get it. They are calling on the government to have a heart and live up to its obligations, protecting first nation children.

[Northwest Territories Devolution Act, February 11th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, witnesses told us that they were not heard on this issue. Regional water boards are crucial. We can have devolution but we need to maintain that voice at the local level, particularly over the issue of water, because water is not only sacred, it is vital for ensuring a sustainable environmental future.

Again we are seeing the government continue its attack on water protection across this country. This is a retrograde step.

[Northwest Territories Devolution Act, February 11th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the obligation to consult is a constitutional obligation. Attempts to get around this have been beaten in court every single time. That is a basic fact. If development is going to take place on first nation land, then consultation is a must.

It is also about common sense. I saw this at ground level when I worked with the Algonquin nation in Quebec and now I see it with the Cree communities and Ojibway communities. The people on the ground know the facts. For so long they have been treated as outsiders on their own land. If we sit down and talk with communities about how development should occur, then we are going to develop plans that are much better and more sustainable.

In the long term, stronger local economies will be developed when people who used to be marginalized participate in the economy. We see enormous potential in the young people in all of our communities. For far too long they have been kept outside the door as though they were completely unwanted. When we start to include them in the economy, then we will become the country we were meant to be.

Under the Conservative government we are reverting to a colonial mentality, which in the end it will hurt our economic output and hurt development. Mining companies have told me that they are tired of the government's attitude about fighting. They want to move forward on proper development and want to do it with some kind of long-term plan.

[Northwest Territories Devolution Act, February 11th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, there is a difference between the New Democrats and the Conservative government. The Conservatives believe that the territories is their land and that the first nation people living there are somehow to be treated as colonized people. That is why they have stripped away basic protections for the environment. That is why they treat the first nation community as basically a hostage population.

On the other hand, New Democrats believe that our relationship with first nations in this country was a primary relationship forged by Champlain. This new country was to be based on respect between the peoples of this land. The Conservative government has done so much to undermine that sense of respect.

If there is to be resource development in the 21st century, it has to be done in consultation with the people whose land it is, and who have a right to participate but have been marginalized for far too long.

[Northwest Territories Devolution Act, February 11th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is a real honour, as always, to rise in the House and represent the people of Timmins—James Bay and speak again to Bill C-15 on the devolution of powers in the Northwest Territories.

At the outset, certainly the New Democrats support the principle of devolution, and I will speak a bit about the importance of devolution in a country as large and diversified as ours. However, we are concerned about clauses 136 and 137 of the bill, which would fold the regional municipal planning boards into one. We believe those changes would not be in the spirit of the negotiations with the people of the Northwest Territories and first nations. This is an outstanding problem that needs to be addressed. We can do good devolution, but we need to ensure that the voices of the people are properly heard.

My own region of Timmins—James Bay is larger than the United Kingdom, but there are many isolated fly-in communities. There are attempts under way to develop hydro resources and copper and diamonds, yet we also have communities that live in intense poverty, a veritable fourth world. Some of my communities are called “Haiti at -40°C”.

When we go into these communities, we see that the federal government has done a very poor job in fulfilling its fiduciary responsibilities and in basic credible management to ensure that development occurs. If we were to talk to people in my region from the mining sector and first nations, we would hear one common voice asking, “Where is the government? Why is the government not doing its job at the table?”

We are trying to get development off the ground in a community that has no doctors, no grade school, and 20 people living in shacks. If a mining company is attempting resource development where people will be hired, we have people who have not been able to graduate. We need the federal government at the table doing its job. We also need the province doing its job. This is why I think that with the issue of devolution in the Northwest Territories, we have to look at it through the lens of how to ensure that development is equitable across the vast terrain of our country where we have smaller populations.

I will give a few examples of the failure of vision in how things have been handled.

The Ring of Fire is a massive mineral resource development project in the northwest of my riding that could impact development for generations to come. Members will remember when the member for Parry Sound—Muskoka was appointed. He was going to be the special point person and the Conservative government was going to make the Ring of Fire happen. The Conservatives were going to be the champions of the development of the Ring of Fire. Well, they all ran away from that one; we do not hear a peep out of them. We also saw how the provincial Liberal government completely botched it.

When we go into the communities, there is frustration because of the extremely high level of poverty. If we asked people in those regions about mining, they would say they understand that mining is going to happen, but it has to be done right with environmental protections and proper consultation.

Consultation is not just a matter of a fiat from Ottawa telling all the little people how they are going to live; it is about respecting the land and the traditions. Without the federal government or the province at the table, this multi-billion-dollar project is sitting on idle.

In my region, simple projects could have been moved ahead through devolution of authority. For example, Attawapiskat has been without a grade school for years. Children are being educated on a toxic brownfield, but the current government walked away at the eleventh hour on a long-term plan to build a school. The then minister of Indian Affairs, Chuck Strahl, said at the time that building schools for children was not a priority. The community was ready to build that school. This was a big project, and the community had financing through a bank. This was innovative. This was grassroots. They had bank financing and all they needed was the federal government to sign a tuition agreement. We could have had a new way of getting schools off the ground, but we had a belligerent government and a closed-minded bureaucracy, and that school was not built. This led to the whole push for Shannen's dream, which ended up at the United Nations with Canada being shamed on the international stage about its basic legal obligation to build schools for children.

As for the outcome of the Attawapiskat housing crisis, in 2011 we had a plan to build 30 new rent-to-own houses in the community. They were not asking for handouts from the government. This was a community that had gone to the CMHC. They were ready to move forward. All they needed was a ministerial guarantee to sign off. The minister refused to sign and those 30 houses were not built.

However, it was not just the current government that dropped the ball, it was also the provincial government. In communities on the James Bay coast, we do not even have the land base to expand the community, despite the fact we have growing populations, because the province sits and claims the land. There is no one up in those regions on the James Bay except the Mushkego Cree, yet Queen's Park has the temerity, the gall, to say it is all provincial land, that they need its sign-off. Why is it not signing off? We will never see the province show up at the table when these simple things need to be done, so our communities are stuck in a catch-22 between a belligerent and incompetent federal government and a provincial government that believes its citizens of the James Bay region, because they are Cree, are somehow not citizens of Ontario. As a result, simple projects do not move forward.

We have the same problem with policing, just as they do in the far, far north, with our Nishnawbe-Aski police service that represents all the peoples of Treaty 9. I was at the funeral of the two young men who burned to death in the police detachment in Kashechewan in 2006. To call it a police detachment is incorrect; it was a shack out of which the police were delivering services. Two young men were trapped in there and burned to death, horrifically. Out of that inquest, light was finally shone on the substandard conditions that police face in these regions, with high levels of PTSD and young police officers killing themselves. There is no support from the federal or provincial governments.

One the issues we had was the need to ensure that we just had basic, proper police units. In Kashechewan the government did not want to put in fire sprinklers because it would cost money. It would be illegal anywhere else in the province of Ontario to have a public building without sprinklers, but they got away with that on a reserve because the feds were not going to worry about it and the province was not going to spend the money, and two young men burned to death.

We now have a situation in Fort Hope where plans to build a proper police detachment to ensure security for the police officers, as well as the citizens, has been derailed by the current government after multiple negotiations. It has simply abandoned it.

We hear from Chief Elizabeth Atlookan, who has written the government, saying that “It is imperative that construction of this new detachment commence immediately as costs for the transportation of materials will increase as the end of the short winter road season”.

In writing to their member of Parliament in Kenora, she says, “I request you to do everything possible to secure funding for the construction of this new detachment”.

These are communities that live with very narrow building windows, where if we do not get the sign-off to get this police detachment soon and we do not get those supplies up the road, then we will lose another year. In consequence, the police and communities are left at risk, and the cost to the taxpayer goes up and up.

It is the serial incompetence of the government in managing files in the far north that has led us, time and again, to see good projects sit on someone's desk and not be signed off on until the price has gone up 30% or 40%, because every year it gets harder and harder to move supplies up.

This is the situation that we face in our region, so is the lens that we should apply to the issue of devolution.

We support devolution in the Northwest Territories. This is a good, important step. However, taking the regional-municipal water and planning boards and folding them up, despite the opposition of first nations and the concerns raised, is another example of the government just not getting it. It does not understand that if we are to do proper development in Canada, we have to do it credibly and do it in consultation with people. People are not against development, but they want it done right. When we have a good program like devolution, I am very sorry to see the government undermining it and throwing a monkey wrench into it by playing around with the development of the water boards in the region.

[Democratic Reform, February 10th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, over the weekend, the Chief Electoral Officer was the latest to speak out against the Conservative's unfair elections act. He said, “...my reading of the act is that I can no longer speak about democracy in this country”.

This is unprecedented. The unfair elections act would undermine Elections Canada's ability to ensure a level playing field. Canada would be the only democratic country where the independent oversight body is told to keep its mouth shut about people's voting rights.

Well, this is not surprising from the party that pled guilty to the in-and-out scandal, in which numerous Conservative cabinet ministers have been under investigation for breaking the law; and voter suppression in 2011 was traced back to the Conservative data base.

Canadians deserve accountability and fairness when it comes to their voting rights. Instead, they are shutting down debate and ramming through changes that will help them and their friends in 2015. Well, guess what? The New Democrats will be there to stop them.

[Supporting Non-Partisan Agents of Parliament Act, February 10th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour to speak in this chamber, representing the people of Timmins—James Bay.

I am a strong believer in the Westminster system of government. I believe that it is a good system of government and that it could be one of the best in the world. However, we are seeing a continual undermining of the Westminster tradition by the current Conservative government.

Bill C-520 is called an act to support the non-partisan officers of Parliament, but anybody back home knows that in the Orwellian language of the current Conservative government, the opposite is involved.

In listening to the Conservatives here this morning, we have heard them talk about accountability and transparency. What they mean is accountability for everybody else and transparency for everybody else but secrecy for them and loopholes for their friends.

The bill is brought forward by the member for York Centre, who is now famous for his attempt to turn the most historic and sacred site of Judaism into a photo op for his re-election. Here is a man who is telling us it is all about making sure the systems of Parliament are able to do their job. However, it means that this backbencher would set up a system where the people whose job it is to investigate Parliament would now be investigated, not by Parliament but by the members of the governing party. There is a provision in the bill that would allow any backbench Conservative or any senator to demand an investigation of the Auditor General or the Lobbying Commissioner.

It is interesting that the Lobbying Commissioner has no power to investigate Conservative senators. It does not matter how many junkets they fly on, how many corporate boards they sit on, or how many times big oil takes average Conservative senators out to Hy's Steakhouse and wines and dines them. The Lobbying Commissioner has no ability to investigate a senator; a senator is protected. However, a senator would be able to demand an investigation of the Lobbying Commissioner. That is the intent of the bill.

The Ethics Commissioner has no ability to investigate whether Nigel Wright and Mike Duffy were involved in an illegal $90,000 payout, which is now being investigated by the RCMP. Why? It is because the Ethics Commissioner has no ability to touch Mike Duffy. However, with the proposed legislation, Mike Duffy could have demanded an investigation of the Ethics Commissioner.

Members might not realize it, but over in the supposed upper chamber, they actually do have an Ethics Commissioner. She is probably the quietest person in Ottawa, as she actually needs permission from her own senators to investigate. Therefore, if we are looking at the involvement of senators Tkachuk, LeBreton, Stewart Olsen, and Gerstein in this illegal cover-up, well, we cannot ask the Ethics Commissioner over in the Senate to investigate whether or not all those key people in the Conservative Party were involved in illegal activities, because she actually needs their permission to investigate. She has to beg the senators before she is allowed to launch an investigation.

However, Senator Gerstein, the bagman for the Conservative Party, and Senator Tkachuk, who is accused of telling Pamela Wallin to whitewash her calendar, so the RCMP would not find out, would have the power to demand an investigation into anything the ethics officer does. That is the world the Conservative government is bringing us into.

This is now a country where we see a supposedly stand-alone, non-partisan institution like Canada Revenue Agency being put to use investigating charities. Why is it investigating charities? It is because the Conservatives will use the levers of government against any charity that has the nerve to stand up and speak about the petro-state.

We have Canada's spy agency overseen by Chuck Strahl. A cabinet minister who stepped out and became an Enbridge lobbyist got appointed as the head of the spy agency. I guess it is a step up. The last guy the Conservatives had in charge of the spy agency was Arthur Porter. Is he not now hiding out in a Panama jail having been caught for money laundering and issues of gun running and fraud? This is the man who the Prime Minister of this country thought should oversee the spy agency, so I guess Chuck Strahl was a step up.

However, Chuck Strahl is working for Enbridge. Now the spy agency gets its orders from the National Energy Board to spy on Enbridge's enemies. They had a secure briefing, and the luncheon for the secure briefing with the National Energy Board and Canada's spy agency was actually sponsored and paid for by Enbridge.

This is the kind of insider access we are seeing now, and the government thought there were no problems with that.

Now other officers of Parliament could be investigated. The government could go after the Commissioner of Lobbying.

Let us look at the issue of the Privacy Commissioner. The Privacy Commissioner has an international reputation. She has taken on big data. She has asked for tools to be able to keep up, but the government does not want that. When the government lost the personal data of 500,000 Canadians, what was its response? It sat on it.

If we are to be accountable to Canadians, and if we find out that personal information has been either lost or stolen, the first thing we should do is alert those people, to protect them from identity theft and fraud. It is not so with the Conservative government. Its objective is to protect hapless ministers. It sat on the loss of information for over a month.

The New Democratic Party asked the Privacy Commissioner to investigate other breaches. We found out that over one million Canadians have had their data stolen, hacked, or lost, and of all those cases, only 10% were reported by the government to the commissioner. The Conservatives do not care if personal data is being stolen, because they do not want their ministers to look bad.

The next time the New Democratic Party asks the commissioner to investigate why data is being lost and why senior citizens' financial information may have been stolen under the government's watch, the government would be able to demand an investigation into the officer of Parliament whose job is to protect Canadians, just like what the member from York did and made himself famous.

With respect to access to information, we hear gibberish from the other side about all the data sets that the member for Parry Sound—Muskoka is handing out. The Access to Information Commissioner has talked about ministerial offices becoming black holes of information. She cannot touch the information. When the member for Parry Sound--Muskoka took $50 million in border infrastructure money—money that could have kept guns and drugs out of the country—and spent it on trinkets in his riding, he could say there was no paper trail, because he knew the access to information officer did not have the power to demand the paperwork that we knew was there.

Canada was a world leader in terms of access to information. Canada set the benchmark. Since the Conservatives have taken office, Canada has dropped to 41st place, to 51st place, and now we are at 55th place in the world. Angola and Colombia are further ahead.

What would the government do in response? It would make it possible to demand an investigation into the access to information commissioner should he or she put any heat on a government agency.

I could go on about Elections Canada. The government did not consult with Elections Canada. The Conservative government is a government of serial cheaters. Who did it hear from? The government heard from all the Conservative members who are under investigation for electoral crimes and misdemeanours, and they are the ones who have decided that the electoral officer will no longer be allowed anywhere near the ice to protect Canadians.

At the end of the day, this legislation is about undermining the fundamental pillars that support democratic accountability in this country. This legislation would allow backbenchers and senators to protect their own interests by attacking the officers whose job is to stand up for Canadians, to ensure accountability, to ensure transparency, and to stop the insiders, the well-heeled, and the big boys sitting in the back room from misrepresenting and undermining democracy in this country.

We in the NDP will be opposing this legislation.

[Business of Supply, February 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague. It is very clear today that there is only one party in this House, the New Democrats, that is talking about the issue of household debt and the pressures families are facing.

We all know where the Conservatives stand. They are on the side of the big banks. That is clear, but it is the Liberals who have been weaseling and undermining every single question to try to make this an issue that is silly or that we should not be debating, when we are talking about families and seniors who are being gouged by outrageous fees.

When senior citizens have to take money out of an ATM because they do not have access to a bank, and for $40 they have to pay $7, the Liberals seem to think that is perfectly okay. That it is the market. They have even called people lazy for not going to their banks. For us it is a question of fairness.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague why she thinks the Liberals have such a tin ear when it comes to the issues of ordinary Canadian families.

[Business of Supply, February 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my hon. colleague, and there was a lot of yackety-yack, but there was no substance. Of course he hides behind the Conservatives' line, “oh, bad NDP carbon tax”. The Minister of Foreign Affairs stood on January 24, 2008, and said that the Conservative government would put “a price on carbon”. It was $14 a tonne. Conservatives promised Canadians that they were going to be the ones putting the price on carbon.

This is just another broken promise, like when the Minister of Finance said he was going to deal with the pricing of the big banks on ATM fees. He said there was a problem and he was going to deal with it. That was in 2009. What happened to that promise? Nothing happened.

When Conservatives talk about the economy, they do not talk about average Canadians. They talk about the GDP, but they do not talk about the fact that we have the highest debt ratios in history, that people are not able to access banks in many parts of the country. When people go to an ATM, they are being gouged to a level of up to $7.90 for a $20 transaction.

I have not heard yet from any members of the Conservative Party if they have a problem with seniors being gouged. They seem to think that is the wonders of the market.

Is there any fee, any level that would actually cause the Conservatives to say enough is enough? I would certainly think that a 39.5% fee on a $20 withdrawal is outrageous and should be dealt with, but I know the Conservatives will flip over backward for big industry on any given day of the week; so 39.5%, 40%, 41%, 42%—is there any level at which the Conservatives think Canadians are being unacceptably gouged?

[Business of Supply, February 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I want to say that this a first. We should mark it down in the history book.

I want to thank my hon. colleague for his excellent observation. Yes, the cheapest hydro rates in North America are in the province of Manitoba, under a New Democratic government, because it understands the importance of having proper hydro rates, just as in the province of Quebec. If we look at Ontario under the Liberals, we see that people are being ripped off by a corrupt government that spent $1 billion moving two gas plants to save the rear ends of some Liberal MPPs and that then told every senior citizen in Ontario that they were going to pay for this for the next 20 years because they had to protect some Liberals in Ontario.

It is the first time ever, but I think the member is bang on the money. That is the difference between a good government in Manitoba and the corrupt, lazy Liberals in Ontario who are gouging our senior citizens into the ground.