Charlie Angus

[G8 Summit, November 21st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, over the last number of months, the Conservatives have tried out a whole whack of excuses to explain the outrageous behaviour of the Muskoka minister. No line has been more bizarre than at least “every penny was well spent”. We know that $3,000 was spent to put up a chandelier, $1,500 to move a bed and a new fridge just for the flowers. No wonder the Muskoka maverick thought he got a good deal when he shelled out $100,000 for a gazebo.

Will the minister explain why $2 million of taxpayer money was spent on renovating his friend's hotel?

[Attawapiskat State of Emergency, November 21st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, it has been three weeks since the Attawapiskat First Nation declared a state of emergency, and in those three weeks, not a single federal or provincial official has even bothered to visit the community. Not a single aid agency has stepped forward with logistical support, but in Attawapiskat, conditions have gone from bad to worse.

Temperatures have dropped 20 degrees. They are likely to drop another 20 degrees in the coming weeks. Families in non-insulated tents and families in makeshift sheds without water or electricity are facing immediate risk. “Immediate risk” is the language being used by medical officials in the community, meaning immediate risk from infection, from disease and from fire.

There are children who are using a bucket for a toilet. This is unacceptable in Canada, and it is unacceptable that although their territory holds the richest diamond mine in the western world, those royalties go to Queen's Park and Ottawa, and nothing comes back to help this community get on its feet.

Where is the action plan to help the people of Attawapiskat?

[Keeping Canada's Economy and Jobs Growing Act, November 21st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague was in the House when the infamous fiscal update was delivered at the beginning of the largest recession since the Depression. The Minister of Finance said that Canada was not in debt, but according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer we were already starting to slip into billions of dollars in debt. The Conservatives' solution to the threat of Canada joining a world depression was that they would sell off public buildings and have no stimulus. That, of course, precipitated the situation where the other parties expressed clear lack of confidence and the Conservatives were forced to turn around. Within a month, they came back and we were suddenly $30 billion to $50 billion to $60 billion in debt. I do not think anybody in history has spent money as fast as they have done.

Why should we have any faith in the Minister of Finance who one month said Canada was not going to be in debt at all, that we were going to ride out the crisis, and within two months the Conservatives were spending what they said was $10 billion but they wracked it up to $50 billion in about six months? The Conservatives still have not explained how they are going to get us back to an economically fiscal plan. Their numbers seem to be in contradiction to everything we hear from the Parliamentary Budget Officer or anything we hear from the private sector.

Could my hon. colleague explain?

[Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, November 21st, 2011]

—that they are heckling over an issue like pensions.

Can the folks back home imagine that that member stood in the House of Commons and supported the veterans first charter and then comes in here and heckles over the fact that the New Democrats are trying to get a fair deal for the people who serve the country? One must ask oneself what it is that drives that man to have his picture taken with the troops. He is always with them. The only person who has had his picture taken more often than that member is George Bush. However, when it comes to standing up on the issues of pensions, clawbacks and ensuring that the widows get a fair deal on their husbands' pensions, we hear the ridicule and attacks. It needs to change.

[Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, November 21st, 2011]

The defence minister is sitting over there heckling. It shows the level of commitment—

[Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, November 21st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise on this important issue. I compliment my colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore, who has established a reputation in the House over many years of working tirelessly on behalf of veterans and RCMP members, the front-line service workers. It is one thing to put people in harm's way, it is one thing to be there when we are sending them off and have the media watching but then they come home and retire. We see all too often that a black hole appears.

I think of a widow in my riding whose husband never asked for his pension. He served his country, damaged his ears and legs serving overseas and came home. When she was too sick to live in her house, she finally asked for her pension and was told that her pension was $1.30 a month. She could not buy a Tim Hortons coffee for that. Yet, her husband had served with distinction and put his life and health on the line. These are things that happen. It is not to blame one government over the other but to say that when we make a commitment we need to follow through.

The issue of the clawback is essential. In 2006, all members of the House stood to support the New Democratic Party on our first veterans motion that laid out the principles and steps needed to ensure that, whether people served their country in the military or in the RCMP, they would be protected and have the things they needed. This was our covenant to the men and women who put their lives at risk. Every member of the House stood and agreed to those principles in that covenant. However, five years later, we are still having to tell the government that it made a promise to those people, they heard it make that promise and they have not seen it deliver on that promise.

The issue of the clawback is one of the areas where the government has failed veterans. It told them one thing and did not deliver. When it supported the veterans first charter, it said that it would happen. Veterans, the Canadian Legion, the Air Force Association and CARP, the Canadian Associated of Retired Persons, heard that message and were expecting action but they are not seeing it, which raises many questions.

This is not a huge ask. My colleagues in the Conservative Party act like it will bankrupt Canada if they actually need to live up to their obligations. It is the kind of rhetoric we get all the time from the same people who cannot wait to have their pictures taken with the troops for their press releases. However, when the troops come home and are looking for their pensions, they are told that if the government actually had to lived up to it, it would go bankrupt.

[Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, November 21st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his long-standing commitment to ensuring that the veterans who do return home are treated with the respect they deserve and are able to live the lives they should be able to live.

I remember very well when the New Democratic Party brought the veterans first charter into the House in 2006. At that time, with the spotlight on the vote, every member on the government side supported the initiative. Yet I am seeing that when it comes time to follow through, they have been dragging their feet, particularly on this issue of the clawback.

We have received unanimous support from the legion. We have received unanimous support from the Canadian Association of Retired Persons, CARP. The Army, Navy and Air Force Veterans in Canada Association has supported it. The veterans are calling for action. The House has already voted on it. The Conservatives have been on the record as supporting ending the clawback.

Why does the member think the government is continuing to deny the RCMP and the veterans this basic right?

[Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, November 17th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, if this were about accountability to taxpayers, the Conservatives would have given the member for Peterborough the job of cramping the style of the high-flying Muskoka minister who blew through $50 million, cannot remember how it was done, had absolutely no receipts but assures us that every Tory in Muskoka had a good time.

Accountability is about respecting the divisions of the Constitution. That was the question that was put to the parliamentary clerk.

The question remains: Is he flying solo or is this part of a larger government plan to undermine the independence of our Canadian courts?

[Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, November 17th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the question is whether or not the government will ignore the warning from the senior parliamentary law clerk that the behaviour of the member for Peterborough at the ethics committee is both illegal and undermines the independence of the court.

Instead of giving an answer, the Minister of Canadian Heritage has been giving us a smoke and mirrors show, ranting about shotguns, the Wheat Board and the state of the beleaguered Canadian taxpayer.

However, a question remains. In the government's attack on the CBC, is it willing to undermine the independence of the Canadian courts?

[Business of Supply, November 17th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, there are many broader issues that will be spoken to over the day. We need to inspire and we need to be inspired by the young people. They are the future.

I tell the story again and again of Shannen Koostachin and the young people of Attawapiskat. What they have done, from putting a face to the forgotten faces of first nations children, has changed the debate in this country forever. They are not just heroes of first nations communities, they are heroes to kids across this country.

The older people in the House probably do not realize how much change is happening on the ground, but if they go into a public school anywhere in this country and ask about what the kids on the James Bay coast have done on education rights, any kid will be able to tell them that story.

It is happening with the young people. We have to have heroes; we have to have role models. I have seen children in communities who start to give up hope because they do not think they can make a difference. That is how much we have internalized the damage, but there is real positive change happening.

We have great leaders. We need to work with them and give them the tools they need, and again, education, education, education. Every child needs the right, as Shannen said, to go to a safe and comfy school because when they have that educational opportunity, we will see northern Canada transformed in a way that it could never have been transformed otherwise.