Charlie Angus

[Government Priorities, March 4th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, when I go into Iroquois Falls, Cochrane and Englehart and Timmins, I am hearing the same story over and over. Families are unable to find long-term care facilities to look after their loved ones. They look to this government and see a profligate spending spree to build prisons. No wonder Canadians are saying Ottawa is broken.

Is the government too busy playing political games to notice or care that Canadians are struggling? Where is the plan for long-term care? Why has the government abandoned seniors who should be able to spend their last years living in dignity and comfort?

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, March 1st, 2011]

Madam Speaker, it is fairly straightforward. When we talk about data being held hostage by a paranoid regime, we are describing the Conservative Party. It attacked the long form census first claiming it had thousands of emails and then it was hundreds. Then it said there are a few people somewhere who think there are black helicopters in the sky spying on us, which might be the Conservative base, and that as long as one person in Canada has any kind of privacy concern, it will strip away an internationally recognized census and planning bureau, which it did. Yet with this bill, it trades away all Canadians' right of privacy and basic constitutional rights for a dime. In fact, not even a dime, it will do it for free.

When we talk about paranoid regimes playing hostage with our data, voila, the Conservative Party of Canada.

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, March 1st, 2011]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague has raised a very important point. We are talking about something fundamentally profound to a functioning democratic society, which is that the constitutional rights guaranteed to citizens cannot be arbitrarily taken away.

We have seen how the government will break whatever rule, rip up whatever agreement and break any law it can get away with, but the fundamental constitutional rights of individual citizens cannot be compromised. This bill has arbitrarily compromised it.

I am very concerned because the government refuses to even tell Canadians. It is trying to bully the opposition into allowing this. Once these fundamental constitutional rights of people are broken, then we can no longer say that those rights exist.

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, March 1st, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I am very proud to rise on behalf of not only the New Democratic Party but the people of Timmins—James Bay and speak to Bill C-42.

Under Bill C-42, the Conservative Party has decided to allow the private information of Canadian citizens who fly to the Dominican Republic or Cuba, not even entering the United States, to be given to U.S. Homeland Security. This information includes credit card information, personal information and who a person is flying with and it is without even telling the people about it. Homeland Security will then make the decision whether those Canadians will be allowed to board their flights.

This is a very disturbing bill, but it speaks to a deeper issue. When I go home to Timmins—James Bay, people tell me that Ottawa is broken. They tell me that the politics of Ottawa favours the insiders, the bagmen, the senators and the pals of the ruling party. They wonder how the government could be so out of touch with the needs of average Canadians.

So the people back home know, when they travel with family and friends to the Dominican Republic, their government has never bothered to tell them that it will take their private information and give it away.

If the Conservative government was an honest government, and we know “honest” and “Tory” does not really fit in the same sentence, it would go back to the Canadian people and tell them that part of the deal is to sell out their privacy because it thinks there is a greater good. That would be a discussion we could have at the Tim Hortons or with our church groups, but the Conservative government does not do that. It is trying to force this bill through, shouting about national security and the war on terror.

Let us go back to where the war on terror started. It was not hosers in flip-flops and tank tops with lobster-red skin coming home from Cuba in March who decided they would take a plane and fly it into the towers. It was not Canadians from Mississauga or Red Deer who decided they were going to attack our number one trading partner and the people of the United States. The Canadian people were there on 9-11 helping the American and international flights by allowing them to enter Canadian airspace so those people could be looked after. We were an ally, as we have always been.

Who started the so-called war on terror? They were people who were invited into the United States, who were vetted by the United States government, who bordered domestic flights and took control of those flights and caused that horrific day of tragedy.

Yet there is no attempt by Homeland Security to get the information of people on domestic flights in the United States where this terrible act of terror happened. It is asking the Canadian government, the Conservative Party, to do that. To be fair, I am sure our trading partners have sized those guys up from the get-go. They figure they will get what they ask for, because on the so-called war on terror, we are all supposed to give up something.

We have given up all manner of rights and privacy to stop this so-called war on terror. We have seen 85 year-old ladies at the airport getting manhandled or six year-old kids getting patted down and we have been told that this is important, that these basic rights have to be suspended.

The rule of law is based on the right of people to confront their accusers. It is based on the fundamental right of privacy of a person. These rights are given away in the bill.

We need to look at history and other places where there has been a war on terror. Think of England in the 1970s with the terrible bombing campaign by the IRA. It was considered okay to suspend massive civil liberties then. What happened? Poor Mrs. Maguire, her four children and their relatives were dragged off to prison for 113 years because the government of the day cowed the opposition into saying that civil rights, basic rights of privacy had no place in a so-called war on terror. We have to do better. We have to talk about this bill and we have to go to the public.

It brings me to the second point of my conversation today which is the hypocrisy of the government. The Conservatives said they would do things differently. They said they would clean up the Senate. What did they do with the Senate? They filled it with party hacks and fundraisers.

The Conservatives tell Canadians they are tough on crime and yet two of those senators, bagman Gerstein and campaign manager Finley, are now up on charges. Two senators whose basic job is to raise money and work for the Conservative Party on the public dime are now being charged. What is the government's position on criminal charges brought against two Tory bagmen senators is that it is an administrative error. It is the hypocrisy of this.

The old Reformers back home must be rolling over that the government which said when it came into power that it would clean things up is not only as cynical and rotten as the previous government, and that is saying something, but that it has filled the Senate with people who are under criminal charges and it is letting them stay there and continue to work on the public dime.

We see the hypocrisy of the Conservative Party. This is the government that said it would stand up for Canada. What did it do? The Conservatives went to the U.S. and negotiated a bill. It is important for people to know what is in the bill, because it is a government that will run attack ads, smear people and trash their reputations and go on about fictitious iPod taxes, but it does not have the guts to run radio ads in anybody's riding saying, “We are taking your personal private information and we are giving it to the United States”. That is what happens when people vote for a Conservative government. It does not tell people that. It is running with smoke and mirrors and all kinds of side issues, any hot button it can find to get people back at the Tim Hortons riled up.

It should rile people at Tim Hortons that the government goes to the U.S. and agrees that the information on the passenger name record set up with the travel agent, which includes people's credit card information, where they are staying, who they are travelling with and all the booking information, can be given to another country to keep, and it could be traded with any other country. People do not even have to go to a country. They could be just flying over it. The Conservatives would sell that information and not have the decency or the honesty to tell the people of Canada that this is what they are doing.

It is within this agreement that no person may know what information is being held by the United States and he or she is not in a position to correct that information. It is like Kafka gets caught up with the bullies and the fundamental issue of rule of law is the ability to challenge the accusations. We know from the war on terror that is not what happened. We saw what happened to Mr. Arar, how he was pulled out, thanks to our allies in the United States, sent overseas and tortured, and how hard it was to clear his name. Even with his name cleared, he cannot be taken off the so-called no-fly list, this black hole list, as my colleague from Winnipeg Centre said, that people are put on.

What do we need to do? Number one, we need to get rid of the Tories. That is a reasonable solution. We have to get rid of them because they do not represent Canadians. They do not represent what is good, so let us get rid of them.

Number two, we need to look at legislation and read the fine print. We see in bill after bill it is a government that stands up and shouts at opposition members and tries to bully them, and it is pretty successful usually with the Liberals. The Conservatives bully opposition members and tell them not to read the fine print, but just sign. If the opposition members do not sign, they are enemies of the state, they are soft on crime, they are some kind of pinko pervert. The Conservatives will throw whatever they can.

However, our fundamental job in the House is to read the fine print so we can go back to our constituents and tell them that in the bill, the government that told them it would stand up for them has taken their personal information, their basic right to privacy and given it away. They do not even have to ever travel to the United States, but they might be flying over it some day, maybe on a flight from Winnipeg to Toronto. They might be within their own country and that information could be traded away. It allows foreign countries access to Canadians' privacy for data mining. It is highly problematic.

What do we need to do in order to have a proper bill for safety? We need to work together to ensure that we have bills that protect the best interests of our citizens and not simply sell out to the lowest common bidder.

I will be more than pleased to take any questions or comments as this is a fundamentally important element to the democratic process

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, March 1st, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague, who had many of his facts absolutely correct. I just have to question, though, as I am not quite sure if he might have seen the whole context.

We know that the Conservative Party will sell out civil liberties on a dime. The Conservatives would do that before getting up in the morning. We know what they think of people's personal liberty, but I am surprised at the hon. member's surprise that the Liberals would also be willing to sell out Canada's civil liberties, because was is not the leader of the Liberal opposition who previously stood up during the worst, darkest days of Bush's torture regime and defended coercive investigation?

We know the Conservatives do not mind using the rubber hose. That is in their DNA, but it was the Liberal leader who supported coercive investigation and said it was necessary, and so why would we think that the Liberal Party would actually care about people's privacy rights, about people's--

[Agent Orange, March 1st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I have been speaking with families of hydro and forestry workers who have suffered from cancers, miscarriages, and birth defects from exposure to Agent Orange in northern Ontario.

But we now learn that federal employees were exposed to large doses of Agent Orange while working at rural and regional airports between 1955 and 1974. In fact, Transport Canada employees were expected to mix large doses of 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D, and then spray it without protective clothing.

Would the Minister of Transport investigate this and release any and all documents pertaining to the use of Agent Orange at federal airports and other federal operations?

[Committees of the House, March 1st, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I would not want the hon. member to misrepresent the facts to the people back home. Today we were supposed to be debating our opposition day motion to abolish the Senate. The government has interrupted that opposition day motion. That is what today was supposed to be about, and the member should at least be honest.

[Committees of the House, March 1st, 2011]

Madam Speaker, in northern Ontario, in mining country, there are numerous issues with regard to bringing skilled immigrants to the north and integrating them into society. While we are aware of the importance of building our communities with people who want to become Canadian citizens, we see a backlash in general in society questioning whether multiculturalism works.

An element that makes multiculturalism work, a traditional stand on immigration, is integration within the larger society. When we bring immigrants to Canada, we need to ensure they become part of our communities. We see the Conservative government taking two approaches that are sending us in the wrong direction.

One is the cut of $53 million to settlement and adaptation services, so that immigrant communities are left to themselves and are not able to integrate into the larger society. The other is to use labour programs to bring workers over on short-term work contracts and then send them back. Canadians do not benefit from this at all because sometimes it pushes down the labour market. Also, we are using cheap labour, sending workers back, and we do not get any benefit in our communities.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague a question. Why does she think the Conservative government is going on such a knowingly wrong-headed approach to deal with something as vitally important to Canadian society as immigration?

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, February 28th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting the way our colleagues in the Conservative Party have tried to shut down debate on this. They want to push this through. They do not want to be honest with Canadians. This is the party that ranted about the long form census and claimed that if two Canadians felt that there was a fear of black helicopters in the sky because of the long form census, they would trash an internationally respected data collection agency.

However, the provisions in Bill C-42 here will take the private information of Canadian citizens, who might be flying down to Cancun on a holiday, and they will have no idea that this Conservative government's plan is to allow foreign companies to data mine their personal information.

For example, a person who goes to a travel agency and books a flight to Mexico or the Dominican Republic, and happens to fly over United States airspace, their credit card, hotel booking, and rental car information can be passed on to the United States and held for up to 40 years, so that companies within the United States can access that information to data mine. It can be given to other third party countries without the consent of Canadians.

I would like to ask the hon. member, why has the government not had the decency to go back to the many average Canadians out there who look to parliamentarians to protect their interests and explain it to them why they are trading away the personal information of Canadians?

[Business of Supply, February 17th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, what has become very clear with the government is this pathological pattern that it believes there is a set of rules for it and there are rules for everyone else. If anyone else breaks the rules, the government will throw the book at them. There is maximum attack on anyone who does not follow their rules. Yet there is a case where a minister doctored a document and then lied to Parliament. That is about as serious as it can get. If folks back home did that in their workplace, they would be fired. Here, this is the price of doing business.

We see that it is not just that the minister doctored the document and lied, but the Prime Minister of this country, who is supposed to represent an ethical standard, said that what she did is perfectly in line with how the government operates.

I would like to ask the hon. member what it means in this House of Commons, where the laws of this land are made, that it is considered okay as long as it is a Conservative minister to lie, doctor documents, misrepresent the facts and they will be backed up all the way up to the Prime Minister himself. What does it mean for the standard of democracy in this country where a government is willing to go to that level to misrepresent the truth and lie to people?