Charlie Angus

[G8 and G20 Summits, November 19th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, while the people of Toronto were cleaning up the broken glass from the G20, a picture was emerging of the massive slush fund that had been set up for Muskoka. Fifty million dollars in taxpayer money were funnelled into the Tory minister's riding under the pretext of the G8 for inconveniences. Some inconvenience. It is a staggering list of vanity pork-barrel projects that had nothing to do with the summit. Meanwhile, Toronto was left out in the cold.

How can the government defend its gross misuse of taxpayer dollars?

[Constitution Act, 2010 (Senate Term Limits), November 19th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague. We have seen how the Conservative Party came in. It told Canadians that it was going to be an ethical government and was going to do something different. Yet we see the pattern. As soon as the Conservatives got their hands on the Senate, they started to fill it with the bagmen and cronies, people like Leo Housakos and Doug Finley, who gets paid by the taxpayer to run the war room for the Conservative Party.

Then, of course, there is the Hon. Irving Gerstein. Here is a man who shows what the Senate is all about. The Liberals have accused us of using the word “bagman”, but Senator Gerstein said in a speech he gave:

Well, I want to tell you that I do not admit to being a bagman; I proclaim it.

I believe that the job of raising funds for the Conservative Party...is both necessary and honourable.

That is his job in the Senate, a man who the Prime Minister chose to go in, along with the other bagmen, who brags that he is there to raise money for the Conservative Party, and the taxpayer pays for these people.

My hon. colleague has seen the hypocrisy of the government and how these members stood year after year and said when they came in they would deal with the issue. What they are doing now is, of course, mere window dressing. They would put term limits, but the fact is that they are using the Senate as a dumping ground for their party hacks and the people who collect the money.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague why he thinks it is that the government has betrayed the promises it made to people who voted for them thinking that they were going to clean up that cesspool.

[Constitution Act, 2010 (Senate Term Limits), November 19th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I was absolutely flabbergasted to listen to my hon. colleague's speech in the same week that the unelected and unaccountable house trashed a bill on climate change, which was voted for by the democratically elected members of the Canadian people.

The Liberals have never wanted to touch Senate reform because they have always used it as a place where they put the bagmen and the party hacks. However, if we looked at the Senate rules for conflict of interest, senators would not meet the most basic test that any rural town councillor, or any small town school board trustee would have to meet.

Under the Senate's conflict of interest guidelines, senators can review legislation where they have a pecuniary interest. They can sit on the boards of major corporations. They have all manner of financial interests that they do not have to disclose. Any city or town councillor in any community in the country would have to disclose those, but not the senators.

If these representatives are supposed to do sober second thought, would the member not agree with me that we have to clean up and have clear guidelines on conflict of interest so the money, the bagmen and the oil industry cannot overrule the House?

[Government Accountability, November 16th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, three years ago an Ottawa businessman testified about political interference in the awarding of contracts under then-minister Michael Fortier. Two weeks later, the Conservative Party launched a political vendetta against this whistleblower. It brought in a failed Conservative candidate to act as a crown prosecutor. Bureaucrats were ordered not to take notes at their meetings. The government's lawyer admitted that there was political pressure coming from high up. It stinks of a political hit.

Why are the Conservatives attacking whistleblowers instead of cleaning up the mess they have created over at Public Works?

[Canadian Forces, November 4th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, as we enter this final year of Canada's combat role in Kandahar, we think of our relatives and neighbours who are serving over there.

Many people from northern Ontario are serving there right now, people like Jennifer Spence from Fort Albany and Mark Misener from Iroquois Falls.

As Remembrance Day approaches, I encourage Canadians to send letters and parcels to our men and women overseas. The holiday season is a difficult time for soldiers to be separated from their loved ones. Receiving a card or a care package from home matters.

Until January 7 family and friends of Canadian Forces personnel can ship cards and packages free of charge to Afghanistan and other overseas theatres of operations. Canadians can bring their packages to one of Canada Post's 6,600 post offices.

We made a vow as Canadians that we will remember them and at this time of the year let us remember those who are serving in the forces right now.

[Business of Supply, November 4th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, Timmins—James Bay is one of the greatest mining regions in the world, and in the last six or seven years we have had two really stark examples.

De Beers invested $1 billion on the James Bay coast. It set up the Victor diamond mine and signed impact benefit agreements with local communities. We have spoken with De Beers on numerous occasions about problems in some of the communities and about support throughout the region. The relations are not always perfect, but here is a company that invested in Canada and is building an asset.

On the other hand, we had the corporate raider, Xstrata, that had a pretty poor track record. All the government would have had to do was look into any reports about its record; it just had to Google Xstrata and it would have seen that this was a company to think twice about. Yet it was allowed to walk away with one of the world's premium mining companies, Falconbridge, and it gutted the company. Xstrata gutted our copper refining capacity.

Why does my hon. colleague think the government cannot tell the difference between targeted foreign investment and foreign takeovers that are gutting our resources and vandalizing our—

[Business of Supply, November 4th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague is from a mining and smelting community and I am from a mining town. We are no strangers to heartbreak. We have seen mines close. We have seen deals go down. We have seen communities built up in the wilderness and then the capital falls because the price of ore drops. These things happen, but what happened with Falconbridge and Inco stands alone in the history of Canadian mining because so many people warned and predicted that if we allowed the potential merger that could have taken place to be ripped apart by a corporate raider, the long-term impacts would be devastating.

The government at the time told us, “Do not worry. There is a nickel boom right now. Everything is fine”. It showed the fundamental misunderstanding that it has, that just because there is a boom in mining does not mean there is not going to be a bust. There will always be a bust and it is who controls the resources at the time of the bust that becomes a central issue. Right after the takeover by the hostile corporate raider, Xstrata, and then Vale took over Inco, we hit the bust.

We lost 1,000 jobs in Timmins. We lost all our copper refining capacity in the province of Ontario because of the government. I would like to ask my hon. colleague what it meant for the people of Sudbury, when they knew and were warning the government that this deal with Falconbridge and Inco being taken over was a disaster in the making. What did they think of the refusal and the glib answers that they received from the government?

[Business of Supply, November 4th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I listened to my hon. colleague lay out what happened to the people of Hamilton and the absolutely irresponsible excuses that the Minister of Industry brought forward at the time in response to this debacle. It sounds to me too similar to when we look at what happened to Sudbury. The largest nickel copper resource in the world was allowed to be basically vandalized under the minister's watch. He told the people of Sudbury, in the face of the shutdowns, the layoffs and the crippling strike, that we would look back and remember that Vale came to save Sudbury at the time when Inco was dying. It was not only factually incorrect, it was one of the most idiotic statements a Canadian minister could ever make because four years ago Inco was at the top of the base metal mining game. If we were to talk to anyone in the mining industry they would tell us that the merger between Inco and Falconbridge would have created synergies that were unprecedented. It was under the minister's watch and the government's watch that this industry was devastated.

I know no one will ever put innovation and Tory in the same sentence, all we need to do is think of the Avro Arrow, but I would ask my hon. colleague what the people in the steel industry are saying. The people from the mining sector are saying that what happened to Inco and Falconbridge under the present government's watch has crippled the base metal mining potential in this country to the point where it will never be back to the level that it was at, thanks to the government's debacle.

[Business of Supply, November 4th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my hon. colleague. Again and again he said that this was all about politics. To him, it was like a hockey game. It was not like a hockey game for the people in Timmins and Sudbury who raised concerns with the government and expected the government to do the right thing.

If we go back four years, when we raised questions in the House, and he can look at Hansard, we raised questions about what would happen to the copper refining capacity in Ontario if the Xstrata hostile takeover went through. The government had the same kind of glib, cheap answers that it gives today.

At the time, no one suggested that the Xstrata deal be stopped. What people were saying was that we had the opportunity to create a world-class mining giant with the Inco and Falconbridge merger, which was being held up in regulatory processes in the United States. The only thing we asked for was that the government hold off a corporate raider like Xstrata until a Canadian bid had a chance to get to the table. The government said, “Absolutely not”.

I do not know if the hon. member has ever visited northern Ontario. If he came, he would see the damage to the Canadian mining industry because of the Xstrata and Vale situation. Would he now admit that the government made a colossal blunder? Hopefully the government has learned a few lessons on potash.

[Business of Supply, November 4th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, when the Conservative government came to power, Falconbridge and Inco were international mining leaders. The Conservatives sat back and glibly snickered at any concerns that were raised about the hostile takeovers by Xstrata and Vale. We have seen thousands of job losses. We have seen the copper refining capacity of Ontario shut down. Ore is being shipped out of the region.

I would like to ask our leader a question regarding potash. It is pretty clear, is it not, that the people of Saskatchewan and the people of Canada put the government on notice, because the government has no credibility when it comes to standing up for resources or standing up for jobs in Canada?