Charlie Angus

[Sébastien's Law (protecting the public from violent young offenders), May 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I guess the question we are talking about is priorities.

The government is going to spend billions to build prisons, to demonize youth, to take away the protections they have so that they can be thrown into prisons, and yet we see underspending of $180 million every year in first nations schools.

In the James Bay region that I represent, in the last two years we have had 11 suicides and 80 attempts among children and youth who feel their lives are so hopeless. In my region I have two communities without grade schools.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague, why is it that the government is spending billions to build jails, to throw young people away, to treat them as a discarded generation, when the children in communities on the James Bay coast and northern Canada are being left without the most basic supports, so that we have such outrageous levels of suicide attempts and such outrageous levels of dropout because the schools are substandard?

[Sébastien's Law (protecting the public from violent young offenders), May 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague's speech on this because one of the problems we are finding with the Tories' dumb on crime approach is that they create this chimera, that provisions do not exist so they are going to somehow solve it, that there is no way that the police had any powers to deal with crystal meth, when they obviously did have the tools.

We know that they have gone out now and said that there is no way we can stop these young gangbangers and hooligans, when the Youth Criminal Justice Act has all these powers.

I would ask my hon. colleague if he thinks it is maybe a dangerous, continual undermining of Canadians' confidence in a well thought out judicial system that, as he says, can hold very dangerous youth and treat them as adults, but it also treats youth as being a separate and needed category because it is not just a national priority. It also fits with the rules of international law.

Why does he think that bill after bill that the government has been bringing forward seem to be undermining confidence in the justice system by claiming to fix problems that do not exist because they have already been dealt with in the Criminal Code?

[Sébastien's Law (protecting the public from violent young offenders), May 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I want to follow up with my colleague on the fact that there has probably never been a government that has had such a pitiful record in terms of output as the present government.

We talk about the Auditor General looking at value for dollar. Perhaps we should look at how many bills the government has brought forward and how many times it has beaten the drum, waved the flag and said that it would do something but then let the bill die and then started the whole process over again.

My colleague has been sitting on a number of committees. In terms of its record, the government has done nothing for the environment except support big oil, it has done nothing to deal with pensions and it has done nothing to deal with the unemployed. It is now five years into its term in office and it cannot even get its own dumped-down crime bills through the House because it is not interested in getting them through the House. It is only interested in running up the flag and sending out the attack ten percenters.

If he could look back on the last four or five years, has the government amounted to very much?

[Sébastien's Law (protecting the public from violent young offenders), May 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, when we look at the evidence before us in terms of crime, recidivism and crime rates, there is a huge gap between what works, what the Conservatives are suggesting, what the reality is and what the Conservatives are attempting to insinuate with the general public.

I was very interested to hear my colleague talk about the fact that the government had a consultation process and yet did not release any of the information. It is highly problematic, when we are talking about creating public policy with regard to crime and youth and taking way some of the tools that already exist for dealing with youth who have done some terrible things or are in very bad situations, that the government would suppress that information.

It seems to be a general pattern of the government to regularly suppress information that does not fit with what its little war room comes out with, what fits in 140 characters or less or what fits in a BlackBerry message it can send to its members to respond to local media. The need for public policy must be based on evidence, not just ideology.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague what he thinks about this situation.

[Sébastien's Law (protecting the public from violent young offenders), May 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague. I think he would agree with me that among the more distasteful exhibitions that we have seen in the House are the five solid years of a government that has no vision for dealing with the economy, no vision for dealing with the laid off workers, and no vision for standing up on global warming except when it comes to one crime bill after another. We have had a relentless stream of dumbed down attack crime bills to try to turn individuals in society against one another.

The Conservatives wrap themselves continually in supposedly representing victims. I lived for many years with people coming out of prison and I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague speak about the issues of recidivism and rehabilitation. It is of vital importance for society to find ways of balancing the need to protect, the need to put people away but the need to ensure that we have a way to reintegrate people back into society.

Of the five years of dumbed down bills that we have seen from the government, we now see that it wants to put children into prison with hardened criminals. I think it is an astounding suggestion.

Does my hon. colleague think there is any possible social good that can come from exposing children, whether they have committed a crime or not, to prison as the Tories believe?

[Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, May 3rd, 2010]

We need to move away from the lip service about loving our troops. We should say that after they come home, when they are senior citizens, when they are disabled or if they leave widows, they will be looked after in a fair system in which their money is not clawed back by the government or insurance companies and that they will have what they need. That is the covenant that we must make within the House to veterans, the RCMP and other federal service people who risk their lives for us.

It also reminds us that we need to do better in addressing the pension crisis. Senior citizens are suffering and they are suffering from the indifference of a government that is pushing the HST on them because it wants to shift the tax burden off large corporations and put it on people with fixed incomes. They are suffering because we have a government that has no interest in standing up for the Abitibi or Nortel pensioners because it would rather help the big creditors of the big banks. That is a shame and that is not the great tradition of Canada.

We in the New Democratic Party will continue to fight for pension fairness for veterans, former police officers, firefighters and all senior citizens.

[Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, May 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise today in support of my colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore and for Bill C-201, which would bring fairness to pensions for ex-service officers and RCMP officers.

It is no accident that this debate is happening now as we are celebrating the 65th anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic and the liberation of Holland. I know many veterans in my riding who did the horrible slogging with the Algonquin Regiment through the Leopold Canal, Scheldt and into Holland.

I was talking with Algonquin Regiment reservist Murray Tilson, who was there with the veterans for one of the big commemorations in Holland. Murray is of my generation and a young woman came up during the celebration, kissed him on the cheek and said, “Thank you for liberating us”. He said, “I did not liberate you”, and she said, “No, but if we needed you, we know that you would”. It shows that kind of bond that we have built in terms of the Canadian identity, our relationship to the people of Holland, and the sacrifice that was given.

I also remember doing a great interview with Johnny LeBlanc, who was a real tough-as-nails union organizer from northern Ontario. Johnny used to walk 26 miles into the bush in the middle of winter, by himself, to organize these bush camps. Shift bosses certainly did not like Johnny coming in. I asked him if there was ever a threat of violence with him walking into the bush camps that were militantly anti-union. He said that there was always a threat. I asked him, what gave him the courage to walk in and start organizing those camps for the workers who were cutting for Abitibi and Kimberly-Clark. He said, “I was with the tanks when we fought our way through Belgium and Holland, and when I came back, after I saw so many people die, nobody was going to deny me the rights that I had fought for”.

That message is something we need to think of today because it is not just about Remembrance Day, when we wrap ourselves in the flag. There was a sacrifice not just for Europe but for Canada and for a certain set of ideals and principles.

I think of Johnny LeBlanc who helped organize all those workers who ended up working for the largest pulp and paper company in the world, Abitibi, and I think of the Abitibi workers and pensioners today who are watching their pension savings and their futures being threatened. I see the absolute indifference of the federal Conservative government in terms of the pension crisis facing us.

Make no mistake. We are facing a full-blown pension crisis in this country and we see absolute indifference from the federal government.

Earlier this year, our leader from Toronto—Danforth attempted to work with the Conservatives. He said, “You have been giving one massive tax cut after another. Hold off on this latest round of what you are offering, this $1.7 billion to the big banks and the oil companies. Put some of that money into the GIS for the seniors who are living in poverty now. You could raise the basic income of every senior and out of poverty with the stroke of a pen”.

However, the Conservatives of course are not there to worry about the seniors and poverty. They are more worried about their friends at BP and Exxon, and making sure that they continue to do well.

We see now the HST that is being taken off corporate enterprises and put on senior citizens, people on fixed incomes, people in my riding who are barely scraping by, and who are now having to pay the extra HST on their home heating fuels. Even people who are working to save for the pensions that they do not have are having to pay the HST. We see a massive shift in the tax burden away from the large corporations onto people on fixed incomes, onto senior citizens, and we see nothing but contempt and ridicule from the government because it is not there for the people who need it.

I would argue that our job as parliamentarians is to ensure that there is a fair system for pensions in this country. New Democrats have pushed forward for a number of key changes. A simple change would be changing the bankruptcy protection laws so that the Nortel workers, the CanWest workers, and the Abitibi workers are not going to be at the end of the line if the CCAA protection fails and those companies go into full bankruptcy.

They are looking for action from us and they are not seeing anything from the Conservative government. We need to look at increasing the GIS, as I had mentioned, so that we can take seniors who are living in poverty out of poverty.

Of course, the other major issue is that the vast majority of Canadians now have no pension plans and they are moving from job to job. We have to start moving toward eventually doubling the CPP so people can actually have proper pension savings.

It is pretty shocking that in Canada in 2010, for all the talk about loving our troops, there are veterans using food banks. I would argue that our veterans having to use food banks is a disgrace and a sign of the failure of the government to look out for the people who are falling between the cracks.

I am very supportive of Bill C-201, which would bring an element of fairness to the people who put their lives on the line for us throughout their careers, former RCMP officers and military personnel who are looking for a fair deal.

The bill has to do with the Canada pension deductions, the clawbacks that happen if members become disabled or collect Canada pension disability and how it relates to their superannuation. We need to ensure that these people are not penalized unfairly for the service they have given this country.

This all goes back to 1966 when the Canada pension plan was first set up and the government split the contributions of the deductions to the superannuation and the Canada pension plan. Nobody told the military out there in the field defending us how it would affect them.

Here is a sad example. Let us say that an officer in the RCMP with 30 years of service becomes disabled. He would receive 64% of his superannuation and then Great West Life would top it up to 75% by adding 11%. Then, after two years, Great West Life would shut it off and he would have to then apply for the Canada pension disability. If he applies for the Canada pension disability, he would receive a lump sum of $16,000. He then would get a call from the RCMP annuity branch saying that he owes it over $11,000. That would have been the deduction if he had received CPP from the beginning. Therefore, he would have to pay back all the money he received.

However, Great West Life would tell him that he owes it $7,000 to $8,000. If he had received $16,000 in a lump sum payment, he would end up having to pay back over $19,000 because it would be clawing back the money that had been paid to him. When he turns 65, his Canada pension disability would be shut off and he would get the reduced CPP. I do not think that is fair, not for people who put their lives on the line for us.

We need to work more collaboratively as a House of Commons and stop using our soldiers as a political shield for the government's mistakes. We should ensure that when they come back from overseas after putting their lives on the line, they and their loved ones will be looked after and their pensions will be fully protected. I do not think that is too much to ask from any member of Parliament of any political party.

[Business of Supply, April 28th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, Mike Milinkovich, the mayor of Black River-Matheson, has become known in many circles as a passionate fighter for the Nortel pensioners. When people talk about what happened to that great company with Mike, his eyes fill with tears. He cannot believe that something that was such a Canadian cornerstone of an innovative agenda was allowed to be sold off like something at a fire sale, and of course the workers were totally betrayed on their pensions. We have seen nothing but indifference from the government.

If my hon. colleague talks to people in the mining sector out of North Bay, Sudbury and Timmins, the epicentre of international mining, about what has happened at Falconbridge and Inco, they will say that they never would have believed that a tragedy like this would have been allowed to happen with such an immense treasured resource that we have in northern Ontario. They will say that they will never recover from what the government did.

My hon. colleague knows people in the mining sector across the north. What are people telling him about the government's complete failure to understand the need for due diligence over the sales that have been undertaken on its watch?

[Business of Supply, April 28th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the issue before us is that if we do not learn the lessons from the debacle that has happened, it will have serious impacts when the government starts its fire sale of our telecommunications, our oil and gas sector and shipping our raw bitumen off to China.

When the government is challenged on the mistakes that it has made, I have noticed that getting a straight and honest answer is sometimes difficult. For example, when the government was challenged on the fact that it absolutely, totally, 190% blew it with Vale and we have a national tragedy unfolding in Sudbury, the industry minister claimed that at the time of the Vale takeover, when nickel prices were the highest in memory and there was a massive bidding war, that Sudbury “was in the valley of death and Vale had to come along and save the poor people of Sudbury because they were going to lose their future”. It was a complete misrepresentation. That was only three years ago.

Why does my colleague think the minister could not have done the honest thing and stood up and said that he should have done better, that he should have paid attention to the file and that he should have known that industry but that he did not and he blew it?

[Business of Supply, April 28th, 2010]

Quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, it is a joke. A billion dollar threshold is a joke. The Conservatives are just thumbing their noses at their responsibilities. At $400 million we have already seen them rubber-stamp and allow major industries to be sold off. They are sending the signal that Canada is up for sale, end of story.