Charlie Angus

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, March 23rd, 2009]

With regard to Canadian private television broadcasters: (a) what is the current estimated financial value of the benefits that Canadian private broadcasters derive from the laws and regulations of the government, including, but not limited to, simultaneous substitution, tax write-off exclusions for Canadian companies advertisements on U.S. broadcasters, and protection from foreign competition; (b) what is the estimated financial value of these benefits for each private broadcaster; (c) what are the cumulative and individual statistics of their Canadian programming that are more recent than fall 2006 from the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement’s (BBM) television diary or more recent than 2006 from the BBM’s meter survey; (d) what are the most recent cumulative and individual statistics on the percentage of Canadian programming shown during primetime; (e) what are the most recent cumulative and individual statistics on the breakdown of the type of Canadian programming that is being shown during and outside of primetime; and (f) what is the government’s plan for promoting Canadian programming in the future and what specific initiatives are being planned to guarantee a healthy future for Canadian programming on private broadcasters?

[Committees of the House, March 12th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I find it very disturbing that we have not heard a very clear answer from the member as to whether or not he believes his government should support the international protocols on torture. He is trying to portray Guantanamo Bay as a legitimate legal system when it has been proven time and time again that it has not met any of the basic legal requirements set out by any international standards. It has been rejected by the U.S. courts and the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled.

Does the member think that his government can act outside the protocols of the international standards for torture? Does he think that the government can act outside the protocols of the Supreme Court? What is the government's position on Canadian citizens who are being tortured for information abroad? Where does it stand?

[Committees of the House, March 12th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, what is very regrettable is that the Canadian government is hiding behind a very thin fig leaf of credibility in terms of how it has lived up to its obligations in setting a standard, and this is what we are talking about, setting an international standard.

We are dealing with someone who was, first of all, picked up as a child combatant, and second, exposed to torture and inhumane conditions. Regardless of his guilt or innocence, Canada has an obligation.

We have the rulings of the U.S. courts. We have the ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada which has said that he has been held in abusive conditions. We have seen that our own consular officials failed in their fundamental duty which was to ensure that he was being protected. In fact from all the evidence we are seeing, they actually have been more participants in his interrogation. That is a complete failure of leadership. It puts Canada unfortunately in a grim, small group of countries that has turned a blind eye to the use of torture and abusive techniques.

I have not seen anything from the government today which would say that it even recognizes what happened at Guantanamo. The U.S. courts were ruled to be a kangaroo system. The Canadian government failed in its fundamental obligations, regardless of the innocence or the guilt of Mr. Khadr, and the consular officials failed in ensuring that he was protected from abusive conditions when it was known that he was a child soldier when he was taken captive.

I would like to hear a very clear denunciation from the government that it would not accept any regime, allied or enemy, that is involved in torture and abuse of prisoners.

[Committees of the House, March 12th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my hon. colleague, in light of the move by the U.S. government to repudiate torture that has happened at Guantanamo Bay, to shut down Guantanamo Bay, to speak out against torture, what he thinks about the failure of the government to set an international standard in protecting child soldiers who have been tortured by foreign regimes.

[Committees of the House, March 12th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague's speech. He has been absolutely passionate about this issue. It is an issue that I think many Canadians are finding increasingly disturbing because we see ourselves as an international leader.

There are two dramatic issues that have to be addressed concerning Omar Khadr. One is the fact that he was a child soldier when he was apprehended by the U.S. authorities, and the complete lack of willingness of our government to speak out in the case of a child soldier. The other very disturbing fact is the obvious question of him being tortured and the Canadian government knowing about it, a child soldier being held in detention, and it making no efforts to set any kind of international standard in terms of denouncing torture and the use of child soldiers.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague what he thinks about the Prime Minister's recent comments that a child soldier has to be part of an army, when we know that there are armed gangs all over the world that are using children in deplorable situations, and how that would apply to the case of Mr. Khadr.

[Arts and Culture, March 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, if that were true, he would give the CBC the $60 million that he is sitting on. The minister's spin will not keep our local television stations going. In fact, if we look at the lack of accountability and how he stripped it from the Canadian Television Fund, the broadcasters have been kicked off, the CBC has been kicked off, independent television producers have been kicked off. He has taken a $130-million public fund and turned it into a private club for the cable giants.

Why has the minister thrown out the public interests to protect the vested interests of a cabal of the five giant cable companies?

[Arts and Culture, March 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the government has used the economic crisis to attack the CBC. Yesterday, the minister announced that the government would be cutting the new Canada media fund for the CBC. It is refusing to support the corporation's request for stable funding, and it still owes the corporation $60 million.

The result? Regional stations will have to close and jobs will be lost. Why has the minister launched a campaign to destabilize the CBC?

[Business of Supply, March 10th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, it is very clear why the Conservatives have zero support left in Quebec. Their position today is to try to portray that somehow they had nothing to do with this crisis, even though their decisions all along have continually undermined forestry.

They also have tried to portray this issue as though the opposition simply is not being positive enough with the state of this crisis, yet my hon. colleague and I represent these communities. They are vital communities, communities that were stable for many years, but they have gone down and they have seen absolutely no support from the government.

I want to ask my hon. colleague how credible he thinks the government is in saying that we simply need to be more positive in looking for other markets when it does not have any plan to deal with communities such as Malarctic, La Sarre, the region of Abitibi or the region of the James Bay.

[Business of Supply, March 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is correct in the amount of mill closures that have hit her riding, probably some of the worst that we have seen across the country. Yet when we hear the Conservatives speak this morning, they probably are grateful for the economic collapse. They are hiding behind it and using it as an excuse to cover off the deliberate mistakes they made in forestry policy in the last Parliament.

The Conservatives are now trying to present it as this is some kind of global problem, which they had no hand in. Yet when we debated the softwood lumber sellout, we saw how they gave up a billion dollars of our producers' money. Under clause 10 of the bill, they imposed on our industry a 15% export tax, which was higher than what the Americans were dinging us. Written into the bill were charges against companies that tried to do value added. Now we have lost markets and we have the Americans coming back at us. The government has crippled our industry.

What does my hon. colleague feel is the impact that the deliberate decisions of the Conservatives have had on the mills in her riding?

[Business of Supply, March 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, in my region the forestry crisis has reached such a state that Abitibi, which started on the Abitibi River in Iroquois Falls because the province of Ontario gave it wood rights and hydro rights on the dams and is still one of the most profitable operations in Abitibi's world chain, is trying to sell off its dams because it is so desperate for cash right now. Abitibi is in a cash crunch and is basically slitting the throat of one of its most profitable mills. If it has to buy the hydro back from a private enterprise, that mill will go down. Everybody knows that. We are looking at a company like Abitibi that has put 100 years into this region being faced with having to sell off parts of its mill to get through a credit crunch.

Why does the hon. member think it is that the government has walked away from key parts of the forestry sector that could still make it through this downturn if credit support was available?