Charlie Angus

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, October 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order because I was invited to go to a meeting by the chief and the grand chief of the Mushkegowuk Council. To be told in the House that I was involved in a publicity stunt is an insult and it undermines my professional integrity. I am asking the member to now withdraw the comment.

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, October 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it was fascinating to hear about 10 straight minutes on flag waving and Arctic sovereignty and less than 10 seconds about actually dealing with the lives of people in the Arctic.

It reminds me of the throne speech the other night when the Prime Minister quoted the song about Franklin. We must remember that Franklin was some white guy who lost his way in the Arctic and starved to death trying to engineer the age of the pith helmet and the flag waving. It appears we are back to that.

Let me say from our experience what we are seeing in the far north. The community of Fort Albany, which suffered an extreme mould crisis this past summer, was identified by the James Bay Health Authority as a grave threat to human health. Indian affairs refused to participate in a meeting with Emergency Measures Ontario, Health Canada officials and regional chiefs to deal with this. We tried again and again and what we ended up getting were INAC spin doctors.

I spoke with the minister about this situation in September. He said that the community was offering no plan. He wanted to know where the action plan was. Well, that plan was sitting on INAC desks since early August and in mid-September the minister told me that he had never seen the plan.

We are seeing people on the James Bay coast who are in abysmal, disgraceful poverty. He stands in the House to say that we are back to the age of colonialism, that we will walk all over the Arctic waving our flag with our big ships and helicopters but meanwhile these people are living in dreg conditions. I find it appalling and I would like to know why he read only one sentence about how his government will improve lives. It has done nothing.

I would like to know what the government will specifically do about the situation in Fort Albany. As it stands right now, people are still getting sick and they are still waiting for the government to take action.

[Conservative Party of Canada, October 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, that was a dismal drizzle.

Where is the accountability in this House? Whether it was the failed media spin bunker in the shoe store or the use of promotional tag lines on government websites, the government seems to believe that taxpayer money and public programs are there to be used as a private partisan war chest.

This is an abuse of public trust. Where is the accountability?

[Conservative Party of Canada, October 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative spin machine has its grubby fingerprints over every aspect of the public service. Government websites that are meant to provide public information are now being used to sell the divisive and wrong-headed throne speech of the government. When people go to the Environment Canada weather website to find out if it is going to rain today, they should not have to worry about being deluged with blarney from the PMO.

My question is simple. Why is the government using taxpayers' dollars to sell a partisan and wrong-headed agenda to Canadians?

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague's speech, however, I have to confess that it did remind me of watching a man desperately trying to tread water.

When he says he was encouraged and yet disappointed that there were things that could be taken both ways, I do not know if he read the same throne speech I read. The throne speech I read said that the government would kill the Wheat Board. That cannot be taken both ways.

The throne speech said that our international obligations to Kyoto were dead. That cannot be read both ways. Conservatives will put off any action until 2040 when we are all pushing up daisies. I think that is fairly clear.

It says that we will not be in Kandahar until 2009; we will be there until 2011. That cannot be taken both ways.

When we have such clear issues, such wrong-headed issues, and such a divisive path for our country, how can he sit there, and he probably will sit when the vote comes, and say that he is encouraged and yet disappointed?

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, October 17th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I stand corrected on my first day back in House.

However, we must remember that when it came to the softwood lumber agreement which established the principle that not Ottawa would be able to vet provincial jurisdiction but Washington would, the Bloc members stood up. When the government put nail after nail into Kyoto, they stood up and said, “We got a transit pass so we can go back to our people and say that we stood up every time they told us to stand up”.

I will not use the name of the Prime Minister, but I will ask this question. Having played the Prime Minister's poodle for the last two years, is the Bloc Québécois now, because of the byelection losses, trying to move to the role of angry chihuahua?

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, October 17th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I have often said it has been very hard to follow the I Ching of the Bloc Québécois when it comes to what it will or will not support. However, for two straight years it dutifully stood any time Mr. Harper needed support. In fact--

[Aeronautics Act, June 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague and I was moved by the whole discussion on what we have seen in terms of railway safety and the abysmal record that has developed in Canada over the last number of years with railway accidents.

We are surprised, given the incredible number of accidents, that we have not seen a greater level of tragedy, yet this seems to be a model that is being promoted for airlines, where there should be a zero level allowed for accidents because of what obviously would be entailed.

I would like to ask the hon. member this question. How does he compare the situation that we have seen with rail transportation oversight with airline oversight?

[Petitions, June 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased today to rise to present two petitions signed by hundreds of people in northern Ontario concerning the need and desire in our region to actually have adequate passport services.

As we know, we have had major passport issues with backlogs right across the country, but in northeastern Ontario we are challenged because we have no walk-in passport facilities anywhere. We have people who have to often travel 12 hours by bus to get walk-in passport service.

The petitioners call upon the federal government to work to develop a walk-in passport service for northeastern Ontario, like other regions in the country are able to have, so that people in our part of this country, and it would service also possibly people from northwestern Quebec, can get walk-in passport services on a need basis.

I am very pleased to bring forward those two petitions today.

[Aeronautics Act, June 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it is an excellent question, but I would like to pose it for the member. Does he believe we have the best rail service protection in the world for the public? We in the NDP certainly think there are serious problems.

The serious problems have to go back to Transport Canada. Transport Canada has the obligation to ensure that we have the best airline record in the world. Fortunately we are not talking about tragedies that have happened, but about how to prevent the tragedies from happening.