Charlie Angus

[Petitions, March 21st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House to present a petition from hundreds of residents of the city of Timmins, Ontario, where the issue is the need for passports for travel.

The delays at Passport Canada have caused applicants to part with valuable documents for long periods of time. Passport Canada returns to applicants by mail entire documents and applications due to any number of reasons, such as rejected documents or photographs, causing further unnecessary delay.

The fact is there is no fully operational passport facility or expedited service for the residents of northeastern Ontario. This lack of service is hampering the economic opportunities in our region, which is dependent a great deal on mining. There is a lot of travel back and forth to different countries.

Whereas people in southern Ontario already have fully operational walk-in centres with expedited services, including 24 to 48 hour emergency services, citizens in my region have to drive at least eight to ten hours to get such services. The residents from the Timmins region are calling upon Parliament to approve the granting of a fully operational passport office in the city of Timmins, Ontario to serve the people not just in Timmins, but in all of northeastern Ontario and to alleviate the current workloads and delays we are seeing at Passport Canada.

[Points of Order, March 21st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I will take the minister's request under advisement. I will speak with the leadership and the people of Kashechewan and I will take my direction from them because they were at the meeting with the minister. I will come back tomorrow and say what I should respond. If it is necessary for me to make a personal apology, I will be more than willing, but I will be asking the chief and council of Kashechewan what they felt from their meeting first.

[Points of Order, March 21st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it is a question of unparliamentary language but I think it speaks to a larger issue, which is the complete disgraceful response from the government to deal with one of the most desperate communities that we have in this country, desperate, shameful conditions, the suffering and the deaths that they have endured over this last year and the young people who have gone. I have seen the problems because nothing has been done by the government.

However, I will apologize to this House for saying something unparliamentary but I will not apologize to that party for the disgraceful misrepresentation of the facts on the James Bay coast.

[Aboriginal Affairs, March 21st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am so tired of the political spin I have been hearing from the minister.

We remember when he was in opposition and he stormed across the floor, threw down the book and demanded the Liberal minister's resignation for doing nothing. Here is the nub. He is sitting on a report that says that the dike will likely fail and that human life is at risk. He has done absolutely nothing to guarantee the health of these people.

What will it take for him to take action, deaths in Kashechewan?

[Aboriginal Affairs, March 21st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the spring flood season is upon us and the people of Kashechewan continue to wait for the government to live up to the signed agreement to move them on to safe ground on their own territory. They have tried to work with the minister and have given him report after report. Last week the minister slammed the door on Kashechewan. They are being left on the flood plain with no plan and no commitment.

If he had no intention of living up to that signed agreement, why did he play political games with a desperate community for over a year?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, March 19th, 2007]

With respect to programs that are funded through the Department of Canadian Heritage for the 2006-2007 fiscal year: (a) what funds are the Department scheduled to distribute by the end of the fiscal year, on a program by program basis; (b) what is the status of the distribution of these funds, as of January 31, 2007; (c) what new practices are the Department undertaking in this fiscal year that are different from the previous fiscal year; (d) what role is the Minister of Canadian Heritage playing in the review of these applications; (e) what specific criteria is the Minister using to determine if she personally reviews an application in its entirety, or if she relies on briefings and recommendations from departmental officials; (f) which applications were sent to the Office of the Prime Minister (PMO) for consideration; (g) which of those applications considered by the PMO were fast-tracked to approval; (h) how many funding application deadlines were extended beyond their original date and, in each case, why was the deadline extended; (i) which funding applications originally made to the Department were fast-tracked to approval?

[Infrastructure, March 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, communities across northern Ontario are scrambling to deal with the growing municipal infrastructure deficit. The federal government, along with the provincial Liberals, have simply walked away on the north. Sure we will hear them talk about the COMRIF program but COMRIF has been a complete failure to deal with the years of underfunding.

Meanwhile, the municipal infrastructure gap continues to grow. Homeowners are facing massive increases in municipal tax rates to pay for water, sewage and road improvements. Many of these communities do not have the tax base to cover it.

I want to speak today to the issue facing the people in Larder Lake and Virginiatown, Ontario. These are proud communities. They are not asking for handouts. They want to know why the federal government has shifted the burden of infrastructure costs onto the family economy. This is a fundamental issue of fairness. The gold resources from these communities helped build the Canadian economy and yet it feels like these communities, along with communities right across the rural north, are being cut adrift from the rest of this country.

How are we going to build viable communities as long as we continue to shift the infrastructure debt down to the municipalities? It is time we dealt with the growing gap between the rural and the urban south.

[Canada Pension Plan, March 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague's very clear explanation about the need for the federal government to get serious about dealing with the issue of senior citizens who are falling into poverty.

I have noticed that the issue of seniors' poverty has not been discussed here. For the last month or so we have watched the stringed marionette to the Liberal Party stand up and deliver the lines that have come down from head office about fighting for what they say is the most vulnerable of the vulnerable. I wonder what is so vulnerable that the Liberals would stand up en masse. For anyone who was caught in the income trust bubble, clearly what is most vulnerable is the credibility of the member for Wascana who created that outrageous bubble in the first place.

There are other members in the House who are not standing up for senior citizens, who are not talking about the families who are falling into poverty, who have no interest in speaking about fairness, but they seem to be more interested in the bruised ego of the member for Wascana and the fact that people got caught up in an income trust bubble created by the Liberal Party. In light of that fact, what steps do we have to take to restore some credibility as politicians to our senior citizens, to the people who are slipping into poverty to say that we really do hear them, that we are serious about it and we are not just playing political games?

[Canada Pension Plan, March 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my hon. colleague's speech about the situation facing our senior citizens. I was very moved by the clear passion and commitment she shows for senior citizens.

Across my region of northern Ontario I am seeing a terrible situation. Senior citizens, people who built this country, are slipping into poverty. There are families whose parents are living in terrible conditions. After putting years into building our economy and their pensions, the time has come for the government to support them, but they are being left behind. I was astounded by the stories that I heard just this past week in Kirkland Lake, Iroquois Falls and Timmins. I met senior citizens and heard their stories. It is a disgrace for a country with a surplus that we have to leave these people behind.

Given that it was the New Democratic Party that brought forward a seniors' charter to defend the rights of senior citizens so that they do not have to come begging to politicians every time, and that there will be guarantees for senior citizens so that they do not live in poverty, how does the member look at the bill before us? The bill does nothing to address the growing gap and it does nothing to address the basic issue of fairness for senior citizens. What do we need to do to ensure that senior citizens have a reason to trust politicians, to believe that politicians will actually stand up and fight for a fundamental belief which I think all Canadians agree with, that the elderly should be looked after because they helped build the country?

[Canada Labour Code, March 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-257, a bill that has historic significance for working families across Canada.

I come from the region of Timmins-James Bay and the people there have a long, historic memory of the need to fight for legislation like this because they remember their grandparents and parents telling them about the Noranda strike, the Kirkland Lake strike and the Dome strike in 1990. They have seen strikes in our lumber and paper mills and the incredible damage that has been done when scabs are allowed to cross picket lines.

There was a truce of some sort in the northern mining industry after the 1958 Inco strike for years. It never attempted to bring replacement workers through mine properties, not until Peggy Witte in Yellowknife broke that unspoken covenant. We saw the horrific damage that resulted. We saw it in Falconbridge in 2002 and in the Ekati mine recently in the Northwest Territories.

New Democrats know there is a need for legislation across this country that brings fairness. That is what we are talking about. We are talking about fairness and the need to have labour settled at the negotiating table where it needs to be done.

We were proud as New Democrats in October 2006 to see 167 members of the House stand and recognize the principle that fairness for working families and our union brothers and sisters is a principle that the federal government should stand up on. However, I began to worry after that because the numbers we were seeing in the House did not seem right.

We know where the Conservative Party stands. No matter what we agree or disagree on, the Conservative Party will at least say whose side it is on. It is very clear. It attacks working people straight, with no chaser. It is very up front.

I was interested with the position of our Liberal brothers and sisters. They were suddenly on the side of and concerned about working families. They sat hour after hour in committee and heard the recommendations. They were there for the planning of this bill.

They stood up at second reading in record numbers to say they were suddenly on the side of working families, but then they had a problem because they knew it was coming to third reading and they would actually have to make a decision as to whether they were finally going to stand up for working families or do what they always do, which is sell working families down the river. They needed an excuse. They needed to find a way to do their usual flip-flop.

In the Liberal back room, and people at home may not realize this, there is a glass case which has a sign that says, “In case of emergency, break”. It contains all the Liberal excuses that can be used. The new Liberal leader went to the back room after second reading, broke the glass and asked what was in it that the Liberals could use to damage the rights of working families. He said, “Why do we not offer an amendment on a provision for essential services and that way we will look like we are standing up for all Canadians? We will be sitting on the fence post once again where we normally are”.

However, what was understood was that this provision already exists in the Labour Code. It was a meaningless provision. What has been shown is that the Liberals are raising a chimera to the Canadian people, pretending that somehow they are taking a principled stand when everybody knows that once again they are selling working families down the river.

The new Liberal leader has a dog named Kyoto. I can tell everyone that his dog will not hunt. I bet that dog is like rest of his pack of hounds. I understand he now has a dog called “Tax Cuts” and another called “Maybe I am Tough on Crime but Maybe I am Not”. It depends on which way the dog is walking. Now we have a new dog in the pack.

The Liberal Party hates working families. We have to get a shorter name for the dog, but I can say that it is one ugly mutt, just like the rest of the broken promises that he carries around with him, with his little collar and chains. That is what we are seeing.

The people back home need to ask themselves a question. It is all about strategic voting. Who makes strategic votes in this country? It is people sitting in Calgary boardrooms asking whether they want to attack working families and take money out of their pockets, straight with no chaser, or with a little green scarf when they do it? That is what is being offered by the Liberal Party now. It has stood up with its green scarf and made a bunch of vague and empty promises that it has absolutely no intention of living up to because it never lives up to any of its promises.

This is the party that year after year floated the greatest fraud in Canadian history, called the red book. It just changed the numbers year after year. It changed the dates every year and so it was the 1993 red book, it was the 1998 red book, it was the 2000 red book, it was the 2003 red book. It was the same red book of empty promises.

The best thing of all, when the Liberals were finally exposed, the Canadian public finally said, “Do you mean year after year we've been listening to this same line and we never got anything delivered?”

Then the Liberals did something different and it is absolutely fascinating. They turned around and took the red book off and referred to the promises that they have delivered on. Now they are going across the country telling people that they had a plan for the environment and they were actually saving the planet. They blamed those rotten Conservatives, and they are very rotten as a party, but at least they are telling people where they are coming from.

The Liberals had child care fixed. They had everything fixed. Everything that they did not do year after year after year.

Why am I picking on the Liberal Party? It is very simple. The Liberals are standing up here today and betraying the working families of this country. One more time they are going to say, “On this day we're going to stand with you but when push comes to shove, when the time comes to stand up, when it is what side are you on”, we know what side they are on. They are not on the side of working families. They are not on the side of fairness. They are definitely on the side of putting it to average Canadians, like you and me, Mr. Speaker.

I am telling people back home to watch this vote. Watch to see if the new Liberal leader will have to whip the few members that he has with good conscience into voting to kill a bill that works for Canadians and a bill that the Liberals fundamentally do not want to have happen because they have stood against this legislation time and time again.

In conclusion I would like to say we have been through this bill ten times in the House. Ten times the working families of Canada have brought this bill forward. Ten times we have gone through all the arguments. Ten times we have heard the various excuses and reasons why it would not work.

However, we know at the end of the day those excuses do not hold water. The bill is a reasonable bill. The bill will bring labour peace rather than labour conflict. This is a bill that has been thought out. This is a bill that certainly will not in any way hinder the ability of the federal government to bring back to work legislation if it deems necessary. This is a bill that in no way will limit any minister's decision to say whether something is an essential service or not.

If members are hearing anything else on the bill then they are obviously hearing it from a Liberal because the Liberals do not believe in these things. They do not believe in putting into law the rights that will protect working families.