Charlie Angus

[Budget Implementation Act, 2006, No. 2, December 11th, 2006]

I am so shy.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2006, No. 2, December 11th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I was thinking I might have to start wearing some brighter coloured clothes like my colleagues from the Bloc just so that I would be recognized.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague a question based on his experience in the Northwest Territories because what he speaks of mirrors so closely the experience we have in northern Ontario. We too are a region which is based on resources. We are based on hydro. We produce some of the cheapest hydro in the world and yet our industries have no access to that cheap hydro. We are paying what they pay in Mississauga when they turn on their air conditioners in the summer.

We are based on mining and mining is non-renewable. We have had many communities that have been driving the economic engine of Ontario through hard times, yet when these towns fall on hard times, they disappear off the map.

We have forestry which is another mainstay of our economy. Many of our forestry communities are going under. There is question that has been asked again and again in northern Ontario. A fundamental disparity exists when a region is resource-based. It has to be able to access some of the wealth of the region in order to diversify and build an economy that is not simply based on drawing out the water and cutting the trees, but is based on taking that wealth and building a sustainable and diverse economy.

Given the hon. member's experience in the Northwest Territories, how does he suggest a region like the Northwest Territories, the northern Arctic or northern Ontario can move forward with an agenda that works for the resource-dependent regions of the north?

[Canadian Forces, December 11th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, we allowed the other speakers to speak. We made no mention of the fact of how they turned down the veterans charter. For them to now stand up and make a cheap remark like that—

[Canadian Forces, December 11th, 2006]

You did not fight for the veterans. You have a lot of nerve.

[Aboriginal Affairs, December 5th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, right across Canada aboriginal languages are disappearing, and when we lose our language, we lose our culture.

The heritage minister knew that the Liberal commitment to aboriginal language programs had been an absolute flop, so she had the opportunity to be a champion of native culture. Instead, she eviscerated the program and sent $160 million as booty to the Treasury Board.

My question is for the minister. Why would she look at the most culturally threatened segment of Canadian society and see it as an excuse for “take the money and run”?

[December 4th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it deeply hurts me that I have hurt his feelings. I have no intention of hurting anyone's feelings here. I would also like to make it clear for the record that there is no innuendo here. There was not an appearance of conflict. Charlotte Bell from CanWest Global was handing out on the letterhead of the Conservative Party on the eve of a major television review.

I was hoping that the parliamentary secretary would be able to rebut many of my charges by giving us some facts, by showing us where the minister stood up and fought for culture, because I cannot find it. I would love to find that she stood up for culture. I had great respect for the minister when she was the parliamentary critic. She spoke out on many cultural issues. She spoke out about needing funding for CBC. I have not seen her do that since she became minister. She talked about how unfair it was that the cultural sector was not getting proper funding. She has not done that.

I have come here hoping that she would be here to defend herself, that she would stand up and tell this House that she is speaking up and fighting for the cultural sector. Instead we have the record: $160 million pulled out of aboriginal languages, the women's centres shut down, and no commitments on television, video, the CBC or any other sector. If we talk to the museums across this country, they are going to tell us that the minister has been absent on key issues where she has been needed. We need a champion of culture and--

[December 4th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the adjournment debate. I had a number of questions to ask the minister regarding an exchange we had, but unfortunately, the minister has chosen not to respond to me. I would say I am let down by that, but I am not surprised. The minister has pretty much established a reputation as an absentee landlord on most cultural issues since she was appointed to the portfolio.

The question I had raised was about the minister choosing to go to Charlotte Bell, a key member of the CanWest Global team, to flog tickets for her fundraiser. To refresh everyone's memory, Charlotte Bell is also a key person for broadcasters on the eve of a major broadcast review that is being planned.

We need to be very clear about what we are talking about here. This is not a matter of snooping through the election donations of a member to see who gave money. Certainly, members are going to receive money from all sources, and that is perfectly understandable. What is happening here is an ethical lapse in judgment. This is the question that I had for the minister, and of course she is not here to respond to that lapse in judgment, but the minister did not see anything wrong in asking a broadcast executive who has a mandate to influence government policy to promote a fundraiser at the same time as the same industry is pushing for major regulatory changes.

If we recall in Hansard the response from the minister at the time, she did not think there was anything wrong. She said she did not break any laws. In fact, it was the Treasury Board president who had to intervene. He stood and said that he would not allow big money to intervene in the political process. Right after that the fundraiser was squashed.

The question still remains, being that the minister had this lapse in judgment, how is it affecting her decisions on key issues?

There is another question that has to be asked and to which I would like to get a response from the Conservative Party. Were the cheques cashed?

The minister who has been absent on major issues in terms of her portfolio in fact has, I would say, become pretty much a fireside liquidation specialist for cultural issues. What has she done?

She has taken $160 million out of the aboriginal languages fund. Certainly the Cree and the Dogrib are not going to the fundraiser.

She shut down 12 out of the 16 status of women centres. Certainly the battered women were not being invited out by Charlotte Bell.

She made a 25% cut to the museums assistance program. We understand that the new plan brought forward is that the portrait gallery, our national heritage, will be given to the oil industry to be set up in its boardrooms. There were fundraisers in boardrooms; now national heritage is being put into the boardrooms.

There has been no move to renew the Canadian television fund. There has been no move to renew the media fund. There has been no move to renew the independent video fund. There has been no action on a plan for the CBC. Yet, major issues are being brought forward by broadcasters.

I would like to sum up by saying the government has made it clear it does not have a hands-off policy with the CRTC. The industry minister has already overturned the CRTC decision.

I would like to end by quoting a statement that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage made very clear in a recent hearing with CRTC president Charles Dauphin, that the minister was the captain of the good ship CRTC. He said, “I think we are in agreement that you take direction from the government. The CRTC takes direction from the government, from the minister and from the government overall and your submission says that the commission reports to Parliament through the Minister of Canadian Heritage. That's the way it is”.

The question is, why did the minister have such an ethical lapse in judgment in allowing a major television executive to host her fundraiser? Again, why has the minister been dodging a clear answer to the people of the cultural sector and to this House of Parliament?

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, November 29th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I find the member's use of math interesting. Six months before the election, we were meeting with the mayors of northwestern Ontario, who were in Ottawa. We were talking with them and asking the Liberal government to give us a signal. We never heard a peep.

I cannot remember the Liberals ever promising this big package until the eve of the election when they pulled out the big deathbed red book and crammed in all the promises that they had never delivered year after year. They pulled it out and said that if Canadians gave them one more term, if they were re-elected them, they would help all the little children around the world and they would give them all the stuff they never gave them before. No wonder Canadians never fell for that.

When he talks about high—

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, November 29th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, if I had a question like, I would wear a bag over my head. She is telling us the U.S. lumber lobby will come back after us and hurt us. What should we do? Roll over and give it everything it wants so it will leave us alone? What kind of government policy is that? Of course it will come after us. It comes after us in steel, it comes after us in wheat and it comes after us in hogs. The job of the government is to stand up to it, not back down.

Then she said that I did not realize the committee heard from people. It did not hear from the people being affected. To talk about us standing with lobbyists, when that member will not go out to the communities to meet the workers and the people in the industry who are affected, is a joke. Talk about standing with the lobbyists; she is standing with the U.S. lobbyists.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, November 29th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It is very unfair to say that I would be deliberately misleading the House. I would like the hon. member to retract that. That is very unparliamentary.