Charlie Angus

[Point of Order, May 17th, 2006]

I believe it is a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, when the Minister of the Environment stands up in the House and accuses a member who is doing his job on behalf of Canadians and constituents of going on the taxpayers' dollar. That is what she said: to use the taxpayers' money. It is not his job to carry her ideological luggage when she goes to Europe. I--

[Business of Supply, May 11th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the hon. member's speech. I want to get his perspective because I am quite confused. I spent the whole last session of Parliament listening to the then environment critic for the Conservatives, who was from Alberta, give us his flat earth theories on how greenhouse gas emissions were something that had been cooked up, had never been proven. The Conservatives could not seem to understand where this had come from.

Now there is a new environment minister who is also from Alberta, by the way. First, we heard she was going to have a made in Canada solution. I have been sitting in the house wondering what this made in Canada solution looks like. It sounds to me like it was a made in a Calgary boardroom solution. I notice that this week I am not hearing anything about a made in Canada solution. What I am hearing is that we have to be honest with Canadians. It seems that a sudden switch has been made from a made in Canada solution a week ago to being honest with Canadians this week.

The Conservatives talk about being honest with Canadians. Yesterday the environment minister told us that every plane, train and automobile on the entire planet would have to be stopped if the government had to live up to any of its commitments. Today she added that we would have to shut off all the lights in the country on top of that. Then she said, and it struck me because it was so fascinating, that if we gave the people of Toronto a break on their metro passes, the environment would turn around overnight.

I am quite confused as to exactly where the government is going with this. If I wanted someone to be a puppy dog for industry, I would ask the industry minister. If I wanted big oil to speak, I would talk to big oil. We ask the environment minister of this country, someone whose job it is to stand up and champion the environment, and we get those kinds of drab answers.

Does the member have any clue as to where the Conservative Party is going in terms of environmental policy?

[The Budget, May 9th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, when we look back at the Liberal record, it is like looking in a fun house mirror. We are supposed to look at something that is narrow in terms of what it has delivered and we are supposed to think of it is as wide as the ocean.

I was stunned to hear the member's view of the role of government. The former government downloaded the debt onto the backs of students across Canada. We have a situation now where students come out with $40,000 worth of debt from their university educations because the former government made no commitments to post-secondary education. It downloaded the debt onto municipalities year after year while it accumulated the surplus. It did nothing except make promises in the red book, but it never delivered upon it.

We have heard the talk about what the Liberals achieved at Kelowna. I remind the former government about the years of neglect as the surplus rose. We have no national water standards on first nations. There are no health standards. There are no education standards, except those that have been deliberately pegged lower than non-native schools because the former government did not want to pay a single dime above what it absolutely had to for first nations, while it was swimming in surplus dollars.

How can the hon. member stand there without blushing when he makes such outrageous comments on what the current government's obvious lack of vision is compared to his government's lack of vision?

[The Budget, May 9th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am very interested in the discussion of infrastructure. The number one fact that is holding back economic development in northern Ontario is the lack of infrastructure investment over the last dozen years.

The COMRIF program, which is in place now, does not work. It does not work for northern communities such as Moosonee, Larder Lake and Elk Lake, which continually are rejected because there is not enough money in the COMRIF fund due to trying to fund such a large area across Ontario.

I have a question for the minister. The tax cuts are not going to fix the roads in Moosonee. What does the government have in place that will work for small rural communities to rebuild our infrastructure?

[The Budget, May 9th, 2006]

Yes, Mr. Speaker, they called us traitors, yet a very rightist government brings in this very rightist budget and their party rolls over immediately. Then those members stand up and say they are concerned about rightist policies coming forward, when this budget has destroyed Kyoto, when this budget will destroy any plans for child care, and when it is giving complete tax breaks to corporations.

I have a question for the hon. member. Her party had an opportunity to make changes to EI. It could have done that. It could have negotiated its support, but it did nothing. Those members simply stood up and said they support this budget. Perhaps they are supporting it because the Conservatives are at 34% in Quebec right now. Why did the hon. member's party not even try to negotiate anything to change this or to bring about more progressive policies instead of just getting into bed with a rightist government?

[The Budget, May 9th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the hon. member's speech, but I am still somewhat confused, and I have been confused in terms of listening to the Bloc during my two terms in this place. My hon. colleague from Windsor West referred the other day to the Bloc as a dog with no legs: it barks, but it does not go anywhere.

During the last session in Parliament we worked very hard to negotiate changes to the Liberal budget. These changes included $1.6 billion for public housing, $1.5 billion for universities, $800 million for public transit and money for public infrastructure. We were denounced by that party for failing the people of Canada.

[The Budget, May 9th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague's defence of the budget, but we well know from the Mike Harris years in Ontario and the years of Liberal neglect that a tax cut never hired a single nurse or fixed a single road in our country.

What we will remember from the budget is that the Conservative government walked away on the international Kyoto treaty. For 13 years, greenhouse gases rose under the Liberal government and we heard poppycock about voluntary emissions standards with industry polluters, which is like voluntary drinking and driving standards. Now the government has given us a made in a Calgary boardroom solution. There is no plan or vision. There are no commitments to meet any kind of targets whatsoever.

Would the hon. member explain this vision for the rest of Canadians, who are scratching their heads wondering exactly what is going to happen in terms of the government's commitments to greenhouse gases? We have seen no money, no commitment, and no plan.

[Federal Accountability Act, April 27th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, ethics is not something to be done tomorrow. Accountability is not voluntary. That is what we have heard year after year. Let us study this. Let us find out what we need to know. These are simple answers.

I will give an example, and I do not want to bring up names in the House. However, during the Dave Dingwall affair, what struck me was the disconnect between the House and what happens in real life. I had Miss Carol--

[Federal Accountability Act, April 27th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General definitely plays a very important role. However, I do have some concerns when we talk about accountability.

Accountability goes in two ways. For example, in the 1970s there was a diesel fuel spill in Attawapiskat, a community of 2,000 people in my riding. A family I know very well has been living on top of that spill. The woman has had three miscarriages. One of the children is developmentally delayed, we believe. The former Liberal government denied and denied. Study after study was done to establish whether there was a problem.

The school was contaminated and has since been condemned. No efforts were made by Indian affairs to move those students out. It was considered perfectly fine and acceptable for Cree children to go to school in a condemned environment. I was a school board trustee in Timmins and if there had been any problems in one of our schools, that school would have been shut down that weekend and fixed.

Here we are over six years later since the former Indian affairs minister Robert Nault came into that village and said the department would work with them toward a new school. There still is no new school. Nothing has been done. The community has actually gone to the banks themselves to get funds to build their own school because of the inaction of Indian affairs, year after year.

First nations have received capital study after capital study, interim report after interim report. Bureaucrats build these files on their desks. Communities are in debt, basically coming up with the infrastructure plans. What is needed is will. We never saw will on the James Bay until communities were crumbling in terrible deficits.

Yes, accountability goes both ways.

[Federal Accountability Act, April 27th, 2006]

The people of Timmins--James Bay would definitely support a shipbuilding plan.

I have serious questions about how far this bill will go and whether it is adequate. The time has come in the House of Commons to have accountability standards that are not simply voluntary.