Charlie Angus

[Petitions, June 27th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is my distinct pleasure to present a petition from citizens from Ottawa, Hamilton, Pickering, Kingston, and the wonderful community of Timmins, Ontario asking for changes to the Canada Health Act so that we can bring in therapy treatment for children who are suffering from autism spectrum disorder.

[Satellite Radio, June 27th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it has been almost two weeks since the CRTC decision on satellite radio and we have heard nothing but static and white noise from the Liberal government.

This decision is a digital stake through the heart of the Canadian Broadcasting Act. The CRTC has tossed overboard francophone radio. The CRTC has tossed overboard aboriginal radio. The CRTC has tossed overboard ethnocultural radio.

Most of all, the CRTC has overturned the fundamental principles of Canadian content in Canada.

What have we won? This opportunity for the CBC to hang on the coattails of the big U.S. machine in the biggest cultural dumping scheme in radio history.

The CRTC says that it is okay to have one Canadian voice in 10 on our airwaves. Why the silence from the heritage minister? Why the lack of action from the government?

We are calling on the Liberal cabinet to overturn this decision and send a clear message that it will fight for Canadian voices on our airwaves.

[Agriculture, June 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am not talking about band-aid solutions to producers or allowing Tyson and Cargill to expand their slaughter capacity. We know that they control the shots on both sides of the border. The March 2005 boxed beef report says that packer profits have jumped sharply, while cattle prices have tanked. It is a virtual U.S. agri-monopoly.

What do we do with monopolies? We bust them up. When will the government stand up and bring in a regulatory pricing regime to insist that these U.S. profiteers are finally brought into line?

[Agriculture, June 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is the first day of summer and Canadians are sparking up their barbecues.

Steak prices have not dropped, farm debt is rising and packer profits are soaring. We are living through the worst agricultural crisis in memory and two U.S. food giants are making out like bandits. Cargill and Tyson control over 80% of the slaughter capacity in this country.

What steps will the minister take to ensure a guaranteed floor price and protection against predatory pricing practices from these U.S. food giants?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, June 15th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I want to follow up on my hon. colleague's comments. It seems to me that one of our prerequisites of entering into discussions with the government about improving the budget was the fundamental principle that it had to be balanced. If we did not have a balanced budget, we would not be able to move forward with any of our social agenda.

The question regarding Bill C-43 that raised our concerns initially was regarding the $100 billion in corporate tax cuts that had already been given out. Having gone through the June election last year, night after night in debates I heard about the Liberal agenda which talked about social spending. It talked about housing and addressing the environment. We were quite shocked however when we saw the original Bill C-43 because it seemed that none of those priorities were there except another $4.6 billion in tax cuts.

We wondered how it was that we had money to spend on more tax cuts after the $100 billion had already been sent out when there was a deficit in the lack of housing, and a deficit facing our students in terms of the debt loads they are carrying. We had the debt loads that our first nations communities were facing and the debt load that was starting to grow in our environment from a lack of a long term plan.

When we sat down to work with the government on improving Bill C-43 into something that was more in line with what the Canadian public wanted, it was based on the principle of a balanced budget. It was based on a principle of giving to Canadians a plan that would actually move us out of the many other deficits that had grown over the years. We have been obsessed with the Conservative Party's one note song on tax cuts at the expense of everything else.

We have heard such strong support for this budget from the home front. We are hearing from people of all political stripes in Timmins—James Bay who are saying to deliver this budget and make it happen. They want this budget to go through. They want the games to end. We are almost in July and we still have not passed these two bills. I am asking my hon. colleague, can we get a very firm commitment that Bill C-43 and our amended budget will be passed before this session ends?

[National Defence, June 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the Minister of National Defence of his obligation to the people of the James Bay coast. Forty years is a long time for the Mushkegowuk Cree to wait for the government to come back and clean up the mess it left on the radar bases. I have met with the families who live with badly contaminated hunting grounds. Nobody told them of the danger and nobody did anything to clean up the mess. The Cree leadership is demanding action.

We have the provincial government at the table willing to pay 50% of the cost of the federal government's mess. It is waiting on the minister. Is he going to show up?

[Supply, June 9th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to put a question to my hon. colleague who shares in many ways the same region that I do.

When we have shutdowns in our mines in Kirkland Lake, we find our workforce going to Val-d'Or and Malarctic. Now with Sigma Mines shutting down, many of those families are now coming into my region to work because they are mining people and they have to move with the jobs.

We find moving more difficult for older workers. If they are of a mining background, people do not want to hire older workers. It is difficult for them to travel outside a region when the costs to move to cities are so much higher than they are to move to places like Malarctic, Timmins or Kirkland Lake.

In general, in regions in the north we are losing population and we are losing our young people at an alarming rate. Older families are now starting to move in with their children. I would like to ask the hon. member, how does he see the future vitality of his region? I am not talking in terms of just economics, but in terms of the vitality of a region. There is a continual loss of families, people and jobs out of these regions into either large urban centres or overseas to places like China and El Salvador.

[Supply, June 9th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, because of the member's experience in dealing with issues of displaced workers and EI, I have a question for him.

When we are talking about older workers in my region, whether they be miners, forestry workers, people working the land or people living in isolated communities, when they lose their jobs it is not only them who are displaced, it is the entire community. To add to that, many of these people have already suffered physical damage through the type of work they have done and are unable to be retrained. They are facing medical costs. If they are 48 or 49 years old and have worked 20 some years in the mines, their backs are gone.

When these people lose their jobs their entire community is affected. We are talking here about single industry communities. We have to add to the fact that while they have lost their income, they have also lost equity in their homes. Who will buy a home in a community where the mill has shut down?

We also see this in the loss of services. We cannot get doctors and nurses into communities where the income sources are dying. The young people will not return.

I also would like the member to comment on what is happening in northern Ontario now where the provincial Liberal government is committed to allowing the giant forestry companies to move the wood to wherever they please. They are creating super mills. The provincial government is allowing the large forestry companies that control the entire wood supply in Quebec and Ontario to move the wood where they want. They are then separating our resources from our communities.

Communities in my region, such as Opasatika, Val Rita, Kapuskasing, Hearst, Iroquois Falls and Smooth Rock Falls, are dependent on these resources. We are now being told by the provincial Liberals, which I believe is also part of a larger strategy at the federal level, that resources do not belong to communities nor to people any more, that they belong to the corporations.

With his experience, could the member tell us how we address the issue of workers who have lost their jobs in single industry communities when there are no alternatives and they are aging?

[Supply, June 9th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask a couple of questions of the minister about long term strategies for dealing with older workers. I thank our colleagues from the Bloc for having brought this to the fore, because dealing with an aging workforce is a major issue.

However, what I feel needs to be discussed is broadening this issue out into the big picture. We are moving toward the perfect storm for pensions. We have a number of issues that are all coming to the fore. First, we have an aging workforce. Second are the issues of globalization, outsourcing of our jobs and having to go up against countries like China in numerous sectors. Third, the fundamental issue that has to be put into the equation is we have had an agenda in corporate Canada for the last generation where we have moved from having employees paying into pensions toward contract workers.

In my generation, I could probably count on one hand people I know who pay into pensions on a regular basis. Most people in my generation have been working on contract with various jobs. They move from here to there. Some years they make some money and they put it aside, but when the times are bad they lose those savings. In my age group, mid-forties, I find that many people have not paid any significant amounts into pensions.

What is the long term strategy of the government for dealing with the fact that fewer and fewer people pay steadily into a pension fund?

We have an aging workforce and we are having to deal with the factors of globalization. The issue will start to hit very seriously in the next few years. We see a crisis now in segments with older workers. What is the long term vision to ensure that we have a pension fund for all Canadians that will be maintained well into this coming century?

[Agriculture, June 8th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the trade minister.

We are trying to get a sense in Canada whether the government will stand up for our farmers at the WTO. We want to know if it will invoke article XXVIII. We are hearing some prevarications from agriculture, but we want to know where trade stands on this.

Will the government invoke article XXVIII to protect our domestic market from the flood of modified milk imports?