Charlie Angus

[Strengthening Environmental Protection for a Healthier Canada Act, October 24th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to apologize to my hon. colleague. I love the man but he is follically challenged, and sometimes the truth does hurt, as do some of the other Conservative policies. He is a good MP, I will say that.

I want to speak to the bill today in the larger context of where we are with respect to having a national vision

The Conservatives are monkey wrenching my notes. It is like they are after me all the time.

I want to speak to the overall need for a coherent vision, and this bill is part of it.

Today, we have learned that oil production in Canada is at its highest level ever, 3.6 million barrels a day. We know that we are going to have another 500,000 barrels a day coming from Bay du Nord. Of course, the $21 billion in public money from TMX will give us another 800,000 to a million barrels a day. This is the Liberal vision for dealing with the climate crisis. The planet is on fire: let us boost oil production.

The government has put about $18 billion a year into subsidies to oil. What is that getting us?

It is fascinating that if we break down the numbers that are coming out of Alberta today, not only are we at the highest level of oil production ever, we are at the highest profits ever. Over the last year, $140 billion in profits came out of the oil patch in western Canada. That is 75% higher than it was in 2014, but only 7% of that is being reinvested in operations.

Oil operations are like mines. We can run a mine and strip it of its assets, but to make a mine profitable in the long term, we are constantly having to reinvest in construction and involvement. Only 7% is going back into the oil sector, with 25% less workers now and under-record profits. Fifty-two thousand jobs have disappeared out of the oil patch at a time of record profits.

As Bruce Springsteen says in his song, “Foreman says these jobs are going boys and they ain't coming back.” These jobs are not coming back to Alberta, because the oil lobby and the oil sector are putting this money into giving the shareholders the benefits. This is going to international capitalists and lining their pockets on Canadian natural resources. They are also spending the money on automation, so they can get rid of more workers. This is the economic vision, certainly of the Conservatives, who believe that the more oil is pumped up, the more profits that are made, and it does not matter about workers. I look to the Liberals and ask what kind of vision do they have.

We know the Prime Minister made a statement that Canada was back. He said that on the stage in Paris. However, we have seen no coherent commitment for dealing with the environment and with jobs. I challenge the government.

The Alberta Federation of Labour came here with its plan, representing the industrial workers of Alberta, saying that the transition was happening and that its workers were suffering through the transition. It knows there is a better future out there and it has asked the government to come to the table and start working on a coherent strategy.

We hear about the critical mineral strategy. We hear the government talk about a new energy economy, but we do not see any investment. This new energy economy does not appear out of the blue. We cannot wish it in. The Prime Minister cannot just get a tattoo on his arm and create a new energy economy that is a clean energy economy. It requires investments; it requires a strategy.

This is what Joe Biden has done in the United States and this is what we, through the Alberta Federation of Labour, are asking for, a coherent strategy.

What does this mean with respect to potential? Calgary Economic Development did a fascinating report, saying that the clean energy economy was $3.8 trillion. That is the opportunity. There is no place on the planet that has a greater potential for investing in clean energy right now than Alberta. Certainly, Calgary is in the top ten for clean tech investment. It is saying that if we do not start making these investments now, not only does Alberta lose, not only does Canada lose but the planet will lose. It has estimated that if we have a coherent strategy in clean energy, it is a $61-billion opportunity. That is just for Alberta not counting the rest of Canada, which has enormous opportunities as well. This could create 170,000 jobs. That is what we are dealing with.

We are dealing with a planetary crisis, but we are also dealing with a unique opportunity. If members had heard Gil McGowan when he was in Ottawa, he spoke on behalf of the boiler workers, the operator engineers, the electrical workers, Unifor, steelworkers, those who are actually doing the industrial production in Alberta. They are saying that there is a huge opportunity for us to move forward, to move out of boom-and-bust, but if we do not take that opportunity, those jobs are going to go elsewhere. We know they are going to the United States right now, because Biden is stepping up on this.

If we are going to have a coherent strategy to bring in investors, we need a government that actually has a vision. Unfortunately right now, we have Danielle Smith in Alberta. It is impossible to keep up with the idiotic statements coming out of her office. One thing she did last week was abolish the Ministry of Labour in Alberta. She thinks this is red-tape cutting, but this is about certainty. When big employers do not have an oversight for basic things like the occupational health and safety codes or employment standards, they leave themselves open to all kinds of action, if their workers get injured.

Danielle Smith does not understand—

[Strengthening Environmental Protection for a Healthier Canada Act, October 24th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour to rise and speak to this issue. I will be sharing my time with the member for Edmonton Griesbach.

It is fascinating to be in the House talking about an update to outdated legislation to protect civilians and children from toxic “forever chemicals” and see the Conservatives wrapping themselves in defending plastics and toxic chemicals as somehow a vision for a better Canada. It really is peak Conservative.

I think of how far the Conservative Party is today from the Conservative Party back in the days when Brian Mulroney first brought the legislation through. He was a prime minister with whom I disagreed on many things, but he helped negotiate the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement that literally saved the life of this planet.

The Conservatives today, if we were dealing with something like the ozone hole threat, would be lighting their hair on fire, the ones who have hair, and attacking this as some kind of disinformation and conspiracy theory. However, Brian Mulroney was able to work internationally on that.

He also pushed the treaty on acid rain, which was destroying the lakes across my region in northern Ontario. Under the new Conservative leader, he would be embracing acid rain, telling us it was the best thing that ever happened and that we had to support it.

When we are talking about a straightforward update for dealing with toxic chemicals—

[Judges Act, October 21st, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

It is important to ensure that the system protects the rights of victims. In the case of survivors of St. Anne's and other residential schools, the problem is that the government established an alternative process, an alternative tribunal. In this system, there are no tools to give the victims and survivors recourse if the court's decision is problematic. As a result, the court must protect the rights of survivors within the tribunals for Indian residential schools, which are part of an alternative system.

[Judges Act, October 21st, 2022]

Madam Speaker, the fact that we are looking at amending the Judges Act is a positive thing, because we see, certainly in the United States, where questions about the judiciary has really raised questions about the legitimacy and trust in the overall democratic process. We have an independent judiciary in Canada, and that is very important to maintain.

However, as I said, Rona Ambrose brought forward a bill to make education mandatory, because some judges just simply do not understand the dynamics that women face against the power of male sexual violence, and that is a massive disproportion. We cannot go into a courtroom and say that both sides are equal sometimes. We have to understand the larger dynamics, which was Rona Ambrose's push for change.

If we look at what happened at St. Anne's residential school, and I think it will be studied in law for years to come, we need to make sure that our system is there and that the judges know the appropriate grounds so that we get better judgments in the end.

[Judges Act, October 21st, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I guess when I began working with the St. Anne's survivors 10 years ago, I had this naive belief that Canada's justice system would work. I believed that the justice department of Canada would follow the law. It was the decision by justice department lawyers to obtain the evidence, prepare their defence and know who all the perpetrators were but then black the names out and not turn over those documents that undermined this process. I think it is hard even for judges to believe that this could have happened, so they accepted the justice department's excuses. It is political at the first level.

On the issue of reconciliation that we talk about, there is no possibility of reconciliation without justice for St. Anne's survivors. There needs to be an understanding of what went wrong in that process and what has gone wrong in other cases dealing with indigenous people before the courts so that the judges understand the need to have a broader view of their roles and responsibilities.

[Judges Act, October 21st, 2022]

Madam Speaker, as always, it is a great honour to rise in this House on behalf of the people of Timmins—James Bay. Today I am particularly thinking about the Cree communities in upper James Bay, Attawapiskat, Fort Albany, Peawanuck, Kashechewan, Moosonee and Moose Factory, plus the people who have been spread across Canada, all of whom connect back to a horrific institution called St. Anne's residential school.

It is important, as we talk about the act to amend the Judges Act to reflect on one of the darker decisions of the Supreme Court, its refusal to look at the miscarriage of justice that was committed against the children at St. Anne's, giving no reason or explanation. When we talk about amending the Judges Act, I think of a great parliamentarian, Rona Ambrose, who spoke up about the need for judges to get basic and legal education in dealing with sexual assault, because we have seen a number of really bad decisions, which have been referenced here. However, it is also important that our judiciary understands the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the obligations of Canada, and that includes the courts, to address issues in terms of the equity and rights of indigenous peoples.

If we look at the cases of St. Anne's residential school, it is clear that any indigenous person looking at this would wonder how it is possible to get justice in Canada. It is not a complex issue. I will talk about a really powerful woman, Evelyn Korkmaz, who suffered horrific sexual violence as a child at St. Anne's, and the collusion of the Grey Nuns, who covered it up.

When she went to the hearings to tell her story, the first thing the adjudicator told her was that he was a proud member of the Knights of Columbus. They were there to adjudicate crimes against the Catholic Church and the first thing she was told by the adjudicator was that he was a member of the Knights of Columbus. Then he told her he knew the nuns of St. Anne's, that he knew that order and that they were good women. She said she knew right then that she was not going to be believed.

In any other court process, that case would have been thrown out, but not in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. One of the reasons the adjudicator did not believe Evelyn Korkmaz's story of the horrific sexual violence was that the other defendant in the case, Canada, had the legal obligation in the hearings to prepare the evidence. The adjudicator looked at the evidence supplied by the Department of Justice Canada and it said one line: that there were no known incidents of sexual abuse at Fort Albany Indian residential school. What was not told to the adjudicator was that the justice department had 10,000 pages of police testimony and witness names of rape, torture, violence and forced abortions on children in that evil institution.

I think of this man who goes by the name of H-15019. He suffered horrific sexual violence. He went into the hearings to expose Father Lavoie and the justice department lawyers said he was not believable because Father Lavoie was not in the institution when the man claimed he was. As proof, they presented a two-page person-of-interest report, which was their legal obligation, on all the known potential perpetrators. A two-page person-of-interest report said Father Lavoie was not there. What the justice department was sitting on were 2,472 pages on a sick evil man who, through four decades, raped multiple generations of children.

The case of H-15019 was thrown out, and when they tried to have his case reopened, the justice department and the federal government forced this case to the B.C. superior court, even though this happened in Ontario. Why would they do that? They did that because they knew that the survivors did not have the money to go to the B.C. superior court. How could anyone claim that this was a just process? What happened in that case was that, after the justice department decided to suppress the evidence, it shut the hearings down and denied justice. This is not a very complex issue.

Multiple legal battles went on for 10 years and, finally, Parliament called on the government to settle with the St. Anne's survivors. The former minister sent, on March 18, 2021, a request to have the cases of St. Anne's reviewed. We thought, finally, there would be justice. That is all the survivors wanted. They wanted to review what had happened with the suppression of evidence.

However, if we read the report, the request for direction sent by the federal government, it did not ask the courts to review this to get justice for children whose rape and torture had been suppressed. It did this because it said that people speaking up about St. Anne's was making the government look bad. It is right there in its request for direction. Do we know who it blamed for making the government look bad? It blamed former senator Murray Sinclair, because he said that there cannot be reconciliation without justice for St. Anne's, as well as Dr. Pamela Palmater, who raised issues about what happened at St. Anne's.

Edmund Metatawabin, the survivor of the abuse, who speaks for the survivors, his name is in the government request for directions, saying that he is making the government look bad for the abuse that he suffered. Interestingly, of course, I am in there for about 30-some pages, but I do not mind that.

However, Osgoode law professor Jennifer Leitch was named by the government as making them look bad because she wrote, “The government’s non-disclosure raises significant concerns about the scope of the information available to the adjudicators; the claimants’ abilities to establish abuse allegations and the scope of the compensation.” A professor of law said that this is a flawed process.

The instructions given to Justice Pitfield to look at this excluded many of the horrific cases and he was directed that he was not to talk to the survivors. What kind of justice system is that? He examined 427 cases and he came back in his preliminary and he said that 81, at least, had a serious need for re-examination. That is 20% of those cases falsely adjudicated.

However, in the final report, he said, no, it was just 10, student on student, with no blame to clergy, no blame to staff, no blame to government and no involvement with survivors. Of course, the survivors took this to the Supreme Court.

When I talked to the survivors yesterday about the fact that the Supreme Court would not hear their case, they said that they were not surprised because this was a never a fair fight. They went with pro bono lawyers. There were days where they could not afford their own bus fare to get to the hearings, yet Canada spent millions of dollars on lawyers to shut this down. It was never a fair fight.

This is why I refer to this when we are talking about Bill C-9. I am not questioning the wisdom of the Supreme Court. I am questioning the lack of understanding of the obligation, in this time, to understand the obligations under truth and reconciliation to say that we have a higher level of justice to attain here.

One of the fundamental arguments of the government was that the survivors were not entitled to procedural fairness. Procedural fairness has been ruled by the Supreme Court as a fundamental right. What it meant was that the fact that they did not bother to supply any evidence and they lied in hearings, that was okay, because the survivors were not entitled to the basic principle of procedural fairness. If we look at the evidence that the government brought forward as to why procedural fairness was not a right, they put it under sealing orders so that people could not see it. What is this, Soviet-style justice?

Phil Fontaine, who signed the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, wrote that they would never have signed this agreement if they were giving away fundamental legal rights under this process, which would give them fewer rights than they would get in court. Of course, Canada ridiculed Mr. Fontaine's response and said that this issue of procedural fairness was completely irrelevant.

It is completely relevant.

On this day, the day after the Supreme Court has shrugged and said that, whatever happened at St. Anne's, whatever happened with judges who misread the reports because they were lied to by the justice department, whatever is said about perpetrators of horrific abuse, and we have many of their names, such as Bishop Leguerrier and Arthur Lavoie, those men got away, and the survivors are still living with injustice. They deserve better in this country.

They never asked for huge compensation. They asked the government to sit down and recognize that what was done to them was one of the most horrific, evil acts ever committed against innocent children. Those innocent children have had their legal rights undermined time and time again by a system that wanted to shut this process down.

If we are talking about amending the Judges Act, we have to look at what happened at St. Anne's and why there was no understanding on the judge's part of the need to hold this government and the justice department of Canada to account.

[Climate Change, October 18th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, Alberta workers have delivered a very clear message to Ottawa today that the energy transition is happening and they need the Prime Minister to show up. We see that Biden is transforming the American economy with well-paying union jobs, yet the Prime Minister has missed every climate target he has set. Clean energy represents a $61-billion opportunity in Alberta.

We know the Alberta Conservatives would throw workers under the bus just out of ideological spite, but my question is for the Prime Minister. Is he willing to work with the Alberta Federation of Labour on establishing its plan for a clean energy transformation?

[Strengthening Environmental Protection for a Healthier Canada Act, October 18th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, it is really important that we are talking about a bill that is about dealing with the central crisis of our time, which is climate. I would ask my hon. colleague what she thinks about a government that has made promise after promise to create a clean-energy economy but has missed every single climate target it has set.

[Committees of the House, October 18th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I was very interested in my hon. colleague's talk about propaganda, because one of the most dangerous things we have seen with the Putin regime is the powerful use of propaganda and disinformation. That needs to be called out.

One of the things I found very concerning was to see the Premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith, using her position to promote Putin propaganda, like, for example, claiming that it is right for people in Ukraine to be forcibly annexed into Russia. That has to be called out. There is nothing democratic about this. This is not about choice; it is about an illegal annexation that is being done with terror, murder, torture and rape. If we are going to stand up to Putin and Putin propaganda, we have to call out those who are spreading disinformation.

I ask the member if he will denounce Danielle Smith and her totally unacceptable comments promoting Putin's misinformation war against the Ukrainian people.

[Committees of the House, October 18th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, given the horrific comments by Danielle Smith promoting pro-Putin propaganda and blaming the people of Ukraine for causing the war, I would like to see if just one Conservative, and I am not asking for much here, who has a backbone and a willingness to stand up and denounce Danielle Smith and her pro-Putin propaganda.

If I can have that one, we would be much further ahead today in Parliament. I see a hand up. I want to hear him denounce Danielle Smith and her pro-Putin propaganda.