Chris Charlton

[Petitions, May 12th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to table another petition about the need to improve food and product safety in Canada. I want to take this opportunity to thank the many residents of Hamilton Mountain who are promoting this issue in our community.

The petitioners are concerned that a product of Canada need not have been grown, raised, caught or in any way begun its life in Canada. Canadian regulations only require that the last substantial transformation of the goods must have occurred in Canada and that at least 51% of the total direct cost of producing or manufacturing the goods is Canadian.

This is particularly troubling to the petitioners because they note that Canada's failed trade policy limits safety standards and sends jobs overseas. As a result, tainted imports from China and other countries have in recent months led to recalls of thousands of toys, food products and pet food products. Instead of acting to effectively deal with this trend, the federal government is proposing trade agreements with countries such as Peru and Panama that already have been cited for food safety concerns.

For all of these reasons, the petitioners call upon the Parliament of Canada to ensure that all Canadians can be assured of food and product safety by passing the motion that I had the privilege of tabling in the House, Motion No. 435.

[Petitions, May 12th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table another set of petitions that arises out of my national campaign to fight for fairness for ordinary Canadians, and in particular for seniors who were shortchanged by their government as a result of an error in calculating the rate of inflation.

The government has acknowledged the mistake made by Statistics Canada but is refusing to take any remedial action.

The petitioners call upon Parliament to take full responsibility for this error which negatively impacted their incomes from 2001 to 2006, and to take the required steps to repay every Canadian who has been shortchanged by a government program because of the miscalculation of the CPI.

This set of petitions is signed by hundreds of people from my riding of Hamilton Mountain as well as from Stoney Creek, Kingston, Barrie, Toronto, Kitchener, Sault Ste. Marie, Vancouver and Coquitlam. It is a privilege to table this petition on their behalf.

[Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act, May 6th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I have been following this debate closely and want to commend the member for Western Arctic in particular for the very salient amendments he has brought forward on behalf of our caucus.

One of the things that has struck me throughout this debate is that members keep talking about nuclear accidents. I do not happen to believe that these are accidents. In fact, most of the incidents that we are contemplating would be completely preventable.

The government members would like us to believe that the nuclear industry is safe. If they make the argument that the industry is absolutely safe, why is the government not putting its money where its mouth is? If the government members believe that the industry is safe, then there will not be any incidents. That means nobody will need to be compensated and it should not matter to the government whether the liability is at $75 million, $600 million or, as is the case in the United States, $10 billion.

Canadians are not trusting the government on that. They do not believe the industry is safe. Moreover, they do not believe that the government is actually undertaking the inspections and regulating the industry in such a way that Canadians can feel safe. That is what is at issue here today.

We are giving a handful of dollars for the loss of homes, businesses and lives, but what we really need to do is look at not just what is happening to families living near nuclear power plants, but families and Canadians affected by any nuclear installation or, indeed, toxic waste sites.

Could the member tell me why the government is so opposed to a limit of $10 billion of industry liability when the government is so certain that the industry is safe and no industry member would ever have to pay under this proposed increased liability?

[The Economy, May 6th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, today's economy is showing the importance of a mobile workforce. Many tradespeople are out of work in one area of the country while another area is desperately in need of those workers.

For 30 years, the building trades have been lobbying successive governments for changes to tax policy that would allow them to move with fewer economic restrictions. For 30 years, they have been receiving empty promises.

Will the Minister of Finance abandon his predecessor's empty rhetoric and commit today to act on Bill C-390?

[Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, May 1st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the members of the NDP will be voting against this motion.

[Petitions, April 18th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table another petition today that arises out of my national campaign to fight for fairness for ordinary Canadians and, in particular, for seniors, who were shortchanged by their government as a result of an error in calculating the rate of inflation. The government has acknowledged the mistake made by Statistics Canada, but has refused to take any remedial action.

The petitioners call upon Parliament to take full responsibility for this error, which negatively impacted their incomes from 2001 to 2006, and to take the required steps to repay every Canadian who has been shortchanged by a government program because of the miscalculation of the CPI.

The petitions are signed by hundreds of people from Duncan, Ladysmith, Vancouver, Gravenhurst, Bracebridge, Huntsville, Burk's Falls, Hamilton, Thessalon, Sault Ste. Marie, Whitby, Toronto, Sackville and Bedford. All the petitioners are asking for is a bit of fairness from their government.

It is a privilege to present this petition on their behalf.

[Gasoline Prices, April 18th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, it is bad enough that Canadians are getting hosed at the pump, but now they are getting hosed by this government. Consumers are not looking for rhetoric. They are looking for help.

Last weekend I spoke to a hard-working Hamilton dad who was forced to pull his son from soccer because, even for one of the most affordable of sports, the out of town tournaments come with a hefty gas bill. That is not a choice any working family should have to make.

Why will this government not show real leadership and legislate an oil and gas ombudsman?

[Gasoline Prices, April 18th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, we all know that hard-working families are paying too much at the pump. It is not complex: the big oil and gas companies are gouging. The Competition Bureau claims it cannot figure it out even after countless investigations, yet gas prices spike just before a weekend and when the weather gets nicer.

There is a fairer way: appoint an ombudsman and hand that office the power to regulate and make sure the law has teeth. When will this government stop standing up for the oil companies and start standing up for consumers?

[Foreign Takeovers, April 18th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, since 1985, more than 12,000 Canadian firms, or the equivalent of over half our manufacturing sector, have become foreign owned. In Hamilton, steel giants Stelco and Dofasco were sold off, as were other Canadian icons, like Molson, Labatt and the Montreal Canadiens. When ownership leaves Canadian hands, jobs often follow.

But last week, we found out that it is possible to stand up for Canadian interests and stop these takeovers. We almost lost cutting edge space technology that was designed to protect our Arctic sovereignty and monitor climate change because the previous Liberal government privatized it, but pressure from NDP MPs and average Canadians blocked the corporate buyout that would have handed vital Canadian space technology to a U.S. weapons contractor.

The industry minister rejected the deal for not providing a net benefit to Canada. Unfortunately, this is the exception, not the rule. Since 1985, not a single foreign takeover had been rejected and 87% had been approved without even being reviewed.

It is time for real leadership. The minister has announced that he will consider a new national security test for takeovers, but why can he not enforce an economic security test as well? He owes it to hard-working Canadians to ensure that decent paying jobs are not put in jeopardy by foreign takeovers.

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, April 15th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, people in my community of Hamilton Mountain are also worried about things like grow ops, drug use and the crime that is often associated with them.

I listened to the comments of the Minister of Justice with great care. He is absolutely right. The NDP has supported some of the government's so-called crime bills, but only when they made good public policy sense. All his rhetoric today cannot turn Bill C-26 into legislation that reflects good public policy, especially for a government that constantly talks about wanting evidence based research.

The member for Vancouver East has done an admirable job of laying out precisely why our party will not support Bill C-26 and the minimum sentences that it would impose.

My constituents are much more concerned about effective programs for prevention and for deterrence. An excellent example of one such facility in the riding of Vancouver East is the Insite facility. The member for Vancouver East has been a tireless champion for sustainable funding and for a sustainable future for that facility.

I want her to know that it is not just people in her community who care about this, but health care professionals, people who are committed to treatment and prevention right across the country, also care. Could she give us an update on the future of that site?