House of Commons photoLost his last election, in 2015, with 38% of the vote.
Constitution Act, 2010 (Senate Term Limits) November 19th, 2010
Mr. Speaker, I do not think senators should be elected for eight years. I think they should be done away with, period.
I want to quote from someone from the media, Mr. Ivison, who may have coined a new term for the Senate. As described in the headline to his recent National Post article, the “Triple-U Senate” is “unelected, unrepresentative, [and] under [the PM's] thumb”. That is why we do not want senators.
Constitution Act, 2010 (Senate Term Limits) November 19th, 2010
Mr. Speaker, I will answer the question this way. Democracy has become an inconvenience to the government. It has perfected the art of violating the spirit and intent of this great Parliament, and for what? It is for the government to hold on to power for as long as it can, even if it means turning more and more Canadians away from the political process, even if it means discouraging youth from becoming involved.
Constitution Act, 2010 (Senate Term Limits) November 19th, 2010
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on the amendment to Bill C-10, an act to amend the Constitution Act, 1867, regarding Senate term limits.
For the record, the amendment calls for striking out all of the words in the motion after the word “That” and substituting the following:
the House decline to give second reading to Bill C-10, An Act to amend the Constitution Act, 1867 (Senate term limits), because the term limits do not go far enough in addressing the problems with the Senate of Canada, and do not lead quickly enough to the abolition of the upper chamber, as recent events have shown to be necessary.
The New Democrats' position is clear. This bill falls far short on the changes necessary if the Senate is ever to be effective.
I wanted to rise during this debate because there are some important points that need to be made.
At the outset, I want to address the cynical workings of the government. It knows, as does every MP in this chamber, that the length of time that the senators stay in their appointed seats is not the real issue. The real issue is how they got to the Senate in the first place.
We know that the 35 unelected senators appointed by this Prime Minister were instrumental in killing, without debate, Bill C-311, the climate change accountability act by my colleague from Thunder Bay—Superior North.
Bill C-311 would have committed the federal government to achieving practical, science-based greenhouse gas reduction targets.
Bill C-311 was passed by a majority of the elected members of Parliament, representing the majority of Canadians.
This Prime Minister said in 2004, “I will not name appointed people to the Senate. Anyone who sits in the Parliament of Canada must be elected by the people they represent”.
For the record, let me name those unelected Conservative senators who voted to kill Bill C-311. They include David Angus, unelected, unaccountable; Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu, unelected, unaccountable; David Braley, unelected, unaccountable; Patrick Brazeau, unelected, unaccountable.
I would like to talk a little about Senator Brazeau. I would like to quote Don Martin in an article he wrote, from February 3, 2009:
It's hard to imagine how such a thoroughly damaged resumé could've survived the supposedly ruthless scrutiny of the Prime Minister's Office, particularly when the job is a 40-year guaranteed Senate gig with an annual salary of $130,000 plus perks....
The man described in his bio as a loving father of three is darn close to qualifying to be a deadbeat dad with the mother of one offspring telling CTV that Brazeau hasn't seen or properly supported his 14-year-old son in eight years.
He questions whether this is the calibre of individual the Prime Minister had in mind when he set out to reform the Senate.
The list continues with Bert Brown, unelected, unaccountable; Claude Carignan, unelected, unaccountable; Andrée Champagne, unelected, unaccountable; Ethel Cochrane, unelected, unaccountable; Gerald Comeau, unelected, unaccountable; Anne Cools, unelected, unaccountable; Consiglio Di Nino, unelected, unaccountable; Fred Dickson, unelected, unaccountable; Mike Duffy, unelected, unaccountable, and it must be pretty tough for this guy, carrying the party line instead of asking tough questions of politicians; Nicole Eaton, unelected, unaccountable; Suzanne Fortin-Duplessis, unelected, unaccountable; and Linda Frum, unelected, unaccountable.
As well, there was Irving Gerstein, and I will expand a little on this senator.
In his 2007 book on the Prime Minister's team, subtitled Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise to Power, Tom Flanagan, a former top PM adviser, had this to say:
Under Irving Gerstein's direction, the grassroots model of fundraising has built the Conservative Party into a financial powerhouse
What is his reward? It is $130,000 plus perks, all on the taxpayers' dime. What a slap in the face to Canadians. This is the senator who is going from community to community, province to province, raising funds for the Conservative Party.
The list continues with Stephen Greene, unelected, unaccountable; Leo Housakos, unelected, unaccountable; Janis Johnson, unelected, unaccountable; Noël Kinsella, unelected, unaccountable; Vim Kochhar, unelected, unaccountable; Daniel Lang, unelected, unaccountable; Marjory LeBreton, unelected, unaccountable; Elizabeth Marshall, unelected, unaccountable; Yonah Martin, unelected, unaccountable; Michael Meighen, unelected, unaccountable; Ruth Nancy, unelected, unaccountable; Richard Neufeld, unelected, unaccountable; Kelvin Kenneth Ogilvie, unelected, unaccountable; Donald Oliver, unelected, unaccountable; Dennis Glen Patterson, unelected, unaccountable to the Canadian people; Donald Neil Plett, unelected, unaccountable; Rose-May Poirier, unelected, unaccountable; Bob Runciman, unelected, unaccountable; Hugh Segal, unelected, unaccountable; Judith Seidman, unelected, unaccountable; Gerry St. Germain, unelected, unaccountable; Carolyn Stewart Olsen, unelected, unaccountable; David Tkachuk, unelected, unaccountable; John Wallace, unelected, unaccountable; and Pamela Wallin, unelected, unaccountable.
These are all the senators who killed Bill C-311.
Let me speak a bit about another senator who was not present for the vote, Senator Doug Finley.
Bill C-311 was killed by this unaccountable Senate.
How about Michael Douglas Finley, who had to be escorted by security out of the House of Commons committee because he showed up uninvited and refused to leave, displaying such utter disrespect for this great institution?
We could spend a lot of time on all the other worthy services he delivered for the Conservative Party, but we do not have time to go there.
The Conservative committee that searches for these candidates should take a lesson from DND and advertise on the Internet for candidates, on such sites as craigslist and soft porn sites, like DND did. It may end up with better candidates to appoint to the unelected, unaccountable Senate.
I notice the growing discomfort on the faces of Conservative members as I read the names of these unelected, unaccountable and unrepresentative senators into the record of this chamber.
Is it any wonder that even in the Conservative-friendly corners criticism is mounting about the Prime Minister's unbelievable record of broken promises.
Let me quote John Ivison, who wrote in the National Post this week:
All politicians are haunted by things they’ve said in the past. All governments are buffeted by events and forced to shift position.
But how many times can a politician say something and then do the precise opposite before even his strongest supporters start to doubt him? The bond of trust between Mr. Harper and Canadians is eroding, according to opinion polls by Nik Nanos.
The list of those broken promises is long.
Can members imagine how Preston Manning must feel about the actions of the Prime Minister?
The Prime Minister is betraying all those who voted for him and the Reform Party.
He is betraying all those who thought they were getting a new form of government, one that was not as morally corrupt as the previous Liberal government.
Instead, we have a hyper-partisan, morally bankrupt, anti-democratic government that is thumbing its nose at every institution that upholds democracy.
Democracy--
Business of Supply November 18th, 2010
Mr. Speaker, I apologize for that mistake.
My question is, are the Liberals going to show up for the vote on this motion?
Business of Supply November 18th, 2010
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member for Markham—Unionville a question, but first I would like to make a statement.
We had a vote on Bill C-300, the mining accountability act, which was a Liberal private member's bill. We had the vote on Bill C-440 on war resisters, another private member's bill. We had the opposition day motion on maternal health. All were Liberal sponsored. However, the Liberals did not show up for a vote.
I want to know if they are going--
Business of Supply November 18th, 2010
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask our government colleague if the contracting process was a closed one. If an open process had been used for the F-35 contracts, I am sure that jobs would still have been created in Canada. I would like to ask my colleague why this was not an open process. I know that the Liberals blame the Conservatives and vice versa. I do not trust either of them. I would like my colleague to tell me why the process was not open.
Business of Supply November 18th, 2010
Madam Speaker, I must congratulate my colleague for her speech on this motion, but I could not quite connect the dots between your speech and the motion we are debating today.
You mentioned that if we had had an open process for this contract, we could have saved $3.2 billion. If the process had been open, it would also have created jobs in Canada. It is not because of the fact that the process was closed that jobs were not created in Canada. An open process would have, according to you, saved $3.2 billion. Can you elaborate for me, please, on what we could have done with this $3.2 billion?
Business of Supply November 18th, 2010
Madam Speaker, I would like the hon. opposition member to explain to Parliament why there is such a big difference in the price of the planes. Australia is paying $60 million for each F-35, while Canada is paying $138.5 million for the same thing. Why is there such a big difference in the price of the planes?
Statistics Act November 5th, 2010
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-568, An Act to amend the Statistics Act (mandatory long-form census).
The New Democratic Party is supportive of the bill because it seeks to reverse the ideological-based decision of the Conservative government to cancel the long form census. The bill would also removes the punishment of imprisonment for a person convicted of providing false or misleading information.
While we are supportive of this bill, it is important to note that it does not go far enough.
Bill C-583, introduced by my colleague from Windsor West, goes one step further by enshrining into law the primacy of evidence-based decision-making over political maneuvering of the likes we have seen with the government.
To be clear, both elements of Bill C-568 are fully supported. For the record one more time: not a single Canadian has been imprisoned for failing to fill out the long form census. The imprisonment element should be removed right now.
However, we need to go further by removing political interference from Statistics Canada's ability to do its job and provide an accurate picture of our country. The Chief Statistician must be able to do his job in an environment free of political meddling by an ideological government intent on suppressing evidence and information that contradicts its narrow conservative agenda.
We can just imagine the outrage from the national and international community if the finance minister were to interfere with the independence of the Bank of Canada's governor to set monetary policy. Therefore, why should we accept the government's heavy-handedness in interfering with our Chief Statistician's capacity to do his or her job?
Hundreds of individuals, organizations, businesses and governments from coast to coast to coast raised the alarm bells because of the terrible decision to cancel the long form census. Despite the unsubstantiated claims by Conservative MPs about mythical complaints of the intrusiveness of the long form census, we know that the majority of citizens support and understand the need for the long form census.
As a francophone living in a predominantly English-speaking region in northern Ontario, I know that my community's capacity to access necessary federal services and funding for French cultural and educational initiatives is dependent on the availability of credible data on the size of our community in northern Ontario.
Losing the long form census will have a detrimental impact on our community and every other francophone community outside of Quebec.
Is it any wonder the government was taken to court on this issue? Our community is outraged by the government's relentless efforts to shut down any source of credible data that provides objective evidence necessary for developing good public policy.
Last night, right here on Parliament Hill, parliamentarians and members of Canada's very professional public service were invited to a special panel discussion on a timely topic: evidence versus ideology of Canadian public policy. This event was sponsored by the Canadian Association of Professional Employees, the Association of Canadian Financial Officers and the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada.
The event aimed to launch a public debate regarding the current state and possible future of evidence-based policy making in Canada. A panel discussion featured three distinguished speakers: Dan Gardner, Ottawa Citizen columnist and author; Lawrence Martin, The Globe and Mail columnist and author; and Armine Yalnizyan, an economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
The discussion was fascinating because panellists and participants acknowledged that there has always been a role for ideology in public policy. However, they noted that in the past two years we have seen the emergence of a worrisome pattern.
First, the government gagged public servants and fired others who dared to disagree with it or gave it policy recommendations that did not fit into its ideologically driven agenda.
Second, the government has cancelled surveys and the long form census to ensure statisticians, economists, academics and other professionals did not have access to objective data that provided damning evidence of the Conservative government's policy failures.
The Conservatives are dragging this country backward with their ideological agenda even though a clear majority of Canadians are saying no. The majority of parliamentarians in this House support restoring the long form census, protecting the professional role of Canada's Chief Statistician and removing the threat of imprisonment from the act. Yet, the minority government continues to thumb its nose at the majority will of Parliament. What an insult to this historic institution. What an insult to democracy itself.
Bill C-568 is specific to the government's decision to cancel the long form census.
I believe this House needs to have a wider debate about the government's treatment of public servants. It is setting a public policy based on belief, not public interest; its rejection of evidence-based public policy; its attempt to shut down public access to objective data; and its attempt to stop credible analysis of its failed policies.
This will not work. We are on to the Conservatives and Canadians are on to them. When the next election is called, the Conservatives can be sure that we will remind them of every bad decision they have made.
This is unsubstantiated, but I have been told that the government tried to cancel the long form census when the outgoing Minister of the Environment was the industry minister, but he said no to the PMO. Unfortunately, the current Minister of Industry did not have that fortitude when the PMO came calling again demanding the cancellation of the long form census. There he was this past summer having to make a terrible decision, but he tried to blame the professional public servants of Statistics Canada.
The government keeps saying that the buck stops with the ministers, except, of course, when they make a bad decision, and then it wants to blame the public servants because it cannot defend itself.
This reminds me of when the current President of the Treasury Board was the Sea-Doo leader of the Canadian Alliance and did not know in which direction the Niagara River flowed. He blamed his staff. For the record, it flows north. The Conservatives have been blaming everybody but themselves ever since. It is a shame.
I offer my party's support for this bill and urge the House to bring other necessary changes to protect our professional public service from the kind of pervasive political interference by ministers and their political staff who have been known to interfere in every aspect of departmental decision-making, even stopping the flow of information through the Access to Information Act. We need to end this trend and we need to do it quickly before the Conservatives drag us decades backward.
Tackling Auto Theft and Property Crime Act November 5th, 2010
Mr. Speaker, as we all know, joyriding has been going on since the invention of the automobile, but it has taken an extremely long time to pass this bill. It first started out as Bill C-53, then it became Bill C-26 and now it is Bill S-9, a Senate bill.
I have two questions for the hon. member. First, why is it taking so long to pass this bill into law?Second, why does the crime prevention government seem to think that putting everybody in prison is the answer? I would like the hon. member to compare, if possible, incarceration to putting immobilizers in all vehicles.