Claude Gravelle

[Fairness at the Pumps Act, May 12th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-14 will increase fines and introduce administrative monetary penalties. The fairness at the pumps act proposes to strengthen consumer protection and provide greater deterrence against inaccurate measurements by increasing court imposed fines and mandatory inspections. The fairness at the pumps act proposes to increase retailer accountability and use of private sector authorized service providers. Mandatory inspections would be conducted by authorized service providers. Fees for independent inspection services would be determined by market forces. It is estimated that the number of annual gas pump inspections would increase from 8,000 to approximately 65,000.

Could the hon. member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing tell me what the problems are with the bill?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, May 12th, 2010]

With regard to the provision of passport services to Canadians: (a) which Canadian communities with a population of at least 100,000 do not currently have access in their community to a Passport Canada office or a receiving agent located in a Service Canada Centre or Canada Post office; (b) what are the costs associated with placing a receiving agent in a Service Canada Centre or Canada Post office in these communities; and (c) are there planned placements of receiving agents in a Service Canada Centre or Canada Post office in these communities?

[Fairness for Military Families (Employment Insurance) Act, May 7th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, our colleague from the Bloc Québécois talked about employment insurance and a lot of things, but one topic he raised which is of particular interest to me is soldiers returning from Afghanistan, who may not have any physical injuries but have mental health issues. There are many out there, and it is likely that every soldier returning from Afghanistan has been injured in one way or another.

Could the member from the Bloc Québécois tell me what he thinks the government could do to help the soldiers who are returning from Afghanistan with mental health issues?

[Fairness for Military Families (Employment Insurance) Act, May 7th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I know the government, the member's party, the Bloc and the NDP are all in favour of the bill.

Could the hon. member try to explain to me why this bill was not made in an order in council or by regulations? It could then have been passed right away and we could have moved on to deal with something else in this important House.

[Fairness for Military Families (Employment Insurance) Act, May 7th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona is absolutely right. This only involves 50 to 60 people. It is a minimal amount of money. Instead of this being a bill, it could have been a regulation or an order-in-council and it would be a done deal.

The Conservatives continue to say that they respect our troops and that we should all respect our troops, police forces and aid workers. If the Conservatives truly respect these people, they would have made this an order-in-council or a regulation. It would have been done by now and we would not be discussing it today.

[Fairness for Military Families (Employment Insurance) Act, May 7th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, the member for Elmwood—Transcona is absolutely right. The government, the Liberals, the Bloc and the NDP agree with the bill. It involves about 50 to 60 people. The government ministers probably waste more money going from Tim Hortons to Tim Hortons to make announcements. We should use that money to help these people. The member is also right that we should also include veterans and do more for them.

The government is piecemealing these EI bills. We should do it all together and get it over with so we can help unemployed Canadians right across Canada. A lot of citizens in my riding of Nickel Belt right now are unemployed and on employment insurance because of a strike at Vale Inco. This not only affects the miners, it also affects the owners of small businesses, the contractors. A lot of people are on employment insurance.

The member for Elmwood—Transcona is absolutely right. We should extend this EI bill to all working Canadians.

[Fairness for Military Families (Employment Insurance) Act, May 7th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-13 is a good bill and we have to consider it. We cannot say that the situation is resolved because a Conservative MP knocked on a door and met a soldier. It is reasonable for the House to study this bill and refer it to committee, where members can share their points of view and get the government's reaction.

If our government calls on police forces, whether the RCMP, city or municipal, to help other countries within the framework of a Canadian mission, it is the same as sending a soldier. We ask our police officers to take part in such missions, which are quite dangerous. If we ask police officers to go to Afghanistan to help that country's police force, it is dangerous for them as well. They go abroad to do a job on behalf of our country, just as the military does. For that reason they should be included in this group.

Military and police veterans must benefit from the same programs upon their return from a mission. That is why there is a flaw in Bill C-13. All those sent on missions by our country should be treated in the same way.

Clause 3 of Bill C-13 should be amended by adding after line 5 on page 2 the following:

For the purposes of subsection (3.01), a member of a police force who is a Canadian citizen in the employ of Her Majesty in right of Canada or a Canadian citizen under contract with the Government of Canada, and who has been deployed as part of a mission outside Canada is considered to be a claimant.

That is just reasonable. We are not talking about thousands of people. We are talking about a minimum number of people who are sent away by our government. The jobs they do are very dangerous too. They are sent on missions, for example, to help the Afghan police reconstruct their force. They are in a dangerous area.

If they are not sent away, they are not going to be claiming the 52 extra weeks. However, if the government calls upon them to be outside the country to help around the world, they should be in that same category. The reason the NDP wants to make the change is really important. We must treat everyone the same. We believe this would be going in the right direction.

At the same time, there are problems across the country with people losing their jobs. The EI program belongs to workers. All across the country there are workers who lose their jobs. We are in an economic crisis and the government should be able to make other changes, not piecemeal like the way it is being done.

We sat at one time together, all parties, and prepared a report in the human resources committee with 28 recommendations. Those recommendations should come forward. The government should look at the big picture and at all the problems with employment insurance, and why people are not qualifying.

It should be 360 hours. Why do people who are sick have to have 600 hours to qualify for employment insurance? It is nonsense. No one chooses to be sick. Employment insurance is insurance to help workers. It is not a tax to bring in funds for the government to pay down the deficit and bring it to zero by using employment insurance premiums. That money should go back to the workers. We should work toward that and have the government do the right thing.

Our debate on this bill in the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities will be truly important. I hope that the Minister of National Defence heard what was said. I hope that the government heard. I know it heard. The Prime Minister's Office listens to all debates and I am certain that it knows what is going on, and that it is concerned about our police forces.

It would be unfortunate for our police forces and other citizens, who are sent on missions commanded by the government, were not protected by Bill C-13 and did not have these 52 additional weeks of entitlement to parental leave.

It is important to a family that parents be with their children. The Conservative government says that it is pro-family. It should prove it by accepting our proposed amendments.

I want to talk about my own personal case. When my kids were born, my wife was working at the time. She took the time off to be with our kids. It makes a big difference in the future of those kids. The first year of the life of a child is very important. It should be spent around the parents, not in a daycare or with a babysitter.

Police officers, soldiers and any other foreign aid workers, who are requested by our government to be overseas, in the army, battling crime, helping places like Haiti rebuild, or for any reason, should be treated the same way as other Canadians.

[Fairness for Military Families (Employment Insurance) Act, May 7th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to speak to Bill C-13, which recommends changes to employment insurance. The summary of the bill states:

This enactment amends the Employment Insurance Act to extend the benefit period and the period during which parental benefits may be paid for Canadian Forces members whose period of parental leave is deferred or who are directed to return to duty from parental leave.

My party and I are certainly going to support this bill. We have to recognize that our troops, who are defending our country or democracy everywhere in the world on a Canadian mission, deserve to be given consideration in this regard, so that they are not penalized. If our soldiers had not gone overseas, they would have been able to take parental leave, for example, to be with their newborn child. That is so important.

Most of the people in the House of Commons are parents. In our day we did not have parental leave. Parental leave was something wonderful for our parents and it was wonderful for their children. We are living today in a world where both spouses work, and parents are not able to stay at home with a newborn child. The child is sent to a day care centre because the parents have to work. A bill like this one is appropriate. It would give parents the chance to stay with the child for the first year of his or her life. That is wonderful.

Our troops do us honour everywhere they go. The Bloc member clearly stated other benefits that we might give our troops. This is one benefit we can support.

The member who introduced this bill said that he knocked on a door and a soldier answered. It was that soldier who made him aware of this issue.

With respect to employment insurance, I can say we have knocked on many doors. People have made us aware of the problems they have with the employment insurance scheme and the problems it causes in society.

The government has a surplus of $57 billion to $60 billion in the employment insurance fund. This program is paid for entirely by workers. Many people are entitled to employment insurance. Given the eligibility criteria of a minimum of 420 hours or 840 hours worked, in the case of a first claim many people are excluded from the employment insurance system. For women, the same is true. Many women work part-time and cannot accumulate the number of hours required. They are not eligible for employment insurance.

Over 800,000 people in Canada pay into the employment insurance scheme but are not eligible because of the restrictions the government has imposed. The government is making piecemeal changes.

At the same time there are many other changes that the government could make. I know this is a bill for our troops, and I will come back to it quickly, but we have to look at the human element and the changes being requested.

There is the case of Marie-Hélène Dubé, who lives in Montreal North. She circulated a petition signed by 62,000 people that was presented here by a member of the Bloc Québécois. It asks that sick leave benefits be extended to 52 weeks.

We have to see the human side of this issue. People work their entire lives and then have the misfortune of falling ill. For example, a person who gets cancer has to take treatments prescribed by a specialist for a year. But after 15 weeks he or she no longer qualifies for employment insurance unless he or she works for a company that provides insurance. If that individual has no income, he or she is thrown on to welfare.

It is totally unacceptable that employees who have contributed into this program cannot qualify for benefits.

I want to return to what really happens on both sides, the military side and the civilian side. Beginning with the military side, the government says we should support our troops. There is nothing wrong with that. We should support our troops and we do, even though the Conservatives try to imply that the opposition does not support the troops because we disagree with them about some of the missions the government sends them on.

There is a difference between a mission and supporting the troops. We support our troops, but sometimes there are missions with which we disagree. We live in a democracy and have the right to express our views in the House of Commons. That is what we are elected to do, to express our views on things like this.

They ask us to support our troops, our veterans, our soldiers and our military personnel. Some soldiers are on disability and that was officially acknowledged by the army. I will give the House one example. As a result of a disability, this solder is put on the reserves, and I am not sure about the exact military term, and could stay there for three years with pay but without serving in the regular forces.

The government knew he was going to retire. He knew he would be finished with the forces at the end of May and would receive the official pension from the federal government. The army told him, though, that he would start getting his pension 8 to 12 weeks from then.

The Conservatives say we should support our troops and our veterans, but here I am forced to get involved. I have to ask National Defence why it needs 12 weeks to cut a cheque for a soldier when it has known for 3 years that he was going to retire. The cheque will not be ready at the end of May, and when he retires he will have to wait 12 weeks without any income. Is that how we support our troops?

Another soldier has been in the Canadian Forces for 20 years and would be retiring in three years. He says that because of the medical problem which the CF has recognized, he was put into another category and is no longer in the regular forces. He said that the military has known for 3 years that he would be taking his pension this month, but he was told that he would not be able to get his pension for at least 8 to 12 weeks from now. He wants to know, who will feed his family? Is that how we support our troops?

Our troops go to war, they defend our country, and they defend democracy around the world. When they come back, they need our support. I support Bill C-13 because it would give our soldiers, when they come back from a mission, a break of 52 weeks to spend with their families. They would receive parental leave, like any other Canadian.

The member for Acadie—Bathurst suggested to the government that clause 3 of Bill C-13 be amended by adding another line, after line 5, page 2:

For the purposes of subsection (3.01), a member of a police force who is a Canadian citizen in the employ of Her Majesty in right of Canada or a Canadian citizen under contract with the Government of Canada, and who has been deployed as part of a mission outside Canada is considered to be a claimant.

I believe this is reasonable. We are not talking about millions of people. We have police officers who are deployed in various countries to conduct missions and to help in reconstruction efforts. We have other members of police forces who go to those countries.

We know of a specific case. RCMP Sergeant Gallagher lost his life after landing in Haiti the day of the earthquake. He went to the country to help the Haitian government and community build up its police force. We have other citizens in similar situations.

That is why I take Bill C-13 seriously. It is a good bill—

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, April 30th, 2010]

With regard to FedNor in 2007, 2008 and 2009: (a) how many funding applications were received by Industry Canada; (b) what were the top ten categories of funding requests; (c) how many funding applications were approved by Industry Canada; (d) what were the top ten categories of approved projects; and (e) what funding projects were approved, what were their value and in which federal constituency were they located?

[Business of Supply, April 28th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the hon. member that this motion is not about free trade. It is about fair foreign investment. We are not against foreign investment. We are against foreign takeover. This is not about free trade. It is about foreign takeover of our companies.

We are interested in having foreign companies invest in Canada. A good example is De Beers in northern Canada which has invested in the north and has consulted with first nations, communities and its employees.

We are interested in foreign investment not in foreign takeovers.