Denise Savoie

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, December 12th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, like my leader, I believe the federal government can be a source of positive change in our country by providing leadership with strong social policy that helps us all move forward. The government can provide stewardship of a vibrant, equitable and sustainable economy. It can also specifically provide a creative vision for our economy and our environment, rather than opposing them as the government does.

I am wondering if our leader would be able to develop a little bit our proposals around creating green jobs and sustaining our economy.

[Citizenship and Immigration, December 12th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it has already been a week. Clearly the minister does not understand what it is like to be a Franco-Columbian. One of my francophone constituents wanted to hire a unilingual woman to take care of her children, but the woman was turned down by Citizenship and Immigration Canada. The only reason in her file was that she did not speak English. As a minority francophone, I thought my country was inclusive and welcoming.

Could the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages explain to francophones how they will be able to survive if the government not only shirks its responsibilities, but also prevents us from growing?

[Immigration, December 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I want to recognize a group of very special constituents in my Victoria riding. They heard a documentary on CBC last February about the plight of Iman Kate and her two children, Iraqi refugees, currently residing in Syria, who live in constant fear for their lives.

Within two months of hearing that program, my constituents raised over $20,000 and submitted five sponsorship applications so that they could save Iman Kate and her children's lives and support them in their move to Canada.

I ask that the government intervene and expedite the approval of this application. In doing so, not only would the government be supporting the remarkable efforts of these Canadians, but it would also be saving Iman Kate and her children's lives before it is too late.

[Business of Supply, December 6th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague and I indeed share neighbouring ridings that are very beautiful but are experiencing very serious problems in housing.

Unfortunately, I have to say on the issue of housing that we would not be needing to reintroduce a program if the member's government had not cut affordable housing from CMHC. It cut the social mandate from CMHC and really left municipalities stranded. We indeed have no national housing strategy. That was at a time during the biggest construction boom and certainly in our part of the world we were without any affordable housing. There was some housing money for shelters, but shelters, although welcome, do not equate to permanent housing and to making housing more affordable in our municipalities.

[Business of Supply, December 6th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am certainly the last one who would be supporting the Liberal government. I agree that its investment of $1.1 billion annually was shameful and inadequate. I am saying that faced with the reports and the new information we have, the Conservative government's investment is equally inadequate.

My colleague mentioned the E&N. I am pleased that he raised the issue because I was delighted to hear that announcement. This is precisely an example of a re-announcement of money that had been committed two years before, which was being announced out of the strategic infrastructure program. It is a great project and one that I personally worked on with my colleagues on council. I was pleased to see it, but again, it was a re-announcement. It was not new money.

[Business of Supply, December 6th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore.

First, the NDP will be supporting this motion.

As a former city councillor in Victoria, I have seen the financial squeeze experienced by my city as a result of downloading and increased responsibility over the years. It meant reduced transit service, despite increasing demand. It meant storm water systems could not be fixed. Libraries, already too small and inadequate for the need, could not be expanded. On and on it goes.

We know what infrastructure means for a city. We know how crucial it is for quality of life. Infrastructure involves our transportation system. It involves our water system in distribution, supply, and treatment. We are all aware of the problems in many parts of Canada with the basic water supply. It involves waste water treatment, sanitary and storm sewers and related treatment facilities. It relates to transit facilities, equipment and rolling stock. It also involves many other public facilities like cultural and social centres, sports facilities and waste management facilities.

We are not talking about just any kind of infrastructure. As a result of the crisis of climate change, we should be thinking about green infrastructure to allow our cities to reduce their carbon footprints. This makes the investment in infrastructure by the federal government even more critical at this time. It cannot be business as usual as the Conservative government is proposing.

The recent FCM report talks about the near collapse of our infrastructure. Mr. Steeves, the president of FCM, said, “both the size of the deficit and its accelerating growth point to a coming collapse in Canada’s municipal infrastructure”. We know the impact this will have on our communities.

This deficit has been a long time coming. The federal budgetary cuts in the mid-nineties were part of the problem. As a result, municipalities had no choice. It was a question of fixing the storm sewers or fixing something else. The competing demands could not be met.

In 1992 the infrastructure deficit was $20 billion. By 2006, that deficit had grown to $60 billion. Now we are told by the FCM report that it has grown to $128 billion and will continue to accelerate because the infrastructure has grown older and has not been replaced. This will affect Canadians in their daily lives in many ways and very seriously.

Right now municipalities have difficulty managing current infrastructure demands let alone the accumulated backlog that has resulted from many years of Liberal under-investment and neglect. This is being compounded by population growth and migration to cities.

The Conservatives promised in the 2006 election to, “fully implement the transfer of the equivalent of five cents per litre of gasoline to cities and communities”. That will not happen until 2009-10. The full $2 billion of gas tax transfers will not be implemented, again, until 2010. Given the problems that we have been made aware of through the FCM report, this is just unconscionable.

I would like to talk about how this will affect Victoria specifically. We know that it will have social and economic impacts. In fact, it already has, just from the transportation perspective. We know from a recent board of trade study that the congestion and gridlock across major cities in Canada is costing the economy up to $3.7 billion a year, not to mention the human costs in premature deaths because of growing air quality problems in our city.

It is also about problems with greenhouse gas emissions, which is what is being discussed right now in Bali. It is about air pollution. It is about water pollution. It is about the need to keep our kids healthy and have a healthful walking environment and healthful sports facilities where they can go. It is about the need to have libraries, where we can create a better learning climate in our cities.

This has resulted in local taxes having to be increased. The choice is either to increase taxes or to continue to allow infrastructure to fail. Only irresponsible governance would allow that. That is what is happening right now in Canada.

The Conservatives' proposal will allow at best under $5 billion a year for infrastructure. We know from the report that the infrastructure deficit will increase to $400 billion within the next 12 years. Just the simple math makes it very clear that we are not going to be able to keep up with the problem. The backlog will continue.

In Victoria, for example, I have seen an aging stormwater system causing polluted and contaminated water to go into our harbour.

Also, I have seen our transit system just trying to keep up with the current demand. We had 21 million in ridership for our city last year, but the system still cannot keep up with the demand. There are continual pass-bys in high ridership areas where people are going to the university or downtown.

Canada is the only G-8 country without a national long term and predictable investment in public transit. That has lasted way too long.

Citizens in greater Victoria want healthy and sustainable communities. A number of groups have been pressing the government to act on this. For example, the IslandTransformations coalition has shown the viability of light rail that is fast, comfortable, safe, non-polluting and inexpensive to operate.

The student-run We Ride campaign is pressing for an improved transit system and affordability. The students cannot get back and forth from university.

The Victoria Transport Institute is working toward concrete solutions for a paradigm shift toward viable alternative transport models, but the federal seat at the table is still vacant. The Conservatives are still talking about a transit strategy and re-announcing old money from what I might say is the NDP budget of 2005.

If we are serious about cutting emissions and keeping our cities livable, we must support long term transit.

I heard one of my colleagues chuckle when I talked about the 2005 budget. The amendment to the Liberal budget was the first reinvestment in transit that had occurred. Or should I say investment? I should not even say reinvestment because we remain the only country without a national strategy for transit.

The Conservative government certainly looked good in last year's budget when it provided a top-up to the municipal rural infrastructure fund and the strategic infrastructure fund to maintain spending. However, the 2006-07 allocation never made it out the door because the government delayed signing agreements.

I suppose it wanted to repackage and re-profile the infrastructure program. The result for municipalities and cities was that there was no new money available for the 2006 construction season--

[Business of Supply, December 6th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague mentioned one of the ideological barriers that the Conservative government has placed on moving forward with public transit.

In my city of Victoria, B.C. Transit has increased its ridership to 21 million people, and this despite the increase in demand. For example, bus drivers must continually pass by waiting passengers.

In the past decade, it is clear that the disinvestment by the former Liberal government has caused these problems in infrastructure. FCM members and mayors I spoke to a couple of weeks ago are concerned about the Conservative government's desire to absolutely end this infrastructure program.

I am wondering if the hon. member would comment on that real possibility. The Conservatives have extended it for a number of years, but there is no commitment about its going forward in perpetuity, and that is a real concern to all of us.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, November 30th, 2007]

With respect to workplace skills programs as listed in the 2007-2008 Estimates: (a) why did the government cut $22 million from workplace skills programs; (b) which programs qualify under the government's definition of “workplace skills program“ as listed in the line item in the 2007-2008 Estimates; (c) which programs received funding from the government for the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 fiscal years, broken down by province or territory; (d) how much money did each program receive from the government for 2006-2007 and 2007-2008; (e) which programs received funding from the government for 2006-2007, but not for 2007-2008; (f) what are the expiration dates for each specific program that received funding from the government for 2006-2007 and 2007-2008; (g) which programs received funding from the government for 2007-2008 fiscal year, but not for 2006-2007; (h) for those programs that did not receive funding this fiscal year, was there a review process where applications were re-evaluated and, if so, was more funding applied to those programs; (i) with respect to those programs that had decreased amounts of funding or received no funding, what effect did that have on those specific programs; (j) for those programs that lost funding, what methods did those programs use to compensate for the amount of money not provided by Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC), specifically in regard to private donations, public fundraisers and applications for other grants outside of HRSDC; (k) what specific services had to be cut or eliminated from those programs because of a loss of funding; (l) what impact did the decrease in or elimination of services have on the surrounding community with the specific groups; (m) what specific demographic groups lost the most from the decrease in or elimination of services; and (n) with respect to workplace skills continued on p. 14-11 of the 2007-2008 Estimates, can the government provide a more detailed breakdown of this figure in the same manner as described in (i), (d), (e), (f) and (g)?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, November 30th, 2007]

With respect to programs and spending under the auspices of Human Resources and Social Development Canada, within the riding of Victoria: (a) in each year, fiscal or calendar, from 1993-2006 inclusive, what was the total (i) annual dollar amount of funding allocated, in grants, loans or loan guarantees, broken down by program, (ii) number of grants allocated, broken down by program; (b) for each of the two periods between June 28, 2004 and January 22, 2006, and between January 23, 2006 to September 27, 2007 inclusive, (i) what funds, grants, loans and loan guarantees has the government issued, (ii) under which program was each payment made, (iii) to whom and for what dollar amount was each payment, (iv) what percentage of each project's funding did the payment cover; (c) for the Summer Career Placement Program and the Canada Summer Jobs program, (i) what was the total annual expenditure for each year from 2003 to 2007 inclusive, (ii) how many job positions were supported through the programs for each year from 2003 to 2007 inclusive, (iii) for the year 2007, how many applications were received, (iv) for the year 2007, how many applications were accepted in each of the first and second rounds of approval, and for which employers, (v) for the year 2007, how many applications were denied or placed on a waiting list, and for which employers; and (d) for programs and spending administered by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), in each year, from 1993 to 2006 inclusive, (i) what was the total of CMHC spending, (ii) how many CMHC-funded housing units for singles and families existed, (iii) how many new CMHC-funded units were added, (iv) how many CMHC-funded housing units ceased to be available?

[Questions on the Order Paper, November 30th, 2007]

With respect to the National Homeless Initiative (NHI) and the Homelessness Partnering Strategy (NPS): (a) what is the process and protocol for making local or regional announcements regarding funding for specific projects, from the time of approval of application to the time of formal announcement and media releases; (b) what, if any, directives or instructions exist, from cabinet or elsewhere, with respect to MP participation in government announcements; (c) what is the protocol for inviting the local MP to participate in such announcements; (d) for what proportion of NHI / NPS-approved projects are formal announcements and media releases made; (e) what is the date, location, project name and attending MP for each such formal announcement; (f) has any non-cabinet MP participated in a NHI /NPS announcement and media release for a project located outside of her or his riding and, if yes, to which ones and was the local MP in whose riding the project is located invited to participate, and what was the response to the invitation; (g) broken down by each federal party represented in the House, in how many such announcements has a non-Cabinet MP been invited to participate; (h) broken down by each federal party represented in the House, in how many media releases related to the NHI and NPS posted on the government Web site is a non-cabinet MP mentioned; (i) to date, what projects have been funded by the NHI and NPS, with dollar amount, broken down by federal constituency; and (j) what is the total and the average-per-constituency number of projects funded by NHI and NPS and dollar amount for each federal party represented in the House?