Dennis Bevington

[Business of Supply, May 8th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I will make my comments brief because I know that time has been taken up.

The hon. member talked about carbon sequestration. At the natural resources committee, we had many presentations on this. The industry is admitting that by 2015, using the Iogen project, it perhaps could sequester about 25 megatonnes of CO₂. That is about one-quarter of the production from the tar sands. This is the investment that is actually going to reduce CO₂ emissions from the tar sands over a period of time? I do not think so.

Does the minister have any other answers that could work with the tar sands, other than a more rational development of these great resources?

[Northern Residents Tax Deduction, May 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, last week in question period I asked when the Conservatives were going to bring some tax fairness to northern families by increasing the northern residents tax deduction, something that has not been done for 20 years.

The Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development responded that instead of helping ordinary northerners with the high cost of living the government is focusing on development. If the minister wants to encourage northern development across the country, giving northern families some fairness would go a long way to doing that.

The north's high cost of living slows down development for a simple reason. Since everything costs more, business margins have to be larger. This means that small and medium size businesses cannot compete. Unfortunately, the minister feels that the only way to develop the north is to give his friends in large southern corporations all the help while doing nothing for ordinary people and businesses in the north.

Increasing the northern residents tax deduction would help northern working families with the high cost of living and spur on economic development in Canada's north. Let us close the northern prosperity gap.

[Criminal Code, May 3rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that the crux of the matter in the bill lies with the perceived need to ensure that children, young people between the age of 14 and 16, are not interfered in other ways other than the criminal ways that are already covered under the act.

What we are doing is making a decision about the nature of exploitation that is above criminality. I think that is the key to this discussion. We are saying that under our Criminal Code there is exploitation of young people between the age of 14 and 16 that is not criminalized now and needs to be criminalized.

What we have done, with very broad strokes, is to say that every relationship is criminal because obviously we have missed some in the way we are judging society now.

I would ask my hon. colleague to comment on the kinds of behaviours that he sees as being exploitative now and that should be criminalized, which make the fundamental point within the bill?

[Criminal Code, May 3rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on an excellent speech on a difficult subject.

I have struggled with this subject as well. I have taken the time in all the touring of my extensive riding to ask at all public meetings that I have had what people think about changing the age of consent. I have asked it in small first nations communities and in many, many different settings. I have asked it in high schools in the last three weeks. I have talked in three different high schools and brought up the subject and asked students what they thought about it.

I have polled my constituents and I find that there is a lot of wisdom in what they said. Among the elders there is very strong support to move ahead with this legislation. The people who perhaps were in residential schools understand how sexual expression from older persons to younger ones could change young people's lives in a way that at the time was not criminal but changed their way of thinking and led to different patterns of behaviour in the future. That was a difficult thing to legislate, to understand how someone who was a teacher, a priest or an RCMP officer could ask a young person to commit to the other person in a way that was exploitive but not criminal.

What we have here is a law that raises the age at which a person can consent to non-exploitative sexual activity. That is important. On the other hand, when I talked to the schools and the young people, there was a strong sense that something was being taken away from them. There is a fundamental conflict in this.

Has my hon. colleague spent time in his riding consulting with the various groups to understand how the different aspects of this work?

[Taxation, May 3rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, northern households spend $15,000 more per year on essentials than other Canadians. Northerners need relief from the high cost of living. Let us make their taxes fair by increasing the northern residents tax deduction.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce says to make the taxes fair. The Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories voted unanimously to make the tax fair.

When the Minister of Finance increased the capital gains he said it was needed as it had not been changed in almost 20 years. It has been 20 years since the working families in the north got some tax fairness. When will the minister bring tax fairness to the north?

[Business of Supply, May 1st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, my question deals with the truth and reconciliation commission that is being established.

Residential schools are part of the terrible legacy that we have to deal with in terms of our overall treatment of first nations, be it our failure to live up to treaty obligations, be it the lack of support for the development of their structures, or be it their tremendous struggle to establish their own opportunities in the north.

Does the member agree that we need to have northern representation on the truth and reconciliation commission in order to ensure that the stories that are more unique to the far north of Canada are truly represented there?

[Business of Supply, May 1st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for outlining so well the real essential element of an apology for aboriginal people across Canada. I come from a riding where over 50% of the population is first nations, aboriginal people, Inuvialuit and Métis. Many of those people attended residential schools and many suffered grievously.

The issue of compensation goes only so far in their quest to return to normality with a healthy and self-fulfilling lifestyle. Residential schools impacted so many aspects of people's lives, including people's parenting skills. Residential schools affected their ability to understand how to raise their children in the future. It was a terrible impact when people were taken out of their homes and put into an institutional situation for most of their formative years.

I had the opportunity to attend a conference a month ago, led by aboriginal people in Yellowknife, on the question of fully restoring sanity and prosperity in these people's lives. Does the member think an apology by the House will do it all? Do we need an apology from the highest minister in the House directly on this issue?

[Business of Supply, April 26th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, for any armed forces in this world engaged in active combat, the proposition that one will be there for two years, regardless of outcome, and then be removed is patently absurd as well.

Our position to move the troops out immediately is pretty straightforward. This will happen if the motion is supported. The Conservatives have taken the tack that they will wait to find out what happens with the mission and how successful it is before they decide on extensions. We have three distinct positions in the House of Commons. In letting the troops know what we think, our position is pretty clear.

The member's suggestion that these troops should be in an active war zone that they know they will leave, regardless of outcome, in two years is patently unfair.

[Business of Supply, April 26th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I really hope that in our efforts in this debate we can clarify many of the issues for Canadians.

We cannot afford confusion on an issue about the deployment of our troops in Afghanistan. The majority of the troops in Afghanistan are in southern Afghanistan. They are involved in counter-insurgency efforts. Those are the things that we point to as the main failings in the mission. In order to change, we will have to pull back.

[Business of Supply, April 26th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support the motion of the New Democratic Party today.

In listening to the comments by members of other parties, particularly the Liberal members, it seems to me that many members in the House do not get the fact that we have headed down the wrong path with this mission in southern Afghanistan.

It is clear as well that the Liberals have flip-flopped on a very significant issue for Canadians. If they were so concerned about our young men and women in uniform, then last year when we had a significant and important moment in the House of Commons, the vote on the extension of the mission, their full caucus would have shown up to provide the needed support. However, that did not happen and here we are again today having this discussion.

Polls show that the majority of Canadians across the country are unsatisfied with the direction we are taking in Afghanistan. The situation is not improving with Canadians. Canadians are saying, in ever increasing numbers, that it is not working.

I showed up for the vote last year. As a new MP, I thought the vote was a very important event in my understanding of Parliament and the importance of what we were doing. I voted against extending the mission in south Afghanistan, the counter-insurgency efforts we were taking, and I am more certain today that I made the right choice.

I have spent time reading about it. I have gone to forums. I have discussed this with people. I have listened to the debates. I have listened to Canadians. I made the right choice last spring, the right choice for Afghanistan, the right choice for Canada and the right choice for the world. The counter-insurgency effort in south Afghanistan is bad for Afghanistan, it is bad for Canada and it is bad for the world.

When we first went into Afghanistan, it was at a time when the western world was reacting to the immense events of 9/11. We were hunting down Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda. We turned our backs on the Taliban who were in Washington, negotiating scant days before the invasion. We went in not to take sides in a war, but to clear up an issue within the country.

Today, young Canadian men and women are dying and being maimed because we have taken a side in the war, a war our military and military experts around the world have said is unwinnable. Like every insurgency that is badly handled, for every civilian we kill and every home we blow up, we make the Taliban stronger. Every time we act aggressively in south Afghanistan we create more enemies than friends.

By focusing mainly on combat operations, we are making the work of those, who we all support in the House, more difficult, those who want to better the lives of Afghan people. By taking a war fighting approach, we make all westerners targets.

By pursuing aggressive counter-insurgency, we turn ourselves into the enemy in many people's minds, people to whom we could be reaching out. They are not all Taliban. They are Pashtun farmers. We were told last summer, in the efforts made in the province, that many of the combatants were not Taliban. They were Pashtun farmers who were rising up because of the unfair nature of the police actions taking place in their province.

Instead of uselessly trying to defeat the Taliban on the battlefield, we should be working to show them that we can provide a better way for them and their families. Rather than offering them death or creating a criminal state as the only way people can survive, let us offer life through peacemaking efforts, like reconstruction and finding economic opportunities for the Afghan nation to prosper.

I want to be clear. After nearly 30 years of war, continued fighting is the worst thing that can happen in Afghanistan. For this reason alone, a mission based on combat operations is bad for Afghanistan.

What about for Canada? Since the Korean war, our position in this world has been traditionally that of diplomat and peacemaker. This mission has completely changed that tradition.

How will we regain our international credibility as diplomats and peacemakers when we take on this type of military adventure? How will my grandchildren wear the Canadian flag proudly while travelling around this world, safe under that umbrella, when we behave in this fashion in other countries, where we bomb villages, where we are indiscriminate in our attacks on the enemy?

This mission is bad for Canada. Every Canadian who is killed or wounded in Afghanistan represents a lost opportunity to make our country better. We have fine men and women in Afghanistan who totally provide us with a great sense of reality toward our armed forces. However, the problem for the New Democratic Party is the mission they have been asked to undertake. NDP members want to build a better Canada. We cannot do that by sending young people off to die in an unwinnable war.

This mission is bad for the world. A well known religious leader said these words more than 2,000 years ago, “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God”.

War is the greatest waste of resources created by humans. We need leaders who reject war and violence as the key to solving problems. Canada could be a leader, but we cannot be a leader if we believe the main way we can continue in Afghanistan is through counter-insurgency, aggressively pursuing the enemy throughout their villages and farms. We should be showing the world what can be accomplished through non-violent means. We must work toward building trust in Afghanistan. This mission has Canadians destroying that trust.

Because this mission is bad for Afghanistan, because it is bad for Canada and because it is bad for the world, we need to stop and focus our efforts on assisting the people of Afghanistan in a real sense, in a much larger way through diplomacy, reconstruction and redevelopment.