Dennis Bevington

[Business of Supply, September 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is pathetic that the Minister of Labour quoted 2008 statistics as justification for her argument about the labour rates in Canada. That speaks volumes about the Conservative government which has cut back on Statistics Canada finding out what is actually happening with Canadians.

When we look at the 2008 statistics, we find that the minimum wage at the time was around $8 across the country. Yes, perhaps there were a few people in the federal system who were earning $8, but we are talking about $15. The difference in those statistics means that there were tens of thousands of people in 2008 who were not earning $15 working for the federal government, and we have not seen that much wage inflation in those six years since 2008. We know darn well that right now many Canadians who work under federal jurisdiction do not earn $15 an hour and could benefit from this program.

Does my colleague not agree that this shows the terrible situation we have when the federal Minister of Labour has to rely on 2008 statistics and to misinterpret them in presenting them to Parliament?

[Business of Supply, September 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to get into this federal-provincial argument a bit here. What is happening in this country is that there is a race to the bottom. Businesses pick up on that. They move to provinces where the corporate tax rate is lower, and they put their head office there. When it comes to employees, the people who work for us in this country, they are the ones who suffer when provinces play the game of keeping the low minimum wage so they can attract industry into that particular province.

The federal government wants to take down the barriers for trade in this country, and make us all uniform. At the same time it will not do anything for the workers in this country. It will not recognize that the workers have a right to a decent living and a decent wage wherever they live in this country. Does the Liberal Party agree with that?

[Business of Supply, September 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to enter into this debate. I will mention that I was in Vancouver when our leader made the announcement on this particular aspect of our policy going forward.

I had an interesting conversation with a fellow who works at the Vancouver airport, under the wing, taking care of the business we all rely on: moving our baggage, ensuring that the planes come into the docks in a correct fashion, making sure that no damage occurs to these planes that we fly on, and making sure that everything is taken care of. He was earning $10 an hour in that very regulated area.

It is simply unacceptable that today someone in that type of responsible position earns $10 an hour. No one can live in Vancouver, in a decent fashion, on $10 an hour. That is an extremely expensive place. Let us think about that worker having to make his way to the Vancouver airport, probably from some outlying district like Surrey, to work, to serve the people of Canada in a good, responsible, safe fashion doing extraordinary work.

This is not acceptable. Does the member agree?

[Victims Bill of Rights Act, June 18th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I want to keep it simple for the minister. I would like to repeat the question. When this bill goes forward to committee, which it will do after this time allocation, will the minister guarantee that we will hear from those witnesses who can provide expert testimony, in detail, on this particular bill so we can make sure, like for every piece of legislation, that every aspect of it is correct and as good as possible?

Is he going to allow this type of work to go ahead at committee, or are we going to see the same kind of business that has been going on for the last year in this Parliament, where the committees have been limited in the number of witnesses they can see?

[Committees of the House, June 18th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I have enjoyed the opportunity to have this report brought forward.

Within the Northwest Territories, we have been very successful this year at the Olympics. We had two participants out of a population of 40,000 people. It is very significant.

It speaks to the work that has been done by our government in the north to encourage, through participation in things like the Arctic Winter Games, young people to get into competitive sports. I think that is part of it as well, that these opportunities are given.

Do you see the Canada Summer Games and those types of activities leading people forward to the Olympics?

[Veterans Hiring Act, June 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I agree entirely that this process is not simply about hiring. It is going to take more than that. In many respects, the veterans are young people who are coming back. They are going to have to continue their work lives. We can look to the past as to how people accomplished that, but this is the modern age, where there are particular skill sets in many cases.

I think of MPs. If we leave our jobs as MPs, we can get skills retraining after one year on this job.

[Veterans Hiring Act, June 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comments, but I do not agree with him. It was a couple of months ago that I had a very long and detailed conversation not only with a retired colonel in Yellowknife, from the Armed Forces, who explained to me many of the details of what was going on with veterans. I also had the opportunity to meet a serviceman who was experiencing the difficulty of getting his condition recognized by the authorities. Here is someone who is still in the Armed Forces, who has post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, and yet has had an incredibly difficult time getting through the bureaucracy to understand how he can get himself healed.

For you to suggest that we are not in conversation with veterans or that we do not hear from other people about the problems in the system is really unfortunate, because we are all committed to doing a good job.

[Veterans Hiring Act, June 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to rise to speak to Bill C-27. Of course, I will be one of the few in Parliament who actually gets to speak to the bill, because we have gone to the process of closure very quickly.

I think it is unfortunate that closure took place today, when tomorrow and the rest of the week we will have many veterans here on the Hill. “Rock the Hill”, they call it.

The Conservatives have not seemed to show much of the courage of their convictions in perhaps having the debate about this particular issue when the veterans are here on the Hill. They are very anxious to get this over with tonight. That is the reality of what the Conservatives have done here with closure. They have taken the opportunity we could have had to have the veterans here to listen to the different points of view of the people in this Parliament on this subject. Conservatives are very happy to get closure on the bill and get it away.

I have the opportunity to speak to the bill at second reading. Of course we support the principle of assisting with priority hiring for injured veterans and doing more for veterans within the civil service. How could anyone in this Parliament not be solid with that principle? What we argue at second reading is principle and how bills should be formed, using the knowledge we all have about the history of the service of the Armed Forces in Canada.

My father was a veteran of the Second World War. He spent five years in Europe in Bomber Command. He always said that toward the end of the war, the CCF was very popular in Canada, and their numbers were well up. The government respected that and brought in very good programs for veterans when they returned from the war. It did not want to see this turn into a socialist paradise, which may have happened with these veterans who came back. It offered land in Edmonton. My father got a piece of land on a veterans estate. Veterans got an opportunity for low-interest loans to build their houses and to set up their families after being in the war and being away from their communities and their loved ones for the period of time they were in Europe, that five years. Compare that to some of the commitment our servicemen make today of 10 and 15 years overseas.

As well, the government at that time tried to hire many veterans, and my father got a job with the Department of Transport, working in the Arctic, taking care of the airports. The skills matched up in that regard, because he worked in the Royal Canadian Air Force, and that sort of relationship existed at that time.

As well, in every small community across Canada, there were lots of veterans who came back from that big war. The legions were working very well. There was comradeship and an opportunity in every small community to share with many other veterans. I remember growing up in this atmosphere of legions and the respect everyone in the community had for the veterans.

Compare that to today. The veterans come back from a foreign conflict, generally of a terribly undefined nature, where they are not involved in liberating countries. They are involved in inter-regional conflicts that have so many variables attached to them. When they walk away from those conflicts, do they have the honour people had coming out of the Second World War? Do they have the approbation of the citizenry across the country for which they have served? No. That does not happen anymore. Is there a large volume of veterans who can join together in common places like the legion? No. In fact, across the country, legions are shutting down.

In the major city in my riding, Yellowknife, even with Joint Task Force (North) there, the opportunity to maintain the legion has almost failed completely.

The times have changed. There is no structure anymore for veterans, like there was in the past.

The good side of it is that we recognize post-traumatic stress disorder. That was not part of the vernacular of the Second World War. We are much more understanding of the nature of the mental injuries veterans suffer in these conflicts.

Bill C-27 tries to provide some answers, but it is not adequate. We do not think we should change the principle that a veteran is a veteran. That principle should remain in the bill, but it is not there. That is one problem we have with the principles of the bill. They are not dealing with all veterans in the same fashion as they used to be dealt with. They are not taking care of people and keeping the commonality among veterans that is so important.

The Conservative government is offering up the opportunity to go into the public service. The public service has changed so much. It is not the public service of 1945 to 1950. It is different. More specialized skills and education are required.

People may be put in priority positions that may not work for them. My Liberal colleague talked about the U.S. government program that includes skills identification. Quite clearly, it is important not to put people in jobs they will not be satisfied with and where there may fail. That would not help the veterans.

We need to pay careful attention to these people. They do not have the same opportunities veterans had in the past. They do not have the same volume of strength that 500,000 veterans had. The veterans today are thin in number. They are not a large part of the population. They need more specific attention. The Conservative government should be thinking about how it could provide the services these veterans require that would make their transition to normal civilian life successful.

This debate must continue until we come up with solutions. I look forward to the bill going to committee, because perhaps at that time, we could consider some of its details. We all agree with the principle that we should do more for the veterans, that we should find ways to integrate them into the workforce. How much more could we provide to the bill in committee on some of the issues we have identified in the very short time we have had to talk about this bill? We have a very short time to communicate in the House about the issues surrounding veterans.

We are doing our veterans a disservice by not continuing this debate for a period of time. They are going to be on the Hill, but they will not have the opportunity to speak to parliamentarians so we can carry their message forward in the House. We could do it at committee, but it is not really the same as talking here in the House.

The bill does not go far enough. We want to see it improved. We are willing to send the bill to committee. I encourage the government to take this seriously, to look at the other options put forward in committee, to listen to the witnesses, and to be open to amending the bill to make it work better for the veterans.

[Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, June 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, with this trade deal, Canada is the second largest foreign investor in Honduras. This is the elephant in the room with most of the trade deals with these developing countries.

Canada wants protection for its multinationals who are taking their profits from resource extraction in Canada and investing it in other countries where labour and environmental conditions are lower, but they want very strict control over their ability to invest and make their money back. Is this not really what these free trade deals are with these countries?

We have seen the evidence presented that it has not increased trade, but it has opened the door for Canadian companies to take advantage of these developing markets and natural resources in those areas. Is that not what is really at stake here?

[Energy Safety and Security Act, May 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his discourse on this bill, but I think he has missed something. He talked about the offshore regime, but when we examine the bill, we find that almost a third of Canada is covered onshore by a liability regime. In the Northwest Territories, the maximum liability without proof of fault or negligence is $25 million onshore. Therefore, it seems that perhaps he needs to spend a little more time to understand this bill. We should be spending more time in Parliament talking about it, because obviously there are things in it that he has not seen yet.