Dennis Bevington

[Safeguarding Canada's Seas and Skies Act, October 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I too want to congratulate the minister for taking over this portfolio.

I have a question on the scope of the Marine Liability Act and how it will apply to navigable waters in Canada, the rivers and lakes that provide access to oceans. This is a simple question that could be answered very easily by the minister one way or the other.

To understand that better is something that people in my constituency who regularly transport large quantities of petroleum and hazardous products up the Mackenzie River into the Arctic Ocean would be very interested in. There have been problems in this regard already. This summer there was a spill on the Mackenzie River. There are certain concerns that lie with the equipment and the ability to deal with moving these goods up rivers into oceans.

[Respect for Communities Act, October 18th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, coming from the Northwest Territories, a small town, injection is not really a big issue in my community. However, where I live, and my hon. colleague happened to mention Sandy Hill, is very near what I call an unsafe injection site, the back side of a church in Sandy Hill, where addicts go on a regular basis to inject drugs.

Quite clearly, the community understands that. Quite clearly, people are trying to make a move to find a way to deal with this. By putting all these qualifications in place, the government is not helping the situation in Sandy Hill. The situation in Sandy Hill can be helped by the community, through its municipal ordinances, through the municipality coming to a decision that this a good idea.

I certainly do not want to walk out of my house in the next little while and find someone dead on the street from an overdose because of the delay that is going to be imposed upon getting any of these injection sites located into the communities. Will my colleague assure me that this terrible occurrence will not happen to me with this legislation delaying forever the introduction of a safe injection into this city, the capital of Canada?

[Not Criminally Responsible Reform Act, June 18th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it is a sad fact that we are here at this time speaking to another closure motion. This has gone on for a long time. It has become habit forming. The government is addicted to the process that it has created with the closure motions it has put forward.

Quite clearly, through the limited debate time today, many issues have been raised and have not been responded to fully. Are we going to get to those in the five hours? I do not think so.

What we see is a failure of the government to recognize the nature of its own addiction to its belief that it is right on all issues, that it is correct. Those things are very dangerous to our process.

Would the minister look into his heart and understand what he is doing by supporting these types of closure motions over and over again? What is he doing to this process we are in?

[Aboriginal Affairs, June 13th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives' nutrition north program has done nothing but increase the cost of groceries across northern Canada. It costs $17 for a box of cereal in Iqaluit, $19 for a bag of rice in Pangnirtung and $25 for baby formula in Clyde River. The Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut legislatures have voted unanimously to have the Auditor General investigate this program, but the Yukon and Nunavut MPs are very silent.

Will the Minister of Health heed the demands of the territorial governments and call in the Auditor General to investigate this boondoggle?

[Food Prices in the North, June 12th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives' nutrition north program, created by the Minister of Health, has done nothing but increase the cost of groceries across northern Canada.

From Labrador to the Yukon, people are paying outrageous prices for food: $16.29 for a can of beef ravioli, $13.39 for a box of spaghetti, $14.49 for a bag of muffin dust, $59.59 for a package of ground beef. Unlike the old food mail program which subsidized the cost of shipping food north, nutrition north subsidizes the cost of selling food, resulting in record profits for some northern grocery stores.

Northerners have taken to the streets to protest this failure, including a march by Inuit to Parliament Hill. However, there has been no action by the Conservatives. Now the legislatures of the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut have voted unanimously to have the Auditor General investigate this program.

When is the government going to listen to northerners and fix this boondoggle?

[First Nations Elections Act, June 11th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am afraid that is simply not going to happen, whether time allocation occurs or not. The Conservative majority government has chosen not to deal with amendments in a good fashion on the aboriginal affairs committee for the last two years that I have sat on it.

A good example was Bill C-47, a bill that deals only with specific regions of the country. Representatives of those regions of the country put forward 50 amendments. New Democrats brought them forward and the Conservatives chose not only to vote against them but to not even speak to them. Once a bill is written, they do not seem to be interested at all in trying to work with the bill to make sure it is in a good fashion. The consultation is weak. Witnesses now would rather not come to the aboriginal affairs committee because they see it as a waste of their time.

The process is falling apart around the Conservative government, and it keeps pushing forward with these bills.

[First Nations Elections Act, June 11th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, certainly that is the nub of the issue with this bill and so many of the bills that the Conservatives have put forward regarding first nations governments. There has been lip service paid to the idea that first nations governments have a legitimate status, and they do under the Constitution and in so many ways, yet we leave them out of so much of this legislation that is going forward right now.

Regulation is where the rubber hits the road in this bill. Under section 3, the minister would just have to be satisfied that a protracted leadership dispute has significantly compromised governance of a first nation, whatever that means. The minister could then force that first nation into the Elections Act and put forward the regulations of how that would occur. Without any appeal, if the minister had a problem with a first nation, he or she would have the ability to shut it down and put in new elections regulations. This is really inappropriate.

[First Nations Elections Act, June 11th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, of course, there were consultations that took place with two first nations groups in particular. However, the requirements that came out of those consultations were not met. The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs has withdrawn its support for the bill. There is still some support from the Atlantic Policy Congress of First Nations Chiefs.

I want to read an email that I was copied on, which was directed to the parliamentary secretary for aboriginal affairs. It is from a person from Band 23 in New Brunswick. She says:

I was watching second reading of the Bill on CPAC last night (Tuesday May 28, 2013) and it brought to mind some interesting concerns regarding the process by which this legislation and others, has unfolded. You specifically mentioned an organization that supposedly represents the interests of the people in Atlantic Canada—the Atlantic Policy Congress of First Nations Chiefs—and praised their input in the process. And there was mention, I am not sure if it was by you, that Chiefs were asked to take this legislation back to their communities to solicit input from the people. Well, from a personal perspective there has been no consultation with the people in my community. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find someone who has any idea these changes....have been duly informed and have had an opportunity to question and comment. This has not been the case with Woodstock Band 23 in New Brunswick and if one community has been left out then I am sure there are others have been as well.

[Questions on the Order Paper, June 3rd, 2013]

With regard to Giant Mine in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, from the time the mine entered production in 1948 until ceasing operations in 2004, what was the total amount (not adjusted for inflation) paid to Canada in royalties for the over seven million ounces of gold produced by the mine?

[Ethics, May 31st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, then Conservative Senator Mike Duffy campaigned in the Northwest Territories during the last election and was double- or triple-dipping on expenses.

Why did the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages say yesterday that the Conservative Party campaign was financed by Conservative funds, when that is clearly not true?