House of Commons photoLost his last election, in 2015, with 31% of the vote.
Local Newspapers December 9th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, listening to this minister makes me believe we need to live in a big city to have a right to read a local paper.
Changes made to the program broke a help system that was working a lot better. Postal subsidy efficiently reduced costs for those papers. The money available to them now does not cover postal fees and simply is not enough.
These newspapers play a key role in the life of rural communities. Why is the government cutting help to local papers?
Improving Trade Within Canada Act November 24th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, it is not often that I have a chance to stand up and speak after such a great discussion by my colleague. I am pleased to do so.
We are all in favour of improving trade within Canada, but sometimes it does not work that way in the more remote regions of the country where, in order to provide services to people, we have to give businesses opportunities to compete. In many cases in communities across the far north there is a business incentive program. An incentive is provided to a business that locates in a community and pays the high cost of putting up an office building or a facility in a community where the costs are so much higher than anywhere else. Then that business is expected to compete with southern businesses that act like carpetbaggers. They come up and skim off all the good business. To avoid that issue in the Northwest Territories we have always had a business incentive policy that encourages businesses to actually provide services to the people of the region in their own communities.
How does the member see that this particular internal trade bill would work for the people of the Northwest Territories, the people whom I represent and want to see have the same opportunities as others across this big country?
Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers November 23rd, 2011
Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her speech on this very difficult subject.
The minister of state did talk a lot about the transportation system. Working on the transportation committee in the past and talking with the various producers in western Canada, it became clear that size matters with the railways, that the opportunities to move grain, or other agricultural products, effectively and efficiently in western Canada are linked directly to volume. The opportunities for small producers have turned out to be not so good
The minister of state talked about all the wonderful things that the government is going to try to do to improve the rail service agreements. How can she guarantee success in this regard for those small farmers who are going to be on their own?
Airline Safety November 15th, 2011
Madam Speaker, certainly we can talk about Canada's aviation safety record. We can talk about SMS as being leading edge, but in reality, there is no other country that would institute SMS without proper oversight. This is the question that we have for the government. Why has this not happened?
The Conservatives agreed in 2010 that they would replace and fully complement our operations inspectors across this country, but they have not done that. When it comes to the situation right now in terms of the safety of the travelling public, we can divide it into two groups. Statistically, if we take Canadian aviation as a whole, large carriers that have the internal ability to provide good safety systems are generally safe, but with respect to small carriers, the government agreed in 2009 to back off from SMS with small carriers, and that is where we need the oversight. I wish the government would go ahead with this in a good fashion.
Airline Safety November 15th, 2011
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have a chance to speak again on the issue of aviation safety.
On October 18, I asked the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities why we had not seen the government follow up on its commitment to bring on line a full complement of operational inspectors for our aviation industry.
The minister said that I was attacking the integrity of the Transport Canada workers. Nothing could be further from the truth. I was attacking the integrity of the bureaucracy in the government, which in May 2010 promised us, at the transport committee, that it would go through the process of hiring some 98 Transport Canada aviation operational inspectors who were missing at that time.
The sad state is it is worse. There are fewer aviation inspectors now than there were in May 2010. We have actually stepped backward a bit from that point.
I certainly did not attack the integrity of the inspectors, who are working flat out without a full staff. However, the government, which promised to do this and knew these problems were developing in aviation safety for small carriers across the country, in November 2009, when it delayed the implementation of SMS for small carriers, admitted we had a problem in safety in Canada among small carriers.
The crashes that have occurred across northern Canada in the past 12 months all appear to be operational in nature and appear to be the kinds of crashes that are associated with the operation of an aircraft, not mechanical in nature. It certainly sheds some light on what is happening inside our aviation system.
I was transport critic for this party in the last term. The transport critic before me put the same effort into aviation safety. We understand the importance of it to Canada and to the people who have to fly in small planes in conditions that are fast-changing across northern Canada, where climate change has made the weather systems very uncertain.
The situation now is we have 595 positions in aviation safety across the country and only 382 are filled. This is especially noted in the Prairies and northern regions and in the Atlantic regions. These are issues that affect people flying.
What has caused this issue? The issue has been exacerbated by the government, first, pushing the small carriers into SMS. Then when the government removed them from the SMS system, it did not really put back in the system of oversight that was used prior to that.
Now we have a situation where small carriers are not bound by SMS, yet they do not have the oversight, the on-the-ground inspections that small aircraft carriers across the country relied on to keep their safety standards to a high extent, and this is a bad situation.
The simple message for the government is to hire the inspectors, put the system back in order and give the Transport Canada workers the manpower they need to do the job for Canadians across the country.
Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency November 15th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, the Comptroller General found that 21 out of 47 contracts awarded by CanNor were sole-sourced and that 17 of the 21 were awarded without justification.
The Comptroller General also found evidence of contract splitting to avoid competition.
The questions are clear. How much was spent when CanNor broke the rules? Who received the money? Who is going to take responsibility for this mishandling?
Aviation Safety November 14th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives' reckless hands-off approach to aviation safety is putting Canadians at risk. Crashes in the north have cast a light on the problems with safety inspections. In my region, prairies and north, we are supposed to have 106 operational inspectors, but we only have 74. In other regions, over one-third of the inspectors are missing, yet we allow airlines to regulate themselves with no hands-on federal oversight.
Will the Conservatives take the safety of Canadian families seriously and hire the safety inspectors we need for Canada's aviation industry?
Firearms Registry November 2nd, 2011
Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Privacy Commissioner repudiated Conservative claims about gun registry data. She confirmed records could be shared with the provinces. Once again out-of-touch Conservative talking points failed to hold up under scrutiny. The Privacy Commissioner says all it takes is an agreement between the government and the provinces.
Will the government agree to drop the ideology and negotiate with those provinces that want to use the records to protect their citizens?
Ending the Long-gun Registry Act November 1st, 2011
Mr. Speaker, I will take that question under advisement. Any time data and records are destroyed with no purpose other than to sort of cast it off in a way that is emotional rather than rational, then I am against it.
Ending the Long-gun Registry Act November 1st, 2011
Mr. Speaker, my understanding of the debate over the gun registry has been that there has been very little attention paid to the facts on all sides in this debate. I have tried to take a rational, reasonable approach to important legislation. I have followed consistently what I have said over the years, and that is hunting implements should be part of property law. They should be enforced by the provinces, territories and aboriginal governments. They are hunting instruments. They are part of our culture. That would be a more appropriate place to have them registered, like cars, like dogs, as has been pointed out.
I am okay with the law coming out, but I am not okay with small-minded thinking that will destroy data that is useful to provinces that want to establish their own registries.