Don Davies

[Federal Public Sector Labour Relations Act, March 22nd, 2016]

Madam Speaker, prior to being elected, I was fortunate enough to work for a major union in this country for 16 years and represented many workers before the Canada Industrial Relations Board who were seeking certification under federal legislation. The legislation I worked under always gave the Canada Industrial Relations Board the discretion to order a vote in any certification application where it felt it was necessary. That was the law. That has always been the case.

Its practice was to permit certification when it was presented with evidence by a majority of employees who wanted to unionize. What I found, and I spent many, many days battling at the CIRB, was that when employers found out about a certification drive, many of them would interfere with their members' constitutional rights and fire and discipline and intimidate employees. It is the automatic certification that is intended to stop employers from affecting that constitutional right. That is why the card check system, where members have the ability to indicate their desires and submit them to the board, is actually the best way to test the will of a majority of employees and to minimize employer interference.

I am wondering if my hon. colleague has anything to say about the employers in this country who have violated employees' rights to certification by firing and disciplining them. He just has to go to the labour board to read hundreds and thousands of cases where that has happened.

[Petitions, March 22nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the third petition is signed by many people in my riding of Vancouver Kingsway.

The petitioners are asking the government to adopt the New Democrat plan for affordable child care. The petition points out the vital need for this program for parents across the country and that this would be a money saver, an important social investment, and would return benefits to our economy far beyond the investment in our children.

[Petitions, March 22nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is signed by many Canadians who are continuing their call to stop the cuts to Canada Post, in particular to have the government halt the conversion of home mail delivery to community mailboxes. They want to reverse those community mailboxes that have been introduced and proven to be problematic for people, and to preserve that vital public service to allow full mail delivery for all Canadians.

[Petitions, March 22nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I have three petitions to introduce today.

The first petition is from hundreds of people who note that Canada is the only OECD country that does not have a national public transit strategy. It notes that over the next five years there will be an $18-billion gap in transit infrastructure needs.

The petitioners call on the Government of Canada to create a Canadian public transit strategy which seeks to provide a permanent investment plan to support public transit, as well as federal funding mechanisms to allow municipalities to create that important public resource.

[Health, March 21st, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, there is a national epidemic of drug overdoses, and the Minister of Health has acknowledged that safe injection sites like Insite in Vancouver make sense and save lives. Public health officials in Toronto and cities across Canada are asking for federal help to open these desperately needed facilities. Yet, Liberals are refusing to repeal Conservative legislation that blocks communities from providing harm-reduction services.

Will the government stop stalling, make an evidence-based decision, and repeal the Conservatives' Bill C-2?

[Citizenship Act, March 10th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to turn the debate to another aspect of the bill, which is the language and knowledge requirements. I think there are reasons for a difference of opinion on this.

I keep thinking of my Hungarian grandmother, Mary Varyu, who came to this country in 1926. In her life, she never fully mastered English. She never could fully speak the language, or read. I have serious doubts as to whether today she would be able to pass a written knowledge test in English or French. Yet, there was no prouder Canadian than I have ever met than my little 4 foot, eleven inch Hungarian grandmother, who proudly voted in every election, who paid her taxes on the button, who did not ever break a law, and who was an outstanding member of her community.

I know that the legislation would improve this by restoring the language and knowledge requirements to between the ages of 18 and 55, leaving people over and under those ages able to get citizenship without passing that test.

I wonder whether my hon. colleague would comment on the issue of language and knowledge and its role in citizenship.

[Citizenship Act, March 10th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, once again I would like to congratulate the member on his speech, but I would also like to put to him a question that may enlarge on the issue of citizenship.

I would remind him that something the Conservatives did, albeit in another piece of legislation in the last Parliament, was strip Canadian citizens who have lived outside the country for more than five years of their right to vote. Members may remember that actor Donald Sutherland and others publicly complained about this. These are people whose careers take them outside of the country, but they have no less of a connection. In fact, there are Canadian diplomats who live outside the country for more than five years who could potentially lose their right to vote.

I am wondering how the member feels about that. Would he agree with me that another useful amendment would be to repeal that piece of legislation by the previous government and restore the right of all Canadian citizens to vote in Canadian elections, even if they have resided outside the country for more than five years?

[Citizenship Act, March 10th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am a little disappointed to hear the hon. member make a defence of differential fees and say that the Canadian education system depends, for its funding, on extremely high differential fees as a proxy for not having enough funding from government, but that is for another day.

The question I would like to ask is this. A related issue that the former Conservative government dealt with was that it took away the right to vote in federal elections from Canadian citizens who have been out of the country for more than five years. We had people like actors and people working around the world who complained publicly that they could not vote because of that.

Will the member's government bring in legislation that would restore the ability for Canadian citizens to vote in Canadian elections, even if they have been out of the country for more than five years but they retain their Canadian citizenship? That is people like Donald Sutherland.

[Citizenship Act, March 10th, 2016]

That is an excellent question, Mr. Speaker, and is high praise indeed coming from my hon. colleague from Burnaby South who is, I think, certainly one of the most eloquent speakers as well in the House.

The reception will be fantastic. I already know, through doing casework in my riding, how damaging and how worrying the previous Conservative legislation was to many people in our riding who wanted to get citizenship.

I think the member from Winnipeg commented earlier on the unbelievable length of time it had taken, under the Conservatives, for someone to acquire citizenship. People are waiting years. That means no Canadian passport. That means an individual is unable to vote in our country. I will be looking to see if the government can speed that up.

In terms of changes, there are problems with the bill that I would hope the government looks to amend. One of them is that the bill still gives the power to the minister to revoke citizenship, based on a paper review with no judicial hearing. There is still a prohibition on citizenship for people charged with a criminal offence abroad. Also, it still provides the minister the discretion to privately grant citizenship to individuals.

I hope the Liberal government would be open to reasoned amendments in this regard, to make a good bill even stronger.

[Citizenship Act, March 10th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I wholly concur with my hon. colleague's point in that regard.

I can give a real life example. One of my constituency assistants, Wei Qiao Zhang, came to our country as a student. His wife is actually doing a Ph.D. in law at UBC in her third language, by the way. He came here to do a degree in philosophy at the University of Toronto. When he came to apply for citizenship, the previous legislation would have allowed him to count the time he spent in the country, or a portion of it, prior to becoming a permanent resident toward the time allocation to become a Canadian citizen. The Conservatives brought in legislation that eliminated this time.

Here is a young man who made a commitment to this country, who had been in the country 10 years and who wanted to count part of that committed time toward his citizenship, but would not have been allowed to have done so by the Conservatives.

This legislation restores that balance, as it properly should do. It does give credit to those young people who are students who come to our country and decide to make a commitment.

That is another advantage of this legislation and I congratulate the government on restoring that.