Don Davies

[Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992, February 12th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to enter this Conservative-Liberal debate. I have heard that the problem with Liberals is that they never do what they say they will do and the problem with the Conservatives is that they always do what they say they will do.

On a serious note, my colleague mentioned security. In 2005, his Liberal Party entered into the security and prosperity partnership discussions with the United States. The security part of that had extra parliamentary discussions that avoided this chamber, where executive level discussions were between the Canadian and American officials who harmonized the status between the two countries.

I heard the parliamentary secretary use the word “harmonize”, and that has Canadian workers very concerned. What harmonization means is that the Canadian government has refused to stand up to support the constitutional and charter rights of workers in this country and, instead, has allowed the American government to dictate all sorts of invasive violations of Canadians' privacy rights in this country, like giving biometric information, criminal record checks, fingerprints and the checking of spouses. This is information that must be given to the American government which is then free to share that information with all sorts of governments in the world, including many that do not respect human rights and privacy.

I would like to know from the member whether he has considered the effect of the security and prosperity partnership and the damaging effect that will have on Canadian workers in terms of his comments and views upon the bill.

[Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992, February 12th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think Canadians have a problem with regulating the transportation of dangerous goods. What concerns me about the bill is the effect it has on people. Clause 5.2 of the proposed bill says that no prescribed person shall handle, among other things, any dangerous goods unless that person has a transportation security clearance.

I happen to know through my work prior to being elected that right now there are very onerous obligations imposed upon Canadians handling federal materials, whether it is at airports, ports or in warehouses. In particular, the United States has compelled Canadians to be subjected to extreme invasions of their privacy, including things like providing biometrics, fingerprints, criminal record checks and supplying information about their spouses and even sexual preference.

My question for the member is twofold.

First, could he give assurances that no Canadians will have their constitutional and charter rights violated by complying with this transportation security clearance to satisfy the Americans?

Second, will the bill and the security clearance apply to people who do not cross borders but who simply live and work in Canada so American incursions into our privacy are imposed upon Canadians on Canadian soil? Just like under the Security and Prosperity Partnership, our civil rights have been eroded under the government's watch.

[Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act, February 12th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, one of the problems with this bill is that it does not make allowances for the size of the not-for-profit organization. In particular, although there are allowances for financial reporting, it does not make allowances for things like voting and the requirement to pass resolutions and record them and maintain membership lists. In other words our small local legions or not-for-profit anti-poverty groups will be forced to have the same bureaucratic requirements as the large not-for-profits, such as the United Way.

In my own constituency the local legions, including the one on Fraser Street of which I am a member, do an incredible job in our community. They give countless volunteer hours and support thousands of amateur athletes through their hard work and volunteerism.

They are having a tough time hanging on now. They need property tax relief. They need a refundable tax credit for their dues. What they do not need is more red tape and burdensome bureaucratic paperwork.

I would ask my hon. colleague to comment on this. I would also like her opinion on how the bill might impact the hard work, for example, of legions that are operating in tough times across this land.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, during the last campaign, many parents told me of their need for quality, accessible and affordable child care to assist them in meeting their work obligations and to ensure their children had access to the best education and educational starts we could give them.

One of my constituents, Sharon Gregson, is a member of the school board and runs the daycare at Collingwood Neighbourhood House—

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about education.

In good times or bad, a country needs a strong educational system. I notice in the budget that one of the target groups the government is going after is students who have student loans. I also want to mention that an important infrastructure project in B.C. has to do with the seismic upgrading of schools, which is important to keep our children safe. Would the member for Burnaby—Douglas comment on the educational impact of the budget and what it does and does not do?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, in my province of British Columbia, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has a long and storied tradition of public service, delivering broad-based community police services to the people of our province. In fact, we are fortunate enough to have the headquarters of the RCMP detachment located within the confines of my riding of Vancouver Kingsway.

The RCMP was promised wage increases by the government. The RCMP officers were counting on those wage increases. However, after the election and with this budget, the RCMP wage increases that those officers were relying on in good faith have been rolled back.

I would like to know what the member's position is on that, as well as on the other collective agreement wage rollbacks that have been slipped in under the cover of this so-called economic action plan, which again simply is an attack on the rights of workers to collectively bargain.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member two questions.

The first one is on environmental assessments. We now know the government intends to add to the budget that was tabled originally, provisions that will decrease the ability to conduct environmental assessments on certain federal projects. Specifically, amendments will be made to the Navigable Waters Protection Act to so-called streamline the approval process and give more authority to the minister to allow construction without further environmental assessments. I would like to get the hon. member's comments on that.

The second one is on pay equity. The government once again is attempting to remove the ability of the women of this country employed by the public service to pursue pay equity claims before tribunals and courts. I would like to have her comments on that as well.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I agree completely that there are more efficient mechanisms to deliver infrastructure to the municipalities and I think sharing the gas tax revenue is a wonderful idea in that regard. It is a program that already exists and it can flow money more quickly. It actually allows the municipalities to get those moneys flowing and working faster.

I have in fact met with some of the mayors in the Lower Mainland. I met with the mayor or Burnaby, as a matter of fact, two weeks ago. I have meetings coming up with the mayor of Vancouver and the mayor of Richmond, who represent different parties, by the way.

Their message is the same. They are saying that in order to access these federal infrastructure funds, they have to match them. Municipalities generally do not have surpluses sitting there that they can put forward to attract this money. Therefore, one of their problems is that if they want this money, they will have to come up with it somehow, and they will be forced to either borrow the money or raise their mill rates, in which case they will have to raise taxes on their citizens.

I think it is rather deceptive of this government to crow about the tax cuts it is making, only to turn around and compel mayors of this country to raise taxes on their own citizens in order to access the money that this government brags it is making available.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the question is not whether there is anything in the budget for science and technology and research; it is whether or not there is sufficient money in the budget for science, research and technology.

If we were to ask the aerospace industry today if it thinks this budget provides enough support for the aerospace industry in this country, it will say no.

It has been notorious in this country over the last week and a half that genome research funding is completely unstable. Scientists and researchers associated with genome research in this country have publicly stated that they are unsure of the stability of the funding for the next couple of years.

I have read this budget. We have done a word search on this budget, and in terms of green technology, “solar power” does not come up once, “wind power” does not come up once and “photovoltaic power” does not come up once. Not one of the technologies that we need for the green technology sector is funded adequately by this budget.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, once again it is my privilege to address this budget on behalf of the residents and constituents of Vancouver Kingsway and all British Columbians and Canadians.

In general, this is a budget that can fairly and only be described as one of missed opportunities and misplaced targets. All Canadians know that the Canadian economy has, for months and months, been in need of stimulus that works on behalf of families. The budget could have been much more effective at providing this stimulus and much more helpful for Canadians but, unfortunately, once again the Conservative government has put right-wing ideology ahead of good and sound government.

There are a few good things in the budget and I would applaud the government for these measures. There are also some measures that go some distance and, although insufficient, do go in the right direction. However, the many bad aspects of this bill vastly outweigh those and I will point out some of them here today.

We will start with infrastructure. The government claimed that $12 billion were allocated for infrastructure in this budget, but that is not exactly accurate. This budget ties almost all of that money to matching contributions by other levels of government and, in some cases, to community members themselves, whether those are the provinces, the municipalities or, with the new RInC program, the communities raising funds.

Almost all of the funds targeted for infrastructure are conditional. For instance, I read carefully the language used in the budget and it explicitly says that there could be infrastructure money for the evergreen transit line, the SkyTrain in Vancouver. Although I hope that money will flow, there is nothing in this budget that actually obligates the federal government to do so.

There is a lot of red tape with respect to this infrastructure and a lot of this red tape surrounds the allocation of this money to provinces and municipalities that now must co-operate with the federal government in order to get this money flowing. I suspect, as in previous years, that many of these infrastructure dollars will actually not be delivered, notwithstanding the crowing that has been done by the opposite side that this money will be injected into the economy.

I turn next to science and research cuts. This budget, fairly read, can be said to have disappointed the scientific and research community in this country. Whether it is aerospace, genome research or green technology, such as solar, wind and geothermal to photovoltaic communities, all feel neglected by this budget.

This is disappointing because investing in green infrastructure not only is a positive way to stimulate our economy now and in the days ahead, but it would create the jobs of tomorrow. It is incredibly short-sighted that the government has failed in this opportunity to put moneys into these areas. Instead, it has put its money into what I think are two of the most misguided areas in the environmental movement in this country, and that is in carbon sequestration and in the nuclear energy industry.

From all of the reports and research with which I have come into contact, carbon storage is an unproven technology. And, of course, we all know that the problems with the nuclear industry and the difficulties in dealing adequately with the waste that is produced is no answer, as well as being an incredibly expensive way to generate energy.

The people of this country want a strong and sound environmental policy that focuses on renewable energy such as sun, wind, geothermal and tidal. These are the economic drivers of the future. This is what the Americans are doing in the United States. I deplore the fact that this budget seems to go in a different direction.

On tax cuts, just about every economist in the land has been unanimous that broad-based tax cuts are simply a weak way to stimulate the economy. For instance, 80% of the tax cut that goes to a middle class person will be used to pay down debt, be saved or be used to purchase offshore goods which will help to stimulate a different economy than ours. While some of it does in fact make its way into the Canadian domestic economy, a lot of that is leaked and that is why it is not considered to be an efficient use of tax dollars.

There were some good measures and I would pause to commend the government on its tax policy for small business. The increase in allowable income used for the low small business tax rate is a step in the right direction and will be of some use, particularly to businesses in Vancouver--Kingsway.

Employment insurance has to be commented on. I spent 16 years prior to coming to the House representing workers. I spent many hours and many days with people who had been laid off and who had experienced the hardship of losing a paycheque. Without any ideological basis or approach, I can say that the changes to the EI program simply miss the mark. What workers in this country need and deserve when they make an EI claim is to have EI funds applied from the day they lose their jobs, and not a two-week waiting period.

They deserve to have a rate that they can live on. Unlike many members of the House, I would venture to guess, I know what EI is like. I was on employment insurance 18 years ago. It was then called unemployment insurance. The rate I received was $409 a week 18 years ago. What is it today? It is approaching $450. There has been hardly any increase at all.

To expect people now to live on a maximum amount of $450 a week--and many workers get far less than that--simply enshrines a poverty level that I think is actually designed to make it very uncomfortable to be on EI and to force people back to work by making them live on poverty-level wages. These changes that the government has made to EI really do nothing to address this issue.

I also want to point out something that many other members of the House have pointed out already, which is that a shockingly low number of workers who pay into EI actually qualify for benefits.That is not only a national shame, it is a form of governmental fraud.

If a worker pays into an insurance plan and does not actually qualify for benefits, the worker might rightly ask what he or she is paying for. This is an insurance plan. Workers pay into it with their own money, as do their employers, so that when they are unemployed, they can draw on the money that they put into it. When they put money into a plan that at the end of the day rejects them when they make a claim, it is not in any way whatsoever an insurance plan.

These are the changes that Canadian workers and their families in this current economy need to be made to the Employment Insurance Act, and these are precisely the changes that have not been made by the government. Adding five weeks onto the end of a claim that one does not qualify for at low wages is not going to help hardly anyone.

I found out today that the cost to the government of that one change of adding five weeks to the end of unemployed workers' claims is estimated to be $11 million. A paltry $11 million has been allocated to the unemployed workers of this country. When billions of dollars in corporate tax cuts have been given to the banks and to big oil companies that are making a profit, that is a disgrace.

Another matter is housing. In my riding of Vancouver Kingsway, in Vancouver, and in British Columbia there is a crying need for affordable housing. We need more cooperatives, we need more rental stock. We need more social housing for low-income people, housing for seniors, seniors complexes, and housing for the disabled.

While there is some movement in the budget to provide some housing for low-income seniors and the disabled, the rest of the population that needs housing is shut out. That is a serious deficiency in the budget.

Not only that, a national housing strategy would also help stimulate the B.C. forestry sector. At a time when the B.C. forestry sector is experiencing one of the most difficult times in history, we could be stimulating it, putting mills back into operation, putting workers back to work and building the kind of housing Canadians need.

I want to briefly mention that the budget could be used and should be used to help many of the groups in my riding who are working every day to help people, from Collingwood Neighbourhood House to the Multicultural Helping House to the Cedar Cottage and Mount Pleasant neighbourhood houses to the Little Mountain social housing complex. These community-based developments require infrastructure funds, funds that would actually provide shovel-ready capital as well as drastically needed services to the members of our community. I want to take this opportunity to point out their good work to the House. With help from the federal government, we can actually help stimulate the economy in Vancouver Kingsway, in British Columbia and across the country.

I look forward to questions.