Don Davies

[Fish Labelling Act, March 25th, 2009]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-347, An Act respecting the Labelling of Fish.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce a bill concerning the labelling of seafood products.

My bill would mandate producers and importers to place a label on all seafood products identifying them as either farmed or wild. This is particularly important with respect to salmon on the west coast of our country. Many of us want to make health conscious choices but, when it comes to seafood and salmon, there is little information available for us to make an informed choice. In many cases, farmed shellfish have a large environmental impact and wild fish is often better for the environment.

This bill is a major step in allowing families to choose what they eat and what they feed their children. Many people want to choose wild fish but are unable to make an informed decision.

A number of organizations, such as Living Oceans Society, which is a great advocate of healthy and sustainable seas, have called for legislation like this. I support their calls and urge all members to vote in favour of my bill.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Country of Origin Labelling Act, March 25th, 2009]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-346, An Act respecting Country of Origin Labelling.

Mr. Speaker, I want to deeply thank my hon. colleague from across the floor for his demonstration of grace and collegiality. I appreciate that.

I am honoured to rise today to introduce a bill that would mandate the labelling of country of origin on all food products.

Currently, the system of labelling is haphazard and unclear. Country of origin does not always mean that. It could mean the country of assembly or the country of origin of some ingredients. Families cannot make informed choices about the foods they buy. Perhaps they want to buy Canadian or perhaps they want to avoid food from a certain country for ethical or health reasons or even buy food from a particular country to support producers there. They may wish to buy fair trade or support locally grown products but they currently are unable to make these choices. My bill would give consumers a voice and that is something that all members should support.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Petitions, March 25th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order to seek the unanimous consent of the House to revert back to the introduction of private members' bills.

[Italian-Canadian Recognition and Restitution Act, March 24th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak tonight to Bill C-302, An Act to recognize the injustice that was done to persons of Italian origin through their “enemy alien” designation and internment during the Second World War, and to provide for restitution and promote education on Italian-Canadian history.

The New Democrats are pleased to support this bill and to help move this through Parliament.

On September 3, 1939, the Government of Canada issued regulations that empowered the minister of justice with the full authority to act as he chose to destroy any sign of subdivision during a time of war. This allowed him to detain, without trial, any person and created a class of aliens who were not foreign nationals but were Canadian citizens.

On June 10, 1940, Italy declared war on Canada. That very evening Prime Minister Mackenzie King announced that he had ordered the internment of hundreds of Italian Canadians identified by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as enemy aliens. That order was applied to Italians who became British subjects after September 1, 1922.

The government also established a judicial mechanism to administer internment proceedings. It passed an order in council which ensured the registration of all people of Italian birth. Furthermore the office of the custodian of alien property was authorized to confiscate the property of enemy aliens.

Like the internment of Japanese Canadians, Ukrainian Canadians, German Canadians and others, the forced registration and internment of Italian Canadians is a sad chapter in our history.

The RCMP rounded up approximately 700 Italian Canadians, often separating fathers from their children and husbands from their families. Seventeen thousand people were designated as enemy aliens in our country for no reason other than their birth.

There was no reason to suspect that those interned posed any threat to Canada or Canadians. In fact, many of them were first world war veterans who had fought for their adopted country. It was not uncommon for instance for men in uniform to come back home only to find that family members were interned.

The round-up of Italian Canadians was virtually completed by October 1940. Most of them were sent to Camp Petawawa situated in the Ottawa River Valley. It is difficult to establish exactly how many Italian Canadians were interned, although estimates range from 600 to 700.

Although the majority of those interned were from the areas of highest concentrations of Italian Canadians at that time, Montreal, Toronto and other centres in Ontario, there were also documented cases from western Canada.

Internment was brutal. Families could not visit or write interned people for the first year. Italian Canadians were penalized financially. A spontaneous boycott of Italian businesses whipped up by the prejudices of the times took place throughout Canada and provincial governments ordered municipalities to terminate relief payments to non-naturalized Italians. Travel restrictions were imposed on Italian Canadians. Their ability to occupy certain jobs was prohibited. Italian Canadians were forced to report on a monthly basis to the RCMP. Activities such as the teaching of the Italian language and meetings of the Roma Society were declared illegal.

Internment was for up to three years and the average interned person was held for almost sixteen months. To put some feelings to this, these are not just numbers. The people interned were doctors, lawyers, carpenters, bakers, contractors and priests. For families, of course, it was just as bad if not worse. These actions added to the psychological scars inflicted by constant harassment and ridicule from neighbours and co-workers and the fearmongering being perpetrated by elected officials.

The federal government went further. It froze bank accounts. It forced Italian Canadian families to subsist on $12 a month. Many Italian families were forced to sell homes, businesses and valuable assets.

Despite this, a number of Italian Canadians enlisted in the Canadian armed forces, some in an attempt to remove the stigma associated with the term “illegal alien”. Not one person was ever charged with sabotage or any act of disloyalty. We must acknowledge and make amends for that black chapter in Canadian history.

In 1990 the National Congress of Italian-Canadians outlined these injustices in a brief sent to then Prime Minister Mulroney. It wanted the injustice acknowledged, compensation paid and an apology.

Various steps have been taken to acknowledge and make amends for this disgraceful treatment. Former Prime Minister Mulroney did indeed apologize in 1990. He spoke about reparations. Former Prime Minister Paul Martin also promised reparations. Sadly, many of these commitments were simply empty promises. Despite these words, money has never really flown.

Money was announced with great fanfare and media attention, but successive governments did not think it was worthwhile to dedicate the time and energy to follow up on honouring their pledges and ensuring that Italian Canadians could access these funds.

In June 2008, just prior to the election I might add, the minister of Canadian heritage announced $5 million through a community historical recognition program that was specifically targeted to the Italian community for monuments, plaques, and community recognition projects around this issue.

I have spoken to members in the Italian Canadian community and to the National Congress of Italian-Canadians. Many did not even know about this fund; even fewer have applied for access to it. I cannot locate anybody who has received $1 from this fund, despite the fact that it was announced.

New Democrats support the bill because it seeks to raise awareness, educate our young people, and ensure that we never forget the terrible steps that we took in the name of national security. We must remember our actions during times of war because we face similar issues today.

It is not very long ago that we saw the actions of former President George Bush in the United States, in fact, actions that were copied by the previous Conservative and Liberal governments. We are well advised to guard our civil liberties today and in times of war or apprehended insurrection, because those are the times when our civil liberties are at risk.

These Italian victims would want this and their descendants today want this. We have a new term today for what happened in 1940, it is called racial profiling. People were rounded up simply because of their ethnicity. There is a lesson in that, when racial profiling is going on in 2009 in this country. We had better be vigilant to make sure that we stop it here today.

I would like to mention a few people who have done a great amount of work in this area. Mr. Elio Quattrocchi is a tireless and respected member of the Italian Canadian community in Vancouver. I want to speak about the people who work at Casa Serena, a home for seniors who come together in culture and recreation. I want to mention the thriving businesses on Commercial Drive, run by the same Italian entrepreneurs who were rounded up in 1940. I would like to mention the tireless efforts of the National Congress of Italian-Canadians.

There are other people, too. I would like to mention Mr. Victor Wong from the Chinese Canadian National Council, who has fought for redress and is still fighting for redress for full and adequate compensation for the families of Chinese head tax payers.

I was not in the last Parliament, but I understand the power of apology, redress and acknowledgment. I am told that during the residential schools apology, this was one of the most moving moments ever felt by members of Parliament.

The New Democrats and the CCF have stood alone in this country over the decades against internment and the War Measures Act and in favour of civil liberties. We New Democrats will do so again today and are proud to do it. We will stand and support this bill to ensure that Italian Canadians--

[Business of Supply, March 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, beginning in 1995, the Chrétien Liberals unilaterally cut $25 billion from transfers to the provinces for post-secondary education and other programs. The Liberals will say this is ancient history but they would be wrong, because the effects of these responses to short-sighted planning by the Liberals are still being felt to this day, and of course their support for this current budget is assisting the Conservatives in cutting hundreds of millions of dollars in primary research in this budget.

I wonder what my hon. colleague from Quebec's opinion would be on this matter.

[Business of Supply, March 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I was reading an email earlier from Rosemary Cornell, a professor at the department of molecular biology and biochemistry at SFU. She stated:

The new budget is continuing to decimate science research. The $175,000 committed to the Canadian Foundation for Innovation is TOTALLY MISDIRECTED. What researchers need is a huge increase in operating funds, as Obama is doing in the States. We have enough empty buildings full of instruments that are not running because there are no positions for technicians to do so...The capturing of bright lights from the States that we have been seeing in the last few years is going to do a 180 degree shift, and we will once again see bright Canadian researchers heading south.

I wonder what my hon. colleague's opinion of this is. Does he have any comments on the current budget and its allocation of operating funds for research?

[Business of Supply, March 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, with the greatest of respect to the previous questioner, I am looking at statistics that show that the Liberals cut funding for NSERC and SSHRC by $179 million over three years in the mid-1990s and cut $25 billion in funding to the provinces. So I just do not see it lying in their mouths to stand up for research in this country.

I had an email from one of my constituents, Rosemary Cornell, who is a professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry. In short, she says that scientists would rather have an increase in operating funds to NSERC and CIHR than to CFI.

[Business of Supply, March 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, over the past several weeks I have been reviewing the budget, and I do want to commend the government for allocating infrastructure money to many of the buildings on campuses across the country. That is a positive step.

I am also a strong proponent of all post-secondary institutions in our country. In my riding and in my city, we have Langara College, Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia. All are important places of learning and are critical to our economy.

From my reading of budget 2009 it seems to cut almost $150 million over three years from NSERC, SSHRC and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research. I am just wondering if my reading of this budget is incorrect in this regard. I would be curious to hear the member's comments to enlighten me in this respect.

[Business of Supply, March 5th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, Canada lost 129,000 jobs in January alone. British Columbia lost 18,000 manufacturing jobs alone. B.C. has lost 35,000 jobs in January in total. I want to mention that many of those workers are from the immigrant communities, where recessions tend to hit those communities hardest and first.

A New Democratic government in British Columbia would put the interests of those workers and those families first, which would be a refreshing change from the current government in British Columbia.

[Business of Supply, March 5th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his astute and sensitive observations on behalf of working Canadians.

He is absolutely right about the amount of time. However, I would respectfully suggest that it is even longer than four weeks. The employment insurance administrators have a guideline, a benchmark, of trying to get cheques processed within 28 days of a claim being filed. However, I think it is well known among most Canadians and members of the House that they are having an extremely difficult time meeting that and, in fact, are not getting cheques to Canadians for even weeks after that. Therefore, my hon. colleague is absolutely right that Canadians are facing periods of five, six or seven weeks before they get cheques. Once again, that is if they get them at all because the majority of Canadians will not see any cheque at all.

I also want to talk a bit about what those people face in that five or six week period. My hon. colleague mentioned them having to live on credit cards, and that is exactly true.

I am familiar with many local organizations. The union I worked for, the Teamsters Union, Local 31, 213, 155, 464, the operating engineers, the specialized construction workers, the CAW, CUPE, HEW, all of those unions face members, and even workers who are not members of those unions, coming to them for assistance. They ask if they can have a loan or if there is a benevolent fund. Many times unions will go into their treasuries to help those workers get through the five or six weeks, without pay, to subsidize what should be a sacred right in our country, what should be a safety net that these workers have paid for and have come to expect.

I will conclude my answer to the question by saying this is an insurance program. This is not charity. Workers pay into this program. It comes off their cheque every two weeks. They have a right to receive this money. It is not a privilege.