Ed Fast

[Business of Supply, February 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the member touched upon the issue of the Navigable Waters Protection Act. This act is 130 years old. There has been virtually no revision to that act since it was first introduced many years ago.

Our economic action plan takes steps to make sure that duplication is eliminated within that act, duplication of certain steps that have to be taken to preserve the environment. We are not eliminating environmental statutes; we are eliminating duplication of processes.

I had the fortune of sitting on the transportation committee in the previous Parliament. Unfortunately this rookie member was not able to participate. Only one witness appeared before that committee who opposed the changes we wanted, and that one witness agreed that the Navigable Waters Protection Act is not an environment statute, unlike what the NDP member has suggested.

I would ask her this: has she gone back and familiarized herself with the committee evidence that dealt with this particular issue, and would she go back and read the economic action plan and understand what our proposal actually will do for investment in Canada?

[Racism, February 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the editor of Le Québécois, a French language newspaper, has threatened violence against Quebecers. The editor has advocated that a Quebec radio station be burned down, and yet the Bloc continues to finance this racist newspaper.

The same newspaper has also made unfounded allegations that Jean Charest wants to increase immigration in order to turn francophone Quebecers into a minority, thereby hurting the cause of separatism in Quebec. This newspaper even made racist remarks against President Obama. In its last edition, Pierre Falardeau wondered why everyone compares Barack Obama to JFK. He instead proposed that the president be compared to Lassie the dog, and yet the Bloc continues to finance this bigoted newspaper.

The Bloc only cut its ties to this newspaper after it was exposed by the courageous work of the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs.

Racism and extremism of this kind have no place in our country. I ask the House to condemn these Bloc-funded extremists.

[Business of Supply, February 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the member asked that we take notice of the message from the last election. It is pretty clear from the last election that this government was given an even stronger mandate to govern this country. Clearly, Canadians trusted us to serve them well. A lesson he should have learned from this last election was that the Liberal Party suffered its worst defeat ever. He may want to reconsider that question and that challenge.

The member made a suggestion or allegation that the distribution of infrastructure funding was unfair. In fact, he has actually issued a list of ridings that he claims are Conservative ridings that received funding to the exclusion of some Liberal ridings. I looked at the list and I noticed that he referred to Kenora as being Conservative, yet when infrastructure funding was delivered, that riding was a Liberal riding. The same holds trust for Saint John, New Brunswick, and Fredericton.

Is the hon. member not getting off on the wrong foot as a rookie MP by making suggestions that misrepresent the facts, and would he correct the record for the House?

[Committees of the House, February 23rd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, your committee has considered the proposed appointment of Brian J. Saunders as the Director of Public Prosecutions pursuant to the order of reference of February 4, 2009, and subsection 4(4) of the Director of Public Prosecutions Act.

I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the second report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. I am pleased to report that the committee has considered the question of the proposed appointment of Brian J. Saunders to the position of Director of Public Prosecutions and has agreed to approve the appointment.

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

Mr. Speaker, the former Liberal government was famous for initiating ideas but many times it had difficulty bringing them to fruition. I am glad our government will be taking something, which will be very good for the safety of Canadians, and actually putting it into law. I also am glad to hear that the member is tentatively supporting the legislation.

I must say that in the past Parliament he and I served on the transportation committee together where we did a lot of good work, and he had a lot to do with that. There was a significant degree of consensus on the work that we did. In fact, I think he is probably more Conservative than he is prepared to admit.

One of the studies on which we had a great degree of consensus, which was related somewhat to the bill we have before us today, was rail safety. As members know, we had a number of very high profile derailments across Canada, some cases leading to the degradation of wildlife and fisheries resources, some cases leading to the loss of life and other cases leading to significant disruption of communities, and we were able to come up with some consensus recommendations in our rail study.

How does the member see the work that we did on the rail study as complementing the work that we are now doing on the transportation of dangerous goods, which is before us today as Bill C-9.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 12th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, my question follows up on the question asked by the member for Vancouver Quadra. It is very similar.

The NDP talks about assisting workers and talks about providing stimulus to the economy. What is it going to do? It is going to vote against a budget that significantly extends unemployment insurance benefits, contains a substantial increase in work-sharing programs, contains a $12 billion infrastructure injection as a stimulus to our economy and provides assistance for the hardest-hit industries in Canada.

How can the member go back to his constituents and to Canadians and say that despite all that assistance and a major injection into our economy, he and his party are going to vote against it? How can he justify that?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 12th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, during the member's speech he mentioned navigable waters, and rightly so. As we know, the current Navigable Waters Protection Act is over 100 years old and has not been substantially revised for many years. Many people across Canada, including municipalities, have seen this act as being an impediment to getting infrastructure built. It has resulted in significant delays in projects where there is a duplication of environmental reviews.

I was a member of the transportation committee that actually did a review of the Navigable Waters Protection Act and some of the issues related to it. Since the member raised the issue and also expressed some concern that some modes of access would be blocked as a result of changes to the act, I would ask him to expand on that and explain how the act presently supports his position? How would changes to bring it up to date after 100 years would fly in the face of our efforts to get infrastructure projects built in this country that are so desperately needed to make sure that our economy gets the boost it needs right now?

[Committees of the House, February 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the first report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. I am pleased to report that the committee has considered the supplementary estimates B under justice for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2009, and reports the same.

[Business of Supply, February 5th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, that question clearly betrays the NDP ideology behind every position it takes on trade.

As we know the NDP is alone in the House of Commons in speaking out in favour of building silos of protection around the world, including Canada. The NDP members oppose free trade. They opposed NAFTA, for crying out loud. They do not believe in free trade.

Canada is a trading nation, one of the greatest trading nations in the world. In fact, all the evidence proves that since the North American Free Trade Agreement was adopted and ratified, trade between Canada and the United States has almost tripled. That is the greatest trade news Canadians could have expected. We far exceeded the expectations that we had when NAFTA was actually implemented.

I know the member's ideology puts him into a straitjacket. We will never get any other kind of a position from the NDP or from that member, but I am pleased to say that we have been able to garner the support not only of our own party but the Liberals support us and the Bloc supports us.

Canada is a free trading nation. Quite frankly, we have to so everything we can to maintain those trade relationship ties with our American cousins to the south.

[Business of Supply, February 5th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I am disappointed that the member is not focusing on the very motion that is before us today which is a motion that requests that the government move forward in ensuring that trade barriers are not erected by the United States. That is the motion.

I would be pleased to comment a little on some of the things that our government has been doing. The Prime Minister has been engaged in this issue. We know that our international trade minister was in Davos and is continuing to engage with many of the trade representatives from around the world including the United States.

We have heard from the President of the United States that he opposes trade barriers and protectionism of the sort that is being proposed by the House of Representatives. We know that there have been some amendments made in the House of Representatives. We also know that the senate is really concerned about this proposal of buy American which would restrict trade with Canada.

I believe we are making significant progress. I am pleased the Prime Minister and our government are engaged in this very serious issue.