Ève Péclet

[Safe and Accountable Rail Act, March 31st, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the legislation is indeed extremely important. However, the government's main responsibility is to enforce it. My colleague touched on that in her speech and I hope she will elaborate on it.

What we are passing today is fine. However, given that budgets have been reduced considerably and that only one inspector has been hired since the Lac-Mégantic disaster, how exactly does the government intend to ensure Canadians' safety with respect to rail transportation if it does not allocate the resources needed and implement very significant measures to enforce the law?

Providing reassurance is fine, but first and foremost we want to prevent accidents. We do not just want to address the problems caused by accidents. I would like my colleague to speak about this issue.

[Safe and Accountable Rail Act, March 31st, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, legislation is definitely extremely important. Without legislation, we have no laws to implement. Parliament has to legislate, but the government has a fundamental role to play when it comes to implementing the law. It has to ensure that the law is enforced.

In its last number of budgets, the government allocated far fewer resources to inspection and enforcement at Transport Canada. As my colleague said, since the Lac-Mégantic tragedy, only one extra inspector has been hired. There is a serious problem regarding not only the legislation, but also its implementation.

I would like my colleague to elaborate a bit more on the government's true willingness to ensure rail safety for Canadians.

[The Economy, March 30th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, can someone remind the Minister of Finance that he is still on the clock until October 19? He still has some work to do, such as tabling a budget.

Canadians are anxious to see how the government will try to whitewash all of the bad news about our economy: the drop in oil prices; the deteriorating job market; the loss of good jobs in favour of precarious, part-time jobs; and the closing of many businesses including Mexx, Jacob, Target and now Future Shop.

The provinces are struggling with the same problems, yet they have managed to present budgets. Why can the Minister of Finance not present his?

If he is short on ideas, I invite him to come talk to us. Every day the NDP makes suggestions to help Canadians, and we will implement these ideas in our budget in 2016.

[Military Contribution Against ISIL, March 26th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I know that my colleague touched on this a bit in his speech, but the government has been rather restrained in its approach since the beginning of the civil war in Syria. It did not provide the necessary help to places like Turkey and Lebanon, neighbouring countries that took in millions of refugees. The government's approach paled in comparison to its allies in terms of pressuring Russia and China and trying to get a resolution passed at the Security Council.

The government has truly abandoned Syria since the start of the current conflict there. That is partly why we are in this quagmire. Then the government comes to Parliament to tell us that there is no other solution, no other choice but to bomb Syria.

Could the government not have been proactive before coming to Parliament to tell us that bombing is the only solution? I would like my colleague to talk about the government's approach.

[Military Contribution Against ISIL, March 26th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I remember debating the government's position on the war in Syria a few years ago in the House. The government refused to pressure Russia and China into helping Syria, where civil war had just broken out. It even refused to help the neighbouring countries, such as Turkey and Lebanon, which are currently taking in millions and millions of Syrian refugees.

The government was unable to be proactive about that conflict and now it is telling us this is the only solution there is. It refused to act in the early days of the Syrian conflict and, four years later, it is telling us there is no other choice. It refused to be proactive about the conflict, refused to help the countries that were helping Syria, and refused to pressure its own allies into passing a UN Security Council resolution on Syria.

Now, here are the Conservatives, trying to teach us a lesson, but we have no lessons to learn from them. I would like my colleague to say a few words about.

[Employment, March 24th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, this government brags about defending the economy and creating jobs. Unfortunately, all it has to show for its claims is photo ops. The reality on the ground is quite different, including in my riding, La Pointe-de-l'Île.

It is not just the manufacturing sector that is closing its doors. The entire job market is becoming unstable. The jobs that are available are precarious, part-time, low-paying positions. Add to that the growing household debt of families struggling to make ends meet. The alarm has been sounded. Even CIBC has informed us that the employment quality index is at a record low.

An NDP government would work hard to help middle-class families pull through.

[Business of Supply, March 24th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is amazing. I know the environment file in general concerns her very much.

I am a bit worried because the two parliamentary secretaries who spoke earlier talked about health effects on humans as being a de facto condition of a substance being written down in Canadian law for the protection of the environment. However, article 64 says that the risk can be posed to the environment or to human health.

I am not sure if the government members understand that these are not two conditions that have to be met together, but that they are different conditions. It is either a health condition on human beings or on human health in general, or environmental risks. Would my colleague comment on that?

[Business of Supply, March 24th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I am extremely pleased to learn that the government is going to support our motion.

I think that my hon. colleague opposite understands that we are not saying that these plastic microbeads are dangerous if used on one's skin.

However, would she agree that we do not let people throw their plastic bags or any other garbage made of plastic into our waterways and that we should do exactly the same thing for all types of plastic waste, which, as we know, pollutes our environment and is dangerous for our ecosystems?

Does she also agree that we should act as quickly as possible to ban all types of plastic from our waterways, as we do with plastic bags and other plastic waste?

[Ethics, March 23rd, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians have the right to know the truth. The report from the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner could not answer all the questions about funding for the Markham community centre. The minister even received a letter from the Minister of the Environment asking her to fund the project. Oddly enough, that letter has disappeared.

When correspondence between two ministers disappears, that always raises suspicions. Can the minister help us find that letter and get to the bottom of this?

[Ethics, March 12th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, what the Minister of Employment and Social Development is describing is exactly what the Minister of Public Works and Government Services did.

Since the ethics commissioner's damning report was released, memory loss has run rampant. The minister says she does not recall talking to Nigel Wright, and the Prime Minister does not even remember the project.

However, it was important enough for three of his ministers and two of his close advisors to intervene on behalf of a good friend of the Prime Minister and overturn a decision made by departmental officials.

If that is not favouritism, then how does the Prime Minister explain the fact that three ministers and two staffers got involved in awarding a grant?