Francis Scarpaleggia

[Petitions, November 5th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, recently a group of constituents known as Canadians for Justice in the Middle East visited me in my riding office and requested that I present this petition which deals with the Israeli security barrier and its impact on life in the region.

[Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994, November 2nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise today to speak on this bill, which is so beneficial to our environment, to our wildlife, and, as the honourable member mentioned a few moments ago, to our economy.

I know this bill will please a scientist I know, Lynn Miller, who runs an organization called Le Nichoir, which is not far from my riding, in the village of Hudson, Quebec. Her organization is dedicated to rehabilitating damaged birds. She has done a great deal of research on the impact on birds of exposure to crude oil. She has come up with some excellent findings as to the possible effects of crude oil exposure on humans. If she continues her research, she may be able to draw some conclusions about risks that perhaps those who work on oil rigs and so on may be exposed to.

I would like to tell the House a story about a covert operation off the coast of Newfoundland. It is nighttime and the middle of winter. A ship has left port. Its captain has decided not to pay the $1,000 or so it would cost to empty the waste oil in the water from the engine room bilges. He is following the directions of his operators. This ship has a schedule to meet, and it must not waste time. The ship gets about a hundred nautical miles out of port. Those in the engine room know they should be using oily water separators to get the oil out of the waste water, but they have a schedule to keep and they need to press on. What do they do? They dump it overboard, oil and all. They go on their way under the cover of darkness. What is a little oil in the great big ocean? Isn't business important?

Well, a little oil is a pretty big deal. That seemingly small amount of oil disperses through the water in the cold Atlantic from November to March. The oil comes in contact with millions of seabirds that share the shipping lanes with those big ships.

The oil spot attaches itself to the feathers of a puffin. When the cold of the Atlantic Ocean starts to seep in, the bird struggles against the cold but it cannot, because its defences have been broken down. It finds it hard to move. It finds it hard to eat. This puffin might struggle for two days before it dies. Eventually it washes up on shore.

This story plays itself out so many times over the course of a winter that some 300,000 seabirds die, and that is just off the Avalon peninsula of Newfoundland.

And we have to know that the oil in the water is also affecting the plankton, the plant life, the fish, the crustaceans—anything that makes its home off our coasts.We are not proud of this story. But it happens because the risk of detection and the potential fine for that ship operator is so low that he does not mind running the risk of being caught.

It happens because our technology is not being put to best use so we can see that slick behind the boat after the bilge water goes overboard.It happens because we need to make stronger these two environmental laws with this bill before us.

That’s all we have to do; amend two good pieces of legislation so we can strengthen our enforcement tools, make the fines higher, get the science and technology to better work, and above all establish accountability for those who make these decisions.

I urge the hon. members to support this bill before us.It is time for us to bring these stories to an end. This is our opportunity, and perhaps with swift action we can see fewer such stories written as early as the winter of 2005.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to divide my time with the member for York South—Weston.

It is a great honour and privilege for me to stand here today for the first time to address my colleagues from all parties on behalf of the citizens of Lac-Saint-Louis, a riding that encompasses the western most part of the island of Montreal and that borders on the St. Lawrence River, one of the world's great waterways and once the doorway to the earlier discovery of an entire continent.

Before I deliver my thoughts on the throne speech, I would like to formally thank my electors for the confidence and trust they invested in me on June 28 and to reiterate my commitment to serve them to the fullest of my capabilities.

I wish to assure my constituents that I will make every effort to live up to the honour they have given me by electing me to represent them in the House of Commons.

I would also like to point out the contribution made by my predecessor, Clifford Lincoln, to the life of this House for more than 10 years. Not only was he a champion of environmental causes, but he also earned the respect of all stakeholders in broadcasting, arts and culture in his capacity as chair of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

I would like to underscore the integrity, dedication, diplomacy and vision Clifford Lincoln brought to parliament hill, and to many other aspects of his years of ongoing public service to Canada.

Community life is at the heart of the life of a country. Major events or simply the events in our daily lives find their deepest meaning within the framework of clearly defined local communities, be they city, town or neighbourhood. Our daily trips to work or school, whether by car or public transportation, are dependent on an infrastructure that is created and maintained by local government, often with the financial support of another level of government with greater revenues or borrowing power.

The government's communities initiative is recognition of the vital importance of community to our national life. It is also an expression of the fact that we Canadians often distinguish ourselves from our neighbours to the south by the quality of life of our cities and towns.

I subscribe to the premise that geography influences culture, in subtle and sometimes mysterious ways. The residents of my riding, some of them there for generations, have been profoundly marked by life in this majestic St. Lawrence and Great Lakes ecosystem.

I like to believe that, like all Canadians, we on Montreal's west island have learned to respect the beauty of our natural environment, but also to understand that nature, like other forces greater than ourselves, such as the forces of economic and technological change, often have a random quality that requires us as individuals to look to each other for help and support. I like to believe that on Montreal's west island geographic reality has somehow led us to develop strong communitarian values.

One of the most powerful expressions of community caring is how we as individuals come together in the aid of those who are vulnerable, especially those who are vulnerable because of illness or handicap, physical or mental, temporary or chronic.

In my riding there is an extraordinary network of volunteer community groups dedicated to the well-being of our fellow citizens in need. This network was created through the efforts of tireless volunteers, many of whom are now seniors. What they accomplished in developing the volunteer sector in my region, they did at the time without government subsidies, for the most part. These pioneers of the volunteer sector were, on many levels, the first to encourage governments to become involved financially in what is now called the social economy.

I am thus heartened that the government in the throne speech has included a commitment to enhancing the lives of Canadian seniors.

In addition to its numerous community clinics and med stops, my riding of Lac-Saint-Louis includes the only federally owned and operated hospital in Canada, the Ste-Anne's Hospital, a true centre of excellence in the area of post traumatic stress syndrome and related illnesses. The citizens I represent are deeply committed to the federal government's role in administering Ste-Anne's Hospital.

In addition to the Ste-Anne Veterans Hospital, my riding includes the Lakeshore general hospital, which serves Montreal's west island and the region from Lac des Deux-Montagnes to the Ontario border.

Those who administer Lakeshore Hospital, including its excellent staff of doctors and nurses, have doggedly pursued the Hospital's expansion and modernization to accommodate the needs of a growing community. Last year the hospital received capital funding for a new state of the art ambulatory care centre complete with operating theatres. However, because of operating funding constraints, the centre is not being used to maximum capacity. It is my sincere hope that the recent health accord will benefit Lakeshore Hospital through the additional funding it will provide to the provinces, in this case the Province of Quebec.

I would also like to commend this government for its increasingly comprehensive vision for health care, a vision that goes beyond the traditional approach by also focusing on home care and end of life care.

I should also mention, in connection with end of life care, that my community is increasingly well known for its new West Island Palliative Care Residence. Like the Lakeshore Hospital that sits adjacent to it, the residence has become a hub of volunteerism providing a new impetus to the volunteer spirit throughout Montreal's west island. The residence, created through the persistent and inspired advocacy of its executive director, Teresa Dellar, and supported by the tenacious efforts of former member of the national assembly, Russell Williams, is a beacon of hope for individuals and their families who must deal with the realities of terminal illness.

I am sure that many Canadians are pleased with the government's emphasis on the environment in the Speech from the Throne. Environmental policies go beyond environmental protection and the health of Canadians; they are also at the heart of social justice.

The throne speech's focus on the Arctic is a concrete sign of the government's desire to link environmental and social justice issues for Canada's aboriginal peoples. Scientific study has shown that much of the toxic pollution that originates in areas far away from the Arctic finds its way through wind currents into the fragile Arctic ecosystem and enters the food chain of those who inhabit the north.

I am proud to say that an institute in my riding, the Centre for Indigenous Peoples' Nutrition and Environment, is engaged in research on the state of the traditional food systems of Canada's aboriginal peoples, including the Inuit in the north. I am also proud of the role an organization such as this, located in my riding, can play in advancing the government's priorities in northern Canada.

Canada has always taken a broad view of the concept of community. For Canadians, the word multilateralism flows naturally. It does not elicit the fear of having our identity submerged in the larger world because Canada is a reflection of the larger world. We have never been a homogenous society. Ours is a society first populated by native Canadians and by those French and English speakers who came later, and now includes people from every corner of the globe, many of them fluent in both of Canada's official languages as well as their own.

In conclusion, democracy is one of the greatest gifts our predecessors have bestowed upon us.

Throughout history, there has been no shortage of controversial topics that Canadians, and we as their elected MPs, have had to address. This will certainly be the case in this 38th Parliament.

I am afraid, however, that we might lose sight of the fact that our democratic institutions were created to allow individuals and groups to deal with issues, that are at times emotional and divisive, in a constructive manner and in a context of respect and understanding for one another.

Democratic dialogue permits the recognition of the value and legitimacy of the opinions of the other, the realization that even though we may not agree with our colleague, he or she is motivated by the same intellectual honesty and good faith we are. It is this realization that ultimately allows us to move on, and once a matter has been democratically decided, to work together to resolve other issues on which we might better agree.

It is this spirit of mutual understanding and respect that I hope will guide us through this 38th Parliament.