Guy Caron

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, September 17th, 2012]

With regard to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ (DFO) Small Craft Harbours Program: (a) what is the complete list of ports (in the province of Quebec) targeted for divestiture by DFO under the Divestiture Class Grant Program (SCH-DCGP) and the planned or desired timeframe for the divestiture; (b) has the Rimouski Wharf already been considered under the Program (SCH DCGP), and why; (c) what are the criteria used to determine which port facilities qualify under the Divestiture Class Grant Program; (d) generally speaking, what are the definitions of “core fishing harbour”, (ii) “non-core fishing harbour”, (iii) “recreational harbour”, (iv) “multi-purpose harbour”; and (e) under what law or regulations does DFO classify a port facility using these definitions?

[Fisheries and Oceans, September 17th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, Conservative attacks on science do not stop at the experimental lakes.

Everyone in eastern Quebec has been very concerned because an unusually high number of baby belugas, fish and Northern gannets have been found dead in the St. Lawrence ecosystem.

While experts are looking for answers, the Conservatives have fired two-thirds of the scientists in the ecotoxicology department at the Maurice Lamontagne Institute, which studies marine polluters, and they want to shut down the entire department within two years, even though they were the ones who opened it in 2007.

Do the Conservatives not understand that their cuts to science are hurting the entire country?

[Parks Canada, June 21st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, we are fortunate in my riding to have a tourism jewel, the Pointe-au-Père Lighthouse National Historic Site.

The existing agreement provided low-cost service to Parks Canada and let thousands of tourists visit the site. However, Parks Canada has slapped the site managers in the face by taking over management of the port of Pointe-au-Père. Hours will be reduced, the season will be shortened and fees will double, all because management of the port is being taken away from an organization that has done a great job for 30 years.

Will the Minister of Tourism commit to review this ill-considered decision by Parks Canada?

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 18th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I heard the government member talk about the scope of the consultations that took place. It is not the first time I hear this. They talk about 70 hours in committee. That is 50 hours at the Standing Committee on Finance and 20 hours at the subcommittee.

However, we have to keep in mind that some 70 acts were either added, abolished or amended. If we had followed the usual process and spent about five hours in committee to review each piece of legislation—usually, it is much more than five hours—the various committees would have spent 350 hours reviewing the scope of these changes.

I wonder if the member for Don Valley West could elaborate on this. Does he not agree that 70 hours to review this bill is much less than the minimum of 350 hours that would have been required to review these changes in an appropriate fashion?

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 18th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I have two questions to ask the hon. member who just finished speaking.

I am particularly interested in telecommunications. I worked in public policy in that field.

I think two aspects of the budget and the budget implementation bill pose a real problem. The first concerns auctions and involves the decision to forget the good we did in the last auction, in 2007—if I remember correctly, it was the AWS spectrum—and to allow set asides, the band frequencies reserved for new entrants so that they can be competitive. The government's decision will give the three companies—Bell, Telus and Rogers—a major advantage over new entrants, which is quite problematic.

The second aspect concerns the provision allowing companies with less than 10% of the market to be sold to foreign interests. What will happen if a company—such as Vidéotron or WIND Mobile—is eventually bought and attains 15% of the market, while another company, such as Bell, Telus or Rogers, drops to 15%? Will these two companies play with different rules, even though they have the share of the market?

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 18th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the member gets it. The government does not.

In my speech I mentioned that this is an anti-jobs bill. In fact, the budget itself will directly eliminate 19,000 jobs. If we include the provisions that are not in the budget, but that are consistent with the undermining efforts already started by the government, it is closer to over 30,000 jobs. It is anti-growth because the government’s policies, in both the budget and the budget implementation bill, will lead to a 1% drop in the GDP.

The government brags about its accomplishments. It says that we urgently need to continue going in the same direction as this bill, but this does not make any sense for all Canadians, especially those who are working, but also those who, unfortunately, are currently not working for reasons very often beyond their control.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 18th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know where to begin.

How nice that the parliamentary secretary thinks he can rewrite history to say that the NDP is going to filibuster or speak out on this. No, the NDP only does that when we have good reason to do so. The NDP opposes not only the provisions of Bill C-38 but also its undemocratic nature and the manner in which it was introduced.

I called this the anti-jobs, anti-growth, anti-prosperity bill, and that is exactly what it is. The parliamentary secretary must realize that we need to have these debates not only for discussion in this House, but for all Canadians. They have a right to know that decisions are being made transparently and responsibly. They have a right to understand the debate on the various issues. That is what the government refuses to do.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 18th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, that also raises an interesting question.

As everyone probably knows, I am a member of the Standing Committee on Finance. We spent about 50 hours studying those provisions. It was really odd and surreal; some experts talked about employment insurance and then the next expert talked about the Inspector General of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Then we talked about the Fisheries Act, followed by old age security. So we did not really have an opportunity to focus on one particular issue.

In my opinion, one factor in particular really raises some questions about the government's approach. Specific legislation will be created on the interoperability of Canadian and American police forces in Canadian territorial waters. In co-operation with the RCMP, the FBI could make arrests in Canadian waters.

The government said this had to be adopted now, because it had to do with an international treaty, a long-standing agreement that had to be ratified. The Senate and the House have tried to ratify it on two separate occasions. The government could have introduced this in a separate bill following the 2011 election so that the issue could have been studied independently, but it did not do so.

Now it is telling us that time is running out and that we must absolutely pass it. Yet the government could have done so six, seven or eight months ago. It has no one to blame but itself for its failure to do so.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 18th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with the hon. member. The official opposition and the third party have combined their efforts to divide this bill up so that we can study its key parts.

In the 2009 budget implementation bill, which I believe was 552 pages long, most of the provisions were not fundamental reforms to our public policies, but in this budget implementation bill, they are. The environmental assessment should have been studied in much greater depth, not over 10 days, during four or five compressed meetings. I am quite familiar with the situation.

I was actually talking about the budget that I considered to be detrimental to employment and growth for the reasons that I mentioned. We could also say that it is detrimental to science, because some aspects clearly show that the government is trying to minimize the contribution of scientists. Not only is this true for the legislation itself, but also for the decisions that were made. As the hon. member mentioned, the Maurice Lamontagne Institute, near my riding, is also feeling the Conservative government's wrath.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 18th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I can do nothing but laugh at that statement.

With respect to the budget, the hon. member already knows full well that, for starters, we had eight hours to read it in camera before giving our opinion. Then, we voted on the budget itself, and we are currently voting on the budget implementation bill, which includes a large number of provisions that have nothing to do with the budget. Third, she is quoting the Toronto Sun. I have not read the article in question. It is probably the only newspaper, the only statement, that was in favour of the government's approach.

I mentioned Andrew Coyne and Dan Gardner, but I could have spoken about John Ivison and John Ibbitson, people who do not generally support the NDP's politics but who have great integrity when it comes to Parliament and respecting the democracy we are currently developing. These people spoke out against this way of operating. I could name plenty of others, including Pierre Duhamel, in Quebec. The Toronto Sun article is really the only one that supports the government. I am not necessarily surprised, knowing its editorial leanings. However, I must salute the integrity of most of the commentators who criticized the way the government is operating.