Hélène Laverdière

[Foreign Affairs, May 14th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, French president François Hollande is holding a summit on Boko Haram on Saturday. Nigeria, neighbouring countries, the European Union, Great Britain and the United States will be participating. As a co-chair of the Sahel Working Group of the Global Counterterrorism Forum and a contributor to the current effort, Canada should take advantage of every opportunity to become involved.

Was Canada invited to the meeting?

[Fair Elections Act, May 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her excellent question.

We repeatedly asked for the commissioner to have the power to compel witnesses. This is not a complex or revolutionary idea. Many provinces in Canada do it. Many countries do it. It would be one more way to ensure the integrity of elections in Canada. However, I do not think that the integrity of elections in Canada is one of the Conservative government's priorities.

[Fair Elections Act, May 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is very troubling. Everyone is saying that they are completely comfortable with the situation. The electoral “deform” minister is saying that if the Commissioner is not part of Elections Canada, he will be less partisan, as though Elections Canada were partisan. It is the same old pattern: Elections Canada investigated the Conservatives and put the blame on them. Elections Canada did its work with regard to the party in power, and the party in power took that as partisanship—as a bias against the party—and responded with accusations about the integrity of Elections Canada.

It makes no sense, especially since the Commissioner is being placed under the authority of the Director of Public Prosecutions. He will have less protection from government interference or interference from the party in power. That is another very odd measure.

[Fair Elections Act, May 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, to begin, I would like to say that I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague, the member for Victoria. I would like to take this opportunity to say that it is an honour and a pleasure for me to share my time with a member who is so active, eloquent and involved.

Unfortunately, I often have to say that my democracy is suffering. The electoral “deform” bill that we are discussing today, which was concocted by the Conservatives, is another step in the Conservative government's slow destruction of our democratic institutions.

Allow me to provide a bit of context so that people can understand what is happening. Ever since the Conservatives won a majority of the seats in Parliament—and I would like to emphasize that is a majority of seats—which they achieved in our parliamentary system without having the support of the majority of Canadians, they have been attacking the institution of Parliament itself by imposing a record number of gag orders. It is fairly ironic that we are discussing a fair elections act under another gag order. That is what is happening with a bill that is so important that, according to British tradition, it must be developed and passed by an all-party consensus. Even knowing that, the Conservative government has the nerve to limit debate. It is unbelievable.

In the past, we have also seen the government prorogue Parliament in an abusive manner. We know that the Conservatives refuse to work with the opposition parties, even though—it is important to remember— they represent the majority of the population. We know that the government has attacked our officers of Parliament and that it recently attacked the Supreme Court itself. The Conservatives will stop at nothing. The government has also muzzled public servants, scientists and civil society organizations. The Conservatives have fought tooth and nail against anyone who dares to have an opinion different from their own.

Incidentally, Elections Canada is among the institutions that have been attacked by the Conservatives. We saw it again this morning with all the accusations and innuendo the minister responsible for the election “deform” bill hurled against Elections Canada.

The bill, as proposed, was another of these attacks. What it all boils down to is an attack against Canadians and their right to vote. In my opinion, this attack is a logical extension of the robocalls, which sought to prevent people from voting, given that the Conservative database was the source of those calls.

Fortunately, these same Conservatives pulled back on some particularly problematic aspects of the bill because of pressure that we, the NDP, put on them and because of the exceptional work by my colleagues from Toronto—Danforth, Louis-Saint-Laurent and Hamilton Centre. It is extremely important to mention that it is also thanks to and very likely because of all the Canadians who stood up and to everyone who spoke up, wrote in and signed petitions to oppose the Conservative scheme.

As an aside, there were a lot of constituents from the Laurier—Sainte-Marie riding who spoke up and took action. I would like to thank them today and salute their commitment and determination. I would also like to say that, as always, it is a great privilege for me to be their voice in this House.

Together, we managed to make the Conservatives backtrack on some important issues.

In particular, they backed down on vouching to enable voting and on polling supervisors. With their bill, the Conservatives were trying to politicize the polling supervisor appointment process even more. It makes me wonder who would benefit from that.

Obviously, the entire bill was designed to benefit the Conservatives. For example, in the case of fundraising campaigns, more and more contributions were going to be allowed to fly under the radar, if I can put it that way, and not be taken into account. That would have increased the power of money even further in the context of elections. There was a victory there, too. Together, Canadians and their spokespersons in the opposition, the NDP, managed to make the government backtrack on that.

We made a few gains with respect to educating the public to encourage people to vote, which is an extremely important issue in Canada, as it is in many countries around the world.

We managed to make these gains, which is a good thing, but there are still a lot of major problems, unfortunately. I could talk about many issues remaining in the bill, but what concerns me in particular is the powers of the Chief Electoral Officer. As I said, we made small gains in public education, but they are small. There is a big difference between what is in the bill before us today and what the Chief Electoral Officer used to be able to do. Now, he will basically be able to promote voting to students in elementary and secondary schools. I do not have anything against that. That is very good, but why not promote voting to college and university students, who are of voting age and will vote in the next election? That makes absolutely no sense. Why would the Chief Electoral Officer not be able to encourage young people who are able to vote to do so? That is quite something.

In addition, the Chief Electoral Officer will not be allowed to partner with other groups to raise awareness and promote voting. He will not be allowed to partner with groups such as Apathy is Boring, an extraordinary group that I know well because I had the opportunity to meet with the founders of the movement. This group does an outstanding job with young people between 18 and 25 years of age. However, game over, they can no longer work together.

That is rather ironic, because it means that, under the new provisions, Elections Canada will have to cancel Canada's Democracy Week, which it used to organize. Once again, that speaks for itself. In effect, Canada's Democracy Week will be cancelled because the Conservatives do not like it. That is quite something.

The Chief Electoral Officer will also need the approval of the Treasury Board to hire technical experts. I just love that. Picture a party in power that committed a bit of electoral fraud—of course, I am not referring to anyone in particular. The Chief Electoral Officer needs technical advice to investigate the situation, and a Treasury Board minister, a member of the party in power, can deny the request. That is totally absurd.

The government is limiting the Chief Electoral Officer's existing powers and, at the same time, is refusing to grant him the new powers he needs to do his work, such as the ability to request financial documents from political parties or to compel witnesses to appear.

We were able to fight back and prevent some of the damage, but there is still work to do. I cannot vote in favour of this bill.

[Kidnapping of Girls in Nigeria, May 12th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech, which was full of very interesting information.

We know that one of the major issues relates to the question of governance, human rights, and the rights of women in particular, and we see this in the present situation in Nigeria. In 2011-12, Canada gave Nigeria $48 million in aid, if I recall correctly.

In terms of that envelope, I would like to know what Canada is doing regarding support for civil society, respect for human rights, respect for women’s rights and good governance.

[Kidnapping of Girls in Nigeria, May 12th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I think the situation raises the issue of the rights of women and children.

I would not want to take advantage of the debate this evening to be too partisan, because this is a very important human issue. Canada has taken important steps in defending women's rights. However, I think that we could go much further in terms of reproductive health rights, for instance. Canada is really lagging at the back of the class on this issue.

We can think about the rights of aboriginal women in Canada and the 1,200 murdered and missing aboriginal women. These are some of the issues. We can do much more, and Canada should be a champion of the rights of women and girls.

[Kidnapping of Girls in Nigeria, May 12th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her excellent question, to which I see two main aspects, one of which is education.

As I mentioned in my speech, it is absolutely essential to continue to provide funding for education. As my colleague from Ottawa Centre said, education is the most important thing we can do for children. It is not a gift, it is an obligation and a duty, and Canada has continued to work with developing countries to promote access to education. However, we must not forget the Global Partnership for Education, which is really doing wonderful work and which coordinates efforts being made by number of countries.

Of course, I could not discuss the issue of trauma, because I only had 10 minutes for my speech. However, we have to think not only about the trauma suffered by these girls, but also the trauma in the communities. When a tragedy of this kind takes place, the people concerned are the first ones we must think about. When I say “the people concerned”, I am referring to the families, the brothers, the sisters and the other members of the community.

I hope we will see these girls come home, go back to school and take their little sisters with them.

[Kidnapping of Girls in Nigeria, May 12th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, we rise today in solidarity with the over 200 schoolgirls who, by all accounts, were abducted while they were writing a physics exam. These girls had, we can only hope, a promising future. They represent the future of Africa. We can only imagine the horror they are currently experiencing. Where are they now? What are they going through? I think everyone is deeply concerned about their fate.

We stand in solidarity with these girls, and with those who fortunately managed to escape but who are clearly traumatized by their ordeal. We stand in solidarity with their families and friends, who surely are suffering tremendously and experiencing deep anguish. We stand in solidarity with their families, brothers and sisters. I am thinking especially about their sisters. Not that their brothers are not suffering, because I am sure that they are, but I feel especially for their sisters. We want the several hundred girls who were abducted to come home, we want Canada to help and to continue to lend assistance as the situation evolves, and we want their sisters to go to school.

As my colleague mentioned earlier, we cannot help but think about the Global Partnership for Education, which is doing some amazing and outstanding work. It is set to hold its refinancing conference and has expressed the hope that Canada will substantially increase its contribution to the GPE fund, which makes it possible to provide an education to millions of children around the world. We hope that this happens, considering the young sisters of these unfortunate girls.

However, as was also mentioned earlier, more needs to be done. Schools and education are needed, but this situation needs to be resolved and steps taken to ensure that it does not happen again. Since these tragic events first unfolded, eight more young girls have been abducted. If we want to prevent similar tragedies from happening, there is much we can do. I would first like to quote Malala, who had this to say:

“...if we remain silent then...this will happen more and more and more”.

We must speak out. We must stand up and raise our voices. I must admit that I am rather proud to see this Parliament considering this issue and talking about it today.

We must fight against organizations like Boko Haram. The most important thing is that justice be done. There can be no room for impunity. Far too often impunity is the source of the biggest problems and a recipe for a reoccurence.

We must work on governance, government structures and training. Earlier in his speech, my colleague from Ottawa Centre mentioned, in the context of training, that we should not only send equipment and people immediately, but also help mentor the Nigerian military forces to ensure that the current situation is resolved with the release of all the young girls, without any harm coming to them and without risking an operation that might degenerate and get the young girls in question caught in the crossfire.

There is therefore a lot of technical support, training and assistance that needs to be provided right now. However, in the longer term, we must also think about governance, security systems and the type of support that we can provide to Nigeria, as well as to many other countries, especially the whole of the Sahel.

I would like to reiterate that we hope the current situation will be resolved positively without any of these girls suffering further. To prevent this kind of situation from happening in the future, we must fight with strength and determination for the rights of women and girls. Often when we speak about this issue, we get the impression that we are speaking only about foreign countries and that only developing countries are involved. However, that is not the case. We must fight for the rights of women and girls abroad, of course, but also here in Canada.

In that respect, I would be remiss in failing to mention the 1,200 missing or murdered aboriginal women. We know so very little about them and Canada must do so much more, as we have been told by United Nations experts.

Finally, we must also stop groups such as Boko Haram and so many others from having easy access to weapons of all kinds. Attempts have been made to get funding. Years ago, we established the Kimberley Process to prevent diamonds from being used to fund these groups. My colleague from Ottawa Centre also has a bill on conflict minerals to prevent these minerals from financing such groups. However, it is just as essential to cut off their supply of arms and munitions.

The best tool that the international community has to do this is the arms trade treaty. This evening, I would be remiss if I did not once again ask the government to sign this treaty, which all of our partners have signed, including the United States. Canada is the only country, or nearly the only one, that is still refusing to sign.

These are my words and my hope for the future. My hope for today is that we can finally bring back our girls, because they are all our daughters. We are all in the same situation. We must be able to bring our girls home, safe and sound. Thank you very much.

[Foreign Affairs, May 8th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, not only are our sanctions different than those of our allies, but Canada has yet to suspend its high-tech military exports to Russia, as requested by the NDP.

Canada must continue to support the Ukrainian people. When will the minister finally suspend our military exports to Russia and when will he impose sanctions on all the Russian individuals and businesses already sanctioned by our allies?

[Foreign Affairs, May 7th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are absolutely appalled by the kidnapping of these young Nigerian girls and the unimaginable horror that they and their families must endure. They want Canada to take action and bring the girls home. Can the minister tell us what kind of assistance he will give the Nigerian authorities to ensure that these young girls are returned to their families and these kidnappings are stopped?