Hélène Laverdière

[International Cooperation, October 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, we have learned that the CEO of Rio Tinto Alcan is advising the government about the merger of what was formerly CIDA with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

The Conservatives let the gun lobby dictate our arms trade policy, are they now going to let the mining industry dictate our foreign aid policy?

[International Development, October 17th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of International Development says that he condemns rape as a weapon of war. Then he turns around and tells women who become pregnant as a result of such a barbaric act that unfortunately, they have to deal with it on their own.

Does the minister sleep well at night?

[Foreign Affairs, June 18th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, cluster munitions kill and injure thousands of innocent victims, especially children, even decades after a conflict has ended.

The Conservatives' bill is riddled with holes and merely proves that they do not really intend to abolish these arms.

Will the government agree to work with us to quickly correct the very serious flaws of this bill?

[Foreign Affairs, June 13th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, our foreign service officers deserve better answers than that. These are people who faithfully serve our country every day. All they are asking for is equal pay for equal work.

Our foreign service officers represent our commercial interests and our diplomatic and consular presence around the world. Canada's presence on the world stage depends in large part on them.

Will the government finally agree to negotiate in good faith to end this labour dispute quickly and ensure that these employees are paid what they are worth?

[Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act, June 11th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, on the first part of the question, I would like to add that several of our allies working within NATO have managed to adopt workable legislation to implement the convention. Why would Canada be the only country incapable of doing that?

As for the second part of the question, I served at the Canadian Foreign Service Institute for 15 years, and I take a certain amount of pride in that fact. We were well regarded in the world; people respected us, and we were able to work positively toward peace and conflict prevention.

Now we find ourselves in a world where we only want to do good when conflict breaks out. We are willing to go and clean up minor situations from time to time, but we no longer make any effort to prevent conflict.

This is really a world in which Canada's image is truly tarnished. This has been evident in my interactions with others, both here and abroad. It is tragic, particularly since it will take years to rebuild that image.

[Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act, June 11th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am utterly delighted with the question and would like to put a similar question to my colleague opposite.

Is my colleague aware that the issue of interoperability also arose with regard to anti-personnel mines? Canadian military members were working with the U.S. armed forces at that time as well. In spite of everything, we nevertheless found a way to work with anti-personnel mines that enabled us to comply with the convention while continuing to work with our American partners, in particular, who were not party to the convention.

The same systems could have been put in place for cluster munitions without any problem. These are excuses and pretexts rather than real reasons. If the Conservatives do not want the convention, they should show some backbone and tell us so rather than try to sabotage it.

[Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act, June 11th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, before beginning to discuss the bill in question, I too must protest as vehemently as possible against the process being followed here.

Bill S-10, which we are discussing this evening, was introduced in the House on December 6, 2012. It took the Conservatives six months to call the bill for debate. When they finally did so, debate lasted 10 minutes, at one in the morning on Wednesday, May 29. Now, after 10 minutes of debate, whereas it took the government six months to bestir itself a little and table the bill, we are being told that time allocation is going to be imposed, because discussion has gone on too long. Moreover, the recommendations for amendments made in the other house do not appear at all in the bill before us.

Cluster munitions have almost no military usefulness and mainly affect civilians. Ninety-eight per cent of those injured by cluster munitions are civilians.

In many cases, these weapons have a relative effectiveness. About 30% of the small sub-munitions packed into the weapon fail to explode. They become sub-munitions, often the size of tennis balls, and often very colourful. They remain in the environment and are spread over a very wide area. Children see them. They are attractive. They play with them and, of course, the sub-munitions blow up in their faces and cause damage we can imagine. The sub-munitions in these weapons become, as it were, tiny but very numerous anti-personnel mines.

Because we are talking about anti-personnel mines, let us make a small comparison with what Canada did with respect to anti-personnel mines. Canada was a leader in that area. It won the esteem not only of many countries, but also of many people all over the world, through the work it did on anti-personnel mines.

One day, I met a Portuguese-speaking senior African dignitary. He told me that he had given his daughter the name Ottavia in honour of the Ottawa convention. Ottawa was, at that time, a word that was full of hope. Now, however, we are talking about cluster munitions. Initially, Canada was true leadership from Canada, but nowadays, there is nothing of the sort. In fact, we are regressing and destroying everything. In the negotiation process, Canada quickly became a spoilsport, as it were. Most of the countries involved were opposed to the interoperability provision that Canada had already managed to have included in the convention, but Canada pushed for it and got it. Quite frankly, there is nothing to be proud about in all of this.

We have before us Bill S-10. If we had no reason to be proud during the negotiation process, we will certainly have good cause to be ashamed if this bill is passed. Despite its title, it is not a bill to implement the convention. It is a bill to lay waste to the convention. Bill S-10, in fact, will invalidate the convention.

The bill provides the means to circumvent the interoperability provision by allowing Canada to aid, abet, counsel or conspire to use cluster munitions, under a convention that seeks to abolish the very use of these munitions.

A little earlier, we heard comments to the effect that the NDP would be opposed to these changes because of petty partisan politics or some such reasoning.

Just in case anybody actually believed that, allow me to quote a number of people in order to demonstrate just how broad the consensus is against this bill and to show that this consensus is made up of people from all walks of life.

I would like to quote the leader of the Canadian delegation that negotiated the convention, as well as the chair of the Department of Security and International Affairs at the Canadian Forces College. In my opinion, these two people should know what they are talking about. I would also like to quote a foreign dignitary, the former Australian prime minister, Malcolm Fraser, and also the hon. Warren Allmand, former solicitor general of Canada.

Let us start with Earl Turcotte, the head of the Canadian delegation that negotiated this agreement. When Mr. Turcotte saw the direction in which the negotiations were heading and what was the result was going to be, he resigned. I admire his courage. It shows just how outraged he was to see what the government had in store for us.

He said, “The proposed legislation is the worst of any country that has ratified or acceded to the convention to date.”

Regarding the current government's stance on cluster munitions, the former Australian prime minister, Malcolm Fraser, remarked that it is “timid, inadequate and regressive”. Fortunately, there will be a change in government in 2015.

I would like to quote Walter Dorn, the chair of the Department of Security and International Affairs at Canadian Forces College. It is a long quote, but I believe it is worth hearing:

As someone who works daily with those who have deployed in combined operations and who might do so myself as a civilian under the Code of Service Discipline, I have to say that the current draft legislation could put us in a compromising position.

Those deployed on behalf of Canada do not want to be forced to violate the treaty or be associated with violations. The terms of the bill would oblige Canadians to accept orders which they might consider illegal. It would then put them in a legal limbo between national and international law. Soldiers are trained to obey “lawful orders”. This would create confusion because the laws are contradictory. A complete prohibition, as obliged by the convention, would be much clearer.

He added:

...clause 11 of the current draft legislation seems to be in legal contravention of the treaty. It gives rise to serious moral dilemmas and weakens the norm against the use of these terrible weapons. It should be removed or amended.

Finally, the Hon. Warren Allmand said:

As presently drafted, Bill S-10 contains provisions that are contrary to the treaty's objects and purposes. It makes no sense for Canada to join a treaty regime whose purpose is an absolute prohibition on the use and transfer of cluster munitions on the one hand and, on the other hand, to promulgate national legislation that creates exceptions allowing Canadian personnel to carry out precisely the types of activities that are proscribed or forbidden by the convention.

Obviously, everyone agrees. All anyone needs to do is read the bill.

As I said at the beginning, this bill is designed not to implement, but rather to destroy the treaty. Agreeing to this bill and passing it as is places the Canadian military in an extremely difficult position, in addition to setting a bad example for other countries. Canada will still be the “bad guy” on the international stage.

After the debacle concerning the effort to combat desertification, Kyoto, the arms trade treaty with no clear outcome, and the new directives on international co-operation, Canada still looks like it does not want to play ball.

This bill has huge flaws. It must be reviewed and we will certainly not support it.

[Tax Conventions Implementation Act, 2013, June 10th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I have two basic questions about this specific bill.

If it was so urgent, how come the Conservatives were not able to arrange for us to have the time we needed to thoroughly debate this bill? This is in itself an example of their incompetence, and it shows why it is important to take time to study bills thoroughly. We cannot trust the bills they give us. That is the first thing.

The second thing is more general and has to do with the number of time allocation motions we have had under this government. This has to be a Guinness world record. My question is very simple. The Conservatives are preventing us from thoroughly discussing bills in committee and are moving time allocation motions here in the House. What are they afraid of? Can they not back these bills up?

[Parliamentary Budget Officer Act, June 10th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise today to express my support for Bill C-476, the excellent private member’s bill introduced by the member for Outremont and leader of the official opposition.

When the Conservatives were first elected, they made a great deal of noise about transparency and accountability. They were going to clean house in Ottawa. That was the background to their establishment of the position of parliamentary budget officer. It was, indeed, a very good idea. Many countries have institutions, agencies or offices like that. However, there was a small glitch. The manner in which they established the position was far from perfect. Was this deliberate—a lot of talk, but only a little action? Was their doing things too quickly and ineptly just a sign of their incompetence? It is difficult to say. The future and historians may perhaps be able to tell us one day.

Now, however, they appear to be regretting the very existence of the parliamentary budget officer. Indeed, the former parliamentary budget officer did his job highly professionally and found some very disturbing things. To be sure, he examined the federal budget. He produced his annual report on financial viability and also considered some very specific matters. For example, he revealed the true cost of the F-35s when the government was attempting to pull wool over our eyes. He is one of many experts who said that it was not necessary to raise the retirement age to 67. He revealed the cost of the Safe Streets and Communities Act. Not only that, but as my colleague from Ottawa Centre mentioned earlier, he gave us details about the costs of our mission in Afghanistan.

The interesting thing is how the Conservatives reacted to all of this. Did they say that they would work with the parliamentary budget officer in the interests of the country? After all, it is in the interest of the country and all Canadians for things to run as efficiently as possible. No, because that would have quickly damaged their electoral and partisan interests. They therefore began to do everything possible—absolutely everything—to prevent the parliamentary budget officer from doing his job.

The Conservatives are prepared to spy on Canadians, but they do not seem to like the idea of having a legitimate agency look at what they themselves are doing. What did they do? They denied the PBO access to the information he needed. When his mandate came to an end, they simply did not renew it and have not permanently filled the position. That is how they treat just about anyone who dares say anything against their policies.

Nevertheless, the PBO does very important work. We need an institution that is able to provide an independent opinion on budgetary issues. The Americans have understood that. I had the opportunity to visit the Congressional Budget Office in Washington. It is rather impressive. It has 235 employees and a budget of nearly $50 million. However, they manage to save much more. Is it 10, 20, 30 or 100 times more? We will see. Most importantly, this agency is respected because it is independent. People have told us that they do not always like the agency's findings, but they respect it nevertheless because they know it is an independent agency. This is not the kind of thing the Conservatives like to hear because they try to politicize everything, including the public service, the colour of airplanes, and I could go on. There is a long list.

An independent PBO is essential because our world is becoming increasingly complex, as are our financial and budgetary operations. This does not explain how the Conservatives managed to misplace $3 billion. However, aside from that, we need an independent opinion.

This bill proposes that the parliamentary budget officer be given a clear, specific mandate, free from political influence, so that the individual can carry out his or her duties for parliamentarians and all Canadians.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Return, June 7th, 2013]

With regard to projects funded through the Global Peace and Security Fund, for each fiscal year from 2006-2007 to 2012-2013, how many projects were funded, broken down by (i) recipient of project, (ii) description of project, (iii) location of project, (iv) length of project, (v) value of project, (vi) sub-program and thematic area of project, (vii) type of funding?