Irene Mathyssen

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, September 14th, 2009]

What is the total amount of government funding, since fiscal year 2004-2005 up to and including the current fiscal year, allocated within the constituency of London—Fanshawe, listing each department or agency, initiative, and amount?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, June 19th, 2009]

With regard to the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act: (a) when will an order of the Governor in Council be issued to bring this legislation into force; (b) how many pay equity complaints are currently before the Canadian Human Rights Commission; and (c) how many pay equity complaints will be transferred from the Canadian Human Rights Commission to the Public Service Labour Relations Board?

[Petitions, June 17th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition to the Government of Canada from a number of citizens who wish to express their profound concern with the proposed implementation of the security and prosperity partnership of North America. The SPP further advances NAFTA's goal of continental economic integration by pushing Canada toward establishing common policies with the United States and Mexico in key areas such as security, energy, food and health standards, while shrinking the range of choices open to Canadian policy-makers.

The SPP encompasses over 300 wide-ranging initiatives, many of which reduce protection in areas such as pesticide use and food safety, and reduces environmental protection and air safety, while securing even greater U.S. control over Canadian resources and national standards, including energy and water. Under the SPP, Canada would possess less and less ability to adopt autonomous and sustainable economic, social and environmental policies, including public programs like universal health care and public education. Therefore, the petitioners ask the Government of Canada to stop further implementation of the security and prosperity partnership of North America with the U.S. and Mexico until there is a democratic mandate from the people of Canada, parliamentary oversight and consideration--

[Employment Insurance, June 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the government is ignoring the barriers that women face when it comes to employment insurance.

The status of women committee heard from witness after witness who testified that women and part-time workers were being shut out of EI. The numbers speak for themselves. Coverage rates for unemployed women have declined from 82% in 1989 to 39% in 2008, this despite the claim of the Conservatives that they have done enough to fix the system.

Why is the government ignoring women and refusing to remove the barriers that prevent women from accessing EI?

[Justice, June 2nd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, on Sunday, Dr. George Tiller was shot to death in his church in Wichita, Kansas. Dr. Tiller, a man of great integrity and compassion, worked every day for women's rights. He ran a women's health clinic and had been under threat by the anti-abortion movement for many years. Similarly, abortion doctors in Canada are threatened and harassed. Some fear for their lives.

What is the government doing to protect Canadian doctors and ensure the right of Canadian women to reproductive choice?

[Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement Act, June 1st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am very concerned with the number of issues in regard to this agreement, perhaps because I and many of my colleagues here have lived through the less than stellar agreements of the past, such as the free trade agreement and the North American Free Trade Agreement. In both of those cases we have seen Canadian workers and labour rights in Canada decline. We are living in a reality where Canadians are suffering quite significantly because of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Despite all of the claims that it was somehow going to improve employment and improve our standard of living, we see a rapid and quite disastrous decline.

In this free trade agreement with Peru, we see that new laws have been put forward, decrees by the government, which it says is to modernize the public sector. Unfortunately this so-called modernization seems more punitive than positive. In fact these new rules have given the National Civil Service Authority the right to negotiate with workers in Peru and skip the collective bargaining process entirely.

I wonder if the member could please comment on the fact that collective bargaining is being undermined and how important collective bargaining is to the rights of workers.

[Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement Act, June 1st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, in looking at this agreement, one of the concerns expressed has to do with a decree by the Peruvian government, legislative decree 1015, which was designed to facilitate the privatization and stripping away of communal lands held by indigenous people, allowing them to perform the subsistence farming that supports their communities.

That particular decree was pushed back but many others are coming forward from the same government. Our government seems to feel that those decrees are business as usual or that doing business with the Peruvian government is just fine. As I said, these new laws are meant to facilitate the expropriation of the country's land.

Interestingly enough, a similar thing happened some years ago in Colombia where that government, in order to facilitate trade agreements with the United States, privatized land. It took land away from the indigenous people who were farming it. In the case of some of the people living in the mountains, some of the territories had gold mines on them. Canada, of course, jumped on the gravy train on this one. Essentially, these people were stripped of a livelihood that was centuries old. Canadian and American mining companies went in and simply grabbed whatever they could.

Like the people of Peru, those people stood their ground. They literally stood at the entrances of their villages and told the junta and death squads that they could not enter. They did not care whose businesses the junta and deaths squads felt they were protecting. They were not going to allow them to enter and kill their children.

This whole reality in terms of how we deal with South America seems to be repeated in this Peruvian agreement. I wonder if the member, as a human rights expert, could comment on what we are seeing with regard to these trade deals and the abuse of human rights.

[Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act, May 27th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, it is very difficult for Canadians to imagine. We have seen accidents in other parts of the world and so far we have been spared those horrific events.

We know there are leaks and we know there have been leaks at AECL into the Ottawa River. We know there have been leaks at the Bruce Nuclear Power Plant into many centres that take their drinking water from Lake Huron. However, we have not seen the kind of devastation that was suffered at Three Mile Island or Chernobyl.

In terms of Chernobyl, generations have been affected by the fallout from that accident. The people who provided emergency assistance when Chernobyl exploded are long dead and gone. Their lives were shortened. They were afflicted with miserable radiation sickness and, even worse, cancers and death as a result of the fallout.

I cannot imagine what could possibly happen in densely populated areas like Toronto, Oshawa, Whitby or Pickering if we experienced a nuclear accident. If Darlington were to fail in some catastrophic way, we simply would not have the facilities to manage. Hundreds of thousands of people would need immediate help and our hospitals would be overwhelmed. The reality is that our systems are overburdened because federal and provincial governments have not seen fit to keep up with the needs of the medical community and hospitals. Hospitals and emergency services would be overwhelmed. Homes would be lost.

We know that in other kinds of disasters, such as floods, fires and hurricanes, the loss of homes is catastrophic to the people who live in those communities. Imagine hundreds of square miles where homes become uninhabitable, schools can no longer be utilized and there simply are not the kinds of services to support a huge population. While it may seem extreme, this is what we need to be prepared for.

Nobody who lived in Chernobyl believed that the nuclear plant would blow sky high until that catastrophic event, which left a community bereft, created illness and destroyed the future of not just the first generation but the second, third and fourth generations. We have no idea how many generations will suffer as a result of that accident.

We need to be prepared and $650 million does not do it and $10 billion does not do it. It is something we need to be cognizant of. We cannot allow taxpayers, the people of this nation, to be put on the hook to allow private sector nuclear facilities to pop up in order for the nuclear industry to prosper exponentially in terms of profits. We need to stand firm.

[Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act, May 27th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague for Hamilton Mountain.

I rise with deep regret to speak to Bill C-20, the nuclear liability and compensation act, because I believe all members of good conscience should oppose this bill. It leaves Canadians and our communities woefully under-compensated in the event of a nuclear accident.

Communities, like Kincardine near the Bruce nuclear facility; Whitby, Oshawa and Toronto adjacent to Darlington; Bécancour near Gentilly in Quebec; and Point Lepreau in New Brunswick, are all in jeopardy if a major accident were to occur. We know that a major accident at the Darlington nuclear plant would cause damages in the range of $1 trillion. Clearly, $650 million or even $10 billion are insufficient in terms of liability coverage.

Interestingly enough, there are no nuclear facilities in British Columbia. Madam Speaker, I am sure you are well aware of that and perhaps a little bit grateful. This could be because of the mess at Hanford in Washington state. It has cost taxpayers billions because of the expensive remediation that has been going on there for years with no end in sight. Today, Hanford is the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States and the focus of the largest environmental cleanup in U.S. history. It is hugely expensive. It is certainly more than $650 million. It is in the range of several billion dollars or perhaps a trillion dollars.

Hence, we have the $10 billion liability demanded in the United States, which is far less than the unlimited liability required in Japan and China, because, quite simply, the cost to a community and the people who live there is without limit in the case of a nuclear accident.

As we all know, this bill is being reintroduced by the government despite its many deficiencies. In the last Parliament, New Democrats were the only opponents to this bill, and with good reason. No private insurer will cover an individual for compensation from damage caused by a nuclear accident.

While Bill C-20 updates legislation from the 1970s, as has been pointed out, it only increases compensation levels to the absolute minimum international standard. The existing compensation limit of $75 million and the new limit of $650 million is simply not acceptable. What on earth is the government doing? Why is it so prepared to ignore the reality of this situation?

American nuclear companies are interested in purchasing significant sections of Canada's nuclear industry. Under the current legislation, they would be subjected to American rules because Canadian laws do not even meet the international base line. Under American law, the parent company of the subsidiary can be sued for compensation due to the actions of its foreign subsidiary if the law governing that subsidiary is below international standards.

These American corporations are reluctant to invest in the Canadian industry, that is until Bill C-20 is passed. Sadly, the government does not seem to understand the irresponsible nature of this legislation. However, the nuclear industry has the attention of the Canadian public and this issue has strong political resonance with all Canadians. They are, quite simply, concerned about nuclear safety.

The NDP is the only party that is taking the health of Canadians seriously, so seriously that we have been asking the difficult questions, such as why is the liability limit $10 billion in the United States and only the proposed $650 million in Canada? There is no reason for that. It is not rational. The American limit is a whopping 1,540% higher than the limit that is proposed by this bill.

I have another question. Is the imminent sale of AECL to an American company making the government eager to make Canadian nuclear legislation more American-friendly?

Those are important questions but so far we have heard no acceptable answers.

It is more than clear that only New Democrats are serious about protecting the interests of ordinary Canadians while the government takes a cavalier attitude toward nuclear safety.

The Conservatives certainly seem to be laying the groundwork to sell AECL during tough economic times when the value is so very low. We, as Canadians, need to be profoundly concerned about the possibility of the privatization of nuclear facilities. These facilities must be properly managed, and there is no question about that, and that is in the public interest. I, for one, would feel far more comfortable if they remained in public hands. I do not see much evidence that the government has the public interest at the centre of its many questionable policies.

Quite simply, the Conservatives are failing to protect Canadians in the event of a nuclear spill. This level of compensation, the $650 million, would mean only a handful of dollars for the loss of a home, a business or the loss of a life. It is far below that which is required by the international community. For Canadians, and particularly those who live near nuclear power plants or other nuclear installations, this is unacceptable. Their government has sold them out to vested interests.

New Democrats will not be supporting this limited level of liability, nor will we be supporting the bill. It does not even begin to touch on the real cost of a nuclear accident, and that is a betrayal. It is a betrayal of Canadians and of our communities. It is simply not the kind of behaviour that I believe many Canadians expect of our government and should demand of their government.

This is nothing less than a corporate subsidy to the nuclear industry to make it possible for it to move in, take over and privatize the industry that Canadians built. We on this side of the House simply will not bow to that kind of corporate subsidy. We will not allow the government to get away with that without a great deal of discussion and raising our voices on this side of the House.

[Questions on the Order Paper, May 25th, 2009]

With respect to Measurement Canada, what changes have been or will be made to the agency from January 2006 to January 2010, including: (a) changes to services that the agency provides; (b) changes to who is accredited to test and inspect devices; and (c) who pays the salaries of those accredited to test and inspect devices?