Jack Harris

[Ongoing Situation in Ukraine, April 29th, 2015]

Mr. Chair, we have considered the situation with the military support that is being offered. We do have questions about whether it is effective in dealing with the major problems that the Ukrainian military is having. We know that they have serious problems. They have been criticized by the international crisis group for very serious problems at the senior levels, lack of transparency, and some corruption at the senior levels. We wonder whether this will help solve those problems and what other plans Canada has.

However, what has been proposed in terms of providing training to individuals to deal with improvised explosives, to provide medical systems, to provide training in the NATO facility, we do not have a problem with that at all. We are just not sure it is the most effective thing we could be doing, but obviously we think that the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian military need a lot of support to have a more effective opportunity to defend its sovereignty.

[Ongoing Situation in Ukraine, April 29th, 2015]

Mr. Chair, I thank the hon. member for Edmonton Centre for his question. It is one that gives rise to a lot of discussion.

I mentioned the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. I have attended several meetings over the last number of months and the topic of discussion is about the intention of the strategy that Mr. Putin is following. Some of the strongest experts have said that he is operating tactically and not strategically, that there is no grand plan, that the taking of Crimea was in fact opportunistic, and that all will depend on the reactions from the west and from how resolute the support is for Ukraine, for example, in terms of the kinds of things that NATO was doing. I think the NATO reassurance package has made a difference.

I am not sure there is a master plan. Mr. Putin is opportunistic, I think is the consensus of some the experts, and not predictable in that sense. However, it is important that the sanctions that are there are kept up and kept strong, but also conditional on what Putin might or might not do. I do not think that we will have sanctions forever, regardless of what happens. We may have to start putting some conditions on the sanctions, so that they may change behaviours and make it work.

[Ongoing Situation in Ukraine, April 29th, 2015]

Mr. Chair, I appreciate your comments and that we only have 10 minutes. That is not very long, so I will try to cut right to the chase.

I first want to agree with my colleague from Parkdale—High Park that we stand here in solidarity with the people of Ukraine as they struggle to confront the many problems they have and at the same time deal with the fact that the Russians are trying to undermine the stability that we thought they had achieved. What is frightening in a way is how quickly the situation deteriorated from a year and a half ago to what we are dealing with today.

Originally, this debate was going to be about the subject of Canadian support to help train and build the capacity of Ukrainian military personnel, but it has turned to a more broad point about the conflict situation in Ukraine. I guess people can talk about whatever aspect of it is important to them.

I want to talk about the current situation that we have, with the UN human rights office recognizing that since last April, only one year ago, more than 6,000 people, military and civilians, have been killed and some 15,000 wounded, and that conditions in eastern Ukraine, particularly those areas held by anti-government forces are extremely difficult. In northern Donetsk and Luhansk, water and electricity supplies are frequently disrupted by shelling and rocket attacks and the number of people internally displaced has now reached some 1.2 million. That is an astonishing situation in about a year.

We know how this started, with the instability in the government and the actions by Yanukovych. The path that Ukraine was on to make a close economic arrangement with Europe was stopped by the then prime minister. That led to a protest, which eventually led to a civil war after he was deposed. How quickly that turned into the situation we have now is really an indication of how much instability there was in Ukraine that could be fomented into the civil war so quickly.

Who can forget the shock in July 2014 when Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was shot down and the loss of 298 lives? All of us were shocked to know that such a thing could happen. A civilian airliner with innocent rights of passage over Ukraine was shot down in that situation. That was followed by the horrific scenes of preventing rescue personnel and international relief efforts from trying to remove the bodies and bring them back to loved ones. It was a shock to all of us that this could happen so rapidly in a country that we thought was on the road to a relationship with some harmony, with some conflict and dispute, yes, but with an opportunity at least to have a relationship with Europe as well as hopefully continuing a relationship with Russia. That turned out not to be possible, and we are where we are today.

A lot of work has been done. I want to talk about some of the military side of it, because this debate has been prompted by the recent decision by Canada to send 200 troops to Ukraine to help in training and building the capacity of the Ukrainian military, which is very important for the stability of Ukraine and for the ability of the Ukrainian people to maintain their territorial integrity. We know there are serious problems in the Ukrainian military. When we tried to deliver non-lethal weaponry, we actually had to build up our own supply lines to ensure the goods got to where they were supposed to, because of ongoing problems with corruption within the Ukrainian military.

Something has to be done about that, and I think NATO has stepped in to do that. There are five trust funds set up by NATO to make that possible: the logistics and standardization trust fund; command, control, communications trust fund, to which Canada has contributed $1 million; the cyberdefence trust fund; the military career management trust fund; and a medical rehabilitation trust fund. These are funds that were set up by NATO to build on the medium term professionalism and growth, and the ability of the Ukrainian military to do a proper job.

Canada has also contributed to the NATO reassurance mission. We need to put that in the right perspective. What was the purpose of that? The purpose of that was to show, first of all, the Russians and Mr. Putin, in particular, but also to show our allies, particularly in the Baltics and the neighbouring states of Russia that NATO means business, that article 5, the special and most important clause of the NATO treaty where one country is attacked, all other countries would come to its defence.

It was particularly concerning to the Baltic states: Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. They felt very vulnerable and as a result NATO stepped up the efforts, called the reassurance package. Canada participated quite dramatically in that with aircraft, with naval vessels and with training missions both in Poland and contributing for the first time to Baltic air policing that had been going on since 2005. That was an important contribution.

As a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, I have been to Riga, Latvia and Vilnius. We do learn from these experiences how important NATO is to these countries, which are recently part of NATO and were part of the former Soviet Union. It is extremely important for them to know that NATO is there to help them.

NATO played a very significant role and Canada, being a part of that to provide that assurance, is there. It is indirectly helping Ukraine. The government has overplayed that a little and said this was a direct support to Ukraine. It did support Ukraine because Ukraine was aware that NATO and the allies would ensure Mr. Putin did not go any further than he has and these sanctions are a very important part of that. That was indirect assistance to Ukraine.

The direct assistance we are talking about now with 200 troops to provide some training is important as well. I imagine the Minister of National Defence will speak in a little while and talk about the exact role. These are some of the questions that we wanted answered. We wanted a debate in the House and wanted to have a vote on this. We wanted to know what exactly has happened.

We do know that Ukraine needs a lot of help not just on the military side but as the Minister of Foreign Affairs said, we have to talk about the long-term stability of Ukraine. I will end by reflecting on the statement made by the minister of finance of Ukraine who was quoted by my colleague from Parkdale—High Park because it is a role for the Ukrainian government to play and people to play. There needs to be a lot of institutional changes.

I know from talking to people from Ukraine that the whole issue of corruption is extremely important and has to be fixed. Canada should be able to make a bigger contribution to that specific aspect than it has so far.

Natalie Jaresko, Ukrainian minister of finance, said in March of this year:

International support can only be effective if the Ukrainian government is also effective and diligent in its efforts to reform the country, fight corruption, improve transparency and accountability, improve the rule of law and create the conditions for the return of economic growth and prosperity.

We know that the European Union has put up $11 billion euros to assist in economic development and $5 billion of that has already been advanced in loans and grants. That is a considerable and significant effort. There is a strong international effort to help the Ukrainian people and Canada should be, and is, a part of it.

We do have some issues about that and I think the foreign affairs critic for our party and other colleagues will make some comments on that in the debate as we go forward.

[National Defence, April 29th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, there have been serious allegations of sexual misconduct and assault in the military for some time, and a failure to properly address complaints.

The Chief of the Defence Staff initiated an investigation last year after horrible incidents involving sexual assault were revealed in major media reports.

Can the Minister of National Defence confirm that the report of Madam Deschamps will be released tomorrow? If not, when, and will it be made public in its entirety?

[National Defence, April 28th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, today's Auditor General's report on the National Defence ombudsman is extremely troubling. The report reveals serious mismanagement and ethical breaches within the office. According to the Auditor General, the defence department knew about many of these problems but failed to fully investigate.

The ombudsman's office is a vital resource for soldiers and their families to get redress. Can the Minister of National Defence explain why his department allowed this toxic work environment to exist, and will he commit to proper monitoring of the ombudsman's office to ensure that this cannot happen again?

[The Budget, April 23rd, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, yes, one of the things that has happened over the past couple of decades is employment insurance, which used to be called unemployment insurance, is now unavailable to the majority of people who are unemployed. That happened, I have to say, starting with his party's government in the 1990s and continues through to the efforts of the Conservative government to in fact make it more and more difficult for people to get employment insurance when they need it.

The member talked about seasonal industries. We have a tremendous number of seasonal industries in our country. Seasonal workers are needed for seasonal industries and when seasonal workers are treated as if they are repeat offenders, I think is the phrase they sometimes use, when the government treats them with disdain and makes the program unavailable to them, then the government is destroying some of the important parts of the economy of this country, including tourism, forestry, fishing, and I could go on. The government has done a lot of damage to the economy, particularly rural and seasonal economies that need to have a variety of jobs throughout the year. Seasonal workers need to have unemployment insurance when they cannot get it.

The passage he quoted sounds like code for another attack on workers, so I would agree with him on that.

[The Budget, April 23rd, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, we have noticed over here that the hon. member is confused on many occasions. He did not actually need to tell us that.

If he had been listening, he would have known that the leader of the NDP gave a major speech several months ago in which he called for a decrease in small business tax rates down to 9%. That was very clear. He also called for an increase in the capital cost allowance for manufacturers. This is desperately needed in the member's neck of the woods, in Ontario, because of the hollowing out of manufacturing that has happened during the government's administration. We are trying to fix that.

We do understand what needs to be done, but we do not support the notion that major corporations, highly profitable corporations, can have tax cuts and sit on that cash for years and years and not use it to create jobs.

[The Budget, April 23rd, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to have an opportunity to speak to the Conservative budget. The budget is no pleasure, but to have a chance to talk about what is wrong with it, where it is lacking, the negative direction it is taking the country and some of the things that my party, the NDP, would do instead is something I cherish.

The Conservative budget would spend billions in handouts to the wealthiest at a time when the government should be investing in accessible child care, affordable housing and supporting seniors who are struggling to get by. Places like Newfoundland and Labrador and the people there and the Atlantic who have critical issues that need to be addressed, like regional economic development and supporting communities, issues such as the constitutional obligation of the government to support Marine Atlantic, are absent from this budget.

Absent as well are the $280 million that the government promised the government of Newfoundland and Labrador in a fishing industry development fund in response to the consequences of CETA and the request to remove its powers to expect local processing in fisheries. Where is that? All of these are absent.

Instead, we have a claim for an allegedly balanced budget. After nine years, in which the Conservatives increased the size of the deficit by a total of $150 billion, they now have an allegedly balanced budget, and this is supposedly a talking point that they think will take them to the election and bring them another majority government. That is not going to happen, because people are starting to realize that the Conservative administration is, in fact, not the prudent fiscal manager that it claims to be.

How did the Conservatives balance the budget? What do we have here? They claim to have a balanced budget. How did they get there? They got there by taking $2 billion out of the contingency fund. It used to be $3 billion, and now it is only $1 billion. They achieved $2.1 billion by selling off GM shares to add to the budget. If they had waited another couple of weeks, they would have actually made another $100 million. Now there is prudent fiscal management. There are another $3.4 billion. Where did they get it? They stole it from the EI fund, the employment insurance fund.

We have $3.4 billion, we have $2.1 billion, and we have another $2 billion shaved from the contingency fund. That is where the Conservatives come up with a phony balanced budget. Are we really talking about prudent fiscal management or are we talking about a shell game that is designed to confuse people and let people believe that they have somehow or other magically balanced the budget through prudent fiscal management? What really has happened is that they taken away important sources of income from the government, like the corporate taxes that are necessary to pay for the services that Canadians need and deserve, and they have done that in a way that is basically a corporate gift. We now very likely have the lowest corporate tax rate in the whole OECD. All of the wealthiest nations in the have corporate tax rates higher than ours.

We would do something about that. If people want to call it raising taxes, yes, that would be raising taxes. My colleague in the provincial party in Newfoundland, when confronted with the notion that the NDP was supposedly a tax and spend party, said yes, it was a tax and spend party. It would tax fairly and spend wisely. The Conservative government would do the exact opposite of that. It would take away the taxes that other countries all across the world make corporations pay, give away revenue and then take away the services for which that revenue pays.

When we look at the things the Conservatives do have in the budget in making special arrangements for the wealthy, the first one that is obvious and jumps out at everybody is the income-splitting proposal, $2.4 billion. It is income splitting for families with children under 18, income splitting that does zero for single-parent families that are among the poorest families in the country and families without children under 18 or parents who are in the same tax bracket. With a cost of $2.4 billion, this gives zero benefit to 86% of families, but helps the wealthiest.

Is that wise spending of the government's money? Is that good for the future of our country? Is that good for solving some of the problems Canada has? No. When we add on top of that the significant increase, almost doubling, of the tax-free savings account, what do we get? We get another program that helps, and is designed to help, the wealthiest of Canadians.

We just heard someone opposite talk about his mother, aged 98, putting money into a tax-free saving account. It is wonderful that she is able to do that. We need a reality check with the government because it is ignoring the vast majority of Canadians.

There was a survey done by the Canadian Payroll Association, and this is not a left-wing think tank. Last September it said that 51% of employees found it difficult to meet their financial obligations if their paycheque was delayed by one week. Therefore, they are living from paycheque to paycheque. They are not putting $10,000 each or $20,000 per couple into a tax-free savings account. They are just not capable of doing that because they are doing their very best to try to meet their obligations, paycheque to paycheque.

That is just people who are working. That is not people who are unemployed, or people who have been looking for work for a long time, or who are disabled or living on social assistance because of their difficult circumstances. These people are working. Where is the benefit to the people of Canada to have this tax-free savings account almost doubled. It is not there. It does nothing to solve the problem Canadians have now.

What is the government's answer? The answer of the Minister of Finance when someone said that this was putting an unfair burden on taxpayers to take away this source of revenue, and it will grow over the years, was that we would let the Prime Minister's granddaughter solve that problem. That is the answer. The Conservatives will let the Prime Minister's granddaughter solve that problem somewhere down the road.

We have a plan that will make our children and our grandchildren better off, because we want to have a program that serves their interests now. One of the most obvious ones—we have announced it already and it is something that is gaining more and more attraction as time goes on—is the national child care plan for a maximum $15 a day child care.

What would that do? It would ensure that single parents would have an opportunity to get to work, to finish an education, to ensure that their children would be looked after and have a better income for themselves. It would ensure that couples would be able to work as well as look after their children, instead of having, what in many cases is, the next highest expense next to their mortgage. That is what needs to be fixed to make life better for our children and our grandchildren, and not go the other way, which the government seems to be quite happy and content to do.

We have proposed measures that will do positive and good things for the future of our country and help solve some of the problems of inequality, ensure that families have a better opportunity to look after their families and the future of their families, and the government ignores those needs in a crude attempt to try to buy the votes of people with their own money. It is an old game, and it is one that will not work because Canadians are wiser.

We look forward to an election coming up later on this year because we have plans and proposals that we believe can help solve some of the problems that Canadians have. We have a vision for a more equal Canada and a greater opportunity to work together to build our country instead of tearing it down.

[National Defence, April 21st, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, boards of inquiry are certainly taking years under the current government.

Robyn Young, a 24-year-old reservist, displayed symptoms of a brain tumour for four years but was sent by the Department of National Defence for corrective eye surgery. The department now refuses to take responsibility for misdiagnosing her, and Young is now left to fend for herself, despite the minister's assurances of support. Can the minister promise the House today that he will do what is necessary to make sure that Leading Seaman Young gets the help she needs?

[National Defence, April 21st, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, there are confusing and contradictory reports about how Sergeant Doiron died in Iraq. Some reports say he was on the front line. Others say he was far back. Canadians should have the answers by now but do not, and the government seems interested in keeping us in the dark. The one thing that is clear is that as of now, there will not be a board of inquiry by the Canadian Armed Forces, despite the fact that these boards are common after a death in action.

Will the minister commit to a board of inquiry and to making the results public?