James Lunney

[Early Learning and Child Care Act, November 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to join the debate on Bill C-303, introduced by the member for Victoria.

Before I begin, I would like to remind the House that Canada's new government understands the importance of supporting families to ensure Canada's bright future. Our support for Canadian families is so determined that upon taking office we made child care one of our government's top five priorities.

In just a few months since taking office, our government has introduced and, more importantly, acted on a universal child care plan, a truly remarkable feat when one considers that the previous Liberal government entertained promises on child care without delivering a single space or benefit in 13 long years. Illusions ultimately lead to disappointment. This government has provided real support directly to all families with preschool age children and, second, Canada's new government is supporting the creation of new child care spaces.

Our universal child care plan represents a flexible approach. Its components benefit the family, and new child care spaces do not demand an either/or decision. Rather, this plan offers flexibility so that parents and communities can find solutions that work best for them.

Our plan does not impose on other jurisdictions, as do the conditions and criteria laid out in Bill C-303. Our plan is one where one component complements the other.

Our new government's approach to child care is a balanced approach which recognizes that parents are the ones best placed to choose the type of child care that best suits their specific needs. Central to our program is the universal child care benefit that places money directly in the hands of parents, $100 per month for each child under age six. This benefit gives parents the freedom and the flexibility to make decisions that address the unique needs of their families.

Our government's response to child care has sparked positive commentary from coast to coast. For example, an op-ed piece in the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal called it a “profound statement” that this government values the efforts of Canadian parents, including stay at home parents. A Vancouver Sun opinion column praised our plan's flexibility for parents, noting that the extra $1,200 “may make the difference between working full- or part-time while the kids are small”. The paper also stated, “It also helps parents who work shifts--something 'day care', by definition--can't handle”.

Shockingly, the meanspirited NDP, which claims to be in favour of supporting the child care needs of Canadians, is actively trying to gut this important social program. Just recently at the human resources committee, the NDP social policy critic, the member for Sault Ste. Marie, introduced a motion that would in effect take away the universal child care benefit from Canadian children and families just in time for the holiday season.

Nevertheless, Bill C-303 is an inadequate and inappropriate attempt to address the child care needs of Canadian parents and represents a significant intrusion into provincial and territorial jurisdiction. The one size fits all approach it endorses, much like the agreement signed by the former government, does not work for the diverse child care needs facing Canadian families.

As the findings of the April 2006 Statistics Canada report “Child Care in Canada” showed, the factors that contribute to a decision regarding a family's caring arrangements are multiple and diverse. The report stated, “The use of certain types of care differed with respect to a number of characteristics, including the community in which the child lived, the income level of the child's family and the parental place of birth”.

Another notable finding of the report was that despite the increase in the number of families with both parents working outside the home, almost half of children under the age of six are primarily cared for by a parent at home. The report concluded that no one form of child care stands out across the country. In fact, child care patterns vary by region, by the child's background and by some family characteristics.

Consequently, if we are going to have a truly objective debate on child care in Canada, we must recognize that no one size fits all approach, such as the one proposed in Bill C-303, will adequately address the needs of Canadian parents.

We recognize that there are many parents who need child care outside the home, be it provided by a day care centre or by another means. That is why, as part of Canada's universal child care plan, Canada's new government is committed to introducing new measures to help employers and communities create new spaces where they are needed.

Budget 2006 backed up this commitment by designating $250 million per year to our child care spaces initiative to support the creation of new spaces. These spaces will be designed, created and delivered in the communities where parents live and work and raise their children.

Our approach will seek to make certain that these new measures work for all businesses and non-profit and community organizations. Moreover, we will provide incentives that will seek to create child care spaces for large urban centres, for smaller rural centres and for parents working a standard nine to five work day and those who are not, while remaining respectful of existing provincial and territorial systems and jurisdictions.

However, as we go about creating these spaces, we are steadfast in our determination not to rush into a poorly designed, top-down, government imposed approach to creating child care spaces. Instead, we will work in conjunction with businesses, non-profit employers and community organizations, as well as the provinces and territories, to draw on their experience and create new child care spaces.

To advance this initiative, the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development recently named a nine member advisory committee to advise her on the design of the child care spaces initiative. This committee, made up of experts in the fields of child care, work-family issues, community organizations and employers, is scheduled to present the minister with its recommendations in the coming months.

In summary, through Canada's universal child care plan, Canadians will find new avenues for innovative and quality child care that will help address their individual needs. Essential to this plan, and what so clearly differentiates it from the approach outlined in Bill C-303, is its acknowledgment of the unique needs of Canadian families and the provision of flexibility to address these needs. This principle serves as a central tenet of our universal child care plan.

To sum up, the former Liberal government's one size fits all approach to child care did not address the diverse needs of Canadian families. Now the NDP is proposing one size fits all child care legislation. On that note, I wonder if the NDP members would explain why, even though they have been vocal--when reporters are near--about a child care crisis for the past decade, they have not once, before 2006, brought forward a private member's bill or a motion on child care for debate in the House during that time.

The fact is that while the NDP pays lip service to child care at election time and when the TV lights are on, Canada's new government is taking real action on our commitment to child care. We are providing parents and the provinces the flexibility and the freedom they need to choose the type of child care that works best for them.

For all of these reasons, I will be voting against Bill C-303. I urge all hon. colleagues to do the same.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, November 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the member talks about money coming back because of the Court of International Trade ruling. He knows full well that the U.S. industry announced that if it was not for this agreement being in place, it would have immediately launched an appeal. That appeal was not launched because of the good work of this Conservative government in arranging an agreement that prevented the U.S. industry from appealing that ruling. The member knows that to be the case and he continues with his NDP “pat themselves on the back spin”.

I want to discuss another issue which is the concern about the move to private lands. Port Alberni, which has been hit so hard by this issue, has also been hit hard by rain recently. Next to the town of Port Alberni is a huge of tract of land on the Beaufort Range that has been the subject of extensive logging because of private land practices there. In fact, back in January there was an investigation. Forest officials were brought in to examine the blowout in the water and there was a boil water advisory as a consequence of that. There have been some very serious changes with the Private Managed Forest Land Council--

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, November 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I know the hon. member is concerned for his rural community, but I am concerned when I hear the member object to this agreement when his government had the opportunity to solve this issue a whole lot sooner and allowed these tariffs to accumulate at the alarming rate they did, strangling our coastal communities and forest companies. The previous Liberal government was ready to sign an agreement that was not anywhere near as good as this one for the Canadian industry.

I want to draw attention to something that is a big concern while I have the opportunity. An article in Saturday's Globe and Mail discusses investment in the coastal industry and some of the comments are indicative of where we might be going, which concerns me.

Jimmy Pattison, a big player on the west coast, talks about making big investment in the coastal industry and that is because there is some measure of optimism that what goes down must come up. Hopefully it will come back. Russell Horner, chief executive officer of Vancouver's Catalyst Paper Corporation, stated:

There needs to be a major restructuring, with closure of a lot of assets and reinvestment in others. The government doesn't need to fund that, but they need to facilitate it...when things shut down, they need to let them shut down.

I know that is a concern because Catalyst runs the paper mill in Port Alberni. We do not want to lose that paper mill as a consequence of the lack of available raw materials from the downturn on the softwood side.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, November 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I see that the NDP members are patting themselves on the back in their mutual admiration society down there, but some of the propaganda they put forward I think is reprehensible.

They claim that only 50% of the companies actually support this agreement when in fact we know more than 90% of the industry supports the agreement and signed on to the deal.

They claim that the recent ruling on October 13 of the Court of International Trade in the United States would have brought back all the money, as if that were the last court ruling there would have been. Those members ought to know how many court rulings, filings and counter-filings there have been on this file.

It is misleading to the public to suggest that this would not have been appealed. We know that the U.S. industry said it immediately would have appealed that decision and thus tied us up for several more years of punishing duties. This government has taken action.

I also think it is reprehensible for the member to imply that these 4,000 lost jobs are the responsibility of this government. I was elected in the year 2000. The former softwood lumber agreement expired in 2001. It was the previous administration that sat on this for so many years that it resulted in punishing job losses in my riding, as well as the member's, and in other coastal communities and indeed across Canada, while the previous government dithered and failed to take action.

This government, as soon as we took office, did take action. We took action quickly. We made it a priority. The Prime Minister immediately appointed the new ambassador to the United States, Michael Wilson, as our representative, and we made this a high priority file. It got high level meetings, including that between the Prime Minister and the president of the United States, and that got things moving, with teams mobilized on both sides of the border to resolve this issue.

The result of that agreement is that on July 1 we initialed a legal text. By September 12, the Minister of International Trade and U.S. trade representative Susan Schwab had signed an agreement. On September 18, a notice of ways and means was tabled in this House which we are still debating today, with amendments, as we move forward in this process.

The highlights of the agreement include: the revocation of the punishing U.S. countervailing and anti-dumping duties; the return of over $4.4 billion in duties collected by the U.S. since 2002; the safeguarding of the provinces' ability to manage their forest resources; a provision ensuring that revenues from the border measures will stay in Canada; and a range of initiatives to enhance binational cooperation and the development of the North American lumber industry.

By October 30, the first cheques were already going back to our cash-strapped industry, with $950 million being returned to Canadian forestry companies, about half of that to our British Columbia companies, including coastal companies that have been suffering very much as a consequence of those punishing duties.

I want to address an issue that is a big concern for coastal communities, particularly in my riding, and that is the issue of log exports. It is an issue of great concern to coastal communities, particularly on Vancouver Island, and particularly the two central ridings of Nanaimo—Alberni, my own, and the one south of us, Nanaimo—Cowichan.

I am glad to say that there is a review team looking at this issue of log exports. It involves a couple of high profile people with extensive experience. Bill Dumont is the former chief forester at Western Forest Products, a man well respected in the industry, and Don Wright is a former deputy forests minister who is also very well respected in the industry. Mr. Dumont is a Vancouver Island resident with 35 years of forestry experience who served as chief forester for Western Forest Products, where he earned a reputation for sustainable forest management, consultation, and working with first nations, and he is an award winner.

I am glad to say that consultations are under way. I am looking forward to action being taken. We have the possibility, through clause 17 in this bill, of dealing with the log export issue. There is room to deal with this issue. I want to take a moment to explain why the log issue is of concern to mid-Island areas.

As members know in regard to the private lands issue, when we are talking about log exports we have public lands and private lands. About 5.7% of the B.C. land mass is private forest lands, but more than half of that is actually on Vancouver Island, and most of it is in two ridings right in the central Island area. That is because of something that goes all the way back to Confederation: the E & N land grants. More than 139 years ago, that land was committed to building a railroad and the resources attached to it were given to the railroad company. Because of that, we have extraordinarily large masses of terrain that are private lands at present.

I am disappointed that, following the collapse of the agreement of 2001, neither the federal nor the provincial government had the courage to deal with the log export issue. The federal government was responsible for private lands and the provincial government was responsible for public lands. Neither government, the former Liberal government or the newly elected provincial government, had the courage to deal with the log export issue, which had the consequence of having a tariff wall on our finished log softwood lumber products while our logs were being exported without any restriction at all at that time.

It seems to me that a tariff should have been imposed while that dispute was under way. That did not happen. As a consequence, we saw a huge increase in coastal log exports during the time of this dispute.

Tremendous realignment has also been taking place in the forest industry and that is affecting the log export issue. Forest giant Weyerhaeuser conveniently owned mills on both sides of the border. It is a huge company with about $16 billion in assets and is bigger than our four largest forest companies combined. Before Weyerhaeuser sold to a Canadian company called Brascan, it managed to get another large chunk of land near Port Alberni released from public lands into the private sector.

The consequences, particularly for the community mid-Island around Port Alberni, have been rather devastating, in that the large amount of private land creates a situation that allows logs to be exported. The logs are vulnerable to export, particularly from this mid-Island area.

Immediately after Weyerhaeuser sold to Brascan, the company divided into two, separating the lands from the mills. At the same time, one of the largest mills in the Port Alberni area, Island Phoenix Division, happened to be moved to the land sector, Island Timberlands. Almost immediately that mill was dismantled, with the loss of about 300 jobs. Conveniently, that particular site is now available for log exports. That is a concern to people in the mid-Island area. Of concern to all of the workers is the tremendous movement toward facilitating log exports. The mill portion of Cascadia was very soon sold to the Western Forest Products division, which now controls about nine of the remaining coastal mills, and Island Timberlands is simply a land manager that can export those logs according to existing rules.

I am concerned that the existing situation has resulted in a tremendous increase in log exports. Log exports have doubled since 2001. Since 1996, the amount of coastal forest wood being exported as raw logs has increased about 10 times.

I want to say that this agreement in general has been very good for Canada. To end the impasse, the government took action on a very complicated file. Billions of dollars are coming back to our entire Canadian industry, including the coastal forest industry.

Clause 17 of the agreement allows us to take action through the governor in council. We are looking at that right now with the province and the review team to deal with this coastal log export issue. I am hopeful that we will see action. I have been discussing this issue with the Minister of International Trade and the Minister of Natural Resources. I know they are discussing it, as I have with the provincial minister, Rich Coleman, the minister of forests.

I am hopeful about the report tabled by these very capable forest experts from British Columbia on the issue of coastal log exports. There have been discussions and consultations going on over the past year. I know that they have heard from the community and I know the community is very upset.

In particular, people at Port Alberni have been counting the logging trucks coming out of there while the mills have been shut down, impaired or working at partial capacity. Even during the recent salmon festival, a ship pulled into the port to load logs for South Korea to be milled there while we have mills working at less than capacity right there in Port Alberni.

We are concerned about the impact of these coastal log exports. The agreement is a good agreement for Canada. We are going to move ahead, but the sidebar issue here on the coastal log exports is one that I hope we will be able to address through the provisions of clause 17. I hope we will see some action to help keep those logs get processed in Canada and on Vancouver Island and to help keep as many jobs as possible right here at home.

[Chiropractics, November 2nd, 2006]

Over the past 30 years, Mr. Speaker, there has been increasing international recognition of the contribution doctors of chiropractic make in promoting good health and reducing both cost and lost time due to workplace injury.

A 1993 landmark study by Dr. Pran Manga at the University of Ottawa recommended that the Ontario government might save hundreds of millions of dollars by ensuring access to chiropractors in the realm of low back pain treatment alone.

Numerous studies in Canada, the U.S., Denmark and the U.K. attest to the valuable contribution chiropractors are making around the world.

Last month UBC announced the appointment of Dr. Jean-Sebastian Blouin as research chair in spinal biomechanics and neurophysiology. Dr. Blouin joins two other chiropractors as research chairs in respected Canadian universities.

Today, doctors of chiropractic from across Canada have come to the House to speak with members and government officials about the contribution chiropractors are and could be making to enhance the health of Canadians and reduce the cost of health care delivery in Canada.

I hope all members will extend a warm welcome to the visiting delegation and best wishes to all doctors of chiropractic working to improve the health of Canadians.

[Criminal Code, November 1st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I can hardly believe what I am hearing. I just heard the member defend judges having the discretion for suspended, conditional, or some other form of sentencing. I know how she feels about mandatory sentences because I have heard her speak to that before. She does not believe they work.

We were elected on a platform to bring in mandatory sentences for repeat and violent offenders. This bill would take away conditional sentences for very serious crimes. We are talking about arson or break and enter.

The member talked about the hardship that some people with conditional sentences have to face. I thought I heard her say that parents would have to explain to their children why they could not take them out on Halloween.

There was a break and enter in my riding recently at the home of a 92-year-old man and his wife. Thank God the woman was able to call 911 before the criminal broke in. He was threatening to cut off her finger to take her rings. The 92-year-old man was beaten so badly he died a few months later. A 37-year-old man is being sentenced. Does the member think that individual should be considered for a conditional sentence so he can take somebody out on Halloween? Is that what the member is trying to defend? Is she serious? Does she recognize that Canadians are outraged because of the problems the Liberals, her party, caused when they were government with their leniency on crime and on criminals that make our society unsafe for our citizens? Is that what she is trying to defend?

[Canada Labour Code, October 18th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I might engage my colleagues tonight. We are all enjoying this discussion so much. I have a blockbuster speech on this subject. I would ask for unanimous consent from my colleagues to extend our hours by 10 minutes so I can deliver my speech.

[National Aboriginal Day, June 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, today marks Canada's 10th National Aboriginal Day. From sea to sea, from north to south, many celebrations are underway.

Right here in the nation's capital, there is a gathering of some 300 first nations, Inuit and Métis, pastors, leaders and community members. The First People's Summit is an assembly of leaders who desire to see the spiritual well-being and the moral integrity of Canada preserved, enhanced and promoted.

These original and host people are praying for and working quietly with determination to see progress in biblically based reconciliation. Their desire is to see healing and unity in Canada between all people, nations, churches and governments, and to cultivate true peace and prosperity throughout our land.

Today representatives from first nations, Inuit and Métis communities will sign a historic document entitled the “Covenant of the First Peoples of Canada”.

Inscribed on the Peace Tower are the words, “Where there is no vision, the people perish”.

I wish to draw this event to the attention of all members and commend the participants in this historic gathering for their vision and commitment to bring blessing, reconciliation and spiritual renewal to Canada. It is National Aboriginal Day. We have a reason to celebrate.

[Hockeyville, June 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, Port Alberni on Vancouver Island has been selected among the top 25 contenders in the CBC Kraft Hockeyville competition. Tonight on CBC, the field of champions will be reduced to 10.

Despite tough economic times, the citizens of Port Alberni never fail to band together and work for the good of the community. They raised an amazing $2.7 million to build a multiplex arena, home of the Alberni Valley Bulldogs Junior A team.

Chamber meetings, council meetings, every organization try to avoid a conflict with the Bulldogs game.

This city of about 20,000 has set the standard for community involvement. It is the only British Columbia city to have hosted all four provincial games, the winter games, the summer games, the senior games and the disability games

Officials in Port Alberni have been so touched by the struggles of other communities in the competition that they are now offering to share their expertise in community development.

I invite all Canadians to tune in to CBC tonight at 8 p.m. Cheer for all the worthy communities and vote Port Alberni for the title of Hockeyville. Go Port!

[The Budget, May 11th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, last night this House passed the Conservative government's first budget.

There was tax relief in every area of federal taxation, and the GST was cut from 7% to 6%. All Canadians will benefit from this initiative, including the one-third of Canadians who pay no income tax. They will receive relief almost every time they visit a cash register. That is why it was amazing to see the NDP vote against the GST cut and the Conservative budget.

I thought the NDP would be in favour of tax relief for low income Canadians. In fact, in 1997 the NDP campaigned on fighting the GST. The NDP leader, the member for Toronto--Danforth, and 12 other current NDP members who ran in the 1997 election seem to have had a change of heart. What is it about tax relief for all Canadians, especially low income Canadians, that the NDP opposes?

The Conservative Party is proud to have tabled a balanced budget that delivers unprecedented tax relief to all Canadians regardless of what they earn. Why is it that the NDP has now decided to join the save the GST club?