James Lunney

[Trinity Western University, February 27th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, many Canadians are shocked that law societies across the country voted to discriminate against Trinity Western University law graduates.

Compounding the alarm is the revelation that it is big banks and big money interests, led by the Bank of Montreal, that influenced the law societies. BMO and other large banks and corporations have been requiring legal and financial service contractors to reveal the diversity metrics of their associates, partners and management teams. The initiative branded “Legal Leaders for Diversity” is apparently opposed to religious diversity.

Asking a prospective employee about their sexual preferences would be against the law. Denying economic opportunity to any individual or any law firm based upon religious belief is just as surely a charter violation. The Supreme Court of Canada, and now the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, ruled against such religious discrimination.

Canadians expect our banks and our leading corporations to respect the charter rights and freedoms of all Canadians. We call upon the BMO and its recruits from corporate Canada to reverse this misguided initiative.

[Respect for Communities Act, February 27th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to be a part of the debate today about such an important bill, Bill C-2, the respect for communities act. I suspect that we all agree that illegal drugs have a terrible impact on our communities. There may be different opinions on how the challenges they pose should be addressed, but we all know that the worst drugs such as heroin have a terrible impact on our communities and destroy lives. These drugs also cause serious harm to public health and public safety.

Bill C-2 forms an important piece of our government's effort to protect public health from the serious and negative effects of drug abuse and to maintain public safety from the impacts associated with drug use and addictions.

It is always good to have the facts when we are debating important topics like this, so I would like to briefly mention a report from Justice Canada entitled, “The Cost of Crime in Canada”. The report estimated that the direct health care costs associated with illicit drug use in Canada totalled $1.3 billion in 2008. It is estimated that over $2 billion is spent annually on justice-related costs, such as law enforcement, courts, and correctional services as a result of illicit drug use. These are enormous expenditures and costs to society.

Even worse when we consider the terrible impact on individuals, communities, and Canadian society, where the costs are enormous. These are the direct costs to the health and justice systems only. The impact on the individuals who suffer and the negative consequences for their families is immeasurable. No parent should have to suffer as their child gets involved with drug abuse and end up worrying about the broken dreams and perilous, uncertain future that addiction brings.

This government is committed to preventing drug abuse and breaking the cycle of drug addiction so that our communities can be healthy and safe and that no family has to watch a loved one suffer from addiction. Part of our plan to address addiction is the national anti-drug strategy that was launched in 2007 as the federal government's comprehensive response to combat illicit drug use in Canada.

With its three key action plans, the strategy focuses on preventing illicit drug use, treating drug dependency, and combatting the production and trafficking of illicit drugs. Today I would like to elaborate on our government's commitment to preventing illicit drug use through the strategy's prevention action plan.

The prevention action plan contributes to reducing illicit drug use and prescription drug abuse in key target groups such as youth. It does this by funding the development and implementation of community-based interventions and initiatives to prevent illicit drug use and abuse of prescription drugs, especially among youth; discouraging illicit drug use and prescription drug abuse by providing information directly to youth, parents, and concerned adults; and supporting the development of awareness materials and the provision of awareness sessions to school-aged youth, parents, professionals, and other community members.

The government also supports prevention activities through the drug safety community initiatives fund. This funding program supports Canadian communities and their collective efforts at health promotion and prevention of illicit and prescription drug abuse. The projects supported through the fund focus on informing and educating Canadians on illicit drugs and prescription drug abuse and their adverse health and social effects; offering tools to foster resiliency and coping skills among youth to deal with peer pressure regarding illicit drug use; and promoting healthy behaviours and supportive environments that discourage drug use among young people.

Projects take place on the national, provincial, territorial, and local community levels and can include a wide range of activities, such as school-based and peer support programs and outreach. Project activities can also include the development and distribution of resource materials as well as the sharing of best practices.

Since 2007, Health Canada has provided $75 million to fund some 140 projects to discourage and prevent illicit drug use among youth. As part of our ongoing commitment to curbing drug abuse in Canada, the government is supporting projects across the country to address a wide range of illicit and prescription drug abuse issues, especially among vulnerable youth, who have a higher risk of substance abuse and dependence.

Many of the projects serve to equip young people with the knowledge and skills required to recognize and avoid situations where there may be peer pressure to use drugs. Others are designed to provide parents and those who work with youth with drug education and prevention strategies that will help families and communities deal with the growing problem of substance abuse.

In addition to providing financial support for prevention work, our government also completed a successful five-year, $30 million mass media campaign known as “DrugsNot4Me”, which was aimed at youth and their parents. A key part of the DrugsNot4Me campaign was developing awareness by providing prevention materials for use in elementary and secondary schools. We also provided facts and background information for parents to help prepare them to engage in conversations with their children about substance abuse and staying off drugs.

The campaign made a difference. There were over one million visits to the DrugsNot4Me website, and one in four parents reached out to the campaign and took action by engaging in discussions with their children about drugs. Even more importantly, there was an increase in the proportion of youth who said they knew about the potential effects of illicit drug use on relationships with family and friends, and they sought information on how to avoid drugs or to deal with drug-use issues.

However, despite these prevention efforts, the challenges are far from over. Illicit drug use in Canada is changing, with prescription drug abuse becoming a concern. In 2012-13, more than 80,000 Canadian kids admitted to using prescription drugs to get high. This is a very serious and alarming situation. The misuse and abuse of prescription drugs carries the same health and public safety concerns as illicit drugs do.

To combat the concern about prescription drug abuse, our government has committed an additional $44.9 million in funding over five years to expand the national anti-drug strategy to target prescription drug abuse.

The health committee has recently been studying these issues and heard from a large number of expert witnesses. In fact, the committee recently completed studies both on prescription drug abuse and the health risks of marijuana.

I know that my time is coming to an end and perhaps this is a good place for me to stop. I imagine I will have a little time left when the debate resumes after question period.

[Respect for Communities Act, February 27th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I want to recognize that the hon. member has had a long career in law enforcement and working with communities to resolve safety issues.

I wonder if he could express his opinion, from his own life experience, on why local communities ought to have a say if someone is considering having what is called a safe injection site with illegal drugs, perhaps in a residential neighbourhood, and why law enforcement officials, municipal leaders, and others in the area might need to have a say on a site opening up in their neighbourhood.

[Rise in anti-Semitism, February 24th, 2015]

Mr. Chair, the member mentioned Israel Apartheid Week, that disgusting manifestation that happens on our college campuses. He mentioned that apartheid comes from what happened in South Africa.

I had the privilege of being at a parliamentary forum internationally with a member of Parliament from South Africa, who is a leader of one of the parties there. He has started an opposite movement called Defend, Advocate and Support Israel, or DASI. Kenneth Meshoe is a black African who lived under apartheid. He said, “Show me anything about Israel that you call apartheid and I'll explain to you why it is not”.

Kenneth has started this movement, and he is trying recruit about 25 young black Africans to help carry the message around the world that this slur against Israel, a modern form of anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, is in fact totally out of touch with reality and is an insult to what people actually did suffer under apartheid.

Would the member care to comment? Was he aware of this? Is there something we might be able to do to help bring or encourage this movement to bring some of those folks to Canada to help inform our public discourse?

[Rise in anti-Semitism, February 24th, 2015]

Mr. Chair, I also had an experience visiting Auschwitz just a few a years ago with a survivor whose first experience, after having been separated from his family, hoping to be reunited, thinking it was a work camp, and going through a delousing experience, was to see an elderly Jewish man stomped to death by a Nazi guard as he groped on the floor to find his glasses. He soon realized he was not in a work camp and this was not going to end well. I am glad to say that Max Eisen did survive.

We have disturbing incidents of anti-Semitism right here in Canada. I have seen reports from Gilles Proulx, a former radio host, who wrote an article in the Le Journal de Montréal. When asked to explain his comments, he said the Jewish diaspora has alleged power to make Washington, Paris, or Ottawa submit to its demands. These again are the myths that the hon. member for Mount Royal raised earlier. There was also the Toronto protest about the Israel-Hamas conflict where a protester yelled, “The Jews control the media, control the banks, control the governments, control everything”, according to a report in the Toronto Sun. Finally, Radio-Canada opted not to censure a host on an RDI call-in show who expressed approval for the callers who equated Jews to Nazis.

We have had these disturbing incidents in Canada, and I wonder if the member would comment on these kinds of incidents here at home.

[Rise in anti-Semitism, February 24th, 2015]

Mr. Chair, the member opposite mentioned an attack, an anti-Semitic incident, in Montreal just today that was reported in the news. Swastikas were put on cars and bullets were left in envelopes on cars as a very serious signal to people in a residential apartment building. We have had the combatting anti-Semitism conference here in Ottawa and a previous one in London.

I think we all want to join together in shouting out that these kinds of anti-Semitic threats against our population of Jewish people in Canada will not be accepted in this country. I know that all members have an interest in doing that. I just wanted to ask the member to remark on this particular incident. I am not sure everyone in the House was aware of it. It was just reported today.

[Business of Supply, February 2nd, 2015]

Yes, Mr. Speaker, sometimes we obviously have disagreements on issues.

The details were to be worked out before CETA came into force. It could be another year before the final agreements are signed, as translations and legal drafting are completed. It is right now when these things should be negotiated, but doing it in a confrontational manner is not the best way to get the best results. Compensation will be delivered where demonstrable losses can in fact be demonstrated, but for one party to do the negotiating and expect that what it wants is what will be arrived at and that the conclusions will be there without negotiation is probably not reasonable.

[Business of Supply, February 2nd, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member opposite, as I do all members from Newfoundland. They are great debaters and have a lot of passion, and we appreciate that.

[Business of Supply, February 2nd, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's determination to represent the interests of his province, but a news release is hardly the same as a negotiated agreement. The details were to be worked out before CETA came into force.

The letter from a Canadian official that the member referred to demonstrates the government's willingness to discuss the rollout of that compensation fund, but it has always been the Government of Canada's position that it is for demonstrable impacts.

There was a lot of rain in British Columbia and some flooding in my area. Insurance compensation happens when people's homes are flooded. I live further from the river and no one in my area was flooded out, and to expect compensation because we live in an area where there are floods without evidence of our homes being harmed is not reasonable.

I hope the member understands that when the government signs these agreements, we tend to apply them fairly, as we do with the dairy industry, the pharmaceutical industry, and other industries that are impacted. The same will be true with Newfoundland. We will want to make sure that Newfoundland does very well with the agreement. It should do well with increased opportunities to export to Europe, and where there are demonstrated negative effects, we will make sure that the fund is implemented.

[Business of Supply, February 2nd, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Oshawa, who is also the hard-working Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment.

I am pleased to stand today to speak to the issue that has been raised and to the benefits of the Canada-EU comprehensive economic and trade agreement, also known as CETA. I will focus today on the fact that the agreement will have great benefits for the fish and seafood industry, in addition to the Canadian economy more broadly.

The agreement will provide new and expanded economic opportunities for those who make their living from the fishery and seafood sectors, both in Newfoundland and Labrador and across Canada. The timely implementation of this agreement is in the best interests of hard-working fishermen and seafood producers throughout our nation.

As members are aware, CETA is a key component of our government's ambitious trade agenda, which is aimed at creating jobs and economic prosperity for all Canadians.

First I would note that this is Canada's most ambitious trade agreement ever. The agreement would provide Canada with preferential market access to Europe's 500-million-strong consumer economy and $17 trillion of economic activity. In fact, a joint study conducted with the EU prior to the outset of negotiations concluded that the agreement could boost Canada's income by $12 billion annually and bilateral trade by 20% across all sectors.

CETA would have significant benefits across the spectrum of all fishing and seafood activities, from wild harvest to aquaculture to processing. Aquaculture, as well, is a big player in the Newfoundland and Labrador economy.

Between 2011 and 2013, Canada's fish and seafood exports to the EU were worth an average of about $390 million per year. These exports are currently subject to high tariffs, averaging 11% and reaching as high as 25%. Between the years 2008 and 2012, Canadian firms paid between $20 million and $30 million annually in tariffs on the export of seafood products. Those tariffs are what the negotiation is about. They will be removed, and as processors in Newfoundland and Labrador are quite willing to acknowledge, this will be a tremendous aspect of the agreement, and it will create opportunities for Newfoundland and Labrador.

For example, Newfoundland and Labrador exports a significant amount of seafood to the EU, which is subject to these tariffs. Such charges include up to 12% of the export value of frozen shrimp.

As a member of the fisheries committee a few years ago, I was in Newfoundland and Labrador visiting some of the processing facilities. I remember clearly a visit to St. Anthony, at the northern tip of the peninsula of Newfoundland, and a huge state-of-the-art factory there. I think Clearwater was part of that. The amazing factory there was open in 1999. It processes something like 14 million pounds of shrimp every season and employs between 200 and 215 people. It can also make 120 metric tonnes of ice per day. That is a big operation. It is state-of-the-art and very impressive.

That factory and others like it would have unfettered access. The tariff on exported shrimp, cooked and peeled, in retail packages currently is a rate of 20%. That tariff would be removed when CETA is finally signed. The agreement has been signed in principle on both sides, but it will be finally implemented on both sides as all the legal drafting goes through. In Canada, we deal with two official languages, and when we are dealing with international agreements, they have to be translated and the text has to be agreed upon. However, in Europe, where they have 22 official languages, it takes a little longer to work through some of the legal processes. That process is playing itself out right now.

There is an 8% tariff on snow crab and an 8% tariff on frozen scallops. These additional costs have negatively impacted the competitiveness of Newfoundland and Labrador's seafood products in the European market. They have made it an uphill battle for our industry to attract new consumers and expand its market share.

Those tariffs and barriers will be removed under the new CETA.

Today Canadian seafood producers export about 377 types of fish and seafood products to the EU. Because of our ambitious trade agreement, led by our government, tariffs on 360 of those will be eliminated on day one of the agreement being in force. That day has not yet arrived, which is why the negative impacts that are the subject of the discussion today have not appeared at the present time. If there are negative impacts, they will need to be assessed, but that agreement and those impacts will not be in play until the agreement comes into force.

The tariffs on the other 17 products will be phased out after three, five, or seven years, but it will not be necessary for fishermen and seafood producers to wait to see these benefits accrue. If it is a three-year timeline, the tariffs will drop by one-third the first year and two-thirds the second and will be completely removed by the third year.

As I stated, the Canadian seafood industry will see real benefits of this deal accumulate quickly, once the agreement is brought into force. The reductions in tariffs will translate into savings that can be either reinvested into businesses to make them more competitive and more innovative or to help them grow their share of the European market through more competitive pricing. The bottom line is that tariff elimination will make Canada's seafood products more competitive and lucrative in Europe, which means more jobs and greater prosperity for the sector and for Canada's coastal communities here at home.

I should note that all of these figures are based on recent exports of Canadian fish and seafood products. The numbers do not account for the increased opportunities CETA will provide for additional Canadian fish and seafood products as new demand is generated in the European market.

CETA also contains important flexibility for Canadian industry, such as rules of origin, which will benefit Canadian fish and seafood processors and ensure that they remain competitive in a global marketplace. Rules of origin allow customs authorities to determine where a product originates or is wholly obtained so that they can apply the relevant tariff to the product as it enters the country.

In practice, these favourable product-specific rules of origin will allow Canada to import fish to our country from a non-party, like the United States, and enable the Canadian industry to process the fish for export to the European Union under the preferential tariffs granted through CETA. This will benefit the Canadian seafood processing industry greatly and those who work in the field. For example, in my home province of British Columbia, the industry processes Alaskan sockeye salmon for export, in addition to Canadian catches. On the east coast, New Brunswick processes Maine lobsters to sell abroad.

The fact is that these favourable rules of origin will result in more opportunity for seafood processors across Canada, including Newfoundland's processing industry.

Our government has managed to achieve all of these benefits while maintaining Canada's full discretion over licensing of fishing and related activities, including the government's ongoing policy of preventing foreign firms from having greater than 49% ownership of a processing plant and from holding a commercial fishing licence.

With regard to port access, CETA does not change how we control port access or how we apply the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act. We will still have the power and the authority to require the vessels entering our fishing waters to do so under the authorities of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, and the minister will continue to have the discretion to grant a licence for them to operate in our waters or to transit our waters to a Canadian port. Therefore, this agreement does not change our current operations with regard to European vessels.

Our government has embarked on an ambitious trade agenda, and we are opening other sections, such as the trans-Pacific partnership and the Canada-Korea Free Trade Agreement. Korea is our seventh largest trading partner. All of these measures bring new opportunities for Canadian producers.

Therefore, I hope that all members will support CETA and that the members who raised the concerns today will allow the process to work through and will allow negotiations to take place with the federal government and the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. As was indicated, we are in a position to and are willing to negotiate the terms.

However, to expect to have a fund administered without demonstrable harms is not reasonable and is unfair to other agreements with other provinces. I hope members will appreciate that as we carry on with the discussion today and support the CETA in every way.