Jamie Nicholls

[Democratic Representation Act, March 1st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by responding to some of what the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville said.

The member's vision of the country has never convinced Quebec nor the other provinces. When he was at the head of his party, he lost lots of seats. I have no problem with more seats as long as the people in those seats actually have power.

Hal Herbert, the member for my riding in the 1970s, wrote an excellent little memoir called “Confessions of a trained seal”. He called himself a trained seal because the prime minister he served under exercised centralizing powers on his members. We have seen that increasing over the years under Trudeau, Mulroney, Chrétien, Martin and the current Prime Minister. They have all centralized power within the Prime Minister's Office, so I take none of the questions from this member seriously.

I am very pleased to address the bill introduced by the hon. member for Compton—Stanstead. This bill reflects our values as Quebeckers and Canadians, namely the values of justice and of a just country. I am a Quebecker and I am proud of that. I am a 14th generation Quebecker. The St-Maurices arrived in the 17th century with the Carignan-Salières regiment. The Nicholls arrived in the 19th century with the great migration of British, Scottish and Irish people.

I am proud to be a member of the Quebec nation. I am proud to say that it was the member for York—that was the name of my riding in the 18th century—Michel-Eustache-Gaspard-Alain Chartier de Lotbinière, who introduced the use of French in the Parliament of Lower Canada. He was Speaker of the House at the time.

Asking permission to use French in government is a tradition that continues today. It points to some historical realities. The first was that there were not large populations of anglophones in the colonies at that time. The second was the idea of fairness that existed at that time.

I would like to quote the member at that time. He stated:

Since the majority of our constituents are placed in a special situation, we are obliged to depart from the ordinary rules and forced to ask for the use of a language which is not that of the empire; but, being as fair to others as we hope they will be to us, we should not want our language eventually to banish that of His Majesty’s other subjects.

This moment in our history is immortalized on a painting located above the Speaker's chair in Quebec's National Assembly. I am mentioning it because this is something that gives concrete expression to the notion of a Quebec nation. I should also point out that the second Marquis de Lotbinière referred to a Canadian idea of justice that existed in our country at the time and which is unique to Canada.

I want to refer to another painting. That one is hanging on the wall of our caucus room, the Railway Committee Room. It shows our nation's founders, the Fathers of Confederation. It was their idea that this new experience, this Confederation, should be a partnership between nations. John A. Macdonald and George-Étienne Cartier were able to create a nation based on the principles of peace, order and responsible government. The term “order” replaced the word “well-being”, which reflected the concept of Canadian justice, of fairness, which is fundamental to this country.

The painting to which I am referring is from Robert Harris. It shows the Fathers of Confederation, but it also shows the flaws in this vision of justice, because there are no women or aboriginals. It may also have marked the beginning of new injustices.

I will return to these injustices in a little while.

The two partners of united Canada, Canada East and Canada West, were fearful of American expansion at the end of the American Civil War. Macdonald was afraid of getting overwhelmed by the American juggernaut. Likewise Cartier went against the grain of those who were asking for republicanism in French Canada. The predecessors of the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville were asking for republicanism in the presence of his party. Cartier was afraid of his home becoming Louisiana, a state that had been assimilated over the years in a nation that did not value bilingualism. They came together as partners. Cartier was assured by his partners in Canada West that the nation would go forward as equal partners. Here I would like to talk of the injustices of Confederation.

The idea of fairness was not only the right to language but also right to religion, continuation of one's culture and communities of interest.

Exactly two years after Confederation, we had the Red River standoff, in what is now Manitoba. As we know, the Canadian administration was not fair to the francophones and Metis of these camps.

The government wanted to put in place a townships system, instead of concessions. This would erase a culture built over a period of more than 300 years, as well as an agreement between the British, the French and the aboriginals. This sent the message to Quebec that it should shut up and be a quiet partner.

The execution of Louis Riel, following the Northwest Rebellion in Saskatchewan, had the effect of cooling relations between francophones, anglophones and aboriginals. The rebirth of Quebec nationalism dates back to that era. Canada's westward expansion was achieved at the expense of francophones and aboriginals to promote the English culture, with a Canadian touch.

So, our partnership suffered setbacks. We accepted the changes. We are open to an increase in the number of seats for the other provinces, but the agreement between the three founding nations must be respected. We must respect the 24.35% rule.

We have to continue the idea of fairness and carry forward a progressive vision of this country, a vision that includes all three nations. I am supporting my colleague's bill because it does support this foundation of the country in 1867 for a certain amount of seats for Quebec to show the importance of this founding nation within a united Canada.

I would like to conclude by saying that the proposed law would be the beginning of the future of our country. It would build a country that would heal the tensions that have built up since Confederation as well as the problems we had after Confederation between francophones, first nations and anglophones. It would recognize that Quebec holds a special place within our Confederation. Quebec needs to be recognized in terms of the seats it has in this House in order to continue the message of Quebec for the rest of the country.

[Financial Literacy Leader Act, March 1st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for the question. When I spoke candidly, I heard someone on the government side say that they could see why I had lost my money. That says a lot about the government's attitude. It is saying that if we lose our money and are poor, it is our own fault. The government will carry on with its agenda. It will make one group of people rich and not care about the rest. That is completely unacceptable. We must protect both the poor and the rich of this country.

[Financial Literacy Leader Act, March 1st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I do believe that if we were to invest more in our CPP and QPP, if we were to beef that up, Canadians would find more money at the end of their careers when they retire.

I mentioned that my mother worked for over 30 years for the Bank of Montreal and believed in all the financial products that she sold. She was quite a fan. However, in her retirement now, I am helping her out with the day to day, simply because she could not save enough money during her career, even with all the financial products that she used, for her retirement.

[Financial Literacy Leader Act, March 1st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, no. What I was implying was that, because of the composition of the working group being mostly former bankers, having their raison d'être for their careers the marketing of financial products, they would be amenable to not fully explaining these products.

I was not implying that they would be selling these products. However, they will have done that in their careers, that will be what they know and it will not be in their interests to steer Canadians away from products that might not give the results their former institutions promised in the past.

[Financial Literacy Leader Act, March 1st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I will start off by looking at the problems the national task force on financial literacy had from the very beginning.

First, it was headed by a former banker. I have nothing against bankers. My mother was a banker. She worked as a bank manager for the Bank of Montreal for over 35 years. She worked in human resources. I had an aunt who worked for the Bank of Montreal for the same period of time. My mom's friends worked for a bank. I am familiar with bankers and I have no problem with them.

The raison d'être of bankers is to market financial products. I know this because I lived in a banking family. Bankers sell financial products. There are certain marketing seasons when they sell RRSPs or different financial products. They have quotas. There are things that they have to sell. They are salespeople. That is their raison d'être. Often the financial products that they sell to consumers increase the profits of their institutions.

That is not a balanced way to start a group dedicated to the idea of financial literacy. It is similar to putting McDonald's in charge of nutrition policies. It is not a balanced way to do things.

Members know as well as I do that consumers sometimes get burned by financial products because they do not quite understand them. A case in point is the RESP.

I want to make a transparent declaration to the House. When I was in my early thirties and took out an RESP for my daughter, I did not quite understand what I was getting into. The marketing material made it look like I could squirrel away money for my daughter and by the time she was 18 there would be enough money for her university education. I was conscious of the fact that when she did reach university age it would be quite expensive to put her through post-secondary education with the rising costs of education and the rising costs of living. I was really scared and I wanted to find a financial product that would allow me to pay for her education without any worries.

What I did not know was that I could lose that money easily. Call me a fool, but I did not know that the RESP would lose so much money when the market took a dive. My mother the banker did not tell me that fact either until I had lost half the value during the downturn in 2008. There was $12,000 in that plan and it went down to about $5,000 or $6,000. I worked hard to put that money aside. I believed that I was doing the right thing. The bank told me I was doing the right thing. The government told me I was doing the right thing. I believed them.

What we need in terms of financial literacy is somebody who will tell the people of Canada the whole truth, not just the marketing truth.

The Minister of Finance denied that we were in a downturn until the very end of 2008, but I felt it much earlier. I remember the government initiatives to boost people's contributions to RESPs in 2006 and 2007. There was quite a marketing drive by the banks and government. They were telling people to put their money into RESPs so that their kids could go to school.

I am sure people will say that I was a fool not to know how it worked before I put my money in the RESP. With raising a child, working full-time, taking care of my family, I did not have the time to sit down and look at what the RESP was about. It was never taught to me in high school. It was never taught to me in university. I was to teach myself from the bank's own marketing products and from the government literature. None of those things told me that I could lose my money just like that.

I know I am not alone in that. I know there are plenty of Canadians out there who have gone through similar experiences to me. Therefore, as much as we might say that I am a fool, if I am a fool, thousands of Canadians are fools. They need help understanding these financial products.

Francophones may find it even more difficult to learn about these financial products through this group because bilingualism is not a requirement for the position of financial literacy leader. Obviously, what the government wants to do is create a single consumer protection agency. However, that is not really within the purview of this bill. Consumer protection is not really included in the bill.

Instead, I would like to talk about one of the greatest problems for Canadians: savings.

If we are looking at the issue of financial literacy, I must agree with my colleague in the third party who said that the financial leader of the government was not quite literate, because we have serious problems. One of those serious problems is the savings of Canadians and it is one of the things that is effecting the competitiveness of our economy.

The former governor of the Bank of Canada said, in a report quite a while ago, that Canadians needed to save more. He said that they needed to save between 10% and 21% of their pre-tax income each year and that they needed to save consistently for 35 years to have comfortable retirement incomes.

According to a report prepared by the C.D. Howe Institute, which is not exactly a socialist organization, people who earn between $42,000 a year and $150,000 a year need to save between 11% and 21%.

What I see in Bill C-28 is the creation of a group that will try to market financial products, like credit cards, RRSPs and RESPs, without fully explaining what those products do or explaining it in a way that will promote those products to promote the profits of those institutions and banks. I do not think that is the way to teach Canadians how to be financially literate. We need to find a way for Canadians to save more money.

The Conference Board of Canada, looking at the World Economic Forum's 2011 report on competitiveness, said that Canada's macroeconomic environment rankings were weak. It said that a number of fiscal pressures were restricting Canada's economy from achieving its full potential. For example, Canada ranked 80th in terms of its gross national savings as a percentage of GDP and a lowly 129th out of 142 countries in terms of its overall government debt levels as a percentage of GDP.

It is clear that we need to help Canadians become financially literate but that starts with telling them to save more and finding efficient ways for them to save without marketing these financial products to them. I do not think the task force would be able to sufficiently explain these financial products to Canadians when it is obvious that the composition of the board would be compromised in that it would not be necessary for the head of the task force to be bilingual.

I have problems with the bill. I do not think it would do what the government states it would do, which is increase financial literacy. We need to take a serious look at how we can actually improve the financial literacy of Canadians. Looking at the statistics, I can see that we have a long way to go.

[Transportation Safety, February 29th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the reality is that the Conservatives are making cuts in the area of transport safety. More than $29 million will be cut from air and marine safety. That is one-quarter of the price tag for a single F-35 fighter jet and half the bill that the Conservatives want to pass on to Quebec for their law and order agenda. In the meantime, big corporations continue to receive gifts.

Why are the Conservatives endangering the lives of Canadians by cutting tens of millions of dollars from transport safety programs?

[Canada-Panama Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, February 27th, 2012]

I am not talking about protectionism here. We are not talking about shutting off the borders and stopping the import and export of goods. What we are talking about here is having standards and principles when one enters into international trade agreements with partners.

Panama is a tax haven. There is money laundering going on there by drug traffickers, by big-time organized criminals who launder their money through Panama.

We are not opposed to increasing the prosperity of the people of Panama or the people of Canada. We are not opposed to these things, but we must have standards and principles and ethics. When we enter into a free trade agreement with a country like Panama, knowing it is a tax haven for drug traffickers and organized criminals, how can the government sit back and say, “Oh, we are not going to look at that because it is going to be good for and benefit some people”.

Everyone has to benefit from it. There has to be prosperity for all parties.

[Canada-Panama Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, February 27th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly it: the two old parties have never really taken a principled position.

That is what we have been doing for years and years. We believe that free trade can be fair too. Free trade and fair trade can go hand in hand. We have seen examples in Australia, where the government is taking steps to promote truly fair free trade.

We believe that Canada should do the same. We should promote free trade agreements that are not only free, but also fair to both parties.

[Canada-Panama Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, February 27th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, a week in my riding among my constituents has done me good.

When I am there I often wonder if the member for Winnipeg North stays here in the chamber, because he seems out of step with Canadians and his own party in seeing that the government he opposes is over there. I have given ample examples of our propositions. Maybe the member should listen instead of continuing his election campaign while here in the House.

I implore the member to go home to Winnipeg and to listen to his constituents. He asked about our free trade position. We do not flip-flop here in the NDP. We are true to our principles. The Liberals seem content to vote to support free trade, as long as it makes some sort of economic growth for somebody.

It is a far cry from the time of John Turner and his spirited opposition to free trade agreements in 1988. It seems that Liberals are supporting money laundering. I find it sad. I find it very sad.

[Canada-Panama Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, February 27th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the answer is simple. It is because every single free trade agreement uses the same flawed template that started in 1988. That template does not truly protect workers' conditions, does not protect the environment and is not fair to the people of that country.

I am sure his constituents would disagree with the member's definition of prosperity. In some of the countries with which we engage in trade deals, workers are making 50¢ an hour. I think his constituents, if they saw the working conditions of people in these countries, would fail to see the prosperity that these trade deals are supposedly bringing to the countries.

I am glad to see that the government has finally woken up in this debate tonight. I received my first question from the government and I look forward to getting more.