Jim Karygiannis

[Air Service Operations Legislation, June 16th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate you for achieving the position of Speaker. I am sure that you will do great things.

We have a government that is putting forward legislation at the beginning of a dispute where negotiations may not be going the right way and people are threatening to walk out. The government steps in right away and says that it will establish back-to-work legislation. A strike has not taken place as of yet and the parties are still at the table. The public has not been affected. Air Canada has been sending out the message that should something happen, it will be able to continue its service.

Air Canada is a private company looking after its own affairs. Without a large outcry by the public, why is the government stepping in right away and saying that the employees need to get back to work or it will use a heavy-handed approach? Is this the way the government will continue business from here on, at the back of the unions? Is the government not recognizing the unions, what they have done and their struggle? Does it not have any respect for the people who are unionized, the people who are running the unions and the people who are paying union dues?

I would like to get a clear answer from the minister. Is this the way the government will act from now on, with total disrespect for the union and the union movement in this country?

[June 8th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to rise. I also would like to take a turn to thank my constituents of Scarborough—Agincourt for returning me for an eighth term.

I listened with interest to the debate. It brought me back to the debate when my colleague from, I believe, Hamilton Centre was talking about proportional representation. I am sure his colleague might want to jump in on this and let us know his views.

The figures for what happened in the last election show that nationally the Bloc had 6.5% of the vote, but in Quebec it had 23% of the vote. The Green Party had 3.91%. The Green Party, at 3.91%, has one representative, while the Bloc, at 6.5%, has four representatives. In some countries that have proportional representation, and unlike our country, which has first past the post, if the government of the day does not support the minority that a member represents or where the member is from, it takes that level of 3% or 4% and raises it to 10%.

I am speaking specifically of Turkey, where this upcoming weekend there will be an election. In order for a party to get a seat in Turkey's parliament, it must get 10% of the vote.

If that were the case and the Conservatives were all of a sudden to raise it to 10%, we would not have any representation from the Green Party and we would not have any representation from the Bloc. I wonder if this is the right move--

[Petitions, March 25th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am seeking unanimous consent to move a motion that the House unanimously condemn what is happening in Bahrain by the government against its people and calls on all parties to move swiftly to resolve the difficulties and for democracy to return in Bahrain.

[United Nations Security Council Resolution Concerning Libya, March 21st, 2011]

Mr. Chair, I thank my hon. colleague for the comments he made about my request to the Speaker for two emergency debates.

Time and again, on the issue of the Coptic minority, we have asked the government to ensure that we push the government in Egypt for them to be protected.

There have been troubles in that part of the world for many years but lately, since 2005-06, those problems have been escalated. We had the killings of six Christians in Nag Hammadi. As they were coming out of the church from Christmas mass, somebody drove by and killed them with a machine gun. The Canadian government issued a press release and nothing more.

We had the problems on New Year's Eve. When officials of the government were contacted, they were trying to lowball the emergency of the situation of what was critical in Canada.

Then, after Hosni Mubarak left, we had the situation of the church being burned, people being killed and massive sit-ins by the Coptic community. Forty members of Parliament signed a letter asking for the minister to do something. The minister just put that letter on the shelf.

I asked the minister today if he had addressed that situation when he was in Egypt. We did not get a precise, clear answer. We got rhetoric and big words. The minister said that he and the minister of citizenship and immigration were trying to address this issue but I have yet to see concrete action.

The government has failed the Coptic Egyptians and the Coptic Egyptians in Canada in order to address the needs in that part of the world, not only to ensure that the Egyptian government of yesterday and today know what the wishes of its people are but has certainly not even provided assistance in order for this file to move forward.

[United Nations Security Council Resolution Concerning Libya, March 21st, 2011]

Mr. Chair, I want to thank my colleague from Newfoundland, or the rock, as I refer to it.

Certainly, the bombing of innocent civilians should not be tolerated and wherever possible, that should be avoided, but when war starts, unfortunately heinous crimes do happen and heinous acts take place.

I want to assure my hon. colleague that I find a lot of comfort that the R to P, the work we are doing right now, has the United Nations resolution. I personally would not support action taken by a particular group unless it has the United Nations resolution behind it. However, as we are forcibly engaged in making sure that the United Nations resolution, in this instance, works, we should also make sure that other UN resolutions are enforced.

I could go ad infinitum. I could give my hon. colleague an example of the north part of Cyprus where we have resolution after resolution which is never brought into play. For close to 40 years Cyprus has been under occupation and nothing has been done.

Not only do we have a United Nations resolution that we support moving forward, but we should also have teeth in order to make sure that other United Nations resolutions in countries that are affected are also being protected.

Moammar Gadhafi is at the bottom of the list, and that is why it is comfortable for the rest of the people to say that they have to go in and really clean this guy out, although until yesterday, he was a friend and a player. However, other situations such as this also have to be addressed. We cannot pick and choose the leaders. We cannot say that he is on our bad list today and we will get rid of him. Everybody should be handled the same way. We cannot play around with people, and if people of one country are having R to P, then other countries should be given the same thing.

I am looking at the people of Burma and what happened in that part of the world after we had a couple of cyclones. We put on some pressure, but absolutely no enforcement.

[United Nations Security Council Resolution Concerning Libya, March 21st, 2011]

Mr. Chair, I know that in his part of the world, he has one of the largest Coptic churches. We have seen the trouble that the Coptic community is facing in Egypt, and certainly has been facing for many years. Indeed, I share in the pain of his constituents that he, himself, has expressed from time to time with what is happening in that part of the world. I have seen the work that he has done, working with Copts, in order to make sure that the people's needs are represented.

One question that was asked was about the shift from peacekeeping to peacemaking. We have seen this with missions. I lost a member of my extended family, Sergeant Christos Karigiannis, in Afghanistan. We decided in this House to put soldiers in that part of the world.

It is very hard to know the difference between peacekeeping and peacemaking. There is a very fine line. Sometimes we overstep the bounds.

The Arab world is experiencing a call to democracy. The Arab world is changing the channel from dictatorship to democracy. New found means, be it Twitter or Facebook, and the social media are certainly working, calling people to take action and calling for democracy. Democracy is 2,510 years old. It was founded in the city of my birth, Athens, Greece. I find that it is best practised in this country, as we are going to see, in elections.

I encourage people in the Middle East to find democracy. I look forward to working with all colleagues in this House to make sure that we assist these people, and that we provide for them, not only money but the means in order for them to find democracy.

[United Nations Security Council Resolution Concerning Libya, March 21st, 2011]

Mr. Chair, it is indeed a pleasure to rise on this issue. I had asked the Speaker a number of times before to have an emergency debate on this issue and I am glad we are doing it today.

I noticed the hon. minister did not answer the question that was put to him specifically about the Coptic situation, so there will be another time that we can talk about this.

Since the beginning of this year we are noticing one demonstration revolution after another in the Arab world, in the Middle East, and yet the western world is eyeballing this and a lot of our people are saying “responsibility to protect”, that we have to take some serious steps toward it.

What is happening in that part of the world is a certain something which was well overdue. We had presidents, prime ministers, dictators, most of them there for life, and a lot of them were single-party leaders and many of them were military supported. We had Hosni Mubarak in Egypt who was there for 32 years. We have Gadhafi who has been there for 41 years. The list goes on and on.

However, before I address the issue of Colonel Gadhafi and what is happening and what he is doing to his people, I wanted to look at the Conservative government, and if it is ready to handle the safety of Canadians abroad.

There was a protocol that was put in place after the tsunami in 2004-2005 in order to assist Canadians who were caught in natural or man-made disasters, as well as the countries where the disasters happened. The protocol was that number one we get Canadians out of harm's way, and there should be a blueprint that certainly responds to every need in a different way in order to make sure we address our citizens.

Communities that wanted to raise money in order to assist in those areas would be given a one-time charitable donation number, so they can assist them in raising money, matching dollar for dollar as has been done time and time again with money that was raised. That shouldn't be a knee jerk reaction: we do it for one country and we do not do it for another. We do it for Haiti and the Prime Minister goes out there and makes a donation, but we should offer this to all the communities that are trying to raise money, even for Japan today.

I noticed that we also had some money that was going to Libya. There are Libyan Canadians who want to raise money in order to help and assist in the surrounding countries, and yet they are not being given that opportunity. There are credible organizations. There's the Red Cross, Oxfam, and CARE. There are communities stakeholders such as Humanity First, GlobalMedic. The protocol also stated that we should assist people who had immigration files from those countries, people who were sponsoring spouses, dependent children, parents, and grandparents in order to get them out of harm's way. If people in Canada want to, there has to be the willingness as well as the means to invite people from that part of the world, certainly for them to be given that opportunity to come to this country until the calamity is over.

We have seen the disaster and what happened with the situation in Lebanon. The government's response back then was certainly dismal. Early this year we saw what happened in Egypt when the difficulties erupted. Evacuation of Canadians from Egypt was hastily done, at the very last minute. To my knowledge, Canada was the only country in the world that was asking its citizens to pay money to be evacuated out of harm's way. Never before have we had a government that actually asked people to pay for getting evacuated.

We saw what happened in Japan last week. Other countries are evacuating their citizens. I am told China has evacuated close to 30,000 of its citizens. The only thing Canada did was give two buses to move them out of harm's way.

Now let us see what happened in Libya. When the difficulties started happening and Mr. Gadhafi was starting to kill his people, Canada had the ambassador and one official there, and they were the first ones, after a couple of days, to leave. We hear stories of Canadians who were paying up to 2,500 euros in order to be smuggled to Malta. So again, the government has completely gutted evacuation protocol that was put in place. It is really not putting blueprints in order should our citizens need an evacuation or our assistance in a time of need.

Then we come to the R to P, responsibility to protect. We have seen commentator after commentator, newspapers and television saying that the western world had to do something. Finally, we have moved on and have the no-fly zone. I, for one, am supportive of this. I know that my party is. I know that nobody in this House would say that we should not be supporting the people of Libya or that we should not be making sure that Mr. Gadhafi is taken out of office so that his people could be protected.

However, the responsibility to protect, how we use it and when we use it, is something else that needs to be discussed. In Qatar, people are being killed. In Bahrain, it is the same thing. We also have to look at those areas.

One thing that we have to be careful about is that we need to know the end date of the mission. We need to know how long we are going to be there. We need to know if the no-fly zone works and what the next steps are going to be. We need to know the cost of this. We also need to be transparent with respect to what we are doing.

Those are my thoughts on this matter. I am supportive of the government's action; however, we also have to make sure that before the action is taken that the protocol that was put in place in order to assist Canadians in harm's way is paramount. We just cannot allow what happened in Japan, with the provision of only two buses to get our people out of harm's way. That is dismal and is something that we should not be supporting.

I am supporting the mission; however, I am calling the government to task on the way that they are handling Canadians abroad.

[United Nations Security Council Resolution Concerning Libya, March 21st, 2011]

Mr. Chair, the minister mentioned that he travelled to Egypt. Not only are there problems in Egypt with Hosni Mubarak and what happened there, but throughout the years there were problems with the Coptic population which makes up about 10% of Egypt. On New Year's Eve there was a bombing outside a church and although Hosni Mubarak has left, there is still violence against the Coptic Christians. There was a church burned just a couple of weeks ago and 40 members of Parliament signed a petition.

I am wondering if we have said something to the Egyptians or if a diplomatic note has been sent to them. I am wondering what Canada has done and what the minister has done on the issue of the Coptic population and the difficulties that they face. We cannot let this go. Not even a press release was issued after the burning of the church.

Although its prime minister attempted to speak to them, as one of the nations stepping forward today saying we have a responsibility to protect Libya, we owe that part of the world and those people some sort of responsibility in sending a clear message not only about what happened with Hosni Mubarak but what is happening to them now. I am wondering if the minister could enlighten us as to what exactly he did.

[Request for Emergency Debate, March 10th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, my request is that we hold an emergency debate on what is happening in the Arab world. Libya is in a civil war; madman Gadhafi is killing his own people. Egypt was just liberated from Hosni Mubarak and last night in the news we saw what is happening with religious strife. The Canadian government is sending a frigate to Libya.

Our constituents want us to engage in a debate. As we are helping to build democracies, we are watching what is happening over there and it is directly having an effect here. The price of gas and the cost of goods have been driven up.

I am asking for an emergency debate in order for all members of Parliament to participate and voice their concerns as to what is happening in the Arab world and the Middle East.

[Request for Emergency Debate, March 2nd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, with the situation in Libya in a state of emergency and flux, some areas have been freed from the Gadhafi regime while the city of Tripoli has become a killing field.

Although the Canadian government attempted to get Canadians out of Libya, there are still Canadians stuck there and they are facing uncertainty and danger.

The Canadian government has committed to a plan of action with respect to Libya and has committed military personnel and equipment. However, the Canadian people, through their elected representatives, want to have their voices heard.

As we move to assist the region in building democracies, we must be engaged here in Canada. Discussion among ourselves as well as with our constituents must start and that is why I am asking for an emergency debate on the situation in Libya.