Jim Maloway

[Disposition of Abolition of Early Parole Act, February 14th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I know the opposition parties have asked the government for a costing of this crime bill and others. The sad part about it is the Conservative government does not care what the cost is. Over and over again, it has said that it does not matter what it costs, that it simply wants the law changed.

The fact is the Conservatives' ideological cousins in the United States, led by Newt Gingrich, have actually come around. He has been working actively with other right-wing Republicans and Democrats in the states of Texas and South Carolina to do things that are smart on crime. They have cut the costs of running prisons and are operating a much more sensible system there.

The member is probably aware of Newt Gingrich's January 7 article. Would he expand on that?

[Petitions, February 14th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, my petition calls upon the Canadian government to end Canada's military involvement in Afghanistan.

In May 2008, Parliament passed a resolution to withdraw the Canadian Forces by July 2011. The Prime Minister, with agreement from the Liberal Party, broke his oft-repeated promise to honour the parliamentary motion and, furthermore, refuses to put it to a parliamentary vote in the House.

Committing 1,000 soldiers to a training mission still presents a danger to our troops and an unnecessary expense when our country is faced with a $56 billion deficit. The military mission has cost Canadians more than $18 billion so far, money that could have been used to improve health care and seniors' pensions right here in Canada.

Polls show that a clear majority of Canadians do not want Canada's military presence to continue after the scheduled removal date of July 2011. Therefore, the petitioners call upon the Prime Minister to honour the will of Parliament and bring the troops home now.

[Older Workers, February 11th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for Edmonton East for bringing forth this motion. I want to read it at the beginning so people watching will have an idea of what the motion is about. It reads:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should continue to recognize the vital role of older workers in the Canadian economy and ensure its labour market programs and policies encourage older workers to contribute their skills and experience in the Canadian workforce.

I would expect that the motion will in fact pass. It comes out of a number of initiatives the government has taken in support of older workers and retraining in the workforce.

I want to note that the member for Edmonton East, when he made his presentation on October 4, 2010, gave some statistics that I found rather interesting in his speech. He indicated that in 1900, over a century ago, Canadian men had a life expectancy of only 47 years, while women could expect to live just under 3 years longer.

When the first old age pension was brought in by the federal government in 1927, payments began at the age of 70. On that basis, most Canadians would not live long enough to collect the pension as the average life expectancy was, by that time, 59 years for men and age 62 for women.

As indicated, under the Canadian pension plan, the pension was introduced in 1927. I want to make some observations about that, because after World War I, there was increased urbanization in Canada and industrialization. It led to an increase in demand for old age pensions. I had statistics on pensions in other countries. There were a number of countries had pensions in place before 1935.

The member for Winnipeg North will be pleased to hear that in 1916, Manitoba, our home province, was the first province to pass a Mothers' Pension Act to provide a small but assured income to widows and divorced or deserted wives with children to support, deemed the worthy poor.

Within five years, all provinces from Ontario west had similar legislation called public assistance. This help was based on a means test and constituted a modern version of the English poor law.

This will show how things really have not changed over the years. In 1919, the federal Liberal Party pledged to pass legislation on health insurance, contributory old age pensions and unemployment insurance, but alas, none of these promises were kept. At that point, the British North America Act was cited as the main impediment. The reality is that business interests which funded the two major parties at the time were a hindrance.

It was 1927 before the old age pension did in fact become law. It came about during the government of William Lyon Mackenzie King, but the introduction was based on a promise to the two Labour MPs at the time, J.S. Woodsworth and A.A. Heaps. It provided a maximum, by the way, of $20 a month, and it was subject to a means test.

I have a copy of the letter which was sent to Mackenzie King in January 1926. I spent some time early this morning reading Hansard from 1927. It was a very interesting experience.

The letter was sent to both the Liberal leader, Mr. King but also, as an equal opportunity group I gather, it was decided to let the Conservatives have a chance at it too. It reads as follows:

Dear Mr. King:

As representatives of Labour in the House of Commons, may we ask whether it is your intention to introduce at this session legislation with regard to (a) Provision for the unemployed; (b) Old Age Pensions. We are venturing to send a similar inquiry to the leader of the opposition.

We must remember that it was a minority government and the leader of the opposition was Arthur Meighen. The Conservative leader was unwilling, even if it meant getting his hands on the government, to support either proposal at the time. Woodsworth and Heaps, the two labour representatives, accepted Mackenzie King's offer to pursue old age pensions and gave him their support. When his government finally won a majority in 1926, Mackenzie King followed up on his promise to Woodsworth and Heaps by introducing legislation that became the Old Age Pensions Act in 1927.

The battle for old age pensions goes back many years, from the time the act was originally discussed, passed and implemented in other jurisdictions. It took a minority government situation to force the Liberals to promise to bring in the--

[Business of Supply, February 10th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, this was a perfect opportunity for the Conservatives to toot their horn and indicate all the bad things that the Liberals failed to do over the last 27 years but they failed to do that. I can only come to the conclusion that they think that somehow this issue will go away.

After all these years, these people are still determined to get justice from this Parliament. If this issue was going to go away, they would have forgotten about it. If they were happy with the jobs that were provided and with the situation that developed, we would not be debating this issue right now.

I suggest that the Conservatives bring themselves to current reality and join us and support the motion.

[Business of Supply, February 10th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, it was a very wise decision on the part of the Bloc members when they crafted their motion to make certain that it was a resolution from Parliament, as opposed to a demand on the government to issue an apology. They probably knew what would happen here today, which is that government members would stand and basically talk about flora and fauna and all kinds of other positives about the park but not say at all whether they agree with the apology.

This was a beautiful opportunity, which the Conservatives never seem to miss when it comes to taking a whack at the Liberals, to spend the whole day taking all their speaking spots and levelling the guns at the Liberals for their 27 years of neglect on the issue, but they did not do that. They want to talk about flora and fauna but not what they will do in terms of the vote on this particular motion.

[Business of Supply, February 10th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the member totally misses the whole point of the Bloc motion. I would suggest that she read the Bloc motion. The motion is asking for Parliament to apologize to the residents of the park whose property was expropriated. She is talking about visiting the park 30 years after the fact. We are waiting for some direction from the government.

Who is in charge over there? There has to be somebody over there who is in charge of that crew who can say that yes, we are in favour of the motion or we are not in favour of the motion. How complicated is this? We have had speaker after speaker stand and talk about flora and fauna and talk about what is in the park but never once deal with the issue at hand, which is an apology for what was done by the government 40 years ago.

Could the member not read the motion and understand what it is all about?

[Business of Supply, February 10th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the member is correct. Whatever compensation was given, whether in this case or in the Manitoba case, we are talking about land that, at least in Manitoba, was in an economically depressed area and the schools had closed down so the landowners were given almost nothing. When the government expropriated the land, it brought in real estate appraisers who said that the land was not worth anything. Families were given $5,000. Where could a family relocate and buy a house for $5,000 in the town of Gimli or the city of Winnipeg? It just could not happen.

In Manitoba's case, 99 properties were expropriated and, of those, 56 were voluntarily given up, which means that 56 landowners thought the compensation was fair when they signed on. Seventeen cases were decided by the courts.

The landowners believed the government's story that somehow things would get better and they would have all these jobs. It was sort of a false promise, as it turned out, but the people actually believed that they would have a brighter future and that they would get all these jobs but the jobs did not materialize. They did not materialize in the Quebec situation and they did not materialize in the Manitoba situation. By the way, the jobs still have not materialized because this saga in Manitoba continues after all these years.

[Business of Supply, February 10th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the Bloc opposition day motion. The Bloc's rationale for wording the motion the way it did, demanding that Parliament express the apology, is well placed given that expecting the government to do it is likely never to happen. We saw that today in the few opportunities government members took to speak to the motion.

They have given 20 minute speeches, and in questions and comments have been asked repeatedly whether they are voting for the motion, and they cannot answer that question. That would indicate to me that they are probably not supportive of the motion. Were they in favour of it, I expect they would be eager to let us all know at this point.

The fact that the three opposition parties are supporting the motion guarantees that the motion will pass and at the end of the day, the Bloc will get what it wanted in terms of getting it through. The apology will be made, regardless of the reluctance on the part of the Conservative government.

Conservative members have indicated that they have been quite forthcoming with apologies since they have come to power and cited several examples. It is a mystery to me why they would be reluctant to vote for this apology, when they have been fairly forthcoming in other situations.

In terms of the Liberal members, I know the member for Honoré-Mercier spoke this morning. I believe he was the second speaker. He made it clear right up front that he was apologizing on behalf of the Liberal Party for its 27 years of neglect on this file. But he did not indicate, at least I did not hear it, whether that apology came from his leader or whether it was his personal opinion that an apology would be in order.

He also did not indicate, nor has anybody in the House so far that I have heard, what the Liberal government actually did during those 27 years to solve this problem. I would have expected that the government, which is always eager to take a whack at the Liberals, would have come prepared and, rather than giving us vivid descriptions of the flora and fauna of the park, would have provided details.

If the Liberals had done nothing for 27 years, the government would have been keen to point that out. I waited to hear that and did not hear that being expressed by government members.

Their positioning so far is very curious, but the new member for Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette will be making his first major presentation in the House today and will be taking questions. I am sure that the member for Winnipeg North, myself and others, will be very eager to ask him whether he has the answer to the secret that we have been waiting for all day as to whether the government is going to support this motion and make it unanimous. That is, in fact, the right thing to do.

As I had indicated, the Bloc opposition day motion calls for an apology to the former residents of Forillon National Park whose property was expropriated in 1969. A little later I will get into an explanation of many other expropriations, including in my home province of Manitoba, that occurred during that period of time. It certainly was a time when there was a lot of activity in the establishment of new parks, both federal and provincial, as was the case in Manitoba.

In 1969, the Quebec Union Nationale government led by Jean-Jacques Bertrand and the Pearson federal government agreed to create a new national park in the Gaspé region. I believe that was the first national park in Quebec, as one of the Bloc members mentioned. Between 1969 and 1972, over 1,000 residents, about 225 families, living in the area had their properties expropriated to make way for the park.

A similar activity happened in Manitoba with Hecla Island. In reading of the histories of the two, they are very similar and the time frame is reasonably similar as well. According to the histories, it was a sign of the times. People were moving in to the cities. The high school in Hecla was closed down. I think the schools were closing down because there were not enough school-aged children.

It is an island, and it has to be kept open. The causeway had not been built at that time, so it required winter roads and attention. The population dropped and there were fewer and fewer school-aged children.

The people on Hecla Island were promoting the idea of economic development through the establishment of a provincial park. I believe that happened in this situation as well. One of the speakers earlier on today pointed out that there was an expectation that the Quebec and federal governments sold the people on the idea that if they turned the area into a provincial park, there would be jobs.

Like what happened on Hecla Island, the jobs did not materialize. People were stuck selling their property. In the case of Hecla Island, they were not all expropriated because a fairly large number of them voluntarily sold. When they sold, it was sold at low levels and people had to move to places like Winnipeg where property values were triple.

The landowners were at a very big disadvantage and they started having second thoughts. Those who waited to be expropriated, who were fewer in number, ended up getting more for their properties. That led to a lot of acrimony between these groups.

What subsequently happened was a later Conservative government attempted to resettle the people. That ended up in a big mess as well. In fact, police and fraud charges were brought against several people for forgery and so on. I will get to that issue later.

The 220 families were living in the area and had their properties expropriated to make way for the park. Once again, this has to be pointed out. A member, who I get along with very well, has committee hearings right now, but he gave the impression that people were not compensated.

My information is that the residents were compensated for their properties. However, when they had to move, they had to start over. They had to buy properties. They could not replace their property at the price they received. They were at a disadvantage from day one. They were living under this assumption that somehow there would be all these jobs, which never materialized.

The former residents have been calling for this formal apology for 40 years now. We have asked the question many times about where the Liberals were on this. Once again, I would have expected it to be wall-to-wall Conservative speakers today, dumping on the Liberals for their lack of action for 27 years and being eager to be onside. It really is a mystery to me as to why they are holding back.

Parks Canada has created an interactive exhibit in one of the expropriated homes, detailing the experiences of some families that were forced to leave. Commemorative plaques have been placed around the park where the communities once were. All of this is very well and good. It has taken a lot of years for Parks Canada to do it. It is something it did not have to do, but it was the right thing to do.

The government has announced that in 2011 it will issue special entry passes for families up to third generation. Our critic indicated that this should be expanded to five generations. It does not just include this park. I believe it includes all the parks in the system. Those passes are to be given to people up to third generation whose principle residence was expropriated for the national parks or national historic sites.

The member for Gatineau indicated that people who wanted to go back to visit their ancestors in the graveyard would have to line up and pay to get into the park. I believe there are three graveyards in this park. It is hard to comprehend.

Eligibility for lifetime passes would be based on existing historic records, if any still exist. A committee would determine whether someone could get a pass.

These committees are part of the reason the Conservatives got into trouble in Manitoba with the resettlement of Hecla. They had a committee, but some of the people on the committee ended up getting them into trouble, as I had indicated before.

Despite expected difficulties in getting these passes, many former residents see this as a promising first step.

A petition from 750 former residents and their descendants was presented to Minister Prentice in 2010. I join my colleague from Thunder Bay—Superior North in complimenting Minister Prentice who did a very good job in the many difficult spots he found himself in with that government.

The 750 former residents were asking for free park access for five generations instead of the three the government was promising. There are three cemeteries in the park. Most of the generations of 225 family ancestors are buried there and most buildings in the park were burned down or bulldozed in the creation of the park. However, the ones that remained were preserved.

We see this as a relatively non-controversial motion. We feel the apology should have a very limited financial implication because court cases have already ruled the expropriations were within the law.

There are expropriations all over. Governments have to expropriate. Duff Roblin, when he was premier in Manitoba, had a floodway built, and he has almost approached sainthood for having done so. It saved the province of Manitoba billions of dollars. Just recently the floodway was expanded, costing quite a bit more money. However, it is expected to save a lot of grief in a few months from now when the flood waters are at historical highs. To build that floodway, he had to expropriate.

Let us not delude ourselves. Governments of any stripe involved in construction projects, like a floodway to save billions of dollars in damage, have to expropriate, but that is a different situation than a national park.

As with Hecla, the fact is the government basically killed the park when it got rid of the people. There needs to be activity in the park with people living there. Then the Conservatives went full circle and decided, in 1998, they were would try to bring people back and repopulate it.

How nice is that? We go to all the trouble of expropriating and forcing people out of the park, then 15 years later decide to try and bring them all back to restore the mess that was created in the first place.

We have seen all kinds of inconsistencies with governments over the years, for example, the nursing shortage. The Conservative government fired 1,000 nurses in Manitoba at a time when the population was aging and we needed the nurses.

The member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel talked about the Mirabel airport. The best brains in the country developed the concept for a new airport in Mirabel and expropriated all the land and what happened? It turned into a big boondoggle. At least the Conservative government did the right thing back then and gave the land back to the original people who wanted it.

The government did the right thing then, so we want it to do the right thing in this case. It is not that difficult to join with the rest of the members of the House. The motion will pass anyway, so why not make it unanimous? Why not do the right thing and admit that governments can make mistakes. No one is above admitting a mistake and correcting the problems that come about as a result.

In the four minutes I have left I want to deal with some of the issues coming out of the Manitoba situation. Other members have talked about how this parallels situations in their provinces. It was not a federal park in the case of Manitoba, although I believe the government tried at one point to make it a federal park. It was a provincial park. Many articles have been written on this because it was a long-standing saga and it mirrors the situation with Forillon Park. It is the same story but a different environment.

Interestingly enough, this happened during the same time period. We are not talking 20 or 30 years separation. We are talking about the same time that the park in Quebec was being set up. There was the park in New Brunswick as well that had a more violent end to it. All three of these situations happened at the same time.

The settlement on the Hecla Islands was founded by Icelanders in 1876. There is just too much information for me to try to get it in my remaining two minutes so I will try to cut it short.

The island had a population of 500 people who were served by two schools and two stores. A few people eked out a living on farms plagued by poor soil conditions. Most islanders were commercial fishermen and captains who took to the lake to earn an adequate livelihood.

The island's fortune began a downward spiral in the following decade, which resulted in many fleeing their communities to places such as Gimli and Winnipeg to seek better opportunities. In 1966 the last remaining school closed, giving islanders another reason to abandon their homes. The islanders could no longer support themselves as an isolated community. They were served by an ice road in the winter and a tiny ferry when there was open water. The causeway was not completed until 1972.

I want to make this clear for the member for Selkirk—Interlake who put some misinformation on the record this morning. When the NDP became the government in 1969, it inherited the Walter Weir Conservative government's two-year old plan. The Conservatives had already been planning to turn Hecla into a provincial park for two years. The process was well under way.

When Premier Schreyer looked at the plan devised by the bureaucrats, he did not like what he saw. The bureaucrats wanted all the people gone. The premier, however, envisioned a park with some of the original inhabitants and he proposed to expropriate the land for needed infrastructure and any private homes. To have no one living there was a flight from common sense he believed.

Evidently there was a plan to leaseback, but very few people took advantage of the province's proposal because the island was economically depressed, according to a federal-provincial rural agreement. Of the 99 properties expropriated, 56 of them were voluntarily given up, 18 were eventually voluntary ceded after negotiations, 17 cases were decided by the courts and 3 properties were not considered for expropriation.

[Business of Supply, February 10th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the motion by the member for Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine is asking for the government to issue an apology. It was a Liberal government back in those days that initiated this action. The Bloc motion is asking for the House of Commons to issue an apology instead of the government.

I asked this question earlier this morning and did not get an answer, so perhaps that member could answer my question. Why does the motion call on the House of Commons to issue an apology rather than the government? I am sure there is a good reason for it.

[Business of Supply, February 10th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, basically that was to be my question for the member as well. I have been listening to the debates today since 10 a.m. and there have been very few government representatives who have stood, but those who have managed to speak for 20 minutes without saying at all where the government was planning to go on the motion.

As a matter of fact, a Liberal, I believe it was the second speaker, apologized on behalf of the Liberal Party for its 27 years of ignoring this problem. The Bloc and the NDP obviously support the motion. Why is the government so reluctant to come clean and indicate whether it is in favour of the motion or not? What is the big secret?