Jim Maloway

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, March 18th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I would like to know whether the member could simply talk to her minister or the Prime Minister and ask them when the government is going to provide matching funds for the Chilean earthquake. Days are going by and people need help. It is about time the current government stepped up to the plate and did the right thing.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, March 18th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I want to draw the member's attention to page 1 of the throne speech. It talks about the earthquake disaster in Haiti. We applaud what the government did and how it responded to the Haitian disaster, but there was a disaster in Chile as well, just days before the throne speech was read. Yet there is no matching funds for Canadian donations. There are no Canadian warships loaded with supplies going there or any talk of waiving any immigration rules.

Last Saturday, a social event in Winnipeg raised $10,000. Hundreds of people attended. This weekend in Winnipeg there is a social event with over 1,000 tickets already sold to raise funds. These people are asking this question. Why is the government reluctant to provide the same treatment to the victims of the Chilean earthquake as it did for the victims of the Haitian earthquake and match the funds?

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, March 18th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, the member for Oak Ridges—Markham certainly follows the adage that the best defence is a good offence. When we listen to the government, people would think we were the ones who prorogued the House.

The brain trust in the Conservative government decided that this was perhaps a good idea, to prorogue the House and set the stage for a potential election, following the great results it expected from the Olympics. The government did this when it was 10 points ahead in the polls. It did not anticipate that this would be a total political disaster, that it would end up losing its 10% and would be in the mess it is in right now.

Now the Conservatives are very sensitive about that issue. I think they are trying to deflect the whole issue to other issues. They are trying to say that provinces prorogue houses. Provinces do but they do it in consultation with the opposition.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, March 18th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, contrary to the government member's comments, I want to tell the member for Davenport I did like his speech, which hit some very valuable points. One of the points he brought up was the whole issue of providing matching funds for the victims of the earthquake in Chile, which the government has so far been very silent about. So far we have had no matching funds by the government for donations by Canadians, unlike for Haiti. There are no Canadian warships loaded with supplies or talk of waiving immigration rules. Simply put, our response has been totally embarrassing as far as the earthquake in Chile is concerned.

I would like to ask why the hon. member thinks the government is dragging its feet. It cannot be an issue of money because we know that in the case of Haiti, there is about $200 million the government is probably going to be matching, whereas in the case of Chile we are talking about much smaller numbers. We had $10,000 raised at a social a couple of weeks ago. We have another social in Winnipeg with 1,000 tickets already sold for this weekend. But all told, the numbers are going to be much smaller in terms of matching aid when dealing with the issue in Chile.

I would like to ask the member why the government is dragging its feet on aid to Chile.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, March 18th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Burnaby—Douglas raised in his speech the fact that the government mentioned the issue of nuclear disarmament. I would like to ask the member for his assessment of Canada's work in this area over the past few years. Has Canada been playing a role in building a world without nuclear weapons?

[Petitions, March 18th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition concerns the earthquake in Chile and is signed by dozens of Canadians, calling on the government to match funds personally donated by Canadians to the victims of the earthquake in Chile.

Hundreds of people attended a social event in Winnipeg on Saturday, March 6, raising $10,000 for earthquake relief. This Saturday, over 1,000 tickets have been sold for a second big event.

The petitioners request the same rules that are being applied to the Haitian disaster. The petitioners request the government to match all funds donated to help the victims of the earthquake in Chile.

[Petitions, March 18th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table two petitions in the House today.

The first contains the names of hundreds of Canadians, calling on the government to extend the funding for healing programs under the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. The funding for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation is set to expire on March 31, 2010. The Aboriginal Healing Foundation supports aboriginal people in building healing processes that address the issues of physical and sexual abuse in residential schools. The residential school system caused physical and mental trauma to the children who were forced to attend. This foundation is important to the survivors, through counselling and the cultural programs. The foundation has existed for 10 years and the healing is still not complete.

The petitioners are asking the government to extend the funding for this important foundation.

[Seeds Regulations Act, March 17th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-474, sponsored by my colleague, the member for British Columbia Southern Interior. I really have a lot of respect for his tenacity in dealing with this issue. It takes a lot of work, as members know if they have ever developed a private member's bill. I know the member has done a lot of work on this file. He has consulted far and wide on this bill.

Contrary to the shrill comments that we have received from the government member across the floor, the fact of the matter is that it is very likely that we will be able to pass this bill, given that the Bloc member who just spoke made a very excellent speech regarding his approach to the bill, and the fact that he will be supporting its progress to committee. In fact, the Liberal critic before him, who spoke to the bill, was a little more negative toward the bill, but he, too, indicated that the Liberal Party would be supporting to get the bill to committee.

Once again the government is sort of on the short end of the stick here because we have three parties with the majority of the votes that can send this to committee. I hope that is in fact what happens.

The member has indicated in his introductory speech that he is open to amendments and further consideration at committee. That is the way we should be approaching subjects in this Parliament.

The bill calls for an amendment to the Seeds Regulations Act which would require an analysis of potential harm to export markets to be conducted before the sale of any new genetically engineered seed is permitted. That seems to me to be almost a no-brainer.

Why would people invest in their plant, equipment and farm, and embark on a career to produce a product that potentially would not have a market? I would think they would want to investigate that before they took a chance on perhaps losing everything.

The member, as well as the member for the Bloc, pointed out that Argentina is a success story in this regard in that it takes this into consideration before it makes these approvals.

We see this over and over again with the government. It does not necessarily look at what works before it reacts. We see it with the crime bills. There is ample evidence that mandatory minimums have not worked in the United States for the last 25 years, so what does it do, it keeps trying to do the same thing.

We know that corporate income tax cuts have not actually had the desired effect of increasing investment in plants and equipment. What does the government do, it keeps reducing the corporate income tax.

Once again, the member from the Bloc pointed out that Argentina has the proper approach. It is not too late. It is never too late to learn new ideas. Perhaps when we do get this bill to committee, the members of the government will open their minds a bit and perhaps take a second look at this, and perhaps look at what in fact is going on in Argentina.

Perhaps there will be some meeting of the minds. After all, that is what a minority Parliament, in fact even a majority Parliament, should be able to accomplish. Particularly in a minority Parliament, there is something to be said for the process of listening to the other person's arguments before drawing conclusions.

I am aware that the majority of the European Union remains opposed to this. We are quite aware of the European Union being concerned. That is a risk that we have to deal with all of the time in agriculture. The issue is, why would we take a chance alienating a major part of the market?

I know that in the last several years, even though I represent an urban constituency, I was put on the agriculture committee of the Midwestern Legislative Conference. Members from the government side from Saskatchewan will know what the Midwestern Legislative Conference is all about. In fact, Saskatchewan was a member longer than us. We joined five or six years ago and we meet every year in conference.

Sitting on that agriculture committee for the last five years before I got elected to the federal House, I must admit that I got quite a crash course on agriculture issues. I learned that the discussion and process around the U.S. farm bill is a process that we would never want to replicate in this country. It is hardly a great example of how legislation should be put together. I think the member from Saskatchewan probably knows that when the U.S. farm bill is brought together over a five-year process, it is all glued and taped together with interest groups and other interests.

I do not have enough time to get into all of the different issues that have been put into the farm bill. The last farm bill, which I believe ran out just recently, had some provisions for big tax breaks for people who were not really even farmers. They were basically investors and they were getting all of these subsidies from Washington.

That is what we are dealing with here, in a way, because we are a smaller country. We have to deal with the Americans on the other side of the border. As a result, we do a lot of things in a policy sense that do not necessarily reflect where a lot of our people are at or that make sense globally. We tend to bow our heads to agribusiness and corporate farms, which we in the NDP have always been reluctant to do.

Look at the people who support this bill. The member indicated that the Canadian Federation of Agriculture and the National Farmers Union have indicated support for this bill. I know that members will probably say that that is not a surprise because the National Farmers Union does tend to support many of the things that NDP members support. The Canadian Biotechnology Action Network and the organic food and farm community are also in support.

If all of these organizations are in support of this bill, who is against it? As usual, we do not have to look too far to find out that the agribusiness people, the big money people, and the corporate farm people are pulling the strings behind the scenes. Members know that. The Conservatives know what is really going on behind the scenes here, but they are basically tied. I guess it is easier for them to take their marching orders from agribusiness and think that everything is going to be okay.

The world has developed that way, but there is a strong resistance against that approach. We are seeing that in the markets. We are seeing that in Europe. We are seeing people in European markets resisting and I predict it is going to happen in other markets as well. We are going to find more and more people. Maybe they want to go back to the past. Maybe we all want to think back favourably on the old family farm that many of us visited and many of us grew up on.

People say that we cannot go back there, that it is the past, and that we have to keep moving forward. They say that the trend is moving toward these huge multi-million dollar businesses, agribusinesses, use of pesticides and so on, and that we are basically polluting ourselves. That is not necessarily going to be the final answer here. We have to look at other alternatives. I think the member is giving us a good direction to move in.

[Business of Supply, March 17th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his presentation, as much as I disagree with it.

The whole scenario today reminds me of the book Animal Farm. We have come full circle here. That party self-destructed a number of years ago, with only two of its members being elected in 1993, and the Reform Party thereafter became the ascendant group. How things have changed. We have watched these members now become the government and, quite honestly, they look and act exactly like the Liberals they replaced.

They talked about corruption and the lack of democracy, and they were going to engage in direct democracy, and all of this has just gone now. Power obviously corrupts.

They talk about provincial parties using prorogation. The fact of the matter is that provincial party leaders actually talk to one another. The premier talks with the opposition leader. Hence, the opposition leader at the provincial level knows what is going on and knows that when the legislative agenda is finished, the legislature will be prorogued. They do it more or less by agreement, even though the premier can simply do it on its own.

However, what this government is doing and what is different about it is that it is proroguing when it finds the opposition gaining steam on an issue. When the opposition is making hay on an issue, then the government decides to prorogue. What was the result? It lost 10 percentage points after prorogation. I do not think the government will do it again.

[Petitions, March 16th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition signed by dozens of Canadians. It is a call to adopt Canada's first air passengers' bill of rights. Bill C-310 would provide compensation to air passengers flying on all Canadian carriers, including charters, anywhere they fly in the world.

The bill would include measures on compensation for overbooked flights, cancelled flights and unreasonable tarmac delays. It would deal with late and misplaced baggage. It would deal with all-inclusive pricing by airline companies in their advertising. It would ensure that passengers are kept informed of flight changes, whether there are delays or cancellations.

The new rules would be posted at the airports. The airlines must inform passengers of their rights and the process they must use to file for compensation. It is not meant to punish the airlines. If they follow the rules, they would not have to make any payment for compensation.

The petitioners call on the Parliament of Canada to adopt Canada's first air passengers' bill of rights.