Jim Maloway

[Petitions, October 20th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, citizens of Manitoba have signed my petition to call upon the Parliament of Canada to adopt Canada's first air passenger bill of rights, Bill C-310, which would provide compensation to air passengers flying with all Canadian carriers including charters, anywhere they fly. The bill includes measures on compensation for overbooked flights, cancelled flights, and unreasonable tarmac delays. It deals with late and misplaced baggage. It deals with all-inclusive pricing by airline companies in their advertising. It would ensure that passengers be kept informed of flight changes whether they were delays or cancellations. It will require that the new rules be posted at the airports and that the airlines inform passengers of their rights for compensation. If the airlines follow the rules, they will not have to pay one dollar in compensation. On behalf of the constituents who signed the petition, I am very pleased to present this and ask that Parliament support the bill.

[Petitions, October 19th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, my petitioners call upon the government to stop the wage roll-backs and restore pay equity for public service workers. Bill C-10, the Budget Implementation Act, empowers the government to roll back negotiated wages and arbitral awards retroactively as well as radically change the rules governing pay equity in the federal public sector. This infringes upon the rights of civil servants to freely and collectively bargain wage increases with their employers and adversely affects the rights of public sector workers, particularly women, to equal pay for work of equal value.

Bill C-10 would prevent civil servants from filing and adjudicating gender-based discrimination through the Canadian Human Rights Code and would trade away their human rights at the bargaining table. Therefore, the petitioners call upon the government of Canada to rescind the provisions of Bill C-10 that violate workers' rights to collective bargaining, including the arbitral awards of equal pay for work of equal value.

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, October 9th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, unlike the Conservative members opposite, I rather enjoyed the member's presentation. When he was talking about the role of the big banks here, he was in fact going to be relating that to the free trade agreement with Colombia and how a free trade agreement would also facilitate the takeover of Colombian businesses and so on by these banks.

If it were not for the opposition in the House stopping the merger of those banks, we would have had bank mergers, and we would have been in a huge mess come the recent recession. So, in fact, the opposition inadvertently saved the government from being in the same mess that the United States government is in. They should be thanking the member opposite--

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, October 9th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, the United Kingdom ended military aid to Colombia because of the human rights record. Forty-three foreign companies in Colombia have been accused of having ties with paramilitary groups.

In 2008, the House of Commons Standing Committee on International Trade recommended that no agreement be signed with Colombia until the human rights situation there improved. It also recommended that a human rights impact assessment study be undertaken to determine the real impact of the trade deal. The government has ignored that report.

In John Turner's day, the Liberals were opposed to a free trade agreement. Not only have they resolved to sign on to that agreement, but they are actively supporting this particular agreement. Why will the government and the Liberals not look back to 2008 and that House of Commons Standing Committee on International Trade recommendation to have an impact study done? Why not have that study done first before we proceed?

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, October 9th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, the member is absolutely right. There have been 2,690 trade unionists murdered in Colombia since 1986. Twenty-seven trade unionists have been murdered there just this year alone. Colombia is not a significant trading partner of ours. In fact, in that region, it is only the fifth largest trading partner in Latin America.

Why is the government so directed to get this agreement signed when we see this total lack of human rights? Why does the government keep pursuing the same sorts of agreements, such as this one and the Canada-Peru agreement, which are all patterned on the FTA? Why does the government not look to the European Union for better examples of trade agreements that bring all the countries up and provide fair trade provisions, as opposed to this model, which results in a race to the bottom for the lowest common denominator?

[Petitions, October 9th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition signed by dozens of Manitoba residents. It calls for equal employment insurance benefits for adoptive parents. Under the current EI system, adoptive parents are given 35 weeks of paid leave followed by a further 15 of unpaid leave. Under the law, a biological mother is given both the first 35 weeks and the latter 15 weeks as paid leave.

Studies have shown that an additional 15 weeks of paid leave would help parents better support their adopted children and handle many of the specific issues they must face.

The petitioners call on the Government of Canada to support Bill C-413 which would amend the Employment Insurance Act and the Canada Labour Code to ensure that an adoptive parent would be entitled to the same number of weeks of paid leave as the biological mother of a newborn child.

[Search and Rescue Helicopter, October 8th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for an excellent speech.

I think it is about time that we took preventive action. Why do we always wait until there is a death and an accident before we do things? It seems to me that we should not be worrying about cost. We should just move ahead and get this job done.

[Canada Grain Act, October 8th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I was amused by the outraged Conservatives earlier today in their speeches, when they were referring to the hoist and the idea that somehow we were putting farmers at risk by trying to hoist the bill.

I looked at the date on which the hoist motion was made and it was April 2. When I look at my calendar, it is six months and six days to the day that the hoist motion was made. As far as I know the government House leader is the one who sets the House business. He could have called the bill at any time in the last six months but chose to wait a full six months and six days before he even called the bill. So much for the urgency of the government to get the bill passed.

There have been some very important points brought out in the debate today by members in my party and members in the Liberal Party. A big issue is the elimination of the requirement for grain buyers to post the security bonds and it would expose the grain producers to financial harm or bankruptcy.

I ask, what could go wrong? We are in an economy right now where the big companies are going bankrupt. We have General Motors and Nortel going bankrupt. When we take away bonding requirements, it is a safety feature to have grain companies bonded to protect the producers. I see nothing but trouble in leaving the grain companies operating without a bond, exposing all the producers to enormous losses.

[Canada Grain Act, October 8th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, what we are seeing here is the continued desire on the part of the Conservative government to try to continue its program of deregulation. It is the old philosophy of pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps. That can work in a good market, but there are cycles in business and farming. Eventually, the good market turns into a bad market. For that reason, we have to protect our farmers.

As a matter of fact, what the Canadian farmers have that works in their favour is the terrific quality of product that they produce. There is a concern that we might destabilize that quality by lowering the standards. We all saw what happened when lead was discovered in the toys coming in from China and what that did to the reputation of that country and that particular industry.

I do not think that we want to do anything here that would damage the very strong reputation we have in the world market for producing top quality grain. That is one advantage we have over the Americans and I would think we would want to keep it that way.

I also want to point out that what we are proposing is a hoist motion. It is a democratic process in this House. The government should have patience. It has already been waiting a long time. It has introduced this bill more than once. Hoisting the bill for six months is not going to do irreparable damage to the grain economy in Canada.

[Bill C-311--Climate Change Accountability Act, October 8th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, regarding Bill C-311 and this particular topic in general, it should be no surprise to the member or anyone in the House that the Conservative government would be in the pockets of the oil industry.

In fact, the government has ignored its own member, the Minister of State for Democratic Reform , who supports an east-west power grid, which he has spoken about before, which would send Manitoba's clean electrical power to Ontario to retire the coal plants in Ontario. The government even ignores its own member and prefers to promote a nuclear alternative which it knows could take years and years to get approval.

Why does the government not deal in concrete matters on this issue and promote the east-west power grid as a start to help push this file along?