Jim Maloway

[Business of Supply, June 11th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the member, but also for the parliamentary secretary.

While we are concerned about pensions, we have movements by provincial governments, such as Saskatchewan and Manitoba that, in the past three or four years, passed legislation to allow people easier access to their pension proceeds. In addition, the federal Liberal government made it easier to use RRSP money, as members will recall, as down payments on houses.

Both of these measures, in my view, are contrary to promotion of adequate pension funds for retirement. So, I would like to ask the member whether she agrees that the government is giving conflicting signals to the public when, on the one hand, we make it easy to withdraw pension funds to make down payments on houses and then we expect people to have adequate pensions when they retire?

My further question really had more to do with the parliamentary secretary's comments when he said that he was interested in the Saskatchewan NDP plan that is still in effect in Saskatchewan, that there were some positive benefits to it. I certainly would be more interested in knowing what the strengths of the Saskatchewan system are.

Also, I did ask him a question before, but he did not have time to answer. I wanted him to assure us that the government has no plans to privatize the Canada pension system and--

[Business of Supply, June 11th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, first, did the member's group look at the Saskatchewan pension plan, which has been in place now for a number of years? Second, can he assure the House that the government is not looking at any type of privatization of the Canadian pension system.

[Petitions, June 11th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, thousands of Canadians have joined the call to stop the Canada-Colombia trade deal.

The petitioners call on Parliament to reject the Canada-Colombia trade deal until an independent human rights impact assessment is carried out, the resulting concerns addressed, and the agreement be renegotiated along the principles of fair trade, which would take environmental and social impacts fully into account while genuinely respecting and enhancing labour rights or the rights of all affected parties.

Labour side agreements under NAFTA, which this agreement is patterned after, have not been effective in protecting and improving labour standards as has been the case in Mexico where over one million agricultural jobs have been lost since NAFTA was signed.

In addition, the murder of labour and human rights activists has increased in Colombia while widespread and very serious human rights violations continue to be the daily reality.

It is time for Parliament to stop this free trade deal.

[Canada Consumer Product Safety Act, June 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by recognizing the efforts of the member for Winnipeg North, who has done a very thorough job. She is very tenacious in her efforts to improve the lives of all Canadians.

She is correct in pointing out the shortcomings of this bill, one of which is the lack of labelling on products containing hazardous materials. It is obvious that we should be putting that in any type of bill. Can anyone imagine not having a labelling process that points out what hazardous materials are in products? It seems to me to be a basic starting point.

We will have to watch the government carefully to make sure it does not ignore the enforcement of its own legislation. I would like to ask the member whether she trusts the government to follow through on the aspects of this particular bill.

[Canada Consumer Product Safety Act, June 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that we are simply deluding ourselves if we think that the free market is going to self-regulate. Clearly, voluntary measures do not work. The banks in the United States could not regulate themselves. The financial services sector in the United States went through a whole deregulation process and we saw what happened when regulations are stripped away and supposedly have a free market operate to the benefit of the public.

Just two years ago the government, for example, passed legislation requiring all-inclusive pricing by the airlines in Canada, meaning that rather than advertising a price of $99 for a flight from Vancouver to Montreal, the full cost had to be provided. Parliament passed that legislation over two years ago and still the Conservative government has not implemented that legislation.

Last September the airlines agreed in Canada to the flights rights proposals of the former minister of transport. They voluntarily limited tarmac delays to 90 minutes. Guess what? Only three months later, they were holding passengers hostage for eight hours on the tarmac.

Why does the member think that without proper labelling legislation in this bill and other tough requirements--

[Canada Consumer Product Safety Act, June 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the member has made a very interesting speech once again in the House, but I see one of the big deficiencies of Bill C-6. The labelling of consumer products containing hazardous materials has been more or less left out of the bill.

That, in addition to the whole area of enforcement, which I have a lot of suspicions the government will not be overly strong on the enforcement side of the bill, caused me to have great concerns about the bill, regardless of the fact that we plan to vote for it and support it.

Does the member share those concerns about the whole issue of labelling and how might we look to the future to ensure the bill gets enforced properly so we catch problems before they become huge problems?

[Canada Consumer Product Safety Act, June 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, following the committee process, I know we are reasonably happy with the final result, although I want to ask the member to give me a better explanation of the whole issue of tobacco.

I understand we proposed removing the unique specific exemption within the Tobacco Act and including it along with the other laws listed in the bill's schedule of exempt legislation. This would have allowed the treatment of tobacco, like other dangerous products, to be changed if future circumstances dictated.

This amendment was voted down along with other proposed amendments to the schedule. One was the grandparenting of existing tobacco products, subject to any new products, to normal health requirements. The other was simply to add the Tobacco Act to the schedule.

Given our concern about the whole issue of smoking and tobacco issues in the House, what are the member's thoughts on this process and why it developed the way it did?

[Petitions, June 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, many Canadians have joined the call to stop the Canada-Colombia trade deal.

The petitioners call on Parliament to reject the Canada-Colombia trade deal until an independent human rights impact assessment is carried out, the resulting concerns addressed, and the agreement renegotiated along the principles of fair trade that would take into account environmental and social impacts while genuinely respecting and enhancing labour rights and the rights of all affected parties.

The violence against workers and members of civil society by paramilitaries in Colombia that are closely associated with the current Uribe government have been ongoing, with more than 2,200 trade unionists murdered since 1991, as well as a host of violence committed against indigenous people, Afro-Colombians, human rights activists, workers, farmers, labour leaders and journalists.

The Canada-Colombia so-called free trade agreement was negotiated following a framework similar to the North American free trade agreement--

[Criminal Code, June 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, we have seen it again. We have seen a member of the governing party make the argument that if we criticize the Conservatives or vote against legislation, then we are siding with terrorists. They are trying to boil this whole argument down to little 30-second clips so they can use it on their television ads. It is all about the next campaign.

Does the member think there is any possibility that parts of the bill could be used to target individuals engaged in legal protests or union activities, such as strikes, or anti-war demonstrations against the war in Afghanistan or any other such activity?

[Criminal Code, June 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am trying to sort out where the Liberal Party is on this bill. In 2001 the Liberal majority government of the day passed the Anti-terrorism Act . It was set to expire under a sunset clause in February 2007. A five-year sunset clause sounds very reasonable to me.

In February 2007, after the act expired, a resolution was introduced in the House to extend the provisions by three more years. That resolution was defeated on February 27, 2007, by the NDP, the Bloc and the Liberals. The Liberals were against extending it.

Now we move to our current situation today, where the Conservatives have introduced a new bill. It sounds to me, after listening to the member, that now the Liberals are in favour of the bill.

Could the member confirm that I have this chronology in the proper order and that it is accurate?