Jim Maloway

[Petitions, November 22nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by dozens of Canadians to end Canada's involvement in Afghanistan.

In May 2008, Parliament passed a resolution to withdraw Canadian Forces by July 2011. The Prime Minister, with agreement from the Liberal Party, broke his often-repeated promise to honour the parliamentary motion.

Committing 1,000 soldiers to a training mission still presents 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.

The polls show that a clear majority 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.

[November 19th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, once again I want to thank the member from Kitchener—Waterloo for his motion and certainly the contribution of the other speakers on this, particularly the parliamentary secretary.

It sounds as though we are on the right track. We know there has been a decline in charitable giving over the last couple of years. It may be as a result of the recession, but there could be other issues that are at play here.

I know there is another bill before the House that deals with the disclosure of the salaries of the top managers and CEOs. There is the issue of what portion of the donations actually reaches the people it is supposed to help and how much is used in administration.

It is conceivable that when these two bills reach the finance committee together we will be able to look at them as one big piece of the puzzle, but certainly there is some merit in what the member says. The reason I asked him the question initially was because I was not sure whether this was just an idea that he had, something that he had been promoting on his own for a while, or whether in fact it was being endorsed by the finance minister and the parliamentary secretary. Clearly the government seems to be reasonably behind this particular idea.

What we are doing here is simply fostering and approving that a study begin. We all know how quickly the current government moves at the best of times. Glaciers move faster than the parliamentary secretary, although I must admit that on the pension issue he seems to be getting some of the results that we in the NDP have been pushing for. We have been reasonably happy with him up to recent times; however, some of his recent speeches have cast some doubt on that.

The fact of the matter is that we are probably looking at an election in another few months anyway, so with all the good work we are doing now in getting these bills through the process, we are likely to see these bills again after the next election. However, this idea looks as though it is one that should be proceeded with.

The finance committee is looking at studies. We are going to have to look at the cost to the treasury and what impact that would have on the budget, where the government is not in very good shape right now with a $56 billion deficit and no clear idea of where we are going to be another 12 or 24 months out. By the time this study is concluded, we could be well beyond the next election. It could take a couple of years and the government may end up saying that it is going to cost too much money, that it cannot afford to give up the revenue and that it is going to phase it in over a period of time.

That was my original caution. I wanted to make certain that the members did not raise hopes among the charities that somehow they would be called to meetings, which I am sure he has had them attend, and think that somehow they are going to get some results from the government in short order. I think he should dampen those expectations a lot, given the past history of the government.

[November 19th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Kitchener—Waterloo for his work on Motion No. 559, but I would say that before we go around raising the hopes of charities that something is actually going to come out of this, I would like to ask him whether he has at least run this idea by the finance minister and other people in the government.

We know that the government is a very tightly controlled group, and I do not believe for a moment that the member is coming up with this idea simply on his own without checking with the parliamentary secretary, without checking with the finance minister. So once again, before we raise the hopes of the charities out there, I just want to be reassured that he has actually vetted this idea through the finance minister and the parliamentary secretary.

I would also like to know what the revenue shortfall or revenue loss would be. We are dealing with a $56 billion deficit. Surely he has some idea of how much revenue the government would lose as a result of making these changes.

[Constitution Act, 2010 (Senate Term Limits), November 19th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Burnaby—Douglas indicated prior to my speech that we in the NDP have supported the idea of getting Bill C-10 to committee. We obviously have to deal with the member's amendment, but certainly the original intention was to support the bill going to committee to get results.

We are here to make the minority Parliament work in spite of the fact that the government does not seem to be overly helpful or even interested in a lot of cases.

[Constitution Act, 2010 (Senate Term Limits), November 19th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-10 and the amendment proposed by the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley today.

I would like to read the motion proposed by the member, which was:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:

“the House decline to give second reading to Bill C-10, An Act to amend the Constitution Act, 1867 (Senate term limits), because the term limits do not go far enough in addressing the problems with the Senate of Canada, and do not lead quickly enough to the abolition of the upper chamber, as recent events have shown to be necessary.”

As I said and as was indicated by our previous speaker in regard to Bill C-10, the New Democrats had indicated that we would be supporting that bill to get it to committee, but things have changed in the last week with regard to developments at the Senate on Bill C-311, Climate Change Accountability Act.

This bill was passed not only once in this Parliament but had also passed in a previous Parliament. Of course, because of the election, it came back and had to be reintroduced and passed a second time. It then went to the Senate.

Now the unelected, appointed, Conservative-dominated Senate killed Bill C-311 without so much as giving it the proper debate and allowing it to go to a committee of the Senate and go through the proper process. Had it gone through the proper process and had they found some problem with it, perhaps they could have amended it. There were ways to deal with the bill in a proper way as opposed to the way it was treated. It was basically killed in the dead of night.

The Senate has not done something like this for many years. If this is setting a new precedent for how the Senate is going to operate, it is not very good.

Yesterday I listened to the Liberal member for Random—Burin—St. George's give the Liberal position on this bill. She was talking about the lack of consultation, as far as the provinces were concerned. I wanted to draw her attention and the attention of the House to a consultation process that occurred in my home province of Manitoba.

By the way, Manitoba did have a Senate created in 1870. Manitobans had the good sense to abolish it in 1876. Members should also know that four other provinces had senates as well. New Brunswick abolished its in 1982. Nova Scotia abolished its in 1928. Quebec created one in 1867 and abolished it in 1968. Prince Edward Island created its in 1873 and abolished it in 1893.

So we have the experience of five of our provinces that have had senates and have gotten rid of them, not to mention other examples in the Commonwealth. I fail to see any examples where jurisdictions are actually bringing forth and introducing new senates. If anything, there seems to be a move towards getting rid of them.

What happened in Manitoba on June 13, 2006, was Bill 22 passed the legislature. Bill 22, the Elections Reform Act, was approved by all parties in the legislature, including the Liberal Party. The act stated that they preferred abolishing the Senate but if the Senate could not be abolished then it should consist of democratically elected members rather than members appointed by a process involving patronage appointments.

As I had indicated, the Manitoba Senate was abolished in 1876. The feeling of the committee was that the province had been served quite well without having the Senate around.

An all-party committee was set up. Membership included the NDP, Conservatives, and a Liberal member, Mr. Kevin Lamoureux, who is currently running for the Liberals in the byelection in Winnipeg North. He may possibly be one of our colleagues in the future. Mr. Lamoureux was part of the committee that came up with final recommendations, which I will deal with in a few minutes.

This all-party committee met in Brandon, Carman, Dauphin, Flin Flon, Norway House, Russell, St. Laurent, Steinbach and Winnipeg. This has been a tradition for the last number of years in Manitoba whenever there is a controversial issue, whether it be Meech Lake, smoking in public places, or the Charlottetown accord. We have tended to get all the parties involved in an all-party committee process. We found that works quite well.

In fact, the committee heard 51 presentations at its public hearings. It had 32 written submissions sent in via mail. In fact, one of the written submissions was sent in by Senator Terry Stratton.

In terms of the people who presented at the public meetings held across the province, I will mention names that people in the House will recognize. We had the recent former MP, Inky Mark, make a presentation at the meeting in Dauphin. Also, there was Senator Sharon Carstairs, Senator Bert Brown and Daniel Boucher from the Société franco-manitobaine. As well, there was the former Conservative MP, and a chairperson for many years, Dorothy Dobbie. There was quite a substantial group of interested parties making presentations to this committee.

The question is, what did members of this all-party committee recommend after hearing from the presenters?

In the area of the term limits they were agreeable to the federal government's proposal. They did not have strong opinions one way or the other on it, but they felt the eight-year term for senators was reasonable. They had these recommendations.

Elections should be held in the province to elect nominees to the Senate to be forwarded to Ottawa.

The elections should be administered through Elections Canada with the cost being the responsibility of the federal government.

The method of voting they decided on was first-past-the-post. They looked at proportional representation and they ruled that out as that had been ruled out by several provinces in the past.

There should be regional representation among Manitoba's allotment of six Senate seats. They decided they wanted to have three in the city of Winnipeg with two in southern Manitoba and one in the north.

In addition, the current proposal of an eight-year term by the federal government is in keeping with what was heard from the presenters, as I indicated before.

What we have here is a process that was started in 2006, four years ago, involving all parties. So for the Liberal Party to suggest that somehow there has been no consultation on this issue, that it is being rammed through the House, is absolute nonsense. In Manitoba their member was part of the all-party committee. How can they say that somehow there needs to be more consultation?

It seems to me what the Liberals are interested in doing is coming up with all sorts of delay tactics to tie this idea up in knots as long as possible so another ten years will go by and things will just carry on their merry way and nothing will substantially change as a result of it.

I would suggest that the Manitoba experience seems to me to be the sort of direction upon which we should be looking to proceed in terms of consultations and involving as many people in the process as possible.

[Petitions, November 19th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I present a petition concerning the deteriorating state of tourism in Canada and the precarious state of hunting and fishing lodges in this country as well. This petition has been signed by dozens of Canadians and it calls on the Government of Canada to negotiate with the Government of the United States to reduce passport fees on both sides of the border.

The number of American tourists visiting Canada is at its lowest level since 1972. It has fallen by five million visits in the last seven years alone, from 16 million in 2002 to only 11 million in 2009. Passport fees for an American family of four could be over $500 U.S; and in fact, while 50% of Canadians have passports, only 25% of Americans do.

At the recent Midwestern Legislative Conference, involving 11 border states from Illinois to North Dakota--

[Secure, Adequate, Accessible and Affordable Housing Act, November 18th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today in private members' hour.

Bill C-304 is currently being referred back to the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities for the purpose of reconsidering clauses 3 and 4 and to add new clauses with a view to clarifying the role of the provinces, specifically Quebec, within the jurisdiction of the bill. That is the mechanics of what is happening with the bill at the current moment.

There is an interesting history with regard to social housing in this country. From a Manitoba point of view, up until the NDP was elected under Premier Ed Schreyer in 1969, there was really very little, if any, social housing in the province or in the city of Winnipeg. The government of the day started an immediate program of building social housing.

I believe from 1969 on the housing was cost-shared 50:50 with the federal government. Pierre Trudeau was the prime minister at the time when the Liberals were in power. We certainly took advantage in a big way by developing social housing. In one of our provincial constituencies. which had, I believe, about 10,000 residents, land was fairly inexpensive in that area and I believe we were in the process or had already developed by 1973 perhaps a dozen senior citizens buildings in that particular area.

We followed that up with a number of multi-storey townhouse types of construction as well. Initially the buildings were pretty much all bachelor suits and they were very high, 10 to 12 storey buildings, which all stand today. However, it is interesting how, when the demand was satisfied by 1977, the NDP lost the election and the Conservatives, under Sterling Lyon, won and everything stopped. It was just night and day. There was not one development started under the four year Sterling Lyon government, which was, by the way, one of the reasons that his government only lasted four years, I believe he was the only premier in Manitoba history to survive only one term.

Interestingly enough, one of the last programs that the Schreyer government initiated, building projects, was at 5355 Stadacona in my riding. While we approved it before we left office in 1977, it was 1986 by the time we had our ribbon-cutting ceremony. I was there to cut the ribbon for the opening of that building. By that point in time, that was one of the first buildings to have one bedroom and some two bedroom suites. We were finding the demand shifting over to those types of suites. People wanted to move out of the downtown area where the buildings were all bachelor suites and move into the one bedroom apartments.

What we have had over the last 10 years or so are a number of the bachelor suites being taken up by people with addictions and newcomers to the country who need short term housing.

That is an example of what a government with commitment can actually do. The NDP government of Ed Schreyer took on the problem full force. The construction cranes were everywhere. It is true that the federal government was putting up half of the funds, but to us it seemed almost unlimited activity. This took care of a huge demand where people were moving into the city from farms and retiring. Seniors, who were living in substandard housing, were also looking for places

However, because the demand seemed to be satisfied, as we know, the federal government got out. Surprisingly, it was the Liberal government that got out of the funding in 1993, according to my chart. We have seen very little activity since.

Of the buildings that we built in 1970 to 1973, many are now deteriorating. They need renovations. Where it had been unheard of, we now have constant bed bug problems being documented in the housing. A lot of repair work has to be done.

The effect of the federal government getting into social housing is that it provides an even application across the country. That is why we have a country in the first place, to provide similar services across it. When the federal government takes itself out of a program like social housing, then it is basically the old laissez-faire system of survival of the fittest.

I hate to pick on my neighbours two doors over, but the province of Alberta has been known as a province that has money. My colleague says, “...used to have money”. One would say that social housing should not be a problem for Alberta because it is a very rich province and can build the buildings. However, a province that does not have the resources is pretty much stuck, not being able to do much to solve the problem. That is why fundamentally this country needs a national housing strategy.

Another reason we do not have and will not have a strategy as long as we have Conservatives running the government, and to a lesser extent the Liberals, is that they philosophically disagree with the whole idea. The approach of those parties is private sector. If there are bucks to be made for the private sector, that is the way we have to proceed. The real estate and construction industries have somehow convinced the successive governments to leave that market to the private sector.

In a number of years past there was a program where the government was going to provide subsidies to people. However once again, it was going to be private entrepreneurs who would be building the buildings and renting them out with a view to making money.

As long as we have that Conservative mentality that somehow free enterprise is going to solve all of our problems with the old trickle-down economic theories, we are never going to see the national housing strategy that we should have in this country.

Clearly, before that happens, we are going to have to see a major change in the political structure in this country with the removal of the Conservative government and the election of a more progressive government. Or, we may have a situation develop out of desperation, and in the need to continue its political longevity, we may see some deal as we did with the Martin Liberals where we were able to get a billion or two for social housing. However, that is a piecemeal approach for a long-term problem.

I have a lot more to say about this issue, but I guess I do not have time.

[Business of Supply, November 18th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary did not answer either one of my questions that I asked him in the last round.

If the parliamentary secretary is correct in his compelling arguments for this deal, then on that basis he should not mind submitting this to a final competition. It is only fair that taxpayers be assured of a really valued deal for the money they are spending.

The minister is suggesting that the government has all the answers and knows better than the public. He is sending out a totally different message than what the Conservatives delivered to the public when they were in opposition or when they get into an election situation.

My first question is with respect to what the member for St. John's East indicated. He said that we can still stay in the MOU and still do a competitive bid.

Second, what is the value to the province of Manitoba? How many jobs will be involved? What is the value? Where and when?

[Business of Supply, November 18th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, a little earlier today the parliamentary secretary was explaining to me that we could not go out for competitive quotes because we would have to get out of the MOU. Yet our defence critic, the member for St. John's East, explained that we could stay in the MOU and still go out and check the market one last time before we were to proceed.

The member has indicated he will be speaking next, so I would like him to clarify this point in his speech. Also, I would like him to clarify specifically what benefits there are for Manitoba, the size of the contracts, the number of jobs and which companies would be available.

[Business of Supply, November 18th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the minister how many final assembly plants there are for the F-35 fighters. Are they all in the United States or are there any outside the United States?

I recognize there are a lot of other contracts being let in other areas, and I know that Manitoba certainly has one, but if she could give us that information as well, I would appreciate it.