Jinny Sims

[Employment, September 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, from EI to the temporary foreign worker program it is always Canadians who pay the price for Conservative mismanagement. Three months after making changes to the temporary foreign worker program, employers are still laying off Canadians while hiring TFWs. Canadians are getting tired of this smoke and mirrors policy-making.

When is the minister finally going to fix this badly broken program and protect jobs for those living in Canada?

[Business of Supply, September 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his question and the passion inflected in that question.

We are not talking only about employees of the federal government. We are also talking about the federally regulated section. When we look at the telecommunication, broadcasting, and banking and financial services that come under this measure, we can see the numbers there already. We will get the exact note to the member if that is what he requires.

My understanding is that these numbers go anywhere from 40,000-plus to close to 100,000. However, even if it is 500 or 400, I would ask everyone to support this motion. The sky is not going to fall, but it will—

[Business of Supply, September 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, there is quite a bit of research out there. As I said earlier, the government's own federal labour standards review in 2006 recommended that the government reinstate the federal minimum wage review. There is also very strong empirical evidence that increasing the minimum wage decreases income inequality. Surely my colleagues across the way want to support that—not.

There is also robust literature indicating that modest increases in the minimum wage have no meaningful impact on employment and also help to improve our social fabric.

I am getting tired of hearing that it only affects a few. When we look at percentages, maybe it looks like a few, but when we are looking at close to 100,000 workers, surely at that stage it is worth it. If it is not that big a deal and only affects 100 workers, as I heard someone mumbling, then I would say that even for that it is worth it. I do not know why the sky-is-falling argument is being used by the other side.

Once again, maybe we should all stop and think to see what our lives would look like if we made $12 an hour.

[Business of Supply, September 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Acadie—Bathurst.

First of all, let me say how excited I am to be back here in the House and dealing with a critical issue in our very first opposition day motion. We are trying to address income inequality, which has grown in a way that is unacceptable in Canada.

Right now, in Canada, the top 10% own over 50% of the wealth, yet we have the fastest-growing poor. A very high number of young people are living well below the poverty line. A lot of women are living below the poverty line. I come from a province where child poverty is very high, unacceptably high.

In a country like Canada, child poverty is totally unacceptable. No matter what political stripes members wear, every person in this room should be committed to reducing the gap between the rich and the poor and to raising the income level of those living well below the poverty line.

That is what this motion does. It is not rocket science. I keep hearing people say that it only affects a few. Whether it affects 40,000 or 100,000, and I think the number is closer to 100,000, for those workers it will make a great deal of difference when they go grocery shopping or have to pay their rent. It is going to make a great deal of difference to young workers as well as to children, because they will not be struggling in the same way they are now.

In my province of British Columbia, the minimum wage at the moment sits at just over $10. Let us just think about it. Even if people were to work 40 hours a week, the amount they would end up with annually would still have them living below the poverty line, and most of those people are working hard.

I have heard from my constituents in Newton—North Delta that many of them—hard-working people living in Canada, both citizens and permanent residents—are having to work two full-time jobs, or the equivalent thereof, in order to try to make ends meet. I have met with mothers who told me what it is like to see their children only for a very short time, because in order to feed their children they have to go out and work that second job.

When we know that the price of housing is where it is, all over Canada and specifically in the Lower Mainland, we can imagine that many of these people are spending a lot of their income on basic housing.

I have some statistics from Surrey. The national household survey showed that over 15% of people in Surrey are categorized as low income. Almost 19% of children living in Surrey are living in low-income households. One in three Surrey renters spends well over 30% of their income on rent.

This move by the NDP is not going to make the sky fall. Listening to some of my colleagues across the way, people would think that the sky is going to fall and all the jobs are going to leave Canada. I will tell members that with close to 350,000 temporary foreign workers here, the Conservative government has done more to give away jobs that people living in Canada should be doing than has happened at any other time.

I was in Edmonton last week, which is not exactly a hotbed of socialism, and I met with skilled workers. Fully qualified iron workers, boilermakers, and many other skilled trade workers cannot get jobs. They are seeing those jobs being filled by workers who have been brought in, and they are not always being paid the same wages.

Let us see who the federal minimum wage is going to impact.

It would apply to federally regulated sectors, such as railways, transport, banks and financial services, and telecommunications. I know many people in my riding who are working in the telecommunications sector, and they are not making $15 an hour, no matter what somebody tries to tell us. It would also affect people working in broadcasting, and so on.

I know the Conservative government has an allergy. It has an allergy to science. It has an allergy to evidence-based decision-making, and it definitely does not like to listen to experts. Even when staff within the bureaucracy, within government, are giving it advice, it often likes to look the other way.

The government's own federal labour standards review in 2006 recommended that the federal government reinstate the federal minimum wage and benchmark it to Statistics Canada's low-income cut-offs. That recommendation is very reasonable. It comes from people who have knowledge and who are experts in this area in many ways. The review also proposed that the wage should be set at a level to ensure that no one who works full time would end up living below the poverty line.

We hear a lot of rhetoric in this room. We often hear that the sky is falling, but every person living in Canada has a right, a reasonable expectation that if they are working about 40 hours a week, they should not be living below the poverty line. That is just not good for us, either socially or in relation to mental health or in relation to the impact on families.

I urge my colleagues to support this motion. New Democrats believe that Canadians who work hard and play by the rules should be able to make a decent living. We are not talking about raising their wages to $50 an hour. We are not talking about enabling people to drive a Mercedes-Benz. We are talking about raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

As motions come up, we do a little bit of research. I found that over the last 40 years, the average minimum wage has only received a one-cent raise, even though our economy grew significantly. That is one cent, and I mean that in real terms, when we look at the cost of living and everything else. Again, that is one cent over 40 years, yet the number of people who have grown their wealth and the huge tax relief to corporations have taken a great deal of money out of the economy as well.

Once again, is this motion reasonable? Absolutely.

As I was in my riding, as I am sure everyone else was, going door to door and meeting with constituents, even the people who make a decent living and the people in the business community were very concerned about labour instability and how people are not sticking with a job. Many of them, when we talked to them about the minimum wage, did a lot of head-nodding. When we think about it, it is because they live in those communities and they know that it is not possible to survive in a reasonable way on less than that $15 an hour. Many of our minimum wage workers in B.C., as I said, are at $10.25, and that is just not good.

Others will say we should just leave it all to the provinces, but there is a jurisprudence. There are provincial and federal areas. What we are talking about here are federal and federally regulated workplaces or areas, and that is why telecommunications is included in this measure. Saying that it is only going to impact fewer than 100,000 people is not a reason to say that we should not do it. That is the most asinine reasoning that I have heard since I have been in this House.

I would urge everybody to support this motion.

[Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act, June 18th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am not going to try to guess why my colleagues across the way have not taken that kind of position. I cannot imagine anybody on either side of the House supporting the use of cluster munitions.

What we have is a bill that is fundamentally flawed, one in which the government has inadvertently opened an escape hatch that we do not need. The interoperability clause that exists in section 2 of the convention is more than adequate to enable Canada to work with its allies. We as a country can have all kinds of caveats when we work with other allies, but to leave the possibility that our soldiers could be directing or ordering the use of these munitions as a result of leaving clause 11 in there is unconscionable.

[Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act, June 18th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I have lived with the premise that it is never too late when the will is there. If the will exists on the part of the majority sitting on that side of the House, those kinds of changes could be made, this bill could be fixed, and it could be supported by every member in the House.

[Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act, June 18th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, when we are debating legislation in the House we often fail to recognize the impact on society. We do not always realize how the wording we have chosen for the clauses in the bill will be played out in the real world.

In the countries where cluster munitions are still around, as are land mines, the images I have seen have been really horrific. It is not an image that I would want to experience first-hand: children having bits of their limbs blown off, children's faces being shattered, children being blinded. I just cannot imagine anything as horrific as this is. I have seen the pictures and I really do not want to see them again.

[Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act, June 18th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, there we saw an example of a Monty Pythonish sketch, so to speak.

First she says she totally rejects what I said, but the rapporteur who came and reported on the living conditions of our first nations people did not visit some other country. He actually visited communities right here in Canada, and he reported on that. The report was so moving that many people I talked to said it brought them to tears and made them feel ashamed. There is also the fact that we have lost our seat on the Security Council. Let us pretend that did not happen either.

I am not saying that some good things are not happening internationally. Of course they are. However, we always have to look at where we could be doing more and where we could be doing better.

Let us get to the question. It is very easy for me, actually. Section 22 of the convention that we signed has an interoperability clause right in it. We offered to lift that, word for word, and put it into this legislation. Instead, the government chose to weaken the bill by putting in clause 11, which actually does not have Canada 100% opposed to the use of cluster munitions, since we can give direction and take directions from others under this wording.

[Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act, June 18th, 2014]

NATO. I thank my colleague from Burnaby.

It does not matter. We ourselves, as a sovereign nation, write down the parameters, the caveats, the restrictions, and then we decide to expand them.

For me it is not good enough to say, “Because the U.S. has not signed this particular convention, therefore the legislation we are going to introduce right now has to have an escape hatch a mile wide.” That is just not going to sit right with me, nor with many Canadians who are looking to us to set an example. Let me just say that we are not the only ones, sitting across this House or at the committee, who realize that the government has signed a convention and that weakens that convention, that signature on that piece of paper, through this legislation. I know my colleagues get very upset whenever there is some thought that somehow Canada's international standing might have suffered slightly over the last few years. I would say that we have been smacked a few times recently by the international community.

We had the rapporteur on first nations who came in and wrote a pretty damning report. Our reaction to it was to attack him instead of looking at the real plight of many of our first nations communities. The ILO has looked at some of our approaches to labour issues and it has not had many kind words to say about us either. We no longer have a seat on the Security Council. I have had the pleasure, when I was in my other file, of talking to many international diplomats in Ottawa who were saying how our international standing had been damaged.

We have gone from being the peacekeeper and a country that played a critical role in bringing different people together to build a consensus to a country that signs a convention and then, through this House with a majority, looks at weakening what it signed.

Here is a quote from the former Prime Minister of Australia, Malcolm Fraser:

It is a pity the current Canadian government, in relation to cluster munitions, does not provide any real lead to the world. Its approach is timid, inadequate and regressive.

That hurts. It hurts me when I hear the term “regressive” being used to describe Canada in the international community. I can remember the days when I taught social studies and history 12 . I would talk with great pride about the role Canada plays on the international stage, and when we get things like this, it does begin to disturb us.

Here is a quote from Paul Hannon, executive director of Mines Action Canada. He said:

Canada should have the best domestic legislation in the world. We need to make it clear that no Canadian will ever be involved with this weapon again but from our reading this legislation falls well short of those standards.

Let me explain again what we are saying in this legislation.

By the way, we do not have difficulty with this legislation. It is only clause 11, and if that section had been removed, we would not be here debating this bill tonight. It could have been passed and gone on to other stages. However, the reason we are here tonight is that we have a huge contradiction. We are saying that Canadian soldiers and Canada would not use cluster munitions. On the other hand, we are saying that if we are working with another country, we may direct their use. I cannot fathom how that is adequate. For me, as I said, this is where we enter the land of Monty Python.

My colleague earlier also talked about the Red Cross. Those of us who know the workings of the Red Cross know that it very rarely gets involved in political debate. Its work is more of advocacy and delivering services on the ground. However, in this case it was almost forced to get involved, because it sees first-hand the real impact of these cluster munitions. The Red Cross is on the front line.

The Red Cross said that clause 11:

...could permit activities that undermine the object and purpose of the convention and ultimately contribute to the continued use of cluster munitions rather than bringing about their elimination.

That is a pretty damning comment from a group that does not really get involved in politics.

Let me get back to saying what we would really like to see. Of course we want to have the strongest legislation possible to ban cluster munitions, but this particular bill is not it. I would urge my colleagues to take it back and accept amendments, which they have not done so far. Let us make sure that this bill would do what we want it to.

At this point, the bill is really problematic. As long as it has clause 11, it is impossible for us to support this bill, because with that little piece in there, this bill would not actually ban the use of cluster munitions 100%. We either do or we do not. There is no halfway.

[Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act, June 18th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would not say it is a delight, but it is absolutely a privilege to stand and speak to Bill C-6, an act to implement the Convention on Cluster Munitions. I want to make it clear right from the beginning that I do not think that any of us in the House actually support the use of cluster munitions. As my colleague just said, many of us are parents and grandparents. As a teacher I have worked for a peaceful world for all children for many years of my life.

I am also one of those fortunate ones who has never actually lived in a place engaged in war, as many of us in this room, yet today, with technology what happens in war is brought right into our living rooms through television, the Internet, and our social media. Even if we did not see those images, the description of what cluster bombs and land mines can do is etched in our memories.

I am sure many of us in this room were activists to get rid of land mines. Many of us have worked very hard against the use of cluster bombs as well. Someone described it earlier as little D-sized batteries, hundreds and hundreds of them, exploding and the impact of that explosion hitting something like two to five football fields. When we have that image in our minds, especially now that soccer is being played and we can all see the size of the field, we wonder how many children get impacted. It is not just talking about something that happens overseas, it is also about what our soldiers had to face when they went to Afghanistan. They were in situations where there were land mines and cluster bombs.

Having said that, it is with a great deal of reluctance that I am going to be speaking against the motion that is before us. I was very proud of the day that my country, Canada, signed the UN convention. We were not the only ones; 113 countries from around the world signed that convention and 84 countries have ratified it. We signed the convention in 2008 and here we are in 2014 debating this.

Why has it taken this long for the bill to come into the House? It entered the House a few days before the end of this session under time allocation. If any bill should not be forced through time allocation, it should be a bill like this. We should get to have that kind of debate that is necessary and make sure that we end up with legislation that really works well, especially when the legislation is tackling something as fundamental and as serious as cluster bombs. That is what we should be doing.

I am not going to spend too much time talking about time allocation because that is the way the government does business. It does not really want to hear serious debate or a different point of view. It wants to limit that. In my riding there are people who are concerned and they want me to come to the House and represent them and speak for them. I have constituents in Newton—North Delta who care very deeply about the use of cluster munitions. They are absolutely opposed and they would understand why I am standing in the House today in opposition to this piece of legislation.

Our foreign affairs critic, the member for Ottawa Centre does an amazing job at committee. I know that he is very persuasive. He has often persuaded me to look at things differently. I know how hard he works, how knowledgeable he is on this file, and how much he cares about Canada's reputation in the international arena. I also know that we would have to go a long way to find a member of Parliament who is more interested in working on this file in a non-partisan way, in a way that will best serve Canada and best serve us in our international community.

This was an opportunity missed by my colleagues across the way. If they had heard not only his concerns but concerns expressed by others, including some of us, and had actually taken a look at section 11 of this legislation, and if they had removed that, then the government would have had the kind of coverage we have heard that the section is supposed to present.

The agreement already has section 22 in it. The interoperability clause is there. Our member, my esteemed colleague, the foreign affairs critic, the member for Ottawa Centre actually agreed, or offered, to lift the wording from the convention and put it into this legislation word for word, so that it would provide the kind of protection we heard about from our colleagues across the way.

That really was not the intention here. It is only when I listened to him that I began to see why this bill is as flawed as it is today. It may be the process it went through even before it came here. Of course we know that our colleagues across the way do have an allergy to data, science, listening to experts, or anything that might disagree with them. That would mean that they might actually have to change their minds on something. In parliamentary democracy that is supposed to happen. That is the way it works. Otherwise, there would be no need for us to debate. We could all just come in here with our minds already made up, sit, and say that is it. However, that is not how we are set up.

Here we have section 11. I heard the member for Ottawa Centre talking about that particular section and the fact that whenever we go to war we do put all kinds of caveats. We do have all kinds of arrangements that we make as to what we are going to do and what we are not going to do.

Why is it, in this case, that we have that reluctance toward doing that? The member was talking about section 11 and that we have categorically said that Canada will not use cluster bombs. Then we have a section in this bill that says, however, we will direct or ask or lead to. It reminded me of Monty Python. I do not know if members ever watch much British television. Monty Python is extremely funny, but it is also extremely serious. It deals with some horrible issues in a very entertaining way. As the member for Ottawa Centre was going through the bill, I thought that it was beginning to sound like a Monty Python sketch, in which we are going to say, “We will not use cluster munitions. We will not; however, we can direct or take direction or give direction for the use thereof.”

Therein lies the problem with this bill. That is why, in good conscience, being a mother, a grandmother, and a teacher, I could not possibly support this. There is an escape hatch in this bill that is miles wide.

We either believe in the use of cluster munitions or we believe in banning them. We cannot have these halfway measures when it comes to something as critical as this. I think about my own grandchildren, and I think, “There, but for the grace of God, go they.” They could have been unfortunate enough to have been born in a war-torn country where, as little kids, they pick up little batteries or what they think are little toys that could explode. We all know how horrific that is. I do not have to paint that picture. I actually do not have the heart to paint that kind of a picture. Why would we want to have an escape hatch that is a mile wide when we know that the interoperability clause in section 22 already gives protection and cover to Canadian soldiers?

I heard a lot about our neighbour, the U.S., and how we co-operate with the Americans and we work closely with them, and they are our great ally. All of that is true. However, we do not always agree with everything that our colleagues to the south of us believe in. We just found out recently that we do not agree with them on some pretty major issues, like maybe pipelines. However, on the other hand, when we deal with the Americans, when we have gone into war with them, we have stipulated what our forces are going to do or not going to do. Those are the kinds of agreements that are made because when we decide to go into a place where our soldiers go, we do not say, “Just go and do whatever.” When we are working in partnership, whether with the U.K. or Australia or the U.S.—