Jinny Sims

[Respect for Communities Act, November 4th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the work done by my hon. colleague from Vancouver East. When it comes to this file, working on public health and representing her community, we could have no better role model for the service she provides. Case in point, she spoke on this issue today. Even the question she asked was about looking at what was best for our communities and public health.

The government just wants to start throwing darts and arrows if we take a position that is contrary to what it says. I want to make it perfectly clear that as a mother, a grandmother and a lifelong teacher, I do not support people going out and doing drugs, in whatever form they are.

As a teacher and a counsellor, I have seen first-hand the impacts of drug addiction on our youth and their families. As a teacher, mother and grandmother, I want our communities to be safe.

However, our communities will not be safe if we just turn the other way. To take on the drug issue in our communities, drug addiction, drug abuse, we need comprehensive policies. We need a comprehensive approach that takes science evidence and opinions of the professionals into account when we make policy or legislative decisions.

Ideology is fine, but ideology does not fix things that are broken. Drug abuse is a serious problem in parts of the community I come from. Parents, grandparents, community members are very concerned. I also know it is not an issue that is going to be dealt with by denying oversight and a comprehensive approach.

InSite, specifically, has a proven track record. First, 80% of the people in east Vancouver support the InSite operations. Let me assure members that 80% of the people in east Vancouver do not go to InSite to inject themselves with heroin. However, what they have seen with the operation of this centre over the last number of years is the huge impact it has made on public health and public safety in that area. They have seen people go in, get counselling and rehabilitation. They get put into rehab programs and drug treatment programs. It also takes the needles off our streets, not 100% but at least from those who go into that centre.

Not only do we have evidence that it works in east Vancouver, but safe injection sites operated in over 70 cities in six European countries and Australia in 2004, and there are far more now. A study was done in 2004 that showed that supervised injection sites reached out to vulnerable groups and were accepted by communities; helped improve the health status of users and reduced high-risk behaviour; reduced overdose deaths; and reduced drug use in open spaces.

At the InSite centre in east Vancouver, which I have visited a number of times, long before I became an MP, when I was a teacher and a high school counsellor, there are very strict guidelines in place. The centre opens for a lengthy number of hours and it has absolutely outstanding counselling and support services.

As I look at this whole issue and, I am sure the parents in the House will appreciate this, sometimes when things go wrong and our children do something, we say, “I told you not to do it”. If telling people not to do things that are not good for them would stop them, we would not have some of the issues around drug abuse and drug addiction, but it does not work like that.

Once again, I am led to the same conclusion over and over again that we have a government whose members are ideologues and are not listening to science or evidence. Nor do they pay attention to the professionals who work on this first-hand.

There are not too many people in the House who will have spent all night travelling through some of the safe houses around Vancouver or who have spent a couple of evenings in east Vancouver. I did as a counsellor. One thing I learned was that we needed to provide every bit of support we could for the public health and public safety of not only those who used and abused drugs, but also for the communities around them.

The Canadian Nurses Association criticizes the government. Remember the nurses are the first-hand service providers, and this is what they said:

Evidence demonstrates that supervised injection sites and other harm reduction programs bring critical health and social services to vulnerable populations—especially those experiencing poverty, mental illness and homelessness...A government truly committed to public health and safety would work to enhance access to prevention and treatment services—instead of building more barriers.

The Canadian Medical Association also had the following to say, “Supervised injection programs are an important harm reduction strategy”. That is what we are talking about. We are talking about harm reduction. Nobody is saying this is the total answer to taking on the issues of drug addiction and drug abuse. The Canadian Medical Association then goes on to say, “Harm reduction is a central pillar in a comprehensive public health approach to disease prevention and health promotion”.

We have the Canadian Medical Association, nurses, research and endless sound evidence from the only operating site in Canada right now in east Vancouver, InSite. All of that evidence is there and everybody admits that it is not a simple answer to this whole issue, yet the government is determined to proceed with legislation that would prevent people from getting the supervised health care they need.

Once again, it shows that the government has some kind of an allergy; it is allergic to facts and evidence-based decision making. I do not know why that is so. I also find it hard to believe, maybe not, that the government would try to use fear to push forward an agenda that would make communities more unsafe. The Conservatives say that this is about public safety and public health, but they are taking us in the wrong direction.

We also have a Supreme Court decision. For a government that is all about law and order and our court systems, once the Supreme Court makes a ruling, the Conservatives do not like that ruling. They do not like science. They do not like evidence. They do not like what the front-line evidence providers are saying. What they will do now is try to circumvent a decision made by the Supreme Court. Once again, it is a government that is not willing to listen.

I plead with my colleagues on both sides of the House to address this issue in a comprehensive way and let us not have blinders on and allow ideology to lead to greater public unsafety.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2, October 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that the member of Parliament is very vociferous in the House and does an amazing job representing his riding.

The question he asks is really about how the world views Canada and its policies. How can we hit the delete button on people who have put their lives on hold, who actually applied in good faith following the rules we as Canadians made? They did not make the rules, by the way; we made the rules. They followed our rules and we told them to join the line and their turn would come, so they joined the line. Then the minister woke up one morning and said that the files of anyone who applied before 2008 were gone and they had to reapply. I have talked about that issue many times in the House. That is grossly unfair to those people.

We all want responsive and coherent immigration policies and systems. That is how Canada was built. However, we have to look at how we treat people as well.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2, October 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her thoughtful question. It is a question that all of us are rethinking over and over again about parliamentary democracy and the role of parliamentarians in parliamentary democracy.

It is with a great deal of sadness, even when I visit students in high schools, that I have to share with them that as parliamentarians, we are sent here to debate all issues, speak on them and give our input. However, with the movement of time allocation and omnibus, or ominous, bills, as we have seen over and over again, that kind of debate does not take place in the House. For example, moving time allocation on 300 pages when buried into the bill are items that have nothing to do with the budget, obviously these are things the government does not want the public to know about and does not want opposition members to comment on. It bundles things together and then rams things through because it has a majority. This is a gross abuse of a majority government and undermines parliamentary democracy.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2, October 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I want to start off by saying what a delightful weekend I had in my riding of Newton—North Delta. It was so wonderful to have our leader in the riding and meet with so many of my constituents and the press and hear their concerns expressed. As members know, it is always very rewarding to be back home working with constituents.

I also want to acknowledge the amazing work done by my colleague, the member of Parliament for Parkdale—High Park, on this file.

I rise today to oppose what is before the House, both the process and the content, and I will tackle the process aspect first.

Here we go again. I have been an elected member of Parliament since May 2011 and it has been quite an eye-opener to see how our parliamentary democracy works, or does not work. One key area is the number of times parliamentarians are denied full debate on issues.

Once again, we have hundreds and hundreds of pages on a budget with not only budget issues, which should be in a budget document, but there is so much other stuff buried in there.

Once again, what does the government have against transparency and accountability? Do Conservatives have a hard time with members of Parliament debating legitimate issues that should be debated here? Why is it that time and time again they feel they have to bury stuff in the budget and then ask for these votes wholesale, yea or nay?

Once again, as a parliamentarian, I find it quite outrageous and not only that, there is time allocation as well. Not only has the government put forward a huge bill that has far more than the budget in it, but it also moves to limit debate. These are all major concerns.

The other issue I want to get to is on the content.

We have seen some of the advertising already that this budget would fix our economy. Let me tell members that nobody in my riding believes it will fix the economy. No matter how many glossy advertisements or TV advertisements that go on, people know what they are struggling with in their daily lives, day in and day out.

Let us focus on youth unemployment. As one of the richest countries in the world, richest in resources, we are failing our youth, and this budget does nothing to address the high level, double-digit youth unemployment across the country. We must not take this lightly. Imagine how debilitating it is for our youth when they go to university, take up post-secondary education and even go on to further studies, but they cannot find jobs. This budget fails our youth quite miserably.

The job action grant, as we know, has not been a great hit with any of the provinces or territories. In fact, I have not heard one provincial leader stand and acclaim it, embrace it and say that it is the best thing since sliced bread or even that it is an okay thing. Every one of them have criticized the shortcomings in the job action grant. Once again, where are the investments that will lead to job growth?

We have also heard that this budget would fix or could do things to the unemployment rate. This is not a budget issue, but it is right in the budget where the minister would have control and the final say over setting the rates for EI contributions, which once again opens the door for abuse by both Conservatives and Liberals by taking money that employers and workers pay into it for the rainy days when they do not have jobs.

We have seen $57 billion stolen out of the EI pot and put into general revenues. I say the word “stolen” because that money was paid for by Canadians and employers for a rainy day when they did not have a job.

We have seen a lower number people on employment insurance, not because people are more needy or unemployed but because the system has become so cumbersome. The cuts in Service Canada and the bureaucracy around applications, getting a phone call, being online for hours and hours is just not working.

I was pleased recently with the change to address the fishermen issue. I am hoping the government will wake up tomorrow morning and fix the rest of the problems it has created for unemployed Canadians and make it easier for them. Surely this is the time when we should be investing in skills training and skills development. For people who lose jobs in one area there should be an intensive investment in order to make sure that we help people to get into the jobs that are around. We know there is not a shortage of jobs.

Also in the budget we see that the government is going to extend the $1,000 hiring credit for small businesses. It is laudable, but the New Democrats have gone even further by proposing a $2,000 hiring tax credit that will not cut into EI funds and will help businesses hire and train young people. These are the kinds of initiatives we need and we put these forward. Maybe the Conservatives will pick them up as they have picked up some of our other ideas and it will help Canadians and that is a good thing.

We are going to spend close to half a million dollars, according to the department, to change the name from Human Resources and Social Development to Employment and Social Development. I am wondering about the wisdom during these very difficult times of spending half a million dollars on changing stationery and letterhead and all else that it takes, when people are really hurting.

Let me say once again that in my riding I have a very diverse riding in Newton—North Delta, which is part of Surrey and also crosses into the Delta municipality. Some of my constituents are working two or three jobs just to make ends meet. They do not find that things are getting better. They are having to work longer hours just to make ends meet. They tell me their lives have become like a gerbil in a cage, where they are running all the time just so they do not fall flat and their children do not go hungry. I live in a riding where we have a homelessness problem, so affordable housing is an issue. We have very high usage of our food bank. I am seeing nothing in the budget to address that.

The government is allergic to daycare, yet there is sound evidence and the Canadian Payroll Association survey found that 40% of employed Canadians are spending all of, or more than, their net pay, and 45% of those polled are putting only 5% or less of their pay into savings. We know that the debt load is growing for Canadians and there is nothing in the budget to address that.

I would like to seek the unanimous consent of the House to move the following motion. I move that notwithstanding any standing order or usual practice of the House, clauses 125 to 158, 176 to 203, 277, 278 and 294 to 470, related to public sector employee relations and sweeping changes to workplace health and safety regulations, be removed from Bill C-4, a second act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 21, 2013 and other measures, and do compose Bill C-9; that Bill C-9 be deemed read a first time and be printed; that the order for second reading of the said bill provide for the referral to the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities; that Bill C-4 retain the status on the Order Paper that it had prior to the adoption of this order; that Bill C-4 be reprinted as amended; and that the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel be authorized to make any technical changes or corrections as may be necessary to give effect to this motion.

I am moving this motion in order to make more sense out of this budget.

[Employment, October 22nd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, once again, the Conservatives are ignoring the facts. Let me quote the TD Bank economists: “Evidence of economy-wide shortages is hard to find”.

To justify gutting important programs, like employment insurance, and to enable widespread abuse of the temporary foreign worker program, Conservatives point to a looming skills shortage. However, the experts and the science do not back them up.

Would the minister now admit that the government was wrong?

[Business of Supply, October 22nd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, we are absolutely partisan about this, but at the same time, we are elected. Every four years, we go back to our constituents, who either send us back here or not. That is where our accountability comes in.

Senators are appointed. By the way, I am not in favour of appointments. I am not even in favour of the Senate. However, what the motion does is stop the overt and active partisanship in going to caucus meetings, travelling around the country fundraising, and working during election campaigns on the taxpayers' dollar, which I do not think is right. If each party wants to pay people to campaign for them, that is a separate issue altogether. However, what we are talking about is senators doing this in their role, using government money.

[Business of Supply, October 22nd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the member is another hardworking member of Parliament who I know is much loved in his riding because of the amazing work he does for his constituents.

It appears that it is in the interest of the current government and the other party in the House to keep partisanship alive. If that were not so, they would support the motion.

If we want the Senate to be that sober second thought institution, then everybody should be supporting the motion. The motion is not about abolition, although that is what I favour. All it says is that senators should not go to caucus meetings, should travel only on parliamentary business, and should stop their fundraising and partisan politics across this country. It is very simple.

[Business of Supply, October 22nd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am always impressed by my colleague's thoughtfulness, both at committee and in the House, and by the way he does his research, speaks on issues, and represents his riding.

The motion before us today is so reasonable that I find it hard to understand why anybody would be opposed to taking these very simple first steps while we wait to hear from the Supreme Court and while we look at abolition and other dramatic changes, as some parties want to do.

We have been hearing from the Liberal Party for ages that it has tweaks to the status quo, such as a new appointment system, but we have heard nothing so far. Let us assume that the Liberals are serious. Surely any such system would have to exclude partisanship as either the basis or the outcome of appointments. If that is so, the Liberals should embrace today's motion, because it would try to make a dent in the problem of partisanship for current senators, unless they are just waiting out the time and delaying, which is the Liberal's favourite pastime.

Rather than delaying, let us pass the motion so that we can show the Canadian public that we are taking steps to protect their tax dollars and to limit the abuses in the Senate.

[Business of Supply, October 22nd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, first of all let me say what a delight it is to be back here in the House of Commons. I am a little bit disappointed that we were not back here a month earlier to deal with the business of the people and major concerns I heard in my riding, but let me also assure members that I have had a wonderful time in Newton—North Delta listening to the concerns of citizens as they worry about their future, whether it is high youth unemployment or the lack of decent-paying jobs. I would say the Senate and issues surrounding the Senate were the key focus in many of the conversations I had in my riding, whether in a grocery store, at official meetings, or even at social gatherings.

I also want to thank my colleague from Toronto—Danforth for bringing forward a motion that is practical and that tackles the issue of the Senate one step at a time. I say that it is practical because everyone knows that I fully support the abolition of the Senate. I can think of a myriad of ways to spend the $92.5 million: addressing the high student debt load and high youth unemployment, putting more money into skills training, addressing our seniors, and addressing our veterans. I can think of a million ways to spend that money the way Canadians would like to have it spent.

That is a goal and that is what we will keep pushing for, but in the meantime, the NDP prides itself that we are not here just to critique what the government does but to put forward solutions. Here is a solution put forward to address—in the short term, in a very practical way—some of the serious problems in the Senate.

I am not saying that this motion is going to address the problems around some of the scandals that escalated yesterday with all the allegations. What this motion actually does is try to take away some of this energy and some of this confrontation between the government and some of its own appointees. It puts forward a practical first step to address some of the abuses and some of the partisanship.

Our colleague from Toronto—Danforth has put forward a very simple resolution that I cannot imagine any member could be opposed to, whether they sit on one side of the House or the other and no matter which political party they belong to. It is that “urgent steps must be taken to improve accountability in the Senate”. Surely we all want that, and it sets out how some of that could be done. The motion states that the whole House calls for:

...the introduction of immediate measures to end Senators' partisan activities, including participation in Caucus meetings, and to limit Senators' travel allowances to those activities clearly and directly related to parliamentary business.

We have heard every political party say there is a need for change. The motion before the House today does not require a constitutional change. This is a practical step that the House could take. It could then go over to the Senate, and with the kind of partisanship that exists rights now, this issue could be addressed very quickly.

First of all, every person has said that. There are some people who think they can do doublespeak, and I was thinking of the person who made this quote. I puzzled over it as an English teacher. This is a direct quote from a member of Parliament in the second opposition:

It would unbalance so many things that we just have to focus on making it a better quality Senate rather than trying to change the Senate.

When I read quotes like that, the first thing that comes to my mind is how to go about making it a better-quality Senate without making some changes, because obviously the status quo is not working, and it is not working because there is so much partisanship.

It is the House of sober second thought. Do we really believe that Canadians across this beautiful country now believe that the Senate is a House of sober second thought? The institution has been very badly damaged, and this motion that the official opposition has brought forward goes partway toward taking some short-term steps, which, by the way, are very straightforward.

Before we get into a discussion about all these people being independent and being appointed because of their skill sets and being representative of the diversity of our great country, which actually was the goal at the beginning, let us think about who was actually appointed to the Senate. I will not read a long list, but it includes Irving Gerstein, chief fundraiser and chair of Conservative Fund Canada; Judith Seidman, Quebec co-chair of the Prime Minister's leadership bid; and Donald Plett, Conservative Party president. The list goes on and on.

I do not want my friends in the far corner on the other side to think that some of the appointments they made are exempt. They include David Smith, national campaign co-chair; James Cowan, Nova Scotia campaign co-chair; and Grant Mitchell, Leader's Alberta Outreach Coordinator.

Let us call the Senate what it is: it is appointees, and the appointees are either failed candidates, big-time fundraisers, or big operators within their respective parties. Both parties, Conservative and Liberal, have to take responsibility for the damage they have done to the institution of the Senate. I do not know how they can even say it is an institution of sober second thought. I just do not see how they can say that.

Let us get back to the motion. As I said, it contains very small steps, but very significant steps, and I am sure everybody will support them. One of them is for senators not to take part in caucus meetings. I find it absolutely bizarre that anybody thinks that caucus meetings that occur for all the parties in the House are not partisan. It is bizarre. If they are not partisan, why are they not happening in the public eye, in the media, and why can we not walk into each other's caucus meetings whenever we wish to, depending on what is being discussed?

I am not saying there is anything wrong with political parties having caucus meetings, but surely we do not want senators, who are non-partisan and provide independent sober second thought once they are appointed, to be present as caucus meetings unfold. We would have to go a long way to convince even my granddaughter in grade 12 that they are anything but partisan.

Let us look at the second aspect of this motion, which is to limit travel allowances to those activities clearly and directly related to parliamentary business. Let us remember that we are not talking about elected people who travel around to speak to their constituents and hear from them about legislation and so on. They are also talking to their constituents about issues that are important to them. We are only talking about limiting travel allowances to those activities that are related to parliamentary business and putting an end to campaigning and fundraising junkets.

I hear a lot from different parties to the effect that we need to do something. I hear my colleagues across the way saying that they are waiting to hear from the Supreme Court; well, there is nothing the Supreme Court is going to say that will stop them from voting on this issue. Therefore, I urge every member in the House to vote for this motion.

[International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, October 17th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, today is International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. This afternoon, alongside several of my NDP colleagues, I had the privilege of joining that hard-working members of Dignity for All in their “Chew on This” campaign. Together, along with participants in 12 other Canadian cities, we took to the streets to distribute apples as well as postcards to the Prime Minister urging the government to create a desperately needed federal food strategy.

Food security is a basic human right, not a privilege. Almost 900,000 Canadians access food banks each month and a further 3.8 million struggle to afford enough food to feed their families. The UN has called on Canada to adopt a federal poverty strategy. The National Council of Welfare gave an estimate of $12 billion to address poverty and a cost of $24 billion to do nothing.

Therefore, today I ask you, Mr. Speaker, and all members of the House to join Dignity for All, and chew on that.