Jinny Sims

[Business of Supply, April 25th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague across the aisle for her question, and I would also like to say how much I enjoyed her speech today. I thought that during her speech, she made some very coherent points. I did not agree with all of them, but there was coherency.

On the other hand, I would like to remind the Liberal Party and my colleagues over there that the reason they are sitting in that corner over there is not because of anything the NDP did. They are sitting there because of their actions and their failure to represent Canadians and because they lost the trust of the Canadian people.

I would remind them that they were in government not for a year, not for two years, not for three years, but for thirteen long years. During that time, they were still at that learning stage. They had not got ready for action.

Are they trying to convince us now that all their actions and good policies were going to happen in the 14th year? As a teacher, I do not believe that.

[Business of Supply, April 25th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, methinks, in my humble opinion, that my respected colleague from the third party protesteth a little bit too passionately and maybe a little bit too defensively. Maybe during this debate, some raw nerves have been touched, and the Liberals have been forced to look in the mirror and look at the record they have left our children and our grandchildren when it comes to the environment.

These are the facts. Nobody made them up. The fact is that greenhouse gas emissions actually increased during the Liberals' watch. The fact is that they failed to live up to the quotas they set themselves.

Then they try to redirect and change the channel and talk about governments having being brought down. Maybe they should take a look at their track record in government and wonder why Canadians put them in that corner.

[Business of Supply, April 25th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Victoria.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to this motion today. In particular I want to thank my colleague, the member for Halifax, for her tremendous work on this very important file and on the issues we are addressing today.

Today I want to talk about facts, about science-based evidence, rather than convenient ideals. The Minister of Natural Resources suggests that people are not as worried about climate change anymore. Well, I and all of my New Democrat colleagues are worried, and yes, Canadians are worried about climate change. We are worried about it because we inform ourselves of facts, and reputable scientists and scientific research firms concede that two-thirds of the existing known fossil fuel reserves must remain in the ground to prevent average global warming of more than 2° Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The 2° threshold is a dangerous tipping point. Beyond it, we cause irreversible damage to our planet's ecosystems, yet Canada's emissions continue to rise despite Conservative claims. In 2011, Canada's emissions rose to 702 million tonnes, moving us even further away from our 2020 target of 607 megatonnes. Even worse, Environment Canada's most recent projections show our emissions will continue to go in the wrong direction unless we bring forward policies that are very much stronger.

Provinces with significant climate policies in place, such as Quebec and Nova Scotia, are also seeing a gradual decline in their emissions. More work is needed to build on these successes, but they are encouraging nonetheless. It works.

The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development reported in his fall 2010 report that although the federal government acknowledged 20 years ago that climate change would have significant long-term impacts ranging from severe storms to droughts, the federal government still lacks an overarching federal strategy that identifies clear, concrete action.

At the Doha climate change talks in December of 2012, the UN Secretary-General stated:

From the United States to India, from Ukraine to Brazil, drought decimated essential global crops. ...tens of millions of people endured another year of vulnerability, at the mercy of the slightest climate shock. No one is immune to climate change—rich or poor. It is an existential challenge for the whole human race—our way of life, our plans for the future.

Multi-billion-dollar disasters are becoming more common around the world. Munich Re, a global reinsurance company, reported that in 2011 worldwide economic losses from natural catastrophes were a record $378 billion. In the Northwest Territories, the Mackenzie River ice road crossing has seen delays in the average opening date of about three weeks since 1996.

The list goes on. These are facts. They are not convenient ideals to excuse continued tax breaks for big polluters. They are not convenient ideals so that we can avoid talking about something we do not want to talk about.

Unlike the Conservatives and the Liberals before them, New Democrats are committed to addressing climate change. We accept it as a fact and we have a plan to take urgent and immediate action to avoid catastrophic climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions in order to keep the global average temperature increase below a maximum of 2° Celsius.

We will put a price on carbon and establish hard emission caps for large industrial emitters. We will enact the climate change accountability act, which would put in legislation a framework for achieving the national target of 80% below 1990 emission levels by 2050. We will establish a permanent federal energy-efficient retrofit program to reduce residential energy use, cut GHG emissions, create jobs and save Canadians money.

We will establish effective programs to help communities deal with the impacts of climate change in Canada. We will fulfill our international climate obligations. We will cut more than $1.3 billion in annual subsidies to fossil fuel industries. We will restart federal investment in renewable energy; and we will create a green jobs fund to support just employment transition to the new economy; and we will reinvest to give Canadian green tech researchers and developers a leading edge in the global market.

We cannot saddle future generations with the health problems caused by the pollution of our air, water and soil, or the insecurity of a planet affected by floods, food shortages, population displacement and border disputes. Science shows climate change is already causing many of these problems, and Canada is and will be affected.

Environment Canada and the minister himself admit that current actions by the Conservative government would only get Canada half the way to our already weakened target for greenhouse gas emissions. That target falls far short of the reductions Canada has committed to making to avoid catastrophic climate change. Canadians are united in concern about the impacts of climate change, and they support the development of renewable energy projects, including wind, geothermal, solar power and energy-efficient technologies, as well as long-term investment in public transit.

The current government claims to want to make Canada a clean energy superpower but has in fact cut funding for climate change. The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, in his 2010 report, chastised the Conservative government, and the Liberal government before it, on its failure to develop a national plan to adapt to the impacts of climate change. Yet the current government has failed to act in the face of mounting evidence and increasing concern from municipalities and the provinces and territories.

Let it be known that the Liberals' track record is no better. Although they signed and ratified the Kyoto protocol, they did absolutely nothing to try to reduce our emissions until it was too late. In 1993, the Liberals promised to reduce greenhouse gases by 20% by 2005. They instead allowed them to increase by over 30%. In 2005, the United Nations reported that Canada's pollution increased more than any other signatory to the Kyoto protocol. The federal environment commissioner said that even if the measures contained in the Liberal government's 2005 plan had been fully implemented, it is difficult to say whether the projected emission reductions would have been enough to meet their own Kyoto obligations. Quite simply, their plan was not up to the task of meeting the Kyoto obligations.

Finally, and perhaps more tragically, on October 8, 2009, Liberal and Conservative MPs formed a coalition in this House to defeat a motion by the New Democrats to return Bill C-311, the climate change accountability act, to the House for a vote prior to the Copenhagen climate conference that December. The NDP bill would have committed Canada to science-based greenhouse gas reduction targets and worked to hold the government publicly accountable for action on this issue.

We can do better. We can have a greener Canada and a prosperous economy. We can fulfill our environmental obligations. We can be wise investors and we can be responsible global citizens. We can leave to our children and grandchildren an environment, a Canada and a world of which we are proud.

New Democrats condemn the lack of effective action by successive federal Conservative and Liberal governments since 1998 to address emissions and meet our Kyoto commitments, and we call on the current government to immediately table its federal climate change adaptation plan.

[Employment, April 24th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it is always the same from that minister: insults, insults.

Criticism has flowed in about problems with the temporary foreign worker program, problems caused by Conservative mismanagement. Now the Governor of the Bank of Canada has testified that an overreliance on temporary foreign workers is a problem and drives down the wages of Canadians.

Mr. Carney gets it and Canadians get it. When will the minister stop the spin and just fix the problem?

[Employment, April 18th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, while nearly 1.4 million Canadians are out of work, the Conservative government has persisted in bringing in more temporary foreign workers than any government before. Even Canadian pilots are not safe from losing their jobs to imported labour.

From September to October last year, HRSDC issued 119 positive labour market opinions, which led to the hiring of pilots from abroad, all while Canadian pilots had to go overseas to find work. How could the minister allow this to happen?

[Employment, April 16th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, after failing to fix the temporary foreign worker program after months and months, it seems Conservatives finally realize they have a problem. This program has tripled in size under the Conservatives and Liberals, and recent changes have more to do with keeping wages down than with filling any labour shortages. Will Conservatives now rescind the decision to allow businesses to pay foreign workers 15% less than Canadians for the same job?

[Business of Supply, April 16th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I find the previous discussion a little disingenuous. The temporary foreign worker program in Canada grew significantly under the Liberals and then doubled under the Conservatives' watch.

When I hear some of the impassioned speeches, I have to ask why Canadians should believe the Liberals are any different from the Conservatives in managing this particular file. Do the Liberals support ending the practice of allowing temporary foreign workers to be paid 15% less than Canadian citizens and permanent residents?

[Business of Supply, April 16th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I think maybe my colleague across the way missed the part of the speech where I clarified that the NDP caucus has been very clear, as has our leader, that we fully support the temporary foreign worker program and believe it needs to be a strategy. If our members have written letters, it has been because they have been presented with LMOs and ALMOs where they have seen there is a need.

However, what the member implies is that we are against the temporary foreign worker program. We are not. We are against the abuse of it, and the abuse of it is not by just the mining industry and the RBC. We hear stories day in and day out, actually, hundreds of stories every single day, of the abuses that are occurring. When people get abused to this extent and the issues make it to the Supreme Court and the government still takes no action, then we begin to wonder what the real agenda is.

[Business of Supply, April 16th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, first, let me be very clear. We are not against consultation. We are not against people getting together from all different areas to discuss an issue. However, sometimes we have to take action in order to plug a flood. When we take that action, then we can take our time to study the issue in detail.

Right now, it is the government that is failing in its oversight and not doing due diligence when it comes to ALMOs and LMOs. It is also the government that has put in place that temporary foreign workers can be paid 15% less. That is an additional incentive.

With unemployment sitting at 1.4 million people in Canada today, I would say every Canadian across this country, whether they are Canadian citizens or whether they arrived in Canada a week ago, are permanent residents. They all want to have decent-paying jobs right here in Canada.

By the way, we are not blaming the temporary foreign workers who are brought in, because we are very cognizant of the fact that many of them live in some terrible conditions and face abuse. That is why we are calling for protections as well.

[Business of Supply, April 16th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to speak on today's opposition motion.

For quite some time now the New Democrats have been keenly aware that the temporary foreign worker program is being grossly mismanaged by the Conservative government. Indeed, we have been quite vocal about it here in the House.

Over and over again there are cases in the news, and more closely in my parliamentary inbox, that remind me of the government's flawed execution of what ought to be a functional, important and complementary tool for employers and ultimately for all Canadians where genuine skill shortages exist in this country.

Unfortunately, it is all too clear that the program is not being administered with diligence by the Conservative government. Last year's HD Mining debacle in B.C. is one example. The growing backlog under the live-in caregiver program, which the immigration minister himself has admitted is problematic and needs fixing, is another example. Another example is that temporary foreign workers are currently being used to outsource jobs at RBC while their predecessors are training them. The list goes on.

Just over the last two weeks, several individuals have contacted my office to tell the same story. They were brought to Canada as skilled workers and they tell stories of abuse and living in fear. Now we are uncovering staggering abuses of the ALMO.

Let me be clear: I and all my New Democrat colleagues fully support the temporary foreign worker program and believe it should be part of a strategy to help businesses find the workers they need where real skill shortages exist. Our criticism is directed entirely towards the program's mismanagement or, more accurately, its obvious mismanagement under the current government. I want to make sure there is no question about precisely what we are taking aim at here.

The Conservative government keeps feigning outrage over revelations of inappropriate usage of the program, such as those exposed via the evidence out of RBC this month. However, it is the Conservatives who created the loopholes that are currently allowing companies to abuse the temporary foreign worker program to displace Canadian jobs. It is also the Conservative government that is issuing the visas required for the program.

The Conservatives continue to promise full reviews and investigation of this program, yet no substantial changes have arisen. Instead, all evidence suggests the problems with it are only multiplying.

From 2002 to 2012, the number of temporary foreign workers present in Canada more than tripled, from just over 100,000 to nearly 340,000. To break that down, the number of temporary foreign workers in Canada grew under the Liberals from 100,000 to 160,000 and then doubled under the current government. Neither side is clean.

In fact, the current government admits the number of temporary foreign workers entering Canada has generally outpaced the number of economic immigrants. In 2012, the gap surpassed 60,000.

Quite frankly, that gap startles me. Knowing that the government allows employers to pay temporary foreign workers 15% less than it would pay a permanent resident or a Canadian citizen, I am compelled to think about the unemployment rates in this country. The government's priority ought to be Canadian jobs. When I look at the unemployment rate, I am deeply concerned. Nearly 1.4 million Canadians are out of work, and in March alone we saw the loss of 54,000 full-time jobs, the biggest drop in four years.

There are six unemployed Canadians for every available job. Unemployment has increased under the current government. The unemployment rate remains in double digits in Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, and P.E.I., yet the government chooses to focus its efforts on clawing away at EI benefits, conducting spot checks and setting quotas, and punishing Canadians at the time they need that program the most, a program that they paid into.

As well, the Conservatives continue to fail young people. The youth unemployment rate in this country has increased to 14.2%.

When I look at these numbers, I cannot help but suggest that the Conservative government has a responsibility, an obligation, to unemployed Canadians first. That responsibility must extend to ensuring diligent and accurate labour market opinions. There has been a lot of suggestion in cases of late that the LMOs under the current government are not accurately reflecting the market. The skills are already available here in Canada, and those workers are training the migrant workers.

However, it does not seem that the Conservatives agree that they have a responsibility to Canadians first. In 2012, they launched a new ALMO to create a fast-track stream for higher skilled workers such as those in management, professional, and technical occupations. Already, just a year later, investigations imply that ALMOs are being misused to seek foreign labourers for lower skilled occupations. The investigation of the Alberta Federation of Labour revealed that nearly 50% of all ALMOs are being improperly used. This is unacceptable.

Under the ALMO employers do not have to provide evidence that Canadians have been considered for open positions. They need only to show that the job was advertised through the federal job bank for seven days. Perhaps most alarming, fewer than 20% of ALMO applications will be subject to a compliance review. That means over 80% of ALMO applications are granted without any compliance checks.

The government is interested in investigating and reviewing the problem. Might I suggest that its own frivolous issuing of ALMOs is an excellent place to begin? It does not need reviewing, it needs action.

Workers' rights groups continue to raise concerns about rights violations and poor working conditions for these temporary foreign workers in Canada. It is a worry that plagues me deeply as well. Documented incidents include workers being forced to: work in different jobs than the ones they were contracted for, work under dangerous or illegal conditions, keep silent about injuries or illnesses for fear of reprisal from the employer, live in housing provided by the employer that is substandard and overcrowded, and be isolated by their reliance on employer transportation. The Conservatives have not done enough work with the provinces on monitoring conditions for temporary foreign workers.

On November 9, 2012, the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development indicated that she was not satisfied with how the permits were granted for HD Mining in B.C. Several workers were sent home and the Conservative government announced that it was reviewing the program. The minister made that comment five long months ago. However, the latest stories out of RBC, which have prompted employees from other big businesses to come forward with comparable stories, do not suggest that her review has, thus far, been effective in the least.

The Auditor General told the government in 2009 that HRSDC does not ensure quality and consistency of decisions when issuing labour market opinions. Therefore, last year's HD Mining evidence was not the Conservatives' first indication that the program was broken under their administration.

Finally, I want to point out that it is only after months of New Democrats leading the charge of criticism on the government's mismanagement of the temporary foreign worker program that my Liberal colleagues took note of it. Canadians are tired of empty promises and unaccountable reviews that go nowhere. It seems the Liberals are content with setting up a committee controlled and dominated by the Conservatives.

Canadians want action. New Democrats want action. We are calling for real changes. There have been ample reviews and studies. We know what is wrong with this program. The Conservatives know what is wrong with this program. Therefore, New Democrats are calling on the Conservatives to fix the program now.