Joe Volpe

[Budget Implementation Act, 2008, April 9th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I am wondering about the NDP's position on this, quite frankly, and I am hoping that perhaps their members will address this, because this is not an immigration bill. There is no such thing on the table. This is a budget bill. If they want to address the budget, I would dearly love to support them.

However, I have some difficulties with their position on immigration because of what happened when there was an immigration plan on the table. There was $1.4 billion for integration and settlement. There was $700 million for fixing the system by accelerating processing and eliminating the backlog over a five year period. There was $88 million established for foreign credentials recognition. There was $10 million for expanding a student visa program to encourage more students to come into the country.

The NDP members voted against that and precipitated an election as a result. Today they are objecting to a plan they say is there, but I have not seen one. Would they please elaborate for the members on this side, who would like to support them, what specifics of a plan they are objecting to might actually emerge from a bill that is not in the House?

[Business of Supply, April 8th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I deliberately moved away from ad hominem attacks or snide comments regarding political partisanship and organization. Why? Not because I am unable to do that, but because I think this is a topic and an issue that requires the appropriate gravitas from anyone who engages in it.

The issues, as I might remind the member opposite, are twofold. First, as I said, is the question of completing a commitment made in a motion that was accepted by the House, and it has not happened yet. We are asking for it to be done. Second, is to remind all people of the substance of the issue itself, without having taken a position. That position has already been determined by the House.

What we have done is present a motion that asks the government to recognize all the serious elements associated with the Canadian position in Afghanistan. If the member opposite would like me to review them for him, I shall be pleased to do so.

I caution that this is a serious topic. The only responsibility that members here ought to take is whether they will comply with the will of Parliament, which was expressed in a non-partisan fashion and, as both the Prime Minister and the leader of the official opposition said, in a truly Canadian statesman like fashion. It is a Canadian position that needs to be committed to and fulfilled as per Parliament's request a month ago. We cannot wait much longer.

[Business of Supply, April 8th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, we have quite an extraordinary motion before the House today on an opposition day. We need to think about this for a moment. The official opposition has decided to use the opportunity of an opposition day to bring the government to a realization of the full impact of what it agreed to do more than a month ago.

A month ago the government agreed to accept the official opposition's suggestion of compromise and direction with a view to providing purpose to our position in Afghanistan. It is a position that has consumed the public attention for five and more years now but most particularly in this year, after we have seen the fatalities mount to 82 of our soldiers and after everyone is seized with the idea of ensuring that any Canadian participation value the lives of those men and women who offered themselves up for the purpose of ensuring that all those values that are Canadian be recognized, implemented and valued everywhere around the world. That is what has been at the basis of our debate and what has been on the foundation stones of all of our positions on what Canada will do, militarily or otherwise, in Afghanistan.

As we know, the government, using language that mothers might have thought differently, decided to extend the mission and ask for parliamentary approval. The government did that in 2006. What it really meant was that it wanted to turn the mission from one that it primarily was intended to be, a reconstruction and development mission, into one where there would be war fighting, and there were justifications. I am not here to revisit the history of that debate but suffice it to say that next year the mandate would have to be to either renew or abandon.

The government, to its credit, said that there would be a debate in the House of Commons and that debate did take place. The official opposition, as well as the other opposition parties, pointed out all of the requirements that needed to be satisfied in order to at least give the Canadian public a sense that it was participating in a real debate on the merits of being part of the Afghan mission.

We compromised a great deal. From a personal point of view, I gave a position that said no, but parties collectively came forward and, with the collective wisdom of their caucuses, they arrived at a position that was worthy of statesmanship for the country.

What did my party, the official opposition, do? It presented a motion that, happily, was absorbed, adopted and implemented by the government almost in its entirety. It said, and this is not usual in a parliamentary environment, that it preferred the official opposition's approach to our presence in Afghanistan and that it would present that position as its own in the House of Commons for all the parties to either accept or reject.

The result was that the official opposition accepted. However, the mainstay of that motion included a commitment by the government and this House that there would be the establishment of a committee of parliamentarians that would provide the oversight, an omission that has caused such great concern in the country.

All parliamentarians in the House agreed that the government would establish an all party committee that would provide oversight and cooperation with the three line departments most immediately implicated in the Canadian experience in Afghanistan, specifically the Minister of Foreign Affairs and his department, the Minister of National Defence and his department, and the Minister of International Cooperation, CIDA.

Here we are a month later, decisions being made on Afghanistan, our role in the world being debated in Bucharest and elsewhere, our commitment to international development and reconstruction ongoing and our contribution militarily still being determined on an ad hoc basis and no committee.

One might take exception to the composition of a committee that would fall out of the normal practices of Parliament but one cannot take lightly the idea that the House, the government, the opposition would agree to a motion, asked for by the government itself, to create a committee that would provide the coordination, the oversight and one that would review the laws and procedures governing the use of operational and national security exceptions for the withholding of information from Parliament, the courts and the Canadian people, with those responsible for administering those laws and procedures, and to ensure that Canadians are being provided with ample information on the conduct and the progress of the mission.

We should be outraged that the government has yet to move in the direction of implementing such a committee. Today's motion is there to offer the government an opportunity to do what it had committed to do on the floor of the House and with the support of opposition parties.

It was not something that was done willy-nilly. Mr. Speaker, I notice that you are listening very attentively to the reasons why we came to that position.

The government claimed that it needed to get the public on side on Afghanistan and our mission therein, so it commissioned a panel of experts. That panel suggested, among several other things, first, that we ensure the world recognizes our input and that it come forward with an additional 1,000 troops, otherwise we would not continue our mission. One thousand troops, a 40% increase in the number of troops that we have deployed in Afghanistan and specifically in Kandahar province.

The government accepted that recommendation and said that this was its line in the sand. If we cannot get the rest of the world to accept our contribution and recognize its value, then we shall opt out. That was part of the debate.

The Prime Minister and his ministers lauded left and right everywhere around the country the fact that a panel of experts said that we would make our mission contingent upon the contribution of an additional 1,000 troops.

It appears that we finally have them. I do not know whether that will solve all the problems but it is not for me to judge, at least not today. I am skeptical but the government said that was one of the conditions and, in accepting the motion, it also said that it would allow itself to be monitored by this parliamentary committee so that the achievements, the objectives and the goals that would be aimed at with this additional group that would buttress the Canadian presence militarily, that would always be present in the House, and that the Canadian public, through its elected representatives in situ and always in conjunction with those three line departments, would have an up to date view of the progress of the mission that very few in Canada applaud wholeheartedly.

They are not anti-military. They are not anti-troops. They are for the achievement of objectives that are clearly stated, clearly outlined and systematically put in place.

The second objective the government said had to be met in order for us to continue the extension of the mission was the achievement of greater operational lift, and that is helicopters to move our troops from point A to point B. It appears we have moved in some direction toward achieving that objective and to satisfying that condition. However, we still do not have an oversight committee of Parliament to ensure that be done, just as we cannot be sure it will achieve the other condition of securing the appropriate armoured vehicles to transport our troops in safety from point A to point B.

I have spoken only for a brief moment on the military component of the mission. It is a military component that very tragically has resulted, at least for Canada, in the highest rate of fatality of all countries, specifically of countries that continue to make a military contribution exceeding 2,000 armed personnel. The fatality rate is 3%. The other countries combined have 1.4%. Even the United States with all of its troops has a fatality rate of 1.7%.

What concerned us was the safety of our troops. We are putting them in the line of fire in a dangerous environment. We wanted to ensure that, at the very least, we could provide them with the technology they required in order to achieve an objective and also the technology necessary to provide them security in a dangerous environment. It has not happened. We are not sure. We do not have the parliamentary committee that the government promised on accepting that motion. It seems perhaps that it is unprepared to move in tandem with the goodwill of the House to achieve national objectives.

The other thing that concerned us was the presence of Canada in the greater Middle East. It is a part of the world so far away from Canada that it barely achieves the attention of those who hold Canadian values dear. The government, through the expert panel, pointed out that to date we had collectively spent, as citizens of this country, in excess of $6 billion through our military presence. Some people would say it would be money better spent if we wanted to change the world.

This is only our contribution and that amount of money increases on a yearly basis. In fact, there is an estimate, and I suspect it came from the government because it came through the usual unnamed sources for military writers, that by the time we end up in 2012, we will have spent about $18 billion in Afghanistan. Some might say that is a fantastic amount of money just for one country. That money is well worth it if it achieves the objective we have laid out for ourselves. It is an absolute waste if it achieves nothing.

To give some idea of how fabulous that amount of money would be, it is only $2 billion less than the entire GDP of Afghanistan. This is an enormous amount of money for one country to contribute militarily, for security purposes.

We are not there as a conquering nation. We are there, as the government has said, to provide security for our other approach. Our other approach is one of development. Unfortunately, according to the government, we have spent to date only $600 million on development aid and reconstruction. We are spending something like $12 on military and defence initiatives for Afghanistan for every $1 we spend in development aid. Yet I am sure all members on the government side would say that if we could achieve our objectives through development aid and reconstruction, then those dollars would be very well spent.

Members on this side agree we would spend more. Six hundred million dollars does not appear to be a fabulous sum when the objectives are as noble as those that we outlined for ourselves in Afghanistan. We wanted this committee to ensure those funds would achieve the objectives that we outlined for ourselves. Because 50¢ out of every one of those dollars, that is $300 million, goes to UN agencies. We do not spend it there. Another 35¢ out of every dollar goes directly to Afghan national institutions to ensure they begin to develop the culture of government servicing the people. Only 15¢ per dollar of contribution is left.

We on this side of the House asked for a committee to ensure there would be adequate coordination between our defence objectives and our development objectives, and that committee is not here yet. The government has perhaps thought that now the debate has spent its force, we do not need to look at what it should do. All we want to happen is for the government to respect the will of Parliament and ensure that this committee be in place, so all of those defence and development reconstruction efforts are coordinated, not just where Canada sits, but perhaps as well, according to the independent panel, that other countries move in a coordinated effort to transform a society that generates a lot of the concerns that have caused the fear and paranoia worldwide. Whether it has been justified is another story, but that is the basis for this.

The third reason why we wanted this committee, the third rationale, which was buttressed as well by that independent panel, was there had to be greater diplomatic efforts. Foreign affairs needed to be much more engaged in what was going on in Afghanistan, where our allies, and there are many, were operating on their own agenda. For example, there is a country adjacent to Afghanistan, a country whose cooperation is absolutely crucial for the success, however limited or however superior to any nation or combination of nations in Afghanistan, and that would be Pakistan.

Ten of the provinces in Afghanistan border Pakistan. There are twice as many Taliban operating in some of the border provinces of Afghanistan than there are operating in the rest of Afghanistan. A lot of the activities that we know are there are dependent on the cooperation that we get from Pakistan. Seventy per cent of our material and human resources go into Afghanistan through Pakistan.

It makes sense for a coordinated effort on the part of Canada of those three departments. All we asked for on this side of the House was cooperation by the government in instituting an all party committee, which it would chair, to ensure the coordination of all these issues and departments would reflect the intention of Canadians, as expressed through their members of Parliament in the House, and moved and accepted by the government.

All we want, through this motion today, is the transparency and the openness that the government opposite offered all members of Parliament a month ago when we gave it the okay to continue in Afghanistan.

[Canadian Coalition Against Terror, April 1st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, thanks to the efforts of the Canadian Coalition Against Terror, all parties in this House are ready to support legislation to permit attacking the financial resources of terrorist movements.

Bill S-225 would allow civil suits against states or groups sponsoring terrorist acts that result in the murder of Canadians abroad.

Whether it is the Air-India bombing, the twin towers attack or the massacre at the yeshiva in Jerusalem, such criminal activity targets the innocent, the unsuspecting and the uninvolved.

We can fight the Babbar Khalsa, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas by going after the financial resources of their backers. FINTRAC last year reported 41 cases involving $1.8 billion related to terrorist activity or other security threats to Canada.

Bill S-225 proposes financial remedies for families of victims. What is the Conservative government waiting for? It should bring the bill into this House and let us get it passed.

[Business of Supply, March 31st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the answer, of course, is that it is true. I am not being partisan, but I would like to remind that member, the member from Cape Breton as well, who asked me if I would vote for this particular plan or not, and all members of this House, that when I put forward that plan on behalf of the last government he and his members in the NDP voted against that plan and brought down the government. They wanted to build a different House. This is the House that Jack built--

[Business of Supply, March 31st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows quite well that if we are going to offer a tax incentive or reduction for someone, it means that someone has already made an investment, is producing some well and is getting a subsidy by way of a tax reduction. If we offer a tax cut for people who are going to make an investment to begin with, the member is talking about making an investment.

We have already gone beyond the fiscal infrastructure that Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, New Mexico and other states in the United States are trying to get. We already have that. We need to have a different strategy. If what the hon. member wants to do is discuss with me what the best strategy is for ensuring that we keep alive the dynamic that I mentioned earlier on, where we have 350,000 people who directly and indirectly are employed in the automotive sector, then I am willing to have that discussion.

However, those states that have nothing by way of infrastructure are trying to buy those manufacturers to install themselves in their states to our detriment. If we do not do something constructive and proactive, they will continue to go down.

[Business of Supply, March 31st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I always welcome the siren song of seduction. The first example of the siren song of seduction is a compliment, backhanded though it may be. However, without undue immodesty, that it was probably in one of these cases well deserved.

The member is probably recalling, as I was saying earlier on, the moneys that we invested in enhancing the program to recruit more and more students to study in our country. We were aiming for an additional 40,000 per annum to come and take advantage of unused capacity in this country, to bring the amount of money they would normally invest in their own education. Keep in mind that foreign students would come here and pay their own way to the tune currently of about $1.5 billion annually. Therefore, we would make that kind of investment, and we did.

We thought of establishing a plan that would see the growth of workers who would meet an immediate need. Some people call them seasonal workers, but I prefer to think of them as temporary workers. We worked with all the sector councils, put money into those sector councils to ensure that people would be brought in so the number would increase from 106,000 to about 150,000. I am happy to hear the government admit that the plan actually worked.

In terms of whether we would want to continue to enhance that, I would ask the member this in kind. Since he is singing such sweet songs, perhaps he would want to reflect on whether he would prefer my plan or whether he would applaud the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration plan?

[Business of Supply, March 31st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I always try not to ask questions of those who actually know the answers. Maybe the hon. member might keep that in mind.

First, the numbers he is talking about are those that existed 15 years ago. When we left office, there were 700,000 in a backlog that people had not yet identified. That number has grown from 700,000 to 900,000, according to the minister.

What the member ignores is that there was $2 billion already put into the system, $1.2 billion for integration purposes, with all the provinces signed on and with the agreements already put to paper, and an additional $700 million to “fix the system” and make it ready. By that I mean to put in place the infrastructure necessary to find out how many of the 700,000 were still live applicants, those who still wanted their application to be there, and then to process those who were in the system.

Regarding how many we have landed, there is a difference between how many came here and how many landed. I would be embarrassed to say that only 450,000 people came to our country last year. We have landed less in Canada last year than we landed when I was minister in 2005. Therefore, we are going backwards. Thankfully many of the people whom we have encouraged to come here are as a result of the policies that I put in place for recruiting students and seasonal workers. However, I will—

[Business of Supply, March 31st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, every now and then in the House members of Parliament get an opportunity to discuss issues that are important in the whole context of nation building. Sometimes those issues are prompted by initiatives of government, as they should be. After all, we all aspire to be elected so that we can fulfill an ambition to build this country, to make it greater and to leave a legacy for others to relish in and build from.

Those are the good things that we often cheapen by pure partisanship but they are there nonetheless. They are the bulwarks upon which we build a great society, a society that is the envy still of the entire world. Then there are other occasions when we are engaged in defending some of those ties that bind this country together precisely because the government attempts, either deliberately or perhaps subconsciously or indifferently, to weaken them.

Today we have a debate that is designed to re-strengthen some of the ties that the Minister of Finance has, regrettably, engaged in ripping apart. I say “ripping apart” because it is exactly what some of the statements and comments by the minister have done with respect to Canada's most populous and most important industrial province. That is what the government has accomplished. It has taken the heart and soul of the province and the entrepreneurialship of its people and said, “No, this is not the way we should be running Canada's most important province”.

As another member said earlier, if the finance minister wants to run the province of Ontario he is welcome to abandon his seat and seek election in the province. Why am I excited about this, some members opposite would ask. It is very easy.

Today we have an example of the province of Ontario doing what it can in order to reverse some decisions being made by one of the bulwarks of the manufacturing sector in Canada, by making an investment of $17 million with one of the partners in the automobile sector that has been operating in this country for well over 100 years. Its head office might be in Detroit but it has been operating in Canada for 104 years.

What did it do? It made a strategic decision globally, as many companies do, in the interests of all of its shareholders, of all of the people who work for it and all of its consumers. It said that it would close engine plants in Windsor and Essex, plants that employ some 800-plus people in high technology, highly educated people with high paying types of jobs, jobs that have an impact in the creation of a minimum of at least another two and, more likely than not, another four as a result of its activity. More important, it maintains the educational infrastructure that makes innovation and technology possible in Canada, that makes the educational infrastructure the driving force behind the expansion of an economic engine that is Ontario.

What did the province do? It said that because the Government of Canada was reluctant in Ontario to promote the interests of the province and its industries, it would make a contribution of only $17 million because it said that it would come in with 10% of the requirement possible if Ford would only change a mandate.

Ford closed 16 plants around the world. This was the first time that an automobile company, an assembler, a generator of research and development, changed its mandate in order to accommodate what the provincial government wanted it to do. The company did not do it all. The company said that many states in the United States were looking for this technology, looking for this activity and looking to build an infrastructure for manufacturing and education, and those states would do it.

Some members opposite think that the only thing that will drive these companies is lower taxes. Sometimes that works, especially when those companies are trying to build up the physical infrastructure, the educational infrastructure and the human resources training infrastructure required in order to bring that kind of activity into their midst.

My colleague from Quebec lamented the fact that there were some decisions by the automobile sector and the manufacturing sector that abandoned Quebec. I think in terms of Hyundai that a few years ago pulled out of Quebec because it complained about the kinds of infrastructure, education and training that was available to it. Where did Hyundai go? It made a $1.4 billion investment in Tennessee. Why? Tennessee is spending gazillions of dollars in order to build the kind of infrastructure that we already have here in Ontario.

The Minister of Finance said that the only thing that should be done in Ontario would be to cut taxes. All he needed to do was find the rounding error in order to come up with the same amount of money for those plants in Windsor and in Essex that would get people back to work and would generate the kind of educational research and training that could result from that kind of activity to ensure that the manufacturing sector in southwestern Ontario would remain healthy. We do not make investments only when times are good. We make investments like this for a generation down the road.

The automobile sector is important for southern Ontario and for Ontario in general. There are 350,000 direct and indirect jobs created by that sector, which means 350,000 families are dependent on that sector for vitality, for their future. Only eight cities in all of Canada are bigger than that number. If I include the members in those families who are dependent upon those 350,000 jobs, that gives me a population greater than every single province in Atlantic Canada and almost greater than Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

That is the kind of population base that the Minister of Finance and his government are ignoring and depreciating by simply saying that the only thing that will work is tax cuts. If tax cuts were part of the investment, I would say it is part of the solution, but that is not what is involved here. One needs to make the kinds of investment in infrastructure that will make things work for tomorrow. Generational decisions will be made in the next little while by those big drivers in the manufacturing sector.

It is not just the automobile sector or the auto parts sector. It is the physical infrastructure. We need to ensure that we can get goods from point A to point B without great difficulty. It means as well that CBSA needs to ensure that the border crossings work properly.

It is no longer credible for the government to say that we created all these problems. The Conservatives have been in government for two years and what have they done? What has the government done in two years to enhance the economic vitality of Ontario which has been the mainstay of Canadian wealth and health?

Over the course of the last two years, the minister has said that Ontario is in bad shape. He said that it used to be responsible for 41.2% of the economic welfare of Canada and now it has dropped down to 38.4%. He said that with great pride. He is in government. What did he do while all of this erosion was taking place?

I am looking at CAW, Ford, General Motors and Chrysler. They are beginning to sit down at the table to resolve the problems associated with an appreciating dollar and much more expensive human resources costs for the manufacturing sector. They can get along. Why can the federal government not get along with its provincial counterpart? Why can it not build a partnership that is required to build for tomorrow, to generate an investment in our province that will translate into benefits around the country? We know that to be the case.

Seventeen thousand Ontarians left Ontario to seek work elsewhere in Canada and they took their families with them. Ten thousand of those were people who had a university degree or better. Do we know what that means when we lose that kind of a resource?

It is useless to hear the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development crow about all of the investments the government has made. It has not made any. It cannot. It forgot to tell everyone that all of the labour market development agreements have already been signed with the provinces and what have the provinces been doing with that money. What have they been doing in the last two years? Has the minister asked? He has not told the House. Has he given us an indication of what those 10,000 people with university credentials who have left Ontario means?

It means a loss of $1.6 million of investment that the province of Ontario has already made in educating those people. It means that we have lost a critical mass of creative thinkers and experienced people. It means that we have transferred wealth generators from Ontario into other parts of the country. That may all be well and good provided it was a strategic decision on the part of the Government of Canada to ensure that there was a development of that kind of wealth creator and wealth generator in one province and then to ship them to some place else in order to bring greater wealth and benefit to Canadians at large.

Those were decisions that were made by individuals in part and maybe entirely because the government has not done what it could have done by way of investing in the proverbial creator of wealth that is Ontario.

I know what will happen as the members opposite get into this question. They will want to know what we did when we were there. I guess, rather than give a litany of all of those items, I will do them all. I am going to refer members to my website where they will see all our record in terms of human resources. I will also talk about immigration in a moment and what we did in terms of investment in the industrial sector. The question here is whether the government has a strategy that goes beyond parroting a very simple phrase, tax cuts.

I saw the numbers that the Minister of Finance gave us, $60 billion in the last two years. If he takes a look at what he got for the cuts that he says exists, I would like to see them. He cannot generate them. He cannot say what those tax cuts resulted in other than a declining economy in Ontario, other than a declining economy in Quebec, other than a transfer of population from Atlantic Canada over to Alberta primarily, secondarily to British Columbia and now, thank heavens, even Saskatchewan. He cannot give us those facts. He refuses to give us those because in part those facts do not exist.

What is his demographic policy? He has the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration giving him some tidbits to throw into the budget document so that we can talk about demographic movement. What are we talking about? It is about reducing a waiting list.

In an environment that sees fewer and fewer people landing in Canada, the minister is talking about reducing a waiting list, as if that were the demographic, the strategic policy for bringing wealth creators into the country.

I have news for him. He should read the document. The 350,000 people who came here between 2001 and 2006 had a university degree or better. It would take our country $50 billion and 22 years to generate the same kind of talent. We did it all in the space of five years. Of all of those men and women who came to this country between 2001 and 2006, between the ages of 25 and 64, the most productive years of their lives, 51% already had a university degree or better.

The shame of all that is 23% of native born Canadians have the same qualifications. It is scandalous because it speaks to the government's inability and unwillingness to invest in the creation of a true human resources potential for unlocking the wealth of this nation.

I heard one of the members opposite say that we did not recognize their credentials. How do we recognize their credentials by eliminating the backlog? Does that improve their chances of getting jobs? We have a pool of 350,000 people who have a university degree or better and this is what the Conservatives have come up with.

Of those 350,000, 25%, or roughly 70,000 men and women, have an engineering degree. Countries like China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Russia are trying to generate wealth by getting more and more of their people to study engineering, the applied math and the applied sciences. We have them, 70,000.

Now the minister says that under the budget document they want to ensure that they do not get any more of them. The Conservatives want to go ahead and eliminate the backlog. As the member opposite said, there are too many people here who are not working and that we should invest in ensuring they get the kind of jobs that we would want.

We made a decision in that regard, already $88 million to go into enhanced language training. What that means is we are making an investment in the kind of language that is used on the job, the language of mathematicians, of engineers, of scientists, of medical practitioners. We should make an investment in bringing on side all those sectors and professional organizations that are encouraged then to utilize the talent they have to wait tens of years to develop.

We do not see any of that in the budget. We see instead the Minister of Finance ridiculing a province because it is actually making efforts to integrate that wealth generated, that demographic talent into the economic engine and the economic activity of the province. I do not know whether that is good government. I know for sure it is not good nation building.

Rather than be partisan, I encourage the Minister of Finance to come up with the kind of strategy that utilizes the talent that is there and to build on that, to expand that talent. Most important, I ask him to do what I can tell him is difficult, but it is still realizable, and that is to build a partnership with willing jurisdictions.

The province of Ontario is a willing jurisdiction. It has been the mainstay of Confederation since its inception. It is not productive to engage in partisanship with a jurisdiction that is willing to be a nation builder. As I said earlier, if the CAW can work with Ford, why can the Government of Canada not work with the government of Ontario? It owes it to its citizens.

[Petitions, February 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure and honour once again this week to present petitions duly certified under Standing Order 36, and thanks to the efforts of B'nai Brith Canada, to highlight three things in this petition signed by some 150 people in the Greater Toronto Area.

First, to thank Canadians and Canada for responding so positively to a previous petition that resulted in the return of the remains of three Israeli soldiers missing in action, Omar Suad, Benny Avraham and Adi Avitan.

Second, to highlight that there are still five others whose status is unaccounted for: Yehuda Katz, Zvi Feldman, Zecharya Baumel, Ron Arad and Guy Hever.

Third, to ask this Parliament to continue in its efforts to ensure that the moral principle of redemption of hostages, so cherished in the Jewish faith and by people of goodwill all over the world, be adhered to by applying pressure to Hezbollah and its sponsor states of Lebanon, Syria and Iran. By using all reasonable means, not excluding sanctions and the severing of diplomatic ties, to ensure that the status of these five soldiers be verified and they or their remains be returned to their families back in Israel.