John McCallum

[Social Housing, February 8th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, decent housing is the foundation of decent health, jobs and productivity, and the minister has just said no to this question.

She has acknowledged that alone among the infrastructure programs, social housing is not going to get an extension, but just about everything else is. Among the $400 million, many millions are going to the poorest people in the country on aboriginal reserves.

Why is she signalling out social housing destined to benefit the poorest in the land for this special treatment of not getting an extension?

[Social Housing, February 8th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the government has decided to punish social housing. The $400 million social housing program is one of the only infrastructure programs that did not get a seven-month extension.

Will the minister assure us today that it was simply an oversight and that the social housing program will also get a seven-month extension?

[Government Advertising, February 4th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the government is also spending $6.5 million taxpayer dollars on a new campaign advertising five-year-old tax measures dating back to 2006. These ads, timed to coincide with Conservative Party ads, will actually cost more than some of the tax measures that are being advertised.

Even the Conservative-friendly Canadian Taxpayers Federation describes this advertising as “government electioneering at taxpayer expense”.

Why does the government cheat Canadian taxpayers for electoral gain?

[Government Advertising, February 4th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, we now know that the Conservatives spent half a million dollars in less than a year for campaign-style backdrops for ministerial announcements. They spent almost $27,000 on a Tory blue backdrop for their response to the earthquake in Haiti. Incredibly, that is 55 times the average income of a Haitian.

What will the government not do? What taxpayer dollars will they not waste for purely partisan electoral purposes?

[Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, February 2nd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, policies are reducing the value of AECL and it is also all about jobs. There are tens of thousands of jobs in the GTA alone. Ontario was hit hard by the recession and many of those jobs have not returned. There is a real opportunity to create and maintain jobs, as well as ensure that Canada remains a world leader in nuclear energy.

Why do the Conservatives insist on killing jobs and selling out Canada's nuclear industry? Have they never heard of the Avro Arrow?

[Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, February 2nd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, Canada has been a leader in nuclear energy for 60 years. The Conservative policies are threatening that reputation as well as tens of thousands of jobs.

When the Conservatives announced their intention to sell AECL, they put a halt to all contracts. Meanwhile, Ontario is looking to expand its nuclear generation, and AECL would be the natural choice.

Why is the government starving AECL, reducing its value and grinding Ontario's energy plan to a halt?

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, February 1st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague for his speech. I heard him say many times how important this was, so my question is the following: if the bill is so important and urgent to the government, and since the government has known for years the schedule on which these changes in the U.S. requirements would be introduced, why did it introduce the bill at the very last minute, on the last day of summer, when it could have introduced it many months or even a year earlier?

I do not understand why the urgency coincides with the very slow speed of introducing the bill. Is it simply incompetence, or did the government have some other motive for waiting until the last minute?

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, February 1st, 2011]

Madam Speaker, perhaps it means this is not a friendly amendment, although I would like clarification from my colleague.

The dates I gave in my speech indicate it was not the opposition that was responsible for delays in the bill. It was that the government brought the bill forward on the very last day of the summer sitting. The other dates indicate that if anyone is responsible for the delay, it is the government.

I do not think, even in a minority Parliament, it is too much to ask that within two years of the passage of the bill, which is quite a long time, the government begins a review of the bill and that it is given a whole year, 12 months, to complete that review. The review is not super complicated. It might take five or six days of hearings, much like in the lead-up to the bill. The Conservatives may have trouble fitting in five two-hour committee meetings in the space of 12 months, but for the Liberals and opposition parties in general that should not be a problem.

I do not understand why the government is refusing to go along with the three-year review period, which is ample time to get the work done. Is it because it is downplaying the importance of the risk to the privacy of Canadians and for that reason it is going all the way out to five years before it even considers it necessary to have a review?

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, February 1st, 2011]

Madam Speaker, as I said in my remarks, this is a difficult situation for us because we do not want to risk Canadians' privacy by requiring them to give this information to the United States. However, it is indisputable that the United States has jurisdiction over its own airspace. Unless we want our flights not to go over the United States, which would be devastating for the airlines and for travellers, we really have no option but to agree to give this information.

As I said in my remarks, we made several amendments to mitigate the negatives out of this bill. In direct answer to my colleague, I do not think we can expect that Canadian citizens would have stronger rights than American citizens, vis-à-vis the U.S. government. I think the Americans with whom I spoke said that Canadians would have the same rights as American citizens.

This is one reason that a review is needed. We have received certain engagements from the U.S. government. One reason we would need a review, and sooner rather than later, not waiting a whole five years, is so that we can bring witnesses before the committee to hear how this bill has operated and whether, indeed, there have been infringements of Canadians' privacy rights or other issues.

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, February 1st, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I am glad that the government has finally brought this bill back to the House for report stage debate. During the second reading debate and during committee stage, the government made it clear that the bill was a matter of national urgency. That is why I was dismayed that the government waited until the final sitting day before the recess last summer to table this legislation.

Last fall when the House returned, the government waited until October 19 to bring the bill forward for debate and again waited until October 26 to complete debate at second reading. The transport committee held six days of hearings on the bill and then amended and passed the bill on December 7, and it was reported to the House on December 8. Again, instead of taking up this important matter, the government let it sit idle. Now, here we are in February finally discussing the bill again in the House.

I lay out this timetable in some detail for a specific reason. The element of the U.S. secure flight program which would require the transfer of data for flights flying over the U.S. was set to become live at the end of 2010. There was significant pressure from both the government and the U.S. to ensure that our airlines were legally able to perform this data transfer. However, it is clear from the government's lack of action that this was never truly a priority.

The secure flight program, which was rolled out in three stages, has put Canada in a tough spot. Our government has always strived to protect the privacy of Canadians, but the U.S. has the sovereign right to control its airspace. That is why committee members heard from a wide range of witnesses.

We heard from many witnesses, including the governments of the United States and Canada, the aviation industry, the Privacy Commissioner and many civil rights groups. It became rather clear that we really had no choice: we had to allow this information to be transferred.

It also became clear that the bill was woefully inadequate in providing protections to the privacy of Canadians. The members of the transport committee worked to build protections into the law. Now, as amended, the law will require airlines to notify passengers before they purchase their tickets that their personal information will be transferred to the United States.

The second change is that the committee reduced the scope of these provisions. Previously the governor in council had the power, without parliamentary approval, to add other countries to the list of those authorized to receive this information. Thanks to amendments made at committee, this authorization has been limited in legislation to the United States. This means that should another country request this passenger information, the government will have to return to Parliament, and members of both the House and the Senate will have the power to review and approve their addition.

The third amendment is also important. It requires that the House of Commons committee charged with transport issues must periodically review the provisions of this act and report to the House on their findings. This will give parliamentarians the opportunity to bring back witnesses, like the Privacy Commissioner, before the transport committee so that they can follow up on how the privacy of Canadians is being respected or not.

As will be seen in the notice paper, it is this provision of the bill that is subject to report stage amendments. I will touch on these amendments in due course, but first I want to comment on the committee hearings themselves.

I think it is fair to say that all the opposition parties shared the concern about the U.S. government's request to receive this information. However, I was dismayed by the tone that some of the government members took. Some Conservative members of the committee did not seem to take this seriously. They asked, rhetorically of course, if Canadians' right to privacy “trumped” the Americans' right to security and safety.

As the Privacy Commissioner indicated, this is a serious issue for Canadians. She raised the case of Maher Arar, who was rendered to Syria and tortured on the basis of information transferred by the Canadian government to the U.S. This is a serious issue. I want to emphasize that for the members opposite.

Now I will turn to the amendments currently before the House.

Motion No. 3, under the name of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, is a previously agreed to technical amendment that will restrict the committee's review to the provisions of the bill rather than the entire Aeronautics Act. This was the original intention of the committee.

The other amendment, also standing in the name of the parliamentary secretary, is more contentious. Currently, Bill C-42 requires that the transport committee must commence a review of the bill within two years of its coming into force and every five years thereafter. The committee must report its findings to the House within three months of completing the report. The government's amendment would allow the committee an extra year to begin the study, but would require the study to be completed within two years. That means the government would require the review to be completed within five years of the passage of the bill.

I do not believe the government's amendment fully appreciates the seriousness of the issue. The first review should be completed in less than five years. I will be proposing an amendment to government Motion No. 1, the effect of which will be to say that the review of this legislation should be complete within three years of the passage of the legislation rather than five years.

I know, having spoken to my colleague in the NDP, the member for Western Arctic, that he agrees with me to reduce the length of time from five years to three years.

I have not yet had a chance to talk to my colleague from the Bloc about this, but I will do so as soon as possible.

I also spoke to the parliamentary secretary and he indicated he was not sure whether or not the government would support that. We shall find out. It may be a friendly amendment having the support of all parties, or it may not be. That remains to be seen.

Let me conclude by reading the text of the Liberal amendment to government Motion No. 1. I move:

That Motion No. 1 be amended by deleting all the words in subsection (a) and replacing them with “within two years after the day on which this subsection comes into force and every five years thereafter, commence a comprehensive review of the provisions and operation of this section, and complete the review within one year; and”

It is a very simple matter. We on this side believe that these privacy concerns are very important and that we need not wait five years before reviewing the bill to make sure that Canadians' privacy rights have been respected. The government is proposing five years. The effect of our amendment is that this review be complete within three years of passage of the bill.