Keith Martin

[Budget Implementation Act, 2006, No. 2, December 11th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure--

[Human Trafficking, December 8th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment the member for bringing forth this motion. It is an absolutely critical motion dealing with a tragedy that is out of sight, out of mind and, as she mentioned, largely unknown to most Canadians.

It is a global tragedy of huge proportions. In fact, as the member knows, the United Nations has written some very damning reports on the international community, especially the west, and how it is dealing with the trafficking not only of women but children and men as well. The vast majority, more than 60%, of the people who are being trafficked are young women, who, as the member said, become part of prostitution as their identity papers are removed. A lot of this is happening in eastern Europe right now. Tragically, some of it is happening in our own country too.

I would like to ask the member to tell us what solutions we could give to our RCMP that would enable them to work in a more collaborative way, which they are trying to do, with international police forces around the world. What solutions would enable us not only to have better communication assessment identification, but also to have penalties which would ensure that these people, who are parasites on these vulnerable individuals, will be put in jail? As well, what solutions would deal with the root causes of this, which often have to do with poverty in a number of these countries?

[Petitions, December 8th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of hundreds and hundreds of Canadians from coast to coast, I would like to present this petition.

Each year thousands of young Canadians from coast to coast express the desire to serve in society as volunteers in Canada or abroad. Some 40 countries worldwide have programs that enable this to happen. The petition calls on Parliament to enact legislation or take measures that would allow all young Canadians who wish to do so to serve in communities as volunteers at a national or international level.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2006, No. 2, December 8th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very intently to my colleague's discourse on the bill. I have two questions for her.

The first question relates to tax cuts. I want to know why her government has implemented a tax strategy that will actually penalize the poor on two counts: one, it has decreased the basic personal exemption; and two, it implemented a system where it has actually increased the tax on the poorest.

My second question is on the school book tax credit which the hon. member mentioned. Is it not true that the $500 tax credit that her government is touting so proudly is actually only $77.50 in the hands of a student?

[Bank Act, December 7th, 2006]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I will be very brief.

I have two things to say. First, the member was not in the House at that time so perhaps she is not aware that ample discussions took place in the defence committee and in other committees, including foreign affairs, and this House did have take note debates on the issue.

Lastly, the member should know that this is an executive decision on the part of a prime minister, which is why the vote that took place to extend the mission was so reprehensible. The decision had already been made and it was a political tool, not an effective tool to inform the public or allow this House to have effective input on an exceedingly important decision.

[Bank Act, December 7th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the member asked four large questions, really, and I will try to go through them briefly.

The first is on the Iraqi police. RCMP officers train Iraqi recruits in Jordan. I have had a chance to visit them and I want to say on the record that the RCMP officers are doing an absolutely outstanding job in training the Iraqi police. They are doing a magnificent job. Wherever the RCMP has gone, and I have seen their work in Sierra Leone, their work deserves medals, quite frankly. The work of the RCMP is outstanding.

Second, on the issue of the 3D approach, we sent our troops to Afghanistan because al-Qaeda was there. It was not an aggressive search and destroy mission, as the hon. member mentioned. It was a balanced mission in a number of ways.

Yes, our troops engage in combat and we are very proud of the fact that they do an outstanding job within their combat role, but that is one of their roles. Unfortunately, the milk of human kindness does not flow through the veins of some of the people who are trying to kill Afghan civilians and, indeed, our troops. Our troops are trying to protect them, as the member knows, and to provide security. They are doing a great job in that respect.

However, they are also there, and we sent them there, to engage in something called a provincial reconstruction team, of which our forces are an integral part. They are making a difference on the ground in terms of providing small amounts of money, in being able to give people the basic infrastructure they require on the ground and in building roads, drilling boreholes and a number of other things. Quite frankly, our troops are the only ones who can do that in these areas of great insecurity.

Third, on the issue of the vote, I am glad the member brought this up. I was utterly disgusted by what the Prime Minister did. He used our troops as a shameless tool to try to divide my caucus. It had nothing to do with the mission in Afghanistan. It was a political decision and a political tool to use our troops shamelessly. Why do I say that? Because the decision to extend the mission into Afghanistan has nothing to do with what the House says. It is an executive decision. In the Prime Minister's speech, he very clearly said, “I am going to extend this mission for a year regardless of what the House says”.

That is what the Prime Minister said. He should be utterly ashamed of using our troops as a political tool because no decision of the House can ever be more important than when we have to put our troops' lives on the line, when our troops can possibly be killed. As for the fact that the Prime Minister did this, he should be utterly disgusted with himself.

Fourth, to answer the member's question of what my plan is with respect to Afghanistan, it involves the following points.

Number one, we have to train the Afghan police. The Germans are responsible for that. The government could have asked our NATO allies to contribute to their training, equipment and pay. They are being paid only $70 a month right now. As a result, they have become as much of a problem on the ground as the Taliban, because they are engaging in thuggish activity, quite frankly just to be able to put food on the table in many cases.

Number two, the development component, the amount of money that Afghanistan receives on a per capita basis, is among the lowest of any post-reconstruction situation we have seen in the last 30 years.

Number three, we need a loya jirga to bring in the groups that have been disarticulated from the decision making process and were excluded from the Bonn agreement. They need to come to the table. A loya jirga is a way of doing that.

Number four, we need to be able to deal with the insurgency coming from Pakistan and other areas. We need a regional summit on the area.

Last, the poppy crop is going to destroy Afghanistan unless we affect the poppy crop. To destroy the poppy crop would be a huge mistake, because we would be destroying the only source of income people have. One of the solutions is to destroy the poppy crop and pay the farmers or use the poppy crop to produce legal, medically used narcotics and provide a domestic industry for the people of Afghanistan.

[Bank Act, December 7th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I will just finish my comments on Afghanistan. That five point plan, which is attached to the international development and financial institutions, will enable us to do this.

I want to talk a little about our banks here at home, and also economic productivity, which is attached to this bill. We know that our banks are a great success story for Canada in terms of industry, but this also leads us into the issue of productivity and how our government and in fact the House can provide solutions to improve productivity in our country.

There are some ways to do that. First, we have to be able to put more money into Rx and D. The government has failed to continue the investments into research and development that we made when we were in power. Second, we have to continue the reduction of taxes to make sure that our tax base is competitive internationally. Third, we have to remove interprovincial trade barriers.

There has been an agreement between my province of British Columbia and Alberta. The agreement between Alberta and British Columbia shows incredible foresight. In fact, it is an incredible model for other provinces to adopt. I certainly hope this model is adopted. What does it do? The agreement between British Columbia and Alberta enables people to work across borders. It facilitates the movement of labour, the movement of capital and the recognition of skills.

Why on earth do we have a situation in our beautiful country where there are more barriers to trade east to west than there are north to south? It makes no sense. We have to deal with the reduction of interprovincial trade barriers.

We also have to enable the private sector to work more effectively. By working with the banks and the private sector, we can find ways in which we can ensure that start-up capital is there for the small to medium sized businesses that are the prime economic generators in our country.

One of the complaints we members of Parliament hear is that the small businesses in our communities really struggle to find the seed capital required to take their ideas from paper to product. This is something that I think would be innovative for the government to adopt if it were to discuss it with the banks, the other financial institutions and the private sector and find out how we actually can do this.

For example, recently there was the issue of British Columbia Ferries purchasing a ship called the Sonja, from Spain. There is an import duty tax of about 17% on the purchase of that ship. That tax will go to general revenues.

However, let us suppose that we took that import tax the company is paying and put it into a fund for the modernization of our shipbuilding industry on the east and west coasts. The president of a shipbuilding company could access the funds but only if the funds were matched. That is the key. That is the beauty of this. A company cannot simply ask for those funds. It can access the funds, but only if it is able to put in its own money. That way, we get a buy-in from the private sector. If we were to do that, our shipbuilding industry would be able to acquire a niche in the medium sized shipbuilding area that would be extraordinary.

I know that on the west coast B.C. Ferries is going to require between 12 and 17 ships. In the future, the navy is going to require ships, which will be built in a compartmentalized fashion. If we are able to build them in Canada, and I am totally confident that we are, this is something intelligent that we could do with respect to our shipbuilders. I know that in my riding of Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca this is very important, but it is also important to the east coast.

Why do we not take that import tax, put it into a special fund, ask the private sector to use those moneys and add their own moneys, purely for the modernization of their infrastructure? We already have an excellent shipbuilding industry, albeit much smaller than what it was. We can expand that. Our shipbuilders, the people who do the work, the technically skilled individuals, are really outstanding. We cannot lose that skill set.

In my view, there is no reason whatsoever why we as a country cannot compete. That is where this bill comes in. Banks can work with the government and the private sector and enable us to be more competitive. This will benefit Canadians from coast to coast.

[Bank Act, December 7th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure today to speak to Bill C-37, An Act to amend the law governing financial institutions and to provide for related and consequential matters. Essentially it is the Bank Act review.

The government has drafted a bill that largely follows Liberal policy that has been occurring over the last five years. This legislation was a result of recommendations that came from a white paper that was commissioned by the previous government.

The bill represents the statutory five year review of the Bank Act, and there is nothing in the bill, quite frankly, that is particularly contentious. The government avoided a number of controversial issues and has provided some important updates that we have been fighting for and in fact was an extension of what we were doing before.

The bill satisfies the obligations of the government to present statutory updates to the Bank Act every five years, so in essence, it is a rather rudimentary bill, almost administrative in nature. The last time this happened was in 2001.

Bill C-37 will ensure that financial institutions provide greater and more timely disclosure to consumers in areas such as deposit type of investment products and complaint handling procedures. I think that is probably music to the ears of most Canadians in dealing with their banks. The bill and this update will provide consumers with a lot more accountability and knowledge about what is happening with respect to their accounts and their activities with the financial institutions of their choice.

The Bank Act, in this particular review, also does something which I think is quite intelligent. It expands the definition in terms of what one defines as a large bank and one that is a medium sized bank, so as a result of an increase in assets, the definition and threshold will be increased from $5 billion to $8 billion. That is a sensible thing for the banks which could be credited as being one of the great success stories in Canada and are competitive internationally. Those banks hire a lot of Canadians and provide a lot of asset attraction with respect to private capital into Canada that can be invested in our country and used to create jobs, and hopefully, jobs that pay very well.

The bill also increases the use of electronic cheque imaging, which is a technology that will allow financial institutions to transfer cheques more efficiently. The bill also proposes to reduce the cost of mortgages for some borrowers by increasing to 80% the loan to value threshold above which mortgage insurance is required by the statute.

There are also some provisions that I hope the government takes into consideration. Because of the value of homes increase quite significantly, it would be wise for the government to start looking at CMHC grants and allowing the valuation of those homes to be bumped up quite significantly. I would personally recommend at least a 50% increase for the value of those homes, specifically in my area of Victoria, British Columbia, where house prices have increased astronomically.

People have been forced to buy homes, the value of which may be much higher than in most other parts of the country, but they are not able to access the CMHC grants that are available to most Canadians. A home of one size, all things being equal, may be equivalent to one in most other parts of Canada; however, the value of the home in a place like Vancouver and Victoria will be so much greater as to push that home above the ability of the individual to access CMHC grants. Most Canadians have made all of us very aware of this problem. I would strongly encourage the government to resolve this.

One of the things that the Canadian International Development Agency has done over the last year is moved the international development envelope from what we call project funding to what is called program funding. What does that mean?

Project funding would be something that we would do in terms of Afghanistan. We would fund a particular project such as the building of a school. We would probably do it through a Canadian NGO or an Afghan domestic NGO.

That is a very efficient way of ensuring that taxpayers' money is going to be used to help the people on the ground who need the help, but curiously, what has happened over the last year is that the government, and CIDA in particular, has moved to something called program funding. What it is doing is taking a large amount of money, $50 million, $60 million and even more, and giving it to a large organization.

What does that mean? It means we are giving $50 million to $60 million to a large organization such as UNICEF, the World Bank or the IMF, and we utterly lose traction and accountability with respect to those moneys. This is not an intelligent way for us to use taxpayers' money to help those who are less fortunate.

I would encourage CIDA and the minister to really take a close look at this. It does not mean that we do not have to invest in the international financial institutions. They have a very important role, but if we are going to take our international development envelope, the ODA, and simply take that money, divvy it up into rather large chunks of money and give it to very large international multilateral organizations, we lose traction, we lose accountability, and we lose the ability of Canadians and Canadian NGOs, and Canadian companies quite frankly, to execute those roles on the ground.

We have seen over the last few years a shift in our international development envelope. We are not giving money to Canadian NGOs, small NGOs and groups, particularly Canadians out there who are doing an incredible amount of work, but taking the funds from those groups that are very effective at getting work done on the ground, and instead giving it to these large black holes of large multinationals. We do not know where that money goes or what it is used for, and it utterly loses the connection between those Canadian dollars and our wonderful nation.

This is not an intelligent thing to do because not only do we lose accountability and the branding that identifies Canada as the country that has given those moneys but we also lose the effectiveness. I would argue, and I would challenge members to say otherwise, that the most effective way of using our international development assistance is through small NGOs, either international small NGOs that are working on the ground or Canadian NGOs.

Right now, Canadian NGOs can only compete for a paltry $20 million out of the $3.2 billion official development assistance envelope. Does that make sense? The fact is that from coast to coast, in our ridings, there are thousands of non-governmental organizations in our wonderful country, people who are committed, many of whom are volunteers and most of whom are doing an outstanding job on the ground. Those groups should be able to compete for the official development assistance envelope in a way that enables them to be able to carry out their duties on the ground, consistent of course with the objectives of our ODA.

That is a much better way of using Canadian taxpayers' money rather than taking moneys and plunking them into the World Bank where we completely and utterly lose the accountability and effectiveness of those moneys.

This is something that will require a sea of change on the part of the minister and I hope she understands this because one of the great frustrations, and I think all of us have seen this with respect to Afghanistan, is that we are missing the boat in Afghanistan. We are certainly doing a good job from the military aspect, and our defence forces and RCMP deserve enormous credit for the hard work that they are doing, but there are four or five things that we need to do, in my view, that will provide security on the ground in that country, and they are as follows.

First, a Loya Jirga is required in Afghanistan that will bring in those groups that have been disarticulated from the Bonn agreement and bring them to the decision-making table. Right now they are excluded and right now they have become part of the Taliban, warring against us.

Second, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs was just in Latvia along with the Prime Minister, we need to ask our NATO allies to invest in the training of the Afghan police. Right now they are being paid $70 a month. Their training is eight days. They are not equipped to do the job, so what has happened is that many of them are engaging in thuggish behaviour simply to put food on the table for themselves and their families.

What does this mean on the ground for our troops? It means that once they go out there and take out the Taliban there is nothing to come in after them which will enable our troops to be assured that security is going to take place. There is no effective constabulary force on the ground. Our troops are doing a yeoman's job, an incredible job, of removing the immediate threat, but there is nothing coming after they are done. Now, the Germans have been tasked to do this.

What I would ask the Minister of Foreign Affairs to do is to ask the other NATO allies to contribute money for salaries, money for training, and money for the equipment that the Afghans need. If we do that and build up an effective Afghan police force, then that will go a long way to providing the long term security the country needs. If we do not deal with that, we will have a major problem.

Third, we have a major problem with respect to an insurgency coming from outside Afghanistan. If the insurgency that is coming, particularly from Pakistan, is not dealt with there will be war without end. The border is porous. We know that. We cannot block that border off. It is too large, too wild, and too strategically impossible to block off.

What we have to do in my view is call together a regional summit of countries that will bring together the regional powers that will be dealing with the Afghan security. Only by doing this will we be able to address this problem of blocking off and reducing the threat from the outside.

Those individuals who are blowing themselves up as suicide bombers in Afghanistan and those groups that are shooting and trying to kill our troops, many of those, in fact the vast majority, are from outside Afghanistan. They are Pashtuns from Pakistan, Chechens, Tajiks, Kazaks and others, in addition to those from the gulf states. These people are flowing into Afghanistan, particularly in the south, and they are the ones who are killing our people.

No military solution will be able to resolve this. The Minister of National Defence understand this and the Chief of the Defence Staff understand this as well very clearly. So if we accept that as a fact, how are we going to address this?

Leopard tanks are required by the NCOs on the ground and they should get whatever they want. We must also provide other solutions. I know the government is seeking other solutions. This plan will address that: one, ensure the Aghans have the Loya Jirga and have the meeting with all groups, particularly those who have been excluded; two, train the Afghan police; and three, ensure that the development envelope is going to work.

Mr. Karzai's government is roundly known as being utterly corrupt. If the government is being utterly corrupt, we must, if we are giving moneys to him, which we are in the amount of $100 million a year, ensure that those moneys are going to be used effectively and wisely. That is our responsibility to the taxpayers and indeed to the Afghan people. Right now his government is corrupt and money coming in the front door is going out the back door into the hands of the warlords and drug dealers.

Fourth, with respect to the issue of the opium crop, we know the opium crop is the highest it has ever been. How do we deal with that? We can deal with that by transferring the opium into the legal production of medically-used narcotics. If we are able to transfer those moneys from that area to legal production, we will undercut the financial underpinnings that are being used right now to fuel the Taliban and the warlords. We have to do that. It is absolutely essential.

The last point is the development envelope. That is where the banks come into play; the international financial institutions that we are talking about today, in part.

Those international financial institutions must be able to ensure that the moneys are getting on the ground to the people who need it. The development assistance envelope is not functioning that way. Right now Afghanistan, as a post-reconstruction country, is receiving perhaps the least amount of any post-reconstruction country that we have ever seen.

The NATO countries that are not willing to contribute the troops can do a lot more by contributing moneys for international development. We have to ensure that the accountability is there. We have to give President Karzai the budget support that he requires and also have the accountability checks and balances to make sure that our moneys are being used wisely. Again, have the Loya Jirga and the regional summit to address the insurgency coming from the outside.

I see my time is almost up. Is that correct?

[Volunteerism, December 5th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, today is International Volunteer Day. On behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada, I would like to thank the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who tirelessly volunteer both here at home and abroad to improve the lives of those less fortunate. They exemplify the very best our great nation has to offer. Yet this great work by Canadian volunteers stands in stark contrast to the unbelievable cuts the government has made.

Why did the government cut money for such programs as the young professional international program, which sends young Canadians to work abroad on international development programs? Why cut the extremely successful support program for volunteers at home in Canada? Why allow only $20 million from CIDA's $3 billion budget for volunteer driven Canadian NGOs, which do some of the best work on the ground? Why cut funding for our museums which are largely driven by volunteers?

It makes absolutely no sense why the government has implemented these stupid cuts and destroyed some of the most effective initiatives that Canadians have to offer through volunteers. Today, on International Volunteer Day, we call on the government to--

[Petitions, November 29th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of hundreds of my constituents of Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca, it is my honour to present, pursuant to Standing Order 36, these petitions which ask Parliament to honour a legal commitment to the Kyoto treaty and to further pledge to reduce Canada's greenhouse gas emissions by 30% below the 1990 level by 2020, and to 80% by 2050 as the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the State of California have done.