Keith Martin

[Supply, February 17th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I want to compliment the member from the NDP for this motion. I think it is an excellent motion that speaks to a challenge we are all facing.

I will just ask him to be perhaps a little patient. As the parliamentary secretary for the minister said very clearly in his comments, currently we are engaging in negotiations with the auto industry. They are at a sensitive time right now, but I hope that he will be pleased in the near future with what will come out of those deliberations. I know that the minister, the parliamentary secretary and the government are working very hard to resolve this conundrum.

Let me just say we know that the transportation industry is the fastest growing industry. It is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. The interesting thing is that the technologies to actually implement this change already exist today. If we look at the experiences of Europe, California and Japan, we see that they have done an excellent job in reducing those emissions, not based on technologies that we hope we have but on technologies that we have today. Interestingly enough, that does not include the very expensive hybrid cars we have now, which is a good move. We can actually accomplish the 25% goal with what we have, without hybrids, and I am sure that in the future hybrids will become more popular.

My question to the hon. member is this. With respect to a Kyoto plan, a significant but under-reported and unrecognized element of what ought to be a part of that plan is not so much how much we burn. It is one factor, but there is another way in which we can actually meet our Kyoto requirements and indeed go beyond them, and that is in the area of conservation. In other words, we burn fuel and we emit energy, but how do we manage to conserve that energy, which obviously affects the amount of carbon materials and fuel products we burn?

Is the hon. member aware of and does he support the notion that we should adopt better ways of conserving energy through the way in which we build and insulate our homes and buildings? Does he agree that this is a significant way in which we can meet our Kyoto requirements?

[Tsunami Relief, February 17th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, just as the Canadian public responded with unprecedented generosity to the tsunami disaster, so did Canada's health care industry.

The research based pharmaceutical companies, generic drug firms, and other health care companies donated the largest medical aid package ever to Health Partners International of Canada, a Canadian medical aid agency in Montreal.

With the grateful help of the Canadian Forces at CFB Trenton, $7 million of medical supplies were shipped out on January 14 and accepted by the WHO in Sri Lanka. This shipment, affectionately known as “The Big One” has saved many lives. A further $12 million will follow.

I would like to profoundly thank the Canadian people, especially those in Victoria, the five ministers involved, the pharmaceutical and health care companies, Health Partners International, and our Canadian Forces for their collaboration and speedy response. Together thousands of lives have been saved.

[Supply, February 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe the NDP's obsession against the private sector and profit making. If it were not for people and companies paying taxes, that member and everyone in the House would not have a job. There would not be the money to pay for the House and what we try to do for our country. The NDP needs to get off that topic.

There is a way to address the matter at hand which is how to ensure that children have their basic needs met and how do we ensure there are good outcomes and that we address a wide variety of social problems. There is a body of evidence over 25 years to show that the head start program for kids which basically teaches parents good parenting skills works very well. It enables parents to learn adequate parenting skills. It cuts across socio-economic grounds. It does not affect only the poor or the rich; it is a matter of parenting.

When parents are enabled to have those skills, it reduces youth crime by over 50%, teen pregnancies drop 60%, kids stay in school a lot longer and their education levels go up. Actually for $1 invested a $7 output is received at the end of the day.

Another thing we could do is improve our tax system to make it equitable for parents who stay at home and parents who go to work. If we could stabilize the tax system it would work well.

Would the member find it acceptable to have a compromise where we invest in a targeted day care program for single parents, students, people who do not have very much money but need the day care in combination with an early learning program which ensures that the basic needs of kids are met and parents have good parenting skills? It would cut across socio-economic grounds. Would the member find that to be a better and affordable solution that would enable us to address the wide variety of social problems that I have just spoken about?

[Criminal Code, February 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment the member for his comments on the nature of the bill. One of the challenges that we have to engage in with respect to the judicial system, and I used to be a correctional officer many years ago, is how to separate those individuals who are inveterate violent criminals with those who are first time offenders and non-violent.

If someone is an inveterate criminal who commits violent offences, it is our responsibility to ensure that those people do not get out on the street if there is any reasonable chance of them recommitting an offence.

It is very reasonable to put forth solutions that would increase the penalties for those who are violent offenders. I would suggest increasing the penalties for those who use a gun in the commission of an offence to ensure that those charges cannot be plea bargained away, that they run consecutively and not concurrently. In doing so we actually fulfill our responsibility to the public to protect them. I would suggest that this would be a better way of doing that and in fact through the gun registry in its current existence.

Having said that, the head start program for kids is probably the most important initiative we can have for prevention. It focuses on children from zero to eight. Its essence is to ensure that parents have better parenting skills. Strengthening the parent-child bond, by ensuring that parents have good parenting skills and children have their basic needs met, we will go a long way toward addressing a host of social problems including the issue of youth crime. It has been shown that the head start program actually reduces crime by 50% to 60%.

Would the hon. member and his party support a national head start program that focuses on children from zero to eight, its essence being to ensure that kids have their basic needs met and that parents are taught the parenting skills which will affect their children and society at large?

[Department of Foreign Affairs Act, February 11th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I compliment my colleague on his fine speech and on his answers to the member from the NDP, and I am sure they are very clear to her.

The bill is about the division of the foreign affairs department, which we have spoken about before, but I want to look into the future of our country, our government and what we are doing to deal with some problems that have seemed intractable for a very long time.

These include the prevention of genocide, the pandemic of AIDS, malaria and other diseases that kill millions of people in the world, and looking at aid in a different way to make sure that, rather than putting good money after bad, our aid moneys are going to be used as effectively as possible. We need focused, effective aid to deal with the problems that people are faced with in some of the poorest parts of the world. And there is also terrorism.

We need a new vision for aid, for example, that is focused and coordinated, and where we look at trade that is fair and effective. The NDP has brought up many important issues that have to deal with fair trade.

Indeed, we in our party are gripped with this issue. The Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of International Trade are both gripped with this issue and are working hard with our partners to try to reduce the barriers to trade.

There are two big issues that the government has put forward which I think all members should support. One is the L20 and the other is the Canada Corps. The L20 can be a new, dynamic, focused group of countries, north and south, east and west, developed and developing, which can address the seemingly intractable problems that I mentioned. The other, the Canada Corps, can bring in the best and brightest of our country and apply their skills, be they medical personnel, engineers, teachers or others, to address these problems.

I want to ask my friend a simple question. How does he see the issue of the Canada Corps and the L20 moving forward after we have had this division into both parts of what was formerly DFAIT?

[Smoking, February 11th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, smoking kills. Every year 40,000 Canadians die as a result of this habit. What is also lethal is second-hand smoke, particularly for children. Children are more susceptible to an array of illnesses, including croup, pneumonias, leukemias, other cancers, and bronchitis.

Children whose parents smoke are more than twice as likely to smoke as compared to children whose parents are non-smokers. I beseech all Canadians not to smoke, but those who do smoke should not smoke around others, particularly children, because the smoke will make them sicker. Their lives depend on it.

[National Defence, February 10th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, for the member's information and for the information of his constituents, negotiations are taking place. This issue is being looked at but no decision has been made yet. It is important to note however that there will be no reduction in pilots, no reduction in jobs, and no reduction in the capabilities of the air force, which we value as an essential part of our armed forces.

[National Defence, February 10th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, there are no individuals of that nature who have come to our attention, but if there are, we created a special centre in 1999 where veterans and soldiers could go if they had any problems.

If the member has knowledge of any individual who has any pension issues or problems at all, she should bring them to the minister or myself, or the individual can go to the centre that was created in 1999 to deal with exactly these problems.

[National Defence, February 10th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I want to make it very clear. We have said this time and time again. The Prime Minister has said this, the Minister of Foreign Affairs has said this, and the Minister of Defence has said this too. All of them have said that in the House it will come to a vote on the issue of the ballistic defence shield, but we have also made it very clear that as a government we are not going to participate in the weaponization of space. I hope the member understands that very clearly, because we have repeated it in the House a hundred times.

[National Defence, February 10th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I want to make it very clear to the member that the government's decision said that we will, if asked by our partners, train Iraqi troops outside Iraq, but the government and the Prime Minister have made it very clear that we are not sending our troops into Iraq.