Laurin Liu

[Questions on the Order Paper, December 6th, 2013]

With regard to the budget cuts made in 2013 at the National Research Council of Canada’s Herzberg Institute for Astrophysics: (a) what are the reasons that led to these cuts; (b) what impact and efficiency studies is this decision based on; (c) what groups and individuals were consulted prior to this decision; and (d) which projects will be affected?

[Questions on the Order Paper, December 6th, 2013]

With regard to Employment Insurance (EI) in Quebec, for the fiscal years 2010-2011, 2011-2012 and 2012-2013, what is the proportion of regular claimants who exhausted their weeks of benefits, broken down by EI economic region?

[Ethics, December 6th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, we know that the Prime Minister's Office is not just blaming public servants for the saga of the lost and found emails. It is also blaming Benjamin Perrin.

Mr. Perrin no longer works for the Prime Minister's Office. Can the Prime Minister or his parliamentary secretary tell us whether Mr. Perrin was dismissed or whether he resigned?

[Ethics, December 6th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister said that Benjamin Perrin was not involved in a legal agreement, but the RCMP documents show that that is not true.

The Prime Minister said that only Nigel Wright was aware of the agreement, but the documents show that that is not true.

How many times does the RCMP have to contradict the Prime Minister before he starts telling the truth?

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2, December 6th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I commend my hon. colleague on his speech.

When the NDP develops its policy, it consults many people affected by the bills. Can my colleague say a few words about the people who support our position and provide some supporting figures?

[Northwest Territories Devolution Act, December 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, we know that the hon. member has significant political experience. Before being elected to Parliament, he was involved in Manitoban provincial politics. He knows that during the 13 years the Liberals were in power, nothing was done about transferring power to the people of the Northwest Territories.

Was it not a priority for the Liberal government or did it simply refuse to listen to the people of the Northwest Territories? I would like to put that question to the member.

An NDP government would certainly listen to the concerns of the people of the Northwest Territories and would not do what the former Liberal government did.

[Northwest Territories Devolution Act, December 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague was very eloquent. We have to accept the fact that we live in a very diverse country and that the regions are all extremely different.

I think this is the way that an NDP government would function. An NDP government would consult and make sure devolution happens properly.

As my colleague from Western Arctic stated, we have particular problems with part 4 of the bill, as the structure would be changed to a single board managing research development. It would be possible to change it back later, but that is a question that is up in the air. However, as my colleague mentioned, an NDP government would go back and take a look at this and make sure it is done right.

I think that our vision of how this country should operate is very much in concordance with the vision Canadians have in every region of this country.

[Northwest Territories Devolution Act, December 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that that is a crucial point to be considered when the bill is studied in committee. A number of people have raised this point. The member for Western Arctic spoke about this in his speech. My colleague has raised an important point that will have to be discussed because the members of this House, the people who worked on this bill and Canadians who will be affected by it do not all agree. Nevertheless, I believe that some parts of the bill deserve our support.

Many people do not actually know that the Government of the Northwest Territories does not receive any revenues from research development and relies on federal transfer payments and taxes to deliver public programs and services.

I did not have time to mention this in my speech, but under this agreement, the Government of the Northwest Territories would keep 50% of the revenues collected from research development on public land up to a maximum and the Government of Canada would get the remainder.

There are very positive parts of the bill that we need to keep and to preserve, but as my colleague mentioned, there are also many parts of the bill that we need to study critically.

[Northwest Territories Devolution Act, December 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I have the great pleasure of rising today to speak to Bill C-15. I would like to first indicate that I will be sharing my time with the member for Sudbury.

I would like to begin my speech in the chamber today by first congratulating the member for Western Arctic, who has done an immense amount of work on this file and represents his constituents very well. I would like to mention, most notably, his private member's bill in the House that he presented to increase the borrowing power of the Northwest Territories. He has worked tirelessly in the House to represent his constituents and ensure that the Northwest Territories develop in ways that are sustainable and to increase the ability of his constituents to participate in their own democracy.

Bill C-15 is an act to replace the Northwest Territories Act to implement certain provisions of the Northwest Territories Lands and Resources Devolution Agreement and to repeal or make amendments to the Territorial Lands Act, the Northwest Territories Waters Act, the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, other acts and certain orders and regulations. The short title of this bill is the “devolution implementation bill”. The length of the title of the bill is an indicator of the length of the bill itself, a 240 page omnibus bill. Preparing for this speech, I went through many cups of coffee. As I will mention later, it is customary for the government to present omnibus bills in the House.

I would also like to congratulate Robert McLeod, the Premier of the Northwest Territories, for his work on this file as well.

Before delving into the content of this bill, I would like to briefly talk about the process and the form of it. As I mentioned, this is a 240 page omnibus bill. The Conservative government in this case has lumped issues that are less contentious in the bill, issues that the opposition parties could actually get on board with, such as devolution, with issues that are a bit more contentious, including the creation of a pan-territorial regulator for industrial projects in part 4 of the bill.

Unfortunately, rather than separating these parts of the bill in order to get the support of opposition parties, the government put them into the same bill. This has occurred in other bills and it is the common practice of the Conservative government, which has not behaved in a very democratic way in Parliament. We saw this occur in the case of Bill C-13, the cyberbullying bill protecting Canadians from the online crime act, which was introduced by the justice minister last week.

The bill would stipulate up to five years in prison for individuals who published intimate images of people without their express permission and would also give police greater ability to investigate cyberbullying. This is something the opposition parties could get on board with, especially as we have seen these tragic cases of teenagers being cyberbullied across the country, with tragic results.

However, Bill C-13 includes measures that are completely unrelated to cyberbullying. It includes measures on terrorism, organized crime and hate propaganda. It gives police greater leeway to access online communications and contains provisions for jail sentences of up to two years for poaching cable and satellite TV transmissions. It is hard to see how these measures directly relate to the issue of cyberbullying. It is another cynical move by the Conservatives to try to push through their agenda in these bills that the opposition, unfortunately, cannot agree with wholeheartedly.

I will now discuss the content of Bill C-15. As we know, this bill has four parts. Part 1 would enact the Northwest Territories Act, implement certain provisions of the Northwest Territories Land and Resource Devolution Agreement and amend and repeal other acts and certain orders and regulations. Essentially, the Northwest Territories Act is the territories' foundational act. Part 1 would transfer powers to regulate oil and gas pipelines from the federal government to the territorial government as long as these remained onshore.

Part 2 would amend the Territorial Lands Act, part 3 would amend the Northwest Territories Waters Act and part 4 would amend the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act. As we have heard from my colleagues on the NDP side, this is the part that is the most contentious, perhaps, and this is the section that replaces regional management boards with a single 11-member board.

Those listening at home and those in my home province of Quebec might be interested to know that the Northwest Territories actually has responsibilities similar to provinces. In the late 1980s, health services, administration of justice and the management of forestry were devolved to the Government of the Northwest Territories. The Northwest Territories government also has responsibility over education, social services, highways and airport administration, which are roles that would normally be considered to be under provincial jurisdiction.

This process has been ongoing throughout the history of the Northwest Territories, beginning with the Carruthers Commission in 1966, which actually moved the capital of the Northwest Territories to Yellowknife and brought a number of bureaucrats to Yellowknife. There is a history that leads up to the nineties, in which there were many constitutional development caucuses in the north, so this is a debate that has been going on for decades.

The NDP is in favour of devolution. This is actually the part of the bill we would support. As I explained, the people of the Northwest Territories have worked toward gaining more province-like power for decades. I would support the Northwest Territories in taking over federal responsibilities in the north. This is because we believe that the Northwest Territories knows best how its resources ought to be used, and ultimate authority should rest with the Northwest Territories. I commend the Premier, Bob McLeod, for his work.

However, there are many contentious issues with Bill C-15, so we would expect the government side to listen to our suggestions in committee and to amend the bill in order to take into account the expectations of northerners and to address some of the concerns that were raised around the Conservatives' move to lump in changes to the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act. The role of committee is crucial to the bill, and the Conservatives should benefit from committee and bring in experts and stakeholders and actually amend the bill so that it has wide consensus from those whom it concerns.

At this point we are concerned with the government's previous inability to make amendments to bills in committee. Notably there is the case of the Conservatives actually rejecting an amendment from the opposition side. That was an amendment concerning a grammatical mistake that was found in a bill, but they categorically objected to this amendment simply because it came from the opposition. Following that, the Conservatives had to bring forward the amendment again to change the small grammatical error in the bill.

We would actually expect the government members to listen to opposition members and to testimony, instead of governing with their ears and eyes closed to those who would propose constructive changes to the legislation.

Part 4 of the bill, the creation of a pan-territorial regulator for industrial projects, we find contentious. On this point I would like to refer to the speech in this House of my colleague from the Western Arctic, in which he raised important concerns with this part of the bill: “There has been no consultation with the Government of the Northwest Territories included in that provision”. We do see that the Conservative government is trying to ram through its agenda without actually giving an adequate say to the Government of the Northwest Territories.

I will finish by citing the importance of taking into account the specific realities of the Northwest Territories in considering the bill, namely the presence of many aboriginal peoples in the north. Also, as my colleagues have raised, one of the main problems concerning land and water use certainty is the lack of progress in aboriginal land claim settlements.

We would raise that as a point, one which we could possibly discuss at committee. I would like to support the bill in principle. I would like to support the idea of devolution and giving the Northwest Territories more power, although I have serious concerns with the content of the bill and would suggest that the government accept our amendments during committee stage.

[Science and Technology, December 3rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, for once I would have liked a real answer to my question, but as someone once said, it is called question period, not answer period. I can see that the same holds true for adjournment proceedings.

In response to the parliamentary secretary, I would like to quote the president of ACFAS, Louise Dandurand, who wrote to the Minister of Industry in the fall to condemn this situation. Here is one eloquent excerpt:

There is an urgent need for action. For years, Canadian universities and the college system have been forced to dip into their own operating budgets to compensate for the lack of investment in the [indirect costs program], thus jeopardizing certain student services and the survival of research projects.

Like us, she is calling for a federal investment to cover 40% of the indirect costs of research. Will the government listen to the people who know?

I hope so because for now, the government's inaction is creating an unhealthy climate in which the top research universities are being penalized. The more grants they receive, the harder it is for universities to make up for the shortfall resulting from indirect costs that are not covered.