Libby Davies

[Parliament, May 9th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, woe are the days for parliamentarians. Our sad demise is flourishing around us as this democratic institution, a guardian of democracy and a place to be regarded as a model for decision making and open debate is being throttled and stalled.

The dog and pony budget show emanating from the Ontario government has drawn the ire of the Speaker of that house, as it should. But hey, we have our problems too. The provisional government of the Liberal Party of Canada has reached its long arm into this place too. Whether it be pronouncements on the first nations governance act, or star wars, or same sex marriage, we see the shadowy powers of the former finance minister calling the shots and laying out the orders of the day.

We in the federal NDP say let us bring back Parliament and can the extracurricular activities once and for all.

[Public Safety Act, 2002, May 9th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have this opportunity to speak at report stage of Bill C-17, the public safety act. I listened with interest to the government representative, the Secretary of State for Selected Crown Corporations. I would like to congratulate him on his new appointment and I look forward to debating him and pushing him a little on the question of the need for affordable housing in this country.

In listening to his comments on Bill C-17, he was maybe a little defensive but he was also very aggressive in his defence of the government's position on this bill. He took us back to those tragic events on September 11 and put forward a picture that this bill was essential and necessary because of the horrific events that took place. In fact he asked the opposition members in the House why they would blame the government for everything, even the weather.

Let us be clear. Maybe the government would like to take blame for the weather but in this instance we are holding the government to account on this legislation because there are very significant concerns about the impacts and the long term consequences of the so-called public safety act.

I would like to begin my remarks by quoting from one of the organizations that presented at the committee, the Coalition of Muslim Organizations. In their presentation, just to give this some context, they said:

The Anti-terrorism Act was introduced and enacted in the dark shadow of the tragic events of September 11, 2001. In many ways, the looming, ubiquitous spectre of terror and fear gave rise to legislation that struck the wrong balance between security and civil rights. The predecessors to the Act, Bills C-42 and C-55, were also conceived in that environment of heated reaction. However, the distance of time allows us to reflect on the important issues of public safety and civil rights from a more sober vantage point.

While I was not on the committee that went through this bill in detail, I know my colleague, the member for Churchill, very much focused on these comments and the need to have some sort of reflection and avoid the impetus to rush into yet another piece of security legislation that would have incredible long term impacts and consequences for Canadians and for our society in the values we hold of democracy, civil liberties and the right to privacy.

In looking at the bill, the NDP has been firmly opposed to it because we are very concerned that the very broad powers contained within the bill to collect information on passengers who travel by air, internationally and domestically, information to be amassed and controlled by CSIS and the RCMP, is very serious. I would bet that most Canadians have no idea that this kind of procedure and data gathering is about to take place.

The brief from the Coalition of Muslim Organizations clearly raises the importance to have a reflection about where we are in balancing the need for security, about which everybody is concerned. We are all concerned about the security of our country, the security of our individual families and communities, but clearly that has to be balanced with the rights we have to privacy and our rights to civil liberties.

I read through some of the transcripts of the committee and noted the comments of Mr. Radwanski, the privacy commissioner of Canada. I have always appreciated his reflection on a number of the bills that have come before the House. In connection to this bill, commenting on the provisions that would allow this collection of information about individual passengers to be stored, collected and used, he said:

--in Canada we are not required to identify ourselves to the police as we go about our normal, law-abiding business. Unless we are being either arrested or carrying out a licensed activity such as driving, we are not even required to carry ID, let alone identify ourselves to the police.

He went on to say:

Even on a domestic flight of course you're required to provide your name and show photo ID.

When that information is made available to the police, as it will be under Bill C-17 to the RCMP under proposed section 4.82, the effect is exactly the same as if we were required to notify the police every time we travelled so it could check whether we were wanted for any number of Criminal Code offences or an outstanding warrant.

I find these very sober thoughts coming from the privacy commissioner of Canada. With the passage of the bill, we will be setting up a whole series of steps, a whole apparatus that will allow the collection of information. When used in concert with other bills, which regrettably have been approved by the House, they will transfer enormous powers to policing authorities, such as the RCMP, CSIS and the intelligence service. This information collected about Canadians can be used in any variety of ways.

One concern we have about the bill specifically is that the information collected by the RCMP and CSIS can be moved down the line and provided to local authorities. It could be used to make decisions about outstanding warrants. This is precisely the point the privacy commissioner is getting at.

We all agree that laws should be enforced. However in Canada I hope we still have the right to go about our business without having to self-identify, to check in and to produce mandatory ID that can then be used to determine various situations. If passed, Bill C-17 will fundamentally change that. It will have created an environment, along with the other bills which have been passed, to allow that kind of information to now be gathered and used against people.

I know from the organizations I have spoken to, particularly in my riding of Vancouver East where we do have a very diverse multicultural community, there are many people who are very fearful about how the bill will impact on their ability to freely travel, even though they have no connection with any terrorism or with anything that could be suspected in terms of a security risk.

In fact one of the amendments that was sought in committee, which was unfortunately rejected, was the need to have independent oversight, likely the privacy commissioner, to ensure that there were annual reports from the minister responsible, from the RCMP, from CSIS, which would have to go to the privacy commissioner. We want somebody to look at what is going on in terms of the data being collected and the files that are being established based on information drawn from passenger lists.

Suppose we end up with a situation where we knew that 2% of the passengers flying in Canada, or maybe 1%, were Canadian Arabs or from a Moslem background. If we had information which showed us that 20% of the files were being kept based on this legislation, would that be cause for concern?

I know I and my colleagues have brought forward examples in question period about how racial profiling and how targeting is beginning to take place at border crossings and airports. I have even debated the question of a national identity card and how that too is now part of this very fundamentally changed environment, where having a national identity card can actually be used in a very negative way to pull people over and to target people because of how they look or because of their racial background.

I want to say most strongly that we in the NDP have been following the bill, as have other opposition parties and members. While we recognize the need for public security, the words of wisdom from the Coalition of Muslim Organizations calling upon us to have reflection post-September 11 are things we need to heed.

I urge members to reject the amendment that is before us, to reject the bill and to send it back because this bill on public safety will undermine the democratic civil liberties and values that we hold so dear.

[Committees of the House, May 5th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I too would like to note that we strongly support this concurrence motion. Indeed, the NDP member for Burnaby—Douglas has worked very hard on this issue in bringing it forward to Parliament. In fact, many of us have consistently written letters to our own government imploring it to allow Taiwan to have observer status at the WHO.

The one China policy aside, we need to have a one planet policy. We need to have a policy whereby the international community can come together, where people can monitor what is happening with this terrible virus and disease called SARS.

I think that the request from Taiwan to participate and to have observer status at the WHO is something that is of critical importance to the people of Taiwan and in fact the whole global community. In Vancouver on Saturday, the Greater Vancouver Canada-Taiwanese Association held a friendship luncheon and on Saturday night there was a dinner with members of the Canadian Taiwanese business community and this was the topic of conservation.

I think it is very important that the foreign affairs committee has come forward with this motion again recommending to our government that we show some leadership on this issue and that we recognize the fundamental importance of having Taiwan participate as an observer at the WHO.

I cannot think of any other example that demonstrates so well the need to put aside partisan politics and the need for parliamentarians in Taiwan, in Canada, in Europe, in the U.S. and around the globe to work together on this issue. Surely it should be seen as a sign of good faith, as a sign of commitment to global health issues.

I too would appeal to government members to support the motion and the report from the foreign affairs committee and to say that we can speak with one voice here. We can speak with a voice of reason. We can speak with a voice of global health and we can speak with a voice of protecting people in making sure that Taiwan and all nations are involved in the WHO.

I think it is a very reasonable request and I sincerely hope that members on the government side will listen to what all of us on this side of the House and indeed many Liberal members are saying and support this initiative from the foreign affairs committee.

[Marriage, May 2nd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the historic B.C. appeal court decision yesterday on same sex marriage is a victory for equality in Canada. It also is further evidence that the waffling and denial of equality for gays and lesbians by the government is unconscionable and unacceptable.

After three appeal court decisions, will the minister make it clear today that there will be no more delays, no more studies and no more government appeals?

Will the government do the right thing and stand on the side of equality and change the law to allow same sex marriage? How long will the minister take on this issue?

[Canadian Firearms Control Program, May 1st, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to rise in the House to speak to the motion put forward by the member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert. We have just had an amendment placed before the House, but the original motion that was suggested by the member reads:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should immediately suspend application of the Canadian Firearms Programme in order to hold a public inquiry into the reasons for the programme's extraordinary cost overruns, and to submit a structured and detailed strategic plan that would have to be approved in advance by this House.

I realize that the amendment has now been put and the member has accepted it, but I did want to say that we in the NDP, while we understand the intent of the member's motion to draw attention to the need for further scrutiny of the massive mismanagement of the gun registration program, find that the motion as worded and laid out in the House today is very problematic. It is problematic for us in that it requires the whole program to be suspended.

It is important to note that two-thirds of the firearms program, although many people refer to it as the gun registry program or the gun control program, has to do with the licensing of gun owners. Certainly, from the point of view of the NDP, we support the licensing of gun owners. It is something that is often overlooked in terms of what the program is actually about because the attention has been focused on the gun registry. It is important to note that the majority of the costs of the program are associated with the licensing.

There is a lot of information that is not known by members of the House in terms of what has taken place with the program. I have been following some of the debate, not only in the House but also in committees, and I know that the public accounts committee has been tracking and monitoring the program.

We are not talking about a small cost overrun of a program where we would go through the estimates, pick up on something, and notice there was a problem. Then through a committee we would begin to ask questions. We are not talking about a small overrun of 5% or 10%. Even that in some circumstances would be a serious issue. We are talking about a program which has a difference of about 500 times the original estimate, something with which the public accounts committee has been grappling.

As recently as March 17, 2003, our finance critic, the member for Winnipeg North Centre, was doing an excellent job in committee questioning the President of the Treasury Board as to why, when in 1999 a $41 million contingency fund was established, this would not have set off all kinds of alarm bells to which all departments would have been alerted? Why would there not have been some sort of extraordinary program put in place immediately to deal with what was a massive contingency that the government was forced to bring forward. It is interesting, in reading through the records of the public accounts committee, what the President of the Treasury Board said on March 17:

At present, as President of Treasury Board, I transmit those reports to Parliament. They are not checked line by line by the Treasury Board Secretariat. It is only after they are tabled that some problems may come to light.

She goes on to say:

...the situation has also sent a strong message to the Treasury Board Secretariat, which has to be much more proactive in overseeing information quality.

I certainly appreciate the comment from the President of the Treasury Board, but it is really mind-boggling to think of a major project such as this when in fact in earlier testimony the Auditor General has made it very clear that the firearms and the gun registry program was classified as a major crown project and that as a result certain rigorous reporting requirements should have been met. Given that context and that history, it really is quite astounding that even when the first problems came to light and these massive contingencies began to emerge in terms of a financial commitment by the government to pour money into this program, still there was nothing that was done in terms of an emergency response or an accounting through the House, which could have corrected the problem at that time.

I think this has really highlighted a major problem within government operations. In fact, as I have remarked before in the House, if we had a culture and an environment where estimates were treated more seriously in the committee process, maybe again this would have been a procedure whereby these serious problems would have come to light earlier for members of the House to address.

Clearly, the onus is on the government's side. The onus for the management of this program is on the government's side.

I would say that the need for an inquiry is something that is very strongly supported. Within our own caucus we have members who strongly support gun registration. We have other members who have serious problems with the registration aspect on a matter of principle. Our leader, Jack Layton, supports gun registration, but all of us have been deeply concerned about the mismanagement of this program and how the government itself, through its lack of foresight and through its lack of transparency and accountability, has actually created the crisis that now places this program in jeopardy. In fact, the very credibility of the government is one of the issues that we are debating in examining this program.

The amendment has been placed before the House. The motion has now been amended. We in the NDP believe that it is necessary to have a thorough investigation of what has taken place here. We want to ensure that there is full transparency and accountability to Parliament for this program and for the expenditures that have happened in the past and are now being sought for the future.

[Health, May 1st, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I have to say it is the federal government, the federal Liberals, who need to pay close attention. It is not only small businesses that need help, it is workers too. Hotel workers in Toronto are being laid off by the thousands. They often have low wages. They cannot pay their rent. Thanks to Liberal EI cuts, now they do not even qualify anymore.

So again I ask the Prime Minister, will the government make it clear today that his government will help these hotel workers and make the changes to EI that are necessary to help them to qualify so they do not go under?

[Health, May 1st, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has said that the law did not allow him to provide assistance to Toronto. Well, he was dead wrong on that one. Then he found another excuse. He said there is no dedicated tax. Well, nobody asked for a dedicated tax. They are asking for help. The only thing preventing small businesses in Toronto from getting the federal help they need is the Liberals themselves.

Will the Prime Minister give a straightforward answer and will he provide the assistance to Toronto's small businesses that they so desperately need?

[Family Supplement, April 30th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to support this motion and indeed to second it. I thank the House for agreeing to unanimous consent so that I could second the motion. I was delayed in a committee and rushed over here but did not quite make it in time, so I appreciate the House agreeing to that.

I wish to congratulate the member for Ahuntsic. This is a very important motion and I want to thank her for the work she has done on this. I know the member has deep concerns about the health and welfare of low income families and social issues.

The motion before us is a small but important step in helping low income families who are on employment insurance keep pace with the cost of living. The motion seeks approval to index the family supplement to inflation for those families who receive the supplement and who are in receipt of employment insurance benefits. Regrettably, it is only about 11% of EI claimants who receive these benefits and there is still a maximum weekly benefit of $413 per week. We are talking about income support that for many families would mean that they are still struggling to make ends meet every month when they go on EI.

In speaking to the motion today and pointing out our support for it, I want to also put it in context. The hon. member mentioned, when she began her debate on the motion, that we have something like 1.5 million children living below the poverty line in Canada. We have something like 5 million Canadians living in poverty. In fact, if one were to look at the reality of what is taking place in various communities across the country to see the kinds of circumstances that people are in, one of the reasons that we have 1.5 million children and so many families living in poverty is because of cutbacks in the EI program.

Although this particular motion would give some small relief to some families that qualify, we still have a massive EI program with cutbacks. There is a $40 billion surplus in the EI fund and yet many people who were working and who are laid off, particularly if they are seasonal workers, no longer even qualify for the program.

I want to bring this forward because it is a serious situation and devastating for hundreds of thousands of families in Canada that cannot even qualify for the EI program anymore, even though there is a massive surplus sitting there that could be used to provide benefits for people. This particularly affects women who are part time workers and seasonal workers, so we really have to put this in context.

I would point out that this particular motion would be directed at those families who are EI claimants, but who are also receiving the Canada child tax benefit. In fact, the member has pointed out that the child tax benefit also has some indexation.

However, to put this debate in context again, I want to draw the attention of members in the House to the report that recently came out from the National Council of Welfare. Its spring 2003 report called “Welfare Incomes 2002” points out that hundreds of thousands of families across Canada are actually losing ground. The reality is that unfortunately some people who are on EI end up on welfare if they are not able to regain employment. In fact, the National Council of Welfare is “very concerned by the fact that the clawbacks to the federal child tax benefit discriminate against families on welfare”. In its 2001 report “Child Poverty Profile 1988”, it was estimated that only 66% of poor families benefited from the federal child tax benefit.

The supplement was received by 79% of poor two parent families, but only 57% of poor single parent families were allowed to keep the child tax benefit supplement. As women had most single parent families, the report believed that this constitutes discrimination on the basis of gender.

I want to flag this because it is a very important issue when looking at the issue of growing poverty in Canada. While the motion would certainly assist the 87,000 low income claimants who could benefit from this provision of indexation, let us recognize that we have a huge problem in terms of hundreds of thousands of families, particularly lone parent families, who are not benefiting from the child tax benefit.

Indeed, when the program was negotiated by Ottawa with the provinces and territories, there was a goal that no families would be worse off than they were before. Clearly, this has not turned out to be true and in fact there are many families who are indeed now worse off than they were before the child tax benefit.

The other thing that I want to add to the debate, in terms of bringing recognition to the serious problems we have with poverty in the country, is that HRDC is poised to announce massive public policy changes in moving from a measurement of poverty where we have used what is called the low income cutoffs established by Statistics Canada to a market basket measure. By the stroke of a pen this would redefine how we measure poverty in Canada. It would reduce poverty immediately by about one-third, but it would not in any way improve the standard of living of a single kid or a single family.

I put this forward in the debate because I feel that there are some glaring discrepancies in government policy. We are moving in a direction where we may change the way we measure poverty but we would not alleviate poverty. While I welcome the motion today, and that is why I wanted to second it because it is a step in the right direction, I wonder why the government would not have brought it in a heck of a long time ago to give benefit to low income families.

I want to put it in the context of this much larger picture of cutbacks that have been experienced by low income families, whether it is through EI, social income support, the child tax benefit, or lack of housing programs. We are facing a serious situation. We have a social deficit in the country where more people are falling through the cracks.

In my own community in east Vancouver, where we have had provincial cutbacks, people are now living in desperate circumstances and are finding it increasingly difficult to pay the rent, to meet basic food needs, to clothe their children, and some of those people are on EI. Some of them are on welfare and some of them are struggling in low paying minimum wage jobs.

I say to the members in the House today, who expressed interest in the motion, that we should approve the motion, but let us make a commitment, as the House did in 1989 when it supported Ed Broadbent's motion to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000, to make this a social and economic priority. Surely in a country as wealthy as Canada we should not have the United Nations chastizing the Government of Canada for failing to meet its commitments under various international agreements because aboriginal people and poor people are suffering so much as a result of the social deficit.

In closing, I wish to thank the hon. member for bringing the motion forward and I appreciate her work to draw attention to this specific issue and her concern on other social issues, but let us not lose sight of the real work that we need to do in redressing some of the disastrous public policy decisions that have been made. These decisions have victimized poor people in the country and left them isolated, marginalized, and in some places even criminalized as people resort to more illegal means, such as begging on streets. Look at what happened with the squeegee kids and so on.

I urge members not only to support this motion but also to focus on the bigger picture of addressing poverty in our country because it is something that can be done. We have the resources to do it.

[Social Condition, April 28th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to rise in the House today to speak in support of the motion put forward by the member of the Bloc from Sherbrooke. As a member of the NDP I too have a motion, almost exactly the same in terms of its wording, to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to include social condition as a prohibited ground of discrimination.

When I was elected in 1997, it was one of the first motions that I put forward. I would agree with my colleague from the Alliance in recalling that we also had a motion that came to the House from the Senate that was based on the same amendment to the Canadian Human Rights Act. The federal NDP supports the amendment and believes it is an important amendment that should take place.

I listened with interest to the debate today and it has changed a little bit. I recall in earlier days when we debated a similar motion that the government was not willing to consider the idea of amending the act to include social condition. What we heard from the government today is that based on the Canadian Human Rights Commission's review of this question, the government is now holding discussions as to whether or not it may look at including social condition.

I was disappointed to hear the government representative say that it could not be supported because it was too vague. Liberals were concerned that somehow this would be applied to rich people. Every single time this issue has come up, and certainly today it was stated by the member from Sherbrooke, it has been clear that when we are talking about social condition we are talking about poverty and the people who face discrimination because they are poor. The government member is being very flippant with what is a serious question to somehow dismiss this because he cannot understand whether it would apply to people who are wealthy and who are worried about paying their taxes.

I would say to the member who spoke for the government and to the government itself that it is ironic because if the motion had been more specific, I know that the government would have said “we cannot agree with it because it is too specific”. It seems to me that the intent and the principle of the motion is clear in addressing social condition and income inequality in this country. The onus is on the government to show responsibility that it understands that principle and is willing to address it. That is not what we heard from the government today.

I was disappointed to hear the government's response. I would go further than that because the issue of social condition and being a prohibited grounds of discrimination is important as it applies to federally regulated businesses, services and programs. We have heard that many provinces already have some aspect, and certainly Quebec has led the way in including social condition. It is something that has worked so we actually have a precedence. There are some important elements that need to be looked at.

I do want to make the point in this debate that when we look at social condition and at discrimination against poor people, the greatest problem that we see is actually discrimination by government itself. The greatest barrier for poor people, the greatest discrimination, comes from public policy. One only has to look at the latest report of the National Council of Welfare which looked at the statistics across Canada to see what happens to people when they are on income assistance and how they are living so far below the poverty line and to note for example that still today in 2003, that the child tax benefit is not afforded to the poorest of the poor and that is people on welfare. That is discrimination based on social condition.

That is government policy. That has come from our federal government. It has been agreed to by provincial governments except for the provinces of New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador which do pass on the child tax benefit.

When we are debating this issue, we are not just talking about banks, businesses, and the real discrimination that poor people face, we are talking about public policy and the discrimination that has come about as a result of public policy being developed by the federal government.

One thing that I would like to bring to the attention of members is that we are now on the brink of changing the way we measure poverty. For years we have used the low income cutoff developed by Statistics Canada. It is a measure that allows us to look at the wealth and the poverty in our society based on a relative scale. That is important because we can actually see how people who are at the bottom of the socio-economic scale are doing in relation to average incomes, and so on.

As a result of government announcements, we know that this is now about to be changed and that government is embarking on something it calls the market basket measure, which will by the stroke of a pen probably reduce poverty by one-third. However, it will not have changed the living standard or status of a single child, a single family or a single person who is living in poverty. If that is not discrimination based on public policy, I do not know what it is.

It is scandalous that this major change in public policy is about to take place with virtually no public debate and no assessment of the impact. This particular strategy of the market basket approach to measure poverty has been peddled for years by the Fraser Institute. It has campaigned for years to change the LICOs and the way we measure poverty. It seems that the federal government has capitulated to this, and I say shame on the government.

I feel angry that this change is about to take place and there has been no consultation or debate about it. If we were to move to the market basket approach the government, by redefinition, would be able to stand up and say it has reduced poverty by a third, but it would not have helped anybody who in reality is living in poverty.

It is important that we support this motion. I heard the government member saying that the government cares about the rights of poor people and is committed to dealing with discrimination. If the government were genuine about that principle then why would it not support this motion? Why would it not say that this motion should be approved and it should go to committee for further study so that we can sit down and spell out what we mean in terms of definitions around social condition as it relates to low income and poor people? We could look at the experience in Quebec and other provinces, and advance this debate. We could do something positive and progressive instead of just saying we do not want people discriminated against, but we will shoot down this motion.

There is an opportunity today, as there has been in the past, to support this motion and to support the Canadian Human Rights Commission in its recommendation to ensure that the Canadian Human Rights Act includes social conditions. My party fully supports that and we want to get on with this debate. We want to have that discussion to ensure that people, just because they are poor, do not face discrimination by banks, other institutions or the federal government itself.

[Taxation, April 11th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I have to say that is absolute rubbish. As a direct result of his policies, there are 1.139 million children living in poverty today.

Some 4,885 days ago, that minister voted in favour of eliminating poverty when he supported Ed Broadbent's motion, but for 3,443 of those days, while kids lived and died in poverty, he was in cabinet bragging and smirking about his tax cuts. On the 3,444th day, he said it is time to end poverty.

Here is the test. Will he delay his capital gains--