Libby Davies

[Chinese Canadians, October 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the Chinese head tax of 1885 and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923 were terrible pieces of racist legislation that caused great harm to individual Chinese workers, their families and the community as a whole, but even today members of the Chinese Canadian community are still struggling to seek redress and compensation.

Will the Prime Minister commit today to enter into negotiations with the Chinese-Canadian community to redress this longstanding injustice in a just and honourable manner? Will the government commit to do that today?

[Post-Secondary Education, October 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, post-secondary education is less affordable today than at any time in the last 60 years. These are the shocking facts from the CAUT study. In fact, 67% of tuition fee increases in the last decade alone are a direct result of the massive retreat of federal funding. Access denied is the real legacy that young people are struggling with.

How does the Prime Minister intend to reverse his government's disastrous access denied policies to demonstrate that education is not just a privilege for those who can afford it?

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 8th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the hon. member for Peterborough for the question. I know that he has long been interested in post-secondary education, but I think where we differ significantly is that the $42 billion he refers to which had to be taken away was taken away on the backs of students. It was taken away on the backs of the lowest-income people in the country. The fact is, the government had a choice. It had a choice about creating a fair taxation system which would have ensured that all social safety nets still existed. Right now they barely exist.

We are facing the lowest level of federal funding in post-secondary education in 30 years. Tuition has gone up about 130% in the last 10 years while inflation has gone up only 20%. One cannot escape these facts, because they show what has happened to post-secondary education as a result of the federal government moving away from its responsibility.

Yes, I agree that the delivery of education, like health care, is a provincial responsibility, but it has to be based on some sort of national sense of purpose about what it is that we believe is accessible to young people in this country. When that does not exist, and it does not, then we begin to see the reality that is emerging today, that is, enrolment in post-secondary education by young people with low and moderate incomes is declining because they simply cannot afford the tuition. They cannot afford a 100%-plus increase. This is what we have seen in B.C. in recent months.

This could have been averted if the federal government had taken a strong position on creating some national standards based on accessibility. The member and I are well aware of this because it has come up at the committee that we were part of. There were choices and the government chose to make choices that took away these programs for people and basically lined the pockets of corporations, businesses and wealthy Canadians that had a lot of lining there already.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 8th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to share time with the hon. member for Acadie--Bathurst and pick up the debate where he left off. I want to express my outrage too that the member for Peterborough would dare to suggest that somehow students are better off today than they were 10 years ago. If we look at any report from StatsCan, from the Canadian Association of University Teachers, or from the Canadian Federation of Students, all the factual information tells us that students are worse off today in terms of a higher debt load and higher tuition because of the massive retreat of public funding in post-secondary education.

One of the questions I wanted to raise in my response to the throne speech, and I am pleased to have the opportunity to do this, was to point out how the throne speech was presented to us. We heard a Liberal member across the way say over and over again that it was a solid speech. That kind of solid speech reminds me of Jell-O; it is nice to look at but eventually it just turns to mush.

I come from British Columbia where people are really hurting because of the massive cutbacks by Gordon Campbell and his provincial Liberal government in health care, in education, in child care, in social assistance payments. The people in my riding were looking to the throne speech and yes, they were looking for something solid. They were looking for some clear statements from the government, for example, that it would uphold the Canada Health Act and stop the privatization that is happening in British Columbia and elsewhere across the country.

People were looking to the government for some solid statements that there would be some standards to ensure there would be accessibility for students who want to go into post-secondary education. We do not want to see more reports out of StatsCan that tell us the chances of a low income young person or even a middle income young person getting into university are now much decreased because they simply cannot afford to pay the tuition which has gone up 136% in the last 10 years.

People in my riding of Vancouver East were looking to see some solid commitments on the housing front. I read the press release “Time to start building new housing” from the National Housing and Homelessness Network which has done a tremendous amount of work on this issue. It said in response to the throne speech:

We can start building the housing and providing the services tomorrow, if the federal government would only make the commitment today.

What we saw by way of commitment was just more promises that the federal government would deal with the housing issue. The reality is the $680 million over five years that was earmarked last November does not even come close to the 1% campaign that many groups and the NDP have endorsed which would produce what is actually needed, which is about 20,000 new units per year. That figure comes from CMHC. It tells us that we need new units in those kinds of numbers to deal with making housing prices affordable in this country.

The throne speech was a huge disappointment to the millions of people who were looking for leadership and a real commitment to deliver these promises that we have seen recycled so many times.

I also want to raise the promises that were made around the child tax benefit. One of the concerns I have in the throne speech is that the government is using language that talks about the cycle of poverty and dependency. It leaves the impression that people on welfare and single moms and their kids need to be motivated off social assistance. The reality is that the child tax benefit the government is so proud of does not go to the poorest of the poor. It does not go to families on social assistance. Therefore when we talk about dependency, it is a dependency that is created by public policy. It is a failure of public policy.

I would like to ask a question of the government, in particular the HRDC minister, who was quoted in the press as saying that the government would increase the child tax benefit. I would like to know whether or not the government is finally going to acknowledge that when it created this program it did it with a fatal flaw which was to deny the poorest families in Canada access to the child tax benefit by clawing it back. That is something we absolutely have to see change.

The Canadian Council on Social Development pointed out that the resolution which came from the House of Commons in 1989 by the then leader of the NDP, Ed Broadbent, said that we would eliminate child poverty by the year 2000. In actual fact what has happened between 1984 and 1999 is that the wealth of the top 20% of families rose by 43% and the net wealth of a median couple fell slightly, but the median income of the bottom 20% of earners fell by 51%.

I ask government members, is this any measure of success? It is a measure of failure.

I also want to spend a few minutes talking about the so-called promises in the throne speech to our urban centres, Canadian cities. About 80% of Canadians live in the urban environment. In fact, the throne speech said that there would be a 10-year commitment to an infrastructure program.

It has to be said that we have had enough of these on again, off again infrastructure programs. We need a permanent program that defines a new relationship with Canadian municipalities. It is outrageous that $4.6 billion is collected in gas taxes from municipalities and only $400 million of that goes back into transportation. Virtually none of it goes into public transit.

The throne speech said nothing about developing a new relationship with cities. It said nothing about some of the proposals put forward by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. It said nothing about creating a standing committee on urban affairs. There are committees on every other conceivable topic, but when it comes to something that affects 80% of the population, there is no indication the government is getting the message. The throne speech was a failure on that score as well.

The FCM even put forward proposals to reduce greenhouse gases by 40 megatonnes. This would meet 20% of Canada's commitment on Kyoto. Here we have a very concrete proposal on a hugely important issue to all of us. What is the response from the federal government? We have no idea of what the government's plan is to implement Kyoto. In fact, the NDP has been pressing this in our caucus repeatedly over the last five, years asking where the government's plan is to meet Canada's commitments on Kyoto.

I will end my comments by coming back to post-secondary education. When we look at the throne speech, we see there was nothing in there that actually delivered a promise or a commitment to students who are really hurting. They are still in a big black hole. There is still unfair discrimination against students who are facing the 10-year bankruptcy law that is hanging around their necks. Even though a recent federal task force said that this bankruptcy law is very unfair, there has been no response from the government.

There is still no sign of any sort of coherent public policy based on accessibility for post-secondary education and based on a publicly administered system. As a result of the federal government withdrawing public funding we are seeing an increase in privatization. This is something we should be very worried about. We have had a very long tradition of publicly administered post-secondary education which is now in danger of being jeopardized as a result of the irresponsibility shown by the government.

I will close by saying that these are issues that we in the NDP will continue to press. We will continue to raise them with the government. We do believe in balance. We do not think it is balanced for the government to say it is fair to hand out $100 billion in tax cuts that benefit huge corporations and wealthy people, when the people at the bottom end up with nothing. That is the real proof of what is going on with the government's record. That is what the NDP will stand up against and hold the government to account for.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 8th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad that the hon. member reminded us that his government spent $10 billion on security. He told us a few moments ago that he is very proud of that.

Does the hon. member really consider Canadians to be more secure? What about job security? What about families in the coastal communities that are suffering as a result of the softwood lumber crisis? What happened to their security? What about the almost two million Canadians who are either homeless or one step away from being on the streets because they cannot afford the high rents or because the rental vacancy rate is zero, or because housing is so dilapidated? What about the security of those Canadians? What about Canadians who lost income or are working at minimum wage and finding it harder to get through the month and put food on the table? What about the security of those Canadians?

It is curious that the hon. member did not mention that kind of security. He is proud that we have billions of dollars going into security agencies and protection at the borders, yet when it comes to security issues that affect Canadians on an everyday basis his government has contributed to the--

[Committee Business and Reinstatement of Government Bills, October 4th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I too wish to congratulate you on your appointment. It is very nice to see you back in the Chair. I am pleased to participate in the debate today, which seems to have struck quite a chord among members from all sides of the House.

I have been listening to the debate and it struck me that some of the opposition members were challenging the government side as to why it was necessary to have the House prorogue. We were informed, from the government's position, that it wanted to come forward with a new throne speech, new ideas and a new direction. That is what it believes that it did in the throne speech.

However I guess it sort of begs the question: If that is the case, if one believes that, then if there is a significant new direction that has come forward why is it that all this business has to continue?

One would think that as a result of a new throne speech there would be an opportunity to look at some of the issues that had been before the House that the government is now trying to reinstate. It is pertinent and legitimate to debate where these pieces of legislation or other House business fall in light of the fact that the government chose to prorogue the House and chose to come back with a throne speech.

From the point of view of the NDP caucus we have significant concerns with some of the legislation that is now contained in one of these motions. One in particular that I could bring forward implies a new direction being put forward in the throne speech, however one would have to question why the legislation was coming forward, why it was being continued and recycled? I am referring of course to the first nations governance legislation.

Our aboriginal affairs critic, who has worked closely with first nations organizations and who has done an enormous amount of consultation and received feedback from people, has heard repeatedly from every part of the country including first nations communities, that people are extremely concerned about what the long-term impact and consequences of this legislation would be.

When we look at the throne speech, we hear the Prime Minister say that he has a strong interest in the plight, and the social and economic conditions of aboriginal people in this country. In response, we would say that one really has to question why after 10 years of Liberal government we still face a political, social and economic environment, where aboriginal people are living in appalling conditions. Will the legislation that the government is now bringing forward again be the legislation that will address the pressing and desperate concerns that exist in those communities?

The first indication of that would be from the first nations communities themselves. When the legislation was first introduced before the end of the last session, they sent a strong message to government members, indeed to all of us, that the legislation was something that they did not see as moving these communities forward, as being inclusive, as being a way to address the fundamental concerns that exist.

I can say with certainty that we have serious considerations, and we are opposed to this legislation coming forward. We would wish that the government would withdraw it, particularly in light of its statements contained in the throne speech, where it has outlined a desire and an agenda that apparently addresses aboriginal issues.

I would like to spend a few minutes discussing another aspect of the motion that is before us today, something that I have been involved in. I believe there is an indication to move forward with an agenda and that is the reconstitution of the Special Committee on Non-Medical Use of Drugs.

The history of this committee is actually quite interesting. It was the idea of an opposition member from the Canadian Alliance, which was approved in the House. The former health minister agreed with the idea of setting up a special parliamentary committee that would look at the very urgent issue of the non-medical use of drugs.

As the member who represents Vancouver East, I want to say that we probably have the most serious crisis in the country on the issue of the non-medical use of drugs. People are literally dying on the street. From the very day that I got to the House I have been raising this issue and trying to draw attention to the fact that the leading cause of death in British Columbia for men and women between the ages of 30 and 44 is drug overdose. People find this hard to believe but it is factual. These deaths are not due to car accidents, heart attacks, strokes or some fatal illness, as horrible as those things are. These are preventable deaths that happen in the street because of the policies of our country around drug prohibition.

The special committee heard from witnesses right across the country and indeed even from as far away as Europe, Washington and New York because we also heard witnesses in those locations. The first thing I wanted to bring forward to the committee was that it is the prohibition policy that actually now creates the greatest harm. We drive people who are dealing with addiction issues and who, for whatever reason, are taking drugs that are illegal, into a criminalized lifestyle. I am not here to cast judgment one way or another but just to state that this reality exists. That can run the gamut from a fairly middle-class person who has resources and a good dealer, but for whom it is still an illegal thing to get a supply of maybe a few joints of marijuana for personal use, all the way to the other end of the spectrum in the downtown east side, which is an open drug scene of hundreds of people who are shooting up in doorways and back alleys in appalling conditions and sharing needles. The consequences of the prohibition and the criminalization have led to what has been described as a health emergency in Vancouver's downtown east side.

Today in question period I raised the issue, the tragedy, of the 63 women missing from the downtown east side. I have to say that these two issues are linked, because all those women were drug users. The issue is around addiction and criminalization and the fact that they had become so marginalized and were involved in the sex trade for survival. These women are out in the street in incredibly high risk circumstances, subject to violence, exploitation and, as we have seen, death.

I raise these issues because I think the Special Committee on the Non-medical Use of Drugs, which I hope will be reinstated with the same membership, would be a very good thing. It is something that I would certainly support and I know that our House leader and members of our caucus support it. This committee has done some very good work and we heard testimony right across the country. I would say, although we have not yet produced a report and I obviously am not going to speak about it, that if there was a common thread that I heard while on this committee it was that people, no matter what their point of view, said that the present policies, the status quo, are not working, whether it is in our large urban centres of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, or even in smaller rural communities where maybe there is not a pandemic of HIV and AIDS from injection drug use but other issues like the abuse of prescription drugs, which is something we heard very strongly when we visited Atlantic Canada.

So the work of this committee is very important and the members of the committee have begun to find a common understanding about what it is we are dealing with. I am very much looking forward, as the NDP representative on the committee, to continuing this work. As the motion before the House states, I believe the committee is to report on November 22. I know there is a lot of interest in the report because of course we have seen the Senate committee report that just came out, which I thought was a very courageous report. It actually comes forward and proposes ways in which we can take steps to legalize marijuana for personal use.

I think this has been an interesting debate. As I have said, the NDP has some serious reservations about some of the government business that would continue, but certainly in the case of the non-medical use of drugs committee I hope very much that the committee will continue its work and that we will produce a good report that all members of the House will look at seriously.

[Committee Business and Reinstatement of Government Bills, October 4th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I have listened to the member for Elk Island debate in the House many times. I think he is present for many of the debates and he takes an interest in all of the matters that are before the House.

I rarely agree with the member for Elk Island but in these circumstances today, he has made some very interesting observations. He has laid out very well that as an opposition member, whether it is himself or myself or other members of the opposition, we operate in this place with incredibly restrictive rules that are generally laid down by the government. We look for every opportunity to move and stretch those rules to bring some sort of balance into the House to ensure that the opposition is heard.

Therefore, I entirely agree with the comments the member has made and I am frankly very surprised that the government members would be so concerned about a member voting to adjourn and then voting another way. Surely they must have some political smarts about these things and understand what the role of an opposition is. We are doing our job.

In the business that is before the House today we will use every opportunity and every procedure that we can to ensure that there is a little balance that is brought to the debate in the House. That is a very fair point. I congratulate the member for Elk Island, which I have never done before and I do not think I will ever do again.

Would he care to illuminate on some of his concerns about the motion? I would be most interested to hear further what he has to say, which is a surprise to me because I have never been interested in what he has said before. I am suddenly extremely interested in what he has to say.

[Justice, October 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the tragedy of the 63 missing women in the downtown east side, and 15 murder charges, raises deeply disturbing questions about the failure of our justice system. Systemic discrimination by police and federal laws that force these women into dangerous circumstances are key factors in their deaths, and for many more still at risk.

Will the minister responsible for the status of women demand that her government ensure that there is a public inquiry on policing investigations, and a review of federal laws to end this violence and exploitation?

[Iraq, October 3rd, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to respond to the hon. member's comments and questions. First, it is important that UN resolutions be respected. As I pointed out, there are many that we could point to that have been completely violated and ignored in the Middle East over many years.

The issue though is on what basis will the resolutions be enforced. For us in the NDP, we believe strongly that the resolutions have to be enforced within the parameters of international law and within the UN. We are very opposed to the idea that President Bush has now set the stage or the agenda and moved the bar up. The goal posts continually change, almost on a daily basis, so that whatever is finally agreed will somehow no longer be good enough. That is something of which we should be incredibly suspicious and which we should speak against.

In terms of the situation in Israel, I have to ask the member if he considers it to be the act of a civilized democracy whereby a state would use its military apparatus to forcibly put people under occupation when that occupation is illegal? Is it the move of a civilized democracy when the state can use its apparatus to basically put a democratically elected leader under siege? I do not think so and we should be speaking out against that as well.

They are clearly different situations in Iraq and Israel. However the point I have made, which I think is relevant, is that it is hypocritical for the United States to focus on the one issue of what is going on in Iraq and somehow escalate this now to a war situation, while at the same time completely disregarding what has taken place in terms of an illegal occupation and a whole set of other people who have suffered as a result of that.

[Iraq, October 3rd, 2002]

Madam Speaker, first let me say that I am very glad to have the opportunity to participate in this important debate in Parliament. I think it is noteworthy that we are now in the third night of the debate. It shows that many members of the House from all sides wanted to be heard, wanted to be on record and wanted to participate in what is surely one of the most significant issues facing us over many years.

As I speak tonight and as other members of the NDP have spoken before me, I do so with a sense of grave danger and foreboding that unfortunately it appears that we are heading down a path where the U.S. political agenda is unfolding and determining a course that will cause the world to go into great conflict and will cause untold suffering, not only for innocent people in Iraq but also in a region that is already full of conflict.

I begin my remarks tonight with that great sense of foreboding. I was very heartened to see that last week there were more than 100 very prominent Canadians, including Margaret Atwood, Linda McQuaig, Senator Douglas Roche, Murray Dobbin, Judy Rebick and many others, who signed a statement calling on the Prime Minister to think very seriously about what course Canada takes. In that statement they said:

We, the undersigned, are deeply alarmed that the most powerful nations in the world continue to rely on military force to achieve their global political and economic goals--while eroding the standard of living, the environment, and the security of people throughout the world.

We are united in the belief that a military attack on Iraq at this juncture would be profoundly immoral, and would most certainly result in destabilizing repercussions that will endanger the whole world.

I would say that I wholeheartedly agree with that statement. In fact I was one of a number of members of Parliament who signed that statement.

I have also heard from many of my own constituents in East Vancouver, people who have taken the time to phone or e-mail me because they know that Parliament began its new session this week and because they knew that this would be the issue that we would be debating. They too wanted to express their incredible concern and reservation about what it is that Canada will do in terms of being complicit in a war plan against Iraq.

Like other members of our party, I want to be a voice in this Parliament. I hope there are more voices that will speak up for a global environment that respects peace and security, that respects international law and that respects the continuity of international law. I note that in a recent column written by Senator Roche he made this point very well, that the military and security document unveiled by President Bush just a couple of weeks ago is basically something that completely violates and flies in the face of the idea that international law, which has been built up so painstakingly over many decades through the United Nations and through the international community, is now poised to be completely dashed by this mad venture into a military conflict in the Middle East in Iraq.

I am very proud of the fact that the leader of the NDP, the member for Halifax, has from the very beginning unequivocally presented a position to the government and to the Canadian people that has advocated a position of respecting international law and not allowing ourselves to be dragged into some sort of mad race toward military conflict.

I was actually quite appalled when I heard the comments earlier of the Canadian Alliance member for Edmonton North when she took issue with other members of the House who somehow dared to be anti-American, as she said, to be inflammatory, because they suggested, and I would certainly add my voice, that Mr. Bush wants to go to war.

The truth be known, if we follow the events following September 11 in this exploding agenda of the war on terrorism, this is very much a part of Mr. Bush's domestic agenda which is to keep fueling the war he is waging. Now he has found a new target.

The member for Edmonton North questioned who we would go to when we needed help and suggested that because the Americans were our great ally that somehow we should fall in line and not dare to question. I say that the member for Edmonton North and other members of the Canadian Alliance who have voiced that kind of position are treading on very dangerous ground.

I believe the majority of Canadians fervently want the Canadian government and members of Parliament to stand up for a clear and unequivocal Canadian position that is not just some sort of blindly me too that is following President Bush.

One reason we need to do this is because, as the conflict now escalates and grows more complex, we can see that what takes place in this region is riddled with contradictions and double standards. We hear Mr. Bush on saying that somehow the existing UN resolution on the weapons inspectors is not good enough. The team was set to go, the terms had been met by Iraq and all of a sudden the goal posts changed again. Now it is back to the UN Security Council to try to convince it that it has to up the ante, change the goal posts and do it again.

If the issue of UN resolutions being ignored is such a pertinent issue, and I would agree that it is even though at this point Iraq has agreed to meet the conditions of the existing Security Council resolutions, why in other instances where UN resolutions have been flagrantly ignored is there silence on that question and no suggestion that we will be drawn into a conflict, for example, when it comes to UN resolutions respecting the rights of the Palestinian people to exist in an independent entity, or resolutions dealing with the illegal and ongoing occupation by Israel of the occupied territories, or the ongoing intimidation taking place?

The question of having these double standards is something of which more and more people are becoming aware. Yes, there are serious questions about weapons of mass destruction that may be in Iraq and it is incredibly important that the inspection team have all the scope it requires to make those inspections. However the greatest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction lies to the south of us.There are 12,500 nuclear weapons are in Bangor, Washington just south of British Columbia where I live and in other parts of the United States.

In fact in 1998 I was part of a citizens' weapons inspection team that dared to try to gain entry to Bangor, Washington where the Trident submarines were. We wanted to do our own weapons inspection to point out that these weapons of mass destruction were located in the United States as well in other countries. Therefore, we are not just talking about Iraq.

Again, I come back to this point that when we are dealing with these very grave issues of biological weapons, or weapons of mass destruction or a regime that is repressing its people, it is very important to act within international law within the international community.

In closing , I am very proud of the fact that we in the NDP have stood tall on this issue. I know Liberal backbenchers have also spoken out loudly and clearly.

At the end of this debate, we have to have a hope that the Canadian government, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, will listen not only to the members of Parliament but to the Canadian people who do not want to see Canada become complicit in a terrible conflict in Iraq and in the Middle East that will cause untold suffering, never mind what has happened with the sanctions which have caused suffering and death of children and innocent people.

I hope this debate is for naught. I hope this debate is a message that the government will hear loud and clear. I hope the government will respect the wishes of the Canadian people and ensure that we respect and work within the international law and the international community.