Libby Davies

[Budget Implementation Act, 2001, February 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak on behalf of the New Democratic Party to Bill C-49, an act to implement the budget that was presented to parliament on December 10, 2001.

In speaking to the bill, I want to respond to what was said by my colleague on the government side. He said that the budget and the bill were as a result of the government listening to Canadians. I think that has to be rephrased slightly. The government listened to some Canadians. It listened to its friends.

When people in my riding of Vancouver East, working people, low income Canadians, look at the provisions in the budget, they see nothing that will help them in terms of improving the quality of their lives.

One of the main features of the budget is to establish the Canadian air transport security authority, CATSA. As my colleague from the Bloc Quebecois said, this is nothing more than a tax grab. Why on earth would Canadians want to write a blank cheque for $2.2 billion to the federal government without knowing where that money was going?

We need to point out to Canadians that the establishment of this new air transport security authority is nothing more than a new agency of Liberal appointees and that it will have very little to do with providing security at airports. In reality, of the $24 that will be charged to people for a round trip, only about $2 per flight will actually go to fund the new agency and for security measures. When one looks at the bill there is something like 56 pages devoted to the administration of the new tax and not a word about how security will actually be improved.

It is an incredible situation that under the guise and illusion of providing security, something for which people are legitimately concerned when they are travelling, that a $2.2 billion cheque will be handed over to a new agency with no credibility or legitimacy, and without the assurance that security will actually be improved. We in the New Democratic Party have serious problems with that proposition and we will fight it tooth and nail all the way.

Another provision in the bill has to with the $2 billion infrastructure fund. Originally this was set up as a separate foundation. I think many of us had serious concerns about how a Liberal appointed foundation would operate and what accountability there would be. Now we have a situation where the Deputy Prime Minister will be in charge of the $2 billion fund.

I do want to say that setting up an infrastructure fund is something that is critically important. I come from a municipal background. Today members of the NDP caucus met with the president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Mr. Jack Layton, who laid out for us the serious situation facing municipalities where they are grappling with huge infrastructure costs around public transportation, bridges, roads, water plants, treatment plants and so on. The issue is very important because many of our municipalities, particularly in the larger urban centres, are at a critical point where they do not have the financial resources to meet the growing infrastructure demands.

Mr. Layton pointed out that the cost for municipal government was actually increasing through the property tax revenue. If we look at the European and American experiences, we see it is a much more direct relationship between the federal government and the municipalities in terms of a financial arrangement that provides direct infrastructure support to municipalities.

While $2 billion sounds like a lot of money, when it is put in the context of what is actually required by municipalities, it is actually a very minor amount in terms of what they actually need. While the NDP supports the idea of creating an infrastructure fund, we feel that the establishment of a $2 billion fund without a clear sense of how municipalities will be involved in a direct way, is of very serious concern to us.

I also want to comment on what the act fails to do. Yesterday, students in dozens of communities across the country took to the streets in the tens of thousands because they were fed up with higher and higher costs for education. Their student loans and debtloads were getting worse and worse, and they were basically graduating into poverty.

In my home province of British Columbia, where tuition fees have been frozen for four years and were actually rolled back by 5%, we are now facing the prospect of a massive tuition fee increase. Thousands of students demonstrated at Queen's Park, in Halifax, in Vancouver, in Victoria and even Carleton University students here in Ottawa protesting the fact that education was becoming less and less accessible.

Studies show that the chance of a young person from a low income family actually getting a post-secondary education is less than half of what it is for someone who comes from an affluent family. I point this out because I heard the hon. member say that the Liberal government was doing a wonderful job when it came to post-secondary education and that it had 2,000 research chairs. Although that may be well and good, when it comes to direct support to students who are struggling with high tuition, we have seen absolutely zip from the government.

What we need to see is a national grants program, not the millennium fund which my colleague mentions. The millennium fund helps less than 12% of students. In some provinces it is a slight decrease in the amount of assistance that they actually get. The millennium fund is not a grants program. The millennium fund does not improve or increase accessibility for students who want to go to post-secondary education.

I think the assessment of any student in this country or an organization like the Canadian Federation of Students, would be that this budget has failed on that score.

I also want to touch briefly on the question of housing. A couple of days ago the National Council of Welfare, which is a federally appointed advisory body, produced a very excellent report called “The Cost of Poverty”. It received some attention but very little attention for the very significant and dramatic information contained in it.

The report showed us that neglecting our social policy, our social fabric and our social safety network has produced a growing inequality in incomes. The cost to our health care and judicial systems, and to our young kids who need to get a good start in life, to have equal opportunity and to have a future, has taken a terrible human toll as well as an economic and a social toll on society.

The budget and the act before us today is about a big tax grab. It is not about helping Canadians improve their quality of life. It is not about helping unemployed Canadians. It is also not about changing inequalities that exist in Canada.

[Justice, February 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, access to justice is a fundamental right in our democracy and that is why the 40% cut to legal aid by the B.C. Liberals is a devastating blow to justice. In fact the chief justice has said that legal aid to low income Canadians is an essential public service.

Why then is the Minister of Justice so silent when Mr. Campbell is clearly violating the federal-provincial agreement to maintain current levels of funding?

What action will the minister take to stop Mr. Campbell from stomping on the constitutional rights of low income Canadians?

[Criminal Code, February 6th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I am very happy to rise in the House today to speak in support of Bill C-408 and to congratulate the hon. member who brought it forward. I apologize for not hearing the earlier debate, but unfortunately I was in a committee and could not get over here fast enough.

The bill is very remarkable in its simplicity. It is an issue that has a lot of history and a lot of weight. The principle being put forward here, which is very important, is to ensure that children are not being discriminated against by the use of really archaic language and labels.

While the implementation of something like this to ensure that the definition of child and the use of the words illegitimate child are removed from all legislation may be a fairly logistically complex thing to do, we should not lose sight of the principle contained in this private member's bill.

The New Democratic Party supports the bill and its principle. Being a signatory to the international convention on the rights of the child, it is very important that the Government of Canada upholds that convention and ensures that its legislation, public policies and program development do not discriminate against children.

From that point of view, I would say most strongly that it is very important that not only do we move forward in addressing programs and policies to uphold the rights of children in Canada, but we also look at our history and the legislation on the books. We have to recognize that sometimes we have to go back and update, change language and modernize.

There have been various instances where that has taken place in the House of Commons through government initiatives and maybe through private members’ initiatives. We have had that in legislation pertaining to same sex relationships and the modernization of benefits and responsibilities. We have had that in legislation that pertains to the equality of women and the use of more gender neutral language. All those things are very important.

When it comes to the rights of children and how we portray them, not only legally but in language that is used in the media or in our local communities, it is important to ensure that we use language and make references that are not judgmental and do not reinforce stereotypes that serve to harm the well-being of children in our society.

I wholeheartedly support this effort. I would hope that all members of the House would support it. It is something that is pretty straightforward. Even though logistically it may be very difficult to accomplish, in going through goodness knows how many hundreds of pieces of legislation to make changes, it should be done.

I hope there is a will in this place and a commitment from members on all sides of the House to ensure that we adopt the bill and encourage the government to begin the process of making these changes to ensure that the rights of children are upheld. It is important that we refer to children in a way that is appropriate, that reflects our modern day society and that is respectful of different kinds of relationships. Most important, we must be respectful of the rights of children.

I am very happy to support the bill and thank the hon. member for having the courage to bring it forward. I hope it will gain acceptance from all members and that we will be able to accomplish this.

[Post-Secondary Education, February 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, we in the NDP stand in solidarity with the tens of thousands of students across the country and the Canadian Federation of Students in a national day of action to defend public, accessible and quality post-secondary education.

Students are being hammered with high debtloads and rising tuition caused by the erosion of federal funding to our universities and colleges.

Even so, over 90% of students pay back their student loans. Compare that to the corporate deadbeats who suck out billions of dollars in public funds from Industry Canada and have less than a 2% payback rate. There is an example of good corporate citizenship.

How many times have we heard the mantra that education is the future? Yet the government has gutted funding for education.

We have a message for the federal government today from students. It should quit shovelling out billions to its corporate buddies and start making education accessible to all students so they will have a future.

[Poverty, February 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, what is the cost of poverty? There is a terrible human cost in our local communities and in our economy overall, but how does one measure the cost of hopelessness when individuals know they have no future and no dignity?

The National Council of Welfare report released today is evidence of another nail in the coffin of failed public policy and a Liberal government that has failed to address the growing crisis of income inequality. Why does Canada have a poverty rate of 25% for single mothers compared to a low of 3% in Sweden? Because the government sacrificed its social agenda for tax cuts and a fiscal agenda that actually widens the gap between the wealthy and the poor.

Canada is a wealthy country, with adequate resources to ensure that Ed Broadbent's 1989 resolution to eliminate child poverty is realizable. While the Prime Minister says he has a vision to eliminate global poverty, and we support that, let us make it a political and economic priority right here in Canada today.

[Privilege, February 1st, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I guess it is no surprise to any of us on this side of the House that a government member would say to give it a rest, let it go, people are sick of this.

The hon. member is really missing the point about why this debate is so important before this matter goes to committee. We understand the committee system and how it works. There are a certain number of members on a committee from the opposition side and obviously a majority from the government side. The procedure to allow this debate to take place exists so members of the House can give input and frame the kind of debate that needs to take place in the committee.

This is not spurious thing. This is not waste of time. The viewers are not sick of this. What they are sick of is the fact that the Liberals, the government in power, are using damage control to get this off the political agenda.

When this goes to committee, it will be vitally important that the committee not only examine the question of conflicting information provided by the minister of defence, but also examine and reveal to parliament and the public the very systems that are in place, which apparently did not work bringing us to this crisis in the first place.

This is not about bringing down the reputation of parliament. In fact, I take great offence to that statement. This is about maintaining the reputation of parliament and ensuring the House and the committee do their work adequately.

Would the hon. member agree that it is very important that the committee not only examine the question the statements from the minister of defence but also examine what other systems failed in this regard so that the Prime Minister was not aware of critical information?

The Deputy Prime Minister said today that we really should not be concerned about this because nothing went wrong as an outcome. That is not the question. Maybe the government was just lucky that nothing went wrong in taking these prisoners.

The question is this. How does the government operate in a crisis like this? If the system does not work, if the minister of defence could not do his job or was not willing to do his job, why did these other procedures not come into play that would have assured us as parliamentarians and the Canadian public that somebody was in control and knew what was going on? That is the question for the committee.

Does the hon. member believe that this is a legitimate question to examine?

[Minister of National Defence, February 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is very clear to the Canadians that the government is stonewalling. It may think it is doing damage control to protect the Minister of National Defence, but it is becoming clearer that the very essence of honesty and integrity of government is now in question.

The Minister of National Defence failed in his duty; that is very clear. The question remains: Why did other procedures to safeguard the system, for example through the PCO, also fail? Why is the Deputy Prime Minister refusing to answer that question?

[Health, February 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, Black Thursday as it became known hit B.C. like an earthquake and we are still feeling the aftershocks of Gordon Campbell's unprecedented assault on the very fabric of democracy and civil society.

His slashing and burning targets the most vulnerable in what can only be described as vengeful and cruel. Deep cuts to basic welfare assistance, legal aid, women's centres and youth services are just a few in a long list. I raise this in the House because Mr. Campbell and his Liberals are also gutting our public health care system and punishing health care workers. Even ERs are threatened by private for profit ventures.

I will do everything I can to oppose the dismantling of these public services. However, why are the federal Liberals being so silent as their B.C. Liberal friends tear apart people's lives? The federal government has a responsibility to protect public health care, basic social services and people's rights. It needs to be done now and the federal government must speak up and protect these basic services before they are gone forever.

[Question No. 92—, January 30th, 2002]

With regard to the agreement the Vancouver Port Authority has to construct a concrete batch plant on the Sterling site: ( a ) what are the terms of the lease agreement for the site; ( b ) what is the current market value of the site in terms of rents and length of lease; ( c ) how does that compare to similar property in Vancouver; and ( d ) has the site been offered to users of the port under similar terms and conditions?

[Question No. 93—, January 29th, 2002]

With regard to the Sterling site on which the Vancouver Port Authority (VPA) proposes to construct a concrete batch plant: ( a ) is the site exempt from provincial legislation; ( b ) has the VPA or the Minister sought a legal opinion for that exemption; and ( c ) is the Minister aware of any legal basis under which the VPA may allow construction of a concrete batch plant on “Other Real Property”, as defined by the Federal Real Property Act, owned by the VPA?