Libby Davies

[Health, February 26th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the big city mayors caucus is meeting today to draw attention to pressing urban issues like transit and the lack of affordable housing.

I also know that Vancouver Mayor Phillip Owen is here to seek federal support for his excellent report on a four pillar approach to the terrible drug problems in Vancouver. The Vancouver agreement is an important first step but much more needs to be done.

Would the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health indicate if the government has the courage to go further by acting on Mayor Owen's recommendation, including the implementation of clinical trials for heroin assisted treatment?

[Post-Secondary Education, February 15th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the situation facing Canadian students is worsening. Rising tuition, increasing debt and now privatization are all threatening the accessibility and affordability of post-secondary education.

Students in P.E.I. recently marched on their provincial minister's office because high tuition means many Islanders cannot afford to go to university. We need a national tuition freeze, following the lead of B.C. and Quebec. We need a national grants program, not savings schemes that favour those already with resources.

However, instead of accessibility we get privatization. Why has the federal government remained silent in the face of Alberta's decision to allow the first for profit, private, degree granting university? It is an outrage. First the feds allow private health care via bill 11. Now they are going to let privatized education slide by.

The threat to our publicly funded and administered system is grave indeed. It leaves Canada wide open to challenges under trade agreements, allowing U.S. transnational—

[Supply, February 15th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to respond to that question because I do not believe that I or any of my colleagues in the NDP have said that this debate is about stopping international trade. International trade is very important to our global community.

The issue before the House and before the government on behalf of the Canadian people is what rules will be established for that international trade. As the hon. member knows, our concern, which should be his concern as well, is that these agreements basically transfer authority and power from democratically elected governments to multinational corporations that are completely undemocratic. Therefore, the realm of trade and decisions around the programs we have are completely outside of any elected body. That is our concern, and I think the hon. member knows that.

[Supply, February 15th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the member's thoughtful question gets to the point of another major concern around the negotiation of these agreements, that is, they have been so often characterized as a race to the bottom. Environmental standards, labour standards, and standards that protect the health and well-being of a community and ensure that children are not exploited for their labour go out the window. All of these very important fundamental principles of human dignity and human respect are basically abandoned as a result of these agreements.

These are not empty words. There is mounting global evidence about the impact on local communities of other agreements that have been negotiated, particularly on communities in developing countries that become beholden to these multinational corporations that go in and destroy the environment and local culture and communities.

The member's question certainly highlights this very destructive aspect of these agreements and I share his concern. It is another reason why the motion should be approved: so that we can have a full debate in the House on the impact of the FTAA, not just in Canada but in all of the Americas and indeed globally.

[Supply, February 15th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to follow the member for Winnipeg—Transcona and speak today in support of this important motion. A very basic principle is being established in the motion which reads:

That this House demand that the government bring any draft agreement on the Free Trade Zone of the Americas before the House so that it may be debated and put to a vote before ratification by the Government of Canada.

It is somewhat surprising that a motion that deals with such a fundamental principle of debate within the House of Commons is something that has to be brought forward by an opposition party. It begs the question and highlights for us the gravity of the situation we are facing as the Government of Canada enters into these agreements.

The free trade area of the Americas, or the FTAA as it is known, equals NAFTA, the WTO, GATT and the MAI all rolled into one very powerful piece of trade legislation that has nothing to do with freedom.

It has everything to do with a transfer of massive powers from democratically elected governments to transnational corporations and a globalized corporate agenda which is about the suppression of democracy. That is the fundamental point that needs to be made. That is why any document or agreement on the FTAA must be brought to the House to be debated by members of the House and by the people of Canada.

The fundamental purpose of these agreements is to constrain all levels of government. We are not just talking about a national government or provincial governments, but even at the municipal level. Their purpose is to restrain all governments in their delivery of services and to allow transnational corporations access to public services, whether it be health care, hospitals, home care, dental care, child care, elder care, education, social assistance, environmental protection programs, transportation or culture. Those are the programs very much at threat as a result of the proposed FTAA.

I should like to quote the chair of the Council of Canadians who recently produced a very excellent report consisting of 40 pages entitled “The Free Trade Area of the Americas and the Threat to Social Programs, Environmental Sustainability and Social Justice in Canada and the Americas”. Ms. Barlow is well known for her work in providing education and awareness of the threat posed by these agreements. In the section outlining what impact there will be from the FTAA on Canadians she said:

The expanded powers proposed for the FTAA in combination with Chapter 11 of NAFTA and the introduction of “universal coverage of all service sectors” pose a grave threat to Canada's social programs. Universal health care, public education, child care, pensions, social assistance and many other social services are now delivered by governments on a not-for-profit basis.

She went on to say:

Until the recent GATS negotiations, and now the FTAA negotiations, Canada has always maintained that these social programs were a fundamental right of citizenship for all Canadians, and have exempted them from trade agreements. However, with these two agreements, the Canadian government is opening up itself, and every other level of government, to trade-sanctioned threats by transnational service corporations keen to break down the existing government monopolies in the hemisphere.

That lays out very clearly what we are facing in this round of negotiations. Of particular concern to us in the NDP, outlined by my colleague from Winnipeg—Transcona, are the investor state provisions that again are included in what is being proposed in this FTAA round of negotiations. This is something similar to what we have seen in NAFTA.

Indeed, in the NDP minority report produced in October 1999 we laid out very clearly what the impact is of investor state provisions and what has already happened in Canada as a result of those provisions being included in chapter 11 of NAFTA.

I will quote from my colleague's minority report in which he says:

Canadians have already seen how such a mechanism can be used by foreign investors to intimidate and sue their elected governments. Last year, U.S. based Ethyl Corporation successfully used the NAFTA investor-state procedure to extract $19 million from Canadian taxpayers, and to force the Canadian government to rescind its ban on the potentially toxic gasoline additive MMT.

That is what has already taken place under chapter 11. There are now other challenges underway, including one from Sun Belt Water Inc. in California that is looking to leave Canadians on the hook for as much as $10.5 billion U.S. That again brings us back to the issue of what is threatened under the FTAA.

One of the things I am very concerned about is the impact on municipalities. Right now in Vancouver, where I am from, a case taking place before the B.C. supreme court is a challenge by the Mexican government as a result of an earlier decision made by a NAFTA dispute panel in August 2000 in favour of the U.S. based Metalclad Corporation, which was seeking to locate a toxic waste plant in a town in Mexico. The local community and the national government opposed it. This is now again being challenged under NAFTA.

The impact of these trade agreements on local communities and their ability to control their own environment and health and the well-being of their own citizens is something that is very seriously undermined and would be completely violated if these particular agreements go ahead.

I want to spend my remaining minutes talking about the democratic process. It seems to me that one of the real signs of hope as we take on this struggle of trying to defeat these agreements has been the rise in the level of activism, particularly among young people. As we know, already there are incredible plans and campaigns underway to demonstrate, to rally, to educate and to build public awareness about just what is at stake in April in Quebec City.

The question we have is that while on the one hand we have the Prime Minister in China finally raising the issue of human rights in that country, what are the Prime Minister and the government prepared to do to defend people's human rights here in Canada? All indications are that we are now in the process of setting up a police state, a state of security around this international conference, to prevent citizens from being heard, from being seen, from being able to assemble and from having the right to free speech.

This is something we have seen before in Canada with APEC and the people's summit and the pepper spraying that took place. We are again seeing the those kinds of preparations being made to prevent people from exercising their democratic rights.

This motion is important, but it is only the tip of the iceberg. We have to stop these agreements, we have to defeat them and we have to defend the rights of citizens to organize, to mobilize and to speak out against these agreements. In supporting this motion, I hope all members of the House will go further and ensure that people who come from across Canada and want to take up this issue in Quebec City will not be denied their democratic rights to express their opinions about what these agreements are about and what kinds of threats they pose to our democratic system.

[Health, February 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, last night on the CBC there was a very alarming report about Canadian diabetics who suffered severe impacts from using genetically engineered insulin.

Indeed, at least 121 serious complaints from physicians, and I suspect there are more, beg the question as to why Health Canada is leaving these diabetics at risk by not ensuring that animal insulin is accessible and available from pharmaceutical companies.

What will the government do to protect the health of these Canadians?

[Speech From The Throne, February 9th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, first may I congratulate you on becoming the Acting Speaker of the House. It is very nice to see a woman in the chair. I hope that it is a worthwhile and rewarding experience. I will be sharing my time today with the member for Palliser.

First, I will thank the people of Vancouver East who supported me and voted for me in my re-election. We went through a very interesting federal election campaign and here we are again, back in the House and listening to yet another throne speech by the government.

I have to say that I came back with some anticipation and maybe even a little bit of eagerness that we might hear something new from the government side, that something from the Canadian people had resonated with the Prime Minister and government members in terms of what would be in the throne speech.

Picking up on the debate that we have just been listening to about parliamentary reform, I would like to begin with that point. Speaking to backbench members of parliament, whether from the government's side or opposition members, there is a very strong feeling in this place that parliamentary reform and the opening up of the Chamber, in terms of the kinds of rules and procedures that apply, is something that is long overdue.

A lot of us were listening keenly to the throne speech to know if there would be any indication that the message had fallen on receptive ears on the government's side. Unfortunately that was not the case. I would agree with the member for Calgary Southwest who said that the so-called comments about parliamentary reform in the throne speech were absolutely pathetic.

I think of the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle who has long championed the issue of parliamentary reform. I think of the discussions I have had with our House leader, the member for Winnipeg—Transcona, a person who really understands what fundamental changes have taken place in the House regarding parliamentary democracy. It is really a sad day that we have come to a point where a lot of us are talking about parliamentary reform but nothing has really changed.

In listening to the throne speech, the thing that I was paying attention to was whether the government would be willing to address what is truly a national crisis in our country: the growing gap between the rich and the poor.

Just the other day we had a report from the Vanier Institute that clearly showed that the gap between the rich and the poor was growing. It pointed out that 20% of families with the highest income saw their share of earnings rise 6.6% while the lowest fifth, the lowest 20%, saw their share shrink by 5.2%.

The other day in question period I told the government that the growing inequality in our country, the growing poverty where more and more families are experiencing difficulty in paying the rent and finding work, or living on substandard wages, is a direct result of a decade of failed Liberal policies that have created this inequality. I must say that the throne speech failed miserably to address that issue in any substantial way.

One of the concerns I have, in reading through the throne speech, is that the reference to a national project on poverty was nothing more than a new guise for a program that one could consider a workfare type of program, where low income parents on welfare would be motivated or compelled to work in the low wage ghettos and be subsidized. It is really a subsidization program for employers who provide very low wages.

That is the government's answer to dealing with poverty. It does not deal with the reality that one in six Canadians live below the poverty line. It does not deal with the reality that many aboriginal people are living in destitution and poverty on reserves as well as off reserves.

The messages and the commitments in the throne speech were utterly disappointing in addressing what I believe is truly a national crisis.

The same goes for housing. Any organization that has dealt with this issue, national housing groups, housing advocates and people who deal on the front line, have said over and over again that what the government must do is get back into the housing supply program. There is no getting away from that simple straightforward fact.

Instead, what did we see in the throne speech? We saw one reference where the government will stimulate the creation of more affordable rental housing. What this says to me is that the government is now ready to begin a program of basically subsidizing developers. This is not a national housing strategy. This will not provide affordable housing for families, single people and seniors, the people who really need it.

Canada had good housing programs. They were dismantled by this government. It was one of the things that fell under the axe when the finance minister brought in his draconian cuts which were basically done on the backs of the poor people. The housing program was one of the victims of that. As a result, we now have something like 200,000 people sleeping on the streets. We have millions of Canadians who are inadequately housed.

I was very disappointed that we got a mere line in the throne speech and no reference to a real national housing strategy. This is particularly reprehensible when one considers that the finance minister, who is sitting on a big fat surplus, 10 years ago in the opposition actually produced a very good housing report. The report called for a lot of the kinds of programs that people today are still today calling for. Does that minister believe in his own report that he wrote a decade ago? It is the kind of hypocrisy that makes Canadians feel very cynical about the political process.

As the spokesperson in our party on the issue of post-secondary education, I try to stay on top of what the government is doing or is not doing when it comes to helping students. We only heard about the innovations of the high tech future of Canada, the vision of the future and the knowledge based economy. All these platitudes there were in the throne speech. There was not a single reference to the crushing debt that students are facing in the country.

Why is Canada only one of three OECD countries without a national grants program? Why is the average student debt now $25,000? Why have student loan bankruptcies increased 700% since 1989? It is because the government has abandoned post-secondary education. The retreat of public funding and the dramatic increase in tuition fees of about 240% is now hammering students. They are graduating into poverty. That is the Liberal answer to post-secondary education.

When it comes to issues of justice and equality, the throne speech had nothing to offer. When we put the picture together and looked at where we are headed as Canadians, I and my colleagues and in the New Democratic Party have very deep concerns about the vision of the government. We have concerns about the very role of government. It has changed its vision of helping people, of providing a social safety net and of strengthening democracy. It has now become the propaganda machine and the movers and shakers for globalization.

We were also looking for references that would deal with the threats of corporate globalization, that would respond to the concerns from Canadians about how the free trade area of the Americas and the WTO and these trade agreements and how the issues and concerns about weakening democracy in those agreements were going to be dealt with. Again, the throne speech was silent on this matter. There were no references to banning bulk water exports, something that Canadians are extremely concerned about. There was no commitment to environmental labour or public concern about meeting to carve out these issues in any trade deals.

We in the New Democratic Party see this as the most pressing issue before us. Whether we are talking about health care, education, culture or our very democratic foundation, we are threatened by globalized trade agreements that are literally transferring power from democratically elected governments to private corporations that have no accountability. The government is allowing that to take place.

We are just a small group but we will be a very strong force in taking on this issue in parliament and challenging the government on its agenda in this regard.

[Petitions, February 9th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the third petition that I am very pleased to present today has been signed by petitioners who are very concerned about Canada's trade policy and the fact that health care, education and culture are issues that are being debated within a trade liberalization agenda.

The petitioners call on parliament to ensure that health care, education and culture are completely carved out of WTO agreements. They say that we must build an alternative model of globalization that will protect the rights of workers and the environment, provide for cultural diversity and provide for governments to act in the public interest.

[Petitions, February 9th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition has been signed by close to 2,000 petitioners from the Vancouver area who are very concerned about any proposals to create a third category status for herbs and vitamins. This has been a very major issue in terms of access by consumers.

The petitioners request parliament to reject the third category status for herbs and therefore reject the Codex proposal.

[Petitions, February 9th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to present three petitions.

The first petition has a number of signatories from across Vancouver who are very concerned about the state of our health care system and are particularly interested in calling on parliament to stop for profit hospitals and restore full federal funding for health care.