Libby Davies

[Health, May 11th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, rather than attacking the NDP for its defence of medicare, the Minister of Health needs to ask himself what he really did to stop Ralph Klein's privatization. Maybe when he is home alone tonight he should ask himself that question.

Does he really believe that his expression of grave concern and his wait and see strategy has done the job? Here we are today and bill 11 has passed. The NAFTA grab is on its way.

Canadians have no confidence in the minister who has let us down big time. It is time for him to resign. Will he go?

[Petitions, May 8th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I also have petitions that I would like to table from Canadians who are very concerned about the World Trade Organization, what it is doing to our sovereignty and the fact that it is giving more and more power to multinational corporations. The petitioners call on parliament to ensure that there are binding and enforceable rules to protect human rights, core labour standards and cultural diversity, our education and our environment.

[Petitions, May 8th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am also pleased to present petitions from people who are very concerned about homelessness and the lack of adequate, safe, affordable housing in this country. These are petitioners from right across the country who support the campaign for 1% for housing and call on the government to commit an additional 1% of the federal budget to meet the most basic human need in Canada.

[Petitions, May 8th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to present petitions from Canadians who are very concerned about the fact that one in five Canadian children lives in poverty. The petitioners want to draw attention to the fact and remind us that in 1989 the House of Commons passed a unanimous resolution to eliminate child poverty. The petitioners urge parliament to fulfill its promise and to end child poverty in this coming budget.

[National Children's Agenda, May 8th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, today marks the first anniversary of the National Children's Agenda. Unfortunately, Canadian kids and their parents have absolutely nothing to celebrate. No national child care plan, no new housing initiatives, no new money for education but a lot of hype about a so-called children's budget that turned out to be a big bust for kids.

Instead, the children's agenda has amounted to a few glossy brochures, a few high priced consultants and some invitation-only consultations that have so far led nowhere.

The situation for far too many Canadian kids and families demands attention. It is time for action. Almost one million Canadian children are on social assistance, 40% of food bank users are children and the fastest growing homeless populations are families and youth under 18.

It is time for the federal government to take the lead, to come to the federal-provincial social union table with meaningful proposals like a national early child care and education fund that puts child care centre stage. It is time for the federal government to come to the table with funding commitments—

[Division No. 1280, May 8th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I rise today in the House with the same sense of outrage and frustration that has been expressed by other members. We are debating a bill that is of vital importance to the people of Cape Breton, to the people who have worked in the Devco mines and to the people who live in the communities that have supported those mines, and, I think for the 66th time in this parliament, we are facing closure on yet another bill. This will cut off debate and the life line that those miners have to voice their expressions of concern in this parliament about what is happening to them and their communities.

We are here in parliament to defend and uphold democracy. Whenever we have closure on debate and whenever debate is cut off and opposition members are cut off from holding the government accountable for the legislation it brings in, it is a sad day not just in this parliament but for all Canadians and something to which we should pay attention.

We are debating Bill C-11, the bill that means the death and dissolution of Devco, a program of this government to carry out policies that will have a very dramatic impact on the people of Cape Breton.

My colleagues in the federal NDP from Nova Scotia but particularly from Cape Breton, the member for Sydney—Victoria and the member for Bras d'Or—Cape Breton, have stood up in parliament and in the community in solidarity with the people of Cape Breton to fight this closure.

I will deal with two issues in my comments. One is the myth that surrounds the mining operations and what has taken place over many generations. Second, I will talk about the impact that this closure will have.

It is a myth that this mining operation is somehow a losing proposition and the government had no alternative but to step in and shut it down. The reality is that for over 300 years mining has been a part of this community. For over 300 years mining has sustained good paying union jobs for which miners in many cases have fought and died, for health and safety, for better wages and for better working conditions. In many instances they have given their lives to that community by working in these mines.

Over the years these mines have also provided great economic benefit. I am not from Cape Breton. I am from Vancouver East. I am from the other coast, the west coast. Yet the story that I see in Cape Breton is a story that is all too familiar across the country. In my own community of East Vancouver we have seen the government set up the proposition that somehow a community economic development operation that is getting a government subsidy, it is too late, it is too bad, we have to take the subsidy away and we have to somehow make it profitable.

The fact is that over the past 30 years the government has invested about $1.7 billion into the Devco mines. What has been put back into that local economy from spin-offs and the support that it has created in local communities has been more than $5 billion.

I know from watching the news reports on television and listening to my colleagues from Cape Breton that in the local community they know the truth. They know this mine could continue to be profitable and that the decision by the government to withdraw from this operation, devastating the lives of the local communities, is one of the worst things that has happened in this parliament.

In terms of the impact, I have to ask myself what would happen to a local community where there is an employment environment, whether it is a mine, or a fishery, or the woodworking industry in British Columbia, if that was suddenly withdrawn. I think last Christmas we saw an inkling of what that impact would be. Many of us were back in our ridings. I was paying attention to issues that were going on in Vancouver East and dealing with many important things. Every day I watched the national news and watched the miners who, in desperation, were trying to draw the attention of the government to their plight and what would happen as a result of these mine closures. It was really awful to watch.

The miners wanted to be home with their families. They wanted to get ready for Christmas, to buy Christmas presents and to celebrate with their families and friends. What were they doing? They were holding sit-ins and taking desperate measures because they felt like they were at the end of the line and had no options left.

I am proud to say that our members in Nova Scotia and Cape Breton were there standing in solidarity with those miners. They understood what was going on.

A lot of times in the House we debate issues around poverty, child poverty and the 1989 resolution to eliminate child poverty that was passed unanimously in the House. It seems that on occasion there is a sense of goodwill from the House that this is an important Canadian priority. We do not want to see children go hungry. We do not want to see children living in communities where there is economic and social devastation. However, with this bill, through deliberate conscious public policy, the government has created that kind of social and economic devastation. There will be more poor children in Cape Breton, a community that is already suffering.

My colleague from Bras d'Or—Cape Breton told me that to even come close to the level of what is happening on the mainland, Cape Breton will need another 13,000 to 14,000 jobs. Why would this mine closure make any sense? Why would this bill make any sense? Even the terms of the closure are disastrous in terms of not involving the miners and not developing compensation packages.

A few minutes ago we heard from our colleague from Sydney—Victoria who said that the miners, who have worked there for decades and who have literally given their working lives to this industry, will not be compensated, recognized or acknowledged in terms of their own health. They will leave this industry with no job, no protection for them or their families in terms of health care, no dental plan and no ongoing training. What a catastrophe. What does it say about the priorities of the government?

In terms of the impact on this community, I am sure there will be increasing anxiety not only about the closures but about what will happen at this point. We have already heard speculation and rumours that one of the mines might be up for sale and that it might be bought by a multinational corporation. It is insane that we have a government that is not willing to sit down in good faith with the local community, with those workers, their families, community leaders and the local members of parliament to find a way for this operation to continue. The miners were greatly interested in getting together and forming co-operatives and associations that would have allowed the mine to continue. They wanted to ensure that there was local control.

We talk a lot about community economic development. Here was an instance where the people in the community were committed, had the knowledge and the expertise. Did anyone else have more expertise than those coal miners to know how the operation should run and how it could be profitable? They were completely ignored by the federal government. We are here today debating the dissolution of these operations under an order of closure to cut off debate with speculation about a multinational corporation moving in.

The federal NDP wants to know what the federal government is doing to investigate potential buyers who may be there and come forward. We understand that there are multinational corporations looking at this particular operation and may want to put in a purchase offer. One of the rumours we have heard is that one such corporation buys its coal from Colombia. What we need to know is who will be mining that coal. Will child labour be used? Has the government done any investigation to assure the local community that whatever buyers are there are actually organizations and corporations that have legitimacy, credibility, a track record and are not using child labour in other countries or violating environmental standards?

The worst part is that we should not even be considering foreign buyers. We should be investing in this local community. We should be saying that these jobs have value and meaning and that the people of this local community have a right to come together to determine their own economic future. That is what we stand for in this party.

I want to move the following amendment:

That the amendment be amended by deleting the words “Standing Committee on Natural Resources and Government Operations” and inserting the words “Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities” following the words “subject matter”.

[Voice Mail Service, May 8th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I thank hon. members of the various parties in the House for giving their comments on the motion today.

By way of reply, when motions come forward it is easy for any one of us to say this bit is wrong or that bit is wrong, or this would not work and in effect shoot it down. The issue is whether we understand that this is a very basic issue affecting low income and homeless Canadians. I have heard all representatives who spoke basically say that they understood there was a problem in that hundreds of thousands Canadians do not have access to basic phone service.

If we agree on that, the next question is whether it is a good idea to do something about it. Various comments have been made and some of the hon. members on the government side have said that we should go to the CRTC. I certainly will do that. I absolutely will follow it up.

As a member of parliament I want to get the support of my colleagues. This is about generating debate and support for ideas that are reasonable and sound and asking if we can work on it together. In that regard I reply to the Alliance members who say it is just another idea of centralization from the NDP. That is not what it is about.

I agree with the Alliance members who said that the DERA model is the way to go, but are we saying that small underfunded community organizations dealing with huge demands in their local communities should spend a year or two years trying to get a small project like this under way? Let us be realistic about it.

The issue of going to the CRTC and asking to make this part of the licensing requirement is to say that it could be easily done. Yes, we could go to a group in Saskatchewan, in Newfoundland or in Ontario and say to go ahead and try to set it up, but the fact is that the DERA organization is actually subsidizing the project.

What is being requested in the motion is to suggest to the CRTC that it should look for ways for these huge telephone companies to provide some support to local communities, for example by providing access lines.

The DERA project has 12 lines that are in constant use but it has to pay for those lines through Telus communications, which used to be B.C. Tel. It would be so easy for that telephone company to say that it is on board and will support it.

The reason for bringing the motion forward was to look at a creative way of asking whether it would be a good idea to ensure easy access to Canadians. It has nothing to do with creating regulations for regulation sake. It is about creating equity in society. It is about creating justice. It is about saying to organizations that we mandate, the CRTC, that part of its job is to ensure there are basic levels of service in the country, whether it is health care or education. Here we happen to be talking about phone service.

I urge all members of the House not to dismiss this issue but to agree that it an idea that could be followed up with the support of members. I will certainly follow it up because I am very committed to doing so.

The suggestion by my hon. colleague from Kamloops is a very good one and is something the House could do. I thank the member who spoke from the Bloc who clearly understood what this issue was about and is willing to support it. I think other members obviously have some questions. Frankly, I was surprised to hear the comments from the member for Vancouver Kingsway because there are low income members in that particular riding who would love to have this kind of phone access. To say that the CRTC is already doing this is simply not the case.

I urge members not to let this go by the boards but to find a way to support this motion. I ask for the unanimous consent of the House to support me in writing to the CRTC asking it to give this matter consideration.

[Voice Mail Service, May 8th, 2000]

moved:

That, in the opinion of this House, the federal government should encourage the CRTC to establish regulations that require telephone companies to assist community agencies with providing affordable voice mail service to Canadians who cannot afford or do not have access to telephone service.

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to be in the House today to speak to my motion. The purpose of this motion is to mandate phone accessibility and phone service for low income and homeless Canadians who, as it stands today, have absolutely no access to this very basic service that most of us take for granted.

My motion before the House today was inspired by a project that was initiated a couple of years ago by a very well known community organization in Vancouver's downtown eastside, the Downtown Eastside Residents Association, which started what was called a community voice mailbox system.

In starting up this system, the organization found that many low income and homeless people who had no access to phone service were incredibly limited in terms of being able to find employment or make contact with doctors offices or even family members. This organization worked very hard. It was approached by a young man who had developed a computer software program to create the program. For a very modest amount of $1,500, it received the computer and the software program, the voice mail service.

The organization found that many people, not just in the downtown eastside but in other neighbourhoods in Vancouver and on the lower mainland, desperately needed access to phone service. As a result of providing this service over the last couple of years, about 1,200 people are now registered. The use of the service is increasing on a daily basis.

The statistics provided to me by the organization are quite interesting. They show that approximately 79% of the users of this service are single men and that 60% of the users have annual incomes of less than $8,000. I would ask anyone in the House to imagine what it would be like to live on less than $8,000. It would mean no money for bus fare, no money for a phone and no money for the basic necessities of life. It basically would mean scraping by and surviving day by day.

What is most interesting is that more than half of the users of this voice mail service have said that having a community voice mail and having one's own phone number has given them a starting point for having more control over their lives. I cannot emphasize enough what that means to an individual. Imagine what it would be like living on welfare and looking for work or maybe living in a homeless shelter and looking for work.

I experienced this last year when I travelled across the country and visited emergency shelters and spoke to homeless people and front line service workers. I was told many times by people that they felt humiliated when they did not have an address or a phone number. If they wanted to apply for a job and the prospective employer needed a phone number, they had to reply that they lived in a homeless shelter. They had no chance of receiving a phone call back from the employer.

Having a program that gave them access to their own phone number and their own voice mail messages enabled them to provide a possible employer with a phone number. When an employer called that number it would be their voice recording on the phone asking the caller to leave a message. They could then dial into that from any location by hopefully using a free phone.

Having their own phone number or voice mail gives people a sense of dignity, a sense of worth and a a starting point for them to find employment and put their lives together. This is a very basic but important thing.

The sad irony is that the federal government has many job creation initiatives to help lower income Canadians. But it is provided on a very spotty basis. Industry Canada has spent millions of dollars getting Canadians on line. I know a lot of agencies that have accessed funds from Industry Canada to help set up Internet access for low income Canadians. That is something I agree with.

Is it not ironic that while on the one hand the government is doing that and sees it as a priority, on the other hand we have information from Statistics Canada which shows that 157,000 Canadians have no phone. That is a very conservative figure because it does not include the homeless people who are not listed in the census. Here we are in our modern society getting people on line, but there are still hundreds of thousands of people who do not have this basic access.

I was in the downtown east side in my riding on Friday and visited the DERA service. I met with the folks who run it and with people who use the service. It was really amazing to see how this operates. They can walk into the office and for a minimum cost of $3 a month, which is what it costs, with no questions asked, they can sign up for their community mailbox.

In fact, I met a young man who had walked into my into my constituency office on Main Street. He came from Saskatchewan and moved into east Vancouver. He was looking for work. I said he was welcome to use my office if he wanted to send a fax or anything. He said he was really glad that at least he had a phone number. I said it was great that he had a phone in his place. He said “No, no, I have voice mail”. Sure enough it was the DERA voice mail. He came to Vancouver looking for work and had somehow managed to find out about it.

The reality is that this service is only available in Vancouver. The Government of Manitoba has just announced a very good initiative where, with the co-operation of the Royal Bank and other private partners, it is setting up a province-wide community voice mail service. Other than that there is really nothing that exists. It seemed to me in bringing forward this motion, and based on my travels and talking to homeless people or people who have totally insecure or inadequate shelter, that to have a program that is mandated through licensing through the CRTC is something that could be easily done.

In this parliament we debate big issues. We debate things that are very complex. Yet, here we have a tool, something very straightforward that could help hundreds of thousands of low income and homeless Canadians by simply saying to the CRTC that we want to make sure that as part of the CRTC licensing the telephone companies, it mandates that there be funds provided or phone lines that are given over as access to local community agencies to set up these projects across Canada.

The DERA community voice mail system has 12 phone lines. I could actually see the information on the phone lines which were in use as people were changing their greeting or accessing their voice mail box or dialling in to retrieve messages. Just think of what that would mean to Canadians from coast to coast who are living in communities where they feel isolated and cut off because they do not have that basic service.

The purpose of this motion is to say that here is an easy, straightforward, simple, logical, reasonable way of ensuring that Canadians have access to the most basic phone service that we all take for granted in this country.

I want to say that this issue is very much linked to people who are living in poverty. Because people are living way below the poverty line, they cannot afford to have the basic phone service. As I have mentioned, in many instances it is related to employment and the need to get employment that they need that phone number. Also, I have come across examples and instances where it is a matter of personal health and security.

The DERA folks told me of one instance where one of its clients was in hospital. The doctor phoned and said that he was ready to be released, but he would need to have a phone by the his bed so if he got into trouble there was somebody he could call. This gentleman did not have a phone so he faced the prospect of staying another six weeks in hospital until the doctor was assured that he was completely better before he went home.

As it happened, the DERA advocacy office spent countless hours dealing with the local welfare office trying to get this man a telephone. I believe it was eventually successful, but how much time and energy was spent to get one person a phone so he could go home from the hospital which was costing thousands of dollars a day. The contradictions and the ironies in these are just simply astounding. If it were not so serious it would be laughable.

I want to encourage members to think about the motion and to see the wisdom of supporting it as a way of doing something straightforward and simple that will actually help people in a real concrete way on a day to day basis.

In a few days time we will bear witness to the 10th anniversary of the Liberal task force report on affordable housing that was chaired by the now finance minister and then an opposition Liberal member. Ten years ago the Liberals in opposition wrote a darn good report with 25 recommendations talking about the needs of Canadians in terms of housing. Here we are now 10 years later and we know that during the period between 1984 and 1993 we lost more than $2 billion in housing funds in the country. Then in 1993 the same member, who was the chair of that Liberal task force on housing, at the finance committee wielded the axe and ended the construction of social housing in the country.

It is because of that, because of increasing homelessness and because more and more Canadians, something like two million Canadians, are paying way more than 50% of their income for rent that people do not have enough money to pay for a phone.

I draw that comparison because this issue of phone service is very much related to the issue of the housing crisis in the country and the shameful record of the government in abandoning a national housing strategy and abandoning the construction of desperately needed social housing.

I do not want to go to another shelter. I do not want to have to talk to another person who says “I want a good place to live. I want to go to work. I want to be employed. I want to have a phone so that I can have some sense of dignity”.

That story is all too familiar for hundreds of thousands of Canadians. I urge members of the House to put aside the partisan politics. From time to time we come together and we say “Yes, this is the right thing to do”. That is what we should do here. We should say to the CRTC “Get on this. Make it a requirement of licensing. Make sure that every telephone company across the country ensures that they require some lines or some funds that can be dedicated to a community organization to open up access to phone service for low income and homeless Canadians”.

I ask for the support of members to do just that.

[Petitions, May 1st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am also pleased to present a petition signed by over 600 petitioners who draw attention to the fact that in 1989 the House of Commons unanimously passed a resolution to eliminate child poverty. Regrettably we are further from that decision today.

They call on the government to ensure that there are budgetary measures to meet the goals of ending child poverty in Canada.

[Petitions, May 1st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to present a petition signed by over 3,000 Canadians who are desperately concerned about the lack of affordable and safe housing in Canada.

They call upon the federal government to recognize housing as a human right and to work with the provinces to ensure that 1% of the federal budget and the provincial budgets is dedicated to this most basic human right.