Libby Davies

[Housing, April 3rd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, on repeated occasions in parliament I have asked the minister responsible for housing why the federal government has been so blind and unresponsive in helping 50,000 British Columbians who are faced with a mess of leaky and mouldy condos.

I have asked the minister to work in partnership with the provincial Government of British Columbia, and I am asking today that the minister give serious consideration to the most recent report by the Barrett commission. People's homes depend on it.

My NDP colleagues from Burnaby—Douglas and Kamloops and I have asked the government not to charge GST on repairs, to provide tax relief as recommended by the Barrett commission, and to provide help in correcting mould and spore problems.

The minister's sorry response is that RRAP funds will help. They do not. The provincial government has issued PST tax relief. Why will the feds not do their share on GST?

Homeowners are very disillusioned. I ask the government to reconsider its previous position so these homeowners can be assured of federal assistance as outlined in Mr. Barrett's report.

[Children, March 29th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, if failing medicare is not bad enough, the government has also failed on its promise to promote the health of children through a national child care program. This week in B.C. the government lived up to its promise for child care to give B.C. kids a healthy head start.

I ask the minister why has her government broken its promises so many times to families desperately needing child care? No more vacuous words, where are the federal dollars to back up the commitment so that all kids can benefit?

[The Budget, March 27th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his question. It is a very good question and it gives me an opportunity to say a bit more about the concerns we have with post-secondary education.

It is fair to raise the question that if there is an increase in the Canada health and social transfer, how could we provide an assurance that the money would actually be used for education. I know that is the case in my own province of British Columbia. Our government has put a freeze on tuition fees and has made sure that accessibility to post-secondary education will not be eroded.

I would suggest that if the member is concerned about where the dollars are going for health care, social programs or post-secondary education, he should be supporting the initiative which the federal New Democrats put forward both at the HRDC committee and in the House to say that the federal government should bring in a new national standard based on accessibility to post-secondary education.

We believe very much that there must be federal dollars. The measures that the member outlined do not even come close to making up for the billions of dollars that have been stripped away and gutted from our colleges and universities.

Whatever increase there is, the government should be implementing a standard based on accessibility precisely to ensure that students across the country, whether they are in Ontario, New Brunswick or British Columbia, have access based on affordability to post-secondary education. Unfortunately that does not exist.

I remind the member that it was his government that brought in the CHST. It was his government that cut the strings and said to the provinces, “Do whatever the hell you want”. That is why we are in a mess now.

Perhaps I could throw the question back and ask the member to support the initiatives from our party to make sure that there is accessibility based on a national standard.

[The Budget, March 27th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, one way to judge the budget is not just by the debate that takes place in the House. It is also by what kind of response there is in the community from the various organizations that monitor what the government is doing and are involved in various programs and campaigns, for example, Campaign 2000 or the campaigns around housing.

On the day of the budget one of those organizations, a group of poor tenants from a Quebec social housing coalition called FRAPRU, occupied the offices of the Canadian Human Rights Commission in Ottawa. They sat in the offices of the Canadian Human Rights Commission because they wanted to hear what was in the budget. They were very worried that the government would turn its back on the needs of poor tenants and the homeless.

After they heard the budget they continued their occupation of the Canadian Human Rights Commission offices. It carried over 24 hours into the next day. I visited to speak to them about their concerns. They were pretty disappointed. More than that, they were outraged that the $100 billion surplus which had been built, as we have heard from our member for Winnipeg Centre, on the backs of the unemployed, the surplus from the unemployment insurance commission and the public pension plan, did not contain any money for a national housing program.

The budget basically reannounced the $753 million that had been announced by the minister responsible for homelessness prior to Christmas. Anyone who for a minute has been fooled into thinking that announcement will mean the construction of affordable, safe, secure and appropriate housing for families, children, seniors, unemployed people and low income people has made a big mistake.

I had a meeting in my riding with the HRDC officials who are responsible for carrying out this initiative and with community groups who wanted to find out whether the $750 million which was reannounced in the budget actually would build social housing, and the answer was no. It is basically a program that will institutionalize shelters. It deals with training programs, youth at risk and aboriginal programs, all of which are good measures, but the budget failed on the fundamental issue that needed to be addressed in terms of a housing strategy. It was completely absent.

It is no wonder that a group like FRAPRU and the organizations which it represents felt the need to take demonstrative action.

A few weeks later representatives from housing organizations came to Ottawa to bear witness to yet another death of a homeless person. Several homeless people died in the city of Toronto. Representatives of those organizations came to the Canadian Human Rights Commission, called on the government and demanded to know why in the budget, when there were such opportunities with the surplus that existed, the poor, the homeless and people who are underhoused in the country were completely forgotten.

I have been working closely with people concerned about the so-called children's agenda. I wanted to know their reaction to the budget. How many times have we heard government members talk about the children's agenda? How many times have we heard government members talk about the platitudes of wanting to end child poverty? Even today in the House there were three petitions presented by government members from their constituents in Liberal ridings who want the government to end child poverty.

There was a lot of expectation that the budget would be a children's budget, but it failed on that score. There was no money in the budget for a national child care program or an early childhood development program. There were no funds announced to ensure that the child tax benefit would be passed on to children and families on welfare.

Is it any wonder that a group like the Canadian Teachers' Federation in its analysis of the budget said that it falls short of fulfilling the federal government's promise of implementing a national children's agenda as outlined in the recent throne speech. It goes on to say that the budget repeats the same promises that appeared in the Speech from the Throne and in statements made by first ministers in 1997 when they agreed to accelerate work on a national children's agenda.

There are no dollars allocated for this purpose. Canada's children deserve more than rhetoric. That is what the Canadian Teachers' Federation had to say.

If we go back to the October 1999 throne speech, the commitment made by the Prime Minister was to take the action necessary as a country so that every Canadian child could have the best possible start in life. The government has failed miserably on that score. Not only has it not taken action to ensure that all children have a good start in the early years of their lives, the situation has deteriorated considerably since the resolution which was passed unanimously by the House in 1989, introduced by the then leader of the NDP, Ed Broadbent, to eliminate child poverty. There are now 50% more children than there were in 1989 living in poverty. Why did this $100 billion surplus not address the needs of those kids?

We have a very credible organization, the National Anti-Poverty Organization, headquartered in Ottawa. It works at the grassroots level in social justice and anti-poverty right across the country. What did its analysis say? That the budget would widen the gap between rich and poor. It pointed out that while the finance minister spoke about the gap between the rich and the poor, the measures in his budget not only failed to reduce the problem but would actually make it worse.

The real proof is in the numbers. As NAPO has pointed out, if we compare the situations of two single people, one who has an income of $10,000 and another with an income of $100,000, the gap between those incomes will actually increase by $2,377 because of this budget. It begs the questions: Is this a budget that is based on any sort of principle of equality? Is it a budget that deals with the horror of what poor children, families and the unemployed have to deal with? The answer is no. As we can see clearly, this budget actually increases the gap between those who are wealthy and those who are poor.

I also have information that was provided by groups like the Canadian Federation of Students. One of the things I was really interested in seeing in the budget was whether there would be any real relief for students who are facing crushing debt loads because of their post-secondary education. Let us make no mistake, student debt in the country has increased threefold, from about $8,000 to about $25,000. That has been the average student debt since the Liberal government came to power.

There are no two ways about it, the reason is because of the massive retreat in public funding of more than $3 billion which has been cut from post-secondary education and training. Is it any wonder that the Canadian Federation Students came out with its analysis which said that the federal 2000 budget did nothing to fix the funding crisis in post-secondary education. In fact, the $600 million in additional annual funding for health care and education falls far short of the $3.7 billion which the premiers have publicly stated is immediately required for post-secondary education. It will not even cover inflation.

This is particularly offensive. In the throne speech we heard various platitudes and commitments to a knowledge based economy and to helping young people in the future. If we look at the reality, young people are facing debt loads and increasing inaccessibility to our schools.

Finally, it is no better on the health care front. I am proud to say that the NDP has campaigned rigorously day after day in the House to point out the shortcomings of the budget when it comes to health care. We have made it quite clear, and the numbers tell the truth, that even with the so-called increase in health care we will still be short $3.3 billion more than when the Liberals came to power in 1993.

One of my constituents, Mr. Harvey Dueck, wrote to the finance minister. He said: “I am writing to add my voice to those who are asking you to favour funding health care and other social programs above tax cuts in this and future budgets”. He continued: “I am in an income tax bracket where I would benefit more than most from any proposed tax cut, but I beg you not to tread that path until social programs are once again secure and the debt, not merely the deficit, has been vastly reduced or limited”.

He went on to tell of the difficulties that he had when he visited the emergency room because there were not enough nurses, there were not enough doctors and there were not enough records management people to provide the information that was needed.

The budget fails on that score as well. I want to say that we in the NDP believe that the government missed the opportunity it had to deal with poverty and to deal with growing inequality. Instead it decided to implement tax cuts, which basically favour the rich over the poor. For us, that is simply appalling.

[Hepatitis C, March 27th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, today is the second anniversary of the decision of the Government of Canada to ram through a compensation package for hepatitis C victims that was mean, non-inclusive and just plain wrong.

Here we are today and the tragedy continues. Thousands of hepatitis C victims were excluded from compensation. Tragically, even those Canadians who were meant to receive compensation are still waiting. Not one penny has gone to those victims. In my community of Vancouver East in the downtown east side, people are dying with hepatitis C because they are still waiting for help.

We all want to know from this government and from this Minister of Health how many people have died since that decision? Does the health minister even care about what has happened? How can this government, in all good conscience, live with its terrible decision? Will it do the right thing now and extend compensation to all victims with hepatitis C? Will it do that?

[Human Resources Development, March 22nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, will the Prime Minister admit that the loopholes were built into the program purposely, not to help the unemployed but to help bolster Liberal fortunes?

[Human Resources Development, March 22nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, instead of fighting off talk of who his successor will be the Prime Minister should focus his time on finding a successor for his human resources minister.

Testimony yesterday by the former deputy minister clearly contradicts her statements about the loose rules for the so-called poverty pockets and transitional job funds. It is pretty clear the minister cannot even manage the cover-up that the government concocted.

[Supply, March 21st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from my hon. colleague. Just to reiterate and affirm, we in the NDP see two basic problems. One of the reasons we need to have a public inquiry is because of the serious administrative problems that were uncovered by the audit, such as the lack of follow-through, applications not being filled out adequately, lack of monitoring and so on. The results of the internal audit make it abundantly clear that the implications for the government as a whole are enormous. If this is happening in HRDC, where else is this taking place? For that very reason alone, an independent public inquiry is required.

I would also stress that the political nature of the decision making is something that is very serious. It is more difficult to get at but it also needs to be part of that inquiry. We support the motion on that basis.

[Supply, March 21st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for the question because it is a question that is very specific. It does address one of the big issues that we have had with this whole process in terms of how information is provided to members.

Like many new members, when I was elected in 1997 the first thing I tried to do was make myself familiar with what was available in terms of government programs and support because we get people coming to us all the time and the first thing they want to know is what federal funds they can access. I think all of us make it our business to try to find out about that.

I want to say that I have a good working relationship with the local HRDC office and staff. It is important that I know what they are doing, that we know what the priorities of the riding are and so on.

I remember when I heard about the transitional jobs fund that I actually checked to find out whether or not we qualified. The information was that Vancouver East did not qualify because of these regions. Then we heard about pockets that exist. The issue of how those rules were made and how that was communicated is a mystery to me in terms of one member of parliament absolutely not being aware that certain areas could qualify under different kinds of rules.

Again, I think it begs the question about who makes the decisions, how are those decisions followed through and whether or not we have rules being made after the fact in order to cover up where those disbursements were made. This is what we want to get clear. We want to have fair rules for everybody. We want the rules to be transparent. We want the rules to be clear so that we can say to the government that public confidence can be restored in the way these programs work.

[Supply, March 21st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague the member for Acadie—Bathurst for his remarks.

I have just come from the HRD committee. The former deputy minister of HRDC was before the committee for a couple of hours. I managed to get in a couple of questions before coming to speak in the House.

One thing really struck me. Obviously committees are important for questions and answers and trying to uncover what happened at HRDC. But if anybody in the House or in the public believes that we will get to the truth of what happened at HRDC in terms of the internal audit and the findings that have come out of that and what happens at this point, they are badly mistaken. It is a very limited format. The deputy minister was there for a couple of hours. A member gets one or two questions. The limits of that format really prescribe that we will not get at the truth.

I wanted to say that because the Bloc Quebecois motion before us today calls for an independent public inquiry. As my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst has said, we in the NDP wholeheartedly support the motion. We have been calling for an independent public inquiry from day one, for the last six weeks when the issue first surfaced in the House. We believe that if the Canadian public is really to understand what has happened at HRDC and in fact to understand how government works and how these decisions are made, it will take an independent public inquiry to do that job, with the resources and scope, and unfettered by the rules of the committee and even what happens here in the House. We support the motion.

There is another very important reason for holding a public inquiry. We in the NDP philosophically have always strongly supported job development programs. We support the role of the government in intervening in the marketplace and trying to ensure that we bring about a greater equality in our society. The marketplace is the greatest instrument of inequality in the country. We believe very strongly that the purpose and role of government among other things is to provide an intervention and to use public funds and to say that job development is a legitimate use of public funds. We believe that.

What has happened in the last six weeks in the House has undermined that. If there is any question about that, just look at the Reform Party opposition day motion yesterday. What have Reformers been doing? They have been asking questions every day in the House about the HRDC scandal. They have chosen the path basically to undermine these programs and now even say that they want to divert moneys from other programs in the last federal budget and put them back into the Canada health and social transfer.

We have a very different view and perspective on the issue. We want to see public programs strengthened. We want to see these public programs have credibility.

The Liberals have played right into the hands of the Reform Party. Because of this scandal, because they have refused to come clean, they have played right into the hands of the Reform Party. Now there is a great public cynicism about any expenditure of public funds. Our job is to restore confidence. One way to do that is through a public inquiry.

What would a public inquiry do? Two key issues need to be looked at and as I said earlier, they will not be addressed in any parliamentary committee.

The first is administration. There is no question that the internal audit uncovered very sloppy practices. Paperwork was not done. Follow up was not done. Accounting was not done. There are the administrative issues in terms of what happens when the public service is cut back, what happens when people are thrown out of work and the work is loaded on to the remaining public servants. I think it was 5,000 people who were thrown out of their jobs at HRDC.

Issues in terms of the administration of the department, the accountability, the hierarchy, how those decisions were made are very important to get at because my guess is, and I think everybody in the House would agree, that what has happened at HRDC is probably a reflection of what goes on in other departments.

We are talking about a massive department. It is the single largest federal government department. If those problems were uncovered in a random internal audit, what else is there that needs to be dealt with and brought into line?

That would be the first major issue in terms of a public inquiry. It must look at the administrative questions in terms of this huge department that effected cutbacks and has sloppy administration and what needs to be done there.

The second issue and the reason for our support of the motion is to get at something that is a lot more difficult to examine. It has to be done very carefully and with a sense of good faith and genuine process. It is to look at the relationship of a parliament, a governing party and the bureaucracy. That is the political nature of the grants and contributions.

We are all elected representatives. We are political creatures. I have been involved in politics for 25 years. I understand politics. I know we are political people. We make political decisions. However something that happened at HRDC goes beyond that. I believe that billions of dollars were being used for a partisan political purpose. To me that goes beyond the line. The questions that have been raised in the House day after day have not been answered. That is another reason an independent public inquiry is needed.

We in the NDP want to know exactly what are the rules. I asked Mr. Cappe that a few minutes ago in the committee. The knowledge I have is that there is a huge variation in terms of how members of parliament were involved in these decisions. In some areas, and I would suggest Liberal dominated areas, the involvement of the members was massive and it was very politicized. In other areas it was much more of a staffing decision about the transitional jobs fund or other programs.

As one member of parliament I want to know that there are fair rules. I want to know that my riding or my colleague's riding of Winnipeg Centre are not being treated differently from a government member's riding because we are in opposition. It scares the hell out of me when we see what is coming out of the audit and the questions that have come up. We see the contradictions, the double standards, the different rules depending on where people are from and who they are. That is scandalous. We have got to get to the bottom of that.

Some members represent ridings that have very high unemployment, yet they did not qualify for transitional jobs funds. Why? We were told that the unemployment rate was not high enough, because the region we are part of, such as Vancouver or Winnipeg, did not have high enough unemployment. We said fine, if that was the rule we could live by that. Then we found out that in other areas exceptions were made. Fuzzy little pockets were created and somehow lots of money slipped into areas with much lower unemployment. Warning bells went off in my head when I heard that.

We want there to be clear rules. We want there to be an end to the politicization. We also want to get at some questions of where public funds should go. I heard the government member in response to my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst say that it is not a matter of who gets the money, it is the jobs that are created. I say that it is a matter of who gets the money.

I have big questions about why when we look at the 100 most profitable corporations in Canada 49 of them including the five major banks get public funds. Who is handing out what and to whom? That is the question. Why would we support a program that puts other businesses out of work? If some guy wants to create the sock company of the world and it turns out that he is putting every other poor little business person around him out of business, is that a good expenditure of public funds? I do not think so. There are some very major questions.

At the end of the day we represent the Canadian public. Canadians have a right to feel a level of confidence in the expenditure of their funds. It is our duty to be accountable in the House for those funds. It is the government's duty to be accountable.

I believe that only if there is an independent public inquiry will the public's confidence be restored in terms of HRDC and other departments and then we can move on. We support the motion. We call on the government to not let politics get in the way of this. Do the right thing and support an independent public inquiry.