Libby Davies

[Child Poverty, November 22nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, we are now just two days away from the 10th anniversary of the unanimous resolution of the House of Commons to eliminate child poverty and still we have heard no answers from the government, not even today.

Canadians are very, very concerned about this issue. I would like to ask the Minister of Finance what he intends to do now, not what has happened in the past, to face up to the horrible reality that as a result of his financial policies child poverty has increased by 50%. What does he intend to do to correct the situation and to deal with child poverty in this country?

[Child Poverty, November 22nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, November 20 was National Child Day and the 10th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. November 24 is also the 10th anniversary of the unanimous all-party resolution put forward by the then leader of the NDP, Ed Broadbent, to eliminate child poverty.

Here we are 10 years later and what progress is there? Just a few days ago we received a letter from three federal ministers telling us that the Government of Canada has taken a consistent approach in its efforts to improve opportunities for children and families. Who are they kidding?

Just last week 34 NGOs cited Canada for systematically violating seven articles of the UN convention. Child poverty has increased 50% since 1989. There has been an unrelenting attack on Canada's poor through EI cuts, the elimination of social housing, broken promises on national child care and denial of the child tax benefit to families on welfare. That is the real record of the Liberals and it has been consistent for sure.

Is it not ironic that the letter we received did not mention one word about the 1989 resolution?

[Rights Of Children, November 18th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, yet another report gives evidence that the government has failed Canada's children. Whether it is poverty, health or education, the Liberals get a failing grade.

Now we have to ask where the children with disabilities rate. They are at the bottom because Canada has failed in its obligation to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

My question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development. Why has the government not insisted that children with disabilities receive the services, support and rights to which they are entitled? Why has the government not done that job?

[Education, November 18th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, how many times have we heard the Liberal government say that education is an investment in the future, that youth must have opportunities and that the knowledge based economy is our salvation? Well, consider this. Students are worse off now than they ever were. Tuition fees have risen by 126% since 1990. Students are graduating into debt and poverty.

Let us make no mistake. Our public system of post-secondary education is in crisis because of the retreat of public funds, $7 billion since 1993. The privatization vultures are circling, waiting for their kill.

As on so many issues, Liberal talk is cheap. Indeed the federal government is now poised to place education on the WTO altar of corporation greed.

Our colleges and universities need help. Canadian students need help. Today we call on the government to defend public education, restore funding, lower the boom on tuition fees, establish a national grant system and make accessibility a new national standard.

[Petitions, November 17th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to present a petition containing 1,151 names to save independent community television.

The petition points out that the role of community channels should be to provide accessible and open use by the community and not at the favour of corporations.

The petition calls upon parliament to provide a legal definition of community television to ensure access to funds and full accessibility for community use and expression.

[Housing, November 17th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, today hundreds of people returned to Parliament Hill calling for immediate action to deal with poverty and homelessness. Is pepper spray the government's only response?

We are facing another winter of misery, hopelessness, sickness and death, but the federal government refuses to recognize housing as a human right.

Blame lies with the Liberal government for abandoning social housing. Blame lies with the Liberal government for passing the buck and abandoning its own promises made in 1999 to build affordable housing.

Right across the country, people are fighting for basic rights for housing, shelter and a living income. We say shame on the federal government for ignoring the plight of the most vulnerable people in our society. Shame on the federal government for stalling, delaying, shuffling and ignoring this critical issue.

The federal NDP has joined the campaign for 1% for housing and a national housing strategy. We will keep up our struggle in solidarity with homeless people and all Canadians in need of adequate housing until the injustice of homelessness is ended.

[Trade, November 16th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, global corporations are itching to profit from Canada's schools and hospitals. The federal government is poised for the first time ever to put health and education on the WTO table. Canadians do not buy that the trade minister can make it easier for wealthy investors to profiteer from health care and education without sacrificing our schools and hospitals. The trade minister cannot have his cake and eat it too.

Will he change his position and push for a complete carve out of health and education so that all countries can keep private corporations out of their schools and hospitals?

[Supply, November 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is the Liberal Government of Canada that is taking the people of Canada to the cleaners on this and other issues.

I note with interest that the member has not denied that Canada's position will be any deletion to the reference from the WTO that education serves as an instrument of promoting equality.

Very clearly there has been an admission that not only does the Canadian government's position mirror what the WTO has put forward, and we are taking the script from the bureaucrats in Geneva, but we are going beyond that. The member has not been able to deny that.

[Supply, November 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his comments.

I can state categorically that the NDP is the only federal political party that has consistently gone out with information about the MAI and the WTO. There were some parliamentary hearings on the MAI but I have to ask the question, why was that? It was because the people of Canada and organizations who were involved in uncovering what the Liberal members were doing demanded that the Liberals actually come clean, put the issue on the table and have a public debate.

It was as a result of pressure from the Canadian public that the Liberals finally had to acquiesce and agree that they had to provide some information. Exactly the same thing is taking place now at the WTO.

For example, does the public know, because the Liberals have not disclosed it, that on the section on the importance of education even the WTO paper states that education can play a role in reducing inequality? Do Canadians know that in the Canadian government paper any reference to this role of promoting equality is actually deleted? It has actually gone further than the WTO position which is bad enough in and of itself.

When we say that there has been no disclosure and this is being done in secrecy, that is exactly the case. It is not fearmongering. It is trying to get the information out to the Canadian public that the WTO agenda and what is unfolding there, and what the position of the Canadian government is, are extremely harmful to every notion we have on what it means to be Canadians. That is not fearmongering.

[Supply, November 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak in the House today in support of the opposition day motion from the NDP.

I will begin by quoting the first part of that motion because it really gets to the heart or the nub of the very important issue that we are debating today. It reads:

That, in the opinion of this House, this government has sabotaged Canadian democracy by pursuing a trade policy that gives excessive power to unelected and unaccountable international trade organizations and erodes the ability of Canada's elected representatives to act in the public interest;

I think that part of the motion really gets to the issue at hand. I wonder how many Canadians are aware that in a few weeks there will be massive negotiations taking place in Seattle at the end of this month. The Canadian government will be represented. It will be a closed door process. The issues that will be on the table are our services and the understanding of what we are as Canadians.

One of the very frightening things about the upcoming talks at the World Trade Organization is that very few people are aware of what will actually take place and what will be negotiated away by the Canadian government, allegedly on behalf of the Canadian people.

I even wonder whether Liberal members are aware of what will be negotiated. We have seen a pattern with this government, and certainly with the Progressive Conservative government before it, to deal with international trade relations, trade rules and trade liberalization in a way that is so secretive that actually citizen groups and individual Canadians have had to fight tooth and nail to even get any sense of disclosure about what is going on and to demand of the government that there be some kind of transparent process.

I would suggest that just as we have seen in the past with the negotiations that took place in secret under the multilateral agreement on investments, we should today be very concerned about what is now about to take place by the Canadian government at the WTO.

What are the issues that are before the WTO from the Canadian government's perspective? When we look at the issues that are on the table, alarm bells need to go off.

We have to understand that the WTO as an unelected, undemocratic government is putting together what is being called a new economic constitution for the planet. This economic constitution has been written by and is almost exclusively for the benefit of the world's largest corporations. That is the issue here.

Let us be very clear that the WTO aims to deregulate international trade. It is bad enough that we are moving into a global economy where rules about the environment, social equality, social conditions and social programs are completely thrown out the window. What is worse is that the upcoming talks at the WTO will further and pursue with vigour the agenda of deregulation and trade liberalization. The consequence of doing that is it will actually limit the capacity of our government and all elected governments to set public policy in the interests of citizens of whatever nation-state. That is the danger.

Is it any wonder that the Liberal government is so intent on keeping this process very secret and behind closed doors. The Liberals do not want the Canadian people to know what is unfolding, just as they did not want the Canadian people to know what was unfolding with the multilateral agreement on investment.

Let us be very clear. In today's world, multinational and transnational corporations control more than one-third of the world's productive assets. We have arrived at the point where national and regional boundaries are almost meaningless. It is an environment where the role of the government has shifted from dealing with national issues to working at an international level. The role of government has become one of serving a market ideology. That is what we have arrived at.

If we ask most Canadians what they want from their government, they would say that they want to make sure that their government is operating honestly and openly. I think most Canadians would say that they want to make sure that there is a health care system that they can use, that there are good schools that their kids can go to, that there are adequate, safe and secure places to live and that they have a society that respects the environment. That is what most Canadians see as the role of government.

In the last decade we have seen a fundamental shift in the role of government. It has gone from dealing with public policy on the basis of what is in the public interest and the public good to public policy that is devoted to serving the market ideology in the pursuit of a globalized economy where nation rights are given over to multinational corporations.

The motion speaks to the very heart of democracy and sovereignty for Canada. It is about establishing who should make the decisions about our future. Is it the people of Canada and our elected governments or is it multinational corporations?

There is no question that the Liberal government approach to the upcoming WTO meeting in Seattle shows where it is at. It appears to be wholeheartedly in favour of embracing the agenda of the multinationals. What is on the line? I think there is more and more research that would give evidence to show that what is on the line is health care and our other social programs, the survival of family farms, our right to establish strong standards of environmental protection, our cultural institutions and now for the first time, our education system.

As the education spokesperson for the NDP, I want to focus for a few minutes on education. For the first time in the history of negotiations, Canada is allowing education to be put on the table at the upcoming WTO hearings. The Liberal government has completely abandoned Canada's traditional view that there should be exemptions for education in international trade negotiations. This is a very serious and disturbing departure for Canada.

In fact, the former trade minister said that Canada would seek to completely carve out health care and education under the MAI. Today apparently the position has changed. Education is now apparently being dictated directly by the WTO secretariat on educational services.

This is moving us in a direction where students and education are treated as commodities, where students are nothing more than consumers. The very core and accessibility of our educational services are being threatened. We have to be very concerned about this.

It could mean, for example, that foreign for profit educational institutions would have a guaranteed right to operate in Canada. It could mean that governments could not require them to hire local educators. It could mean that requirements of educational professionals and institutions would be subjected to WTO review. It could mean that government subsidies of any kind, including student loans and grants, would have to be given out on a non-discriminatory basis to public and private providers.

The Liberals claim that the risk to public education is very minimal and that only education supplied on a commercial basis will be impacted. The WTO secretariat itself has pointed out that commercial basis has not even been defined. What is at issue here is that the separation between what is public and what is private becomes very unclear.

Today's motion is very important. We in the NDP have brought it forward because we want to alert the Canadian public as to what is unfolding on the upcoming WTO hearings.

I am from Vancouver East in British Columbia. Massive organizing is going on among student organizations, groups like the Council of Canadians and the labour movement. They are extremely concerned about these hearings. They want to say to the government that placing the market ideology and the interests of transnational corporations above the interests of the people of Canada and what we should be doing as a democratically elected government is a very dangerous course and must be stopped.

The Conservative member said that we need rules based trade. The question is, for whom? We need rules based on public interest and a common good, not deregulation based on the super profits of multinational corporations.