Libby Davies

[Petitions, December 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition that expresses concern about refugees being left in limbo after they have been declared convention refugees.

The petition signed by 280 Canadians calls on the government to ensure that refugees are not forced to wait more than two years for landed status.

[Poverty, December 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the Deputy Prime Minister crows about the government's care of the poor but the UN committee knows the real story and has slammed the government for an unconscionable level of poverty and homelessness and for the living conditions of aboriginal people. It also slams Canada for its evasiveness. Rather than boasting about what is really a terrible record, is the Deputy Prime Minister proud of the fact that Canada will be the first wealthy nation to violate this important international covenant?

[Division No. 298, December 3rd, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak again to Bill C-43. The member for Winnipeg Centre said that this bill is like a Trojan horse. I echo his comments and the comments of other members of opposition parties who are very united in their concern about and opposition to this bill. It is a sad day for parliament. We faced a closure vote this morning and we can see that this bill is being rushed through by a slim government majority.

There are questions that need to be asked on behalf of the Canadian people. What is the imperative for having this bill in the first place? What is the imperative for rushing this bill through the House by forcing a vote to meet the government's interests? Those questions have not been answered. That should concern Canadians because the subject of Bill C-43 is the creation of a new, privatized mega agency. That should concern every Canadian and every member of this House.

In the past two years during which this proposal has been contemplated a massive sales job has been undertaken by the minister, by the government and by senior bureaucrats to try to sign people onto the proposal. We see today that as of yet not a single province has signed onto the agency. The reality is that there is not a single binding letter of intent from any province to sign onto this new agency.

We have heard from those who work at Revenue Canada. They know what this agency would do, what its problems would be and presumably what should be done. We have also heard from the professional sector and even from the auditor general. From this we can see that there are problems.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Bill C-43 is not the answer. We have raised this continually in the House. In fact, Bill C-43 is taking us completely in the wrong direction.

As my colleague from Winnipeg Centre has pointed out, Bill C-43 will amount to what is probably the largest act of privatization that this government has undertaken. We are looking at the transfer of something like 20% of public service workers. Forty thousand people will be affected by this transfer.

Many of us have heard some of the concerns that have been expressed by the people who work at Revenue Canada. I really believe that their concerns should not be taken lightly. In fact, we should be listening very closely to the issues that have been raised.

What are the issues? First, there is the issue of privatization. I believe that the government has not yet made the case to the provinces, to the House of Commons, or to the Canadian people as to why this privatization should take place. There are very serious concerns about the lack of accountability that will be caused by setting up a super agency that will not have the same kind of relationship with members of parliament that we have seen in the past.

We have to remember that we are talking about one of the core functions of the Canadian government, a function that sometimes people rail against and get upset about, the collection of revenue and taxes. Nevertheless, it is very much a core function. For that very reason I believe that it is incumbent upon us to fight tooth and nail to make sure that this parliament retains a relationship and accountability with this core service instead of allowing it to be let loose, allowing it to be privatized.

Information that came out recently in the auditor general's report is actually very damning about the bill which is before us today. Some of the comments that the auditor general made in his report about Revenue Canada, in particular about the international tax directorate, tell us that only 52% of the directorate's staff at Revenue Canada headquarters are in permanent positions. The auditor general goes on to say that “Because of the complexity and significance of international tax issues, we are concerned that frequent staff movements may prevent the directorate from maintaining the experience and skill levels required to provide an appropriate level of service to taxpayers and to manage the risks to the tax base that are inherent in international transactions”.

The auditor general continues in his conclusions and recommendations to state:

If parliament approves the establishment of the proposed new Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, the Department will become a separate employer and assume most of the responsibility for human resource management currently shared with central agencies. In the absence of a comprehensive human resource plan and strategies linked to the Directorate's business plan, the establishment of the new agency will not in itself resolve the problems outlined in this chapter.

He goes on to say: “It is important that the analysis, planning and implementation of needed human resource initiatives be carried out as soon as possible”.

I think this is a very serious issue that has been raised. We have been told by the government, as it tries to sell this new super agency to parliament, to the Canadian people and, indeed, to the provinces, that we will see increased efficiencies, that we will see improvements, that we will have a better service and so on. However, it should concern us when we see this information coming from the auditor general.

We find out that there has been a high turnover in staff and that, in actual fact, Revenue Canada has lost billions of dollars in revenue because it has not been able to attract the kind of personnel at a very high level to do the very complex audits which must be carried out.

This issue, which was been flagged as far back as 1991 and again in 1996 by the auditor general, has simply not been addressed by Bill C-43. In actual fact the government has lost a potential $2.5 billion to $3 billion in revenue since 1995 because it has refused to pay adequate salaries to attract the highly trained professionals who would perform these very complex audits. This year alone we lost a potential $1 billion in tax revenues from some of the largest corporations because these audits have not been carried out with sufficient frequency because the personnel is lacking. Even Revenue Canada has acknowledged that it has lost about $500 million in tax revenues in the Toronto area alone because of the shortage of 500 tax auditors.

This is directly related to the obsession of the government with cutting the public service, cutting out these kinds of key positions and now it is going further down the slippery slope toward privatization where we as members of the House will have less and less control and accountability over what this agency does.

The opposition has tried to put forward amendments to prevent this bill from going forward which is a reflection of the increasing and mounting concern around the proposal of the government to move in this direction and to ram this proposal through.

Again I say to the minister and to the government if this proposal is so good and so beneficial then why is it that not a single province has signed on. The answer is that we know there has not been a sign-on because there are serious questions that have not been answered. It is time for the government to acknowledge that the bill should be stopped and reviewed . We should return to what the auditor general said and look at the real issues and address the problems contained within the department.

[Child Poverty, November 24th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the minister should take his head out of the sand. Each time he is questioned on poverty he says that the child tax benefit scheme is the cure-all, but the truth is that most kids on welfare will gain nothing from this scheme and many of the poorest children will receive less in real dollars than they did in 1984.

While the government dines on rubber chicken at Liberal fundraisers, more than a million kids are waking up hungry. Half of them have been pushed into poverty during this government's term.

Again, will the minister keep the promise that was made in 1989?

[Child Poverty, November 24th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the finance minister. Today is the anniversary of the all-party motion to eradicate child poverty by the year 2000. Shamefully we are one year away, but farther than ever from reaching that goal.

What does the finance minister do? He has the gall to stand up at a Liberal fundraising bash and call child poverty a national disgrace. It is his policies that are a disgrace. Six billion dollars in cuts have forced more than half a million more kids into poverty. Where is the real commitment, backed up by real dollars and not empty promises?

[Division No. 276, November 23rd, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to follow up on a question I put to the government earlier in November.

I asked the Deputy Prime Minister if the government was planning to redefine the way poverty is measured in Canada. I have to say that the response I received was very pathetic. Rather than address the very serious question about changing the low income cutoff for the definition of how we measure poverty in Canada, the government fell back on its usual line which was to say that its commitment to eradicate poverty was nothing more than the child tax benefit.

Every single time members of the opposition have raised in the House the issue about the growth in child poverty and the growth in poverty in Canada, we have had the same response from the government, that $850 million has been committed to the child tax benefit. If any member of the government took the time to examine the statistics, the facts and the record about what really has happened with the child tax benefit, they would know that the reality is that the poorest of children received less benefit from the child tax benefit in 1997 than they did in 1984.

The only families whose support has increased are the working poor with incomes roughly between $10,000 or $25,000. I point this out because it shows the hypocrisy of the government program. It purports to be concerned about child poverty but the child tax benefit falls far, far short of helping the poorest Canadians, the poorest children. They are worse off than they were in 1984.

In debating this issue briefly tonight, we should recognize that tomorrow is the anniversary of the unanimous resolution in the House of Commons in 1989 to eradicate child poverty by the year 2000. The sad reality is that in Canada not only have we not made any progress but the situation has deteriorated.

To make matters worse, there are suggestions that the government is looking to change how it defines poverty. It reminds me of a statement made by a social policy consultant, Mr. Shillington, who said to beware of those who would address child poverty by discussing its definition rather than its root causes.

The question is still before us. We have not yet had an answer. Is the Liberal government planning behind closed doors to look at a redefinition of how we measure poverty in Canada?

The reason for bringing this up is that at the finance committee on October 14, the Liberal member for Mississauga South asked the finance minister “Do you believe the government should redefine or define in the first instance true poverty in Canada, true poverty where we are talking about food, clothing and shelter?” The response from the finance minister in part was “I think it would be quite helpful in fact to have a definition of poverty that is not a relative definition of poverty”.

That sends out huge warning signs that the government is looking at redefining the way it measures poverty. It really begs the question—

[Canadian Human Rights Act, November 17th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House to support Bill S-11, an act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act, in order to add social condition as a prohibitive ground of discrimination.

I express my thanks to Senator Cohen who worked very long and hard to raise this issue not only in the Senate but in Canadian society. Senator Cohen has done a lot of very good work including producing an excellent report on poverty in Canada. I also thank the member for Shefford who has brought this bill from the Senate into the House for debate.

In March the chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission said: “Poverty is a serious breach of equality rights which I believe has no place in a country as prosperous as ours. Human rights are indivisible. Economic and social rights cannot be separated from political, legal or equality rights. It is now time to recognize poverty as a human rights issue here at home as well”. She said this in her annual report to parliament in 1998.

The commissioner is saying what we know from our own experience and what I know from my own riding of Vancouver East, that poverty is one of the greatest barriers to equality in Canada. There is no question when we look at what is happening around us that poor people are losing their rights. Discrimination is growing. We are witnessing a growing homelessness that is now at crisis proportions in Canada. There is an increasing environment of poor bashing. We are seeing municipal bylaws that are discriminatory against poor people such as anti-pan handling bylaws.

There is a growing environment in this country where there is increasing discrimination against poor people.

All of that is contrary to the universal declaration of human rights. It has been very interesting to hear members from the Liberal Party and the Reform Party talk about how this bill and the idea of a prohibited ground based on social conditions is too difficult for us to deal with.

We can always find reasons not to do something. But the fact is we all know in our hearts that poor people do face vicious discrimination. We need the political will to say it should be a prohibited ground as we do in provincial legislation so it is not an issue that there will be too much litigation or it is too difficult, too complex. It already exists as a legal entity, as a legal ground. We are now saying this should be included in Canadian human rights.

What I want to focus on is real point here, that the greatest source of discrimination against poor people in Canada comes from government policy. Yes, there is discrimination by landlords, banks, businesses, services and even in our general attitudes and stereotypes about poor people. But there is no question that the greatest discrimination is from public policy.

Yesterday and today in Geneva representatives from NAPO and anti-poverty groups are briefing UN officials on Canada's hypocrisy when it comes to dealing with poverty. This deals with the UN covenant on economic, social and cultural rights which Canada was a signatory to in 1976.

The anti-poverty groups are meeting with a UN committee to expose what has been Canada's blatant disregard for the covenant as we now are seeing in this growing environment of discrimination against poor people.

I think it is interesting to note that this is not the first time that anti-poverty groups have had to appear as witnesses to the UN committee to point out what is happening in Canada.

In 1993 NAPO and the charter committee on poverty issues went to the UN committee and exposed the extent of Canada's shocking non-compliance with the UN covenant. This is where we really get to the heart of discrimination and what is happening with growing poverty in Canada.

I would like to talk about some of the things that have taken place. We could go back to 1989, to a good day in the House of Commons when the House unanimously passed a resolution to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000, something all members stood up and voted for and it was a very noble gesture. What happened?

In 1993 the federal government abandoned social housing, one of the key issues that determined health and poverty in this country. In 1995 we saw the loss of the Canada assistance plan that had laid out basic rights and conditions in terms of social entitlement.

In 1996 we saw the era of the Canada health and social transfer that abandoned and eliminated those universal rights in Canada and for the first time saw a massive downloading and slashing of social programs that were now up to $6 billion or $7 billion that has affected the most vulnerable people in society.

This brings us to 1998. This discrimination is still going on and I believe it is the worst form of discrimination, discrimination by government and public policy. The child tax benefit discriminates against the poorest families in Canada by denying people and families on welfare the right to the child tax benefit. That is discrimination, something that should be outlawed if we had social conditions in the human rights act.

We only have to look at the EI cutbacks to see another form of discrimination. I think it really begs the question why the government is reluctant to support this amendment.

I went back into the records to see what kinds of positions have been taken by Liberal members in previous years and I came across a very interesting quote in Hansard of May 1993. This is what a Liberal member had to say with regard to the UN covenant on social, economic and cultural rights: “The UN, hardly an enemy of Canada, says that the government record on child poverty, on homelessness and on food banks is deplorable. We live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world yet we are condemned internationally because the Conservative government has disregarded the reality of poverty”.

That was a statement by the Liberal member for Hamilton East in May 1993. The same members who are now part of the government have systematically created policies and programs that have discriminated against poor people and have increased poverty in Canada.

There is no question that our goal and why we should support the bill as a very important step is that we should be working together to end discrimination on the basis of social condition. It is very important to say that is not enough. Our goal must also be to force the federal government to set concrete targets to eliminate poverty and homelessness.

As pointed out by my colleague in the Bloc, if we eliminate the conditions of poverty, elevate people out of poverty, provide jobs, housing and social support, we are meeting the goals and targets we should have.

The greatest challenge for us is to get governments, not just the Liberal government but all governments, to examine their record and acknowledge their policies which have quite deliberately and consciously created increased poverty in Canada.

This is not an issue of individual poor people who are to blame, although they often are. We only have to look at workfare programs as yet another form of discrimination. It is the years of slashing social programs and of scapegoating poor people that has brought us to where we are today.

We have an opportunity in the House today to do the right thing and to say that social condition is something that can work. We can join together like we did in 1989 with the resolution to eliminate child poverty. We can say that social condition should be a prohibited ground of discrimination and should be in the Canadian Human Rights Act. We can do the right thing. I ask my colleagues to think seriously about the issue, join us and vote for the bill.

[Social Rights, November 17th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, Canada's anti-poverty groups are in Geneva today briefing UN officials on Canada's utter disregard for the conventions of the UN covenant on social, economic and cultural rights, a covenant that calls on government to work to ensure basic social rights like the rights of shelter and adequate nutrition.

Anyone committed to social justice now awaits what is sure to be a devastating UN rebuke. The central government has become adept at ignoring the cries of outrage emanating from within Canada's borders. The question is when that condemnation comes from the UN will it still be ignored.

We in the NDP are calling on the finance minister to commit today to using the $10 billion budget surplus, a product of his continued attacks on the poor, to at least meet the basic requirements agreed to in the UN covenant.

[Apec Summit, November 16th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, at the APEC summit this week Canada has an opportunity to support the Malaysian people in their struggle for democracy as was shown by U.S. Vice-President Al Gore.

It is clear that rapid trade and investment liberalization at the expense of human rights, labour standards and democracy are treacherous.

Will the Minister of Finance commit to controls to curb the volatility and damage of international capital and focus Canada's support on sustainable development and democracy?

[First Nations Land Management Act, November 6th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to the comments of my colleague from the Reform Party. I have been trying to understand what their position is having listened now to the debate for several hours and hearing various members of the Reform Party debate Bill C-49.

On the one hand members of the Reform Party purport to support aboriginal self-government and management of their lands and yet it seems that every single member has risen to nitpick this bill apart, tear it apart and say that because it is not a perfect situation this will go down in flames.

The member has talked about the need for democratic elections and has questioned that this bill has no constitutional basis for aboriginal government. I would like to question the member on that.

For example, today we know that in the vote taking place on the Nisga'a referendum there will be provision for a democratically elected government.

I would like to query the member on his basis for claiming that there is no constitutional basis for the establishment of aboriginal government. It seems all members of the House and all governments have a responsibility to recognize the inherent self-right to government by aboriginal people.

When the member talks about his concerns for women and children in first nation communities I advise the member to look to his own party in terms of its representation of women as being among the lowest of any political party in Canada. I find it curious that he would be raising this issue when within his own organization the issues of women and the representation of women are very low, something that should be of concern to them.

I would like to ask the member to really be clear as to whether his party stands for aboriginal self-government. What is the Reform Party position? It seems to me Reformers are trying to talk out of both sides of their mouths on this question.

At the end of the day this framework is before us that has been negotiated in a fair and open process. The first nations involved have endorsed this process. I find it very difficult to understand the Reform Party's position that while it says it supports self-government there is really nothing in this bill it finds worthy of support. It seems to be a contradiction.