Libby Davies

[Restoring Rail Service Act, May 29th, 2012]

They may clap, but this is an example of another private pension scheme that helps virtually no one but the big financial institutions.

Where is the public interest that is being upheld? Does it lie at the corporate boardroom table and the profit margins of a profitable company like CPR, or does it lie with making sure that there is a level playing field and that the collective bargaining process is given a fair chance to work?

The public interest is also about ensuring safety on our rail lines. I find it astounding that we have a Conservative government that purports to uphold safety and indeed continually seeks to divide our society into the simplistic division of criminals versus victims, yet when it comes to the safety of workers it is willing to use the sledgehammer of back-to-work legislation to uphold corporate interests and not something as basic as the safety issues that these CPR workers are facing.

I would like to reference the government's own Fatigue Management Plans: Requirements and Assessment Guidelines revised in March 2011, which spells out, and I quote:

Transport Canada recognizes that fatigue is one of the most critical safety issues facing the railway industry today. There is no doubt that fatigue has a detrimental impact on human performance and safety. While solutions to fatigue exist, there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution, which will easily solve all fatigue-related problems. One counter measure alone is not enough, nor is the sole reliance on legislated maximum hours of work.

This is a significant issue for these railway workers who are on strike, this issue of safety and fatigue, and I would argue that it definitely represents a broad public interest in maintaining and strengthening the safety of our rail system. The employees of CPR hold enormous responsibility for the safe transport of goods and people across the vast network of lines across Canada.

Does the minister even know what these basic issues are about? We know from the workplace that employees in freight service are called by phone to work on a two-hour notice. Employees are on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There are no traditional days off. Until called the employees are often unaware of their destinations or when they will return home, and employees can be away from home for up to 36 hours.

The union proposal is designed to allow employees the opportunity to have two consecutive nights in bed twice a month. That is their proposal, and it is certainly in line with the government's own report guidelines.

Surely this is a fair and significant issue for these workers, yet it and other issues get swallowed up and quashed by the heavy-handed approach of the government. When we see a government in a headlong sprint to legislate back to work not once, not twice, but three times, we can only conclude it has no respect for collective bargaining and the important role unions play in our society. If at every opportunity the Conservatives choose legislation over proper process, if at every opportunity they seek to divide people and to scapegoat unions as we have seen their members do with Bill C-377, we can only conclude, contrary to what the minister says, that they do not represent the public interest. In fact, they despise any—

[Restoring Rail Service Act, May 29th, 2012]

Madam Chair, the first thing I would like to note at this late hour is that this is the 25th time that debate on a bill in this House has been squashed and shut down. This is an affront and an offence to all parliamentarians, and the first thing I want say is shame on the government for yet again trying to shut down debate on a very important matter in the House of Commons here in the Canadian Parliament.

I heard earlier, in the drive-by second reading debate, I might call it, that the minister said the government is only interested in intervening where the public interest is threatened. Let us take a look at what the public interest is really about and what the Conservative government is actually supporting.

CPR is a profitable private corporation. Its net income profit in 2011 was $570 million. In fact, the last four shareholder dividends have been the highest in the last 30 years. What is really interesting, though, is that the CPR board of directors, in a recent shakeup as a result of American-based hedge funds, is now moving in. We all know how much it represents the public interest. I would like to place a wager that this shakeup had only one goal, that being to increase the shareholders' return or profits by seeking to extract the maximum value they could. As is so often the case in these money grabs, someone else had to pay and it is no surprise to learn that in this case, as in many other cases, it is the employees of CPR.

Unfortunately, it is no surprise either that the employer is making a beeline for the hard-earned pensions of these workers. I would like to give a couple of examples of that. This is what some of the demands of CPR will mean for workers in that company.

A 50-year old employee with 30 years' employment in CPR will lose $9,000 every year. A 50-year old locomotive engineer with 30 years service who lives and works in British Columbia, who has 5 years left to work before being able to retire, will see his pension reduced by $9,000 every year, should CPR be successful in its demands. This worker has invested his entire adult life into this career. He is preparing to retire and has absolutely no alternative to replace the pensionable income that CPR wants to take away from him. This worker has paid a higher contribution than at any other railway company. He has paid for his pension benefit and now the government, through its actions, will advantage the employer in its efforts to extract a significant concession from working Canadians at CPR.

Here is another example. A 40-year old employee with 20 years of employment at CPR will stand to lose $27,000 a year. A 30-year old employee with 10 years of employment at CPR will stand to lose more than $30,000 every year.

Members can begin to see the very real impact of what this employer is trying to do to its workers in taking away their hard-earned pensions.

Sadly, CPR is not alone in its haste and enthusiasm to rob Canadians of their hard-earned pensions. It has a powerful ally in the Conservative government, which is leading the way in destroying income security programs for Canadians. How ironic that only today Parliament debated Bill C-25, the pooled registered pension plans act at third reading, yet another—

[Prime Minister's Office, May 29th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, last Thursday during a meeting with his constituents, the member for Kootenay—Columbia offered Canadians a sobering glimpse into the life of a Conservative backbencher.

He described how Conservative MPs were powerless to stand up for their constituents and admitted that he could not explain the details of the Conservative's Trojan Horse budget bill.

I remember a time when Conservatives allowed dissent, a time when that Prime Minister promised to give backbenchers a real voice, back in the forgotten days when they claimed to stand for the grassroots and believed in democratic reform.

Now the Conservative PMO silences dissenting voices—not just scientists and the media, but even their own members. Last week's heavy-handed overreaction by the PMO is bad for Canadian democracy.

How can Canadians trust that this Prime Minister will listen to their concerns when he is not even willing to listen to the concerns of his own MPs?

[Petitions, May 28th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to present pages and pages of petitions from people in east Vancouver and metro Vancouver who are very concerned about changes to the old age security system.

The petitioners point out that approximately 5 million Canadians receive OAS and when that is combined with the 1.7 million seniors receiving GIS, this will have a huge impact on people's incomes.

The petitioners call on Parliament to reject the changes to the age of eligibility for OAS, to increase the OAS and GIS to end seniors' poverty and to ensure that retirement benefits are indexed to the real cost of living.

[Employment Insurance, May 17th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are all over the map on this.

We have the Minister of Finance who compares his summer jobs at school to unemployed teachers looking for work, while the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development thinks EI is too lucrative.

One day the Conservatives are holding focus groups about encouraging people to relocate, and the next thing they are up in the House denying it.

EI belongs to the people who paid into it, not the Conservatives. Why will it not table its plans in this House for everybody to see?

[Employment Insurance, May 17th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, employees pay into EI in good faith, but under the Conservatives fewer than 40% even qualify, and they want to restrict the rules even more.

The Conservatives claim they have no plans to force Canadians to choose between EI eligibility and relocating to other parts of the country. We know now the idea was not only being discussed, it was also focus-grouped.

Canadians deserve to know the truth. Will the minister table all of the planned changes to EI in this House?

[Petitions, May 16th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to present yet more petitions, about 50 pages of petitions, from residents in the metro Vancouver area.

The petitioners want to draw our attention to the fact that every year hundreds of thousands of dogs and cats are brutally slaughtered for their fur in a number of Asian regions. They point out that Canada should join the U.S.A., Australia and the European Union in banning the import and sale of dog and cat fur. They also ask that it be mandatory that all fur products being imported or sold in Canada have labelling identifying the species of origin.

[Copyright Modernization Act, May 15th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, the member's comment is very interesting. I know what he is getting at. He knows the arguments that are going to be thrown back at those of us who voted against the bill. We are going to be told we are against artists or consumers, as we have seen time and time again with the crime bill and other legislation. Unfortunately, that has become the pattern in the House. He is trying to pre-empt that kind of attack.

Of course we support consumers. Of course we support the creators. The member is entirely correct. This debate is about trying to make a bill the best it can be. There is a very strong feeling in the House and among the experts that this bill is not at that point. We would have a lot of difficulty with this legislation; there would be some long-term consequences that we would have to address.

[Copyright Modernization Act, May 15th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands has been very involved in this debate and has spoken out. I certainly will be looking at those amendments. We have worked very hard to try to mitigate the worst aspects of this bill.

If this bill passes, as it likely will given the makeup of the House, one has to wonder about the impact it would have, not only on consumers but also on artists. We had better be prepared to evaluate this bill. There would be long-term consequences that would need to be redressed. That is very unfortunate because it could have been fixed now. I thank the member for bringing forward concrete, specific measures that would actually deal with some of the worst aspects of this bill. That is what we are here to do. I know the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands has done everything she can.

[Copyright Modernization Act, May 15th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, here is another opportunity to speak on the bill. I know the bill has been recycled a number of times. I think its earliest life actually came when the Liberals were in power. In fact, they laid the groundwork for the copyright bill we are dealing with today. In fact, I think my hon. colleague across the way mentioned this. This is possibly about the third time the bill has come forward, which to me is a very good example of why sometimes we need to have a thorough examination of legislation; in this particular case, the copyright legislation.

This is a very technical bill. I would be the first to say that I am certainly not an expert on this issue. I know that some of my colleagues have been really drilling down into this legislation to examine what exactly is involved, who wins, who loses and whether or not there is a balance. We have heard time and again from the Conservative members who have quoted the numbers, the level of consultation. Consultation is very important, especially on a bill that is so wide in its scope and would affect so many different sectors, from very large corporations to individual artists to consumers. There is a very wide spectrum of people who would be affected. Those consultations are very important. I certainly would not deny that.

However, I think at the end of the day, we do have a fundamental question. Will Canadians have copyright legislation that would actually work for them? Is this the right balance that has been found?

I want to thank my colleagues on the committee who have worked so hard on the bill. In fact, not only did they work on the committee but they travelled across the country, as well, and heard from many individual Canadians and experts. We have had an enormous amount of feedback on the bill. In my own community of east Vancouver, which is home to many artists, I have had a lot of feedback on the bill.

Here we are, now, at the final stages of the bill and, unfortunately, that basic question is still before the House. Is this the right balance among consumers, creators and royalties, and would it unfairly kind of roll over to providing much greater support and a green light to some of the very large players?

As many of my colleagues before me have said today, on this side of the House we believe, having now gone through committee, having posed many amendments to try to mitigate some of the worst aspects of the bill, that here we are now at the final stages and the bill, unfortunately, does not strike the right balance.

In fact, I would say it appears that all the attempts that have been made at copyright reform in recent years have had very little to do, in reality, with creating a regime that would balance the rights of creators and the public. Rather, it has been more about satisfying the demands of U.S. large content owners, and by that I mean the movie studios, the music labels, the video game developers et cetera. These are all things that are very pervasive in our culture, in our society. One only has to look at a younger generation to see how incredibly powerful these various cultural products are in our society. We could have a whole other debate about the ups and downs of that.

However, we are very concerned that the bill is tilted toward satisfying the demands of those very large players. In fact, I was very surprised to read that, as a result of WikiLeaks' cables, there was even information about how the former minister's staff used influence and tried to generate a whole scene of pressure in the U.S. to put pressure on Canada to bring in a bill and to get this moving along.

I think that is just the tip of the iceberg. It is a revelation that shows us that powerful interests are involved in this issue of copyright, and who wins and who loses is very significant. Therefore, the fact that the bill has taken a long time and that it is now back in the House, I think, is a reflection of the complexities of that debate. There were many witnesses at committee who came forward to express their concerns.

Our concern is that the bill essentially gives with one hand while it takes away with the other. While we certainly acknowledge that there are some concessions for consumers, the reality is when we weigh it up that they are undermined by the government's refusal to compromise on what is probably the single most controversial aspect of the bill, the digital lock provisions.

The example I gave in questions and comments, as have other colleagues, is long distance education. Under the provisions, people would have to get rid of their school notes after 30 days. To us, this seems to be a very heavy-handed approach.

In fact, at committee, NDP members proposed deleting sections of the bill that would criminalize Canadians who, in breaking digital locks for non-commercial use in the normal course of work or school, would be penalized under the provisions of the bill. That is a pretty unfair element of the bill, which has not been resolved even though there were many attempts to bring forward amendments to resolve it.

I want to segue a moment because, as I said, the bill has a very broad scope in terms of the number of people it impacts. The colleague from the Conservative Party earlier spoke about the budget implementation bill. I think she said that the Conservatives are growing the economy, and that made me think about what is really going on in this House. On the one hand we have this budget implementation bill that would fundamentally change many different regimes, whether it be environmental regulations and protections or health care. One of the changes involves EI. This is something that would have an impact on artists.

It is quite astounding to know that The Conference Board of Canada estimated that the cultural sector in Canada generates approximately $25 billion in taxes for all levels of government. That was from 2007 and presumably it might be higher now. However, that is three times higher than what was actually spent on culture by all levels of government. What was spent was $7.9 billion, but $25 billion was collected.

The median income of an artist in Canada was just under $12,900; not the average but median, which is a much more realistic comparison. I represent a community where we have an incredible diversity of artists, most of whom have other jobs to support themselves, in the service sector, restaurants or maybe at home, but they are creators. They are people who contribute enormously to our society, our local communities, our history, our culture and our understanding of the experiences we all have.

It was very interesting to hear the member across the way talk about the budget implementation bill as it relates to the copyright bill and say it is all about growing the economy. This is a bill that would actually penalize and limit the scope of artists in this country. When we look at what their income is and how much they struggle, it should very much concern us.

At the end of the day we took a hard shot at this bill. We really worked in good faith because there are some elements that are adequate, but mostly there are not. I know that our folks on the committee tried to find ways to bring forward amendments. However, if it was like our health committee, anything that we proposed automatically got shut down, which in and of itself is an affront to democratic practice. Unfortunately, that has become the practice in this place.

We are still opposed to this bill because the balance has not been found. It is still tilted in favour of the really big players.