Libby Davies

[Secure, Adequate, Accessible and Affordable Housing Act, October 20th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the fact is that the budget allocation of $1.5 billion was very key in ensuring a distribution across the country that some housing could be built. I know in British Columbia the small number that we did see actually came from Bill C-48, as we so well remember.

One thing that we have to remember is that when we have those transfers, we also need to have transparency because it is sometimes very hard to track where that money went. So again, part of a national strategy is to ensure that there is accountability. People want to know that housing dollars are going to housing. They want to know that it is actually getting into local communities. This has been one of the problems we have had with the economic stimulus money that, as we have heard from the government, is meant to go to housing. However, it is very difficult to track where it is ending up and whether or not the housing is being built.

The key thing is we need an ongoing commitment. The $1.5 billion from that particular budget that the NDP was responsible for, we were very proud of that, but we want to see a program and a strategy that moves us forward in terms of a decade or more. We want to see a continuity in the housing supply and housing development, so that we do not fall into these deep crises in local communities where people end up not knowing where to go and what to do.

That is what we have to avoid. Bill C-48 was a good place to start. We have to now continue moving forward.

[Secure, Adequate, Accessible and Affordable Housing Act, October 20th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is entirely right and that study in British Columbia showed the economics of what is before us. I would also like to reiterate my thanks to the members of the Liberal Party who have supported the bill, both in committee and in other ways. I know they have had a keen interest to move the bill forward. I am very appreciative of that as I know many of the organizations are.

The fact is there has been so much research that has been done on housing issues to show what the astounding cost is of homelessness, both in terms of the impact on individuals, their lives and families, and local communities, but also the impact economically. The report the member cites from B.C. and others across the country show us that the cost of not housing people properly is enormous both socially and economically. This is something that we should pay attention to.

I have another report from SPARC B.C. and the CCPA B.C. office that shows that in B.C. alone there are more than 13,000 people on the waiting list. There are about 11,000 people who are absolutely homeless. The numbers are just staggering when we go community by community and it is a growing problem. We can look at this through the lens of human compassion. We can look at it through the lens of human rights. We can look at it through the lens of an economic cost. On all three counts it is clear that we need to do something much more and move forward on the bill.

[Secure, Adequate, Accessible and Affordable Housing Act, October 20th, 2010]

moved that the bill be read the third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak at third reading stage of Bill C-304, An Act to ensure secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing for Canadians.

There has been tremendous support for this bill right across the country. Yesterday on Parliament Hill many folks came out with their red tents. They were taking part in a campaign organized by the red tent campaign to end homelessness in Canada. Rallies were held yesterday in Halifax, Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, and right across the country. The reason was because people know that there is a housing crisis in this country, whether in large cities or smaller communities.

Anybody involved in the housing business, average people on the street, will tell us about people they know who are homeless. They will tell us about families they know who are paying 50% or 60% of their income in rent. They cannot find an affordable place to live. They will tell us about people who are threatened with eviction.

About three million Canadians live in what we call housing insecurity. One of the reasons we have this predicament is because we do not have a national strategy and a national framework around affordable housing in this country.

Canada has had a history of good housing programs, but many of those programs have been lost. I do not want to go into the history of that today because we do not have time.

Suffice it to say that the efforts that we have made have been piecemeal. Even the money in the last budget that was related to the recession was only one time stimulus money for housing and that money is not getting into the local communities. There has been a real vacuum in this country. There has been a social deficit around a housing plan. People understand that.

This bill is very straightforward and clear. It calls on the federal government, in partnership with the provinces, the territories, first nations, municipalities and stakeholders, to develop a strategy that could take us forward and move us into a situation where we have a real plan with objectives, targets, outcomes, and deliverables. That is why so many people have signed on in support of this bill.

The list of organizations that are supporting this bill is really quite phenomenal. The organizations are non-partisan and are located across the country. The list includes: ACORN Canada, Amnesty International Canada, Assembly of First Nations, Campaign 2000, Canada Without Poverty, Canadian AIDS Society, Canadian Association of Social Workers, Canadian Federation of University Women, Canadian Medical Association, Canadian Housing and Renewal Association, Citizens for Public Justice, Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, Federation of Canadian Municipalities, National Aboriginal Housing Association, St. Vincent de Paul Society, Social Rights Advocacy Centre, Wellesley Institute, and YWCA.

These are national organizations and they represent millions of people in this country. These organizations have signed on to support this bill because they know that work needs to be done. They know that the federal government needs to take a leadership role in bringing the partners together in developing a plan.

I am proud that in my own community in Vancouver East, where this began, key organizations like Pivot Legal Society and the Citywide Housing Coalition did a lot of organizing to support this bill. I want to thank those individuals who have worked so hard to bring this bill now to third reading in the House.

I would also like to thank my colleagues in the House from the Bloc, the Liberal Party, and there have even been some Conservatives who have supported the bill. The support across the House, across parties, is a reflection of the work that has been done at the grassroots. Right across the country there has been tremendous campaigns to contact members of Parliament to let them know about the bill and the work that needs to be done.

I am very hopeful that this broad support will continue for the bill. I would like to thank the members who have supported the bill and say that we can move this forward. We can realize an achievable plan. We can get the federal government to work with the partners across the country to truly develop a national strategy that builds on the success that we have had in provinces.

The province of Quebec has a tremendous housing program. It can build on the success that we have had in local communities because many municipalities have done tremendous work in providing affordable housing. However, we will not get where we need to be unless we have the federal government showing that political leadership.

I have seen letters from the government saying, “Do not worry. We are doing what needs to be done”. Unfortunately, that is not the case. All of these organizations recognize that is not the case, otherwise they would not be supporting the bill.

I want to suggest to members today that we can move the bill forward. We can adopt the kind of strategy that we need and we can say that housing is a fundamental right. We can say that wherever we live in this country, we should have access to safe, appropriate, and affordable housing. No Canadian should be on the street destitute. No Canadians, no families, should worry about whether they can pay the rent, whether they will be evicted, or whether they are living in substandard housing that they cannot get upgraded. To me, this is just such a basic issue and it is the reason I ran in 1997, to bring forward the issue of the need for leadership from the federal government on housing.

Let us build on the programs that we used to have. Let us build on the success story that Canada was with social housing, co-op housing, and special needs housing. We did have tremendous programs. The bill does not actually create those programs. The bill creates the debate, the discourse, and the plan, led by the federal government in partnership with provinces and territories, first nations and municipalities to actually develop that strategy.

This is a very basic thing we need to take on, so again, I want to thank members for their support. We are now at a very critical point in the bill. It has gone through second reading. It has gone through committee. We heard great witnesses. We made some changes to the bill and we are now at third reading.

Let us recognize the support that it has. Let us listen to our constituents. Let us listen to the people who are on the front line every day, dealing with people who are in desperate situations and do not know where they will go. Let us listen to the people who are trying to find that affordable housing for families in large cities as well as in smaller communities.

We have a responsibility to do the right thing. The bill is not rocket science. It is not earth shattering. It is very straightforward. It is very clear. It is calling on the federal government to work in a way that is delivering a mandate for those fundamental human needs.

I am very pleased that we are here debating Bill C-304 and look forward to what I hope will be ongoing support from the members of the House to make the bill a reality.

[Julie Mason, October 20th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the NDP caucus and staff, past and present, to express sadness and grief for the loss of a great friend and colleague, Julie Mason.

As the former director of communications and then as the chief of staff to NDP leader Alexa McDonough, Julie was innovative, strategic and fierce. She always brought her commitment to social justice to every aspect of her work. Julie was a role model for women as one of the few top female political players at a time when that was difficult and rare.

Whether it was her work on Parliament Hill, or with Oxfam Canada and the Children's Bridge Foundation, or her insightful and refreshingly clear writings on living with cancer, Julie's contributions have made a positive and lasting mark.

We send our love and gratitude for sharing so much of Julie with us to Don McGregor, Julie's husband, and her sons, Glen and Brian, her family and her grandchildren whom she loved so much.

The NDP is forever thankful for the commitment and generosity of Julie Mason and the life she lived to the fullest.

[Health, October 19th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, chronically ill Canadians are waiting months to get and renew permits for access to medical marijuana. Patients are being cut off from their legally prescribed medication because of an under-resourced and overly bureaucratic application process. People do not want to break the law to access and use their legally prescribed drugs.

Will the minister stop treating patients like criminals and commit the necessary resources to end these dangerously long processing times?

[Democratic Reform, October 19th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the NDP, I would like to welcome Equal Voice and the young women who have been invited here today to learn about the different roles women MPs play on the Hill.

Equal Voice has invited all MPs to focus on better decorum in the House, asking us to remember to be tough, not rough. We welcome this needed attention on Parliament, and I am pleased to have worked with my fellow House leaders in all parties to improve decorum and respect in the House.

It is a reality that question period is often the face of this place, and the daily, shall we say, exuberance that characterizes question period can be discouraging for young people, especially young women, who do not see a place for themselves in that kind of atmosphere. And why should they?

We recognize the barriers and challenges faced by women in the political process. The leader of the NDP has worked tirelessly to ensure the strong representation of women in our caucus and the need to overcome all barriers. We are committed to getting work done in this House in a way that is respectful of diversity, respectful of women and respectful of each other.

[Resignation of Member, October 4th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to rise in the House today on behalf of NDP members to say a few words about what I think his constituents always think is the guy from Peace River. That is how they will remember him.

I had the good fortune, as well, to work with the hon. member as House leader for the NDP when he was the House leader for the government. Over the years, I have become used to the member and his straightforward way, his blunt way of just laying it on the table, no BS, there it is, this is what it is, and he is to be respected and admired for that.

We heard the member say that he was elected six times, but maybe what some members have forgotten, and maybe even his constituents, is that the first time he ran, in 1988, he came in third after the NDP. Therefore, maybe there is hope for us yet in Prince George—Peace River. We are counting on that now.

In reviewing his various party affiliations, to which he alluded, we should go into this just a bit more. I think people might see that the member is a bit of a radical. He started off with the Reform caucus, the Canadian Alliance caucus, the PC/DR Coalition. He then went on to an independent caucus with some of his colleagues, then back to the Canadian Alliance caucus and now his political resting place in the Conservative caucus. There is quite a lot of switching around, so the member might have a bit of a radical bent to him.

I also noted that his bio does not list his publications, but our whip, the member for Acadie—Bathurst, who worked with him as whip, reminded me that there is one that we will not forget. That is the great publication, the committee handbook of dirty tricks. It was not quite a bestseller and I do not think it made it to second printing, which probably is for the best.

On a serious note, the hon. member for Prince George—Peace River has always been a fierce whip and House leader for his party. I think it is possible that his own members feared him more than we ever did in the opposition.

However, as I worked with him as House leader, I know one thing he did really try to work on very hard and that was decorum in the House. How many discussions did we have about that? Maybe in his political retirement he can write a new handbook on decorum in the House. That would be much appreciated.

We know the member as a dedicated parliamentarian, a very snappy dresser and someone who has served his constituents and the House well. We wish him and Leah, his wonderful partner, all of the best.

The member for Prince George—Peace River has always been forthright and upfront with us and we have respected that. I remember when he told us loud and clear that he was fed up to the teeth with the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement and that he would cut the debate. That is exactly what he did, and we expected it.

We thank the member for all of his work. It has been a pleasure to work with him. We wish him all the best in his new life outside of this place, and we know there will be many good years.

[Harmonized Sales Tax, October 1st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, now those seniors are being hit by the HST and the minister does not want to answer that.

Three months after British Columbians rejected the Conservative-Campbell HST, the finance minister finally admits it is harming the economy, increasing the deficit and contributing to a drop in the GDP. The uncertainty surrounding the future of this tax is further harming B.C.'s economic recovery.

Will the government at least suspend the HST until the voters of B.C. can have their say in a referendum? Why will the government not listen to the people of British Columbia?

[Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, September 27th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to speak in support of Bill C-440, as other of my colleagues from the New Democratic Party have done.

First of all, I would like to congratulate the member for Parkdale—High Park for bringing forward this bill. It is a very important measure.

I am very disturbed to hear the comments from the parliamentary secretary and to hear the member completely dis the bill and the genuine and humanitarian intent that is contained within it. I think the member and the government are obviously fearmongering.

It was very interesting to hear the parliamentary secretary say that it is popular among the rabble. I am not sure who he means. This bill has very broad support right across the country from significant organizations, from faith communities, from the war resisters support network, from many organizations. It is very disturbing that the government would undermine the bill and its intent in that way.

We are debating the bill at second reading stage. If the bill passed this critical vote on Wednesday, it would go to committee where there could be further examination. It would be perfectly in order to raise any of the issues and concerns the government has at the committee and to have a response and amendments, if necessary. However, to want to kill the bill at this point is very unfortunate and something with which we certainly do not agree.

I do want to speak about this issue because one of the war resisters, Rodney Watson, is actually in sanctuary in my riding of Vancouver East in the First United Church. He just marked the first anniversary of his being in sanctuary. He is a 32-year-old man who came to Vancouver in November 2006. He was deployed in Iraq in 2005. He is a very courageous young man. In making the choice not to participate in the illegal war in Iraq, he made a very big life-changing decision that affected him, his family, his future. He did it as a matter of conscience, as a matter of principle, of integrity about what he felt, what he had witnessed, what he had experienced in Iraq.

He chose to come to this country. Many Canadians have welcomed this young man. In fact, the War Resisters Support Campaign and network across the country has been unbelievable in its tremendous volunteer effort in supporting the 300 or so war resisters in Canada. Probably about 40 of them are engaged in various legal campaigns around their status here in Canada.

The bill before us would allow someone like Rodney to apply for permanent resident status. We have to think of this in a historical context. It was not that long ago that Canada welcomed about 80,000 draft dodgers, war resisters from the Vietnam war. They came to this country and are now very much a part of the Canadian society, the Canadian fabric. They became doctors, lawyers, professors, workers of varying kinds. They are people who have contributed to Canadian society and Canada is the better for their contribution.

Here we are 40 years later and we see that the war resisters are fighting a tremendous battle to have their conscience respected, to find a way that they can make a humanitarian option for leaving the military. I support the bill and I know my colleagues support it because we believe there has to be a way within the system to accommodate these war resisters who are people of conscience. I hope very much that within the House there will be a majority vote that will allow the bill to go to committee.

I want to thank all of the folks at the War Resisters Support Campaign and network, people like Sarah Bjorknas, who has done outstanding work; people like Reverend Ric Matthews who is the minister of mission and community life at First United Church. This church has opened up its space, its mission to welcome this young man, Rodney Watson, his wife and his young son, Jordan. They are currently involved in an application but I know they are hoping that the bill will be supported.

It is like a beacon of hope for all of the people involved that we are debating this issue in Parliament and that we are trying to find a way forward to ensure that this young man can remain in this country, and others like him who have made this very courageous decision.

When the Conservative members play this politics of fear and put out misinformation that this bill would undermine the whole citizenship and immigration system and put Canadians at risk, which is what we heard the parliamentary secretary say, nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, what we do know is that all of the usual procedures that are within our system would still be in place. What we are trying to do is to find a humanitarian way, an objective way and a good way of allowing these war resisters to remain in our country so issues around criminality, which are issues that are usually dealt with within the system, nothing would be different here.

It is very disturbing that the government would kind of play on those fears and undermine this very genuine attempt by a majority of members of the House to find a way for war resisters to remain in this country.

I do note that a motion expressing that sentiment was passed in Parliament by a strong majority, and I think it is shared by a vast majority of Canadians. These war resisters pose no threat to our country. They are people of conscience who have chosen a way of peace rather than participating in a horrific experience. These are people who want to contribute to Canadian society and be members of our greater community.

I know that personally, having visited Rodney Watson in Vancouver a number of times. I have talked with him and have met his wife. I attended his marriage at the First United Church where he has been in sanctuary. We must remember that this young man cannot go outside of this building. He cannot see his son play in a park, nor can he take a walk down the street. He is very happy that the First United Church has offered him sanctuary, which is a time-honoured tradition to have sanctuary, but it has placed his life in a very difficult circumstance.

I and others are very hopeful that the bill will pass second reading, go to the committee where it will be objectively discussed and maybe there will be improvements that are brought forward, which is all in the realm of possibility, then it will come back to this House and be passed. This would give hope to the war resisters that Canada is still a place of refuge, a place of welcome, a place where people of conscience can seek refuge and a place where they can go through a proper process instead of having all of their hopes dashed, as I think the government would like to see.

I wholeheartedly support this bill and urge all members of the House to support it. It would reinforce the reputation Canada has had over many years as being a place of compassion and a place where people, on humanitarian grounds, can be welcomed and protected. That is what we would like to see with this bill and this is what the bill would make possible, not only for Rodney Watson and the situation he is in, but for the many others who are in a similar situation.

[Combating Terrorism Act, September 21st, 2010]

Madam Speaker, first, it is very nice to see you back in the Chair. We know that your quiet way of responding to the House and keeping the necessary level of control is very well-respected by the members. Welcome back.

I am very pleased to rise today in the House to speak to this bill, as I have on a number of occasions. I have been listening to the debate this morning and feeling so proud to hear my colleagues from the NDP. We heard from our justice critic, the member for Windsor—Tecumseh, yesterday. Today we heard from our public safety critic, the member for Vancouver Kingsway, who made a very compelling speech about what is wrong with this legislation and why we are opposing it. And we have just heard from the member for Burnaby—Douglas, again a New Democrat, who has been following this bill ever since he has been in Parliament.

I want to begin at that point because I was in the House in 2001 when this legislation was introduced very soon after the events of 9/11. I remember, and the member for Burnaby—Douglas spoke about this, the sense of panic and fear that did exist, even within this Parliament. I remember in debating the legislation at that time, almost 10 years ago now, the sense of the need to act, to bring in something to show that the government of the day, a Liberal government, was responding to these grotesque acts of terrorism and in having that debate back in 2001. It was finally passed in 2002.

I was not on the justice committee, but I remember reading the testimony from the witnesses, people who do reflect upon the law and the state of our criminal justice system. Even back then there were dire warnings and concerns that were expressed about the anti-terrorism legislation, in the manner that it was rushed through, that it was ill thought out, but fundamentally a question as to whether or not we even needed the legislation.

Here we are now, so many years later, in what we could say is a sober second thought and yet, we are poised to move ahead again on those elements of the original bill that were sunsetted. The reason that they were sunsetted, the five-year clause dealing with investigative hearings and preventative arrest, is they were so controversial that certainly the NDP and the Bloc, at the time, pressed very hard to get those measures included so there would be a proper and full parliamentary review on those very serious provisions in the original bill. As others have pointed out, when those sections came to their conclusion, at the end of February, a resolution that came forward in this House to actually extend those provisions for three years was actually defeated. I remember that debate, too, and I remember participating in that discussion.

I think at that point many of us were hopeful that we had had that serious second sober thought about the bill, about its consequences, how it had been used, the fact that it has not been used, and that the time was really to ensure that those sunsetted clause remained that way.

Here we are again debating those same provisions and because of the reversal by the Liberal Party, the Liberal members, it appears that this bill will now continue on to committee. We will see what happens after that, but it does not bode well.

I guess what I want to focus on is the fact that it does strike me as very compelling that, on the one hand, we are dealing with a matter as serious as this legislation and anti-terrorism. Some of us are trying to weigh up whether or not this kind of legislation is actually needed and yet, there is so little attention to it. That was my reason for asking the member Burnaby—Douglas because it astounds me that there is so little attention. There is no attention that I can see in the media and no awareness in the general public that we are debating this bill. We are about to march forward with these kinds of provisions that would have such a deep impact on Canadian society, our fundamental rights to remain silent, to remain innocent until there are charges brought.

These are very basic things within the Canadian democratic society. Yet, on the other hand we have the perfect storm around the gun registry. The gun registry is important. I am someone who is going to be voting to support the continuation of the gun registry. However, it is so ironic to me what gets attention and what does not.

Therefore, this debate today is really important. As individual parliamentarians and within our caucuses we have to reflect on what it is that we are unleashing again, what we are allowing to unfold.

Hearing some of the debate, one could be left with the impression that we have no laws in Canada to deal with terrorism and this is why we have to have it. I find that this is very much a disturbing trend that we see coming from the Conservative government. Its whole agenda is on formulating new laws, little boutique provisions, that it brings forward to the Criminal Code when in actual fact, when we look at it in the cold light of day, when we look at it in terms of real evidence and factual information, many of these laws that have been brought forward actually are not required. Our justice system and the laws that we have in the country are very comprehensive.

That is not to say that there are not changes that are needed, but if we look at the drug bill that we had in the House, if we look at the private member's bill on trafficking, they were all proposals that were designed to give people the illusion that somehow we are tackling a major problem.

As my colleague pointed out earlier, in some instances what we needed to be focusing on was better policing, better intelligence gathering or better enforcement of the provisions that we have.

This idea that for every issue and problem that we have in our society we need a new and tougher law, and we need to keep bringing these on, becomes like an assembly line of putting these laws one after the other. We end up debating them ad nauseam in the House. I think there is a pattern here and the bill is very much disturbingly a key element in that pattern that is coming forward from the Conservative government.

We have heard today of some of the provisions there are already in the Criminal Code to deal with suspected acts of terrorism. I do not have a shadow of a doubt that within our existing framework we do have adequate provisions to deal with this issue. By allowing these two provisions to go ahead, first, the one dealing with investigative hearings where someone can be compelled to attend a hearing and to answer questions, and second, on preventative arrest whereby someone who might be do something with no evidence necessarily can be arrested and brought before a judge, a decision can be made about whether or not to incarcerate individuals for up to 12 months or whether to release them on certain conditions. We have heard again and again that these provisions actually have not been used.

There was one situation with the Air India inquiry where one of these provisions was used but the evidence was never brought forward. However, in a general sense, over this many years the key provisions of the bill have actually not been used. It should tell us something about this legislation. It should tell us something about Canadian society.

It is very striking that we are again debating this legislation and about to move forward on these two very problematic clauses.

We have situations in Canada already where we have had serious movements within the justice system. The security certificate is one. The member for Burnaby—Douglas laid out very thoughtfully how even in that instance under the Citizenship and Immigration Act, where these certificates were meant to be used to expedite the deportation of people who were in violation of deportation, they too have been used in a very inappropriate way.

We have seen cases where individuals have been imprisoned for years at a time, some of whom went on hunger strikes. Their basic rights were violated and they lived in very difficult conditions.

In conclusion, New Democrats again will firmly stand in opposition to this legislation. We believe that these two provisions need to be abandoned. They do not need to go ahead. We will remain steadfast in that opposition and alert people to what is going on, and hope that other members of the House will come to that conclusion as well.