Libby Davies

[Petitions, June 14th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present two petitions.

I have presented many petitions on this subject. It is signed by many residents in East Vancouver and other parts of Vancouver who are in support of a national housing strategy. The petitioners are calling for an increased federal role in housing, not for profit housing, housing for the homeless and access to housing for those with different needs. They are calling for the support of Bill C-304.

[Canada Pension Plan, June 14th, 2010]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-538, An Act to Amend the Canada Pension Plan (designation of survivor).

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise in the House today to present this bill. It would amend the Canada pension plan to allow contributors to designate as the beneficiary of their survivor pension someone who is not their spouse or common-law partner. I would like to thank the member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek for seconding the bill.

This came to my attention because a constituent was recently diagnosed with mesothelioma, a rare and lethal form of cancer, as a result of her being exposed to asbestos in the workplace. She is only 50 years old. Her doctor says that her cancer is inoperable and that her prognosis is one year. She is now trying to put all of her affairs in order before the inevitable and has discovered to her great dismay that the CPP survivor benefits are provided only to a spouse or children.

As she has never married or had children, she wishes to designate a beneficiary but the legislation prohibits her from doing so. My constituent believes that this legislation amounts to theft of her hard-earned CPP contributions, a pension that she has paid into for 25 years. The purpose of this bill is to ensure that this grievous inequity does not exist and that people in this position can designate someone as their beneficiary.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Canadian Human Rights Act, June 8th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to rise in the House today to speak in support of Bill C-389. I would like to thank the member for Burnaby—Douglas who has been an outstanding critic for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and transsexual issues for our party and in fact for all Canadians.

This is a very important bill that is before us today. Sitting here in the House as we come to the close of a very busy day where we just passed that monster budget bill, it is very good to hear some of the speeches that are taking place. I especially want to thank my colleague, the member for Laval. I know that she always speaks from her heart about the rights and dignity that all people have. It was good to hear the speech that came from the Liberal member earlier as well.

I note that the bill was seconded by 12 other members of Parliament from different parties. That is really significant. It tells us something about this bill that deals with fundamental human rights for transgender and transsexual people who have been denied rights for a very long time. When we see members across the floor supporting the bill and speaking from a personal point of view, it tells us this is something that is very powerful. We hear the stories and messages, whether they are from our own lives, or from the lives of people we know, just as we heard from the member for Laval about her own personal experience of what it means to face differences and how it is dealt with by the church, or religion, or by the system itself and how that impacts on people's lives in sometimes a very hurtful way and sometimes even in a violent way.

I do feel very proud that we have this bill in the House and the work that has been done by the member for Burnaby—Douglas. He has held consultations across the country. He has brought this issue forward not only in our own caucus but in the queer community overall, as well as in the broader Canadian society. That is one of the good things we can do as members of Parliament. Often we are told that we do not count, that we are not part of the government, that we are not this, that we are not that. This bill is a reflection of what an individual can do in building those kinds of alliances and expression of understanding and education to actually move something like this forward and to say that there is a problem in that the Canadian Human Rights Act does not yet contain a prohibited grounds of discrimination that would protect transgender and transsexual members of our society. The bill is very important.

I have had the honour to speak recently at a couple of events. One was at a high school here in Ottawa, for Pride Day just a few weeks ago as part of Jer's vision. It was really good to go to a local high school in Ottawa to speak to all of the grade 10 students about pride issues, about what it means to be gay or lesbian, or transgender, or transsexual, or bisexual. I have to say that a lot has changed.

When I spoke to those students in the high school I could feel that within that community there was a lot of understanding. People were more open about issues and willing to understand how people are different. At the same time there was a recognition that bullying still takes place. There are still people who are targeted. Certainly the research that is being done in Canada shows us that transgendered and transsexual people are among some of the most people at risk in our society. They face discrimination, whether it is in the workplace, whether it is in housing, whether it is in society generally. Not only are they vulnerable, but they are most vulnerable to face violence.

While on the one hand I think we can all say that we have come a long way and that rights have been enshrined and that we have made advances legally, politically and culturally, we also have to acknowledge that homophobia still exists, that discrimination still exists and that the group that is most vulnerable to this is certainly transsexuals and transgendered people.

I had a second occasion recently in my home community in Vancouver to attend an event that was organized by the Pride Education Network. It conducts a program in schools called Out in Schools. It was wonderful to see students come to a local movie theatre to watch a film that has just been produced in Vancouver called Beyond Gay--The Politics of Pride. This is a marvellous film that takes us all around the world.

A lot of members in this House have attended pride parades. The one in Toronto is coming up in July and we have ours in Vancouver in August. This film is so remarkable because it gives a history of pride parades around the world and what is taking place. Hundreds of thousands of people come out in Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa to celebrate pride and diversity. We see this in the United States as well.

This movie takes us through not only the history of pride festivals in Canada but it also focuses on places around the world. I will mention a couple of places. In Moscow, the pride parade has been banned and organizers have faced incredible harassment. The mayor of Moscow could be seen in the film making the most outrageous, hateful comments against gay and lesbian and trans people. In Poland, armed police had to make a corridor for people who were celebrating pride to conduct their march and rally.

I was pleased to attend this movie and the discussion that followed, particularly with young people. It gave people an understanding not only of the incredible changes that have taken place in our society, but the fact that great challenges still remain.

Here in Canada we believe that we are very advanced, and we are at many levels. As was noted earlier, the Canadian Human Rights Act provides protection based on sexual orientation. Our former colleague, Svend Robinson, a member of Parliament for over 25 years, did outstanding pioneering work on this issue. His private member's bill was brought into law to ensure that sexual orientation was protected under the Criminal Code as a hate crime.

A lot of work has been done. Those of us who have been working on this issue and are aware of what is going on in the community know that the most significant protection that has not happened is for transgendered and transsexual members of our communities.

Back in 2004 two students from Carleton University, Langdon and Boodram, undertook a survey to determine what is taking place in the trans community. Not surprisingly, they found significant levels of discrimination in housing, employment services, including unwelcome comments at work, unwelcome comments while living in accommodation, discrimination in bars, restaurants, schools, universities and colleges. Other surveys have taken place since then.

There is no question that these protections are needed. This bill needs to be brought into law. Then we need to raise the bar on education and awareness if we truly believe that we are a diverse society and that all people have the right to protection, rights and opportunities.

I hope that the bill will pass second reading and go to committee. It is important that we hear from witnesses firsthand because no trans people have spoken in the House. It is important that they be heard at committee so that their experience can be brought forward and that this bill can be passed into law.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, June 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, let us indeed put this in context, as the minister responsible for the Treasury Board said.

The context here is that the government is going to extraordinary lengths to ram through a bill that is quite clearly and factually much more than a budget bill. It is a bill that has almost 900 pages and has many other provisions in terms of deregulation, privatization and many major significant public policy issues.

I am proud of the fact that New Democrats have tried to hold up this bill. We are prepared to debate a budget bill but we are not prepared to have a bill that becomes a Trojan horse for many other issues that the Conservative government does not have the guts to put forward in legislation on its own merit that we can debate in this House.

We have had 60 amendments to this bill to delete those clauses that we believe are beyond the scope of what a budget implementation bill should be about. I would like to ask the minister why the government does not have the courage to actually deal with all of these other matters, such as environmental regulations and assessment or privatization, as individual legislation, as it should be, so it can be the proper debate in this House, as opposed to ramming through this massive bill under the guise that it is budget implementation.

If there are provisions in there that the government says have deadlines, then it could have ensured that this bill was truly a budget implementation bill and we would have considered that and ensured that it had a timely passage. However, it has set this environment for this bill, which is why it is now being held up.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, June 3rd, 2010]

Madam Speaker, because the member worked with the United Way, he has a very good grounding in what goes on in local communities. Organizations like the United Way end up at the end of the line trying to help people in a band-aid way because they cannot rely on either sustained provincial or federal programs.

The whole notion of a national housing strategy is to ensure that the federal government is providing leadership to develop a national strategy with the provinces, territories, first nations, municipalities and local communities. There is no such plan in Canada.

Since 1995, when all the programs were taken apart and eliminated by the then Liberal government, we have suffered. People are homeless and suffering today because of a lack of housing security due to that public policy decision. We have to reverse that and ensure it is a basic right that is respected.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, June 3rd, 2010]

Madam Speaker, we all feel it is a bit of an embarrassment in terms of what will happen at the G8 and G20. The Prime Minister is running around chasing down and generating support for banks, when his priorities should really be on helping people. It is an embarrassment in terms of what Canada's position is in the international community.

For Paul Martin to suddenly say that he is concerned about what will happen at the G8 and G20 summits and what the priority should be, I point out that as finance minister he orchestrated the demise of housing programs in Canada. Let us not forget that he cut the deficit on the backs of poor people, people who were most vulnerable in our society. It is easy, after the fact, to say that things are not right, but some of the systemic issues we are dealing with, both domestically and internationally, flow from decisions that were made by the Liberal government of which he was very much a part of as finance minister.

We have been very clear on our position on the G8 and G20 and on maternal and child health. We have said that a full range of programs, including family planning and access to safe legal abortions, should be available. We have pushed the government very hard. Unfortunately the Liberals, even within their own ranks, have been unable to maintain a progressive position on this issue.

We are headed to the G8 and G20 and spending $1 billion in security. We will be no further ahead and yet we still have pressing issues at home that need to be addressed.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, June 3rd, 2010]

Madam Speaker, first, I thank my colleagues in the NDP caucus for speaking out so forcefully and consistently on Bill C-9, the budget implementation bill.

I wish I could say that we are joined by other members of the House as this debate continues, but it looks like we are pretty well alone, which is very unfortunate. I think of the speech that was made by the member for Toronto—Danforth a couple of days ago on Bill C-9 when he appealed to the official opposition and other members to speak out against the bill because it was a travesty. It is an almost 900 page bill. The process of what is unfolding is something, as parliamentarians, we should all be saying that we do not agree with and we are going to ensure that the bill does not go through.

We have seen the government use the 2010 budget to bring in a budget implementation bill. Under that bill, we are calling it the Trojan horse. It rams through all kinds of other significant public policy measures to do with the environment, with taxes, with privatization. The government is using the cover of a budget bill hoping no one will notice. The NDP wants everyone to notice what is taking place because this is an affront to democratic process.

On the bill itself, as many other NDP members have pointed out, we are completely opposed to many of the provisions in the bill. For example, we are opposed to the 50% increase in airline taxes for security. We are also opposed to the fact that the budget bill contains an enormous public policy issue of the divestiture of AECL, which allows for the sale of all or any part of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. It is a major issue that should be before the House in a separate bill and debated. Yet it is being rammed through as part of a budget bill. Once it is gone, it is gone and nothing can be done about it. We should all be up in arms and incredibly concerned about this.

There are other provisions in the bill. Probably one of the most significant ones for us is the tax shift from corporations on to ordinary Canadians.

Today I met with representatives of Food Banks Canada. It is so important to get that sense of reality of what is going on in local communities and what is happening to people across the country. They told me that every month 800,000 Canadians relied on food banks. The percentage of people relying on food banks increased 18% from 2008 to 2009. From 2009 to 2010, it is another 11% increase. They know that about 20% of people who use food banks either work or recently worked.

I bring this forward because it is relevant to this massive shift in taxation from corporations on to ordinary people. Because of the program that the Liberal government started, and now escalated by the Conservative government, we have a massive erosion of corporate taxes.

We believe in fair and progressive taxation. We believe everyone should pay their fair share. However, with this tax shift, by 2014, we will see a loss of $60 billion in revenue. It does not take anyone with a math degree to figure out that the loss of this amount of money will impact the kinds of services that can be provided, whether it is for health care, social programs, EI or whatever it is for the kinds of things we need to do to help unemployed workers. We see people having to rely more and more on food banks, and that is what is at the core of the budget. That is what is so wrong about it.

We also know that over the next four years the Conservative government will take in more than $19 billion than it needs to deal with EI. We know the employment insurance program is not paid for by the government. It is paid for by employers and employees. The government takes the money through the premiums. What is the government going to do? It is going to rake in billions more than is needed and then use it to pay for the corporate tax cuts. This is an outrage and we strenuously object to it.

There are also provisions in the budget bill that relate to the HST. As someone from British Columbia, there is a sense of outrage about the HST and the way it has been foisted upon the people there. The Conservative government and the Liberal government in British Columbia are working hand in glove with each other to put this on the people of B.C. The response from people has been absolutely incredible.

We have seen the most historic grassroots initiative take place, where people are signing petitions. They are saying, no, that the governments are not going to do this, that they are not going to run roughshod over democratic practice, negotiate a deal a few days after an election, not tell people about it and think they can get away with it.

This part of the budget bill as well as the tax shift is very much related to what is going on in my province. People are so angry over the Liberal and Conservative members of Parliament from B.C. who did absolutely nothing to stand up for their constituents and say that the HST was a bad tax and that it would come at the wrong time.

There are two other issues with which I want to deal. One is on the environment front.

One of the enormous issues in Bill C-9 is the budget is overwhelmingly negative on the environmental front. There are no provisions to fight climate change. There is no plan to create green jobs, something we have advocated for very strongly in our caucus. We have laid out detailed plans about how we need to move to a greener economy. Instead this budget focuses on facilitating and accelerating the extraction of oil and gas.

In a very dramatic move, it guts environmental protection by taking environmental assessments for energy projects away from the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and giving that responsibility to the National Energy Board or the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. Both bodies, particularly the National Energy Board, as we just heard from my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona, are very pro-industry. They are loaded with people who have a vested interest in seeing greater extraction of oil and gas.

It is quite shocking to see that this significant policy change on the environment, on regulations, on environmental assessment is in the budget implementation bill. The consequences of that will be felt for years and decades to come. This is one reason for the amendments before us today. We are at report stage of the bill and the proposed amendments would delete all those aspects from it. We think they have no place in a budget bill.

They should be debated separately. Members of the House should be able to look at those provisions in terms of natural resources and energy and how those assessments are done. If the government wants to change and weaken the procedures in place, then let it have the guts and the courage to do it as a separate legislation. Let it be willing to stand the test of putting that legislation before the House and then seeing whether it has the support to get it through. To do it through a budget bill is unconscionable.

I will focus briefly on the issue of housing. I, along with other members, have worked very hard for in my community for this. One thing that disturbs me very deeply is we rally saw no provisions for an ongoing housing program in the budget.

Over four million Canadians are living in housing insecurity. Up to 300,000 people are homeless in communities across the country. We would think this would be a major priority. It certainly takes us back to the statistics that I read from Food Banks Canada. Yet there is nothing in the budget that addresses this fundamental human right in our society, the right to safe, appropriate, affordable and accessible housing. I have a bill before the House, Bill C-304, that would compel the government to initiate and develop a national housing strategy.

A core requirement of a budget is to ensure people have adequate housing and incomes, whether it is through increasing the Canada pension plan, the guaranteed income supplement or OAS. Those are the fundamentals. Yet everything in the budget is getting away from that and giving greater breaks to corporations. We find that unacceptable and will vote against it.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, June 3rd, 2010]

With regard to the 2010 Olympic Games held in Vancouver from February 12 to 26: (a) what was the total financial and in kind cost of the Olympic Games to the federal government; (b) what did these costs cover (e.g., security and other); (c) what costs and amounts did the federal government commit to prior to the event compared to the final total cost; and (d) will there be a financial audit of these costs?

[Housing, May 28th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the same old announcements of the same old dollars will not solve Canada's housing crisis.

The minister knows full well that the Conservative government is ready to cut $500 million a year in federal support for existing affordable housing units. The FCM and over 50 major organizations across the country have endorsed Bill C-304 for safe and affordable housing.

Will the government support the bill and sit down with all levels of government to implement a national housing strategy?

[Housing, May 28th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the big city mayors met this week and are calling for a national housing strategy, saying that homelessness needs immediate attention, and yet the Conservatives refuse to take a leadership role.

Two single moms, a cancer survivor and a father of four have been forced to take the government to court for a decent place to live.

The mayors want the minister to sit down with the stakeholders and implement a national strategy to deal with this crisis.

Will the government finally wake up to the growing housing problem in this country and support a national housing strategy?