Linda Duncan

[Committees of the House, June 20th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to bring to the attention of the House the supplementary report submitted with this report on strengthening parliamentary scrutiny of estimates and supply.

While the NDP concurs with the majority report and recommendations, we feel it necessary to qualify our position on one aspect of the report, a widely supported measure recommended by distinguished experts testifying before the committee on how best to achieve improved capacity to clarify and strengthen the role and mandate of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

Consequently, consistent with that advice, we recommend that the government take immediate action to make the Parliamentary Budget Officer an officer of Parliament and further, that the Parliamentary Budget Officer be mandated to report to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates with respect to its estimates work.

[CANADA-PANAMA ECONOMIC GROWTH AND PROSPERITY ACT, June 19th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments about reaching out to other jurisdictions and giving them a helping hand. I wonder if he would support my view that we should be bringing forward the best possible agreements.

The government talks about sidebar agreements on the environment and labour. I happen to have worked under the side agreement under NAFTA, and it was a very fulsome agreement. I wonder if the member has a view on whether or not it is advisable for the government to be downgrading these agreements.

If we are going to have a useful dialogue, surely we should have the independent secretariat and an independent commission between Panama and Canada, as we had with the U.S. and Mexico.

[Canada-Panama Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, June 19th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for pointing out at least some effort to address labour and environmental issues in this proposed trade agreement with Panama.

What is so regrettable is that supposedly this agreement is premised on what was learned from our negotiations and implementation of the NAFTA. I want to share with members a provision in NAFTA that says, “it is inappropriate to encourage investment by relaxing domestic health, safety and environmental measures”.

What kind of measures are we suggesting to Panama about how seriously we treat our trade agreements formed with other nations? We already violated that agreement in this House yesterday by downgrading Canadian environmental laws for an economic advantage.

Therefore, can the member give assurances to this House that this time around, in this agreement, we will provide the language and we will live up to our obligations and commitments in the trade agreement to protect the environment?

[Federal-Provincial Relations, June 19th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, it is a question of respect. Conservatives have exhibited a hostile attitude toward the provinces on a host of issues: dismissing the concerns of premiers about employment insurance, ignoring the impact of the European trade deal on rising health costs, downloading the costs of the prisons agenda.

They are either attacking the provinces or ignoring them altogether. Why are the Conservatives showing such disdain for the provinces and territories?

[Federal-Provincial Relations, June 19th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, as it is well known, neither I nor my party have opposed the development of the oil sands—

[Federal-Provincial Relations, June 19th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the House knows that we are not—

[Ethics, June 19th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism has made disparaging comments about the deputy premier of Alberta, Mr. Thomas Lukaszuk, remarks so offensive the rules of the House prevent me from repeating them.

When the Leader of the Opposition and I met with Mr. Lukaszuk at the end of May, he was a complete gentleman.

Given that his reprehensible comments are now public, will the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism take this opportunity to apologize to Mr. Lukaszuk?

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 18th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I am sure I speak for all of my colleagues and certainly should for all of those in the House. I want to thank the hon. member for putting a human face on the bill.

This is precisely the reason why we have fought so hard to have the bill split and broken up, so that Canadians can come in and speak to members of Parliament about their views on all the measures in the bill.

I think about the people I have worked with for 40 years in aboriginal communities and small communities across the Prairies, across Canada, who simply want to be able to come to a hearing and have their voice heard, so they can tell the tribunal what the impact would be on them, so they can have input to the terms of an environmental impact assessment to make sure there are measures that would protect their communities.

I would like to give the hon. member the opportunity to perhaps tell a little bit more about his canoe trip, and I really want to profoundly thank him for his speech today.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 18th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the member's speech about expediting the approval of medicines or pharmaceutical drugs in the country. I have a friend who just received her Ph.D. at Dalhousie University, lauded as the best Ph.D. of the year. Her analysis was the input of the public into the review of drugs for breast cancer and the difference in the end analysis when organizations were given the opportunity to have input or not. We need merely refer to the issue of Oxycontin and the disaster that resulted when there was no proper review of what its implications might be given the form in which that medicine was allowed to be released.

I am giving the member the opportunity to rethink whether or not it makes sense to always short-circuit and fast-track the approval of drugs.

[Copyright Modernization Act, June 15th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, one issue in the bill is of direct concern to people in my riding and across Alberta. We have a wonderful university called Athabasca University where everybody learns online. Students need to access materials online. The bill would digitally lock material, which would self-destruct within five days, and the course materials would have to be destroyed after no more than 30 days.

Could the hon. member speak to that? Does he think there should be accommodation? We want to protect creators. I have been an academic. We value the work of writers, but at the same time we want to try to encourage the people, particularly in aboriginal communities and isolated rural communities, to beef up their skills.

Surely there should be greater provisions to support those people who make an effort to further their education. They should be able to access that information for a longer time period.