Linda Duncan

[National Philanthropy Day Act, February 1st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, as with my other colleagues in the House I am rising in support of Bill S-203, An Act respecting a National Philanthropy Day.

I am sure all my colleagues in the House share my support for the sentiments set forth in the preamble to the bill to recognize the Canadian spirit of giving and volunteerism.

Volunteerism builds strong communities. Encouraging and rewarding civic participation is important. We need to ensure that the incentives are fair and effective though for voluntary participation. Considerable time and energy is gifted daily by ordinary Canadians but not just to registered charities.

Let me share with the House a study conducted jointly by a number of government agencies, Statistics Canada and Volunteer Canada. The study was called Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating in 2007. The study found that almost 23 million Canadians, or 84% of the population aged 15 and over, made a financial donation to a charitable or non-profit organization in that year. During that same time, 12.5 million Canadians, or 46% of the population, volunteered their time through a group or organization.

Sad to say a more recent study has shown that since 2007 the donations by Canadians has dropped to 23% of the population. Apparently in 2007 Canadians donated a total of $10 billion, yet since 2007 a more recent study shows that the figure has dropped by $1 billion. It shows a concern in the populace. It shows that people are suffering in the economic recession but still being as generous as they possibly can.

Canadians volunteer to flood and clear community rinks, to coach children's soccer and hockey. Individuals freely volunteer their time fundraising for community facilities, for sports programs, for outings for the disabled and the elderly, for food banks, for breast cancer, multiple sclerosis, cancer treatments and support, and organizations such as Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign in Africa

There is a broad array of organizations supporting work and a broad array of Canadians giving their voluntary time and effort to support those who may be suffering or struggling, both in this country and abroad, and that is to be commended.

I am proud of my constituency of Edmonton--Strathcona's countless volunteer hours donated to deliver programs and to maintain community league facilities and programs. This is something unique about Alberta. We have for many decades had communities maintaining community leagues for the service of the children and families in the neighbourhoods. To their credit, volunteers with numerous community leagues have tackled fundraising and hands-on efforts to make their facilities more energy efficient and accessible.

Countless hours are donated by literally thousands of volunteers in my riding to deliver successful festivals such as the Edmonton Fringe Theatre Festival and the Edmonton Folk Music Festival. The Silver Skate Festival, which is coming up soon and I welcome members to come to that activity, and the Ice on Whyte Festival, both festivals to try to make our winters liveable.

Philanthropy includes both the gifts of money or work for the benefit of others. There are numerous local, regional and national awards recognizing these philanthropic acts.

Just this past year, many members may have participated. CBC ran a competition to recognize and profile Canadian volunteer efforts at home and abroad. We can be very proud of the individuals who were focused in that program, both the ones that ultimately won and the ones who were showcased and nominated.

In Alberta, non-government organizations, including small groups and youth groups, are yearly honoured for their work for the environment by Emerald Awards. Among the highest accolades in this country are the Governor General Order of Canada Awards.

Rather than just a designated day however we should be taking concrete actions to encourage and reward these important contributions to society. As I noted earlier, unfortunately the amount of money donated and the time and effort put into volunteering is declining in the country for a variety of reasons. These kinds of efforts are critical, particularly in hard economic times and particularly when a lot of programs are being downloaded to municipalities and onward to volunteer organizations.

A number of proposals have been tabled recommending expanded tax credits, including donations in kind for services, materials or property. These donations are important and consideration should be given to recognizing, rewarding and encouraging this kind of generosity.

Those with charitable status obviously have a clear advantage over other volunteer organizations in raising funds. As it has become increasingly difficult to obtain this status, consideration should be given to offering other measures to reward donors to non-profit organizations that do not have the charitable status.

This is particularly critical as an increasing number of community services are being downloaded to volunteer groups. Concerns were raised this week in the House about cuts to federal support to small organizations helping immigrants. Last fall we heard continued pleas to restore federal support to aboriginal healing centres. Both of these organizations depend on a lot of volunteer effort but require basic resources to maintain and run their programs, to coordinate volunteers and to deliver those services.

In closing, it is important to keep front of mind that the majority who donate their time and resources to causes that are important to them do so out of an interest in helping those in need. They are not doing it to seek a tax deduction or any form of reward.

It is noteworthy that a recent study, and I notice that a colleague across the way mentioned this as well, shows increasingly it is Canadians with lower incomes who are donating more. As we look to the cutting of corporate taxes, perhaps we should be looking to corporations to make larger donations to the causes that many Canadians feel it is important to contribute to.

I support the passage of this bill intended to recognize the contribution by volunteering Canadians. However we can and must do more to incent and recognize this contribution to our economy, to safe, liveable communities and to quality of life for all Canadians.

[Protecting Canadians by Ending Sentence Discounts for Multiple Murders Act, February 1st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Vancouver Kingsway for yet another very thoughtful presentation on one of the bills to do with the Criminal Code of Canada. He always offers a sober second thought on these proposals.

I can understand why the government might be bringing forward these bills, particularly in light of the Pickton case and so forth.

However, I wonder if the member could speak to the issue of what is often more frustrating for families of victims in multiple murder cases, that is, whether or not their family member's case is actually brought forward for prosecution. It is important to understand the limitations of the judiciary, that it can clearly only sentence based on the cases that, in the discretion of the crown, it brings forward.

[Business of Supply, December 2nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, one of the previous members raised a question to one of my colleagues, I believe it was the Minister of Indian Affairs, and advised that there are no issues with oil spills from tankers so why should we worry.

I would like to put to my colleague in the House in response that in May of this year, a double-hulled tanker spilled 2.9 million litres of crude off Singapore when it was hit by a freighter. This past January, 1.7 million litres were spilled in Texas after a collision with a barge, again a double-hulled crude freighter. In 1992, 76 million litres were spilled off the coast of northern Spain by an oil tanker.

In Alberta, it is reported by the energy board there that out of the 8,000 pipeline spills, a large proportion of them are due to external causes, where something else interacts with the pipeline.

I wonder if the member could speak to this issue where it appears that even where we have double-hulled freighters, which is not always the case, there can there be an amazingly large potential risk to the critical fishery off the west coast.

[Business of Supply, December 2nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Western Arctic has been working long and hard on a Canadian energy strategy. He brings a lot of expertise to the table from his many years of work as a municipal councillor and as a consultant in this area. I appreciate his input and contribution to the debate.

The government has said that it will not take action to reduce greenhouse gases in this country until China steps up to the plate. However, the ludicrous thing is that the government is promoting the export of our raw bitumen to China for processing. If that bitumen were processed in Canada, if the government stepped up to the plate and required the strongest possible environmental controls and controls on greenhouse gases, we could ensure that the bitumen would be upgraded appropriately. However, by shipping the bitumen to China, we cannot control the kind of process they will follow or the environmental measures they will look at.

The Conservatives cannot have it both ways. If they want to ship our bitumen to Asian countries, then they should not complain about the fact that their pollution is rising. Which way do they want to have it?

I would like to have the member's opinion on that.

[Business of Supply, December 2nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, these plans should be public. However, what should be public is this promised dialogue on clean energy between the United States and Canada.

This country signed on to two agreements. A more recent one was the U.S.-Canada Clean Energy Dialogue, in which the Government of Canada promises to dialogue with its citizens. Another one signed on to, more than 15 years ago, was a side agreement to NAFTA. In that document, Canada is committed to providing advance notice and opportunity to participate in any proposed policies.

The obligation and the commitment is already there. It is just simply not being lived up to, whether it is the capabilities of the Coast Guard to respond on any of our three coasts is adequate, or whether the kinds of policies we espouse at international negotiations are the kinds of policies we would like to espouse.

Very clearly the government ran on a ticket of openness and transparency, grassroots decision-making. I look forward to the government delivering on that, including decisions on tankers on the west coast.

[Business of Supply, December 2nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome that question. In fact, members of our caucus and our leader met with representatives of the oil industry and the building trades. We said to them that we would like to have a strategy to provide jobs in Canada.

Why is the government trying to fast-track pipelines out of Alberta? Why is it not supporting a policy to refine and upgrade this bitumen in Alberta and in fact create those jobs? Instead it is creating some temporary construction jobs to build a pipeline, creating jobs on foreign tankers and creating a lot of jobs in eastern nations to refine the oil.

I am concerned about jobs. I would like to create a lot of jobs in the clean energy sector in Canada.

[Business of Supply, December 2nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased today to rise to speak to this motion. I will be splitting my time with my neighbour, the member for Nickel Belt.

I thank the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley. He has been a great defender of the environment and his constituents in the House. Even before I was elected, I admired him from a distance. He has carried on the tradition of my old friend Jimmy Fulton, who I know is watching from above and cheering on the man who has taken over his portfolio of protecting this beautiful area of our country.

It is important to remind the House that the motion brought forward by my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley is necessary because of the failure to act on an earlier motion tabled by our party, by myself, which was voted unanimously on by the House. That motion called for a review of current federal law and policy to deal with the safety environmental aspects of unconventional oil and gas development.

Clearly this is an unconventional oil and gas activity. We have not yet seen the piping of raw bitumen across the pristine area of northern British Columbia, through rocky, mountainous, river-laden terrain, through first nation territory. Nor have we witnessed, yet, the travails of large tanker traffic through rough seas.

In the interim, I would also like to compliment my colleague for referring to the natural resources committee the beginning process of moving on with this long-awaited review of whether the federal government was delivering on its responsibility to regulate and provide sound policy for the safe and environmentally sound development of unconventional resources in our country.

The motion deals with the specific aspect of unconventional oil and gas development. It deals with three parts. It deals with the front end, which is the fast pace that intensifies development of the oil sands for the shipment of bitumen to eastern countries, including China. It deals with the development of a pipeline through an extremely risky area, where many communities and first nations have raised strong objections. It then deals with the end result, which would be the movement of that bitumen into tankers and those tankers going through difficult waters.

The reason we tabled our earlier motion in May was we thought the country had signed on to the cautionary principle. Our country also believes in sound, economic development that does not put communities at greater risk. The whole idea was to allow Canada to benefit from the wake-up call of the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

What better opportunity than to put in place a proper protective regulatory regime in advance, with a sound plan for how we develop our resources in a way that will reduce, not increase, risks to Canadian communities and to our very valued environment.

Yet what we are doing is continuing with this fast paced, unregulated sector. We had three reviews on unconventional oil and gas, more specifically, on the development of the oil sands. One was a two-year review in which the Government of Canada participated. It was initiated by the Government of Alberta. A good number of recommendations were made with regard to improving the regulation of that sector.

The parliamentary committee on natural resources then led a review starting, I believe, in 2007, which made similar recommendations for action before we proceeded unchecked with the development of this resource.

Then the committee in which I have the fortune to participate, the parliamentary committee on environment and sustainable development, spent two years reviewing the development of this resource and a number of the members of the committee submitted lengthy reports documenting the recommendations made.

This is the time to be acting on the many recommendations that have been made from a broad array of experts in Canada, from first nation governments to leading scientists and technologists at universities in Canada to the Governments of the Northwest Territories and Alberta to federal agencies.

Instead we are leaving ourselves open to an unplanned development of our resources. We are simply sitting back, as legislative officers, waiting for someone to propose something. We can do more. As elected members, we can show leadership and provide that regime for which Canadians have asked.

We have heard concerns today relayed to us through their elected members. People across British Columbia are very concerned about the proposal for the tanker traffic. They are also very concerned about the development of the pipeline that would lead to this tanker traffic.

The questions I would like to put before the House is this. What are the risks posed by the pipeline? What is the risk to Alberta? What is the risk to British Columbia? Are adequate laws in place to regulate tanker traffic through this risky body of water, putting at risk significant areas, including west coast fisheries?

My colleague, the member for New Westminster—Coquitlam, has very thoughtfully tabled in the House a bill recommending improvements to the Canada Shipping Act to give expanded powers to the government to do exactly that, to better regulate and assert its powers and responsibilities to protect our oceans and the resources in those oceans on behalf of the people of Canada.

What are the capacities to respond to a spill or explosion? We have heard from a number of members of the House and we certainly have heard reference to the audit of coast guard capabilities. I can speak very personally to the capabilities of the federal government to respond to a significant spill.

I hope all the members have taken the time, because we have the Railway Safety Act coming before us as well, to take a look at the review of the Cheakamus spill and the Wabamun spill. Prosecutions arose out of that. Those reports by the rail safety board, by the respective provincial governments and the matters that came out of the government clearly said that the federal government had dropped the ball in respecting to these significant spills. Yet the Wabamun spill was less than a few miles from a main highway, only 40 miles from a major city, in the oil capital of Canada and it completely failed to contain a major spill of bunker sea, half of which remains on the bottom of Lake Wabamun.

Where is the action on developing a framework for emergency response and spill response plans? Yes we know that we can stop the ships and the Coast Guard can demand to see the spiller response plan of the tanker. What good is this at that point? The tanker is already within our waters. Surely we should be standing back and conducting an overall review of whether that is adequate. Do we need stronger measures to prevent the kinds of incidents that have occurred along the Alaska coast.

People on the east coast have raised concerns about the lack of access to emergency response plans, that even in those cases where a company is required to develop an emergency and environmental response plan, they are not disclosed to the public.

Surely we need to be reviewing the system for the development and approval of these kinds of risky developments in Canada.

What about capabilities of foreign tankers? How will the government control what kind of emergency spill response equipment is contained on those tankers, or will the people of Canada be required to pay the cost of storage of the spill response equipment on shore? Can that even be adequate? Surely we should be standing back and taking a close look at whether it is even possible to respond and if so, who should pay and where should the liability be imposed.

Given the hints in cutbacks by the government and the fact that it turned down a sincere request by the city of Edmonton for support for an expo on activities to celebrate clean energy development in Canada, how can we expect the Coast Guard, which has already been cut back, to do the job? Will the government commit to major resources to beef up the ability of the Coast Guard not only on the west coast, but also in the high Arctic and on the east coast.

I can share with the House the statistics from Alberta on incidents on pipelines. In a 15 year period there were 8,000 releases. That is not very reassuring.

The members of our party have been repeatedly been calling for an open and transparent dialogue on a clean and sustainable energy strategy for Canada. I am pleased to say that the Alberta minister of energy just today advised me that he is supportive of our proposal and he called it a national energy strategy.

[Petitions, December 2nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to stand and present to the House petitions signed by more than 12 communities in Alberta: Edmonton, Lloydminster, Calgary, Birchcliff, Sherwood Park, Lethbridge, Fort Saskatchewan, Fort McMurray, Camrose, Spruce Grove, Grand Prairie, Red Deer and Valleyview, all calling on the government to pass Bill C-469, An Act to establish a Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights.

They state in their petition that as Canadians value a healthy and ecologically balanced environment, they call on the government to afford the rights and opportunities to Canadians to participate in decision-making, and the opportunity to hold the government accountable to protect those rights.

[Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery Act, November 30th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the member and a number of other speakers have raised the issue of perverse incentives in the budget. It is reported that, by 2014, given the cuts to corporate taxes that the government has announced, $60 billion worth of Canadian taxpayers' money will be lost at a time when our deficit is rising.

It is one thing to talk about the dollars and cents that are actually in the budget bill, but we need to look at the parallel initiatives of the government that go along with the budget, an example being the terrible, perverse incentives that it is providing to major industries by delaying important regulations to clean up the environment and to reduce greenhouse gases. Billions of dollars are being banked by these corporations as a result of the government's failure to act. That is far worse than the direct perverse incentives of cutting their taxes.

What about the perverse incentives of the government's enforcement of foreign investment law and its decisions on foreign investment, putting lots of money in the coffers of multinational corporations that are not even based in Canada? It is also denying thousands of Canadians badly needed jobs so they can buy Christmas presents for their kids.

So in terms of lost tax revenue, lost jobs, and lost benefits to Canadians, I wonder if the member could speak to that and the perversity of this budget.

[The Environment, November 30th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, on just day one of Cancun's climate talks, Canada swept the fossil fuel awards for watering down already weak emissions targets, for slashing funding for renewable energy, energy efficiency and climate science, and subverting the U.S. clean fuels policy, and top prize for undemocratically killing the climate change accountability act, with no debate.

Instead of an acceptance speech for the colossal fossil award, could the minister surprise us all and deliver a real clean energy strategy?