Malcolm Allen

[Jobs, Growth and Long-Term Prosperity Act, May 3rd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Edmonton—Strathcona. I note her great work and the great career she has had in the environmental movement, working on behalf of all of us across this land. She deserves a great deal of credit.

The member is absolutely right about process. There is no reason to stuff this bill with environmental protection regulations that are going to be done away with. There is no excuse for it. There was no need for it. It is absolutely reprehensible that it has actually happened. It should not have occurred.

When it comes to the environment, one of the things I have learned, and I am not an environmentalist, far from it, is that the air we breathe around here moves from somewhere else and the water that goes through that stream moves from somewhere else. We cannot build a wall around that environment and say we are living in the bubble.

What is done here or over there will indeed impact where we are here. That is a troubling piece, when all of that impact can have not only a hemispheric piece, an interaction, but indeed a global piece. As we used to say, think globally, act locally.

At the end of the day, it is about how we act. It is not about how we have inaction. It needs to be action. This is about to bring us inaction, and that is not a good start.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-Term Prosperity Act, May 3rd, 2012]

Actually, the leader of the government before that is now a Liberal. Things change in life. At some point in time, leaders decide to do other things.

One of the things that bothers me a great deal in the bill is about the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and people need to be concerned because things get hidden in the bill. On the surface of it, many aspects of this agency appear to be on their way to being privatized, which sets a dangerous precedent.

Sheila Weatherill, who was hired by the Conservative government to look at CFIA, said that part of the reason the listeriosis crisis broke out was that there were not enough public inspectors doing the work that needed to be done to keep our food safety system and keep our food safe. She recommended that be changed. To give credit to the government, it decided to make the change, but now it is going back on those changes.

The government is moving backwards. It would take us back to a place before the listeriosis crisis of 2008, a place where the food inspection system would not be as rigorous as it should be and would not live up to the standards that Canadians expect or think it is, which is even worse. When Canadians think they have a certain standard in place and it turns out not to be true, they lose faith in the system.

On the labelling piece, as it starts to unravel, if there is a complaint or health concern about a label, I am not sure who the contact would be, but I guess it would be a 1-800 number. People would call 1-800-something to say that they did not like the label. The response might be, “Are you validated to complain about that label?” Of course, the answer would be no, they are not validated, and therefore they would no longer have a complaint. If someone called CFIA, they would say, “Sorry, we do not do that anymore. We have handed that off.” Whom would we call for health and safety complaints about labelling and food? Would it be a call centre? Where would it be and how would it be staffed? Would it be staffed with folks who just follow a chart that says if the question is Y, answer X, or if the response is Q, make it a P? Who knows?

Clearly this government has rammed a whack of legislation into a budget bill and made it an omnibus bill, which it did not have to do. Oversight is needed, whether on environmental regulations, CFIA or the multitude of other things in the bill. The government could have brought the budget implementation bill, which would have taken care of the piece that it is required to do, and we could then have debated the other legislation piece by piece. We could have had an honest, open debate in a democratic fashion and not be faced with time allocation.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-Term Prosperity Act, May 3rd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to enter the debate, but not so pleased to see that we are again faced with time allocation, especially when we are debating a bill that is so big. All too frequently time allocation seems to be the habit of the Conservative government, which decides it will simply crunch everything in. This is not a four-page bill, as some of them are; this is 400 pages that impact not only the budget but a multitude of other agencies and regulations, and it will dramatically change many areas.

I would like to share my time with the hard-working hon. member for British Columbia Southern Interior.

In earlier comments the member for Fort McMurray—Athabasca talked about this tale. I believe the member for Ottawa South asked him to please explain what the tale was about. I do not mean the tail on a donkey; I mean the tale with “e”, which is more like Aesop's Fables. He talked about the NGOs and charitable organizations that are going to be impacted because of their charitable status and that foreign oil companies will get them to do their bidding, especially when it comes to his riding of Fort McMurray—Athabasca.

I had a quick peek to see which foreign oil companies he was referring to. They are BP p.l.c., which I believe is a British company; Chevron, which I believe is an American company; ConocoPhillips; Exxon Mobile Corporation; Imperial Oil; Korea National Oil Corporation; Nippon Oil; Royal Dutch Shell; and Sinopec, the state company of China. They are not actually donating money to charities to get them to engage in destroying our energy policy; they are mining the oil sands. Why on earth would they ever give money to other folks to stop them from doing the very thing they are doing?

There are more foreign national companies in the oil sands than one can count. That is okay; no one says that is a bad thing, but for the member to suggest that somehow foreign companies are trying, through the back door of an environmental group with a charitable status, to lobby to stop what is happening when they are indeed doing it is the height of incredulity. Who would believe it for a second?

Clearly it was a bit of a fable. Maybe it was a mixed metaphor. Maybe that is what it was. Maybe I just did not quite get the mixed metaphor about the foreign oil companies that are actually mining. Bless them, they are entitled to do that. This country is a trading nation, and they can come here if they play by the rules. It is a little unfortunate that the state oil company of China made sure it got a sweetheart deal to ship out raw bitumen and did not actually create jobs in Alberta for Albertans or, better still, in Sarnia for Ontarians. I leave that to the Conservatives to defend, because clearly that is not something we did.

I have heard from the other side that when it comes to OAS, we have this demographic bump, which I happen to be part of. I am at the tail end of the baby boomers. There are others in the House who are at the front end of the baby boomers, but we all know that there is this demographic bump. However, it is a bump; it is not forever. It is a bump. When we are finished with the bump and go back to the other end—a little piece beyond the bump, because we will all, unfortunately, meet our maker—that group will be gone, and we do not have another baby boomer group after that. Is the government now suggesting that once that happens, there will be no reason for the retirement age to be 67 and we will go back to 65 when that group is gone?

Clearly it is about planning for the demographic that existed and that everyone knew about. Back in the 1960s, everybody knew there was a demographic called the baby boomers. Now a plan should be put in place, and the plan does not need to include retiring at age 67. Most actuaries across this country have said that it is not needed, that it can be financed, that it can be done properly if we make the choice.

Over and over again I have heard my colleagues on the other side say there will be fewer people working to support seniors, as if seniors do not pay taxes. There is this misbegotten belief that when one becomes a senior, it is a tax-free holiday for the rest of one's life. That is not true. Seniors pay into the system like everyone else, but they are made to sound as if they are some sort of parasite on the system, drawing money out and not actually doing anything for the country. I find that a very difficult thing to swallow, because clearly these are the folks who built this great country; we should have respect for them, but I really believe that has not happened.

I would say to the government that there is no legitimate, logical, rational reason to go to age 67, but then again, that would not quite go with its policy, would it? Still, there is no need to go to 67. There is no need to do it and there is no sense in doing it. The government should leave the age at 65.

The one thing that is rational and logical and the one thing that absolutely will happen is that when seniors living in poverty get to the age of 65, they will live in poverty until they are 67 because of what the government is doing. That indeed will be the reality for them. However, that reality does not need to happen, and the government should prevent it from happening by amending the bill and making sure that the age is kept at 65. I would ask the government to do that.

One of the things in the bill reminded me of the days in the province of Ontario when we had a Conservative provincial government back in the 1990s, led by a premier called “Harris”. I remember a number of folks from that government because I get to see some of them here. There are cabinet ministers in this place who were cabinet ministers in that place. I believe in 1995, or it might have been the spring of 1996, one of the first bills that Mr. Harris created was an omnibus bill that changed regulations and the face of Ontario for the worse. It attacked the poor and went after everyone else. Now we see it again. It is déjà vu all over again.

[Privilege, May 1st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, in hearing my colleagues I can appreciate the comments of the member for Winnipeg North.

However, Mr. Speaker, after we had heard the member speak, I heard you say that closes the matter. Therefore to be fair, I believe my colleague from Winnipeg Centre was really no longer involved in the point that the member for Westmount—Ville-Marie was talking about. It seems at that point in time this becomes a matter of debate because clearly you had said after the intervention by my colleague that you felt, from the Chair, that this matter was now settled. Therefore I would suggest that perhaps this matter is now settled.

[Safer Railways Act, May 1st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more with my colleague from Timmins—James Bay. The Ontario Northland is a critical link for folks who live in northern Ontario, just like any other rail line is when it comes to folks who live in remote areas. It is not a federal matter but it is absolutely critical that we stand up for the Ontario Northland. I know my friends from Timmins—James Bay and Sudbury will be doing that, as will we who live in the south be doing.

We need to send a message to the Premier of Ontario that he must not close the Ontario Northland. It is a crucial link for those who live in the north. That is what needs to stay and we are committed to ensuring that it does stay.

[Safer Railways Act, May 1st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more with my colleague from Sudbury. It is amazing what happens when we let a rail system go. Once we decommission that particular mode of transportation to that community, it is not much longer after that the rail line is gone.

I can attest to what is happening in Niagara. There is a trail in Niagara that allows people to walk around the entire peninsula. It is a wonderful trail and a deserved trail for the residents but, unfortunately, it is on a vacant railbed. All the tracks have been pulled up and it is now a walkable trail, which is a marvellous activity for folks to do. However, if the company were to decide to reinstall the tracks, it could not as the railbed is now gone and therefore it could not be done.

My colleague talked about this sense of how communities interact and how people get back and forth. When I was in Scotland last year, my cousin asked me why I did not go to downtown Glasgow. I told him that I would drive down but he said that I should not drive but that I should take the train. He lives in East Kilbride, a community outside of Glasgow but not that far. Lo and behold, people can take the train as if it is a bus. It has about five stops along the way and within 25 minutes it arrives in downtown Glasgow. It goes back and forth every 25 minutes and it is packed with commuters. People do not need to go into a big town. That is a convenience for someone who is close to a big town.

We can just imagine what it is like for those who are further away in remote communities whose service is only rail. We need to ensure we enhance the service, not diminish the service. We need to ensure that those residents have the same attributes as those of us who live closer to big cities continue to get. That is why the ONR cannot be lost and we must keep it.

[Safer Railways Act, May 1st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the fabulous member for Vaudreuil-Soulanges.

I am happy to participate in the debate on Bill S-4. I would like to congratulate a couple of my colleagues. The first is my colleague from Western Arctic. He prefers to be called the member from the Northwest Territories rather than Western Arctic, but indeed his riding is in the western Arctic. I would also like to congratulate the member for Trinity—Spadina, who has been working on this transport file for quite some time, along with the member from the Northwest Territories. In the last Parliament she was very adroit in making sure that many of the suggestions that ended up in the bill were amendments to previous legislation to make sure we actually came forward with a transport bill that addressed the safety concerns of the passengers on VIA and the workers who have to travel on those trains. They are the locomotive engineers, the brakemen, et cetera, who deserve, especially today on International Workers' Day, the safest place to work we can make for them. It is an obligation that I think we all share.

We are pleased to see that the bill contains slightly over 80% of the things we would have like to have seen, although obviously there are a few other things that we would like to see in it.

It strikes me as ironic as I look through the history of where things were at over a number of years. A report that was called the advisory panel's final report was published. The actual title of the report was “Stronger Ties: A Shared Commitment to Railway Safety”. I thought it was quite striking to use that title of “Stronger Ties”. I was a train spotter growing up in Glasgow, and we knew more about trains than we knew about anything else. The ties lying on the railbed keep the rails firm and make sure that those rails do not come apart. It is the ties, as they call them, that hold the rails at an exact space apart and prevent the rails from being flimsy and coming apart, or the spikes from leaving and so forth. I thought this report in 2007, “Stronger Ties: A Shared Commitment to Railway Safety” was rather ironic in that it took almost five years to get us to where we needed to be in 2007.

We are looking at what has been requested from workers and from passengers, which is a safe railway system. The railway system in our country is indeed a safe system; however, as in every system, there are always things we can do to make it safer. That is what New Democrats have been pushing for, not only in this Parliament but in past Parliaments. They have been pushing to ensure that those who travel by rail have safe passage and that those who work on the rail will go to work and come home safely. As we know, there have been episodes when that did not happen.

The train that leaves my municipality in Niagara and takes itself through the Niagara Peninsula to Toronto, as was pointed out by my colleague from Trinity—Spadina, derailed just outside of Burlington. It was an absolutely tragic accident, but as my colleague pointed out, one that was preventable. If the 2007 report, “Stronger Ties”, had been implemented with the suggestions that my colleagues from Western Arctic and Trinity—Spadina had suggested, that accident might indeed never have happened. Three men might not have lost their lives and three families might not be suffering the loss of fathers, husbands, sons, uncles and brothers. They might have still been with us. Unfortunately, that is not what happened.

Therefore, in memory of those three men who lost their lives in that derailment in Burlington, we need to do everything within our capacity to ensure that it does not happen again.

The trains are perhaps being operated a little faster than they should be, so when they come to a switch and change tracks, it is a dangerous moment. Switching to a different track is hazardous, and speed is a very critical aspect.

However, there are mechanisms. We do not need to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. When it comes to health and safety, we can have mechanisms that, if the train is approaching the switch too quickly, it can be automatically slowed down to ensure it makes the switch appropriately and does not come off the rail, as we saw in Burlington.

It is unfortunate that is not part of the bill but it should not stop the bill. In my view, it would not be something that would be an impediment to voting for this but it needs to be thought about in the future. We need to do this in a more comprehensive way. We may never find out what happened in that derailment because those three gentlemen are no longer with us to tell us what happened. The passengers are not sure what happened either, as they were in the carriages behind, not in the locomotive, and no one in the locomotive can tell us exactly what happened.

This is a transport system that carries large numbers of people and, in some cases, carries more people than an airplane might. However, in an airplane we have voice recorders in the cockpit to tell us what the pilot and co-pilot are saying at all times during a flight. In the case of a crash, heaven forbid but there have been some over time, we now have a voice recorder and a data recorder that can actually help us to understand what happened and, just as important, help us understand how to avoid it. That is the crux of it. If we had had a voice recorder in that locomotive in Burlington and in others that have crashed, especially when we saw loss of life and have no independent witnesses who were in control of the locomotive, we could have then pieced together exactly what happened. We would have known what they were saying at that moment or the moments leading up to it? What could they have told us to ensure that the same thing would not happen again?

That is a critically important piece of information that is missing in the safety bill, which is unfortunate. I would look to the government, hopefully, to ensure that gets done in the very near future but we do want to ensure this safety legislation gets passed. Ultimately, it is about taking people on the rail lines. As my colleagues have pointed out, there are literally hundreds of thousands of people who travel by rail across this country.

I had the great privilege, when I was younger, of spending some time in the lovely city of Edmonton while at the University of Alberta. I travelled there by train. However, unbeknownst to me, being a young person who had not travelled the breadth of this country, it took 54 hours to get there, which is a remarkably long time. It is two days-plus, but that is the breadth of the country. I must admit that, although I was a student at the time and did not have one of those luxurious cabins people may have today on the train, it was a pleasurable journey travelling across this country by rail, not only because of what I saw of the country but because of the service that was committed to us as passengers on that particular rail passage.

For those of us who enjoy trains, which many of us do, when it comes to travelling by rail we have many lessons to learn from places around the world and in this country where we see light rapid rail systems, whether it is in Vancouver or in downtown Toronto.

In fact, if we look back to Niagara, where I live, in the riding of Welland, it was a number of years ago, before I was born, when people could travel by rail from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. We cannot do that today. One hundred years later and we cannot get from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario by rail. I know members will find this hard to believe but up until about six months ago people could not do it by bus either. I congratulate the Niagara region for implementing a regional bus service but we can just think if it had kept those railbeds. We could actually have taken a train from Port Colborne in my riding all the way to the riding of the hon. member for St. Catharines in the north and get from one lakehead to the other. Would it not be an amazing thing to think that we could do it, not for the first time, but again? We did it over 100 years ago.

Folks went by train to see their families if they were living in the north or the south end of the peninsula, never mind the places that my colleague from Sudbury was talking about. When one is in the north and is isolated, then rail it is. When we think about communities in the north where rail is their mode of transportation, their of getting materials and supplies in and how they move people, we need to continue to support rail, not only from a safety perspective. My friends in the Ontario legislature need to keep the Ontario Northland open because that is a crucial link to the northern part of this province. Therefore, I would send the message to Mr. McGuinty that he should keep the ONR open.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, April 27th, 2012]

With respect to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA): (a) at any one time during the years 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011, what were the highest and lowest total numbers of CFIA inspectors employed in the delivery of Compliance Verification System (CVS) tasks at federally-registered (i) slaughter establishments, (ii) non-slaughter meat processing establishments; (b) what were the highest and lowest total numbers of full-time equivalent CFIA inspectors engaged in the delivery of CVS tasks at federally-registered slaughter and non-slaughter meat processing establishments at any one time during the years 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011; (c) what were the highest and lowest total numbers of staff employed by the CFIA for the years 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011; (d) what was the average frequency of complete control system audits in federally-registered meat processing plants for the years 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011; (e) how many full audits took place at the Maple Leaf Foods Bartor Road plant in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011; and (f) what was the average frequency of full audits for each sector covered under the CFIA’s inspection mandate (meat, fish, dairy, eggs, processed products, fruits and vegetables, etc.) for the years 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011?

[Agriculture and Agri-Food, April 26th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, job losses and food safety are serious and important issues, but the government is ignoring the facts. The facts are that food inspection stations are being shut down and front-line food inspectors are being cut. The facts do not lie.

The Conservatives are cutting front line services and this will cost farmers more and increase the risk to Canadians' health.

Will the minister stand up and admit that his government is firing food inspectors and closing inspection stations?

[Questions on the Order Paper, April 26th, 2012]

With respect to the Crop Logistics Working Group, formed by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada on November 7, 2011, when will a report be available on the progress made by this working group?