Malcolm Allen

[Employment Insurance Act, November 3rd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to seek unanimous consent to split my time with the hon. member for Windsor West.

[Pensions, October 27th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, seniors and retirees in my riding of Welland are deeply concerned about whether the savings they accumulated during their lifetime of hard work will be enough to adequately sustain them in their retirement.

In fact, at least 11 million Canadians have only their public pensions to rely upon for their retirement and, at current levels, those pensions offer benefits that are far from adequate, forcing all too many seniors back into the workforce instead of enjoying their retirement years.

New Democrats have proposed a plan that will protect the pensions of seniors. This plan includes increasing the GIS in order to end seniors' poverty, strengthening the CPP with a goal of doubling benefits, developing a national insurance program funded by plan sponsors that would guarantee pensioners $2,500 a month in the event of a bankruptcy or pension plan failure, and creating a national facility to adopt workplace pension plans of companies in bankruptcy or in difficulty.

New Democrats are leading the way on pension reform and it is time for the government to follow our lead. The seniors of Canada deserve to live with dignity and respect, and New Democrats will continue to fight to ensure every senior in Canada receives the pension benefits they deserve.

[Canada Marine Day Act, October 20th, 2009]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-462, An Act respecting a day to honour Canada’s marine industry.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to present a private member's bill about a marine industry national holiday for those workers in the marine industry.

It is appropriate to do so at this time of year, as many marine workers and their representatives are on the Hill.

I take great pride in introducing the bill because it was the marine industry that brought my family to this country in the first place. My father was a marine worker. In fact he was a shipwright and was recruited by the Canadian Immigration Board to come here to build ships. That is how our family actually immigrated to this great country and was able to set down roots and establish itself.

Clearly it is an industry that is hugely important to all of us across the country. There are literally hundreds of thousands and millions of tonnes of cargo that go through the shipping lanes.

In my riding of Welland we call it the H₂0 waterway which of course is affectionately known as the Welland Canal. It runs from one end of my riding right through to the other, climbing the mountain, as we call it, in Thorold where we have the twin locks.

It gives me great pleasure to put this bill together and present it, and hopefully it will be adopted by the House.

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

[Tax Harmonization, October 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, to quote the Ontario Minor Hockey Association:

Parents who want to register their kids for minor hockey is just one group of many that will be negatively impacted by this tax.

Four Conservative leadership candidates in the province of Ontario said in a letter to the Minister of Finance, “This HST will cost Ontario taxpayers billions of dollars”.

If this is a provincial decision, why did these provincial Conservatives write a letter to the federal minister asking him to stop his plans for the HST?

[Tax Harmonization, October 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the constituents of the Niagara region are strongly opposed to the harmonization of the provincial sales tax with the GST. Families in my riding of Welland are in a daily struggle to make ends meet. Placing an additional 8% on essential everyday purchases is the wrong decision to make.

Unfortunately for Ontario families, the Conservatives and the Liberals agree that raising taxes through harmonization is a good decision.

The Niagara region has been hit exceptionally hard by the decline in manufacturing jobs. The Conservative government should be focused on what is really important, making changes to EI and the pension system to put more money in people's pockets rather than being obsessed on raising sales taxes by 8%.

In harmonizing sales taxes, the Conservative government is shifting the tax burden from big business and big banks and forcing all Ontarians to pay more.

New Democrats will continue to stand up for all Ontarians and will oppose this tax grab, especially at this critical time when governments should be finding more ways to put money back into people's pockets rather than finding more ways to take money out of their pockets.

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, October 5th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is right. The hon. member has said that paramilitary groups have been disbanded in Colombia and yet he seems to be one of maybe two in the House who believe that. The rest of us do not. President Uribe certainly believes it but provides no absolute proof of that.

The gentleman who actually wrote the letter said that he thinks perhaps it is an hallucination suffered in the House in the sense that these paramilitary groups have actually disappeared when all of the human rights groups across this world are saying that it is not true, that they still exist. We still hear of folks getting murdered.

When we look at 2008, the murders of trade unionists increased by 18% from 2007. We actually saw a blip back up in 2008 over 2007. It still continues to this day.

One wonders, if it is still happening, then how can one say that the paramilitary groups have gone away, that they are no longer in existence? Maybe they are just a little bit more clandestine than they used to be because they are still there today.

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, October 5th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague answered his own question about whether we should agree with free trade and enter into the agreement when he said that trade unionists are safer than ordinary Colombian citizens because they actually have folks walking around with submachine guns to look after them. If they have armed guards looking after them, that speaks volumes to the fact that they are under threat.

I know the Prime Minister has a security detail, but the hon. member for Kings—Hants and I do not have security details. Therefore, if trade unionists in Colombia need a security detail to look after them, what does that say about Colombia? Does it say that it is safer? I would suggest that it does not.

What I would suggest, albeit the hon. member continues to say that we need to go forward and all of his talk about the human rights piece, why not put the human rights piece first? The member has a good relationship with President Uribe, and I do not say that in any kind of sense other than an honourable sense. He has spoken to him on numerous occasions. I would ask the member to reach out to the president and tell him that when he fixes the issue we will come back and talk to him. The member has that opportunity because he actually has that type of relationship with President Uribe.

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, October 5th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to take part in this debate today.

My friend said earlier that we do not face death or the extinguishing of our life when we finish this job as parliamentarians, and he meant that tongue-in-cheek. In my previous profession as a trade union activist and educator, I had the great privilege of meeting a trade union activist and educator from Colombia who came to this country for two reasons. One was to share his story and experiences of what it was like for him as an educator and trade unionist in Colombia at the time, and the other was to be safe. Not only had his life been threatened by paramilitaries in this country, but indeed numerous attempts had been made on it.

I had a personal discussion with that gentleman and we talked about our families. He recounted a story that was very moving. It was a horrendous story, and he was very brave to tell it. He said they came for him one night in jeeps and machine-gunned his house, but they had the wrong night. He was at a meeting in another village, but unfortunately his wife and two children were at home and all three of them died.

Those three individuals died only because that woman's husband and those children's father was a trade union activist and educator. He had not committed a crime. He belonged to legitimate organizations. Folks were saying he was doing great work in the countryside and villages that he was engaged with, yet they came for him anyway.

He came here to be safe and of course we made him safe here, but the horrible things happening to trade unionists, which he told us about, happened not because of illegal activity. They were murdered for speaking up, the thing that we do here on a daily basis, speaking up for those citizens across this great land of ours who expect us to come to this place and speak up. When they do that in Colombia, however, they face great threat and great danger. In some cases they actually face death, and in all too many cases they die.

We have all acknowledged this in this House. I do not think there is anyone in this House who refutes that. We accept it as being fact, but then we diverge from that into the sense of whether we should have a trade policy with a group and a country that we know cannot make all of its citizens safe. Some might say that not all of our citizens are safe either, and that is true. Murders happen in this country, but we do not have murders targeted at individual groups such as trade unionists and teachers, as Colombia does. Murders happen here as acts of violence, in the commission of a crime. These premeditated murders in Colombia are targeting groups to keep them quiet.

One must ask why. Why would a country allow a group to be silenced, unless of course it does not want to hear the voice? That voice is really the people of Colombia itself who are saying, through its representatives, “This is not a good deal for us. We do not believe in the free trade sense”.

My colleagues in the Liberal Party are saying that New Democrats have never stood in their places and said yes to free trade. I will agree we have not, because we do not believe in free trade, but that does not mean that we do not believe in trade. Of course we do, but we believe in a fair trade policy that takes labour and environmental rights and makes them part of the whole agreement, not something to be added at the end. When we add something at the end, we give it less significance and less weight. All of us who go through arbitration, mediation or bargaining processes know, and in fact I am sure even some lawyers in this House will explain it to me as well from a legalistic perspective, that when we put things at the end, make them addenda or reference points, they do not carry the same weight as they would if they were in the agreement.

I would say to my colleagues in the Liberal Party that if that is the case, if they really believe it, then they should amend it. They have the opportunity to amend the agreement, to take the labour and environmental rights and insert them into the free trade agreement, but I have not heard them say that yet.

What I have heard said is that they know it is not the best. A colleague in the Conservative caucus talked about a rising tide lifts all ships. I came from an island so I guess it makes me somewhat of a maritime type person. Coming from Scotland, I suppose I was close to the sea. However, the problem is that if one does not have a boat when the tide rises, one might drown.

When we debated chapter 11 last week in the House, we talked about how Canadians were doing under chapter 11 of the free trade agreement from an economic perspective. The Statistics Canada report was quite evident. The majority of us who live and work in this country are not doing as well or are about the same as we were in 1985. The Statistics Canada report actually says that we are less well off or about the same. If we take inflation into account, it is less.

Here is this agreement that did not give Canadian workers any great deal of joy and we want to give it to Colombians. What we are saying is that it did not help us, but we want them to have it as well. I find that really reprehensible from the perspective that we are trying to inflict upon Colombians a free trade agreement that the vast majority of them do not want.

If President Uribe really believes in it, I guess he could take it to the people of Colombia and ask them, as part of a referendum, whether they want free trade. Then, of course, it would need to be explained. As my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley said earlier, we do not explain it to Canadians. The government has not spent $1 explaining the free trade agreement to Colombia or to Canadians. If the Government of Canada is not willing to do it, then it is highly unlikely that President Uribe will be.

My colleagues in the Liberal Party have said that if we just sign it the human rights conditions will get better. The human rights violations in Colombia are deplorable and they agree. However, I would suggest that if they believe President Uribe who says things are getting better without free trade, it is like the old adage of the carrot and the stick. At the moment the stick is working in the sense that if we do not give Colombia the free trade agreement, perhaps it will get better.

When President Uribe appeared in committee on the day I happened to be there to listen to him, he said that there were less deaths but that he does not have a free trade agreement. The logic seems to be that, if that is the case, why would we rush to give it to him when he says, by his own words, that things are getting better without it as far as the violence is concerned?

I would suggest that my Liberal colleagues tell President Uribe, because I will not propose free trade to him, to eliminate the violence against trade unionists and teachers' organizations and to cut out the paramilitaries and then we will talk. Ultimately, lots of things get done with the carrot and the stick. At this time, if we hang out the carrot to Uribe, I think he may just eat it all and then we will no longer have any leverage, because once it is done, it is done.

At the end of the day, human rights is paramount for us. We have it enshrined in this country. If we are suggesting to Colombia that it must follow suit, then we cannot simply allow it to have free trade at no cost. Ultimately, this is what it will be about. When Colombia gets it, there is no more leverage for Canada.

I heard my colleagues earlier talk about the congress of Colombia and Senator Jorge Enrique Robledo who was here with a minder because he was not allowed to come by himself. A minder accompanies someone to ensure he or she does not say things that are out of line. What he did say was:

You can be sure of the fact that should this free trade agreement be ratified, Canada will become extremely unpopular and disliked by the people of Colombia,

That person was Colombia's representative who said that. We did not elect Senator Robledo, Colombians did. He speaks for Colombians and I think we ought to hear what Colombians have to say to us, which is that they do not want this deal at this particular moment in time. What they do want is a fair trade agreement.

We need to enter into negotiations with Colombia but, first and foremost, we need to ensure human rights are protected in Colombia and that Colombian trade unionists and educators are safe.

[Committees of the House, September 29th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, there is no question about what we have seen in the riding of Welland from north to south because it is five communities. I talked about Statistics Canada, but the income level in my own riding is now one of the poorest in the province of Ontario. It used to be the highest. Before NAFTA, it had the highest per capita income in the province of Ontario as a manufacturing centre. It is now at the bottom, with increases in child poverty, family poverty and family breakup, and all of the social ills that come with that. It was because of this blind sense that somehow free trade is good for people. The government will feed it to us, so we should just eat it because it is good for us. My old gran used to say, “Just have this cod liver oil; it is good for you”. There was no proof that it was good for us; we just had to take it. Preceding that, my whole sense with the Liberals was that they wanted us to just do it because we would be better off at the end of the day.

My riding of Welland is living testimony to the failure of not only chapter 11 but NAFTA. It is quintessentially the place, ground zero, for what NAFTA has wreaked upon the Canadian economy. We have seen, as I said, the income level from the highest in the province not less than 20 years ago to one of the lowest in the province, in a matter of less than one generation. It is tantamount to the absence of any sense of leadership from either the previous Liberal government and certainly from the Conservative government about what it takes for folks to actually prosper in the economy.

Those parties have no sense of it. They talked about their management. They talked about how they were able to do things, but when it comes to helping Canadians, to help manage their economy for them, Canadians got left behind. Shame on both parties when they were in government for allowing that to happen because my constituents are saying that someone needs to help. That is why they are looking at us as parliamentarians and saying, “It is time for you to step up. It is time for you to enact trade deals that are good for us, not for multinationals”. It is about us, our neighbours, our friends, our colleagues across our constituencies, our children and our grandchildren when they come. It is ultimately about helping them. That is why I thought all of us came to this place.

The stats clearly show that what the Liberal government and the Conservative government have done to Canadians is absolutely dishonourable. We have let them slide behind because of what we have done. They did not do this. We as parliamentarians, the Liberal government, the Conservative government, did this to them. They did not ask for it. They sent folks here honestly who simply said what the member for Kings—Hants said this morning, “You are better off”. The truth is, they are not. Saying it will not make it so. To stand in the House and say they are better off is patently false. It is just false. Not only is it false, it is unfair to those out there who are listening to us say it and hoping it is true, even though their reality and their life is, “I know it is not true”, but they are hoping maybe their neighbours are experiencing something that they are not. If truth be told, their neighbours are experiencing exactly the same thing, which is that they are all sinking. We have allowed them to sink and not even bothered to give them a life vest. That is absolutely wrong.

[Committees of the House, September 29th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, indeed, I do. In fact, I have the great privilege of sitting as a deputy critic with my colleague from British Columbia on that committee and I watched that member discuss Peru and Colombia. He is in favour of it.

When my colleague was raising the issue of chapter 11 and increasing labour and putting environmental protections into the body of the agreement, it was that member from the Liberal Party who opposed it. He wanted it as a piece at the back and never once raised the issue of removing or changing chapter 11.

It is one thing to come to the House and say that we need to change it, but the reality is that when the Liberals are faced with the opportunity to do something, they vote in favour. That is unfortunate because this is a place where we can have reflection and debate. I am gratified to hear that my colleagues in the Liberal Party who sit on international trade are talking about our need to do that.

When the opportunity arises in committee, we will be expecting the them to pull chapter 11 out of those agreements, start to rework them and start to do the things that we as New Democrats understand are important when it comes to free trade. It is always about fair trade agreements that protect and represent workers and the environment, that talk about us as Canadians and that respect those other countries that we are trading with.