Marc-André Morin

[Business of Supply, February 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, there is a reality that the people opposite refuse to see. People have been settled in some regions and parts of the country for hundreds of years. They have developed a way of life that has enabled them to establish communities, build cities and organize a complete social life.

For years, the country has benefited from these people’s efforts. Life was good when cod sold for good prices in Britain, and Newfoundland exported tons of cod to Europe. It generated revenue for Canada.

However, the destruction of the industry by the federal government generated thousands of unemployed. Now that the market is shrinking, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the regions. We must not abandon specific regions, but should continue to support them so that they can develop economic alternatives.

[Business of Supply, February 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to say that I will be sharing my time with the member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques.

The reform we are looking at starts out very badly. It starts by denying the geographic, demographic and social facts of life in Canada. If we had a uniform country, like a kind of great plain with the same resources distributed uniformly across it, this reform might work very well, but Canada is made up of more variety than that.

There is also the historical aspect. When Canada was created, the Canadian west was a vast empty space with a pile of buffalo bones and subsistence farming. What financed the construction of the transcontinental railway and the development of the west were the economy and the banks of Halifax and Montreal. They monopolized whatever savings and capital there were for 50 years, so that the rest of Canada, Ontario and the west, could be developed.

Now that the shoe is on the other foot, it no longer works. It seemed to me that there was an agreement, that the wealth would be shared from one end of the country to the other and there would be some degree of mutual support. It would appear that phase has come to an end.

In addition, this reform does not have the unanimous support of Canadians, at least if I go by what I hear from my constituents. In fact, I cannot really repeat what they said here, because I would have to set parliamentary language aside. No one is happy with this reform, because it does not stand up for a second. It is absurd and inconsistent.

The best comparison I can make when I look at the minister to whom this reform has been assigned is that it is as if someone wanted to send a milk wagon horse out wearing blinkers to run the barrel race at the Calgary Stampede. It does not make any sense. The government has to start realizing how big a mistake it has made.

For months now, absolutely no one has come to me and said that the government was right in proposing this reform and that the system needed to be put in order because some people were abusing it. I have never heard anyone say that. People are starting to organize seriously. I have received letters and resolutions from municipalities in my riding asking me to speak up and protest against this reform. It is not just unemployed people who will be directly affected; employers, municipalities and entire regions will be as well. This will result in a loss of expertise.

For example, a person who works maintaining the trails at Mont Tremblant has to stop when the snow starts to melt. I have another example: a young father wrote to me. He is a technician who works on boats and personal watercraft. When the season ends, he works for a few weeks doing maintenance and storing boats for the winter. In the spring, it starts up again. He works on preparations for the upcoming season. In between, he would have to take a chainsaw to the lake to open it up. Reality is sometimes tedious, but we have to face it.

Members on the other side of the House need to get used to doing this.

The minister spoke earlier of information about employment being available online. That is all well and good, but in certain areas in my riding, there is no high-speed Internet. The limited Internet service only works very early in the morning and around dinnertime. Outside these periods, it is impossible to receive or send e-mail. Before overhauling the system and automating the services, the Conservatives should at least ensure that people have access to the Internet.

There is also the question of an acceptable distance between a person's home and place of employment. If a person lives 80 km from the nearest major road, has to travel on dangerous roads and share the road with convoys of forestry trucks, it is not easy. When it is -30 or -35 °C, it is important to have a reliable vehicle with good tires. Generally speaking, that is not the kind of vehicle that unemployed persons drive.

The money in the employment insurance fund does not belong to the government. It belongs to workers and employers. It is a fund to which businesses and employees contribute. It is intended to help people get through the toughest periods of their lives. The government is now making these periods even tougher by imposing an increasing number of constraints.

In the long term, when an individual reaches the end of the road, so to speak, he will be forced to accept a job that pays 30% less, and if he changes jobs a second time, his income would drop a further 30%; where will it end? Do the Conservatives intend to do away with the minimum wage?

Earlier, the minister spoke of the availability of workers for agricultural jobs. It is certainly true that these jobs should be offered to Canadians ahead of foreign workers, but what will happen if, every year, an employer brings in workers from Central America to pick strawberries and there is unemployment in his region? Will he still be able to have them come? There is much ambiguity around this. This kind of ambiguity only leads to more questions. It results in insecurity and uncertainty.

Will the Conservatives reveal their intentions and tell Canadians whether or not they have a plan?

[Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act, January 30th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, excessive use of time allocation can have serious consequences. As elected representatives, we have a role to play. The members opposite do not seem to understand that our constituents are not idiots. They understand what is going on here.

Last weekend, I participated in an event in my riding. An elderly man, who did not seem to have any university or post-secondary education, asked me questions about my job and how things work here. He could not believe that not one of 900 amendments to a bill was any good, that it was all garbage and nonsense. I told him that that was what the members opposite thought.

And it is the same in parliamentary committees. Nothing happens, and there is no discussion whatsoever. Particularly if we are trying to improve a bill, you can bet there will be no discussion. People will catch on eventually, and the members opposite will get a rude awakening in 2015. They will learn that sneering at Canadians for an entire mandate will not get them far in the end.

[Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act, January 29th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the precedent was already set, in their minds at least, when they spoke about imprisoning children of refugees who are considered to be irregular arrivals. It does not really bother them to deport someone to a country where he would not last five minutes because the situation there is so dire.

There are countries that have already done this and regretted it. The Americans deported many young California street gang members to El Salvador. These young people came back armed and with the support of drug trafficking networks. They are now the biggest problem in the streets of El Salvador and California.

[Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act, January 29th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I always appreciate the examples given by my colleague, even though sometimes I get the impression that I have already heard them.

The danger does not necessarily reside in specific extreme cases but in the long-term effects of such action, which would create two classes of people. In my opinion, we should start treating people who have lived here for 20 years and those who may have even been born here as citizens.

How many people could be deported without notice as a result of this legislation? In the long term, there is really no limit. Are we going to choose other categories, other types of people that we do not like?

[Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act, January 29th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, obviously I agree that dangerous criminals who have been given a sentence for a very serious offence should be sent home to their own country. We do not want to bring criminals to Canada; we want to bring people who will work and contribute to society.

The danger with the minister's comments is that people end up forming associations in their minds. If people only ever hear about extreme cases and base their judgment on those cases, they begin to associate temporary residents or refugees with criminals. It is that aspect of the government's attitude that I find shocking.

[Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act, January 29th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-43 is problematic. In fact, the title is the only thing that makes any sense and the only thing we all agree on. The thing that offends me the most is that the Conservatives are accusing us of trying to protect criminals and stonewalling the bill. Clearly, it will be impossible to have any kind of reasonable, intelligent debate as long as the other side of the House continues to use abusive language and give such extreme examples. They describe all kinds of horrible things for weeks, but that will do absolutely nothing to advance the debate.

I occasionally meet people in my riding who came to Canada as immigrants or refugees. They tell me that what bothers and offends them the most is to see powerful people, people with tremendous resources, who manage to beat the system and come to Canada with certain privileges. Those people are the hardest to deport in many cases. The sluggishness and inefficiency of the whole immigration system really bothers many of these people when they want to bring the rest of their family to Canada.

It makes me laugh to hear the Liberals and Conservatives argue about this, since the system's inefficiencies go back about 100 years. Both parties have been equally incompetent ever since the system was first created.

When the Conservatives decide to fix something, they always take aim at whatever is not broken. For example, although there are problems with border security and delays in processing immigration files, they find it easier to attack a very small number of people with unpronounceable surnames. They ask them to talk about all the horrible and repugnant things they have done in order to maintain a sort of fear in society. That is what they do. They put all their energy into that, instead of thinking about the issue and having an intelligent discussion with people who, like us, are actually trying to protect citizens from a minority of people with bad intentions who really represent a threat to our society.

The Conservatives are repeating all the mistakes made by Australia. This is nothing new and it is not insignificant. Canada's treatment of aboriginal peoples is based on the Australian model, which turned out to be horrible. Australians apologized and continue to work on fixing the damage they caused. More recently, they reformed their immigration system and made terrible mistakes, which they are now correcting.

Now we are implementing their model. I do not understand where the Conservatives look for their ideas. That is the danger with all extreme positions. There is no room for reflection in extremism. They only know how to be derisive instead of thinking things through. In the long run, they will destroy our country and its reputation. This is going nowhere.

The Conservatives accuse us of not wanting to collaborate or make constructive comments. However, every time they open their mouths, they accuse us of being criminals.

[Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act, January 29th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I would like the minister to know that it is primarily young Americans who come to Quebec to drink because it is easier for them.

This seems like a great bill and it seems like it will work. I would like to point out one situation and have the minister respond because I know that he loves to name names and cite specific cases.

There is a titled British citizen who got out of prison and, with no difficulty whatsoever, became a Canadian citizen. I am not talking about a young Vietnamese murderer or a person whose appearance we do not approve of. This is a well-dressed billionaire, a respectable man who was knighted by the Queen herself. He had just gotten out of prison when he arrived here.

Will this legislation be applied retroactively to this man?

[Business of Supply, December 10th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the reason for the Nexen sale was to bring in capital to develop the resource.

That seems like a good idea, but the problem is that if we sell the resource, it no longer belongs to us. That is problematic. Could the government not have considered using the dormant $500 billion in the accounts of the companies that have benefited from significant tax breaks in recent years? I wonder about that.

That way, the money could have been invested more gradually, through tax credits or some other way. That would have given the labour market in Alberta time to absorb all these investments. Obviously, when they come in with massive amounts of capital, the human resources to handle this development will not be there.

What will the government be facing?

[24h Tremblant, December 10th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, on Saturday, my leader and a few of my NDP colleagues and I stopped in at Tremblant's 24 hours of skiing. The event drew more than 2,000 participants and raised $2 million for four foundations that focus on children.

This event also gave me an opportunity to talk to business people from my region. In their opinion, investments in the region, which exceed $1 billion, will pay off only if there is an effective air transportation system with a complete customs service.

My constituents in Laurentides—Labelle would like to start 2013 on the right foot. I am sure the Minister of Public Safety has received my request for a meeting on this. I hope to hear from him soon.