Michael Savage

[Petitions, May 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present two petitions today.

The first contains the signatures of many thousands of people. Their issue is seniors living in poverty, indicating that more than a quarter of a million Canadians live in poverty. These are seniors who have helped to build the country. OAS is indexed quarterly based on increases to the consumer price index, but they do not reflect the costs involved for seniors.

I want to thank Mr. John Maloney for his help in assembling this petition and forwarding it here.

[Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, May 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-201 and support the reintroduction of its clauses. As with other speakers, I want to commend the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore. His riding is very close to mine, both in proximity and in terms of the people who make it up. We both have largely military ridings. He has certainly honoured the tradition of the military for both veterans and serving members, and he has been tireless in his support of this bill.

In simple terms, this bill seeks to amend the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act. The essence of this problem is that, at age 65, veterans of the Canadian Forces and RCMP see their pensions decreased. This goes back to the 1966 introduction of the Canada pension plan and the integration of the Canada pension plan with existing pension plans.

I want to be clear that it is my view that all members of the House want to do their very best to support our veterans. This is not an issue that should be divided along partisan lines. I do not believe it is a political issue. The question is, how do we best serve former serving members of the Canadian Forces and the RCMP? This is not a bill that is as easy to deal with as some might say, but I also do not think it is as complicated as others might have it either.

In my opinion, the heart of the matter is the question of what is fair. We are at a point in time when Canadians are quite common in their belief that we need more work on pensions. Many Canadians do not have adequate pensions. Others have seen their pensions disappear all of a sudden before their eyes. I have had the chance to talk to Nortel employees, both pensioners and also people who are on long-term disability, and their stories are quite frightening.

People thought they had secured their pension, secured their future, and secured the time that they would have after working, which in many cases is more and more years. People are living longer, but are they living better or living as well? I think that goes to the heart of this matter as well. I think it is appropriate for the House as well as the government to consider this idea of fairness, and to put it in the context of service offered to country and how country responds to service.

As I mentioned, I come from a military community and I am very proud to do so. From the time I was elected in 2004, I have felt both the responsibility and the privilege of coming from a military community. Shearwater borders my riding and the riding of the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore. We have other bases in Halifax, Dartmouth and others in Nova Scotia. There is a strong military presence.

One of the privileges of being a member of Parliament is to march with veterans and to be with veterans all year, but particularly on those days that are very special. In Dartmouth at the cenotaph and also in Cole Harbour at the cenotaph, we have very serious commemorations of events like Remembrance Day. Every year now, I have the opportunity to go into schools and talk to kids. Like other members in the House, I take great pleasure and pride in the fact that our children understand Remembrance Day in a much more significant way than my generation did.

When I went to school, I can recall the veterans coming in to talk to us, but there was always a bit of a sense back then that war and peace were different things. Everybody wanted to have peace without sometimes recognizing that war was an avenue to peace and that the people who had given up their lives and those who have had their lives altered by the experience of war are the profound heroes of our country.

Remembrance Day, the Battle of Britain, and the Battle of the Atlantic are very significant commemorations on the east coast, the home of Canada's east coast navy. On D-Day, we all gather at the Somme Branch Legion and walk down to the waterfront. It is a very sombre occasion, but it is an occasion that brings people together and allows them to remember the good, the bad, and particularly the sacrifice of people who have gone before.

Great veterans like Allan Moore still occasionally walk with us. He served in World War II. His brother was killed in World War II and he found out about it by reading a military journal. Allan Moore has gone into classes for many years and explained to children about the horrors of war in a way that they can understand it and by seeing pictures of it. They learn about the horrors of war and the sometimes necessity of war. Doug Shanks is a very special individual. He is one of the many who was involved in the liberation of Holland, which the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore will be commemorating tomorrow.

These are the great heroes living among us, people who have made a huge difference, people who have given us the opportunity to bring bills forward in this very august chamber where things like this should be discussed, debated, and ultimately decided on by the people's representatives.

We have great heroes in this country. Whenever we go to a citizenship swearing-in ceremony, which is another great privilege of being a member of Parliament, we always see a veteran there to welcome people to Canada, in some cases new Canadians and in some cases people who have been here for a while but have decided to become citizens. It never fails to impress when somebody who has served Canada is there, sometimes with a cane, sometimes with a walker, sometimes with an assistant, but there to let people know that one of the rights and privileges of being Canadian is to honour the sacrifice of those who have gone before.

One cannot help but have a very specific understanding of the nature of war if one lives in an east coast community such as the one in which I live.

This year more than ever we have reason to look at Bill C-201 and to ask if we are being fair, are we providing fairness for the service that was provided by both the living and the dead?

A couple of months ago John Babcock, Canada's last World War I veteran, passed away at the age of 109. This is the 100th anniversary of Canada's navy, and Halifax is the east coast home of the navy.

Before I was elected, I was privileged to be a trustee of HMCS Sackville, the last of the corvettes. During World War II there were over 260 corvettes, 120 of which were built in Canada. The Sackville was built in Saint John. After the war the corvettes served different purposes, whether it was fishing or other purposes. They have all gone except for HMCS Sackville.

I recall a few years ago I had the opportunity when we were doing some finance committee travel to bring the members of the committee on to HMCS Sackville. Judy Wasylycia-Leis was there. She fit very comfortably inside the corvette. Brian Palliser, who was then the chair of the Conservative finance committee, had a little more trouble on the corvette. One can only image how these little ships, these rugged, heroic little vessels went out to patrol the water and open the channels during World War II in the icy north Atlantic and the men who served them in many ways. This is a microcosm of Canada.

During World War II people from the Prairies used to serve on these vessels. They would come to Halifax, never having really seen an ocean. On some occasions they would look across from Halifax to Dartmouth and think that was Europe because they had not seen that kind of expanse of water before.

They came and they served and they were heroes. We have to do everything we can to ensure that HMCS Sackville is preserved, brought ashore, and given the honour and the respect that it deserves. There are over 1,100 trustees of HMCS Sackville.

I can only encourage anybody who wants to really get connected to Canada's navy in this the 100th anniversary to google HMCS Sackville, and when in Halifax come and visit it.

We have to look at Bill C-201 and ask, is there a specific purpose here? I believe that there is. I want to quote from G.K. Chesterton who said:

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.

Those who served us in the armed forces and the RCMP have gone above and beyond. I acknowledge the work of the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore and my colleague from Avalon, who has supported this bill all the way through. This is the right thing to do. I encourage members of this House to support Bill C-201.

[Petitions, April 30th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure to present a petition from a number of post-doctoral fellows in Canada who were caught off guard by the government's decision regarding post-doctoral fellowships to eliminate the exemption. What they are looking for is a suspension of that decision until at least the post-doctoral student association can meet with the government. There are a number of people from Ottawa and some from my own community of Halifax asking for that to happen.

[Employment Insurance Act, April 29th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly have done that and will continue to do that. I thank my two colleagues for their interventions. I found the latter one much more relevant and sensible.

We are talking about EI and how we fix EI. That is why we are looking at this two-week waiting period issue that members in our caucus, including the members for Madawaska—Restigouche, Beauséjour, Cape Breton—Canso, have talked about for a long time.

There is a view on the government side, as has been said directly by the minister herself, that EI was too generous. We heard that. My colleague from Madawaska—Restigouche mentioned in the fall how members of the government side started to pick and choose who should get the extra weeks based on who deserved it more, which is an affront to people who need EI and are unable to get any particular benefit from the government.

If this is indeed the case, what is Canada doing versus other countries? If, as the government believes, we are way too generous in our EI system, let us look at this waiting period of two weeks. Canada has a two-week waiting period; Denmark has no waiting period; Finland has seven days; France has eight days; Germany has no waiting period; and Sweden has five days. That is what some of our contemporary comparators are doing.

On benefit duration right now, it is 14-45 weeks in Canada before the extension. In Denmark benefits may last for up to 4 years; in Finland, it is 500 days; in Germany, it is 6-18 months; and in Sweden is 300 days with a possibility of an extra 150 days.

When we talk about social infrastructure, we cannot look at EI and say it is too generous. The minister has said it, but she is wrong. She tells us a lot about how she runs her department, and how the government looks at EI when it thinks it is too generous and does not want to risk making it even more generous.

Other countries that we should compare ourselves to are doing a whole lot more. If we look at and say that our social infrastructure is way better than the United States, it turns out that Obama had led the charge on EI to extend way beyond 5 weeks or even 15 weeks. In the United States the federal government actually took a leadership role on employment insurance and said this is where we need to go.

At the very beginning of this debate we need to understand that we do many things right in Canada, but we are not the leaders on things like employment insurance, just like we are not the leaders on issues of disability. I congratulate the government on finally ratifying the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, but we have a lot of work to do.

I want to congratulate my colleague from Brome—Missisquoi for getting the bill here. I hope that we have a less close vote. I hope we do not have to rely on the common sense of the Speaker to send this back to our committee where we can have a look at it.

Employment insurance is a critical piece of our social infrastructure. It has evolved over the years and we can all argue about the reasons. We can all look at it and say that this should not have been done, that should not have been done. We have done that in committee and we have done that in this House, and we have done that outside of this House.

The point is that when employment insurance was most needed, when the country was in a tailspin, when manufacturing was going down, when provinces simply could not keep up with the social assistance payments because people were being offloaded from things like EI, when we needed help, when we talked about stimulus, the government did not respond in the way it should have. It just did not come close.

Employment insurance is as good a form of stimulus as is possible because people need it and they spend it. This bill is well worthy of consideration. I intend to vote for it and I hope all members of the House do likewise.

[Employment Insurance Act, April 29th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, it is great to have an opportunity to speak to Bill C-241. I want to congratulate my colleague from Brome—Missisquoi for bringing the bill this far. We did discuss this before Parliament was prorogued and it was passed at committee. I am hoping this time it will not be such a close vote in order to get it to committee where the member for Chambly—Borduas and I, and others can have a look at it.

There has been a lot of activity, advocacy in particular, on the employment insurance issue over the last little while. Employment insurance at a time of an economic downturn is a particularly important piece of our social infrastructure. The idea of the two-week waiting period has been discussed quite a bit. My colleague from Madawaska—Restigouche has talked about this a lot within our Atlantic and our national caucus. This affects people in his riding in a very significant way.

The idea of even calling it a two-week waiting period is not correct. It really should be called a two-week “out of luck period”, or a two-week “too bad for you period”, or a two-week “no money for the family period”. That may sound funny, but it is a fact of life that many people lose their jobs. Unlike many Canadians, we sit in a very privileged place, do a wonderful job, and members of Parliament work hard, but we are well treated for that work.

Most Canadians really do not live much more than paycheque-to-paycheque. To lose a paycheque all of a sudden and be told at the very least they have to wait two weeks on top of the processing time, which lagged in late 2008 and early 2009, is most unfortunate. So this is a very important piece of our social infrastructure. When people need the money, they need it right away.

There are a number of ways we can improve EI. We have gone through these in the House before. An increase of the benefit percentage is another way of improving EI. We could increase the number of weeks. The government added some weeks in the last budget and then further in the fall added a specific group of people. We could look at what percentage of income people can make while they are on EI. There is a whole host of ways of looking at the difference between re-entrance and regular users of EI, so this is one period that is particularly important.

It is important to understand that there will be a cost. It is hard to identify the cost specifically, but the Library of Parliament indicates that there are three ways that the bill would increase costs. First, periods of unemployment lasting two weeks or less would then become insured. Second, extending the duration of the benefits of some people who find a job before their maximum period ends would impact on this. Third, it would increase costs because benefit deductions are calculated differently during the waiting period than during the other weeks of unemployment. So there is a cost, but we do not know what it is.

HRSDC has given us some different costs. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives supports the elimination of the two-week waiting period. It has suggested a costing of $765 million. We had a cost that was provided by TD Economics which suggested it might be $1 billion. I do not know exactly what the cost is, but the question for us is, is that cost worth it and more importantly, do we need to send a message to the government that at a time of economic difficulty was its response last year enough?

I clearly do not think it was. I want to quote from this year's alternative budget on employment insurance. It states:

The economic crisis, the first since major cuts were made to our EI program in the mid-1990s, has been an extreme “stress test” for Canada’s EI program. The program has failed and needs to be fixed.

There is no question that changes were made to our EI system starting in 1990 when Prime Minister Mulroney made the first changes to EI. That was the point in time in which the government no longer became one of the contributors to the fund. It was then left to employers and employees, and further cuts came later. We were in a time of economic distress where the needs were much different than they were at this economic downturn. Back then the issue was getting rid of the debt. This time the issue was making sure--

[Persons with Disabilities, April 28th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the minister does not even care enough about the disabled to have an accessible riding office after six years in office.

This Conservative slush fund is an insult to Canadians with disabilities, who are more likely to face barriers to success and are more likely to live in poverty. They deserve better than this. This culture of deceit abandons millions of Canadians who need help. It is inexplicable and it is offensive.

Here is an easy question. How could it be that 26 individual Conservative ridings each received more projects than the entire province of Newfoundland and Labrador?

[Persons with Disabilities, April 28th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians expect the government to account for what is clearly political interference with the enabling accessibility fund. The minister has never explained why approximately 90% of all funding went to Conservative MPs' ridings. Remember, we are talking about a fund for the disabled. It is supposed to be for all disabled Canadians, but clearly it is not.

Could the minister start by explaining how one single Conservative riding, one riding, received more projects than the provinces and territories of Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Yukon and the Northwest Territories combined?

[Petitions, April 26th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure to present a petition from many thousands of people who are calling for an increase to the guaranteed income supplement.

They point out that today in Canada there are many seniors who live in poverty. These are individuals who have built this country and helped make it great, but the increases they receive do not reflect today's cost of living increases in taxes, housing, food and transportation.

The federal government has the responsibility and should have the capacity to assist these people. The petitioners are calling for an immediate increase in the guaranteed income supplement.

[Persons with Disabilities, April 22nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, let us understand the issue. This is a callous, deliberate, political hijacking of a fund for people with disabilities, and it has now become part of the Conservative culture of deceit.

The minister in charge of the fund does not even care enough about people with disabilities to have an accessible riding office. After six years as an MP, four of them as the minister responsible for people with disabilities, why is there such a huge gap between her words and her actions? Who told her to turn the enabling accessibility fund into a political slush fund, and why does she not care enough to have an accessible riding office?

[Persons with Disabilities, April 22nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, last year the first round of funding for the enabling accessibility fund was shown to be a political slush fund. The results are in for the second round of funding and it is even slushier. Of the 169 projects approved, 113 went to Conservative ridings, including those of 14 ministers. That is 67% of all funding in Conservative ridings.

It is disgusting and dishonourable to allow politics to override the needs of the disabled. How could the minister stoop so low?