Michael Savage

[Business of Supply, October 21st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague was here when I spoke about the importance of ACOA. The beauty of ACOA was that it recognized that there were a couple of distinct gaps in Atlantic Canada. One was that the venture capital funding to support commercialization was not there to get products through the development stage and marketed. The Atlantic innovation fund was very successful in that.

On the other hand, a program that came to be known as SCIF, the strategic community infrastructure fund, was very important in ridings like Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor because it recognized that communities do not have the funding and cannot even match funding in some cases. They need more support. It is the role of the federal government to go in and assist in those areas.

The agency for the regions of Quebec had a similar kind of role in Quebec and I think it performs a vital service for this country.

[Business of Supply, October 21st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, funds, such as the medical equipment fund, are very important. They reflect on the specific needs of certain areas. In a lot of places, they simply cannot afford that kind of equipment, so it makes sense to have it.

Shortly after that, the Liberal governments of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin established the Public Health Agency of Canada, which came about sort of as a result of SARS and other issues because epidemics and problems like that do not have borders and are not jurisdictional issues. If the provinces and the feds can work together to determine what the needs are, solutions can be found that will benefit all people.

That is the kind of flexibility we need in our arrangements, federally and provincially, with everybody at the table with their own points of view being represented.

[Canadian Council on Learning, October 21st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, killing the CCL is just rotten economics. We need to know how Canada's education system is doing so we can prepare for the new economy.

At $17 million, the CCL was a bargain. The government is going to spend an extra $35 million to get less information on the long form census. More spending, less information, how does that work? The president of the CCL will keep working without a salary because he, like many others, understands the importance of the CCL.

Why does the government insist on entering the new information age with no information at all?

[Canadian Council on Learning, October 21st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the government continues to choose ignorance over information. The changes to the long form census were the culmination of a series of ideological attacks on evidence gathering, like the decision to kill the Canadian Council on Learning. At a time when Canadians face demographic challenges that can only be solved by investing in education, the government cancelled the very agency that was producing the road map to a more educated Canada.

Why did the Conservative government abandon an organization that provides such critical information and leadership to Canadians?

[Business of Supply, October 21st, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his factual and non-partisan question.

Let me just remind the House what Monte Solberg said in 1994:

We should abandon the infrastructure works program...and begin the overdue process of cutting government spending.

He then said we should:

come to grips with the seriousness of the situation...and to move ahead with serious cuts in the very near future

Then, two years ago, he said the cuts were too deep.

It is amazing how time and what side of the House one is on changes one's perspective on things.

[Business of Supply, October 21st, 2010]

Madam Speaker, my colleague is a diligent fighter for his area, and he is right. Quite often we get promises or raised expectations about what the government proposes to do, but the details are not there.

I think we make a stronger Canada by having stronger regions, investing in western Canada, investing in the automotive industries and aerospace in Montreal, investing in ACOA in Atlantic Canada, because we are more than the sum of our parts. Canada together, all of us invested, in some cases looking at the specific needs of a region, in some cases looking at national programs, is what makes Canada special.

It is both the diversity and the similarity of this nation working strongly together that makes Canada as strong as it is, and I think it is the best nation on earth. I am proud to be here. I just wish we had a better government.

[Business of Supply, October 21st, 2010]

Madam Speaker, it is not a problem. You never make me nervous. I am entirely comfortable with you in the chair.

My colleague from Cape Breton—Canso said you cut me short, as the provinces were cut by the current federal government. I think that is a good point. Wise wisdom, as they say, from Cape Breton.

Madam Speaker, that was a bit of history, but I want to talk about another area and I hope my colleagues will indulge me.

This motion today speaks to all the provinces and not just the province of Quebec. In Atlantic Canada, where I come from, we love to complain about lots of different things, but we know that the federal government has a very positive role to play in the development of Atlantic Canada.

One of the very positive things that has happened in Atlantic Canada over the years is the development of ACOA. As people know, in Quebec there is the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec. However, Atlantic Canada's I think was the first regional development agency, ACOA, in 1987. It was brought in by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and followed up by Liberal governments after that.

It made a big difference in Atlantic Canada, this understanding that there is a unique nature regionally. It may be specific to a region, but it is important to the overall building of a country like Canada, and ACOA was a very important step.

I recall back in the early 2000s, right on the cusp of this century, ACOA developed a program called the Atlantic innovation fund, which came about after the report “Catching Tomorrow's Wave”. People like Senator Willie Moore from the other place and the current member for Charlottetown, who is going to be retiring soon to the misfortune of this House, were involved in coming forward with this plan.

This plan recognized that in Atlantic Canada there were specific projects that needed government help. We do not have a lot of venture capital. We do not have a lot of commercialization. The Atlantic innovation fund came forward and has been very successful in helping to build companies. It is not propping up companies that cannot make it on their own, but it allows them to take something to the next level.

In fact, a number of those companies are in my own riding. One specifically is an organization called the Acadian Seaplants Limited, which harvests sea plants. Years ago people thought that Mr. Louis Deveau, who has been one of the great entrepreneurs in Nova Scotia in the last half century, was crazy. He talked about bringing in seaweed and value-adding it here in Nova Scotia and sending it to places. He has developed a market and I think now has more than 500 employees in three or four different parts of Atlantic Canada.

Organizations like Acadian Seaplants Limited probably could not exist, certainly could not employ the number of people they have, without the support of the federal government.

Ocean Nutrition, which some people will know about, developed a process for micro-encapsulating omega-3 fatty acids for use in foods to provide healthier foods. It also employs Canadians and develops and spurs innovation in our universities, labs and private enterprises. Those are the kinds of organizations that have benefited from the federal government.

So the federal government has a role to play, and we want to respect the jurisdiction of the federal government and the provinces on issues, for example, of poverty, housing, child care and post secondary education. We think there is a role, following the jurisdictional dictates of Canada, for the federal government to play in those things.

On poverty, for example, the Senate released a report just before Christmas called “In From the Margins”, which is a call upon the federal government to be involved in the fight against poverty. Members of the Bloc are in support; for example the member for Chambly—Borduas has been a very strong supporter of that work. There are some issues around jurisdiction there, but we will work those out. This report will be tabled in the House of Commons sometime in the next couple of months. Since it is in draft form at this point in time, I will not read from it.

This government does have a way of using jurisdiction when it is to its advantage. The example I would use is the United Nations periodic review of 2009, which called upon the federal government to institute a national anti-poverty plan. The federal government chose to say it was not its jurisdiction. Yet if we look at some of the key pieces of social infrastructure, whether it is employment insurance, pensions and things like that, the federal government clearly does have a role to play.

There are six provinces and one territory, one of the provinces being Quebec, that have a national anti-poverty plan that they can be very proud of.

Child care we have talked about, but there is a need for a national housing strategy.

The member for Vancouver East has brought forward Bill C-304. We debated it again last night. I know the Bloc supports that. We are trying to find a way that we can ensure we can all support that bill and be respective of the jurisdictions involved.

Another project that I know my colleague from Chambly—Borduas is very keen on is the Canada summer jobs program, paid for by the federal government, an initiative of the late 1990s of the Liberal government that puts to work 37,000 or 38,000 students every year. At a point in time when there are more than 100,000 fewer student jobs than in 2008, we could double that program, possibly even triple it. That would be a possible way to go, to make a difference.

Employment insurance is a federal area, absolutely. We just had the grudging and, I would say, only partial extension of the pilot projects, like the best 14 weeks, like working while on claim, brought in by Lucienne Robillard back in 2004-2005. The government finally and grudgingly extended them, but has basically signalled the end of these, but if we look at the areas that are benefiting, we see this goes to help areas of high unemployment. It directs payments to people in areas of high unemployment. There are 21 areas, including Central Quebec, Chicoutimi, Jonquière, Gaspésie, Isle de la Madeleine, Lower St. Lawrence and North Shore, Northwestern Quebec and Trois-Rivières, so 6 of the 21 programs benefit specifically the province of Quebec.

I said earlier that this country was born out of compromise, not out of war, that the Fathers of Confederation chose ballots over bullets, and in doing so, laid the groundwork for a Canada that for many people is the envy of the world. Ours is not a perfect country; it is a work in progress, but our history is full of examples where Canadians came together and fashioned bonds of equality and common purpose. It is that desire to seek and work toward common purpose that I think enhances our sense of citizenship. I want a country that sees itself more than just as a collection of taxpayers.

Today we are hearing about tax points and transfers and debt and deficits. Those are not really the things that bind us together as a country. In some ways it prevents us from looking beyond ourselves. It creates division and prevents us from seeking the common purpose that allows us to tackle enormous challenges, like the demographic challenge facing Canada today.

Because of that I cannot vote for this motion today. I believe the provinces need to be respected. I believe their jurisdiction needs to be acknowledged. They need to be at the table, but the federal government needs to be at the table as well, a robust partner in building Canada and allowing us to work together to achieve the great potential of this country.

[Business of Supply, October 21st, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate on the opposition motion brought forward by the Bloc Québécois. The motion in essence seeks to restrict federal spending authority in areas of provincial jurisdiction and allow provinces to opt out of federally funded programs with full compensation and without conditions. This is not a new topic. It has been discussed in the House, at committees of the House and in reports from committees for many years.

We are a federated nation. We are a very fortunate nation. As a federated nation, I often think that the nature of our Confederation is both a blessing and a burden of being Canadian. It is never easy. I think of Winston Churchill's famous comment about democracy when he said that it was the worse system in the world except for all the rest. When we add Confederation to a democracy, it is the best system in the world, but in part it is messy. It is not always easy. We have become a nation that is the envy of the world in many areas.

Pre-Confederation, Canada was born of compromise. Canada was a group of bodies that came together. In 1867 Quebec, Ontario, the great and wonderful and at the time rich province of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick came together. It was a unique coming together and it has borne a lot of envy from people around the world.

I grew up in the United Kingdom. My father decided to come to Canada, and he chose it for a very specific reason. He believed in what Canada stood for. When he arrived here in the late 1960s, as a medical doctor, he became part of the new national experiment of medicare under Lester Pearson and the Liberal government.

There is a balance albeit a delicate balance. Canada has shown over and over again that it is more than the sum of its parts on things like health care, our national system of pensions, even things like employment insurance. There is a long and strong history of Canada making improvements through the federated model of coming to the table and making things work.

A big change to medicare came in 2004 when Prime Minister Paul Martin signed a deal with the provinces to put $46 billion into health care over 10 years, which was a huge investment. It took a lot of negotiation and consultation. Canada's priorities were determined. It was determined that we should improve upon five key areas. Money went into health care and all the provinces understood that. Hard questions will have to be asked as that comes up for renegotiation in 2014.

The member for Beauce suggested that $40 plus billion should be taken out of the federal transfers and that there should be no federal involvement in those transfers or in the work that those transfers do. It is consistent with what we have come to believe from the Prime Minister. A number of years ago he called for what is now referred to as the Alberta firewall. There is a history and a bit of an alliance between the governing Conservatives and the Bloc on this as to the role of Canada in part of those negotiations.

There are hard questions to be asked in health care. I will be the first to suggest that some of those questions will be a bit messy. We have to consider the changing demographics. We have to understand that Canadians are getting older. We have to understand that health care is gobbling up more and more of the public dollar. We have to figure out the role of the federal government.

The federal government has a big role to play. The federal government has not only the opportunity, but the responsibility to be involved in those discussions and to ensure that the priorities of the health care system reflect national issues and are adaptable to provincial interests. There is a model for that.

Back in 2004, when I was first elected to the House, the government, under the then minister of social development, developed a national child care plan with all of the provinces. That is an example of how government can work in our country.

I want to read from a press release from October 28, 2005, “Governments of Canada and Quebec Sign First Funding Agreement on Early Learning and Child Care”. The first paragraph reads:

Prime Minister Paul Martin and Quebec Premier Jean Charest, along with federal Social Development Minister... [the member for York Centre], Quebec's Minister of Families, Seniors and the Status of Women Carole Théberge, President of the Privy Council and Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Lucienne Robillard, and Quebec's Minister of Canadian Intergovernmental Affairs Benoît Pelletier, announced today an historic agreement concerning the transfer of $1.125 billion over five years under the federal government's Early Learning and Child Care Initiative. This is the first funding agreement the Government of Canada has signed under the Early Learning and Child Care Initiative.

It is an indication of how federalism can work and how the federal government can work with the provinces to make improvements in society.

My former colleague, the hon. Lucienne Robillard, said:

This agreement demonstrates the flexibility that characterizes a federation such as ours and allows us to conclude agreements that can adapt to the different situations, realities and needs of a province's population.

I want to quote from the minister from Quebec, Minister Pelletier:

This agreement, besides being of an asymmetrical nature, respects the exclusive skills of Quebec and the positions expressed in this matter. We have always believed that it was possible to agree on a formula that would recognize the work already carried out by Quebec and that would therefore allow us to benefit from [this] funding....

In a lot of ways, the province of Quebec has many things to teach the other provinces in Canada. Child care is an example, the $7-a-day child care program, which advocates in all the other provinces look to as a very strong model and one that works in developing young children. It has always been a bit of a bizarre notion to me that we think children start to learn at the age of six when they go to school. Children start to learn at the age of zero or perhaps even before that, before they are even born. We need to do more, and this model in Quebec is one we can follow.

Another area where Quebec is a leader is post-secondary education. The province has chosen to invest in post-secondary education. If we look at the cost of going to school in Quebec, whether it is undergraduate or graduate school, we see the tuitions are low. There is a cost to that. We all recognize that, but that is an investment that has been made by the province of Quebec.

We have other provinces that have also taken that lead on post-secondary education. The province of Newfoundland and Labrador now has tuitions for first-year arts and science that are in the range of $2,500, versus my province of Nova Scotia where it is more like $6,500. That is another area where Quebec has shown leadership.

Workforce training, maternity and paternity benefits, compassionate and sickness benefits for self-employed and new mothers are areas that are very important, and Quebec has been able to show its individuality. It has been able to invest in programs that it considers important, good investments. It certainly presents some budgetary challenges, but that is what being in government is about. That is the same rationale that this government has for making choices, except that it makes diametrically opposite choices, I would argue.

Quebec has had the opportunity, and Quebec has been respected and should be respected at the table whenever discussions of a federal nature are brought forward.

I want to reference one thing that has come up today, and that is the cuts that were made in federal transfers to the provinces in the 1990s. There is no question that there were cuts made to the provinces in the 1990s by the Liberal government, Jean Chrétien and the finance minister, Paul Martin. The party opposite now says those cuts were too deep. It was not saying that at the time.

People acknowledged that we faced an unbearable debt burden in the early 1990s when the Liberal government took power. Changes had to be made and I recall, with almost some degree of humour, that the former minister of human resources and skills development, Monte Solberg, used to stand in this House and say, “This is the government that cut transfers”, until I pointed out to him some of his words from back in the 1990s, when the government was trying to deal with the deficit, when the government was trying to deal with the enormous burden of having a $40-some billion deficit every year and a huge staggering debt.

This is the advice that Monte Solberg offered at the time:

We have a deficit of $40 billion. We have a debt approaching $535 billion. Soon international lenders are going to get fed up. They are going to say that they have had enough and want to find a place where their investment will be safe. ... I urge the government to come to grips with the seriousness of the situation, to take another look at its social program reform and to move ahead with serious cuts in the very near future for the sake of all Canadians.

That was the advice back then of members, some of whom are still in the government now, but specifically of one member who became the minister of human resources and skills development.

He said in October 1994, “...we gave the finance minister a list of $20 billion in proposed cuts for the government to use in its efforts to get the deficit and debt under control”.

I offer that to the parliamentary secretary. He should have a look at it.

Later he said, “...we are going to have to cut a lot deeper into our social programs. It means we cannot hold out any hope for tax relief for Canadians for a long time”.

Of course, we balanced the books and invested in social programs.

[Secure, Adequate, Accessible and Affordable Housing Act, October 20th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-304. The Liberal Party has supported Bill C-304 from the beginning.

Like many private members' bills, the bill has had issues and challenges. I am very pleased that the Liberal Party has strengthened the bill. I want to commend the work of a number of Liberals on the committee. I have been at the committee and we have been very supportive. I want to commend my colleague from Parkdale—High Park who has brought forward amendments to this bill that make this bill more applicable to persons with disabilities, that bring not for profits to the table in a stronger way, that set targets and standards and take into account strengthened environmental needs of affordable social housing in the country.

This is a way that we have worked to make sure that this bill is even better, but we support the bill. We want this bill to pass. We think this bill is important. Contrary to what the parliamentary secretary was implying, we think this is a very strong bill from an economic point of view.

This bill does not require a royal recommendation. It is about having a housing strategy and governments would make choices about what would be included in a housing strategy. There are recommendations in this bill, but first and foremost, it says that we should have some kind of a national strategy on affordable housing. I think most people would agree with that. Certainly the people in the not for profit community, many economists, many social scientists, people from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, who have become more and more involved in the need for affordable housing, would echo the sentiment that this is a bill that has real potential to make a difference in Canada.

I want to speak about the need for affordable housing. I referenced earlier a Senate report. My colleague from Sault Ste. Marie in the NDP, my colleague from Chambly—Borduas in the Bloc and others on the government side who have been part of an anti-poverty strategy would know some of this, but the Senate released a report on poverty and homelessness in December. The House of Commons has a report that is ready to go, but as it is only in draft form, I will not quote from that. I will, however, quote from the Senate report.

The Senate report opens a section on homelessness by saying:

The most visible sign of the failure of our income security and housing systems and programs to meet the basic needs of individuals and families is homelessness. By definition, homelessness is difficult to measure, but witness after witness reported increases in demand for shelters and food banks, even among those who are employed.

It goes on to reference a specific study in British Columbia, but it is echoed by other studies across the country. I will quote again:

The study concluded, based on the experience of participants, that costs for services for those who were homeless at the time of the study was 33% higher than for those who had been homeless but were then housed.

In other words, it costs money to have people homeless. It is a classic lose-lose situation.

My colleague from Yukon gave me a very good report the other day from the Wellesley Institute. I want to quote from its introduction:

People's ability to find, and afford, good quality housing is crucial to their overall health and wellbeing and is a telling index of the state of a country's social infrastructure.

I do not think anything could be more true than that. There are a lot of people who need more affordable housing who could benefit from a national housing strategy. One of the groups that would most benefit is people with disabilities.

In April or May, a press release came out from the Council of Canadians With Disabilities, from Marie White, the national chairperson. She is one of the great advocates in this country on social issues, not just on people with disabilities but on many other things as well. She calls on all parties to support Bill C-304:

Adequate housing is essential to the well being of persons with disabilities.... Canadians with disabilities disproportionately live in poverty and finding affordable housing is a huge challenge.

One of the great advocates for disability issues in this country is Steve Estey, who lives in my community of Dartmouth. He was a negotiator when Canada went to the United Nations to work on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. If he were here today, Steve would point out to us how important it is to recognize our international obligations to people with disabilities, the part of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities regarding the right to housing, and the important need that we have to provide that housing to people with disabilities.

There is another issue that I want to mention briefly. People are concerned about housing, not just for the really poor, to whom we really need to be responsive, but many other Canadians are awfully nervous and are not that far away themselves from having issues regarding decent shelter.

I want to provide a statistic from RBC Economics in September. It stated, “Today the typical Canadian family must devote 49% of its income to own a standard two-storey home while mortgage rates are at their lowest point”. Another statistic was that 58% of Canadians are concerned with their current level of debt, averaging $41,470 per person. That means many people are not that far from being under-housed, at the very least, and perhaps even some being homeless.

The statistics and evidence of the need for housing is coming from all kinds of quarters. Recently TD Economics released a report on the Toronto area economy's hidden recession. It stated, “Looking ahead, little improvement in the jobless rate, social assistance case loads and social housing wait lists can be expected over the medium term”.

The news is not really very positive. We need to take action on poverty overall, specifically homelessness. Let us look at the groups that have endorsed Bill C-304 recently such as the YWCA Canada, the Ontario Human Rights Commission and the Canadian Federation of University Women. which is a fabulous organization. It has great advocacy. I happen to know that because my mother-in-law is an active member of the Canadian Federation of University Women and I would never go against her advice.

Other groups that endorse the bill include the Canadian Medical Association, Canada Without Poverty, the Red Tent campaign and the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association. As I mentioned, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities has been very active on the need for getting into the housing business on a national level, bringing everybody to the table and asking what we can do, not just because it is an issue of social justice but because it is an issue of good economics as well.

I hosted a round table in my constituency last week, along with my colleague from Halifax, on palliative, or end of life care. We spent a lot of time talking about the importance of people choosing to die at home. Somebody stood and asked, “What about the people who don't have a home to die in?” When we think about the very basic needs of Canadians, one of the most important ones is that people have homes, not only where they can live but where they can die when that time is upon them.

In my constituency many times I visited the Metro Turning Point Shelter, where 70 or 80 men at a time live in one room. I think the beds are surplus prison beds. The men line up and spend the night there. We are all familiar with that in our constituencies. They go to the mission or, in our case, to Hope Cottage in the morning to get their meals. They wander around and return at night to try to get a bed. There is some really innovative stuff going on. We just need to encourage more of it.

Also in my constituency Affirmative Industries is an organization that has built housing for mental health consumers. Not only do people pay rent, but as part of the program they build up equity in those houses so eventually they actually have a few dollars invested. It gives them pride in home and when they leave, they have some place to go and a little money. More important, they have the dignity of knowing that it belongs to them.

We can do innovative things in housing. The Canadian Co-operative Housing Association has some fabulous projects that could benefit from the national housing strategy. There is no lack of ideas. There is a lack of a national strategy and commitment from the federal government. We need to do more.

On our federal anti-poverty hearings in the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, everybody who came, from Mike Kirby with the Mental Health Commission to people with disabilities, people from the aboriginal community, they all said the same thing. The first and most important step is to have a house. In Canada, where we pride ourselves on social infrastructure, we need to do better.

We can make the case purely from a social justice argument, but we can also make it from an economic argument. There is more and more evidence telling us that if people have a house, they are less of a burden on the health, justice and social welfare systems. This is where we have to go. It is time that we have some kind of national system that looks at this really important issue and asks if we can do better, if people in Canada should be housed, if everyone should have shelter. If they should, they can start here and this bill can play an important role.

We are happy to have made it better. We congratulate the member for Vancouver East for bringing it this far and we hope the House sees fit to adopt it.

[Secure, Adequate, Accessible and Affordable Housing Act, October 20th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I commend the member for the work she has done on the bill. I know she would acknowledge that members of the Liberal Party have been supportive of it and have helped to steer it through. I specifically reference the member for Parkdale—High Park who put in a number of serious amendments.

However, I want to ask her for a comment. One of the big issues in the fight against poverty and homelessness is the question of the cost of poverty and the cost of homelessness. I will reference a study that the hon. member would be familiar with which was commissioned by the British Columbia government in 2001. It is cited in the Senate report “In from the Margins: A call to Action on Poverty, Housing and Homelessness”. It stated:

The study concluded, based on the experience of study participants, that costs for services for those who were homeless at the time of the study was 33% higher than for those who had been homeless but were then housed.

In other words, this is good economics as well as good social justice, and I wonder if she might just comment on that.