Mike Sullivan

[Petitions, April 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, residents in my riding have signed a number of petitions protesting the loss of home mail delivery by Canada Post. They call upon the Government of Canada to reject Canada Post's plan to reduce services and to explore other options to update Canada Post's business plan.

[Rail Transportation, April 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, that is proving that the system did not work.

It is not just New Democrats asking the government to act on rail safety. Rail companies themselves are now saying that if the government does not act now and eliminate the use of the unsafe DOT-111 rail cars, there is no telling when they will be replaced.

The minister appears to be more concerned about the strain it will place on the manufacturers. This is about the safety of families who live near the tracks. Where is the minister's concern for them? When will she act?

[Rail Transportation, April 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, when rail companies started to run trains with only a single operator, they did so without approval from Transport Canada, because they did not need any approval. Companies make their own rules and simply give Transport Canada a heads-up afterwards.

In the aftermath of Lac-Mégantic, when a train run by a single operator derailed and exploded, killing 47 people, it is obvious to everyone that our rail safety system is broken.

Why will the minister not admit it and fix it?

[Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1, April 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am very interested in the notion of apprenticeships. We have been pushing very hard in Toronto, in my riding in particular, for apprenticeships as a result of infrastructure building that is going on—some of it federally supported, but most of it provincially supported—and the province is not being very helpful.

I was encouraged in 2013 when Mr. Flaherty suggested that future federal infrastructure spending would actually require apprenticeships. Nothing happened in the 2013 budget implementation bills 1 and 2, and nothing is in this budget implementation bill.

I wonder if the member would be able to tell me why the government makes promises in budgets but does not follow through.

[Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1, April 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague's speech. I too am very dismayed that the bill is being rushed through. After only 25 minutes of debate, the government gave notice to shortchange us on the amount of time we could debate it.

I notice that the budget does not include very much, if anything, on housing. Housing is a critical need in the city of Toronto, in my riding, and in many places across the country.

The Liberals cut federal housing support in the 90s. It was only after Jack Layton convinced Paul Martin to not give corporate Canada a big bonus that we got a little housing money put into the budget in 2005. However, this government has really not done anything for housing. Would the member like to comment?

[Employment, April 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the minister himself for answering the question. It is heartening to know that he is as engaged in the file as much as he is.

The problem still exists, and I recognize that it is a problem between two governments, the federal and provincial governments, and the provincial government is blaming the federal government and the federal government is blaming the provincial government. Unfortunately, in the middle is the collaborative partnership network consisting of 375 groups altogether, but 315 had their funding stopped on the basis of this disagreement. Whether that is the federal government's fault or the provincial government's fault, only time will tell at some point in the future about whether the money has continued to flow to the province in spite of the fact that there is no agreement or whether the money was held up until there was an agreement. I do not know the answer to that question and maybe the minister does.

In any event, I am hopeful that in very short order this can be sorted out between the federal and provincial governments and that there can be continued funding for these groups.

[Employment, April 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, on February 27 I asked the Minister of Employment and Social Development whether he would consider providing bridge funding for groups that assisted disabled individuals to become ready, willing, and able to become part of the workforce. In particular, we were concerned about the Collaborative Partnership Network and the fact that 200 people with disabilities would be forced out of work if an agreement was not reached.

I will read from my question:

Will the minister commit today, at the very least, to providing this network with the bridge funding it needs to continue its work?

The answer:

Mr. Speaker, nothing could be further from the truth.

I am not sure what that means, but there was no offer of bridge funding for this organization.

My colleague, the member for Montcalm, asked a similar question immediately afterward, and again there was no positive answer from the government.

The deadline, of course, was March 31, and in fact there was no agreement and there was no continuation of funding on March 31 for this group, the Collaborative Partnership Network. However, since that time, the Province of Nova Scotia has stepped in where the federal government refused and has provided funding for 60 of the 375 groups that had expired labour market agreements.

The network was one of the fortunate 60, but the money is limited to wages only and will expire in four to six weeks.

Today we understand that the province has announced that it has reached an agreement in principle with the federal government, and what that apparently means is that they will continue to negotiate. There are no details. There is no actual agreement. It is just an agreement to continue talking.

More concerning, though, is the nature of the changes to the way the money will be spent and the nature of the changes the government is dictating to those groups in Nova Scotia. In the past the money was provided to groups and organizations that assisted people who did not have jobs and who needed assistance to enter or re-enter the workforce. In particular, this money was spent in some cases to help organizations provide assistance and counselling and in some cases workplace accommodation to persons with disabilities.

The effects of this spending were felt by many in the province. Hundreds of persons who were unemployed or unemployable were mentored, coached, and assisted until they were ready, willing, and able to join the workforce. They were not already in the workforce.

After they joined the workforce, the assistance continued, allowing them to stay gainfully employed. The 200 persons who were and still are at risk of losing their jobs are contributing between $3 million and $4 million a year to the economy, rather than being a net drain of $2 million to $3 million in disability income supports.

However, the federal government's new design of the Canada job grant would not have room for such a system. The grant system is really designed for the big companies to get access to federal money to train and retrain their existing employees. The grants would assist those who are already employed rather than those who are not. It is a little counterintuitive.

It would also be of little or no use to small and medium-sized enterprises. Those employers would find it difficult, if not impossible, to find the necessary funding to access the Canada job grants. They would not be able to spend the money to attract and keep disabled employees. It is not designed to do that.

We are disappointed that the federal government could not be counted upon to provide the transitional funding to keep the 315 groups that have lost out. The little bit of temporary funding that the province came up with for 60 groups is a welcome respite for some, but the problem of the design of the program and the failure to reach agreement with the province does not bode well for the remaining groups, nor for the 60 whose existence hangs in the balance, including the Collaborative Partnership Network.

[Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1, April 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is good that my hon. colleague raised that issue. In my riding of York South—Weston, the middle class used to be supported by manufacturing jobs. There used to be good manufacturing jobs, tens of thousands of them. They are all gone. Where did they go? They went to other countries. They went out of the riding.

The people who used to be supported by those jobs are now supported by part-time, temporary, minimum wage jobs, if they have a job at all. They cannot get EI because they have not worked long enough.

It is a dire situation, and there is nothing in this budget to help recreate the kind of middle class that we used to enjoy, particularly in the city of Toronto.

[Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1, April 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is fitting that the member talks about rail safety immediately after the discussion about FATCA.

The minister has suggested that the reason for the change is to make it quicker for her to change Canada's rail safety regime, and to change it without consultation and discussion, to harmonize it with the U.S.

We live in Canada; we do not live in the United States. It is true that the rail networks cross the border, but I would like to think that the Canadian government would want to protect its citizens in a way that is at least as good as they are doing today, not water it down to make it amenable with some U.S. regulation.

[Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1, April 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am not aware of what went on behind closed doors in the negotiations with the Americans. All I am aware of is what is in this bill. If somebody wants to say it could have been a lot worse, well, there are lots of things that could have been a lot worse.

The problem is that this bill imposes an obligation on Canadian banks to eventually disclose to American authorities Canadian assets, Canadian dollars in Canadian banks. That is deserving of a much fuller discussion than this bill is ever going to get.