Mike Sullivan

[Infrastructure, October 25th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, this past summer, the city of Toronto suffered what is described as a once-in-a-hundred-years storm. Thousands of homes were flooded, families lost cherished possessions and spent millions rebuilding. Neighbourhoods in my riding of York South—Weston were among the hardest hit.

I visited the flooded streets to offer comfort and assistance. I saw tremendous resilience from the very young to the very old. I also saw the aftermath of the current Conservative government's neglect of our city and its critical infrastructure needs, such as improved sewer systems, some of which are over 100 years old.

With climate change, severe storms like the one that hit Toronto on July 8, will become more frequent. The Conservative government needs to get off the sidelines and start investing to prevent widespread flooding from happening with each big storm.

I have written on these matters to the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Infrastructure, but the response did not offer any assistance.

This is a prime example of the climate change adaptation the government talks about. The time to help is now. My constituents not only expect it, they demand it.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 2, October 24th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the member did say at the very beginning that we should check out www.actionplan.gc.ca, so I did. The very first thing on the list is something called “Creating Opportunities in the Trades”.

There we see a lovely video featuring Mike Holmes, in which almost all of the participants are men. They are learning all kinds of trades, under Mike Holmes' tutelage, I assume, though I am not sure. In the only places where women show up in this video, they are doing hair, doing fingernails, and preparing food.

Why is it that the Conservative government believes that women are not part of the economic action plan and that women are not available to learn all the trades in this country?

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 2, October 24th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the government does not really understand how labour-sponsored venture funds actually work or it would not be doing what it is doing. These funds are job creators, yet the government, which claims to be a job-creating government, is doing things that will actually kill jobs in Quebec. Perhaps it is because the government has such disdain for labour, or such disdain for Quebec, that it has done this in the budget. In addition, the government has taken other pokes at labour by removing health and safety protections from the labour code, putting all of that on the back of the minister herself.

We see, yet again, a Conservative omnibus bill that goes well beyond what a budget would ever include. It includes things that should never be in a budget.

I wonder if the member would like to comment.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 2, October 24th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I have some questions for my colleague from the riding to the north of me concerning this budget bill which includes not only budgetary items.

The government has included some workers health and safety things that would strip powers from health and safety officers. This was never mentioned in the budget, yet it is in the budget implementation bill. I think if the workers at the Bombardier plant in his riding were facing the same kind of action by the provincial government, they would be pounding on my colleague's door complaining about what the provincial government was doing to them, yet the Conservatives are proposing something similar that was never in the budget. Why it is there?

Why are some of the consumer protection things that the government has touted as being necessary not there? They could have been included.

Why are the Conservatives insistent on making this a time allocation bill when the opposition was prepared to agree on the amount of time it was going to have?

The government prorogued and did not spend a lot of time in the House and yet it wants to hurry this up.

[Petitions, October 24th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to table petitions signed by my constituents calling on the government to protect Canada's lakes and rivers, including the Humber River in my riding.

[Criminal Code, October 21st, 2013]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-541, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (hate propaganda).

Mr. Speaker, events this past summer exposed a huge failing in the Criminal Code, so I am pleased today to introduce an act to amend the Criminal Code, specifically the section dealing with hate propaganda.

This bill would amend the Criminal Code to include persons with disabilities among the groups of identifiable people against whom hate propaganda would be prohibited. By so doing, people with disabilities would have the protection of the law from those who would engage in spreading hatred on the basis of a disability, such as suggesting euthanasia for simply having a disability such as autism. The bill would help affirm that persons with disabilities are a valued part of Canada deserving respect and are able to live in our communities without fear of oppression or hatred.

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

[Canadian Museum of History Act, June 17th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I have the web page that states that it was a historical site, which was deleted by the federal government from its records the day after we got a copy of it. It is designated by the City of Toronto as a historic property as well as by the Province of Ontario. However, the difficulty is that the federal government believes it has the right to take down designated historic properties without any reference to any municipality. That is what the intention was with that site.

[Canadian Museum of History Act, June 17th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I was hoping to get to the Canadian Air and Space Museum, which existed for many years on the site of the former military base at Downsview Park. It was in a historically designated building, plant 2 of the de Havilland factory. The crown corporation that owns and runs Downsview Park decided to kick out the museum, tear down the historical building and build a hockey rink in consultation with the Maple Leafs. That was somewhat misguided. We should try to preserve, not destroy, Canadian history using whatever government resources are available. That was not done in the case of the Canadian Air and Space Museum.

[Canadian Museum of History Act, June 17th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I did say at the beginning of my speech that celebrating history is something we should do, but not at the expense of another museum. If the government wants to create a Canadian museum of history, that is a good thing and we would agree. However, to tear down an existing museum and remove its mandate and purpose only to replace it with another mandate and purpose is misguided. I would wholeheartedly support the creation of a museum of Canadian history if it were not for the fact that we would destroy the Canadian Museum of Civilization in the process.

[Canadian Museum of History Act, June 17th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I only wish that the Twitter hashtag had been, “PrimeMinisterialHistory”, but unfortunately, that is not what it is and in order to accurately state it--and I will not state it again, because I understood your reference--I had to state the word which was the hashtag.

In any event, the concern has again been raised by the Twitter verse that the party opposite is attempting to rewrite history by its review of the standards that Canadian schools are teaching. I am not sure what the boards of education across the country are thinking, but they cannot be happy.