Mike Sullivan

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 18th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, if Canadians want clean water drink and clean air to breathe, why would the government remove human health from the definition of environmental effects to be studied in an environmental assessment? The only study now, according to the government, is for fish, birds and species at risk.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 18th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, this bill is part of a larger pattern, a pattern of hidden agendas. It was not in the campaign, in the Speech from the Throne or in the budget, but now we find out about it as a result of the budget implementation bill. It is also part of a pattern of attack on Canadian working people.

I want to talk about the 30% wage reduction for those who are coming off EI. A 15% across the board wage reduction in any occupation in Canada that a temporary foreign worker will come and work in and something like a third of the jobs that the Conservatives keep talking about that have been created are actually being held by temporary foreign workers, not by Canadians.

Then there is the federal contractors' fair wage policy, the federal contractors' employment equity policy and the move from age 65 to 67 without a move to allow those people to continue to work. The federal labour code actually permits employers to force people to retire at age 65, not at age 67, as the government wants them to do.

I believe this is part of a significant pattern of attacking working people in Canada. Would the member like to comment further on that?

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 18th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Parkdale—High Park for her excellent work on this file.

She may be aware that last week the World Health Organization declared diesel exhaust to be a carcinogen on the same level as asbestos and mustard gas. As she knows, that is a serious concern for the residents of her riding, my riding, Davenport and all of Toronto.

However, the Conservative government has proposed a bill that, if passed today, would remove human health from the list of things that are an effect of the environment. It would not matter whether the WHO has said that something is now dangerous, because if there were to be an environmental assessment under the proposed law, human health would not be part of the mix. Only fish, waterfowl and species at risk would be studied as a result of the changes the Conservatives are proposing to make. Human health would be in danger as a result of these changes, particularly in Toronto. I wonder if the member would like to comment.

[Air Canada, June 14th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, yes this is a historic night. It is yet another chapter in the anti-worker agenda of the government.

We have EI legislation which will now force people who are on EI, including those Aveos workers, to take jobs at a 30% reduction in their salary when they come off EI, which is an attack on their standard of living.

We have a situation where, through the immigration system, employers, including airlines, are free to hire temporary foreign workers, and there are airlines in this country doing it. This will undermine the value of the workforce of that airline by 15%. The government has now decided that employers can bring in temporary foreign workers at a 15% reduction. That is happening now in the airline industry.

My question again is, when will the government realize its mistakes and stop attacking the workers of this country?

[Air Canada, June 14th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the government that it was almost exactly a year ago next week that we sat in this same chamber debating and voting on the return to work of Canada Post. That began a trend by the government toward a system of labour relations that was designed to favour the employers and designed to signal to employers that the current government will intervene in every major labour dispute that threatens on the horizon.

The end result of that is bad labour relations in this country and a bad precedent. We only have to look as far back as a couple of weeks ago when we ended up debating the return to work of the CP workers, the latest in a long string of government interferences in private sector bargaining.

The government has no business interfering directly in private sector bargaining. The bargaining regime in this country is one of free collective bargaining, one without government interference, yet here we have a string of interferences by the government that signal to these major employers that the government is going to rescue them.

I was a bargainer for well over 30 years. I know that the parties have to work these things out with the fear of a strike or a lockout hurting both sides.

However, in the case of Canada Post, three times with Air Canada and now with CP, the government has decided to tell the employer—not the employees, but the employer—that it will bail them out.

There is no fear. They do not have to fear collective bargaining any more. They do not have to fear the outcome. The government will take sides, as it has done with Air Canada and as it did with Canada Post. The government is in a position of having undermined the very foundation of our free collective bargaining system, which was one based upon both sides working toward a deadline. It was the fear of what the consequences of that deadline would be that would drive them to a collective agreement. I have done it many times, and that is exactly what happens.

That is not the case any more, not if it is Air Canada, not if it is Canada Post, not if it is CP—and who knows what other employers are going to come forward after this latest in a string? The current government has signalled to the parties not to worry, that it will intervene, that it will take sides. Why would any management want to settle when that is the case? Why would any management want to put its trust in its collective bargaining when it knows the government will intervene?

That is not how the Canadian system works.

We have had a situation with Air Canada, which was the subject of my question originally, whereby the government's position was that it acted in the public's interest and for safety. However, since the government's intervention, we have had interruptions in service as a result of the upset of the employees. As well, as the result of the loss of Aveos, we now have pieces of airplanes falling out of the sky in Mississauga, as a result, we think, perhaps, of the maintenance situation at Air Canada, which in turn goes back to this collective bargaining process and in turn goes back to the fact that the employees were not permitted to bargain as to how that Aveos deal was to shake down.

My question is this: will the government finally stop interfering in free collective bargaining in this country?

[National Public Transit Strategy Act, June 13th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague from Trinity—Spadina for having the tenacity and the doggedness to push ahead with the decision by this party to support a national public transit strategy across this vast land of ours, not just in urban centres but in rural Canada as well.

At the transport committee we conducted a study of a national public transit strategy. Unfortunately, government members opposite decided that they did not want a strategy, so they changed the name of the study, after it had been completed, to a study of public transit, which is an indication, I am afraid, of the government's current mentality when it comes to public transit.

We need a public transit strategy in this country. One has to look no further than Toronto to understand why a strategy is essential. We had a situation in which a political decision was made, not a public decision. The political decision was to build subways in areas where they are currently being very lightly used and to fill in a hole where a subway was being built.

Tragically, that hole is being dug up again. We have spent probably 200 million public dollars by digging a hole, filling it in, and now digging it again, all because of changes in government.

Public transit is a 200-year investment. It is not a four-year investment, as many government members would have us believe. “Is it going to get me re-elected in four years' time?” is the only question they care about.

It is a 200-year investment, and we need thinkers who think in 200-year timeframes, as the people who built this country did when they installed railroads across this country 160 years ago. The bridge over the Humber River that crosses into my riding was put there 158 years ago, and it is still standing and still carrying trains. It is actually being added to, not being torn down; it is being rebuilt to carry more trains, which brings me to the next piece of the folly of not having a strategy.

In the early 1990s the Ontario government, which was at the time an NDP government, decided that there was a need for more public transit in Toronto. The government started a big series of projects to build transit. The Conservative government that took over in 1995—and some of the members opposite were in that government—decided to cancel most of that public transit investment and filled in the holes that had been dug.

The City of Toronto, realizing that it needed transit, asked the federal government to come forward and help build a subway to the airport. What did we get from David Collenette and the federal Liberals? We received a rapid transit line in the form of a diesel train that was going to be only for business passengers. It was going to be incredibly disruptive and incredibly expensive, and it was not real public transit. However, he told us not to worry, since not one nickel of public money would be spent on the train.

The trouble is, here we are, 13 years after the promise that it would not be public money, and the $1.5 billion investment that we received, some of it from the federal government, will not do anything to improve public transit in the city. We are spending $1.5 billion to build a train to the airport that will only be used by a relative handful of people. We will be the only major city on the planet that runs diesel trains to its airport from downtown.

All the people I have talked to who live along that line have unanimously agreed that to build diesel trains in such incredible numbers is not smart transit. Not only can they not use it, because it is only for the well-heeled, and not only can they not access it, because it will not stop anywhere along the route, but It will also pollute tremendously in every part of Toronto. A total of 464 diesel trains will be whizzing by neighbourhoods in ridings just south of mine. There will be over 300 in my riding, many of which will be running to the airport.

The government said, after a “thorough” environmental assessment, that a new diesel fuel is out there, a better and cleaner diesel, and that we would just run with that.

The public wants electric.

That is part of what a national public transit strategy could give us: a direction from the government so that transit would be funded in an intelligent way, in a way that does not pollute, in a way that actually gives people public transit they can use and in a way that is healthy.

It is remarkable that today the World Health Organization has released a report that now lists diesel exhaust as a carcinogen in the same category as asbestos, arsenic and mustard gas. The provincial government—with some money from the federal government, as there is a considerable amount of federal money in this project too—is going to expose people and their children to the proven carcinogen of the diesel exhaust coming from literally thousands and thousands of trains a year.

That is not smart transit.

We should, in all rights, go back to the drawing board with the environmental assessment, but what is the government doing with environmental assessments? It has decided that human health should not be part of environmental assessments. The only thing an environmental assessment should look at from the federal perspective, because schedule 2 is missing, is whether aquatic wildlife, species at risk, or fish are harmed. Humans do not matter.

That is wrong.

It is for that reason that we need a strategy. It is not just to make sure that we are spending our scarce public transit dollars effectively or to make sure we are not doing it in a wasteful way; it is to make sure we are doing it in a way that does not actually harm the health of humans, of the people who vote for us.

For that reason, I am supporting Bill C-305, and I would urge the members opposite to think long and hard about supporting this bill as well.

[Petitions, June 13th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition from constituents in my riding.

The petitioners are concerned about the failure of governments to invest in public transit, in particular in electric public transit, given that the WHO has today declared that diesel exhaust is of the same calibre and has the same carcinogenic effect as asbestos and arsenic.

The petitioners suggest that the Government of Canada enact a national public transit strategy seeking to involve all levels of government in developing and planning a funding strategy to provide fast, affordable and accessible public transit across Canada.

[D-Day, June 5th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we will celebrate the 68th anniversary of one of the greatest acts of bravery in the history of the Canadian Forces: the Normandy landings. It will be the occasion to honour thousands of men and women who fought courageously.

I had the great pleasure of participating in such a commemoration in Etobicoke last Sunday. Unfortunately, none of my colleagues from the other parties were present to thank these veterans for their tremendous sacrifices. Instead, they were slinging mud at one another, even phone canvassing.

Celebrations like the one in Etobicoke should put all politics aside. Thousands of Canadians fought hard to preserve our ideals. They deserve that we take the time to stand above partisanship to thank them.

I hope that the next time we celebrate the incredible efforts of the veterans of Etobicoke, my colleagues from the other parties will be standing beside me, thankful for everything that the men and women of the Canadian Forces did 68 years ago to ensure that we can still stand here in this House in a free and democratic country.

[Employment Insurance, May 31st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, Conservatives are forcing unemployed Canadians to take jobs at lower wages and engaging Canadian workers in a race to the bottom. Workers could be forced to take a 30% wage cut. If they are laid off again, they get another 30% wage cut. Conservatives are putting Canadians into a downward spiral of lower wages and reduced eligibility.

Will they agree to base future EI claims on a worker's original wage?

[Housing, May 18th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the greater Toronto area has some of the highest wait times for social housing in Canada. Families in need are waiting up to 15 years to get the housing they can afford.

This House just passed an NDP motion calling for greater federal support for affordable housing. When will the government take action?