Murray Rankin

[National Lyme Disease Strategy Act, March 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise and speak to Bill C-442, an act respecting a national Lyme disease strategy at this second reading stage. Again, I would like to acknowledge the work of my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands in bringing forward this very important initiative.

I want to say from the very outset that the official opposition will be voting in favour of this bill.

I want to acknowledge as well the pioneering work of former MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis who, well over five years ago, urged the health minister to implement such a strategy. Our NDP health critic from Vancouver East has also written to the Minister of Health about this issue and pushed very hard to establish a national strategy to diagnose, treat, and do better surveillance for Lyme disease in response to the growing threat of infection from coast to coast. Both she and I have seconded this important bill. Receiving early and appropriate treatment would improve the quality of life for thousands of Canadians and their families.

Lyme disease is one of the fastest growing infectious diseases in North America. I have heard first-hand about its devastating effect from a constituent, Nicole Bottles, who is a 20-year-old sufferer of Lyme disease. She is now in a wheelchair and met with me in Ottawa to advocate for this national strategy bill.

Early treatment of Lyme disease reduces the severity and duration of the illness. Experts agree that more accurate testing and earlier treatment of Lyme disease would reduce the health care costs associated with a lengthy illness and the more severe side effects, particularly for women, who suffer longer-lasting effects when their Lyme disease goes untreated. As members know, Lyme disease is caused by a specific bacterium spread through tick bites. It is one of the most under-diagnosed diseases in Canada. However, Lyme disease symptoms can range from a localized rash to fatigue to very serious central nervous system disorders that can lead to paralysis.

Let me begin by outlining the nature of the disease; then I will talk about what Bill C-442 is intended to do to address the problem.

Last month, the newspaper in my community, the Victoria Times Colonist, reported that a Vancouver Island hawk became the first raptor to join the list of species believed to spread Lyme disease. Research scientist John Scott found a Cooper's hawk with 22 ticks on it, 4 of which were infected with the bacterium that causes Lyme disease. It is the first raptor or bird of prey known to host this bacterium. The Cooper's hawk was found on the doorstep of a house in Oak Bay, part of my constituency. It flew into a window. Then it was delivered to the wild animal rehabilitation centre near Victoria, where it was examined.

Five of the six species of ticks that live on Vancouver Island are apparently involved in the transmission of Lyme disease. Other known reservoir hosts include songbirds, deer, mice, and rabbits. I would agree with my hon. friend opposite from South Shore—St. Margaret's that deer have become an increasing part of the problem, and in communities such as Oak Bay, the rapid increase in the deer population can only cause additional concern about the spread of this devastating disease, because the ticks feed on the blood of animals and humans and pass on Lyme disease. The ticks feed on species that include mice, birds, and the like; then they carry the bacterium and bite humans, and the disease cycle begins.

Ticks are most common during the warmer months, so Canadians who live in areas of our country with mild winter temperatures and minimal snowfall, such as southern Vancouver Island, have an increased risk of coming into contact with ticks. However, as Bill C-442 notes in its preamble, climate change is one of the factors causing more and more regions of Canada to be at risk. As we experience more warmer weather ahead of us, that would only increase the tick distribution across the country, as scientists have predicted.

By 2009, Canadian physicians were required to report on cases of Lyme disease to their provincial health registries. However, according to CBC News last year, national statistics are still unavailable at this time.

Recently, as the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands mentioned, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated the number of people in the United States affected by Lyme disease was around 300,000, but that figure is 10 times higher than what is reported to that agency. In the province of New Brunswick in 2009, there were 128 confirmed cases of Lyme disease, but by 2011, that number had doubled to 258.

If Lyme disease is treated at early stages with antibiotics and the tick is removed, the severe neurological symptoms that often occur can be avoided. I am told that in some states in the United States, such as Massachusetts, it is relatively routine for the tick to be removed and antibiotics administered at that early stage. However, there seems to be a different level of awareness in Canada; hence, the need for the strategy before us.

Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any standardized testing for Lyme disease in Canada, so Lyme disease advocates and health practitioners say the different types of blood tests performed to identify Lyme disease currently yield inaccurate results. What does that mean? It means that patients who in fact have Lyme disease are often not diagnosed or are misdiagnosed with such illnesses as multiple sclerosis or chronic fatigue syndrome. They do not receive the appropriate treatment, thereby exacerbating the symptoms. I have spoken with some patients from Victoria who say they have had to travel to other countries, as the member opposite for Sault Ste. Marie has also acknowledged, possibly because the treatment in Canada ranges so dramatically and is often inadequate.

What would Bill C-442 do, then? First, it would track the incidence rates, create educational materials to raise awareness about Lyme disease, and establish testing and treatment guidelines, as well as track the related economic impacts of Lyme disease. Second, Bill C-442 would support research and implementation of better and more reliable diagnostic testing, as well as increased education and awareness among physicians. In short, the bill would create a coordinated strategy, which is long overdue.

Canadians deserve to get adequate testing and treatment for this disease. The federal government is responsible for improving the surveillance of Lyme disease, as well as establishing best practices so that the provinces can better understand the disease and adopt evidence-based measures to improve outcomes.

The Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation, or CanLyme, is in full support of Bill C-442. President Wilson stated, “This bill responds to the failure of existing guidelines to reliably detect and treat Lyme disease”.

As the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands already noted, the College of Family Physicians of Canada has also supported Bill C-442. It stated, “The CFPC supports further studying the economic and health impacts of Lyme Disease to ensure that Canadian physicians have the necessary tools and knowledge at their disposal”.

I regret that past governments have failed to take the appropriate leadership role on a range of important health issues, including the kind of coordination and funding that are necessary for health innovations, testing, and treatment. It was only in 2009 that we began to track Lyme disease, and some have argued in my office that there has been a failure to heed the pleas to advance testing and treatment options in this country. Therefore, this is an issue where the federal government must show leadership in health care and work to better protect and support the health of Canadians.

This is far from a partisan issue. It does not help at all to talk about past governments. We want to stand firm with the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands and all members of the House to address this problem. The time to act is now. Sufferers from Lyme disease are looking to the government for leadership. The official opposition wants to be part of that solution. It is time to get on with it. New Democrats will be voting in support of this bill.

[National Lyme Disease Strategy Act, March 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate and thank my friend and neighbour from Saanich—Gulf Islands for her excellent presentation and for her hard work on the bill.

During her speech, she alluded to certain amendments that might be brought forward at committee stage, and I wonder if she could advise the House on the kind of amendments she would consider acceptable.

[The Budget, February 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I know that Canadians watching would much rather talk about the reality of this budget than about who was at fault in the past for what happened. On this side of the House, we are going to talk about this budget for the afternoon, if we can.

I want to ask a question that the hon. member for Malpeque raised, which is the notion of balancing the budget on the backs of whom. I would ask the member if he would agree with The Globe and Mail, in its coverage of this budget, that the Conservatives significantly hiking the premiums for retired civil servants, more than doubling them for individual coverage, would mean that retirees would now have to pay 50% of the cost of their health benefits. It is a point also made by the member for Malpeque. The Globe and Mail reports that this would mean that, for instance, a former government employee would see his or her annual premiums paid into the plan rise to $550 from $261. That is almost a $300-a-month addition for people who are living on fixed incomes. I wonder if that is the way we are balancing this budget—on the backs of retired public servants.

I would ask my hon. friend for his comments on that issue.

[The Budget, February 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my friend's discourse just moments ago. I note that there was a 400-page document in which the words “climate change” did not appear. There were five pages dealing with national parks, but they dealt mostly with the repaving of highways and $10 million for snowmobile trails, which I presume is the government's environmental policy.

I am indebted to iPolitics for this nugget: the Minister of the Environment went on Twitter on budget day and talked only about transportation, making people wonder if she is still the Minister of the Environment. However, there was an indirect reference to climate change that may have been missed. It was pointed out in other articles, which said that at least the Conservatives understood that unregulated economic development and providing hundreds of millions in subsidies for industrial development does require hundreds of millions for train crashes and infrastructure relief in disasters, so presumably they do understand but do not connect the dots.

I ask my colleague this question: has the government entirely given up on the environment?

[The Budget, February 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, speaking of the environment, I noticed that the words “climate change” do not even exist in the budget document. I notice that the Conservatives have spent millions on the National Energy Board to help us get fossil fuels to market more efficiently. I notice that there are more subsidies for promoting offshore oil and gas facilities. Yet I notice that there is nothing about renewable energy such as the eco-energy retrofit program that has been sought.

I wonder if those are the sorts of things the member was talking about. I wonder if he could elaborate on the government's environmental commitments as reflected in the budget document.

[Northwest Territories Devolution Act, February 11th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated earlier, one of the first nations, the Gwich'in, went so far as to drop a lawsuit that might have held up the deal, showing that it wanted to get on with this but that nothing was happening. Therefore, why we would have a bill that would create a board that the first nations want to reject and are therefore likely to want to litigate against becomes even more inscrutable, and for what? We should be celebrating devolution, not having to debate such an issue at all.

[Northwest Territories Devolution Act, February 11th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I hope I was clear in my introductory remarks when I congratulated the parliamentary secretary for that initiative. I thought I was being clear when I agreed with him that economic development was crucial for the north and that the devolution part of the bill would go a long way in that direction. I thought the member for Western Arctic was also clear in his support for that fundamental proposition.

If I am not clear, let me say it again that that part of the bill is long overdue. Indeed, the Liberals had, I think, 13 years to do something and did not. The Conservative government did, and I am glad that it finally did, but let me say that to add a poison pill that has been so rejected by first nations and that is likely to be unconstitutional strikes me as absurd.

[Northwest Territories Devolution Act, February 11th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I do not understand the following. Consultation is not a “would be nice to have” thing, but it a “must-have” thing. The Supreme Court has made that abundantly clear. In many cases involving the north, and recently involving the Yukon self-government and the constitutional protections there, it has reinforced what it had said so frequently in southern cases, if I can call the Delgamuukw and the Haida cases southern.

In the north as well, the honour of the crown is relevant. We enter into these regional agreements with first nations, we make them part of a land claims agreement that is working well, and then the government comes along and wants to blow it up. That is not respectful, and it is probably not constitutional either.

The Government of Canada has been held to account more than once on the need to observe the honour of the crown. That is a living, breathing requirement of consultation and accommodation.

Many experts have said that this simply will not stand up. Again, I ask why. Why are we here, on what could be the happiest day for the north, talking about something that is so unnecessary?

[Northwest Territories Devolution Act, February 11th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to address the House on Bill C-15, a very important piece of Canadian constitutional legislation. The bill would amend the Northwest Territories Act. We sometimes forget the importance of some of these foundational statutes. The NWT Act is essentially part of the Constitution of Canada, and we are amending it through this legislation.

Not long ago, in 1867, the Fathers of Confederation had a change made by a statute in England called the British North America Act. That is just another statute. This is just another statute. However, it has incredibly important ramifications for the people of the Northwest Territories, and therefore for all of Canada.

I want to start by saluting the work of the premier of the NWT, Mr. McLeod, for his negotiations and his patience in negotiating an arrangement with the Government of Canada. While I am at it, I want to congratulate my colleague, the member for Western Arctic, who has shown remarkable leadership in this entire process in educating some of us southerners about what this means to people who live and work in the NWT.

I want to start with those words of congratulations. I also want to echo something my friend from Saanich—Gulf Islands said. She used an adjective to characterize her reaction to this important initiative, and that was the word “disappointed”. We must be disappointed at a bill that had such promise, which could have brought us all together in support of this remarkable enterprise of devolution. I agree with much of what the Conservatives have said, including the parliamentary secretary, who talked about the remarkable impact of a bill like this on economic development, jobs, and the future of the NWT.

Therefore, why would I be disappointed? I am disappointed that the government has seen fit to essentially ignore the wishes of aboriginal partners in the NWT, the Tlicho, the Sahtu, the Gwich'in peoples, who all want the regional boards that exist there and appear to function well. They were created as part of co-management, as part of a land claims agreement. They are part of a constitutional fabric that has been negotiated in modern times. They are disappointed that they are being replaced by a superboard.

Therefore, instead of being here and joyously celebrating an event that is important in our constitutional history, what we are doing today, as my friend said, is expressing disappointment in the government for once again doing what our leader, the hon. member for Outremont, characterized as “bundling”. I did not say “bungling”; I said “bundling”. It bundled things that we would traditionally all want to support, to stand and salute, with measures that are poison pills, to use a word that my colleague from Surrey North used earlier in this debate. That is why I am disappointed. This could have been a joyous event, but in fact it is a disappointing one.

I have seen those examples in recent weeks in this Parliament. I have seen how, in the safe injection bill, the government managed to find a way to oppose that, and, of course, in the unfair elections bill that was debated yesterday where closure was invoked. That is another example where Conservatives have put some nice measures in that we would love to support, but then they spoil it with things that no sensible parliamentarian could support if they believe in fair elections.

Therefore, I am anxious to see why the government feels it can disrespect aboriginal leaders in this way and expect us to support such an initiative. Do not take my word for it; I am not making this up for rhetorical purposes. On November 18, 2013, Grand Chief Eddie Erasmus, of the Tlicho First Nation in the NWT, said this in a letter written to the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development:

As your treaty partner, I am writing to ask that you reconsider the path Canada is currently on in relation to the MVRMA [Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act] amendments. ...Canada is proceeding with an approach that is inconsistent with a proper interpretation of provisions in our Agreement and will constitute a breach of our Agreement and the honour of the Crown. This would result in the MVRMA being constitutionally unsound and of no force and effect to the extent that it breaches our Agreement. Canada's current approach will also damage our relationship and create regulatory uncertainty.... We hope this does not come to pass. There is a better way to move forward.

That is exactly so. There is a better way to move forward than to bundle such unpopular and unnecessary legislation into a bill that deals with something so fundamental: namely, devolution.

What is devolution? What would be the impact of this? Essentially, the NWT would keep half of its resource royalties, without losing federal transfers, up to a total of 5% of its budget expenditures. It would get some of the powers that provinces have. It would become a more representative government, a more democratic government, with the resources to do what is needed to meet its demands in the NWT.

Those royalties are just part of what would go on in this kind of initiative. Of the three northern territories, only the Yukon controls its own resources; Nunavut negotiations are still ongoing. This kind of initiative, as I am told, would allow the territory to reap about $65 million a year from resource royalties. There is about 18% of that which would be transferred to the five aboriginal governments that signed on. Ottawa would send another $65 million to the NWT to compensate for the cost of those responsibilities, including the salaries of federal bureaucrats who would go to the NWT payroll.

The concept of devolution was originally agreed to in October 2010. Here we are, in 2014, about to pass, perhaps, an initiative that is long overdue.

I agree with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, who said earlier in this debate that we need a robust resource regulatory system and better land management regimes or the developers would not be coming to create jobs and economic opportunity in that territory.

However, I am told by my colleague from Western Arctic that when we had committee hearings recently in Yukon, the overwhelming desire was to leave the resource regulatory boards in place. That is something that needs to be emphasized.

In emphasizing that, I want to read from an editorial in the NWT News, which was apparently written yesterday, about this very arrangement that we are talking about. It says a number of things, but let us talk about the superboard that the current government insists on making part of this initiative, the poisoned pill that I mentioned earlier.

The editorial in yesterday's NWT News states:

Whether Ottawa has the right to create a super board in the NWT is Irrelevant. What matters is three groups of people fought hard for the right to self-government and negotiated in good faith for the right to help shape decisions at the regional level. They have been abandoned by their government.

Accepting the linkage[s] of the two distinctly different legislative bills affecting the NWT betrays the Sahtu, [the] Tlicho and [the] Gwich'in governments who all worked with the [Government of the NWT] until they had built the trust to sign onto the devolution. The Gwich'in went so far as to drop a lawsuit that might have held up the deal.

It goes on to say:

While devolution is undeniably good for the NWT, what the [Government of the NWT] is losing [in return]--regional input, trust and co-operation...--tarnishes the accomplishment.

Worse, this so-called super board is nothing more than a public relations move to placate the global, cash-starved mining industry at the expense of Northerners.

I want to salute the government for finally negotiating a devolution agreement, which is so critical to our country, for the constitutional change it would make to our country. However, I wish it would reconsider what the northerners want them to reconsider, which is the creation of an unnecessary superboard.

[Fair Elections Act, February 10th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for the question, and his reference to section 11 of the Competition Act is very apt.

There has been a number of comments after the case of Hunter et al. v. Southam Inc., which dealt with the issues of the constitutionality of the search and seizure provisions of the Competition Act, by noted experts like Neil Finkelstein, who has written about this, citing Mr. Justice Gonthier's aggressive—I can only use that word—reference, in the Chrysler and Competition Tribunal case, to the fact that they have these kinds of powers.

I have to simply repeat: Why would we need to change it now? What is the problem?

The most effective measure that is required in enhancing investigation is giving people the power to compel testimony to the commissioner's investigators. Those constitutional safeguards that I mentioned, that are now in the Competition Act, have been found constitutional. They work. They are aggressive. They get the job done. Why do we need to change?