Mylène Freeman

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 12th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou for his comments.

The environmental assessment process is a way of ensuring that projects are okay, but for the Conservatives, of course, it takes too long. The process cannot move swiftly enough for their friends' sake.

However, the fact is that the people who live in these regions have the right to say whether something will affect them. The Conservatives are using this bill to eliminate this process. I think that is one of the major problems with the bill before us.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 12th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the member made excellent points. I mentioned in my speech that the way CSIS is overseen is being changed. It is just ridiculous. Experts are saying it is just not going to be the same anymore. In fact, it was implemented to make sure that the proper oversight was done to protect Canadians' civil liberties. The government says it is all about an individual's liberty not being interfered with. Clearly that is not true.

What is really damaging about this bill is that we could not really study it because there are so many things in it, and in committee members had only a few minutes to question a witness on a variety of subjects. With more than 700 clauses, it is ridiculous to think we could do an indepth study of the bill and ascertain the impact all the different comprehensive changes are going to have.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 12th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, given that this was my second time speaking to the bill, I really wanted to talk about the fact that this was about process. This process has made it particularly difficult for members to speak to all the issues.

Last time, I spoke about the proposed changes to OAS and the fact that the Conservatives did not tell people about those changes during the election last year. I do not think a lot of people would have voted for them if they had known about that. They knew they were taking away the pension security of their grandchildren, among other things. The bill would repeal the Kyoto protocol. Back home in Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel this is a very big concern to my constituents. It would gut the environmental assessment regime and the fish habitat protection to speed up major projects.

It is a huge bill that we cannot even debate and that is why it is important to raise the point that this is not a transparent or democratic process.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 12th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday evening, I spoke about the fact that, with this bill, the government is showing its utter contempt for Parliament and for democracy; it is concentrating more and more power in the hands of the executive, to an incredible extent, in fact.

The Conservatives tell us not to worry and to trust them. How can we trust a government that does not listen to experts—indeed, that treats them with contempt—that stifles debate, that does not listen to voters, that eliminates transparency measures and that even reduces the authority of the Auditor General?

This bill simply gives more power to the cabinet, because it will no longer have to listen to the National Energy Board, for example. The Conservatives will be able to approve projects that had previously been rejected. At the same time, this bill reduces the scope of public participation in the environmental decision-making process. This means that, regardless of the number of people who are opposed to a major energy project and regardless of the grave environmental consequences it may have, Conservative ministers will have the last word.

The elimination of the position of Inspector General of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, CSIS, is another move that will have the effect of reducing transparency in government. This move is particularly interesting because the government says that it stands for law and order and for protecting the rights of Canadians. But the Inspector General's duty is to oversee the activities of Canada's spy agency and his position was established as a guard against the breaches of Canadians' civil liberties that CSIS has the potential to commit.

Even worse, the Conservatives are eliminating the Auditor General's oversight of certain agencies. They are reducing the powers of the Auditor General, who is responsible for holding the government to account, by eliminating oversight and mandatory audits of the financial statements of 12 agencies: Northern Pipeline Agency Canada, which is subject to the Northern Pipeline Act; the Canadian Food Inspection Agency; the Canada Revenue Agency; the Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board; the Canadian Institutes of Health Research; the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety; the Exchange Fund Account, which is subject to the Currency Act; the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada; the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; the Canadian Polar Commission; the Yukon Surface Rights Board; and the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.

Across Canada, we are witnessing growing cynicism toward the Conservative government and a lack of confidence in the ability of our parliamentary institutions to represent it. The process by which this bill before us today will become law is an example of why that is the case. For the past several years, we have witnessed an erosion of the function of the House and now this bill is unlike anything the House has ever seen. It is making a mockery of Parliament and the very function and purpose of parliamentary democracy.

As I said earlier, the bill, at 421 pages and enveloping over 700 clauses, including widespread comprehensive changes to laws and institutions that my constituents care deeply about, is not about job creation or prosperity. It is literally a massive job killer, that will directly eliminate 19,200 jobs with a larger effect, estimated by the Parliamentary Budget Officer, of costing Canada 43,000 jobs. That is not jobs, growth and prosperity.

However, not only is this bill's purpose obscured, it also bears the misleading name of “implementing the budget”. As I spoke about this last night, it is not about implementing the budget because it goes so much further than that and it goes against many of the things the Conservatives said during the election campaign.

Bills should reflect a central theme, but this legislation only pretends that changing the role of the Auditor General, scrapping employment equity standards and removing Canada from the Kyoto protocol are issues that have anything to do with one another. It is for this reason that opposition members of the House cannot understand why the measures have all been packed into the budget implementation bill.

Over the past few weeks, opposition members have heard from thousands of Canadians, from coast to coast to coast, who are outraged by Bill C-38. It challenges the integrity of this institution by ramming through these changes in a misleading bill. We as parliamentarians and, by extension, the Canadian public are entitled to the debate and discussion that should occur in this place. Instead, with this bill and with the record number of time allocations and debate closures we have been subjected to as well, it is clear that the government has no respect for Canadians and we should all be deeply concerned.

In short, this bill is a clear and direct threat to my constituents in Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel. For this reason, I will be voting against this budget implementation bill.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-Term Prosperity Act, June 11th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, thank you, and I will wish you good night in advance because I am the last to speak and I have only five minutes.

During my last speech on this subject, I provided a virtually endless list of the acts that will be changed for the worse by this bill. These changes will be especially bad for the most vulnerable Canadians.

I rise in the House this evening to say that this bill is an assault on democracy. This massive omnibus bill goes way too far, well beyond what was announced in the budget. In fact, many of these measures are contrary to what the Conservatives promised during the last election campaign.

It does not address development or prosperity. The Conservatives claim that this budget is about job creation, but the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that it would result in the loss of 43,000 Canadian jobs.

The truth is that a third of this bill is about eliminating environmental protection regulations. After much consideration, I am convinced that the real theme of this legislation is a massive attack on government transparency.

Not only does the introduction of such an all-encompassing bill harm the public institutions that Canadians count on, but it is also an assault on democracy, as evidenced by the fact that the government simply does not care about the impact of the changes in this bill.

What do members expect from a government that was found in contempt of Parliament only a little over a year ago? The Conservatives have not changed their tune and are only strengthening the powers of the executive in their ability to evade the scrutiny of Parliament and that of their constituents. Before the last election, the Conservatives were frustrated that they could not get away with their agenda because of democratic debate, which led to amendments and compromise that helped government work for all Canadians. How terrible. Now, they no longer have that problem. If we do not like it, they have a majority and they do not feel any obligation to listen to us despite their democratic duty to do so.

We have seen this before in the House with a truly extravagant number of time allocation motions. We have seen it in committee where in camera is used by the Conservative members to cut off public debate and ram through their agenda. Now we see it with this bill, which only continues to show their disdain for democracy and for the Canadian electorate.

With this bill, the government is showing its utter contempt for Parliament and democracy. It is concentrating power in the hands of the executive in an incredible way, and yet it is telling us, “Do not worry; trust us.”

I will continue my speech tomorrow.

[BUSINESS OF SUPPLY, June 5th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, if we do not have valid and specific data, we cannot make correlations with what is going on in society. We cannot correlate, for instance, a woman being in poverty and her experience of violence when we do not have that kind of data. The national household survey, which was implemented by the Conservatives, is not valid because does not give us valid information because we are not getting an adequate sample of what Canadians are experiencing and the situation of Canadians.

As a result, we do not know where we need to be targeting policies. We do not know the effect of certain policies. We do not know how to solve problems and move forward as a country.

[BUSINESS OF SUPPLY, June 5th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Terrebonne—Blainville for this excellent question.

In fact, the government is sending a message to Canada's scientists that it does not want their research to be credible. It wants them to reflect what it wants to show and what it is doing. It wants to be able to say that it is investing a great deal of effort in the environment, even though that is not true.

In order to do so, the government consistently prevents scientists who are conducting innovative research from showing their results. It is trying to control the research being done, in all academic fields but especially the environment.

It is clear that the government is not concerned about the Canadian environment and it does not want to show that a problem currently exists.

[BUSINESS OF SUPPLY, June 5th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to rise today in support of this motion, which focuses attention not only on the massive cuts to research, data and evidence that can be found in the budget bill currently before the House, but also to speak to the government's contempt for information, research and advocacy since the beginning of its mandate.

Research is a core driver of economic competitiveness, environmental protection, and health and safety. Objective, publicly funded research and statistical data is necessary for our public service to be able to serve all Canadians, especially since service provision is the majority of the work of the federal government. The government has made it its mandate to obscure objective facts in favour of controlling and privatizing information to create narratives that suit its priorities.

It is crucial that research be credible. In order for it to maintain this integrity we must be sure that private funding of our research respects the autonomy and independence of our researchers in their objectives and in their methodologies. Yet this last budget has proposed refocusing the National Research Council to be “business-led”, and is increasingly concentrating on targeting post-secondary research to meet “business needs”. I know that research often relies on private funding, as much as private interests rely on the research provided to them.

I know that much innovation comes from these partnerships, but this is not what the government is proposing. What it has done is increase the control that it and private interest have on what research is being done and how it is being done. That is a frightening move for the credibility of Canada's research.

By increasingly removing critical financial supports and increasingly correlating research to demand-driven funding models in order to service profit-driven demands, we are systematically inhibiting our research integrity and competitiveness.

We have seen many instances of the government obstructing research before. One of the first things the government did in 2006 was slash $5 million from the Status of Women agency and make a series of changes to its purpose. The independent research fund was abolished, and the mandate of the women's program was changed to explicitly exclude any project having to do with research and advocacy. While the funds themselves have since been recommitted to the agency, the independent research fund has not reappeared and the mandate of the agency continues to forbid research and advocacy. The purpose of this is clear. The government is ignoring the deeper, systemic injustices that women repeatedly encounter because the injustices do not fit the government's world view. Effective, long-term planning and investment in social programs, while proven to be in the best interests of women and the economy at large, are something the government fears.

As a member of the status of women committee, I hear every week from expert witnesses who are still suffering from the long-term effects of this strategic shift.

Carmela Hutchison is president of the DisAbled Women's Network Canada, which is the only organization that represents disabled women, the largest minority group in Canada. She wrote to me to say:

We could write volumes about the health and safety consequences to millions of women and girls with disabilities in Canada which are due to the lack of publicly funded research and statistical information already! How can this Government propose any further cuts to research and data collection when this information is essential to informing your honourable Members and all Canadians about the health, safety and the economic well being of millions of women with disabilities in this country, who continue to be the poorest citizens of this country!

When we look at Bill C-38 and its anti-information cuts, which are overwhelming in their scope, we see that what happened to women in Canada will happen in almost every community and sector, from first nations to academia. It is most acute in the field of environmental science. The fact of climate change is something that the government needs to suppress as quickly as possible in order to serve the corporate interests of its friends.

However, the ethically repugnant muzzling of scientists is certainly not all we are facing. The cuts to Library and Archives Canada, Statistics Canada, the National Council of Welfare, the First Nations Statistical Institute, and even the CBC are moves against the cultural identity of Canada.

Our heritage and history are deeply affected by these cuts. There is a relationship between dismantling Library and Archives Canada, discrediting Statistics Canada and disabling the CBC, which becomes clear when one considers that the government is aggressively pursuing a mandate to create a Canadian narrative that suits its interest rather than reality.

If it targets Library and Archives, we will have fewer resources available that describe what Canada once was. If it utterly destroys our ability to produce credible statistical data, we will not know who we are now. When it entirely abolishes the National Council of Welfare and the First Nations Statistical Institute, it is preventing social scientists from understanding trends and finding solutions. Couple this with the witch hunt we are witnessing against the CBC and the subsequent slashes to its budget and we see a weakening of the only mainstream Canadian broadcaster that is mandated with communicating our diverse heritage and cultures.

I was alarmed when the Minister of State for Science and Technology announced this past March that he was planning on refocusing the National Research Council and in May announced that he was changing the direction of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council in order to strengthen its ties with the private sector. SSHRC, like the NRC, is a public research-funding body that is mandated with funding innovative research that benefits all Canadians, not just the business sector. Yet, in his own words, the Minister of State for Science and Technology said that this is a great opportunity to focus the NRC more toward the business end to be “a one-stop, 1-800, 'I have a solution for your business problem'.”

Coming from an academic background, I know that privately commissioned research where the objectives are determined by private interests and not the researchers themselves is simply not credible. As an MP, I have witnessed the fact that our public service providers require our research councils to conduct research on behalf of all demographics and communities, not just businesses. As a citizen, I do not agree that my taxes be spent to subsidize the needs of businesses before the needs of families.

In conclusion, without credible research all Canadians will see a decline in the quality of their service provisions the way women have over the past eight years. Innovation will be stalled by the control of private interests over what it is we study.

I seriously urge this House to consider the long-term effects of these cuts and I urge us to ask ourselves this. Who does the suppression and rewriting of information benefit? When did the needs of big business supplant the needs of citizens? Where will Canada be in 5, 10, 20 years without credible statistical data upon which we can base future planning?

If there is one thing the now abolished National Council of Welfare has taught us through its research, it is that short-term investments in human capital and communities reap long-term economic gains. It is frivolous, short-sighted and fiscally irresponsible for the government to be dismantling these institutions.

I hope that this debate enlightens the members opposite as to the dangers they are precipitating in the budget bill. I hope that they will support the opposition motion.

[Business of Supply, June 5th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, this member has talked about all the investments the government is making. I have often been asked by the government if I support its aerospace research and development, for instance. In February, the Montreal aerospace industry said that there is not enough research and development in the aerospace industry in Canada and that the government should be doing a lot more to make us competitive.

Why does the government not understand that it needs to be putting publicly funded research as a priority in order to increase our innovation and competitiveness internationally?

[Regional Development, May 31st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to highlight the importance of entrepreneurship in my riding. Whether they use the co-operative model, as in the case of the Coopérative de solidarité Place du Marché in Ripon, which does great work for local producers, or the corporate model, as in the case of Les Aliments Lebel in Lachute, which is the largest manufacturer of ice cream and frozen desserts in Quebec, entrepreneurs are dedicated people with deep roots in their communities.

However, the Conservatives are slashing programs that help local economic development. By abolishing the co-operative development initiative and making cuts to the Rural and Co-operatives Secretariat, they are attacking an innovative model that thrives on solidarity.

The cuts to the Economic Development Agency of Canada illustrate the Conservatives' lack of interest in our rural entrepreneurs. The Conservatives' economic action consists of making cuts everywhere and any which way.