Nathan Cullen

[Request for Emergency Debate, May 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak to this issue. This will be of interest to all members and in fact all Canadians. I wrote to you earlier today to seek leave for an emergency debate on the topic of safety and regulation of the offshore oil and gas drilling industry in Canada. The specifics and need for the emergency debate are clear. Canadians and the rest of the world have seen the horrors, as the Prime Minister referred to today, of the environmental disaster that is happening in the Gulf of Mexico right now. Almost one million litres of oil are spewing up from the seabed floor onto the coast of New Orleans and other places across the coast.

The Deepwater Horizon explosion is relevant to the Canadian context and is relevant for an emergency debate because the very same companies involved with that project are seeking an exemption. They are probing and lobbying the government right now to seek exemptions from the safety practices that are not being applied right now in the gulf, so in fact lessening the safety rules. The emergency debate is prevalent and important at this time because the government has not yet come forward in the issuing of leases for offshore, both for the west coast and particularly the Beaufort Sea in the north. The matter concerns the ability of Canadians to know their government has rules in place that are stronger than the ones that led to the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

We need to hear from the government of the day. Opposition members need to be able to make the case that no licences should be issued right now. The National Energy Board is hearing these petitions as we speak and any day will rule on these exemptions for British Petroleum and other companies. It is incumbent upon us as the House of Commons to deal with this now, before the licences are issued, before the drilling begins, because once begun, once the permits are out, there is no way to pull back from disasters like the one we are seeing in the gulf.

Our Arctic region and the west coast of British Columbia simply could not survive the devastating effects of a major spill like the one we are seeing from the Deepwater Horizon. This is all about same-season relief wells. This is about an exemption being sought on that exact issue by British Petroleum and others. The House must engage with this issue forthwith, and I humbly seek and request an emergency debate for this evening.

[The Environment, May 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, just this weekend I returned from an excellent meeting of progressive minds in Terrace, British Columbia. Renewal Northwest draws together business leaders, environment groups, first nations and local governments, building a plan for sustainable economic development in our region that creates jobs, while protecting the environment. It is looking for the federal government to be a partner and not an obstacle in this effort.

Instead of investing in good green jobs, the government continues to be intent on boosting the oil and gas industry with subsidies and cutting efforts in the wind, solar and other green energy projects around the country. Canadians know where that path leads: increased environmental destruction and holding back green future that we all need.

It is time for new ideas in our regional economy, championed by the people of the northwest. They want a government that listens to them and respects them and does not burden small businesses and low-income families with taxes like the HST.

Government needs to come to the table and support people in building the sustainable future they so desperately want.

[Balanced Refugee Reform Act, April 29th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, the problem with political appointments is that when the government switches, it tends not to want to reappoint those from its so-called enemies. In this case, when the Liberals were tossed from power, with the Gomery inquiry and all the rest that we all remember so fondly and that was brought up, surprisingly enough, by the government yesterday, the government that came in did not reappoint them, nor did it appoint its own cronies.

This is the problem with the government having a system, whereby it has an appointments process that is politically directed, where friends get to be put on boards, sometimes with great compensation for little work. There are hundreds of these and some of them actually matter, such as the IRB. So when the government did not replace these folks, the backlog came back again and now we have to have measures to deal with that.

Some have now since been replaced, but the fundamental thing is balancing the needs of speed, of getting folks through the system with some sense of fairness. Part of our concern is that with the speed, there are not the resources available, particularly with those who do not have a lot of money, such as a typical refugee, to be able to get though the process fairly and receive good treatment.

[Balanced Refugee Reform Act, April 29th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague has raised an interesting point. The government has suggested that the committee would see these regulations before they come into effect.

We are looking for criteria here. We want to know what filter the government plans to use when deciding which countries will fit themselves in to being a safe or unsafe country.

The concern is this. The ability of a country to have its citizens apply for refugee status or immigration into another country oftentimes becomes a political football when two countries are not getting along. This could be used as a carrot and stick approach to countries. We saw this with the special designation from China in terms of allowing its citizens easier access to come to Canada as tourists. The impact on Canada's economy would be significant. China knows this. It is part of most deliberations around trade and sanctions and what happens in other areas.

We want to know that Canada's ability to accept refugees is not based on any of these other conversations but simply based on the merits of those refugees coming into Canada and applying for safe harbour. That is what it should be based on.

The regulations need to be sound on this. They cannot be of a give and take nature. We know about the recent dispute with Mexico. Mexico seems to be having a dispute with a few countries now about where its citizens can or cannot go.

This crosses over into a government's larger agenda about trade, about international relations and about what happens at one international table versus another. The list of safe countries is an interesting idea but it could become problematic if not done properly. It would give so much latitude to the government.

If the government seeks to pass all these regulations through committee before they go out the door, New Democrats will clearly be looking at that. This needs to be absolutely watertight, otherwise we could face further problems down the road and probably get accused of using the refugee and immigration system for other political advantages, which is, frankly, inappropriate.

[Balanced Refugee Reform Act, April 29th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I wondered why I liked the minister and now I know. We share some ancestry.

The minister raised a point about the numbers. Will there be more or will there be less? This was a concern for New Democrats because we did not want to see a tightening of them. The world is becoming a smaller place but, unfortunately, it has as much turmoil in it now as it has ever had and one cannot predict it getting any better. Therefore, Canada must remain open.

The question is not necessarily so much about the numbers at this point, although we will be watching that, but it is more about who will be included in those numbers. Which countries will be on this magical list? If a country is on the list, it will get to appeal but if it is not, it will not be able to.

I understand what the government has gone after in terms of refugee claimants coming from countries that most Canadians would say seem to be safe places and would ask why they are claiming refugee status. What we anecdotally know to be a refugee is somebody who is fleeing from some sort of persecution where his or her life or the lives of family members may be at risk or in such detriment that they cannot live there.

It is an incredibly important power that the government is giving the minister, not just the present minister but future ones. It is important for us to get this right. It is important for us to understand what criteria the government is seeking to use to designate a country on or off the list.

My point about within country status is critical. We know that within countries there are vastly different contexts under which people live. We must be sensitive to that. If that is going to be a part of this reform package then let us have it part of the debate.

We will seek to amend this legislation to make it better and clarify it for Canadians and for our partner countries. It is important that Canada sends a clear and concise message that we are a country that is open and we are a country that seeks to have a safe harbour for those who are persecuted abroad.

[Balanced Refugee Reform Act, April 29th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, eight minutes of course will not be enough to deal with the issue of immigration reform in Canada, which is long overdue, but I will do my best. I thank you for another wise ruling from the chairs the previous night.

Bill C-11 speaks, very importantly, to the nature and essence of reform of the immigration and refugee laws in Canada, particularly around refugee claimants.

The New Democrats have a number of concerns with the fundamentals that have been placed before us. We sought to move the bill to the committee before it had received the recommendation of the House in principle so that we could more fundamentally get at some of those problems. We recognize where the House is at right now and we will be seeking to improve the bill once it gets to committee. I want to focus in on couple of items today that are most critical to the plight of refugees and the treatment they receive when they come to Canada.

When dealing with the issue of immigration or dealing with refugees, it brings out both the best and worst in a country and in the politics that exist, and the attempt by any government to weave politics into a refugee system is one that must be resisted and avoided at all times. The temptation is there because we have well established communities within Canada that have various views on immigration policy and they will attempt to push certain angles and representations of those views on to any sitting government of the day.

What must be resisted is that these reforms do not last just through the next election cycle or the one beyond that, but can last for many years. There has been an unfortunate series of events over the last 100 to 150 years in this country where immigration and refugee claimant rules have been used to, in a sense, abuse certain groups coming from certain regions of the world that we just did not like at the time for political reasons.

The list has been well enunciated. The government is well aware of past claims and misdeeds by previous governments. Apologies have been issued. A bill was passed in the House just last night dealing with the treatment of Italian Canadians during the second world war. We have seen the error of our ways in the past and we must not be doomed to repeat them again.

Of particular concern in the bill right now is the list of safe countries. For those following the bill, they will be aware that the government has proposed this idea that there will be an ongoing list of countries that will be deemed to have one status and another list of countries that will be deemed to be less favourable for whatever domestic issues are going on in those countries at the time.This is unfortunate in a way because it applies methodology that may, in some circumstances, not work because all countries within themselves do not have uniform circumstances. A refugee claimant coming from one part of the Sudan will have a very different claim than one coming from another region. Someone coming from one part of Chile at a certain time will look very different from someone coming from another part, and the list goes on.

The concern we have, in looking through Bill C-11, is that not only is the list not provided of what countries the government will sanction and those that it will punish, but we are still looking for the criteria that will be used by the government to establish those lists. This is fundamental. It is very difficult for any member in this place to vote on legislation that will designate countries one way or another if we do not have the criteria and the rules before us. This is more than unfortunate. This is a trust me attitude from the government that is not acceptable. We need to clarify this. We need to nail it down.

I had brief conversations with the minister about the number of refugee claimants that will be permitted. We are looking forward to understanding that Canada will remain and enhance its accessibility to refugee claimants who come from abroad. We have a story about ourselves in Canada, that we are an open and forgiving place that will allow folks to come from all sorts of different situations, some of them very difficult, such as when a country is in crisis or when a particular group of citizens in a country is being targeted. Whether for their political beliefs, their gender, their sexual orientation or whatnot, we believe ourselves to be a welcoming place, a place that does not pass such judgments as is seen in other countries, particularly when there is great political upheaval, which we are seeing on the evening news almost every night.

However, we need an understanding of how we will judge a country and whether we will have the ability to specify regions within a country in which particular political persecution is going on.

I worked in Africa for a time and we would see at the state level of a certain government that a governor of that state would pass some atrocious decree thereby subjecting a whole group of its citizens to unfair treatment, persecution and sometimes death. This, unfortunately, was too common. We do not know if Bill C-11, this refugee reform, will have the dexterity to deal with situations like that.

We have also seen just recently, through our neighbours to the south, draconian laws being passed in Arizona where it legislated racial profiling for people coming from Mexico or looking like they may have come from Mexico. It is politics at its worst when we see a state deciding to racially profile a whole group of people and subject them to laws that no one else in society is subjected to simply because of the colour of their skin. One would hope that we had moved or devolved beyond this in the western world, but politics being what it is at times, folks playing for a few more votes will introduce bills like this. Properly, however, the President of the United States has condemned what the government at that state level is doing.

I only raise that example, not to cast aspersions on the government here in Canada, but to say that on this issue, if not more than any other, the temptation to play into some momentary passing political interest that is appealing to one interest or another, be it pro-immigration or anti-immigration, we have seen for far too long. I am the son of an immigrant family and there was wave after wave of immigrants coming into this country. One would assume that the wave that had just preceded the new wave of immigrants would be more sympathetic to the ones just coming but, unfortunately, there is some element of human nature that does not lend itself always that way. My family coming from Ireland may have had better treatment than others but not necessarily. The racial stereotypes and the mistreatment, not just of folks who are coming but their descendants, is consistent. I grew up in a city that was a multicultural as any in the world and yet still had this underlying tone.

That is something that the government, while it cannot appease entirely, must work through bills, like Bill C-11, to alleviate to their maximum possibility. If we are to be a welcoming and generous country and a country that continues to have a history of being proud of our immigrant population and encourage more to come, we must make the best reforms possible for refugee and immigration claimants. We must remove the politics as much as possible and allow the country to be as free, open and accessible as possible.

We are for a faster immigration system but we will not sacrifice the fairness aspect. We will not simply say that folks have eight days, cannot seek legal representation and that is it, and they are back out again, because that makes them potentially victims of these so-called immigration consultants that seem to pop up.

I hope we can get this right because it is critical that we do.

[Balanced Refugee Reform Act, April 27th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, it is with some pleasure that I enter this debate.

I am a member from the rural parts of our country in northwestern British Columbia. Issues around refugee and immigration reform in general touch us as much in rural Canada as they do in other parts of the country. This is perhaps an untold story, that my staff and my communities are constantly dealing with questions that we facing here in the House.

I would also like to thank the member for Trinity—Spadina for her tireless work on this issue over the years, both bringing in personal sentiment and cause, and a calm rationality to try to reform the system that we all in this place can recognize is broken.

I think it is high time that Canadians come to understand where the true fixes lay, where the true solutions are to be had, and that governments resist the temptation that they have so often given in to, to politicize the refugee and immigration system in this country. Whether it is pandering to votes on one side of the conversation or to another, while it is trying to make some appeal to a particular group of new Canadians or make an appeal to some reactionary elements in our country that are fundamentally anti-immigrant.

We have to recognize that those forces are in play in this country and they come to bear on any government and any elected member. We have to resist those for a longer vision, a more noble and honest opinion of where Canada needs to be, not just in the next year or the next 10 years but in the next 100 years.

Decisions that we make with respect to bills like this have an effect for many years to come on those individuals and families seeking to reunite, seeking to find a better life here in Canada. We are also trying to find ways to keep folks from clogging up the system, entering the system knowingly, and trying to corrupt the system.

It is unfortunate but rules in this place are so often made for the minority. Rules are so often made for the cases of people trying to put the system into jeopardy but end up hurting so many of the vast majority who are simply trying to appeal to Canada's ethics and morality on a refugee claimant basis. They are coming from a country of some hardship and in particular circumstances, where they are being biased against for who they are, either their gender or their sexual orientation, and their economic status or political affiliations.

These are difficult questions for a refugee board to sort out. These are obviously difficult questions for a government to sort out.

No one, and certainly not New Democrats, lauds previous Liberal governments for their inaction on the backlogs that were created year in and year out. Justice delayed is justice denied. It was too often that people were cast into a system with no end in sight. This was not a decent way to deal with refugees and immigrants to this country. This was not a decent way or a humanitarian way to deal with folks.

We also see, with the current government's either action or lack of action in some cases, a contribution to the problem that we saw when the current government was elected in 2006. There was a reluctance to appoint new people to the boards.

The system is inherently political and partisan. This is something that we hope to reform. We actually had some glimmer of hope from the government when it sought to have an appointments commissioner, someone who would act in a non-partisan way to review the many hundreds and in some cases thousands of appointments in a year, that did not have any partisan connection, that could create a stand-alone committee at arm's length from the government.

New Democrats worked with the current government to make this happen and make it a reality. Unfortunately, the government's first choice for who should lead that commission was a gentleman who was the chief fundraiser for the Prime Minister, who had helped the Prime Minister achieve office.

Colleagues across the aisle are shaking their heads, but it is fact and case in point. When New Democrats asked if there was anybody else out there who could help with the appointment process other than this one individual most closely tied to the sitting Prime Minister, the government scrapped the whole idea. It said this was the only individual out of some 30-some odd million Canadians who was sufficiently capable of heading up an appointments process, and if we would not accept him it was going to get rid of the whole idea.

We thought it was a good idea. It was a good idea. The members can heckle all they want, but what they cannot deny is the fact that the Prime Minister put one single name forward and that was it, take it or leave it. We actually notice that time and time this has become this Prime Minister's tendency, his habit, to lean toward this type of leadership. It was rebuked earlier today from the Chair itself, this kind of intolerant approach.

Now we head to this issue of Bill C-11. My colleague from Trinity—Spadina made the good point that we sought to move this bill to committee prior to second reading. That would allow the committee even more latitude to make more fundamental changes to the bill. The government refused that.

We will work within the parameters of this place in a democratic way to effect this bill for the betterment of all those seeking refugee status in Canada.

It must be noted that when dealing with immigration and refugee issues, it brings out both the best and worst in a country. Our history has proven that out. In this place, the Prime Minister and various parties over the years have had to stand and publicly apologize for the treatment of people from different countries appealing to Canada's conscience to allow them to come to this country.

Some years ago, Jewish immigrants, Indians from the Komagata Maru and Irish immigrants were rejected simply based on narrow stereotypes of the worst order of that time. We evolve, move on, mature as a country, gain competence, and realize that we were wrong, that we used the barriers to our country as a tool or mechanism to punish those we were fearful of, those we did not like or suspected. This is the worst element of the refugee and immigration system and it is a difficult thing to get right.

We have no pretensions in the New Democratic Party that this is an easy thing to do, properly, fair and balanced, but today as we seek to speed up the process, we also look for a fair process. We look for one that does not sacrifice fairness for expediency, that does not create more errors that future prime ministers and governments will have to stand up and apologize for. This is something we all wish to resist and we should resist in every way as we look through this bill.

It is also a crisis in the making as the government refused, in the political appointment process, to put Liberals back on the board because it did not like Liberals and it did not want to give them a job, basically. I do not know if it did not like some of their decisions or it simply did not want Liberals on the government dime any more, but rather than replacing them with skilled and qualified Canadians to fill those roles, the backlog grew again.

When we have these crises, these moments that occur and require severe action, we have to pay attention to whether they were at all manufactured. If they were, then the cynical minds within this place will say it was done intentionally to move some radical reforms. If we create the crisis, we need to meet it with some expeditious force that will change it all dramatically.

It is also a story about the best of Canada, the best that we wish to be, and how we wish to present ourselves to the world as a safe haven for refugees, as a place people can come when they are being mistreated, and subjected to torture in all sorts of inhumane conditions. Canada must be a beacon of light in the world that people feel they can come to, where they can make an appeal to the Canadian system that is a full and transparent process.

This is the question we have on the expediency of this particular bill, the eight-day condition. Will refugees be able to seek the kind of legal support in order to defend themselves in front of the board or will they get one of these so-called consultants? We need to find another word for these immigration consultants.

I, like many members of Parliament, have had these folks on my doorstep. I am sure the immigration minister has met with some of them, bottom feeders I think the minister sometimes refers to them. These folks are sometimes in training and sometimes have noble intention, but too often pariahs on the system, pariahs on people's fear and desperate need to get into this country, and they offer them bad advice.

I worked in Sierra Leone for a while before entering politics and had the unbelievable frustration of meeting a young Sierra Leone man who had been engaged in the civil war and had his entire family wiped out by the rebels. He was appealing to Canada and had, through his church, forked over $850, which is an enormous sum to someone living in Sierra Leone, to one of these consultants. What did that Canadian consultant do? He provided that young man with a form that was available on a website.

These consultants prey upon refugees' fear and ignorance, that those seeking to come here think that this is an impossible system to get through. These people do not live in a democratic society where there are forms available for anything. This is a wartorn country and these consultants are preying upon these refugees, folks who often have already gone through hell and back, and are now seeking a better life in Canada. These immigration consultants pop up, promising the world, and charging even more for these folks to access Canada.

It seems to me we also need more refugee protection officers in the system. This is something the bill does not sufficiently seem to answer at this point.

We are caring communities in Canada. I represent northwestern British Columbia. Whenever there is a global crisis, whether it is Haiti or any other place, it is amazing to me that within days emails are in my inbox, I receive phone calls and people stop me on the street, either through faith-based organizations, their communities or themselves as families, saying they want to help, they want to offer access and safe refuge to people who have gone through such trauma.

As elected members, it is very rewarding when we meet those Canadians who are willing to open up their homes and sacrifice financially to welcome people in from another place and offer them a bit of the life that we have here, something that some of us were born with.

I am the first-born of an immigrant family and some of the things that concern me about the immigration reform before me is that I have to cast through and wonder whether my family would have made it through the system. Would my family of Irish farmers been able to apply under the immigration standards that the government currently holds? My family is a proud family but they were not rich. They did not have access or influence. They would simply have applied on the basis of their hard work, integrity and merit and spent the last 40 years helping build this country, as so many immigrants before them have. That is a test that I hold and a test that I hope we all hold, which is thinking back through our own lineages, our own coming here if we were not born here as first nations and for many generations past. I hope we give this bill a--

[Oil and Gas Industry, April 27th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, since the Deepwater Horizon oil platform caught fire and sank within sight of Louisiana, 160,000 litres of crude oil is being spilled directly into the Gulf of Mexico each and every day. British Petroleum is now desperately trying to drill a relief well to contain this unmitigated disaster. These same oil companies are now asking Canada's National Energy Board to exempt them from having to do the exact same thing in Canada, drill relief wells for their increasingly risky oil drilling in the Arctic.

Will the government ensure the rules will not be bent or broken for any of its friends in big oil?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, April 26th, 2010]

What is the total government investment in Atomic Energy of Canada Limited since its creation in 1952 for each year of operation, expressed in both as-spent and in constant 2009 dollars?

[Questions on the Order Paper, April 26th, 2010]

With regard to Indian and Northern Affairs Canada's operations in British Columbia: (a) what is the total value of grants and contracts awarded to Dayton and Knight Ltd.; and (b) what is the value of contracts and grants awarded to Dayton and Knight Ltd. as a percentage of all engineering awarded in the province?