Nathan Cullen

[RESUMPTION OF DEBATE ON ADDRESS IN REPLY, November 24th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, it seems passing strange that while I do not doubt my hon. colleague's enthusiasm nor his volume when decrying the policies of the Conservative government, it stands against the evidence that his party and his votes will show when this is brought up for a vote as it has the 42 previous times when the government stood in confidence in this House.

I have heard the hon. member's Liberal colleagues talk about the great benefits of the employment insurance program or the national health care system. When New Democrats in the past have worked in minority Parliaments to get things done, we have always made it our measure to exchange our support for something concrete and real, actual shifts in policy from government. Yet the Prime Minister in this Parliament and in the previous one knew he could count on Liberal support while giving up nothing of the agenda that my hon. colleague has just cited and decried.

What exactly has the Liberal Party done to ensure that some of the policies it pretends to support actually manifest in the real world?

[The Economy, November 24th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the people of the northwest of British Columbia in Skeena—Bulkley Valley who for years have been living through a recession of their own. With the downturn of the fishing industry and the forestry sector, for more than eight years we have seen unemployment rates of greater than 80% in some of our communities, yet this has become a story of innovation and courage. In fact, it holds lessons for the rest of our country and the world about innovating in mining and bringing forward investment in the container port of Prince Rupert and the cooperative abattoir in Telkwa, B.C. People have risen up and banded together; first nations and non-first nations have joined in a common interest which is rebuilding our economy.

These lessons can be brought to a greater scope on the national level. The government must be willing to collaborate and to innovate and build an economy for the future, not one of the past.

[RESUMPTION OF DEBATE ON ADDRESS IN REPLY, November 24th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member and welcome him to the House. I also congratulate the people of Thunder Bay—Superior North for their wise choice in the election.

The question I have for my colleague is very specific to the mill he mentioned as a central piece to his first speech in the House, a central piece as it is not only symbolic but a practical example of what government can and cannot do.

The choices that are available to government in this time of economic upheaval are critical for people in his riding and many of our ridings across the country. The choices made between a $50 billion tax cut or specific investments or helping seniors to protect their pensions are choices being made in this place right now.

As the fiscal update comes, the mini-budget, specifically for the people of Thunder Bay—Superior North, what will the member need to see to garner his support and the support of the people he represents, knowing the government is on task and is aware of the realities for people in northern Ontario and in communities like his across the country?

[RESUMPTION OF DEBATE ON ADDRESS IN REPLY, November 24th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome my colleague back as well.

As a small business owner myself prior to Parliament, I share some of his concerns over the direction of government.

I hope the trip to Washington by the Industry minister and his partner in Ontario was not seen as a success. They did not meet with a single senior legislator who has any influence on what is happening with the auto industry in the United States. They could have accomplished more by simply meeting in Toronto rather than spending taxpayer dollars to go to Washington to sit with staffers.

The problem may not have been created in Elgin—Middlesex—London or St. Thomas and other places, but the deregulation philosophy that his government purports is the very one that put us in this trouble in the first place. It is the one that leaders in Europe and other parts of the world are saying needs to be revised, yet the Prime Minister made a speech in South America just this past week that echoed President Bush's same sentiments of keeping on the same track on which we have been going. Remedying the problem with the same issues that put us here in the first place is no remedy at all.

Is the member's government willing to consider a reform of our regulatory instruments so we can avoid future crises in the marketplace and in investment cycles? Surely his government has played some role in the collapse of this economy and contributed to the one around the world.

[RESUMPTION OF DEBATE ON ADDRESS IN REPLY, November 24th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome my colleague back to the House.

I have a point of confusion with the Liberals' perspective on these policies that the hon. member has just spent his time deriding. If he had an overspend and undertax concern with the way the government in the previous Parliament conducted things, why did the Liberal Party spend so much time supporting it?

If the current fiscal mess we are in, according to the budgetary officer, was caused by decisions made by the previous government that have contributed to the downfall of not only Canadians' savings but also of their security toward retirement, why did he and his party fundamentally support them?

It was not simply a matter of worries about an oncoming election. There were also concerns that the Liberal Party fundamentally believed and agreed with the Conservative Party. Again we see the Liberals forming a united coalition front on a neo-liberal agenda.

I wonder if he could answer that most simple of questions.

[Immigration, June 17th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I have in my hand a letter from the immigration minister in regard to the case of Ms. Augustina Lodo and her family. She is a refugee from the Sudan who first applied for status in Canada in 2007. She left the Sudan after her husband was killed for his religious convictions and faith.

Faith groups in Smithers and across northwest British Columbia have raised their voices and have raised money in support of Ms. Lodo and her application, yet the letter from the minister rejects that application, saying that things are safe in the Sudan and that she should return with no fear of persecution.

She was beaten. She was severely persecuted. Canada's own government issues on its website a warning to all Canadians not to travel to the Sudan and not to partake of this region for fear of similar violence.

Our country's shame in dealing with the Sudan can only be recompensed and justified if we open our doors and our hearts to those still facing persecution. I urge the minister to change the content of the letter.

[Extension of Sitting Hours, June 9th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I find the government House leader's sense of irony a bit strange and perverse in his request for an extension of sittings.

I went through the pain and suffering of six weeks of his government filibustering the environment committee, six weeks of talking out the clock day in and day out. The Conservatives lack of planning and integrity create a crisis for the rest of Parliament. In mistaking the idea that we come here to work for some sort of political gamesmanship day in and day out at justice, procedure and House affairs and the environment committee, they spent six weeks filibustering, delaying, holding the bill hostage on one clause. Ironically, it was a clause on transparency and accountability.

It seems odd now that the government would come back to the Parliament and say that the clock is running out on the spring session, that it needs more time to debate these important issues. When the Conservatives had the time to move legislation forward, they chose not to. They previously prorogued Parliament and killed their legislation that was in mid-process, some of which had already passed out of the House, on justice and matters of affairs, which the so-called House leader has described as important to Canadians. By doing that, they denied their bills to come to the full force of law. They then sat in committee week after week for political games playing. They delayed the work of the environment committee and the democratic right of this place to vote on a bill. Now they suggest, within days of that happening, that this crisis has been created by others, not their own doing, and they need extra time to get through their legislative calendar.

Did he make any of those considerations previously when the government instructed its committee chairs to take hostage and hijack the democratic process, which is this Parliament.

[The Environment, June 5th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, if the minister wanted to reassure Canadians and the world that he was serious about this issue, he would support and not delay the environmental legislation proposed by the leader of the New Democrats and passed in Parliament last night in this place.

The Kearl oil sands project will put the equivalent of 800,000 cars on the road in pollution every year for the next 50 years. The government has the power to put some conditions on it. It has the power to protect the rights of first nations.

Will he, for once, stand in his place and stand up to the big polluters, put some real environmental conditions on this project and do his job?

[The Environment, June 5th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, reports from Washington today describe environmental groups warning U.S. Congress and American consumers that the Canadian tar sands sector is “an environmental disaster that is poisoning U.S. refineries”. Despite both domestic and international pressure, the government is barrelling full steam ahead.

On World Environment Day, this so-called environment minister's gift to the planet is one of the greatest and largest polluting projects in Canadian history. Why will he not even put a few environmental conditions on the Kearl oil sands project? Why is he giving Imperial Oil an unlimited licence to pollute?

[Business of Supply, June 5th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with some interest to my hon. colleague's comments and his reasons for voting against the motion.

I point out two things. First, his interpretation of why that committee is unable to deal with motions such as this is obscure and obtuse at the very least. The government has practised this willy-nilly form of obstruction among so many committees. It is unprecedented in Canadian history.

I experienced this in the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development. For six weeks the government talked out the clock on a private member's bill. It has never been done before in the history of Canada. It did that every day, wasting thousands of dollars and setting new legal precedents.

On the issue as to whether the motion is viable, I am trying to understand my colleague's balance between the rights and responsibilities of Parliamentarians to speak and represent their constituents, yet not incur their own benefit, which is something our ethics code now currently prohibits, and at the same time, not encourage people within this place or outside of it with that libel chill of which he spoke.

By finding a contentious issue that was affecting some other Canadian or somebody from another country, or by not wanting a certain member of Parliament to speak to the issue, a person could simply file a lawsuit. A person could simply put a writ on a member and prohibit that member of Parliament from speaking to an issue again for the reasons countered in the courts, reasons unproven by the courts. Then our Ethics Commissioner would come forward and prohibit the member from speaking because of that lawsuit?

I am trying to understand the balance the member is trying to seek. How can he assuage the fears of people like myself and my party from creating that type of libel chill, that someone will sue us in the actions of our duties, thereby closing our comments and silencing our voices and the voices of the people we represent, which is again to the fundamentals of this place?