House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2015, with 51% of the vote.
The Environment November 29th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, Statistics Canada reports that spending by industry on capital investments to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions actually dropped by 35%. Oil and gas slashed its investments by 46%, while the power industry cut its investments by 96%. The government ensures that Canada will fall further and further behind.
When will the government stop following failed Liberal policies, and stop subsidizing and start penalizing the biggest polluters?
Questions Passed as Orders for Returns November 29th, 2007
With respect to the procurement of Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) by the government over the last five years: (a) how many SUVs were purchased or leased on an annual basis; (b) what was the total government expenditure for the purchase or lease of such vehicles, on an annual basis; (c) what amount was spent by each department or agency; (d) how much was spent annually by each department or agency in the National Capital Region; (e) what was the breakdown by province; (f) which companies received government contracts with respect to the purchase or leasing of SUVs and what was the annual combined total of all contracts awarded to each company; and (g) what was the amount spent, on an annual basis, on the overall procurement of vehicles by the government and of this amount, how much was spent, on an annual basis in dollars and percentage, on SUVs?
Questions on the Order Paper November 29th, 2007
With respect to meeting the challenges of climate change: (a) what are the estimated costs to the Canadian economy of climate change; (b) what are the most current scientific modelling predictions used with respect to the impacts of climate change in Canada; (c) what regions of the country and which sectors of the economy are expected to be worse affected by climate change; (d) what are the anticipated job losses due to climate change; and (e) applying the same economic methodologies used for the environmental regulatory plan entitled “Turning the Corner”, what would be the health and economic costs of allowing the oil sands sector to increase volatile organic compounds emissions by 60 per cent by the year 2015?
Phthalate Control Act November 28th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, there have been consultations between all the parties and I think if you were to seek it, you would find unanimous consent to pass the motion for Bill C-307 unanimously.
Phthalate Control Act November 23rd, 2007
Mr. Speaker, it is a long road that brought us to this point with a private member's bill that was crafted in collaboration with many of the people in our country who are concerning themselves about the toxins in our environment, particularly those toxins that affect our children and vulnerable population.
There are a few things that have come to light through the process of this bill which I think are informative to all members of Parliament and to Canadians as to how it is we craft law in this country and what is encouraged and what is resisted. We brought some fundamental principles into this piece of legislation, principles that have not yet been seen before by Canadian legislators.
One of the primary principles is the precautionary principle, a principle that allows Canada and Canadian officials to finally make decisions to protect the health and well-being of Canadians when there is evidence that there may be damage done to the health of our population. There is probably no better example of how wrong a government can be and how long Canadians can be misled than the debate that occurred and existed for too long over smoking.
Year after year the big tobacco lobbyists worked members of Parliament, particularly the then Conservatives or whatever they were called at the time, and the Liberals to encourage them to not believe the science that was before us, to not believe that there should be some precaution in the way that we legislate and allow smoking in Canadian society.
There were detrimental effects, lives lost and families suffered because of the negligence, wilful and otherwise, of politicians who preceded us, some still in this place. It was absolutely shameful.
We created this bill to ban a plastic softener, for goodness' sake, that allows certain plastics to be a little more malleable, which is all well and good in and of itself, but has these unintended consequences of causing a whole series of terrible effects on the health and well-being of individuals, particularly children.
The tragic irony was that one of the few ways to release this chemical into a human system was mastication, actually chewing on the plastic. These chemicals were put into children's toys that by design were meant to be chewed. It was, of course, not the intention of the chemical manufacturers or the toy manufacturers to do this, but lo and behold, it happened.
We know there are other colleagues in this place attempting to do the same, to provide Canadians with laws and practices that actually defend our interests, not just the interests of narrow lobbyist groups but to defend the health and well-being of Canadians. This is something that is long overdue.
It is long overdue in a Parliament that has seen dysfunction time and time again from the government side and I will give one instance to close my remarks, and this should be instructive to all Canadians and MPs trying to do the right thing.
We saw officials under the direction of the government come forward at committee and make claims that we could not possibly ban these chemicals because it would put the well-being of Canadians at stake because some of these softeners existed in medical devices. And if we were to ban this chemical, it would be taken out of the medical devices and there would be no medical devices and Canadians “would die on the operating table as a result of this bill”.
At the very same hearing we had witnesses from the United States, nurses and practitioners, who had in their hands medical devices that were free of phthalates. They had lists of hospitals in the U.S. that had banned this chemical entirely from their operations.
The parliamentary secretary is nodding no, when he knows it is in fact true, that we had the devices available and we had a government sticking its head in the sand and willing not to do it.
What is amazing to me is that when we write legislation well and truly try to get parliamentarians to work together, those who resist suddenly seek to take credit. I have heard, particularly Liberal and Conservative members time and time again patting themselves on the back, congratulating themselves. I suppose when we do something right, everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon and everyone wants to feel like they win.
At long last this bill, which should pass through this place, will become law and protect Canadians into the future. We are proud to have it.
Questions on the Order Paper November 22nd, 2007
With respect to the impact, costs, benefits, consultations and studies on climate change as they relate to environmental legislation before Parliament: (a) what studies have been commissioned with respect to the economic costs of implementing Bill C-30, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, the Energy Efficiency Act and the Motor Vehicle Fuel Consumption Standards Act (Canada's Clean Air Act), as amended by the Legislative Committee on Bill C-30, including the list of titles, authors, dates of publication and brief synopsis of each; (b) how would meeting the targets set out in the amended version of Bill C-30 help mitigate the costs of climate change to the Canadian economy; (c) what would the economic benefits to the Canadian economy be if the measures outlined in the amended version of Bill C-30 were implemented; (d) were external consultations on the costs of Bill C-288, An Act to ensure Canada meets its global climate change obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, undertaken with organizations or individuals other than for the report released by the Minister of the Environment entitled “The Cost of Bill C-288 to Canadian Families and Business” and for the environmental regulatory plan entitled “Turning the Corner”, and (i) if so, what organizations or individuals were consulted and why were they not included in the report on Bill C-288, (ii) if not, why did the government not seek the input of other stakeholders, in particular leading Canadian environmental organizations; and (e) applying the same economic methodologies used for both of the documents mentioned in (d), what would be the approximate health savings of the amended version of Bill C-30?
Immigration and Refugee Protection Act November 20th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, it is with some pleasure and some concern that I enter this debate. I have a question for my hon. colleague in terms of the way this procedure manifests in his mind.
We have been looking through this bill to try to understand if there is any prohibition that would prevent the government from putting one of these security certificates on someone and then deporting the person or having the person removed to a country that performs capital punishment or torture.
Canada obviously has had some unfortunate experiences with this in the past, with Maher Arar and others. I am wondering if that prevention has been made in the bill. As the member has addressed in his comments, in regard to the balance among security, the rights of individuals and the rights of Canadians that we all enjoy, we also seek to treat people who come to this country with a similar amount of respect in trying not to deport them to torture and in insisting that we do not deport them to countries that perform capital punishment.
I am wondering if the member has identified that in the bill. Can he give the House an assurance that this has in fact been removed as a potential result of one of these security certificates being performed?
Phthalate Control Act November 1st, 2007
Mr. Speaker, sometimes people do not want to see the answers that are in front of them when they have a predetermined solution available. There is an apprehension in government to ban chemicals in general and in the specific. We saw that again in this case. There was a strong case made for this chemical to be banned. Government officials, generally speaking, do not like to do that because they get a whole bunch of grief from a whole bunch of lobbyists. It is time for us to reverse the course of events and make sure that we are doing the right thing more consistently.
Phthalate Control Act November 1st, 2007
Mr. Speaker, that is fascinating, coming from a government that has put together an omnibus crime bill and then put a deadline on it with all sorts of serious implications that we have not yet found.
Suddenly we have a bill that we have almost talked to death. If he wants to put information on the record, we have a boxed set of information on the record. There are more records on this bill than we possibly could need. There are no more concerns around this bill. We have answered their concerns. Absolutely, those members can rise in their places and make comments, but for goodness' sake, why run the clock out? Why do this again? Why waste good taxpayers' dollars in this place if we are all agreeing?
Apparently the Conservative government is now a government inclined to waste taxpayers' dollars. I always suspected it, but now I see it in evidence. Let us get on with it. Put it on the record and let us close down the debate and move on.
Phthalate Control Act November 1st, 2007
Mr. Speaker, it was very interesting. I was speaking to some of my colleagues earlier who sit on the committee with me and I had made a suggestion informally earlier this week. The environment committee had essentially broken down in the last session and become so disharmonious that there were so many problems and tensions it was a fiasco. At various times it was a circus. I said that we were dignified sensible people and suggested that set some principles of how we wanted to conduct ourselves in this session.
I had a good agreement from around the House that we should grab a coffee or some other beverage to our liking and establish some other better intention for the committee because this work is so important for Canadians. We had agreement and then suddenly, the winds blew up to offices in higher places in the House and it was kiboshed, absolutely killed. There was no way the government was going to allow us to meet informally and discuss getting along, so here we are.
In fact, it was raised by my colleagues that the Liberals went offside. For a rare moment they had not. For a rare moment there was this opportunity to actually get along.
The bill works well. We need to find concession points within all four parties. This is a minority Parliament, even though it is de facto operating in a different way now. We need to improve the health of our population and safety of our environment.