Nick Whalen

[Business of Supply, April 26th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, as the member mentioned, today's debate is bringing up a lot of deep emotions for a lot of people.

In my riding of St. John's East, when I was a boy, there was a notorious scandal involving an orphanage and the rape and molestation of boys at the Mount Cashel Orphanage. It had gone on for decades and was covered up. Subsequently it was brought before a police commission. The Christian Brothers apologized and paid recompense and compensation to the victims. However, the Roman Catholic Church continues to fight it. It still, even to this day, is in appeals before the courts for its role in covering up the molestation and rape of boys at the church.

One of my constituents wrote today “This issue hits close to home in Newfoundland and Labrador. There was an organization founded called Pathways to offer specific supports and services to religious institutional abuse survivors and their families.” The constituent continues, “An apology from the Pope would mean a great deal to survivors and move us further down the path towards reconciliation and healing.”

I wonder if my hon. colleague's own constituents have shared the same feeling, that an apology is required.

[Business of Supply, April 26th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for all the great he does in international human rights. I hope he can further elaborate on the comments he raised in his remarks about his family's journey, but also about the importance of apologies in the truth and reconciliation process, how that plays out on the international stage, and why it is important for it to also play out in Canada in with respect to the Catholic Church extending an apology to residential school survivors.

[Department of Public Works and Government Services Act, April 25th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I am honoured to help close the debate on Bill C-354, an act to amend the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act (use of wood). I also want to thank the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay for putting forward this legislation. When I joined the natural resources committee just after Christmas, we were in the midst of a study on wood, and of course, it was well timed for his bill to come forward.

Let me be clear. The Government of Canada fully agrees with the spirit and intent of the member's proposed legislation. The proposed legislation aligns well with the government's goals of supporting the Canadian forest industry, as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, these goals must be balanced with the government's commitment to a fair, open, and transparent procurement process for all suppliers.

I believe that the amendment to this bill that was passed by the Standing Committee on Natural Resources achieves the balance that we seek. That is why I am encouraging all members to support the bill with our amendment. Let me take this opportunity to explain a little further.

At second reading stage, we had occasion to highlight the importance of Canada's forestry industry. Our forestry industry helped build Canada, and it still makes a significant contribution today. Last year alone, it added $22 billion to our GDP. Forestry plays a leading role in the local economies of the more than 170 rural towns where sawmills, pulp and paper mills and other forestry operations can be found. The industry employs more than 200,000 Canadians and also represents 9,500 jobs in indigenous communities, making it one of the largest employers of indigenous people. This is why initiatives to support Canada's forestry industry like those in Bill C-354 deserve our careful attention.

That said, we were concerned that the bill as originally presented by the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay would contradict certain long-standing Government of Canada principles, policies, and obligations and lead to perhaps some unintended consequences. As a point of reference, the proposed bill had stated that the minister “shall give preference to projects that promote the use of wood, taking into account the associated costs and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions”.

The government is committed to fairness, openness, and transparency in the procurement process. These fundamental values of the policies of Public Services and Procurement Canada cannot be deviated from. Although Canadians expect their government to support a sector as important as forestry, they also expect the government to adhere to the basic principle of fairness in its procurement.

Depending on how the legislation is interpreted and enforced, it may well violate Canada's obligations under important trade agreements, such as the Canadian free trade agreement and the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Contract spinoffs have the potential to be significant, particularly in a sector that relies so heavily on access to export markets, mainly the U.S.

The Standing Committee on Natural Resources reviewed the bill. I would like to thank my fellow members of that committee as well as the parliamentary secretary for the careful review of the proposed legislation. In fact, we heard many of the same considerations that I have just reiterated.

I am delighted that my colleague, the member for Markham—Thornhill, who sits with me on the committee proposed an amendment so that the legislation would read:

In developing requirements with respect to the construction, maintenance or repair of public works, federal real property or federal immovables, the Minister shall consider any reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and any other environmental benefits and may allow the use of wood or any other thing—including a material, product or sustainable resource—that achieves such benefits.

Ultimately, the committee accepted this amendment and referred the bill back to the House. I believe that the amendment is very important and will help make this legislation more effective and ensure that our shared goal of supporting Canada's forest industry is on a sound footing.

Our discussion on Bill C-354 today also provides us the opportunity to reflect on steps the government is taking to help the forestry sector to embrace innovation and continue to be a vital part of our communities and our economy.

For example, the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change promotes federal, provincial, and territorial co-operation in order to encourage the greater use of wood in construction. Building codes will be updated to reflect that.

This will be encouraged in part by work that is under way to investigate the updating of the National Building Code of Canada. Currently, Natural Resources Canada and the National Research Council are conducting innovative research and development with a goal of updating our National Building Code to allow for wood buildings up to 12 storeys. Moreover, wood and wood products are important contributors to the Government of Canada's infrastructure needs.

Public Services and Procurement Canada policy requires contractors to propose materials that meet the needs of a project, including sustainability and performance criteria, and that conform to the National Building Code of Canada.

In fact, Public Services and Procurement Canada alone is spending approximately $160 million a year on average for office fit-ups and interior finishes, of which approximately 15% is directly related to the use of wood products.

I would also like to highlight the important work of Public Services and Procurement Canada in supporting the government's commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The department is making government operations more sustainable through green building practices, including the use of sustainable materials, the move toward optimizing our space usage, and lowering the energy consumption of our federal buildings.

Buildings are a significant source of greenhouse gases and contribute 23% of Canada's overall greenhouse gas emissions. As we know, the government has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from federal buildings and fleets by 80% below 2005 levels by 2050.

As providers of accommodation to the Government of Canada, Public Services and Procurement Canada is in a unique position to have a direct and significant impact on the greening of government operations. It is the first federal department to complete a national carbon-neutral portfolio plan that takes into account all real property-related greenhouse gas emissions and energy reduction initiatives that the government has undertaken to reduce greenhouse gases.

Take for example the investment we have made in the energy services acquisition program, through which we are modernizing the heating and cooling system that serves about 80 buildings in Ottawa, including many of the buildings on and around Parliament Hill.

In advance of this modernization effort, we are piloting and testing wood chips for use as a possible biomass fuel. The results of this pilot project will help determine the potential for expanding this option to other federal heating and cooling plants.

Similarly, Public Services and Procurement Canada continues to take an integrated and holistic approach to project design and construction, which includes the use of a variety of sustainable materials, such as wood, while giving environmental, social, and economic factors due consideration.

Its goal is to meet sustainable performance standards, such as leadership in energy and environmental design, commonly referred as LEED, and Green Globes. These performance standards encourage the use of products and materials for which life-cycle information is available, and that have environmentally, economically, and socially preferable life-cycle impacts. Projects involving Government of Canada buildings in Quebec City and Yellowknife are the latest ones to meet those standards.

In closing, Public Services and Procurement Canada will continue to lead the way in embedding environmental considerations, and specifically greenhouse gas reductions, into the design and approval stages of its proposed projects.

Bill C-354, as amended, will also support our efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support our forestry sector. At the same time, it will support our commitment to an open, fair, and transparent procurement process. In short, the Government of Canada is committed to leaving to future generations of Canadians a sustainable, prosperous country. I would encourage all my colleagues to support this initiative.

I would also like to thank the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay for his work in helping to craft important amendments to his original legislation that both preserve the original spirit and help further our government's plan to help support the forestry sector and at the same time reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

[Bell Island, April 25th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, a unique feature in my riding is the rugged and determined cliffs of Bell Island. Even more unique are the rugged and determined residents who continue to fight for the survival of their communities. Now, 52 years after the closure of the Bell Island iron ore mines, less than a quarter of the peak population remains, as people seek to rekindle opportunities in farming and to create new opportunities in tourism and services for retirees returning from military service or from their satellite community in Cambridge, Ontario.

I was delighted to attend Jonny Harris's hilarious and uplifting performance last year as part of a Still Standing episode, where he took a few liberties in celebrating the colourful characters on the island.

Through the Canada summer jobs program, we are supporting 36 student leadership opportunities this summer. I believe in Bell Island and look forward to listening to the community at a town hall on Tuesday, May 15, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at St. Michael's Parish hall. All are welcome.

[Business of Supply, April 24th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I was not convinced by the arguments put forward by the hon. member. When I look at the totality of the logistics and what is realistic to expect from people, if we open the borders to all asylum claims to process regularly, we will make a bad situation worse. It is totally inconsistent with the government's position today or with the previous government's position. It is inconsistent with our relationship with the Americans in managing our shared border for regular crossings. It is unrealistic to expect that Canada, a country of 35 million people, could potentially expose itself to irregular crossings at the border in Windsor or at the airport in Toronto of up to 110,000 special migrants, even if it is only 1% of the number of illegals in the United States—

[Business of Supply, April 24th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the measured tone and respectful dialogue from the member in his question.

It is true that Canada is an open country and has been for many years. If we look precentage-wise at the size of the population of the country and the amount of immigration that has been permitted from time to time, I am not sure that would bear out the statistics that were proposed. Perhaps they would with the raw numbers. However, if we look at the percentage of the population, I would like to see whether that is borne out.

When we look at the text of the motion, and if we look at what the citizenship and immigration committee, of which the sponsor of the motion is a member, is currently studying and being briefed on, we cannot help but think that what is being proposed in the motion, with the antics and the rhetoric to the media, including this morning at the member's press briefing, is not solely about whether people are crossing irregularly at the border or what needs to be done. Obviously the government is doing a lot. It has devoted a lot of resources to this. I trust that with all the efforts through public safety and immigration it will handle this as well as or better than the similar situation that happened with the Mexican migrants.

If we look at the text taken as a whole, it goes beyond that. It is attempting to drive a wedge in Canada. It refers to people who cross irregularly as “ illegal” immigrants or “illegal” aliens, or some such deprecating language that insults and intimidates newcomers to this country. I do not want to stand for it. I appreciate that the member himself has not used that term in his discourse. I appreciate that he has not taken this tack, but the rest of his party has.

[Business of Supply, April 24th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague and friend from Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs for sharing his time with me.

I am glad to rise today to continue the debate on the actions that our government is taking to meet the clear objectives of our fair and compassionate immigration and asylum system. These objectives are to save lives and to offer protection to the displaced, the most vulnerable, and the persecuted; to meet our country's international legal obligations with respect to refugees; and to respond to international crises by providing assistance to those in need of protection.

As we know, in recent months we have seen a considerable increase in irregular migration at key points along the border we share with the United States while asylum seekers have been entering Canada somewhere between official ports of entry.

People seeking asylum in Canada must be shown compassion and must avail themselves of all recourse under the law.

When we treat them with respect and give them the chance to be heard, we are acting in accordance with Canada's long-standing humanitarian tradition, for which our country is renowned throughout the world.

As I noted, this is a long-standing tradition, and Canadians are rightfully proud of our strong international reputation for humanitarian leadership, which was damaged by the Harper Conservatives during their 10 years in government.

Since the election, through the work of our former and current Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship and the department, our government remains focused on efficient and streamlined processing as well as on developing more flexible and nimble responses to adapt to the influx of asylum seekers at the Quebec border and elsewhere.

One important response to this situation, and mentioned many times by the minister, is that our government has accelerated the processing of all applications for work permits for asylum seekers across Canada from three months to three days so that they are able to support themselves while they are in this country. This was something that both the governments of Canada and Quebec worked on together collaboratively.

To date, 97% of applications for work permits submitted by irregular migrants have been approved and only 3% have been rejected, mainly due to incomplete medical examinations.

Since April 2017, more than 12,500 work permits have been issued to refugee claimants in Quebec.

Our government is pleased to be working closely with the Government of Quebec to manage the influx of asylum seekers who are crossing the border in that province.

Given the influx of asylum seekers, budget 2018, as noted by the minister, has invested $173.2 million toward managing irregular migration to ensure security at the border and faster processing of asylum claims by the IRB. The Conservatives have flip-flopped on this. The member for Calgary Nose Hill called for this increase, and the Conservatives are now arguing against the additional funding, which is somewhat typical.

Quebec will also receive $3.2 billion as part of the Canada social transfer in 2018-19. More importantly, we have provided an increase, as my colleague said, of $112 million to support settlement and integration services in Quebec, under the Canada-Québec accord, which the Conservatives voted against, even though they are calling on the government through this debate today to provide more funding to Quebec. It is typical when the shoe on the other foot is a flip-flop.

At the same time, our government continues to lead the collaborative work of the ad hoc intergovernmental task force on irregular migration, which is ensuring a coordinated approach across all levels of government. Rather than the politics of fear and division, which lost the Conservatives the election, we are focused on working with Canadians together to manage the situation at the Canada-U.S. border. Our government is managing the volumes we are seeing now and is preparing for any fluctuations, as any responsible government would do.

Before closing, let me make some final points. Asylum seekers face a rigorous process to determine whether they have a legitimate claim according to Canadian and international law. There are no shortcuts and no guarantees that an asylum seeker will be able to stay in Canada. The member for Calgary Nose Hill should know this, having been the critic on this file now for over two years.

The New Democrats should also remember that not everyone is eligible to make an asylum claim, and not all asylum claims should or will be accepted. All eligible claims are assessed by the independent Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada and are decided on a case-by-case basis.

If the IRB determines that individuals are not in need of Canada's protection, they are removed from Canada, something the member for Calgary Nose Hill knows and understands.

The NDP would open our borders to 11 million irregular migrants who are illegally in the United States with their proposal to completely undermine and tear up the safe third country agreement.

Let us talk about which side has been absent on our immigration asylum system. The Conservatives had families, spouses, and children wait up to 26 months to be reunited. Our government eliminated that backlog, and we now process applications within 12 months.

The Conservatives made applicants under the federal live-in caregiver program wait over six and a half years to be processed. We eliminated that backlog, and by the end of 2018, we will have a processing standard of one year; 12 months.

The Conservatives created the legacy asylum claim backlog, those who had to wait almost a decade to have their claims heard after the Conservatives left them behind. Our government will be eliminating this backlog by the end of this year. We are also working hard to eliminate the privately sponsored refugee backlog left by the Conservatives. Our government is processing study permits and citizenship and economic immigrant applications faster than ever before.

As the member for St. John's East, I am confident that the initiatives I have outlined will help us maintain our strong and compassionate immigration system. I trust that these points will help my hon. colleagues support our government's position and our efforts. We are fixing the mess left behind by the Conservatives. The movers of this motion and the motion itself seek to make things even worse. I will not be supporting it.

I have an opportunity now to talk a little about my time and the testimony I have had the opportunity to hear at the Standing Committee on Citizenship, Immigration and Refugees, on which I am one of the new members. This is obviously a topic on which we are greatly seized. While I trust that the government response is going to be safe and effective and is going to support the people who are irregularly crossing at the border, and have been since last summer, we will be briefed further as to the particulars of those efforts.

The motion itself is somewhat bizarre. It says, “take responsibility for the massive social services costs burdening the provincial government”. The Government of Canada and the Government of Quebec have worked together to design a system so that the irregular migrants have work permits in three days so they are able to work, to earn money, to pay taxes, and to contribute to the economic development of the province of Quebec, just as all immigrants have the possibility to do. That lowers their burden on the social services system, so in fact, point three is completely wrong. We are addressing this problem head on, in collaboration with our partners.

The motion says, “admit the Prime Minister's irresponsibility of” something that was in a tweet. However, Canada is a welcoming country. We are welcoming immigrants to Canada. We are helping and supporting refugees. We are accepting legitimate asylum seekers who come to the border, and that is widely determined. Those people who cross irregularly at the border with a valid asylum claim are not illegal migrants. They are merely irregular migrants, and this is how they are choosing to seek asylum, and we support them. We welcome them. We will meet our international obligations to them.

The other point is “ensure the agencies responsible for our borders are properly equipped so that they can continue to do their jobs effectively”. This is what budget 2018 does that the Conservatives voted against ad nauseam, point by point, line by line, every item, yet here we are on this item, and they are saying to do more. We are doing what we need to do.

Finally is the request that the government “table in the House no later than May 11, 2018, a plan to (i) stop the influx of people”. Again, if asylum seekers come to the border, we have an international obligation to them. It is a fundamental human right that all citizens of the world whose countries are members of the United Nations enjoy. They have the right to leave their countries or the country in which they are located. If they are legitimate asylum seekers, the country they enter should accept them and process their asylum claims in accordance with the rule of law. That is what we are doing.

Every point in the motion makes no sense. It is dog whistle politics, and I do not want anything further to do with it. I urge all members of the House to defeat the motion today.

[Official Languages, April 19th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Victoria, British Columbia, our two official languages are at the very heart of who we are as Canadians. After 10 years of underinvestment by the previous government, our government is taking concrete action to protect official languages, because we recognize the importance of linguistic duality and how much it contributes to the lives of Canadians.

Could the Minister of Canadian Heritage take this opportunity to explain to the House what our government is doing to protect our official languages?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1, April 16th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, St. John's East is the home of Memorial University, the university of Newfoundland and Labrador. There are over 18,000 full-time students at the institution. There is an engineering faculty, a business faculty, and social sciences. There is a new science building, to which our federal government has contributed $100 million in infrastructure funding. There is a world-class medical school. Within each of these departments and programs, there are researchers who are solving today's problems. However, they often cannot do that without the support of additional faculty, without research staff, and without Ph.D. students who are working on those problems with them. In order to build those labs, build that base of knowledge, and have that work done, they need additional funding and support.

The granting councils have been underfunded for a long time. The recent report that led to our increase in research funding called specifically for a massive injection of federal government dollars into primary research so that these problems can be solved. Ultimately, and we see it within the incubators at our national universities, companies develop out of this primary research, and those companies go on to sell products not only in Canada but in global markets. The people who work in those companies have high-quality, interesting jobs that keep them in their local communities and at the universities, and drive the cycle of growth that we need in the 21st century.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1, April 16th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member touched on a lot of different aspects, but I will focus on the one related to deficit spending. I agree with what the Minister of Finance has said. The appropriate metric for measuring Canada's progress on reducing debt is the debt-to-GDP ratio. We see that it is going down now. It has gone down each year under our government's tenure, and it will continue to do so.

When we focus merely on deficit without looking at the overall growth of the economy, we are seeing the trees and failing to see the forest. We need to see the overall economic growth that Canada has enjoyed over the first two years of the government's mandate, which has greatly surpassed expectations and provided for additional economic growth that renders the deficit spending less than the overall growth of the economy, so that we see an overall reduction. Therefore, Canada's fiscal position is stronger under our government. Even though there are modest deficits being run, they are less than the overall growth of the economy. This is more than the previous government can say, because it grew the debt-to-GDP ratio over its tenure, and we have reduced it.