Olivia Chow

[Infrastructure, February 25th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, across the country roads are full of potholes, bridges are crumbling, commuters are stuck in gridlock and transit riders are packed in like sardines, yet the Conservatives have no plan.

Municipalities are responsible for over half of all the infrastructure, but receive only eight cents per tax dollar. Will the minister work with us, together with municipalities and businesses, and say yes tomorrow to our motion for a long-term infrastructure plan?

[Transportation, February 14th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, Torontonians are fed up with gridlock and the $6 billion it is costing the economy. Thousands of commuters are speaking out in public forums, demanding federal public funding for transit.

The minister does not seem to understand how bad the situation is, so I am formally inviting him to join with me during rush hour to ride the overcrowded subway in Toronto. Will he come?

[Violent Crime, February 12th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, last night a teenager was shot dead in Toronto. To his family and friends, I offer my sincere condolences.

Sadly, he is the third youth killed by guns in Toronto this year. To prevent youth violence, we must do more. We can give hope and create more opportunities for youth. I call on the federal government to make the Canada summer jobs program year-round and make the youth gang program permanent instead of project-based.

We can better support our police with a national witness protection program and improved markings on imported firearms so they can trace illegal guns. We can implement Roy McMurtry's and Alvin Curling's youth action plan by putting more prosecutors in Ontario's guns and gangs task force and anti-gun smuggling border initiative.

We can reduce violent crime if we take action.

[Petitions, February 6th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the third petition is from Canadians who are worried about our environment. They are asking the Government of Canada to legislate a ban on bulk oil tanker traffic on the B.C. north coast. They are worried that the Enbridge northern gateway pipeline would carry oil over 1,000 kilometres, from the Alberta oil sands to the coastline, and would cause problems for the B.C. coastline.

[Petitions, February 6th, 2013]

The second petition I am submitting is from residents who are very worried that the hours of operation of the Rideau Canal and the Trent-Severn Waterway have been reduced. They are calling on Parks Canada to return these two sites to the 2011 operating hours and length of seasons in order for all Canadians to safely enjoy these waterways.

[Petitions, February 6th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I have three petitions. The first one is from petitioners who are calling on the federal government to build speed bumps along the St. Clair River because they are worried about the drop in Lake Huron's water level. By doing so, it would allow freighters to increase carrying capacity as they move from the shipping channel, saving the industry tens of millions of dollars a year. It will restore and sustain the tourism industry on the Great Lakes. It will work to restore property values, and it would preserve the biodiversity of the Great Lakes.

[Air Canada, February 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, speaking about jobs, when Air Canada forced Aveos to shut down, we asked the minister repeatedly to uphold the law and to order Air Canada to keep high-quality maintenance jobs here in Canada. Taking action could have saved over 2,000 jobs, but the Conservatives did nothing.

Now that the judge has spoken, when will the Conservatives enforce the law, stop Air Canada from violating the law and bring thousands of good jobs back to Canada?

[Fair Rail Freight Service Act, February 4th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, yes, in fact, what is happening is that our national dream is slowly drifting away as CN and CP are abandoning rail lines because they are not always profitable in this vast country of ours. Even though CN made $2.7 billion last year, it is unwilling to service some of the areas that are not turning a substantial profit. Thousands of tracks are being given up, whether they are for passenger rail or freight services. More trucks are on the road. VIA Rail is losing customers. It just had its budget cut by $20 million.

We need to re-examine our entire rail service so that we can come back to the Canadian dream of a rail line connecting all of us from coast to coast to coast.

[Fair Rail Freight Service Act, February 4th, 2013]

I will try to answer that question, Mr. Speaker, in the few minutes I have.

My private member's bill would accomplish all of the things rail customers want. My bill would cover all customers, whether they have existing contracts or not. My bill would provide a model agreement so that it would be much faster and easier for the customers and the company to come to a consensus and sign an agreement. My bill proposes that there be financial consequences for bad service delivery so that the customers are compensated if their grains do not show up on time or they end up rotting at port. Customers would not have to book several containers in case the train shows up late or early.

My bill proposes to deal with price gouging and the monopoly of power the rail company has. Unless we deal with that, the situation will still be one-sided. We have to find some balance between the customers and the companies. If not, the customers will continue to be gouged, and the services will continue to be unreliable. I hope my Conservative colleagues across the way will work closely with me and be non-partisan about it.

Let us fix Bill C-52 so that it works for all customers and shippers. Let us make sure that there are substantial consequences if the services are not reliable.

[Fair Rail Freight Service Act, February 4th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, because the entire supply and demand are so unbalanced, and because we are basically dealing with a monopoly, raising the situation where the government is very reluctant to act, many agencies, such as the auditor, who talked about the importance of tracking and following through on recommendations on dangerous goods that have been spilled, have not had their recommendations implemented. The Transportation Safety Board recommended ways to make sure things are done in a safe way. Yet there is a long list of recommendations of the board that are being ignored. The government has talked about the situation, but actually making things happen, such as having a standard voice recording in the cab so that we can find out what caused the accident, have not been accomplished yet, which is really unfortunate.