Olivia Chow

[Seniors, February 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, thousands and thousands of immigrant seniors are forced to live in isolation with barely the means to support themselves. The situation is dire for far too many. They must choose between medication and rent payments, and despite the recommendations of the Immigrant Seniors Advocacy Network, there is still a cruel 10 years residency requirement for old age security.

Will the minister finally provide fairness for seniors and will he implement the excellent and humane recommendations from the network?

[Citizenship and Immigration, February 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, Sunday is Chinese New Year and I wish all hon. members a happy New Year of the Pig.

Unfortunately, for many hard-working immigrant families this weekend will be one spent alone, without their families or friends from back home. Visitor visas are increasingly hard to come by. The decision-making process is arbitrary with no chance for appeal. Wait times to bring fathers and mothers to Canada are long.

After so many years of promises to reform our immigration system, the Liberal and Conservative governments of the last decade have failed. This failure is especially evident when the daughter of a dying man in my riding cannot visit him from China. He sadly passed away without ever having seen his daughter. She could not even come here to the funeral.

Where is the fairness?

This Chinese New Year, let us speed up family reunification. Let us put in place a fair and humane system for visitors. Let us approve the NDP's once in a lifetime bill so more families can be brought together. Let us create an appeal process so there is real accountability in our immigration system.

[Business of Supply, February 15th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member talked about linguistic duality, but a growing number of Canadians have neither English nor French as their first language.

When children are hungry, they cannot learn. Yesterday another report came out on child poverty, UNICEF report card number seven, “Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-being in Rich Countries”. Canada is doing very, very poorly. Canada ranks second last in all OECD countries.

A percentage of young people aged 13 to 15 reported being overweight. The new health commissioner said that today's overweight teenagers are tomorrow's heart attack victims. Partially it is because they are missing their breakfast and there is not a decent lunch program in schools.

Would the hon. member support a national health and nutrition program for every child under 18 in schools and community centres? This would be based on a flexible, made in Canada community development model, building on the existing knowledge base of local organizations and parent groups so kids would not be hungry and would have decent, healthy, nutritious meals in schools. Then they could learn properly, whether it is English, French or any other subject.

[Business of Supply, February 15th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, there is a rumour in town that the Conservatives are starting to behave like the Liberals when the Liberals were in power. They make announcements, make promises and talk about all sort of things, but they do not deliver. I do not know whether this is true or not, but let me ask.

A year ago the Prime Minister promised that he would set up a foreign credentials agency to help immigrants get productive work. I have not seen much action, but there is a lot of talk. The Conference Board of Canada says we are missing $5 billion worth of earnings because all these immigrants are underemployed.

There also have been promises to shorten the waiting list for immigrants who are sponsoring their parents. I have not seen much action yet.

What is it? Is this all talk and no delivery?

[Business of Supply, February 15th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, when the Liberals were in power, they did not honour laws and directions that were passed by this House of Commons.

I note that the House of Commons supported an investment of 0.7% of the GDP in foreign aid. This was an action that was ignored by the former prime minister. The House approved a better, more comprehensive and generous package for widows of firefighters, yet again we did not see any action. The House also supported the implementation of the refugee appeal division, and that was also ignored by the former government.

Surely the Conservatives will not follow the lead of the Liberals and instead will honour the Kyoto agreement and our obligations there. The NDP is pushing for hard caps on polluters, mandatory limits on auto emissions, and stopping the subsidies to the oil and gas industry.

When will we see results on the environment and when will that get done?

[Business of Supply, February 15th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, there was an international report released this morning from a group called Social Watch, a coalition of 400 non-governmental organizations from 50 countries. What it found is that between 1997 and 2003 Canada's economy was the fastest growing among G-8 countries, but the problem is that there has been a decline in the quality of life for middle income people. Poverty is rising among children and new immigrants, and it is very difficult for the middle income earners to afford post-secondary education for their kids.

Federal spending stands at 11% of the economy, down from 16% in 1993, well below the national historic average. Only 38% of unemployed workers received government benefits, down from 75% in the early 1990s. More than 1.7 million households live on less than $20,000 a year and most are very precariously housed. They do not own their own home and spend more than 30% of their income on rent. This is during a time when we were having an economic boom.

During the nineties there were steep cuts when the Liberal government was in power. What have the Liberals done to our economy and what are they planning to do? They have wrecked the middle class dreams of having a good standard of living with the steeps cuts in the mid-nineties.

[Business of Supply, February 15th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, recently the Prime Minister received an F for child care and for failing ordinary families. Since 1993, we know there have been a lot of promises for families and children. Whether it was a national child care program or funding, there have been numerous promises and yet to date there is no national child care program. We have seen funding agreements and broken records. Unfortunately, starting on April 1 this year, $650 million will be taken out of the child care plan.

Is it not time to invest in child care? Is it not also time to pass Bill C-303, the early learning and child care act, put forward by the NDP, so we can enshrine in legislation the concept of a national child care program that is accessible, universal, affordable and high quality? If we do this, every family that needs child care will be able to get it.

[Questions on the Order Paper, February 14th, 2007]

What funds, grants, loans and loan guarantees has the government issued in the constituency of Trinity—Spadina since February 6, 2006, including the 2006-2007 Budget and up to today, and, in each case where applicable: (a) the department or agency responsible; (b) the program under which the payment was made; (c) the names of the recipients, if they were groups or organizations; (d) the monetary value of the payment made; and (e) the percentage of program funding covered by the payment received?

[Transfer Payments, February 9th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the Conference Board of Canada said that cities were at the core of the national prosperity agenda and yet the government continues to squeeze our cities dry and what we have is a prosperity gap.

I see it in Toronto all the time. We need a strategy for cities and we need investment. All one needs to do is ask the mayors who are meeting here in Ottawa today. We need a national transit and affordable housing strategy, funding for child care, for the arts, support for students crushed by debt, recreation and jobs for young people, and we need long term funding for city infrastructure.

In Toronto, chunks of concrete are falling off the neglected Gardiner Expressway, but to pay for public transit the city faces a backlog of $300 million in repairs. We need a green renovation program modelled on Toronto's successful better building partnership. We need the funds to train our workforce, recognize foreign credentials and help new immigrants to find good jobs.

We need to invest in our cities as they are the keys to prosperity in Canada.

[Canadian Human Rights Act, February 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the Native Women's Association of Canada recommends that the Human Rights Commission establish staff and tribunal panels comprised of aboriginal people with a background not only in human rights but also in traditional dispute resolution methods. The persons appointed would come from and be approved by the national aboriginal organizations, including the Native Women's Association of Canada.

I believe this is critically important. Perhaps the member can explain why this is essential for the act to work well. Also, perhaps she can describe how this would also help women who live in big cities off reserve and how these kinds of traditional dispute resolution methods would be able to solve some of the complaints that may end up at the commission.