Pat Martin

[Public Works and Government Services, February 11th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, with all the talk of high finances today, the Minister of Public Works and Government Services wants to balance the books by purging all public buildings of petunias and potted plants. So far, the deforestation project is going great. She just sold 650 plants from Place du Portage for $11.11, although I presume that was rounded down to $11.10.

We know that government procurement is not a strong point, but we did not really realize how bad it is at divesting itself of public assets. Can the minister for defoliating public places please explain her business plan, because there is a—

[Committees of the House, February 5th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is with some reluctance that I have the obligation to present, in both official languages, the first report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. It is entitled “Statutory Review of the Conflict of Interest Act”.

Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.

[Petitions, February 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present today a petition that has been signed by literally tens of thousands of Canadians, who call upon the House of Commons to take note that asbestos is the greatest industrial killer that the world has ever known. In fact, more Canadians now die from asbestos than all other industrial or occupational causes combined. They call upon Canada to ban asbestos in all of its forms, and to end all government subsidies of asbestos, both in Canada and abroad, and to stop blocking international health and safety conventions designed to protect workers from asbestos, such as the Rotterdam Convention.

[Business of Supply, February 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Last Friday during question period, during some heated exchanges, some unparliamentary language was used by myself. I regret the language that I chose that day and I apologize to members across and to anyone who may have heard something unparliamentary coming from me. I wanted to take this first opportunity that I have had since I have been back in Ottawa to ask for time to extend that legitimate apology to my colleagues across the way.

[Veterans Affairs, January 31st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, members will know that Brandon, Manitoba, is a huge military town with thousands of veterans, yet they are going to lose their Veterans Affairs office. Veterans in Thunder Bay will have to drive to North Bay, a 13-hour drive, to get basic service.

The Conservatives love to trot out veterans for self-serving photo ops, but they turn their backs on them when it comes to meeting their basic needs.

It might be the 11th hour, but it is never too late to do the right thing.

For the sake of those who have served, will the Conservative government reconsider this appalling, disgraceful decision to close these Veterans Affairs offices?

[Access to Information Act, January 28th, 2014]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-567, An Act to amend the Access to Information Act (transparency and duty to document).

Mr. Speaker, I thank my seconder.

I rise today to introduce the bill to amend the Access to Information Act to strengthen the powers of the Information Commissioner. Conservative members present may recognize the elements of the bill, as they are all taken directly from the Conservative election campaign of 2006, when Conservatives purported to believe in open government.

The bill would give the Information Commissioner the power to order the release of documents and to have those orders enforced as if they were judgments of the Federal Court. It would codify the duty to create and retain documents and would introduce a public interest override to oblige disclosure of documents when the Commissioner determines that public interest outweighs the need for secrecy. It would make cabinet confidences an exclusion subject to the opinion and review of the Commissioner, and it would ensure that all exemptions from disclosure are justified only on the basis of harm and injury that would result from disclosure, not from blanket exemptions.

Freedom of information is the oxygen that democracy breathes. It is a fundamental cornerstone of our democracy that the public has the right to know what its government is doing, and that right should be subject only to a very few and specific exclusions.

It is our hope that these simple reforms would help shine the light of day on the workings of government, and in doing so elevate the standards of ethical behaviour and good public administration.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Employment, January 27th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I have here a list of 35 qualified construction workers who were refused work at the new women's hospital project in my riding because temporary foreign workers are already doing the job on a phoney permit that they should never have received.

The Prime Minister says he is getting tough on foreign worker fraud, yet they have known about this situation for more than 10 months. There should not be a single foreign national on that site if there is a single qualified Canadian ready and able to take that work. Why will the minister not stand up for Canadian workers, tear up this bogus permit and let the Canadian taxpayers who paid for this project get the jobs, the wages and the benefits from this project?

[Business of Supply, December 9th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague for Markham—Unionville, somewhat, in that he and I both listened to the same speech from the Minister of State (Finance).

I actually learned about the minister of state's wild, unsubstantiated claims about catastrophic job loss not from his speech in the House of Commons but from the website of Finance Canada. Posted on the Government of Canada website is what constitutes a viciously partisan political attack ad against the New Democratic Party, with a series of wild, unsubstantiated claims about hundreds of thousands of jobs being lost and essentially life as we know it coming to an end.

I would ask the member what he thinks of the Conservative government using government communication tools for partisan political promotion, as it were. Does he believe, as a former cabinet minister, that this crosses the ethical guidelines of non-partisanship the Government of Canada is obliged to conduct itself under?

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2, December 2nd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague will probably agree with me that it is absolutely unprecedented for this country's scientists to be forced into a situation of protesting outside Parliament Hill, wearing their white lab coats, to object to the systematic muzzling of scientists in almost every aspect across the board.

One that comes to mind in addition to the National Research Council is the Experimental Lakes Area in northwestern Ontario, bordering the Manitoba border. We finally found a way to stem the damage from cutbacks by the feds when we found the Ontario government was willing to chip in some money, but then just last week, all of the scientists received their pink slips. They were all laid off.

We worked for 18 months to find alternate funding to keep it open, and the Conservatives still got rid of all of those scientists. How is the operation going to be maintained now that all the scientists have been let go?

Conservatives do not just shoot the messenger, they undermine the ability of the messenger to even deliver a message. That is how anti-science they are. It is because science might get in the way of whatever agenda is being served. It is certainly not in the best interests of Canadians when we muzzle scientists, whether it is at the National Research Council or the Experimental Lakes Area in northwestern Ontario.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2, December 2nd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, let us talk instead about why the bill is dealing with veterans, reducing the number of permanent members from 28 to 25 on the Veterans Review and Appeal Board. In whose interest is it to reduce the number of representatives on the Veterans Review and Appeal Board? By what convoluted pretzel logic could the member for Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette support a piece of legislation that has such a profoundly negative effect on veterans, of all people?

Another impact for Manitoba specifically, where we have great big beautiful buildings, is that the Conservatives completely changed the mandate of the National Research Council. They laid off hundreds of Canada's top scientists and researchers. Did we debate this in any adequate way? No, we just learned about it when they prorogued Parliament long enough to invent this neo-conservative wish list that is against the best interests of working people in every respect.