Pat Martin

[Veterans Affairs, April 15th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, thousands of first nations men and women voluntarily enlisted to serve their country in the second world war and the Korean conflict. After the war first nations veterans found that the benefits provided to the average Canadian soldier under the Veterans Charter were not available to them.

In 2000 the national round table on first nations veterans issues tabled a study called “A Search for Equity” which stated once and for all that first nations veterans did in fact suffer discrimination and that financial compensation should be provided to each veteran or estate to recognize these losses in economic and educational opportunities.

First nations veterans have been waiting fifty years for justice and equality. I call upon the Minister of Veterans Affairs to act immediately to give remedy to this historic injustice. Fifty years is long enough. First nations veterans are now elderly and many have passed away. Those remaining deserve to be recognized in their lifetimes. I call upon parliament to give first nations veterans the equal recognition and compensation they so richly deserve.

[Pest Control Products Act, April 15th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I understand that the Canadian Alliance Party does not like the big thumb of the federal government or getting involved in other jurisdictions. In this case I suppose it would be the big green thumb, which is in fact the trademark of the pesticide company in my neighbourhood that sprays lawns with chemicals to keep them green.

I would argue that it is a legitimate role of the federal government to try to set national standards. If we just leave it up to the municipalities to deal with it community by community, that is an exhausting and tedious process and we may not have buy-in from all communities. Some communities will choose to participate and some will not. It is a legitimate role for the federal government to try to lead by example and set national standards when it is in the national interest.

As to using far fewer chemicals, I do not think there is anybody here who would disagree with the idea that we should be using fewer chemicals in our agriculture and in our cosmetic use. We should be pouring less toxic substances into the biosphere, into the environment.

My only point, and the only reason I raised it briefly in my speech, is that I thought it should have been at least one of the tenets of the legislation. Or it should be a goal or a stated objective that the purpose of Bill C-53 is to try to minimize the use of pesticides in our ecosystem. I do not stand back or apologize for that. I believe in it strongly. Whether they are old chemicals, current chemicals, modern chemicals or good or bad chemicals, we should be striving to reduce the chemicals we pour into the ecosystem.

[Pest Control Products Act, April 15th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I hope that I did not overstate my point. I am loath to ever overstate anything. It is not in my nature. The point I was hoping to make, which perhaps did result in people thinking that I was drawing a direct connection between pesticide exposure and children's asthma, was that in all pieces of legislation about the environment the best interests of the child should be the primary consideration.

If that was extrapolated to be understood that I thought there was a direct connection between pesticide use and asthma, let me say that I do not have any empirical evidence to support that, other than to point out that one of the reasons that we boycott grapes, that people where I come from and people I know do not eat grapes, is the use of pesticides on grapes in California and in Mexico. Among the grape pickers, the migrant farm workers represented in that area by the United Farm Workers and Cesar Chavez, it was the children who first showed the symptoms of overexposure to pesticides when they were picking those grapes. Bronchial congestive disorders were the first symptoms. After that came the swollen lymph glands and the other terrible symptoms we see in the photographs of children exposed to pesticides. The first indication was the pulmonary bronchial problems, chest related breathing issues. It had to do with rapid heart rate and with contaminants finding their way into the airways first. That is the only actual example I can point out. I have always believed that chronic, unnecessary exposure to chemicals and pesticides at least plays a role in the incidence of asthma we are seeing among our children.

[Pest Control Products Act, April 15th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for giving me the opportunity to touch on both of those very valid points.

To answer the first point, I believe that we are not acting as an international community on this issue as well as we could be. If in fact there is research in other jurisdictions that would give us some direction and some guidance, we would be foolish not to seek out that research instead of wasting our own resources re-inventing the wheel and duplicating research. We could learn from the valid research that other scientists have done in other countries. I cannot believe that sharing those resources is not automatic and not more widespread. In the interests of our collective well-being, those resources should be, and I believe are, freely shared. I believe I did touch base on this with the fast tracking of the regulatory process. We believe this could be an element of the fast tracking of the approval process in that it is not always necessary for Canada to do original research if that research has been done in other countries recently by clean science that we trust. That would probably help the fast tracking in the regulatory process.

In terms of harmonization with the United States, it is absolutely necessary. I think I understand the issue the hon. member is getting at. We do share watersheds and we do share practices north and south of the border, so that at least we should be compatible. I suppose that is the term I am looking for. The point I was making was not to be critical of the fact that we are seeking to harmonize somewhat with the United States. The shortfall I was pointing out is that it may slow us down in trying to harmonize to an even higher standard, which does exist in other European countries. Should we tie ourselves absolutely to the regulatory and licensing processes in the United States, we may be less willing to look further afield to other countries that are setting even higher standards and it may prove to be more of a hindrance than a help as we try to elevate our own standards.

The hon. member is quite right that, in my part of the world at least, the watershed begins in the United States and flows through Canada before ultimately winding up in Hudson's Bay. We have great interest in and great concern about what products are being used in the United States. The only way we will have some comfort and satisfaction is by co-operating with that country to ensure that we are not violating one another's atmosphere and environment.

[Pest Control Products Act, April 15th, 2002]

The hon. member says that some of us have yet to come out of the fog. Many have found their way into government, those fog sniffers of yore.

The failure to commit money for research into the long term effects of pesticides is a major shortcoming of Bill C-53, especially as it pertains to children and public education about the dangers of pesticides and support for alternatives. Chemical companies constantly advertise on television to use this or that product. If there are problems with pests, zap them with this or zap them with that. On one side in the media we are faced with a sales campaign promoting the further use of pesticides in our society. We in my party feel the government should have introduced a countervailing measure to mitigate that influence by telling the other side of the story. In other words, use a product if we have to but be aware of the dangers.

The NDP critic recommends that we oppose Bill C-53. We do not support Bill C-53 in its current configuration. Even though it is an improvement over the former Pest Control Products Act of 1969, the bill is still flawed and still fails to protect Canadians. It is not bold or courageous. It is not innovative or visionary. The bill is pedantic and rather sluggish in its tone and content.

Bill C-53 may bring up the standards somewhat close to U.S. standards, but it still falls way behind the European standards. It is not striving to achieve the best practices internationally, a favourite cliché. Let us scan the globe for the best practices and emulate them. It makes good sense. We have chosen to ignore the best practices in the world and instead have chosen to align ourselves with second, third or fourth rate practices such as we are finding in the American regulatory system.

The legislation is still an improvement over what we have, I grudgingly admit. However, it is not nearly as bold as it could have been if we really wanted to set some standards and show the world our concern about this issue.

Harmonization with U.S. regulations may have a dangerous effect in the long term because it will be harder for us to ultimately adopt the higher standards in the European model. Given the scientific evidence that exists, this legislation should have been much stronger in its efforts to protect human health and the environment.

I would like to recognize the contribution made by the member for Winnipeg North Centre on the Standing Committee on Health with regard to the bill. She points out that at least that committee is dealing with a piece of health legislation which, in the five years I have been a member of parliament, is a very scarce rarity. The House of Commons at least is dealing with an issue of preventive medicine. We support and encourage that.

We in the NDP are critical of the bill. We will be moving amendments to it. We hope we can convince the government side to entertain many of the issues we have raised.

[Pest Control Products Act, April 15th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak to Bill C-53. I note that Bill C-53 would replace the Pest Control Products Act of 1969. We do not have to do a lot of mental mathematics to realize that it has been over 33 years since this act has been revisited and revamped.

We all agree that the world has changed dramatically since 1969. It is overdue and welcome in many circles for us to be dealing with such a timely and topical bill.

I should note, and would be remiss not to, that the Liberal government first promised new legislation during the 1993 election campaign. It was the former health minister who promised the legislation by the year 2001. Some hon. members on the other side are seeing this as the fulfillment of an election campaign promise perhaps, albeit from the 1993 election campaign.

The Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development produced a study to assist the Minister of Health in advising what type of legislation would be necessary to deal with the management and use of pesticides. It included an examination of the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, PMRA.

We note that in putting forward Bill C-53 the primary objective is the protection of human health and the environment, and finding some balance where both of those issues can be addressed.

We will admit that Bill C-53 is much stronger than the current legislation. We are pleased to be able to take note of that. We feel there has been some balance struck among the interests of health, environmental concerns and the legitimate concerns of industry, many of which have been raised in the House during this debate.

Bill C-53 would seek to introduce the use of modern risk assessment practices. In other words the further consideration or the enhanced consideration of vulnerable populations such as children and the aggregate sum or the total exposed cumulative effect on children. Speaker after speaker have raised in the House, and we all agree, that children are especially vulnerable to the proliferation of chemical and pesticide use in our cities, even in industrial settings where there is overspray, and of being contaminated by farm practices.

It is something about which we have come to realize more and more only recently. I will give one example from my own experience. The hon. member for Winnipeg South will possibly remember this. There was a time in Winnipeg when we had DDT foggers going up and down the residential side streets and through the city parks late at night. What did we do as kids? The hon. member remembers very well. We used to ride our bikes behind the fogging truck because it was pretty neat to lose sight completely in such a dense fog of DDT haze mixed with diesel oil which in fact compounded the effect. This was our entertainment for the afternoon, following a truck full of poison.

Children do things like that. Children by their very nature play on the grass. Kids put things in their mouths. They pick things up from the ground and put them in their mouths. There has to be a growing recognition that the interests of children must be our primary consideration in any piece of legislation like this.

The other thing that has only been recognized recently is that we do not have to ingest these chemicals to be put at risk by them. Skin absorbs them; it acts like a sponge. This is something I know from my background in workplace safety and health in the labour movement. Exposure to chemicals and toxins need not be oral. One can ingest them by absorbing them through the skin. They work their way through the body and find a natural state of repose in the organs, in the liver, kidneys and pancreas. There they sit for many years. The cumulative effect, the total aggregate effect of chemicals on our bodies is something we are only just starting to recognize and realize.

Another thing happens. Not only is that chemical ingested through the skin and not only has it found a natural state of repose in the organs, but other chemicals come to join it there. Chemical A sits in the kidneys or the liver. Then chemical B is introduced to the kidneys or liver and a chemical reaction of those two things causes chemical C . We might begin with two benign chemicals but combine them and we could have a very toxic substance. This is a risk we are starting to recognize in people in the workplace and in children.

Another thing I would point out in the labour movement is that in the workplace there is what is called the walking wounded. A lot of poisoned people are wandering around out there with a ticking time bomb in their internal organs which may or may not cause complications later on.

In dealing with the bill as it pertains to children, there is something I noticed as a hockey dad. Both of my kids played hockey right up through the high school level. I noticed with my older boy that quite a number of kids carried ventilators for the treatment of asthma. A couple of kids on his team had to use puffers throughout the game.

By the time my younger boy went through the system six years later, kids eight and nine years old would sit on the bench waiting for their turn to play hockey and their puffers were lined up on the boards. I think seven out of fifteen kids on the roster had to use inhalers, all labelled and ready for use. When they came off the ice after their shift they had to use their ventilators. At the risk of sounding alarmist, I cannot help but think there is something fundamentally wrong with that picture when seven out of fifteen otherwise healthy young athletes are so affected by asthma that they have to use ventilators to finish a one hour hockey game.

I point those things out to stress that nothing short of making the best interests of children the absolute primary consideration would be satisfactory to me. I think we have matured in our treatment of this issue. I do not believe there is a member in the House who would not acknowledge and agree that a key provision is the protection of vulnerable populations, such as children, from the total aggregate and cumulative effects of unnecessary exposure to toxic pesticides.

The other thing the bill acknowledges is how necessary material safety data sheets are. The workplace hazardous materials information system legislation is now law in all workplaces across the country. Key and paramount in the WHMIS legislation is the right to know and the right to refuse. Workers have the right to know what chemicals they are working with and they have the right to refuse to handle them if they believe they pose a risk to their health and well-being.

There is that recognition in Bill C-53. It extends and extrapolates that basic human right, that we do not have to touch things we know to be harmful to us. However it does not address the issue I tried to outline, that we can have a perfectly benign chemical in one hand and another perfectly benign chemical in the other but when we combine the two in the Petri dish which is the body, there is that third chemical which can and does sometimes hurt us.

I have tried to be balanced in recognizing some of the advantages of Bill C-53. One of the concerns my party has regarding the bill is that the legislation is extremely vague. This has been a developing pattern in the pieces of legislation I have witnessed in the short time I have been a member of parliament. More and more there is very little binding teeth in the legislation and so much of the details are left to regulation. In other words, the details are in regulations that will not necessarily be dealt with in the House of Commons but will follow after to give meaning to the language in the legislation that we pass here.

Some of the issues that will have to be dealt with in regulation are the details and the timeline for the re-evaluation process. Another issue is the type of tests to be used in risk assessment. Those are critical issues which I think should be debated in the House of Commons. They will not be. They will be regulatory, not legislative.

Another concern is that the precautionary principle is not really enshrined as one of the basic principles of the bill, not even in the preamble, not even in the soft language that is often the preamble to legislation. We believe that in any environmental bill in this day and age or certainly in a bill related to health care, the precautionary principle must be one that is adopted as a basic premise, as one of the basic tenets. The pillars of anything we do must adhere to and stem from that precautionary principle. It is noticeably absent in the bill.

There is a failure in Bill C-53 to ban the use of pesticides for cosmetic purposes. We thought that the debate around pesticide use had matured to the point where we could accommodate this basic issue. More and more around the country we are hearing about municipalities taking that step. Maybe there are industrial uses and reasons from a health care point of view that pesticides are necessary. Surely they are not necessary to make lawns greener.

There is nothing more perverse than driving down a suburban street and seeing a beautiful expansive green lawn in front of a house with a sign that reads “Danger, do not play on this grass, toxic substances used”. There might as well be a skull and cross bones planted on that beautiful lawn if so much poison is applied that it is dangerous for a child or a dog to be exposed to it.

It would have been a bold and courageous step on the part of government if it had introduced legislation that would deal with banning the use of pesticides for cosmetic purposes. We are disappointed that Bill C-53 fails to do this. We certainly hope that our member on the health committee, the member for Winnipeg North Centre, will be able to introduce amendments that will be entertained favourably which might give us some satisfaction on those pressing issues.

We are also critical of Bill C-53 at the lack of a fast track registration process for lower risk products. There could be a graduated scale where lower risk products could be dealt with in a fast track registration process. That was raised early on in the debates and consultations surrounding the legislation, but we do not see that reflected in the bill.

There is really nothing in Bill C-53 that would reduce the number of pesticides being used. We would have thought that the bill could have been introduced with the preface that it is the intention of the government to gradually reduce the number of pesticides in circulation. That would have been a very good place to start. That does not seem to have been one of the objectives in Bill C-53. We would have thought that most Canadians would have welcomed and celebrated that.

Nothing in Bill C-53 would really give satisfaction to those who are interested in reducing the number of pesticides in circulation. It talks about further regulating this. It talks about ways to protect Canadians from harmful exposure, et cetera. However it really does not talk about minimizing or reducing the use of pesticides in general and it does not prevent Canadians from being exposed to the most harmful pesticides.

I will balance this off so that my speech is not entirely negative, but I have to share with the House that some of our concerns stem from the failure in Bill C-53 to require the labelling of all toxic formulants, contaminants and microcontaminants. We flag that as a criticism as well.

The Pest Management Regulatory Agency was examined by the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. I noted earlier in my speech that this was done in May 2000, yet there is failure to set out the mandate of the pest management regulatory agency in Bill C-53. We are critical this basic recognition fails to show up in the bill. If we are going to rely on the regulatory agency for guidance, advice and direction in the future, then surely the mandate of the PMRA should have found its way into the bill.

Bill C-53 fails to commit money for research into the long term effects of pesticides. If our primary consideration is the best interests of children, we need to know more about that toxic soup I talked about. We need to know more about the long term effects of the liver becoming a repository for who knows how many different chemicals that get stirred around and mixed up and turned into yet another chemical, a brand new chemical compound for all we know. The long term effects of pesticides is not really known.

I shudder to think what it was like for me and the member for Winnipeg South cruising around on our bicycles behind that fogging truck full of DDT and 2,4-D. He and I seem to have survived to date, but I would not want to see what our organs look like through a fluoroscope. Our livers could look like whiffle balls for all we know.

[Aboriginal Affairs, April 8th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, well-meaning British Columbians are struggling over how to deal with the referendum on treaty negotiations and first nations land claims that arrived in their mailbox. Not only are the eight questions poorly crafted and difficult to understand, they seem deliberately designed to bind the government to positions that first nations can never accept and thus jeopardize all future land claims negotiations.

Will the minister of Indian affairs agree that putting minority rights to a majority vote is offensive, divisive and inflammatory? Will he tell Canadians that he too disagrees fundamentally with holding this B.C. referendum on sensitive land claims negotiations?

[Petitions, March 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise today to present pursuant to Standing Order 36 a very substantial petition signed by thousands of first nations citizens in the province of Manitoba. These signatories reject the first nations' governance initiative as proposed by the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development because they maintain that it is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to diminish or even extinguish their treaty rights.

The petitioners point out further that the minister's so-called consultation process has been a sham. They urge all members of parliament to scrap the first nations' governance initiative and replace it with a mutually acceptable piece of legislation that actually addresses the many pressing and urgent issues that they outline in their petition.

Finally, these citizens serve notice that this is the first of many such petitions that will in fact outnumber against the first nations' governance initiative any who have indicated support for the initiative.

[Request for Emergency Debate, March 20th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, thank you very much for this opportunity under Standing Order 52. I did earlier today submit a letter to the Speaker's office asking for leave to make a motion that this House do now adjourn to deal with the emergency issue that I believe to be of utmost importance and of national concern.

The issue that I itemized in the letter that I wrote is in regard to the level of dissatisfaction and dissent among our aboriginal communities and first nations leadership that is almost unprecedented in the country and generated by a single action on the part of the government. I believe that it is of pressing urgency that we deal with this issue in a debate in the House of Commons.

The issue that is being foisted upon the aboriginal people in the country which is causing this resentment and this backlash is the first nations governance initiative put forward by the minister of aboriginal affairs.

I will not go into the details of the first nations governance initiative other than to point out that it has been the subject of two assembly of first nations conferences, one in Halifax and one only 10 days ago in Winnipeg. A decision was made at both conferences to boycott the process and initiate a national action plan to show dissatisfaction and in fact take action in a very multifaceted campaign against the initiative put forward and contemplated.

The question that I believe needs to be debated is: does the harm outweigh any benefit? Does the House of Commons want to, at this juncture in our history, upset the apple cart that exists in the delicate and fragile relationship between Canada and our first nations partners. At this point in history I would point out that there is a huge disillusionment already on the part of aboriginal people for the failure of successive governments to address basic needs issues.

At this time, rather than introduce basic needs issues, what we find is the government introducing ideas to deal with accountability, the status of municipalities and the rules under which it will conduct elections. There is nothing about health care, education, basic needs or the disproportionate representation in penitentiaries. None of the issues that aboriginal people believe need to be dealt with and have been waiting patiently for decades or many centuries are addressed under this initiative.

The reason I raise this and decided it was worthy of an emergency debate is the action plan that was adopted just 10 days ago at the assembly of first nations conference in Winnipeg which I attended. I would point out that there are national and international ramifications, part of which is a lobby to the European Union, activism around the Queen's visit when she is here in October and going to the United Nations yet again and condemning Canada for failing to address issues.

There is justification and national significance for this debate, and it should be held tonight in the House of Commons with all parliamentarians present hopefully.

[Aboriginal Affairs, March 20th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, first nations leaders are boycotting the consultations on the first nations governance initiative because they suspect this is really nothing more than the 1969 white paper revisited, just another way to diminish or even extinguish inherent treaty rights. This feeling is especially true in my home province of Manitoba.

Will the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development assure Manitoba first nations leadership that he will maintain the framework agreement negotiations that his government has committed to since 1994 until all such self-government negotiations are concluded in that province and that nothing in the FNGA will diminish or inhibit his obligation to conclude those negotiations?