Pat Martin

[National Housing Act, March 11th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. friend telling us his points of view on housing. I have some personal interest in this area as I used to be the president of a housing co-op that was seeking allocations of units so we could build social housing within the inner city of Winnipeg.

The Liberal member of parliament who I defeated in that riding joined my housing co-op to show that he was interested in social housing. That is the only reason he would pay $10 to join our co-op. At the only meeting I saw him attend he said that Canada was the only country in the world which did not have a national housing strategy. He made that comment because prior to 1993—this is what I was leading into and I would like the member to comment on—it was Mulroney who started to tear down any kind of a national housing strategy.

Members opposite were incredibly critical of that. I remember passionate debates and arguments that Mulroney was doing a terrible thing by tearing down the national housing program. There were campaign promises to the effect that the Liberals intended to reinstate some kind of national housing program.

In the inner city of Winnipeg none of the normal market controls or influences work. The value of the property is too low to interest landlords in investing in low income housing. In the absence of social housing, or some kind of subsidized housing, no new units will be built. We are facing a ghettoized situation where we have a donut shaped city.

The result has been epidemic arson. Landlords are turning in desperation to torching their houses. It looks like burn baby, burn in the late sixties in Watts. There were 80 or 90 arsons in a 12 block area in three months. That is five or six a night sometimes, places being burnt out of desperation. I would argue this is because of the complete absence of any commitment to a national housing strategy.

In the member's personal experience in the communities in which he has lived, has he seen a similar deterioration of housing stock without new housing being built through social housing programs?

[Foreign Publishers Advertising Services Act, March 8th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot about free trade agreements and fearmongering about the Americans beating us up if we pass Bill C-55. We have not heard very much about the merits of Bill C-55 although the parliamentary secretary has just done a pretty good job to try to outline those in a fairly balanced way. That is the only balance I have heard today in listening to the debate.

Our own critic in this area, the member for Dartmouth, clearly pointed out that the NDP supports Bill C-55. She was quite clear that she would not accept the Reform Party amendments. Her recommendations to us were to reject the Reform Party amendments because they simply dismantle Bill C-55 piece by piece by piece.

If we are proud of our Canadian culture and our Canadian heritage, if we are fiercely proud Canadian nationalists as everybody in this room had better be, then we should be passing Bill C-55 and we should be voting down any amendments to the contrary such as those put forward by the Reform Party.

[Foreign Publishers Advertising Services Act, March 8th, 1999]

A member just said that we were fearmongering about free trade. In fact, our predictions came true. It is not fearmongering any more. It is like slanderous and slander when it is the truth.

In actual fact, our worst fears were realized. We watched half a million good jobs flow south of the border. We heard that great flushing sound Ross Perot used to talk about. Whoosh, the jobs went right past us. We were not wrong about that. We were absolutely right.

Fortunately we intervened recently on the MAI. Everybody in this room except for our party, this whole House of Commons was willing to walk blindly into the new multilateral agreement on investment. Thank goodness somebody did sound the alarm on that.

Now that the dust has settled on that liberalized trade agreement called the MAI, we know what the real motivation was. The people who were pushing the MAI said there is a surplus of democracy in the world today that is interfering with the free movement of capital. The global capitalists were worried about a surplus of democracy, meaning that people like us, those of us in this House are a nuisance and interfere with corporations doing exactly what they want to do when they want to do it.

That is exactly what we have heard today from the Reform Party. Reform members have been saying that this House does not have the right to make rules to look after our own well-being because the corporate sector in the United States will punish us. I am not prepared to accept that. As a fiercely proud Canadian nationalist, I will never accept that.

It is our duty to do all we can to take charge of our own destiny and to do what we think is right in this country, by majority vote. Not everybody will always agree all the time with the right course to take. In this example, Bill C-55, that is pretty clear. Four parties out of five, and 250 votes out of 301 say the right thing to do is to protect our cultural sovereignty, to protect our arts and culture community, our heritage industries.

The Reform Party is more interested in the Heritage Front than it is in the heritage industry. The only time I ever hear of heritage associated with the Reform Party is by some of its members who are leaders in the Heritage Front. It has nothing to do with arts and culture, does it?

[Foreign Publishers Advertising Services Act, March 8th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening all day to a lot of passionate debate on both sides of the House about Bill C-55, although frankly a lot of the comments have very little to do with Bill C-55.

The debate seems to have taken some directions far beyond what was ever contemplated by Bill C-55.

We have been hearing the Reform Party trying to strike fear into the hearts of Canadians that if we have the temerity or the gall to do anything to protect sovereignty we will be smashed by our American neighbours, that tanks are going to roll across the border and devastate our steel industry and our plastic industry as if we are supposed to cower at this great force, that we do not have the wherewithal to look after industries that we care about; not only industries we care about but our Canadian cultural sovereignty.

I asked for an opportunity to speak to this today because I have always seen myself as a fiercely proud Canadian nationalist, almost too far that way sometimes I have been told. I am very proud and I really regret the fact that this country has moved away from some of the positions we used to take in terms of looking after Canadian industries.

I have been reading a book recently, 1967 , by Pierre Berton. He talks about Canada as it was in 1967 and the government of the day. It talks about leaders of that time, politicians like Walter and Duncan Gordon and Paul Martin Sr., people willing to take real steps to something about the foreign takeover of our industries.

At that time it was not seen as frivolous or silly to talk about limiting the amount of foreign ownership of certain industries that were key to Canadians. I was very pleased to see those moves in those days. I was too young at that time to really appreciate them. Certainly in recent years, as we see that school of thought slipping away, I am looking back with some regret that we have somehow lost that.

When I hear a debate like we heard today that we cannot make a move as minor and insignificant as trying to look after this one small aspect of our cultural and artistic industry, if we cannot make a move like Bill C-55 without worrying about being squashed like a grape by this steamroller to the south of us, we really have lost our ability to chart our own destiny as a country.

Bill C-55 is not a broad sweeping interference with the free market. For those hon. members who really advocate the free market and the free hand of the market, et cetera, this is not an interference of that ability for industries to conduct themselves. This is not state intervention in any way that will offend anyone. It is a very minor detail that recognizes that arts and culture are as much of an industry and as much of an engine for economic growth as any of the other smokestack industries or the high tech industries we are fond of promoting and encouraging.

The member for Kamloops spoke very well about industries like the film industry and how we would be crazy not to do all we can to cultivate and nurture that burgeoning new industry in B.C.

The film industry in Manitoba now is a $100 million a year industry. The member for Winnipeg North—St. Paul can testify to this. Two years ago it was $13 million a year. Last year it was $50 million and this year it is $100 million, with a new sound stage being built and new crews being trained to push that limit even further.

This is the kind of thing, if we really want to talk about growing the economic base in areas where we have real opportunity and real potential, the arts, culture and heritage, that we cannot ignore. We heard about jobs being bantered about here and possible job loss if we take the step of Bill C-55. What about jobs lost or lost opportunity if we do not act in this regard?

Community colleges in British Columbia have started 22 new apprenticeship programs in the film industry. That is brand new. That is a whole new growth area, not only new jobs but new training.

We always used to wonder what a gaffer does. At the end of movies when the credits roll we see best boy, gaffer, key grip and jobs like that. Those are all apprenticeable trades, legitimate career positions, as are the electricians, the carpenters, the set designers and the lighting guys. It is a huge growth area. B.C. is looking forward in that regard and is welcoming the jobs which go along with that.

What we have been hearing people talk about more than Bill C-55 is free trade. Our party is not crazy about free trade. We were cautious about going into liberalized trade agreements that may—

[Employment Insurance, March 5th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, one of the most unfair things about the EI legislation is the clawback provision where if one makes $39,000 a year or more one has to pay back any EI benefits collected. Just ask the auto workers in Windsor, Ontario what they think of the $39,000 clawback. It seems almost custom written to target them personally and to pick their pockets of benefits that they pay for and deserve.

When will the government call a byelection in Windsor—St. Clair and let the people tell it at the ballot box what they think of the $39,000 clawback rip-off?

[Employment Insurance, March 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, first the government has made it next to impossible to collect EI benefits. Now they are facing unprecedented delays in having their claims processed.

In Manitoba there is a backlog of over 4,000 cases. Even the most straightforward claims are taking eight to twelve weeks to process. Workers cannot wait for two months or more for their first paycheque. They have rent to pay. They have families to feed.

What is the minister doing to relieve this backlog and to break the log jam of this unjustifiable delay in having claims processed?

[Employment Insurance, March 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, first the government makes it next to impossible to collect EI benefits. Now those who are lucky enough to collect are facing unprecedented delays in filing their claims or having their claims processed.

In Manitoba alone there is a backlog of 4,000 cases. Even the most—

[Trade, March 1st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the government seems to have learned nothing from its recent MAI fiasco. As it now careens toward the free trade agreement of the Americas, transparency and openness seem to have been reduced to an afterthought.

Why is it that these trade agreements which affect the lives of millions of workers are being scrutinized behind closed doors and only by government and its big business buddies in the BCNI?

Will the government live up to its promise to consult with citizens, NGOs and labour groups before trading away our resources and our economic sovereignty?

[Supply, February 9th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I think that is a very reasonable question and a good example.

I think there are relationships that have been developed dealing with water rights even within rural municipalities where one creek will run through one person's property and on to another. At no time is the property owner allowed to cut off the supply of water altogether to create a backwater, a slew or a lake on their own property, a reservoir of any kind.

There are water rights agreements that are negotiated. Right back to the Magna Carta there is reference to water rights I believe. I do not think anything in our motion deals specifically with that international flow of natural sources of water. We were more specifically talking about the bulk sale of water and the diversion from one basin to another to make water move in an unnatural way and force it into another basin.

To answer the member's question, which is very legitimate, I believe there are international water rights treaties currently in effect just as there are interprovincial treaties. The most relevant example I can think of is the Garrison diversion project in southern Manitoba which deals with farmers in North Dakota. The river actually dips across the international boundary many times as it snakes its way along the North Dakota-Manitoba border.

The farmers in North Dakota, worried about source, wanted to build the Garrison diversion project on the American side obviously which would nip off the flow back into Canada. That has been stopped by very rancorous negotiating between the provincial government and the state government.

I am comfortable that we have the wherewithal to negotiate the free movement of natural sources of water across international borders. Our motion does not specifically deal with that natural flow of water.

[Supply, February 9th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to an issue that is very timely, very critical. I feel strongly about the issue.

Coming from the province of Manitoba, I would like to start my remarks by pointing out that I have some personal knowledge and background of how striking it can be when people get seized of the issue of moving water around on a grand scale in terms of moving water from one basin to another.

As a carpenter working on hydro projects, I personally witnessed the diversion of the Nelson, Churchill and Burntwood River systems to feed water to power hydro electric dams and the devastation that caused, certainly the flooding of the area, et cetera, they had to reclaim to create this great reservoir and the impact it had on aboriginal communities. I think of that first and foremost as we deal with this subject.

I want to share a story with the House because it points to the absolute fixation generations have had on moving water around in a grand scheme. Another reason I raise Manitoba as an example is that the current Premier of Manitoba is an engineer by trade. His engineering thesis was on an idea to use nuclear blasts to blow up the Red River Valley to divert the water from Lake Winnipeg and reverse its flow, as unbelievable as that sounds, to sell the water to the States.

This is recent history. We are talking the mid-1960s. People were seized with the issue. People in universities were playing with ideas that today sound almost comical. They are ridiculous. Serious people were dealing with the idea of moving our water around, never mind the impact on the environment or on future generations.

Contrary to what Brian Mulroney said in 1986, I believe Canada's water is not for sale. I believe our freshwater is a public trust and not a private commodity.

Last May the foreign affairs minister of the current government promised to take measures to protect Canadian water after a public outcry greeted the news that companies were on the brink of exporting bulk water to foreign markets. We were anxiously awaiting measures that might satisfy the fear of Canadians in this regard and nothing has been forthcoming. It is all the more timely that the NDP used its opposition motion today to raise this critical issue.

A drain on our freshwater is a drain on the public trust. This generation of Canadians has been charged with the responsibility to care for this precious commodity. I use that term not in the marketing aspect. It is a commodity, as the previous speaker pointed out, that is more precious than any dollar value we could possibly put on it, given the nature of the health implications of access to free water for any successful community.

Increasing water scarcity and the world-wide destruction of the health of the aquatic ecosystem are creating a global water crisis. It is not overstating it to point out that virtually every country of the world, especially the developing nations, are seized with the issue of access to freshwater as a primary concern.

It is not only the developing nations. Obviously the main pressure on Canada is our partner to the south, our main trading partner, which has serious water problems. It should come as no surprise to us that the Americans are very interested in any idea that might help them to alleviate these problems.

The Colorado River runs dry before it hits the ocean. One of the great water systems of North America is being so taxed and resources are being siphoned out to such a degree that it no longer reaches the ocean. There is such a screaming demand as the population booms in California that the Americans are willing to entertain any idea no matter how ridiculous it may seem to Canadians to get access to something we have an adequate supply of at least currently.

When I lived in British Columbia I remember one of the ideas of Wacky Bennett, another premier under whom I have lived who had some questionable ideas about water. This was Wacky Senior, the original Wacky who wanted—this is wacky in itself—to flood the Skagit valley. He wanted to divert rivers to flood the Skagit Valley. Those members who have been to B.C. would know what a massive undertaking that would be, to divert huge river systems down that valley again into the United States and ultimately to the insatiable market of California.

These ideas keep springing up. This is what is truly worrisome to most Canadians. Often free marketers, often right wing governments, will do almost anything to make water a marketable commodity. It is very much a worry of ours when we heard the Minister of International Trade say: “Today's water will be tomorrow's oil”.

Any time we allow ourselves to think along those lines we are leaving ourselves open to the many people who would like to see water become a real trading commodity and would like to build it into free trade agreements, somehow have a default mechanism or some kind of tied selling mechanism. If we buy into the aspects of a trade agreement that we want and are interested in, we are also going to be tied into some aspect of having to share our water, maybe in a way far beyond whatever we wished or contemplated.

I would think the two examples I pointed out would be disastrous for the well-being of North Americans, using nuclear blasts to blast out the Red River Valley and divert Lake Winnipeg and then flood the Skagit Valley. Those are only two schemes. All throughout history we have been hearing these ideas, recent history certainly.

In 1959 there was an idea put forward by T.W. Kierans of Sudbury called the GRAND project, the great replenishment and northern development canal. His idea was that the rivers feeding James Bay would be dammed up and a series of pumps would then lift the river flow upstream and over the great east-west divide and from there into the Great Lakes.

On that kind of massive restructuring, how could we contemplate being so arrogant as to use the technology that we now have to irreversibly change the flow of water, the great divide? Imagine the impact on the ecosystem. We talk about environmental impact studies. We have never thought of anything on that grand a scale.

In 1964 General McNaughton, chair of the Canadian section of the international joint commission, talked about the North American Water and Power Alliance plan, which again is to flood the Rocky Mountain trench.

Now we have people wanting to flood the Skagit Valley and flood the Rocky Mountain trench and turn it into a giant reservoir for North America, again to divert water to the U.S. and Mexico.

Is it any wonder with ideas like this being floated by credible people, by knowledgeable scientists of the era, Canadians are now forming alliances to try to protect ourselves from those very ideas?

As we speak today the Council of Canadians is in Ottawa speaking to this very issue, voicing its concern that water is to be the next marketable commodity and we are going to be somehow tied through free trade agreements to a relationship that we are not comfortable with and not ready for dealing with water.

Look at the way our free trade agreements tie us into heating fuel, for instance. There are clauses in the NAFTA and in the FTA that if we run short of heating fuel domestically, we are tied to selling at the same rate we are selling it currently to our partners to the south. We are very fearful of similar things coming along to do with water.

There are a few things we must keep in mind. There is a global water crisis. There are corporate water giants eager to use water as a for profit basis to serve the world's needs and our government has not done anything to clearly state what our policy is to be on the international trade of bulk water or the diversion of water from one basin to another.

I hope this opposition day motion is dealt with favourably from all sides of the House. We can feel comfortable that as we form new trade alliances water will not be one of those marketable commodities that we would forfeit.