Pat Martin

[Main Estimates 2012-13, June 6th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, my colleague must feel that he is the parliamentary secretary to the Titanic or something. The portfolio he has been given to oversee and supervise has been long abandoned by his party and by his Prime Minister.

Surely my colleague will recognize that people have to be judged by what they do, not by what they say. The Conservatives have been flogging this dead horse for six years now, since they have been in government. More and more prominent people from across the country have pretty much declared this notion of Senate reform as dead on arrival.

I was here when the member's colleagues used to put on sombreros and do the Mexican hat dance in front of the Senate, mocking them with derision, saying it was the most useless institution in God's creation, that it should be abolished and that it was no good for anything. Even the myth of the triple e very rapidly turned into a triple u. Nobody wanted the unelected, undemocratic and effectively useless Senate.

I challenge the member to show the Canadian people that there is any sincerity whatsoever on the part of the government on Senate reform, because I believe his party and his leader, the Prime Minister, have put this on the too-hard-to-do pile.

The Conservatives accuse us of some kind of mission associated with generating a legitimate debate on the future of the Senate when they are using it as a fundraising tool. They are trying to mislead their base that they are still sincere about this, when in fact they have given up on Senate reform. The Conservatives have come to like the Senate the way it is. No government has ever stacked the Senate more egregiously with their hacks and flacks and bagmen than that particular Prime Minister and government, in the history of the unelected and undemocratic Senate.

[BUSINESS OF SUPPLY, June 5th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I am inclined to agree with the member that not all of these overt attacks on science, data, facts and knowledge are even about money.

I would ask the member for her view on one example that has come to light with the Experimental Lakes Area in northwestern Ontario through the Freshwater Institute in my home province of Manitoba, where it has been demonstrated that the research has paid for itself over and over again. It is a paltry $2 million a year, and I do not say that lightly. Given the fact that it is unique in the world and internationally renowned and acclaimed, is it not more about shooting the messenger pre-emptively than even about saving money, when it is an almost insignificant amount of money when we are talking about a $40 billion deficit?

By preface, I would like the member's views on one recent piece of research by these scientists. We knew that phosphates and nitrates going into Lake Winnipeg were bad so we were trying to eliminate them both. The scientists at the Baltic Sea had the same problem.

These scientists realized that if the phosphates were eliminated to reduce the algae bloom and the nitrates, it may in fact be counterproductive. We saved $400 million by not going after the nitrates with the same zeal as the phosphates. In the Baltic Sea, they saved $3 billion by concentrating their efforts where it was effective. It was all because the scientists were doing original research.

Does the member agree with me that this is not really about saving money, that this is about pre-emptively shooting the messenger to avoid messages the government does not want to hear?

[Points of Order, June 4th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, unless you as Speaker intend to rule on the point of order immediately, which I doubt very much, as it is the custom to take the matter under advisement and report later, I would simply like to serve notice that the official opposition will reserve our opportunity and right to respond to the point of order at a later date. I hope you will recognize our House leader at that time to add our remarks and opinions regarding the point of order from the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

[Employment, May 31st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the Fair Wages and Hours of Labour Act took wages out of competition so that contractors on federal projects would win jobs based on their skill and their ability, not their ability to find cheaper and cheaper wages. Incredibly, the Conservatives have repealed the Fair Wages and Hours of Labour Act. I have not noticed a lot of construction workers demanding the right to work for less. In whose interest is it to drive down the wages of Canadian workers, especially on projects built with their own tax dollars?

My question is, by what convoluted logic is it in anybody's best interest to drive down the wages of Canadian workers by repealing the Fair Wages and Hours of Labour Act?

[Petitions, May 29th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by hundreds of Winnipeg residents who call upon the House of Commons to take note that as Canadians they are appalled by reports that Canadian mining, gas and oil companies are involved in human rights and environmental violations around the world. They are particularly embarrassed by the Canadian government's lack of action against such violations in the eastern Congo.

The petitioners argue that the standards for Canadian extractive companies are much less stringent outside of Canada than in Canada, which is a policy that disadvantages people who are already poor and under-represented with their own governments.

Therefore, the petitioners request that the House of Commons legislate that the standards for Canadian mining companies operating outside of Canada be the same as the standards they much reach when operating inside of Canada, which would include requiring the corporate social responsibility review process to be mandatory, not voluntary, and that Bill C-300 be reinvigorated to hold Canadian extractive companies to the standards of decency that Canadians expect of their government and of companies carrying the Canadian flag.

I am proud to table this petition on behalf of the constituents in my riding.

[Committees of the House, May 29th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the sixth report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates in relation to its study of the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013.

[Agriculture and Agri-Food, May 14th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, there is no case for abolishing the Canadian Wheat Board. There never was one, and the minister knows it. Now the chaos and uncertainty the government has created with its ideological crusade is actually driving business away.

The Wheat Board used to market 20 million tonnes of grain to 60 different countries, with every penny of profit going back into the pockets of Canadian farmers.

The Prime Minister claimed that killing the Wheat Board would create some kind of a free market nirvana. Will he now concede that all it has caused is insecurity for farmers, uncertainty for industry and instability for the rural prairie economy?

[Agriculture and Agri-Food, May 14th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, in spite of all the pre-election photo ops, the much-ballyhooed $50 million pasta plant in Regina has now been shelved. The company says that it was “because of uncertainty in the North American grain market”. Guess who caused uncertainty in the grain industry by deliberately destroying the most successful grain marketing company in the world, the Canadian Wheat Board?

How much did the government give to Alliance Grain Traders Inc. to conveniently announce this latest pasta plant scheme? What did that photo op cost us? How much of that money are we getting back?

[The Senate, May 14th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the triple-E Senate is just the latest in a string of Conservative Party principles jettisoned over the side in the interest of political expediency. Who says so? Premiers Christy Clark, Brad Wall and Dalton McGuinty and Roger Gibbins of the Canada West Foundation say so.

Despite election promises, the Prime Minister has abandoned real reform and undermined accountability by stuffing the Senate chock full of Conservative hacks and flacks and bagmen.

The party president, the campaign manager, the chief fundraiser, even the Prime Minister's press secretary and the whole Conservative Party war room is now doing partisan work on the public payroll, and it is a disgrace.

Never mind triple-E. This is a triple-U Senate, unelected, unaccountable, undemocratic, and it is an expensive waste of $90 million a year.

The Conservatives got rid of the penny but left in place an even more outdated and obsolete Canadian institution. It is not a help; it is a hindrance to democracy, beyond repair, beyond reform and should be abolished.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-Term Prosperity Act, May 10th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, one of the sleeper issues that we are only just finding, deep in the bowels of Bill C-38, is that the bill repeals the Fair Wages and Hours of Labour Act. This came as a shock to me. Any federally-regulated construction project now has no federal fair wage employment standards. That includes military bases, prisons, telecommunication projects, banking, ports or cross-border, interprovincial projects such as pipelines.

Is it not a happy coincidence that pipelines no longer have any minimum standards, where the prevailing rates have to be paid to tradespeople, or any limitation on the hours of work they can work without any overtime? The Conservatives know full well these companies will not get Canadian tradespeople at $10 an hour for a 60 hour work week with no overtime, but they open the door to temporary foreign workers. With only 10 days' notice now, companies can get as many temporary foreign workers as they want.

Why would the Government of Canada sell out Canadian construction workers, drive down the prevailing wages and open the door for temporary foreign workers to eat our lunch on one of the biggest construction projects in the history of North America?