Pat Martin

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, September 14th, 2009]

With regards to the $500 million for Recreational Infrastructure Canada-RInC: (a) how much of the original amount has been spent to date; (b) which projects have been funded and what is the (i) name, (ii) location, (iii) timeline, (iv) result of each project; (c) what is the expected spending of the fund by the end of this fiscal year; and (d) what are the partners for each project, and what have they contributed to each project?

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, September 14th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if my colleague from South Shore—St. Margaret's realizes what his comments sound like when he says that we should be embarking on a free trade agreement with Colombia because Colombians are killing people with less frequency, speed and rapidity than they used to.

My good friend and colleague, Dick Martin, who is no relation, was the president of the United Steelworkers Local 6166 in Thompson, Manitoba. He became the head of the Federation of Labour in Manitoba and then became the head of ORIT, which is the organization of trade unions for Central and South America.

Dick Martin went to Colombia a number of times and came back with firsthand reports of the wholesale mass assassination of trade union leaders in that country. The total figure, and I am not exaggerating, was 3,200 murders: the head of the teachers' union, the head of the carpenters' union, the head of the steelworkers' union, the head of the miners' union, and on and on. These people were shot in their driveways as they left their homes by government-sponsored hit squads. And the Conservatives want to enter into a trade agreement with that country.

Trade with Canada is not a right, it is a privilege. Colombia has to deserve the privilege to be in a free trade agreement with this country. Its behaviour, the experience and empirical evidence is such that we should be boycotting Colombia, never mind entering into a free trade agreement with that country.

[Petitions, June 19th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I have a petition signed by thousands of Canadians who point out that asbestos is the greatest industrial killer the world has ever known.

They point out that more Canadians now die from asbestos than all other industrial diseases combined yet Canada remains one of the largest producers and exporters of asbestos in the world. They also point out that Canada spends millions of dollars subsidizing the asbestos industry but also blocking international efforts to curb its use.

The petitioners call upon the government to ban asbestos; to institute a just transition program for any workers who may be affected; 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.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, June 18th, 2009]

What is the total amount of government funding, since fiscal year 2004-2005 up to and including the current fiscal year, allocated within the constituency of Winnipeg Centre, listing each department or agency, initiative, and amount?

[Criminal Code, June 16th, 2009]

That is a terrible oversight.

[Criminal Code, June 16th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, my question for my colleague from Windsor is quite narrow and specific. At the privacy and access to information committee, we learned that there are over three million compromises of one's personal information per year in this country alone.

In other words, it is a far more widespread problem than most people realize. The reason they do not realize it is that there is no obligation to notify a person if their personal identity has been stolen or if their personal information has been compromised. This is a widespread problem. There are 30 million incidents per year in the U.S. and three million incidents per year in Canada, and there is no duty to notify.

Is there anything in this bill that will obligate, for instance, credit card companies or the supermarket chains that hold massive amounts of personal data to notify people if their personal information has been compromised? If not, will he push for that as an amendment in this bill?

[Asbestos Industry, June 11th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, there is no safe use of asbestos and anybody who watched the CBC last night knows how Canadian asbestos is actually used overseas and abroad. Most of the workers we saw on that broadcast will be dead in 10 years and we are contaminating an entire subcontinent with a legacy of asbestos-related disease.

Virtually every developed nation has banned asbestos in all of its forms. When will the minister wake up and realize that the government's continued support of the asbestos industry is fundamentally wrong? Does the Minister of Natural Resources not think that it is sexy enough to get involved with?

[Asbestos Industry, June 11th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, more Canadians die from asbestos than from all other occupational diseases combined, yet Canada continues to be one of the largest producers and exporters of asbestos in the world. We will not use it ourselves, yet we dump over 200,000 tonnes per year into underdeveloped nations.

Without exaggeration, we are exporting human misery on a monumental scale. Canada's asbestos policy is morally and ethically reprehensible. How, in all good conscience, can the Minister of Natural Resources continue to promote and subsidize this deadly industry?

[Government Assets, June 2nd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, France would not sell the Eiffel Tower any more than the United States would sell its Statue of Liberty.

We now have learned that every Canadian institution by which we define ourselves as Canadians is on the auction block, or should I say the government's hit list. The Royal Canadian Mint, the CBC, VIA Rail are on that list. The government might as well hang a billboard on the Peace Tower that says: “Fire Sale. Going out of Business. Everything Must Go”.

It is a poor business manager who tries to balance the books by selling-off everything of any value.

Will the government not just admit that this fire sale of assets is more about ideology than it is about economics?

[Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement Act, June 1st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague poses a compelling question. I would only answer, in the brief time I have, by saying that the Conservatives seem guided more by ideology than by reason, logic, economics or empirical evidence.

There is a belief on their part that free trade will solve all of our ills the world over. What they fail to understand is that free trade benefits corporations. It benefits wealthier nations, but it even puts wealthier nations at risk in that the harmonization that has taken place has been terribly hard on our manufacturing sector. It has been dragging us down, frankly.

Unfettered free market capitalism is passé. It has gone the way of the dodo bird. We need regulation. We need guidelines and objectives. We need that triple bottom line, if you will, for everything that we do that will elevate--