Patrick Brown

[Sponsorship Program, May 29th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard story after story of sponsorship cash finding its way into Liberal campaign coffers.

Canadian taxpayers deserve to know how much money was squandered. Millions of dollars are not accounted for and Canadians deserve to have that money returned.

Could the Parliamentary Secretary for the Minister of Public Works and Government Services tell us what the government is doing to retrieve that cash?

[Business of Supply, May 16th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, as far as previous pesticides introduced into the market prior to the stringent regulation in 1995, I mentioned that 53% have already been re-evaluated. There is a constant ongoing re-evaluation. Of the 401 pesticides, 213 have been re-evaluated. We need to have faith in Health Canada to do the re-evaluations. We also need to have faith in the public servants who give it their all.

Some members may question the dedication of the public servants in the Department of Health. I have faith in the system and its capacity to allow them to do their job in an excellent manner.

To register a new pesticide, more than 200 scientific studies must be conducted to determine if the product would cause any negative effects on people, animals, birds, insects and plants, as well as the soil and water. Canada has stringent rules. We should be proud of them.

[Business of Supply, May 16th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the member's question touches upon the concerns I have with the motion put forward by the member for Toronto—Danforth. I suggest the motion is overly broad.

The first question raised was the ability of PMRA to regulate products that were already on the market. Since 1995, there have been close to 550 active pesticide ingredients found in more than 7,000 products registered in Canada. Of these, 401 active ingredients were registered before 1995 and 53% of those active ingredients, or 213, have already been re-evaluated by Health Canada. This is done on an ongoing basis.

We have to have faith in Health Canada and our scientists. They are looking into these products.

In terms of his concerns about an overly broad motion hampering the safety of Canadians, the city of Toronto, the home of the hon. member who moved the motion, has a pesticide bylaw with a litany of exemptions.

It is somewhat hypocritical for the member for Toronto—Danforth to put forward a motion that is overly broad, one with which his own city would be uncomfortable. I will use an example of the gypsy moth. It is addressed by the pesticide, Btk, which is effectively used in Toronto. This is a reason why we must be cautious and concerned that we do not put in place a ban that would hamper the health of Canadians.

[Business of Supply, May 16th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Northumberland—Quinte West.

First, I would like to thank the hon. leader of the New Democratic Party for raising the important issue of pest management and control. I share with him a deep concern for the health of all Canadians, particularly the most vulnerable ones, the children, the elderly and the sick, the people who are most at risk from unsafe products.

Fear that pesticides are inherently unsafe appears to be the motivation behind the motion before us today. Pesticides can be unsafe and that is why they must be carefully regulated. Thanks to the diligent efforts of Health Canada, only pesticides, where a careful scientific review raises no concerns for the health of people, animals and the environment, are allowed to be sold and used in Canada.

My hon. colleagues will soon be making some important points about Health Canada, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, the new Pest Control Products Act and the government's rigorous insistence on health and safety. In the time available to me today, I will go into further detail on some of these ideas.

I will speak about the context. Sometimes it is worth restating the obvious, which I will do by pointing out that the PMRA, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, is part of Health Canada. It is under the portfolio of the hon. Minister of Health, not Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, which was responsible for the regulation of pesticides prior to 1995. The agriculture and forestry sectors obviously have an intense interest in pest control products. There are critically important environmental, economic and trade issues at stake as well.

Ultimately, the most important questions revolve around human health. Do pesticides pose an unacceptable risk to the health of Canadians, in particular, children and other vulnerable subgroups? If the answer is yes, then these products may not be sold or used in Canada. It is as simple as that.

The point is that the PMRA will not gamble with the health and safety of Canadians. If there are unanswered doubts, if the science is inconclusive, the agency will always err on the side of caution. Let me add that pesticides, which are permitted in the Canadian market, can contribute directly to human health. For example, they reduce our exposure to a range of threats, including insects, bacteria, moulds and allergy inducing weeds.

How does the PMRA work? The mandate of the PMRA is to prevent unacceptable risks to people and the environment from the use of pesticides, whether manufactured in Canada or imported.

In reviewing submissions for new products, the agency brings to bear the best available science from Canada and around the world. As a result, our regulatory regime is widely regarded for its stringent adherence to tough, scientifically sound standards and evidence for health and safety.

In assessing a submission, agency scientists evaluate a range of factors, including the effectiveness of a proposed product, its effect on health and the extent to which it might accumulate in the environment over time. Products that are registered and approved for sale are required to carry labelling information, with the appropriate warnings and directions for safe use.

However, I want to underline that the PMRA's job does not end when a product is approved for market. It is quite the opposite. The agency is in it for the long haul. It continues to monitor products once they are in use. That way, if new and unexpected hazards come to light, the PMRA can order the appropriate remedies.

At the same time, the agency also promotes the development and use of innovative pest management alternatives that reduce our reliance on chemicals. The idea is that the needs of Canadians today must be met in a manner that does not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

I would like to discuss the new PCPA. As effective as the PMRA is now, my government is making it even better. We expect that a new legislative and regulatory framework for pesticides will come into effect soon, strengthening the agency's capacity to safeguard the health of Canadians and the environment.

Among other things, the new Pest Control Products Act will require special protection for infants and children. This high level of protections is currently applied through policy. It will also take a more comprehensive view of pesticides that considers people's exposure from all possible sources, including food and water.

There are many other features of the new act that are worth mentioning, including an approach that explicitly favours lower risk products. For the first time ever, Canadians will also be able to consult a public registry, which contains detailed evaluation reports on pesticides sold in Canada. The act also extends the powers of the PMRA over products already on the market. For example, it will oblige pesticide companies to report any adverse health effects and it can take tough actions with companies that refuse to comply.

The hon. leader of the NDP is to be commended for raising his concerns about pesticide use. Indeed, we all share his reservations about the overuse of chemicals that can be toxic to people and the world around us.

The answer is not to ban all pesticides. If we did, we would be introducing more problems than we are solving. The solution is to control the use of lawn, garden and other chemicals, ensure that we permit only the safest products on the market, apply the toughest and most stringent rules on their use and continue to monitor them over the long haul, so if new risks turn up we can step in and address them.

That is why we have the PMRA and the Pest Control Products Act. That is why we are moving to make tough and effective regulatory systems even better.

I have faith in the system. I believe in its capacity to protect the safety of Canadians and the environment we all cherish, which is why I will not support the motion put forward by the hon. member opposite.

[The Budget, May 9th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the member across the way mentioned that he is supporting the budget. The bottom line is that the budget has 29 different tax cuts. It delivers $20 million in tax relief. When I talk about how we are delivering in the budget, we are delivering focused spending, debt repayment, investment in health care, and delivering for students like those in my riding at Georgian College. The budget delivers for Canadians. I encourage all members in the House, not just the Bloc who support this important budget, to help build an even stronger country.

[The Budget, May 9th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it is amusing to hear this question from a Liberal member, given that it was the Liberal government that cut health care transfers by $25 billion between 1994 and 1999.

If we look at the problems that we have with health care in Canada, the root of that occurred on the Liberal watch. If we look at waiting lists, at challenges we have in providing the best possible health care system for children and providing funding to enhance health, it happened on the Liberal government's watch.

The government does focus on families and health. Families are the building blocks of society. Communities are what bind us together. Parents have to fight harder to balance work and family commitments. Some Canadians need help more than others. For our government, supporting families means providing choice in child care for all Canadian families. It means providing a sports tax credit. It means helping out children with disabilities.

The member mentioned fitness in his question. For many Canadians, loading up a minivan for hockey practice or car pooling to the soccer field is routine. It brings families and communities together. It keeps kids involved. It keeps kids fit, but it is an added expense.

The member across the way may not view it as an added expense. It may not make a difference for families in his opinion. I can tell him that it does. I remember growing up, and my mother and father took me to the rink when I was six and certainly they sacrificed things in order to do that. A lot of Canadian parents make a sacrifice to involve their kids in recreation. Canadians take a tremendous degree of pride in being able to involve their children in recreation, whatever sport of their choice.

I am certainly very proud that the budget includes the tax credit for children's sports. It is important to support our families.

[The Budget, May 9th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, on May 2, Canada's new government presented its first budget and the budget delivers. It delivers on tax relief, on focused spending, on debt paydown, on supporting infrastructure, on investing in health care and on helping Canadians most in need. I am very proud to support the budget on behalf of the residents of Barrie.

Let us look at the tax relief in the budget. Taxes are too high. Canadians are overtaxed and the budget recognizes that. Since 1994 the GST burden on Canadians has doubled from $15.9 billion to $31.8 billion. Total income taxes collected have doubled and personal income taxes are up 82%.

According to the TD Bank, GDP per worker rose by 21.8% over the past 15 years and yet real after tax income per worker remained stagnant at just a 3.6% gain over the same period.

Enough is enough. Canadians deserve a break. Canadians deserve to be unleashed from the shackles of the Liberal tax age. It is time to give money back to Canadians. That is the bottom line of budget 2006. The budget delivers $20 billion in tax relief over two years. That is more than the last four budgets combined.

Let me tell the House how the new government will lower taxes. The government will reduce the GST from 7% to 6% effective July 1; happy Canada day. We will create a new $1,000 Canada employment credit effective July 1. This new tax credit gives Canadians a break on what it costs to work, recognizing expenses for such things as home computers, uniforms and supplies.

The government will reduce the lowest personal income tax rate from 16% to 15.5% effective July 1. We will increase the amount that all Canadians can earn without paying federal income taxes.

The government will create a new apprenticeship job creation tax credit of $2,000 per apprentice. Once again, effective July 1 we will provide a 15.5% credit for the cost of transit passes.

The government will completely eliminate federal income tax on all income from scholarships, bursaries and fellowships. The government will create a new tax credit for textbooks for post-secondary education. We will provide a physical fitness credit of up to $500 for the registration fees for children's sports.

The government will double the amount of eligible pension income for seniors that they can claim. I know this is the first such increase in more than 30 years.

The bottom line is that the budget delivers $20 billion in tax relief, a staggering 29 different tax reductions.

Let us talk about crime and security. Our government is committed to ensuring that Canadians are safe in their homes, their communities and on the streets, the defining characteristic of the Canadian way of life that must be preserved.

Times are changing and our cities are changing. The safe streets and neighbourhoods we expect as Canadians are threatened by gun, gang and drug crime. I have seen that happen even in Barrie where this past weekend there was a murder investigation that began in the south end of Barrie. Crime is not simply the domain of big cities but has spread into the traditionally peaceful small towns and neighbourhoods.

With this budget, our government focuses spending to protect Canadians on their streets, in their communities, at their national border and throughout the world. We are cracking down on crime. We will provide $161 million to put more RCMP officers on the streets. We will invest $37 million for the RCMP to expand their training academy.

We will set aside additional funds for Canada's correctional facilities. We will provide $20 million for communities to use and develop programs designed to prevent youth crime. We will provide $26 million to get victims a more effective voice in the judicial process. We will provide money required to arm our border agents.

Canadians deserve to feel safe within the confines of their own communities. The budget helps our Minister of Justice to achieve that important aim.

On health care the budget is a win as well. A strong health care system is the foundation of any healthy society and yet between 1994 and 1999 the previous government cut health care by $25 billion. Wait times during the Liberal tenure went from 9.3 weeks to 17.7 weeks. Canadians deserve better.

I think of my local hospital in Barrie, the Royal Victoria Hospital, which struggles with limited resources and often does not have beds available. Doctors are working extended hours. Our community has become involved financially to support the hospital. Our CEO, Janice Skot; our board chair, Chris Gariepy; and fundraising chair, David Blenkarn, have done exceptional jobs for our community. The community, which has raised over $25 million, and the city council, which has contributed one-third to the hospital expansion and over one-third to doctor recruitment, have taken on an incredible burden. We have done this despite federal leadership. We need a federal government that shows leadership in health care.

In the 1990s the federal government was part of the problem, not part of the solution. I am proud that health care funding is increasing in this budget by 6% because this government is becoming part of the solution. Our new Canadian government will work with the provinces to create a patient wait times guarantee and we have already committed $5.5 billion to the provinces for the wait times reduction transfer.

One of the challenges we face in the health care system today, especially in Barrie, is the lack of doctors. One out of 30 Canadians does not have a doctor and in Barrie it is one out of four. Given our high growth and aging physician population, this is a dangerous stat especially in Canada when doctors are driving taxi cabs and delivering pizzas. I was excited to see this budget made mention of a Canadian agency for assessment and recognition of foreign credentials. This may seem like a small, unnoticed initiative but it will certainly go a long way in communities like mine that are struggling to find doctors and are frustrated by the ones within our own communities who are not allowed to practice in the land of hope and opportunity simply because their medical degree is from a different country. Even if they pass our equivalency exams, often we do not give them residency spots because of a lack of funding in our health care system.

We will improve the system so Canadians get what they pay for.

Small businesses are the backbone of the Canadian economy. Many Canadians are employed by them. They are responsible for almost half of all the new jobs created in Canada. All of us turn to small businesses for services, such as our local dry cleaner, our computer software company and our local grocer. I think of our small businesses in Barrie like Garner's Source for Sports on Dunlop Street, StorageOne on Bell Farm Road and Hot Banana, a new tech company. We need to support these small businesses because they are the heart of our communities. They create jobs and give back to our communities in a cultural and charitable fashion.

Canada needs a government that will do everything it can to support small businesses. We will increase the threshold for small business' income eligible for a reduced federal tax rate from $300,000 to $400,000 effective January 1. This is an important step. This government will also reduce the 12% rate to 11.5% effective 2008 and 11% in 2009. I am very pleased by this.

I remember before the election that the local branch of the CFIB and Lew Miller put together a group and talked about these issues. These are things they wanted to see Canada's new government focus on. It is really encouraging to see that the government has actually put plans in place that small businesses were thirsty for in this country.

I want to make note of initiatives in this budget for apprenticeships and tradespeople. Canada is facing a serious shortage of tradespeople, such as carpenters, plumbers, electricians, cooks and others. Our government is taking action to encourage apprenticeships and support apprentices in their training. Our Prime Minister came to Barrie last fall and made a commitment to Georgian College where we have a very focused training program for apprentices. He said that if he were prime minister he would support the industry and do everything he could to support initiatives like we have at Georgian College.

I am very encouraged that in this budget we are going to help companies hire apprentices with a new apprenticeship job creation tax credit of $2,000. We will create a new apprenticeship incentive grant of $1,000 per year for the first two years of a red seal apprenticeship program. We will invest $500 million over the next two years in these two measures, which will help approximately 100,000 apprentices.

We will also help apprentices and tradespeople with the heavy burden of buying the tools they need to do their jobs. Our government will invest $155 million over the next two years for a cost of tools deduction, which will help approximately 700,000 employed tradespeople in Canada.

I also want to make mention of what this budget will do for municipalities. As a former city councillor in Barrie, I am very impressed with the commitment this government is making to infrastructure. Investing in infrastructure, bridges, roads and transit is all too important.

Delays in moving goods and the cost of a business is a very significant challenge for businesses when we do not have a proper infrastructure. Hence, supporting municipal infrastructure, supporting pan-Canadian infrastructure is a significant advantage for Canadians because we are investing in our economy or allowing for a greater speed of delivery for our goods.

This is a long term commitment of unprecedented new investment that the government is focusing on. Over the next four years we will invest a total of $16.5 billion in new infrastructure initiatives, including $3.5 billion this year and $3.9 billion next year.

The government will provide more than $5.5 billion in new federal funding for highways and border infrastructure, the municipal road infrastructure fund, the Canadian strategic infrastructure fund, the public transit capital trust, and the Pacific Gateway initiative.

This is great news for cities. Municipalities only receive 8¢ on the tax dollar to deal with the many day to day challenges of Canadian citizens. The mayor and city council in Barrie are doing a great job with a limited budget. I am certainly encouraged to see that the government is able to do a little bit to help them.

On January 23 Barrie residents voted for change. Our new Prime Minister promised to honour that trust. I suggest that the Prime Minister has delivered in the budget. It is certainly encouraging to see.

[Chase McEachern, May 4th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, Chase McEachern was a great young hockey player from my riding of Barrie, but he will forever be known in our arenas for his accomplishments off the ice.

Unfortunately, at 11 years of age, Chase left us far too young, but not before putting a national spotlight on the need for defibrillators in our community rinks. Chase, who was awaiting heart surgery, wrote a letter to Don Cherry two weeks prior to his death, calling for a defibrillator in every school and hockey arena.

According to the Heart and Stroke Foundation, more than 35,000 Canadians die each year from sudden cardiac arrest. The odds of survival for cardiac arrest outside a hospital are only 5%. With a defibrillator, they rise to 50%.

On behalf of the millions of Canadians who have been or will be affected by heart conditions, I recognize the contribution Chase's campaign has made across the country. He died too soon, but he lived long enough to show his peers at Prince of Wales Public School and the residents of Barrie what it means to be a courageous young Canadian.

[Federal Accountability Act, April 25th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, my question for the member for Don Valley East is this. I am a bit confused. If the measures the Liberal government took over the last 13 years were so strong, why was there a need for change? Why was there a verdict by Canadians that accountability was something lacking in the past government? Does the member really believe that the measures in this accountability act will not foster a new spirit in Ottawa? The question that has been asked numerous times throughout the day to Liberal members is, will they support the accountability act?

Will she support the accountability act, one of the toughest pieces of ethical legislation that the House has ever seen?

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, April 11th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Trinity--Spadina mentioned all the politicians that she references. I would suggest that instead of consulting politicians, she should consult parents. That is what this government is doing. We are consulting parents on child care.

One stat that I find very intriguing is the amount of money that is going to go to Ontario: $963 million. I would be very surprised if the member for Trinity--Spadina would want to say no to $963 million for Ontario children. Those children deserve better. Certainly this plan provides a lot more than the $448 million that would have been devised under the Liberal plan.

It is about time that we had a government that stood up for young children. That is what this Prime Minister is doing.