Paul Dewar

[Petitions, December 13th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it is also a pleasure and an honour to present a petition from constituents on the situation in northern Uganda. The petitioners are calling upon Canada to take leadership in Uganda on this issue and to support the people who are living in misery in northern Uganda.

[Petitions, December 13th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure and an honour to present a petition from over 600 residents of Ottawa who are calling upon the government to commit funding in the upcoming budget for the homeless initiative for the next five years.

[Committees of the House, December 11th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I wish we would have seen the money from the present budget. I understand there is a bit of a logjam between the two levels of government. Moreover, I think the experience of my mother, Marion Dewar, with the Vietnamese boat people suggests that we need to never ever take our eyes off the details and the importance of supporting those agencies which quite frankly, we get for next to nothing in terms of the money we put in and what we get back.

Finally, I am encouraged to hear my colleague's comments. I hope that he supports the motion that will be put in front of the House tomorrow. It would be a wonderful thing to see unanimity on this motion.

[Committees of the House, December 11th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, a little competition is a good thing. I would want to take all 152, but I am willing to share and I may see the member halfway. In terms of the economic viability of my community of Ottawa Centre if the Vietnamese refugees had not come here, my riding, the community of Ottawa Centre, and centretown would be less well off. If we were to tour Somerset Street and in and around that community, we would find people who have created their own small businesses. We would find people who are presently working in the public service, making sure that we have decent and very well supported public services. We will have to take a tour of that area soon.

Not only is this proposal something that will benefit and enhance our community, it is indeed something that has already been done. It is a proven project. That is why I cannot understand why we would not continue on. I know that to a person the members of the Vietnamese community would welcome the 152 people, so it is not a question of whether there is a place for them to go or of resources that are needed. The resources are here: they are the citizens within our country.

[Committees of the House, December 11th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise you that I will be sharing my time with the member for Trinity—Spadina.

If I may take a moment to be personal about this issue, it was in 1979 when my mother was the mayor of Ottawa that she engaged with our community here in Ottawa to seek to have the number of Vietnamese refugees in Ottawa increased from what was a paltry number to 4,000. Just to give members an indication, at that time, the number Canada had identified for Vietnamese boat people refugees was 8,000. She said she thought Ottawa could take at least 4,000 and she engaged with this community to do just that.

It was quite a time. I was a teenager living at home. It was a very interesting time. Our phone number was listed in the public directory and not everyone saw this as a positive idea at the time. In fact, I remember picking up the phone numerous times when people were giving feedback to my mother and saying that they did not think it was a good idea. They thought those people would take jobs away from others. They thought they did not deserve to be here, et cetera.

However, our community rose above that. At the time, the debate was about how many we could take. As my mother will say to anyone who tells her that this was an amazing thing she did, she will say, very simply, “No, I didn't do it. The community here in Ottawa did”.

What happened was that in the spring of 1979 my mother and father were in a small town outside Ottawa for meetings. It was awful weather and they spent the evening watching TV and seeing the absolute horror that many of these boat people were suffering, subject to pirates on the sea and living in absolute vulnerability of the worst kind. My mother and father, having a long history of working for social justice in the Catholic church, looked at each other and said, “There is something we have to do. What can we do?” Upon their return, they phoned various friends in the community and in faith communities and said that they thought they could organize something to open up our community to the Vietnamese.

That is what happened. When we travel down Bank Street today we find ourselves at Frank Clair Stadium at Lansdowne Park. My mother and father opened it up and invited all the members of the community to come in, sign up and sponsor the Vietnamese. That is exactly what happened. Within hours, the people of Ottawa filled that quota.

A very interesting thing happened. Once my mother had gone forward to the media with the challenge that Ottawa was providing to the federal government, she got a call the very next day from the mayor of Calgary, who said that Calgary could do better than that and would take 5,000. This kind of thing went on right across the country. What happened in the end was that we went from having planned to have 8,000 Vietnamese to having 50,000 within a matter of weeks

The government of the day was a Conservative government. That bears repeating because what we have in front of us today is a simple challenge to honour the history of all of those Canadians who opened up their doors, their hearts and their minds to the Vietnamese at the time and said, “We welcome you”.

All we are asking today is that we finish that and that the 152 people who right now are languishing in the Philippines are going to be welcome in this country. That is all we are asking. They are refugees. They did not go to the Philippines because they were on holidays. They went to the Philippines because they were leaving a war-torn country. They were left on the sea.

I do not accept and Canadians do not accept this semantic debate around whether they are refugees or not. They left their country because they are refugees. Those members did not accept that when they were on committee. That party did not accept it then. They should not accept it now. We must honour the lives and the memories of those people and the people living in Canada who opened up their doors, their minds and their hearts.

When we look at this motion, we see that it is very simple. It asks that we do what the United States, Australia and Norway have done, and simply open our doors, our minds and our hearts for 125 people. It does not mean that we are going to change the manner in which all refugees are looked at. It simply means that we acknowledge there is a nuance here. That is exactly what the Americans did. That is exactly what the people of Australia did through their government. That is exactly what Norway did.

Friends of mine from the Vietnamese community, such as Mr. Can Le, a pioneer in helping people come to Ottawa, often ask me what happened in Parliament today and what the members and the government say when we ask that 152 people come here from the Philippines to finish off what we started in this community. Mr. Can Le was here as a Vietnamese refugee, but came earlier, as an immigrant, and opened his door to his fellow Vietnamese.

When he asks me what we did here, I want to say to him that we voted unanimously to pass this motion to make sure that the end of this piece of history is not regarded in dismay because we were not imaginative enough to do something about it. I want us to be able to say that we rose to the occasion just like we did in 1979 in this community and this country and we showed the world what we are all about. I encourage all members to pass this motion and to do it unanimously.

[Committees of the House, December 11th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it is important to note that in a previous Parliament members in his party voted in favour of this action. It is important to put that on the record.

In 1979, when my mother was the mayor of Ottawa, she started Project 4000 and challenged the then Conservative government to accept more than 8,000 refugees. She challenged the citizens of Ottawa to accept 4,000 refugees, which at the time was half of what the quotient was. It went from 8,000 to 50,000. We are talking about 125 people who are stranded. We can--

[Committees of the House, December 11th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his intervention on the motion before us.

We know other countries have intervened, as he has mentioned. How many people does the member believe Canada can accept? Their lives have been left hanging in the balance, sadly because of perhaps a lack of understanding on how to deal with what is a terrible situation. We know these people are, by any other description, refugees, but somehow our system has not recognized them as such.

Does the member know how many people Canada could accept? Does he know of a creative way of doing this?

[Bank Act, December 7th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I just want it recorded that we on this side said no to the motion but I am not sure if the Speaker heard us.

[Canadian Heritage, December 5th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians have a right to know what they are paying for. Why the secrecy around this cultural giveaway to the oil companies and the costs involved in expanding the Prime Minister's Office? Is this the type of win-win the government believes is the way to do business, with a win for its corporate friends and a win for the PMO?

Again, will the Prime Minister tell Canadians what the plans are for the portrait gallery and for his office? Is Gwyn Morgan going to be at the opening of the new office in Calgary, as we understand?

[Canadian Heritage, December 5th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday we learned there was a plan to move the portrait gallery from Ottawa to the Prime Minister's hometown.

Now we learn that in exchange for this move, the Prime Minister will get the former American embassy as his new office.

Will the Prime Minister let us know when the move-in date is planned for his new office? Is big oil subsidizing this move as well?