Paul Dewar

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 13th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, as we have been debating Bill C-9, a number of things have come to our attention.

As my friend from Winnipeg has shown, the depth of these 880 pages is a bit of a doorstopper. In the document, we see things that we normally would not find in the budget. We have seen this as a pattern with the government.

When there are things the government has not been able to get through the House in other ways, they are stuck in the budget. This is not just with this particular document, Bill C-9, we also saw it with the previous offering from the government, Bill C-10. We can remember when there was actually a bill to deal with censorship. That clearly was not a money concern of Canadians, but it was a way for the government to include things that it could not get through the House previously.

Here we go again. We see things in this bill that have little to do with the financial concerns of the country. We can look at further stripping environmental regulations, dealing with Canada Post and remailers, and issues that clearly have purview in other areas, and we find the government stuffing them in a budget bill. Why is that?

I could critique the government's adherence to its own principles around transparency and accountability, but we have seen that fall of the table recently so perhaps that is not a surprise. What it should indicate is very poor practice in terms of how budgets are presented. I think that is critical.

If we see governments after this one looking to this method, it is not really what Parliament is set up to do. It is not set up to have bills of this volume that have little to do with budgets but have everything to do with initiatives that the government could not get through the House in another manner.

We have the remailer issue, which was noted by my friend from Winnipeg, and the issues around environmental assessment, which my friend from B.C. noted. It means that the government is actually abusing the economic priorities of Canadians by inserting its own agenda.

When Canadians saw the government prorogue, they heard the government say that it needed to recalibrate and that it needed to hear from Canadians and get some ideas around what the priorities of Canadians were for this budget.

What was astonishing when the Minister of Finance rose and presented his budget was how little there was, notwithstanding the volume of the document, in new offerings. What we saw was a continuation of the government to deregulate at a time when the world economy was looking at re-regulating. We saw the same offerings in terms of corporate tax cuts at a time when people were saying that the government could not afford to hand out corporate tax cuts because it would be too hard on our fiscal commitments and that it would further the period in which we had to climb out of the debt and deficit.

People started to wonder what the government was doing during that period of prorogation because it certainly was not listening to Canadians. What we were hearing was that Canadians wanted to see us reinvest in things like infrastructure, and not in the way the government has done but in infrastructure that would allow Canadians to actually deal with the economic crisis they are facing in their households.

Things like affordable housing are a no-brainer. If the government invests in affordable housing, it creates jobs and provides people with what they need, which is affordable housing, reducing the costs in their households and, in fact, making our communities more liveable and sustainable.

We know that if the government had looked at a long-lasting retrofit program that actually used the investments from the federal government to make transitional changes in our economy, we would have had retrofits not only to private homes but to public institutions, as well as greening our grid and the way we distribute energy in this country. We could have seen not only the creation of jobs but the greening of our economy.

We did not see that. We saw an abandonment of even some of the small offerings the government in previous years had offered in terms of retrofits where people were able to make their homes more energy efficient and environmentally friendly and creating jobs that would help us get to the next steps in terms of getting our economy on the right track. One is kind of aghast when looking at what the government offered and what it said it would do.

We had provided the government with some very smart ideas. Instead of taking the corporate tax cuts that the government has presented to corporate Canada, which, by the way, has not taken the government up on the offer and reinvested in its own capital, we thought it made sense to put it in smart targeted investments.

If we look at other jurisdictions, that is what they have done, be it provincial, state or other countries. They have said that if infrastructure dollars are going to be put on the table, there should be some sort of test that is met. The test should be whether it will be helpful to the economy in general. In other words, will it create jobs? Will there be a ripple effect?

Anyone who has looked at the greening of the economy sees the ripple effect. When there are investments in things like retrofits, alternative energy and greening the grid, not only is there the initial impact of the dollars invested but there is a multiplier.

Manitoba did a great job in the last decade and continues to do so to this day. It invested its infrastructure money into conservation and into greening their buildings and infrastructure. Because of that investment, Manitoba was able to bring down its dependence upon hydroelectricity, which, as we know, is the export of hydroelectricity, because it saw the benefit in terms of conservation. It took the surplus it had and exported it.

One of the dilemmas, however, notwithstanding the work that Manitoba did in terms of conservation and ensuring that it preserved the energy it had and had extra energy, is that when it sells its surplus energy there is no place to put it in terms of an east-west grid and Manitoba ends up sending it south. That benefits the northern states, and Manitoba will sell the energy because it obviously has to sell it somewhere and it benefits its treasury, but what Manitoba and the NDP have requested for years is to have an east-west grid in this country.

I do not have to tell the House that the fabric and skeleton of this country, when it was created and conceived of, was the national rail system, which obviously required public infrastructure investment. Here, in the 21st century, we need something similar to that, which is why an east-west grid makes sense. The NDP has campaigned on this three times. It is a smart thing to do but, alas, the government did not do that. We see south of the border that the Obama administration is saying that the thing to do is to green the grid.

At the end of the day, things like affordable housing and green collar jobs that we could have been investing in are lost. Not only that, but the meagre offerings the government offered before are gone. Instead, we have corporate tax cuts, the shredding of environmental oversight and, at the end of the day, a budget that is not in the interests of Canadians or my constituents and, therefore, something I and my party cannot support.

[Retirement Congratulations, April 13th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the career of Max Keeping, an exceptional journalist, who served this country and community for over 50 years, 37 of those years as the news anchor for CTV in Ottawa.

His journalism was not from 30,000 feet above; his stories were grounded, connected to everyday people.

What makes Max even more special is the dedication he has shown this community, especially kids. For Max, the world is simply a large village filled with people. Their stories, which he transmitted to us, made us care about that village.

Recently, Max stared down prostate cancer and used it as an opportunity to bring awareness and make a difference yet again.

Today, we salute Max Keeping for his contributions to journalism and to our community. We thank him for making us know and understand each other as fellow citizens even better.

Thanks Max.

[Foreign Affairs, March 31st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives' foreign policy and the stage they are standing on are shrinking every day. Take maternal health. Canadians believe that to make a difference in maternal health, we have to get it right. We have to provide reproductive health choices for women. That means access to safe abortions. Those safe choices have to be provided to save the lives of women and children.

On the Arctic, they do not get it. Multilateralism is gone for these guys. It is a separate club.

Why is it that after four years it is still amateur hour on the other side? When will they stop—

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, March 30th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to speak on this issue, but with some despair because, as the House has heard from my party, clearly there is a lot wrong with the free trade agreement with Colombia.

We saw the government attempt to bring this bill forward before prorogation and now after prorogation. It claims to have improved it with a proposed amendment by the Liberals.

If I might comment on that to start, at the inception of this talk on free trade with Colombia there did not seem to be a concern about human rights. The government responded by having the side agreement. Having a side agreement on human rights pretty much says it all. It is like having voluntary human rights, something off to the side and not embedded. When the government clearly could not sell that, it had Liberals come to its rescue with this notion that there would be a review.

I have to say that as the foreign affairs critic, the fact of the matter is that our embassy does reviews on human rights in countries around the world, including Colombia. One of the jobs of diplomats in embassies, wherever they are stationed, is to do an evaluation of human rights within the respective countries they are situated in. I would point to some of those reports and some from other organizations to show that having yet another review of human rights is just that. It is a review and does not actually deal with the issue.

With regard to this trade agreement and others, some have made the argument that just having a free trade agreement will automatically change the human rights profile in the long-term. There is just not clear evidence for that. There is hypothesis for that. We can have a hypothesis and that is fine, but we should not mistake that for evidence. When entering into a free trade agreement, we need actual evidence that it will change the human rights situation.

There are people in Colombia who have suffered repeated retrograde governance that has abused their human rights. We have gone through the list on this side of the House of people who are in the trade union movement and speaking up for their communities. They are being targeted by paramilitary forces and people associated with the government. It is cold comfort to go to them with a hypothesis and say we think that free trade is going to change their situation. That hypothesis does not help them.

If anything, the weakest argument the government, and those who support it on the Liberal side, has put forward is that free trade frees people. The nomenclature might sound good, but the evidence is counter to that. There is no evidence of that. It is hyperbole. It does not have any credence when we look at trade agreements around the world.

We can show that there is a shift in capital and investment, and that there is money changing hands, but where there is no evidence and where the government, and those who support it, has no credible argument is that this will actually change the human rights profile. We have to look at that.

Let us look at one piece of evidence that was brought to the House of Commons recently through the foreign affairs committee by the Special Rapporteur for Refugees from the UN. The committee had prepared for that meeting and looked at the issue of internally displaced persons. It was shocking to learn that the number one country in the entire world with the highest number of internally displaced persons was Colombia.

Guess who was second? It was Iraq. Then we get to Sudan and Afghanistan. There is no surprise for those countries. The fact that Iraq has one of the highest numbers of internally displaced persons is probably not a surprise. Afghanistan is probably not a surprise. It is probably not a surprise that the situation in Sudan is not great and that it has a very high level of internally displaced persons, but did members of the government know and did members of the Liberal Party know and others that Colombia ranks number one for internally displaced persons? That is who we are signing on with.

I think that is evidence. It is not a hypothesis; it is not hyperbole. It is a fact that Colombia has the highest number of internally displaced persons. Why? We have talked about it in this House. People have been pushed out of their communities at gunpoint. People have been forced out of their homelands because paramilitary forces are aligned, by the way, with the government. Why? It is because there is a scramble for power and resources, and everyday people are paying the price. They are being pushed out of their communities.

If a person had to pack up everything tomorrow and move somewhere else in the province of Ontario or elsewhere in the country to keep their family safe, that person would not be fleeing the country. They would be fleeing within their country.

Colombia has the highest percentage of people who are refugees within their own country. I think that matters when we look at who we are doing business with.

This trade deal will not help them. We need to have further changes in justice. We need to have reconciliation. We need to have the leadership that is responsible for that, who will finally acknowledge that there have been crimes against humanity in that country. Until that time, those people who have unfortunately shared the experience, and too many people within their country have been internally displaced, are going to ask us as Canadian parliamentarians and decision makers, “What's in it for me?”

That is a critical question when we are negotiating trade agreements. If we cannot answer how we are going to help people who are suffering the most and provide facts, not hyperbole, not theory, not suggestion, then I think it is not a deal worth signing on to.

[Foreign Affairs, March 29th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, in 2003, Canada was asked to lead the peacekeeping mission in the Congo but we chose Kandahar instead. The conflict in the Congo has worsened since. Just this week, evidence of another massacre was discovered.

Canadian involvement in the Congo will require a multifaceted approach to support peacekeeping, to end the violence against women and involve them in peace-building and to stem the trade of conflict minerals that sustain these atrocities.

Will we learn from the mistakes of Rwanda and commit to supporting peace-building and peacekeeping in the Congo, yes or no?

[Foreign Affairs, March 29th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, veteran diplomat, Robert Fowler, described the Conservative government's foreign policy as “small-minded and mean-spirited”. He criticized Canada's declining participation in UN peacekeeping missions and our inaction in Africa.

Our absence from the Democratic Republic of Congo underscores Mr. Fowler's honest assessment. More than five million lives have been lost to violence in the Congo and mass rape is commonplace.

Will the government confirm reports that we will assist in the UN peacekeeping mission in the Congo?

[Afghanistan, March 26th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, that is pretty dodgy.

By the way, the document dump yesterday was an insult to the House of Commons and to Canadians. These documents were already ordered by the MPCC and were set to be released. I do not want to say the minister was misleading the House, but this was a tactic to delay the government's response to Parliament while pre-empting the MPCC.

If the government were serious at all about getting to the truth, it would comply with the House order to have access. When will the government give up the delay tactics and own up to the truth?

The minister should not point to the Iacobucci process. He is a nice guy but that process will not satisfy--

[Afghanistan, March 26th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, in the documents, one soldier reports seeing an Afghan detainee hit on the head with the barrel of a grenade launcher. Another soldier believes detainees were summarily executed. An officer reports that detainees “bore signs of injury” and that Afghan forces “don't necessarily follow our policies on detainee handling, if you know what I mean”. Mr. Speaker, everyone knows what he means.

The time for talking points is now over. The government owes it to this country to come clean. When will it call a public inquiry?

[Afghanistan, March 26th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are using gamesmanship to delay facing the charges of contempt to Parliament.

Why do they not stop their political gamesmanship and immediately, right now, give members secure access to the unredacted documents on the transfer of Afghan detainees?

[Haiti, March 23rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, when the earthquake struck Haiti, Canadians came together to help. They were generous and they continue to support Haiti's rebuilding. However, we are now learning that public funds aimed at helping Haitians rebuild their own country are being handed out in untendered contracts to Conservative-friendly companies.

This is a slap in the faces of Canadians who opened their hearts and their wallets to help Haiti. When will the government tell Parliament when the contracts were given and under what circumstances? Why did it ignore the tendering process that we have established in this country? Why the double standard?