Peggy Nash

[Democracy in Ukraine, October 18th, 2011]

Mr. Chair, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress has said that given concerns about Ukraine's drift towards authoritarian rule and limitations to freedoms, politically motivated prosecutions, curtailment of academic freedom and freedom of assembly, media censorship and harassment, and politically motivated selective justice, the UCC believes that there is a need to ensure that the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement includes provisions guaranteeing human rights protection as a precondition to concluding such an agreement.

Does the member opposite agree with that statement?

[Democracy in Ukraine, October 18th, 2011]

Madam Chair, many Ukrainian Canadians are asking themselves what they can do here in Canada regarding the situation in Ukraine. I have had the privilege of participating in public demonstrations with the community a couple of times regarding the serious situation in Ukraine.

My question is with regard to Canada's trading relationship with Ukraine. Isolating Ukraine would be the wrong way to go. Does my colleague think we should encourage Ukraine to respect its own judiciary and democracy by telling it that respecting human rights is extremely important if it wants a free trade agreement with Canada?

[Copyright Modernization Act, October 18th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, copyright is an incredibly complicated topic. It is very difficult to craft the right balance between consumer access and protecting the rights of creators. However, there is a very real concern that digital locks as would be allowed through this bill would not allow consumers full access to content they have paid for. At the same time, artists who generate more than $1 billion of revenue to our economy and the average artists who make less than $13,000 a year would not be fully compensated for their creative work on which this content relies. This bill could wipe away millions of dollars in revenue that artists ought to be entitled to.

In spite of the fact that the Liberal Party supported digital locks in a previous version of this bill, is the member now saying that his party supports amending the bill and that the Liberals will not be supporting it unless these amendments are incorporated?

[The Economy, October 17th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are just not listening. Canadians are sending a message.

The growing inequality between the top 1% and everyone else has to stop. Jobless rates are critically high, especially for young people and new Canadians. Every day life gets more expensive, and Conservatives stand by while retirement savings tumble with the stock markets.

When will the Conservatives stop padding the pockets of the top 1% and take real action for the 99%? When will they cancel their multi-billion-dollar corporate tax giveaways and invest that money to reduce inequality? When will they do that?

[The Economy, October 17th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the IMF, an ultra-conservative institution, published a study indicating that in countries with more income equality, periods of economic growth are more stable and last longer. The Conservatives are doing the opposite: they continue to give gifts to the wealthiest, making the middle class fall further behind.

Instead of throwing money at big business, why not invest in our communities? Why not?

[Keeping Canada's Economy and Jobs Growing Act, October 5th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the member spoke about EI premiums and how sharply the government is raising the premiums. The other side of this is that fewer than 40% of unemployed Canadians can actually get access to the EI benefits that these premiums pay for.

Given that the International Monetary Fund reminds us that growth is going down and unemployment is going up, does the member not think that it is time to revisit the level of benefits and access to benefits for all Canadians so that we can restore EI a point of actually providing insurance for Canadians who lose their jobs through no fault of their own?

[Keeping Canada's Economy and Jobs Growing Act, October 5th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, one of the major challenges in the province of Alberta is that the industry now wants to ship out raw bitumen unprocessed across the entire continent and create refining jobs in the Gulf of Mexico. I would ask why the government would want to ship all these jobs out.

Even more important, why would we not invest money, with the same kind of support, funding and investment, in renewable energy, energy that would create a sustainable economy, grow our economy and help us compete with the rest of the world in a low carbon society?

[Keeping Canada's Economy and Jobs Growing Act, October 5th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, we talked about suicide prevention. We heard eloquent speeches about the need for young people to have hope for the future. It is difficult to have hope if people live in extreme poverty, they cannot get proper educations, they do not have running water and they do not see any prospects for a better life. That is what hope is all about. It is up to us to invest in all communities so that young people believe that each and every one of them has a better future.

[Keeping Canada's Economy and Jobs Growing Act, October 5th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps my colleague opposite did not hear my entire presentation. In my presentation, I challenged the figures that the government has been publicizing because, clearly, those figures do not reflect the real story.

We have a loss of more than 250,000 jobs just to keep up with the proportion of jobs we had in this country before the recession. I am happy to explain further. I did go into it quite clearly in my remarks and I think the testament to it is that the unemployment rate for young Canadians is twice that of the rest of the population. Therefore, clearly, we need to do much more.

[Keeping Canada's Economy and Jobs Growing Act, October 5th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his question. It is truly unfortunate to see the increasing number of people who are relying on food banks, particularly children. It is truly terrible. This problem is not one that is unique to big cities; it is a nationwide problem. I have the impression that the government is turning a blind eye to this problem. The Conservatives do not see that most people really do not have enough money to put food on the table and that children, in particular, are going hungry. That is the economic reality of our country. We must take action. We must have an action plan to put people to work.