Peter Julian

[Business of Supply, April 20th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP official opposition MPs will be making the case all day that the reckless, foolish, and irresponsible cuts by the Conservative government are putting our coast in British Columbia, a coast that generates billions of dollars in economic activity, in peril. There is no doubt.

I have a question for the member for Winnipeg North. I recall that when I first came into the House in 2004, when the Liberals were in power, we were pressing them to bring in legislation to ban oil tankers off the north coast of British Columbia. The New Democrats brought that forward, and the Liberal government at the time said no, it was not going to legislate that ban on oil tankers off the north coast. That is what British Columbians want. Why did the Liberals fail British Columbians when they were in power?

[Business of Supply, April 20th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I will clarify. Yes, we said no to closing the Kitsilano Coast Guard station, because we knew that it was reckless and irresponsible. We said no to closing the Ucluelet Marine Communications and Traffic Service Centre, because we knew that it was irresponsible, and we are saying no to closing the Vancouver and Comox Marine Communications and Traffic Service centres, because that would be irresponsible, particularly in light of the near disaster two weeks ago. We also have opposed the government's attempt to shut down environmental emergency programs right across the country. Yes, we say no to those kinds of reckless and irresponsible policies.

This is a wake-up call to Conservative MPs from British Columbia. Do they represent British Columbia in the House of Commons, or do they represent the Prime Minister's Office to British Columbia? They are going to have to decide, and they are going to have to decide pretty quickly, because the vote is this evening.

[Business of Supply, April 20th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague, the member for New Westminster—Coquitlam, for bringing the motion forward.

We have just heard the stupefying nonsense from the Conservative side. We have had a reaction right across party lines in British Columbia. The foolishness and the recklessness with which Conservatives have handled this file, shutting down marine safety on the west coast of British Columbia, is simply unbelievable.

To start off I think I need to quote from a strong colleague of the Conservatives. The premier of British Columbia who has been a supporter of the Conservatives in the past, following an almost catastrophe in English Bay, said:

Somebody needs to do a better job of protecting this coast, and the coast guard hasn't done it.... It is totally unacceptable that we don't have the spill response that we require here and the federal government needs to step up.

It is not just the premier; it is all members of the legislative assembly. It is mayors in the area of the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, on Vancouver Island and up the coast. It is city councils, school boards, people throughout British Columbia, who are speaking up. The only reason that British Columbia Conservative MPs have not heard the very strong reaction from the British Columbia public is that they seem to be willing to listen to the Prime Minister and not to British Columbians.

On the official opposition NDP side of the House, we believe that as members of Parliament we should be listening to our constituents, and that is what we do each and every day.

We have heard from former coast guard officials of their very clear indications of what should have happened when that spill started. My colleague mentioned Captain Fred Moxey, who pointed out that a 47-foot ship named the 701, equipped with oil recovery tanks, skimmers, a boom—everything that could have been used to quickly respond and contain the bunker fuel leaking from the cargo ship—has been up on blocks for the last two years.

The ship is there. However, the reckless Conservative government has made reckless cuts. It always seems to find money for its pet projects, but when it comes to marine safety, it would prefer to have a boat up on blocks rather than have that boat, with all of the equipment that goes with it, out there containing the boom.

What Captain Fred Moxey said on April 12, I think is very indicative of how reckless the current government has been:

The crew was trained and the ship was ready around the clock for a first attack.... Had the base been open and the crew on duty, they would have been out into English Bay in a matter of minutes.”

That is from somebody in the coast guard, Captain Fred Moxey, who has rendered terrific service to the province of British Columbia and to our country.

However, he is not the only one speaking out. I only have 10 minutes; I could be spending literally hours listing former coast guard workers, former coast guard leaders, who have all spoken out against how the government has been so reckless.

We have also heard from a retired Canadian Coast Guard captain, Tony Toxopeus. He maintains that the English Bay spill could have been contained within half an hour if the Kitsilano base were still operating. Toxopeus, who worked out of Kitsilano, said that the base was equipped with a purpose-built oil pollution response vessel, 300 metres of self-inflating boom, and other equipment. Crews were trained regularly to deal with oil spill response.

As soon as we saw there was bunker (oil) we would have hit the alarm button and got moving.... We could have backed the boat in, towed the boom there and be alongside the boat in 30 minutes.”

This does not come from Conservative MPs speaking up to try to defend a reckless and irresponsible decision by the Prime Minister; this comes from coast guard officials who were active for decades in the coast guard. They understand marine safety. They understand how to act in environmental emergencies. Yet the Conservatives seem to say “Well, we just want to brush over this. We want to paper this over. We're hoping British Columbians don't wake up to how irresponsible we've been”. They are ruining coastal safety.

However, the leader of the official opposition and the NDP caucus are putting forward a motion today that all Conservative MPs for British Columbia should be voting on. We are going to repair the damage that the current government has done to the coast and to emergency environmental safety in British Columbia .

If we do not do it with this motion, if the Conservatives actually have the gall to vote against what are commonplace, common-sense policies, British Columbians will have another opportunity on October 19, 2015 to decide who will govern, who will make those decisions on the floor of the House of Commons, and who will bring forward those sensible policies. I would say to the Conservative members of Parliament from British Columbia that they have a chance today to fix what they broke, but if they do not, British Columbians will have their say on October 19.

I hope that they are willing to listen to British Columbians today, because the reality is that we have seen an unprecedented outpouring of concern from right across British Columbia and particularly from the communities in the Lower Mainland that I have proudly represented in the House since 2004. The communities in my riding of Burnaby—New Westminster are tied to the coast, as are communities such as Port Moody, Coquitlam, and Vancouver and communities up the Sunshine Coast and on Vancouver Island. They do not get the line from the Conservatives that this spill was fortunately not too large. We are still dealing with the fallout from this bill. The beaches are still closed. The health advisory is still out.

We can point to the leaks coming from the Nestucca barge in 1988. As members know, the Nestucca leaked bunker oil into Washington waters. There was an initial cleanup. Later on, because bunker fuel sinks, that oil started washing up on the shores of Vancouver Island. The idea that because much of the surface oil has been cleaned up we are somehow out of the woods is simply an irresponsible notion. We will not know for weeks, maybe months, whether that bunker fuel has sunk and whether it will pollute other coasts in the area further away from English Bay, perhaps out in the Salish Sea or up the coast.

We do know that there is an enormous economic loss. We are talking about industries worth billions of dollars to the B.C. economy. For the Conservatives to be so reckless and to say that it does not matter if the seafood industry is harmed, the wilderness tourism industry is harmed, or tourism is harmed overall is simply a reckless and foolish notion.

What are some of these other voices that have stepped forward. One is the harbourmaster from the relatively small city of Bellingham, just south of the 49th parallel. Fortunately, it has not been impacted by the foolish and reckless cuts made by the Conservative government. The harbourmaster of the Port of Bellingham said he would immediately attempt to seal a leak on a vessel like that and to have a boom in place within the hour. Harbourmaster Kyle Randolph said that he was surprised that it had taken officials in Vancouver so long to contain it. He said, “my first obligation is to stop that. The response is absolutely key”.

There have been letters in the local newspapers and online journals as well.

Gerald Moores, a former captain in the Coast Guard, said the following:

When the [Conservative] government closed Kitsilano Coast Guard Station two years ago, the bogus justification was that money would be saved while maintaining a volunteer service.

It is time to examine the true costs of the station's closing, and the attempts to replicate its efficiencies with a cadre of well-meaning but inexperienced volunteers.... Vancouver taxpayers should know why marine pollution and search and rescue increasingly involve police and fire departments. My comments are founded in a seafaring career of 50 years, 36 of them with the Canadian Coast Guard.

Sara Kalis Gilbert said this in regard to the Kitsilano coast guard:

The buildings remain intact, the public outcry is growing.

She is requesting that the Prime Minister take into consideration all of these closures for tomorrow's budget.

That is really the issue. Tomorrow there is a budget. Will the Conservatives fix what they wrecked? Will they restore what they closed? Will they assure safety on the coast of British Columbia, or will they continue to have the reckless, irresponsible cuts that have contributed to growing public outrage in British Columbia?

We are asking the Conservative MPs from British Columbia to stand up and vote with the official opposition NDP for marine safety in British Columbia. These are common-sense measures. We believe that they should stand up for British Columbia and support them.

[Business of Supply, April 20th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for New Westminster—Coquitlam for his eloquent speech, but even more importantly I would like to thank him for his strong advocacy for the B.C. coast and for standing up for British Columbians in the House of Commons. He has done a remarkable job in highlighting the problems with what has been a reckless and irresponsible policy by the Conservative government.

I would like to ask him about the comments that have been made by current and former members of the coast guard, like Captain Fred Moxey, who was a former base commander at Kitsilano, about the government's reckless drive to shut down marine safety on the coast of British Columbia.

[Privilege, April 2nd, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I will be very brief. I think the very lengthy and very detailed submission of the member for St. John's East speaks for itself. We know that over the next two weeks, you will have due time to properly consider the points that have been raised by the member for St. John's East, which, of course, are fundamental points, extremely important points. You will also have the ability to check the blues.

Over the next two weeks, you will have the ability to respond. It is really not for any other member of the House to stand and try to push you one way or the other in terms of the important decision to be provided to this House.

The member for St. John's East has provided a very fulsome and very detailed submission. I would suggest that comments from the Minister of National Defence have not been helpful at all. They were political. They certainly did not respond to the facts of the matter and certainly did not respond to the two key points I wanted to reiterate, because those are the two key points you will be considering over the next two weeks before bringing back to the House a decision on this matter.

Over the next two weeks, I am sure many Canadians will be very interested in knowing what will be brought back to the House at that time.

On page 111 of Erskine May, as my colleague from St. John's East mentioned, it states: “The Commons may treat the making of a deliberately misleading statement as contempt”.

Mr. Speaker, that is a key part of the deliberations to be made over the next two weeks.

Also, House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, O’Brien and Bosc, our procedural bible, the rules under which we are guided, tells us on page 111 that the provision of deliberately misleading information constitutes a prima facie case of privilege.

Mr. Speaker, I think the case has been laid out by the member for St. John's East. We respect the time you will take over the next two weeks to properly consider the evidence put forward by the member for St. John's East. We look forward to your ruling in due time, in two or two and a half weeks, when we reconvene after the Easter break.

[April 2nd, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, we certainly learned this week what Conservatives are really concerned about.

Is it the 400,000 manufacturing jobs that have been lost in this country? No, it is not that. Is it the lack of access to child care across this country? No, it is not that.

What concerns Conservatives, as reported by a member of the national Conservative caucus, is the temperature of their cheese. These Camembert Conservatives are more interested in that than they are in fundamental issues.

What we would like to suggest to them is that they should be more concerned about the “atrocious” state of the Canadian economy, as the head of the Bank of Canada said. They should be more concerned about the record debt load that Canadian families are experiencing. People say that Tory times are tough times, and there is proof for the average Canadian family.

The Conservatives should of course be concerned about cuts to food safety and rail safety on their watch, which tragically led to the death of dozens of Canadians. They should be concerned about 1,200 missing and murdered indigenous women. Those are issues that I think most Canadians believe the government should be concerned about.

The good news is that as of today, there are only 200 days to the end of the government on October 19. There are only 200 more days before Canadians will be able to judge the government on its lack of concern for these issues of concern to Canadians.

I have the utmost confidence that on October 19 Canadians will make the right choice and say “no” to this government and “yes” to a new NDP government that will actually put their priorities first.

With that, we have been told the date for the budget. It was not announced in the House, of course, but somewhere far away from here. We have not seen the Minister of Finance respond to questions here for months. I do not know if it is because he did not like the temperature of the cheese or what, but he has not been here.

I certainly hope he will actually be here to present a budget and we hope that the budget will reflect Canadians' priorities. On that note, I would like wish you, Mr. Speaker, and all Canadians a very happy Easter.

I would like to wish everyone in Canada and of course you, Mr. Speaker, a happy Easter.

Could my colleague tell us what the government's priorities are for the week after the Easter break?

[Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act, April 1st, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, this is the 93rd time in this Parliament that the government moved a time allocation motion to impose closure.

The government tosses it around like it is candy, but there are serious ramifications.

First, on this bill, Bill C-42, only two members of the opposition have even been able to speak to it, because the government basically sat on it for four months, and now the government is imposing time allocation, closure, just like that.

The other problem, as members know, is that the government has the worst track record of any Canadian government in history in terms of having rejected pieces of legislation. It brings legislation in, it does not subject it to proper debate, it does not allow committees to actually scrutinize the legislation, and it then goes to the courts. In the last year, half a dozen pieces of legislation have been thrown out by the courts, because the legislation was so badly written that the courts could simply not stand for it.

The question is very simple. After two members of the opposition have spoken to this bill, the government is invoking closure. Why is the government so intolerant of debate, and why has it brought forward legislation that is rejected so consistently by the courts?

[Privilege, April 1st, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, in O'Brien and Bosc, under which we are governed, there is an ability for a member to make a brief statement on matters of personal privilege. As members know, on page 159 of O'Brien and Bosc, it says:

Members have used this procedure to make personal explanations, to correct errors made in debate, to apologize to the House, to thank the House or acknowledge something done for the Member by the House, to announce a change in party affiliation, to announce a resignation....

I am not quite sure where the member is going on this. I think we all assumed that he was announcing his change in party affiliation or his change to becoming independent. I certainly do not see any point of privilege where he has been impeded in his duty as a member of Parliament.

[Instruction to Committee on Bill C-51, March 31st, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, 25 out of 28 witnesses who were brought forward to the public safety committee by the Conservatives said that the member was absolutely wrong. They said that enhancing oversight was of fundamental importance. They raised the issue of ensuring that the government worked with Canadian communities to counter radicalization.

I am beginning to see what a vast disconnect there is between members of Parliament from the Conservative Party and the witnesses they invited to the public safety committee. They are not even listening to their own witnesses, let alone the public. They are listening to no one, and that has to change.

That is why the Conservatives should be supporting the motion of instruction from the NDP. We have been listening to the public and we have even been listening to Conservative witnesses. We have been doing their job for them.

[Instruction to Committee on Bill C-51, March 31st, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Honoré-Mercier is quite right. I applaud her work in the House. She does outstanding work on behalf of her constituents and she is very active on the ground in her riding.

Even the Governor of the Bank of Canada has described Canada's economic situation as “atrocious”. We have a government that has refused to deliver a budget for weeks now, even though some of the provinces have already done so. The Minister of Finance is missing in action; he will not answer any questions in the House and he is not delivering the budget.

Canadians are judging the government on this matter. The government is introducing bills and doing everything in a partisan way, but it is not ready to govern.

We on this side of the House are ready to govern. On October 19, we will have the opportunity to form a responsible government that really puts the interests of Canadians first.