Peter Julian

[Veterans Affairs, December 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, 1,000 professionals responsible for helping our veterans have lost their jobs. That is one of every four employees. Nine regional offices have been closed, and the Prime Minister says that they are just bureaucrats. Such disdain for our public servants and our veterans, who are not getting the services they need.

Instead of laying off the public servants who help our veterans, will the Prime Minister consider getting rid of the minister who has done nothing for veterans?

[Rouge National Urban Park Act, December 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, next year at this time when the government is history, it will still go into the history books for two sad records. The first will be for having had more pieces of its legislation rejected by the courts than any other government in our nation's history. Half a dozen times now courts have said that its legislation is badly botched work and have thrown it back to the Conservatives. The second, perhaps even more important, is the sad record of having some 84 time allocation and closure motions. That has never been seen before in Canadian history.

There has never been such a lack of respect for parliamentary debate and dialogue, with the results that I have mentioned earlier, of more bills being rejected than of any other government.

The questions really are why this bill and why now? First, despite the laudable principle in creating the bill, it undermines the National Parks Act. Obviously the government wants to hide that fact from the Canadian public, which is why it is shutting down debate.

Second, why now, why this morning? Of course, we have Bill C-586 that the member for Wellington—Halton Hills has brought forward, and there were five witnesses scheduled to speak at the procedure and House affairs committee: Samara Canada, Fair Vote Canada, Friends of the Reform Act, Democracy Act, and Professor Nelson Wiseman, all wanting to speak on reform and to get their message across.

Obviously the House leader disagrees, so the real question is, why are the Conservatives trying to disrupt the procedure and House affairs committee and trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the Canadian public on Bill C-40?

[Petitions, December 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it was not clear at all that the member is actually reading a petition. He has not indicated who has signed it. He knows the rules of the House, that 25 people must sign for it to be presentable in the House of Commons.

It was not clear at all to me that this is a duly-presentable petition that the member is tabling.

[Government Accountability, December 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, dirty money seems to be a Conservative specialty.

We have witnessed the Minister of Veterans Affairs boasting about his failure to help veterans.

We have witnessed the Minister of the Environment reading a newspaper in order to evade questions about the Conservatives failure to manage the Nutrition North program, while people go hungry in her riding. Now there is boasting about the government when it has one of the worst environmental records in the industrialized world.

There has been abject failure on veterans affairs and on the environment.

My question is for the Prime Minister. When will Conservatives acknowledge their many mistakes and when will those ministers start doing their jobs?

[Petitions, December 1st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to present a petition from about 100 residents of the Lower Mainland in British Columbia, everywhere from the north shore right through to White Rock and Surrey, and, of course, including my constituency of Burnaby—New Westminster.

These petitioners are calling on the government to support Bill C-356, an act respecting a national strategy for dementia, which was introduced by the member of Parliament for Nickel Belt. The bill calls upon the minister to put in place a national action plan to fight the incredible challenges that come with Alzheimer's and related diseases, to produce an annual report that shows Canadians how action is being taken to fight Alzheimer's disease, and to put in place research and development funding and resources to fight Alzheimer's and other diseases related to dementia.

These 100 Canadians are asking for the government to take action very soon on this public health issue, which is Alzheimer's disease and related dementia disorders.

[Business of the House, November 27th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by talking about the official opposition's priorities this week. As you know, a few days ago we exposed the fact that the Conservative government had taken back—or stolen—$1.1 billion from our veterans. That priority has been a focus of ours in the House. We are pleased to see the Conservatives taking a first step towards a resolution. As we know, the Conservatives have given back part of the money they had taken from veterans, and we will, of course, continue to stand up for our veterans. We strongly believe that Canada has a debt to our veterans and that they deserve better than what this government has done.

This week, we are defending those who are victims of thalidomide, who have effectively been left by both the government and a pharmaceutical company, and have lived through very difficult lives. We appreciate that the government is going to be supporting our push for compensation for those victims.

Those have been some of our priorities for this week. I would like to ask my colleague on the government side what the priorities will be for the government in the coming days.

[Veterans Affairs, November 26th, 2014]

What we did not miss was that the Conservatives closed nine service offices across the country, Mr. Speaker.

Conservatives have shown no sense of compassion for veterans, just shallow talking points, more hollow boasting, and childish attacks on the opposition.

Can we have some sense of shame from Conservatives about their failure to meet the basic needs of veterans? Will the Prime Minister now admit to veterans that their closing of regional offices, their court battles with veterans, and their denial of benefits have been wrong? When will they finally take responsibility and apologize to our nation's veterans?

[National Defence, November 26th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, they want us to agree that they are standing up for veterans. That is the difference.

The Conservatives are not doing anything to ensure that soldiers and veterans in distress have access to mental health services. Our soldiers have to serve for 10 years to be entitled to a full pension, but if they talk about their mental health issues, they risk being kicked out of the forces and losing their pension. They lose everything. The Conservatives are forcing soldiers to keep quiet or risk losing everything.

Will the minister finally change this policy so that soldiers can get help?

[Canada Revenue Agency, November 25th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, here is another shocking story where the government has failed Canadians.

A few minutes ago, we learned of another massive privacy breach at the CRA. Hundreds of prominent Canadians had their personal, private financial information leaked.

The Canada Revenue Agency has a duty to protect confidential tax information, even from other government departments. When Canadians hand over their private information, they expect it to be kept secure. Why are Conservatives failing to keep the private, confidential tax information of Canadians safe?

[Library and Archives Canada, November 25th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, that is not all.

Library and Archives Canada is buried under 98,000 boxes of material waiting to be archived. Some have been gathering dust for more than 10 years. The Conservatives spent $15 million on an electronic archiving system. Today we learned that it was shelved in 2012. It is gathering dust along with the 98,000 boxes waiting to be archived.

Can the Conservatives explain this monumental disaster?