Peter Julian

[Agricultural Growth Act, November 19th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great sadness that I rise today in the House because of this government's sorry record. This is the 82nd time that it has imposed a time allocation motion and closure on a government bill before the House.

This sorry record is unprecedented in the history of Canada. We have never seen a government axe debate in the House so quickly before. Only a handful of people get the opportunity to speak to the bills in question.

What is even sadder is that this government has the worst record when it comes to the number of laws rejected by the court. This year alone, half a dozen bills were rejected by the court. This government keeps cutting off debate, while introducing seriously flawed bills. That is why taxpayers are paying such enormous bills, as this government has to redraft its legislation every time it makes these mistakes.

On this particular bill, Bill C-18, this is the 82nd time the government is imposing time allocation and closure. The NDP offered 16 different amendments to fix problems with the bill. Farmers have raised concerns, including the increased cost of seeds and the increased likelihood of litigation against farmers. The Conservatives have refused to amend the bill to fix these problems.

My question is very simple. Is the reason why the Conservatives are putting forward time allocation that they do not want farmers to know about the problems with the bill?

[Committees of the House, November 18th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the common sense offered by the member for Welland, and I would like to hear his comments.

We have the Conservatives over here, who offer a little bit of the deal itself without providing the House with any of the enabling legislation, which we know would be hundreds of pages long. They have not put in place any transitional measures whatsoever. It is like asking us to buy a pig in a poke. They are saying, “Here is one wheel well; buy the whole car.”

We have been asking, what are the Conservatives hiding? Why do they not bring forward the enabling legislation? Why do they not bring forward the bills? What about the transitional measures that people across the country are calling for? The Conservative government has failed to do any of that.

Does my colleague from Welland think that the government is really being transparent with the Canadian public when it offers a deal but with no legislation and absolutely no transitional measures? How irresponsible is that?

[Committees of the House, November 18th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, as the government House leader tried to point out, New Democrats have opposed some of the bad trade deals that have been brought forward in the past, and we have supported good ones, ones that have actually been fairly negotiated. That is no secret to the government House leader.

New Democrats are not knee-jerk free trade apologists. We take a balanced approach on trade, which means that we read through the information that is available to us. We read through the actual agreements. We read through the enabling legislation. We ask the government tough questions about the kinds of transition measures it puts in place, and often, in the past, the government has simply come up empty-handed in terms of answering the tough questions we have asked.

We have seen growth in trade worldwide, and particularly, more and more, a fair trade agenda, where countries in South America and Europe, et cetera, have actually taken a different approach than the government in terms of trade structuring. They have actually put into place measures that are much more balanced.

My question for the government House leader is very simple. In terms of the Korea trade deal, the Conservatives actually got the investor state mechanisms right. Why do they not try to emulate some of the best trade measures that are taken by progressive countries around the world and have clarity and transparency around negotiations and real consultations with people who are affected, including Parliament?

[Privilege, November 18th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, when the government House leader made his intervention, I was tempted to stand and impart to you the rule of relevancy. What he said yesterday was not relevant at all to the very eloquent question of privilege that was raised by the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley.

Today, there is a little more relevance. Much of his talking points seem to be conceived in the Prime Minister's Office, but nowhere in his statement is there any justification in the Standing Orders for hard-working Canadians having to fork over $800 a pop to go listen to the Minister of Finance deliver the fall economic update. Certainly, there is nothing in the Standing Orders that actually allows for that.

Therefore, we have a number of comments from the government House leader, more relevant today than they were yesterday. I would like to come back at some point in today's session, which I know will be a prolonged session, to respond, if we choose to, on a number of the points that were raised today.

[Citizenship and Immigration, November 18th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is no wonder the minister is having trouble with the facts, like last night on national radio, because the facts are very embarrassing for the government. In response to a crisis generating millions of vulnerable refugees, the government agreed to take in a very small number, and then it failed to even meet that commitment. Bizarrely, ineptly, the minister tried to cover it all up and repeatedly misled Canadians. It is time to make amends.

When will the minister finally meet his own commitment to resettle an additional 1,300 Syrian refugees in Canada? When will he keep his promise to those refugees?

[Protection of Canada from Terrorists Act, November 18th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, this is another sad day in the House of Commons. The government is using the guillotine for the 81st time since coming to power. Eighty-one times. Never in the history of Canada has any government shown such disrespect for the work of parliamentarians and the need to review the bills that are introduced in the House of Commons.

We are talking about a bill that the government itself has said is an important one, a complex one that requires proper scrutiny; yet after only a few hours of debate and after only a handful of members of Parliament have had the opportunity to speak, the government is imposing closure for the 81st time. Perhaps this time more egregiously than any time before, the government is simply refusing to have the proper scrutiny that needs to take place in the House of Commons. Given the impacts on Canadian society, the bill needs to be properly scrutinized.

My question is very simple. Eighty-one times now, the government has imposed closure. It does it at the drop of a hat, after only a few hours of debate. Why is it trying to do it this time when it is well aware that it has the sad record of having more pieces of legislation rejected by the courts than any other government in our history? Given the fact that the government has had shoddy legislation that needed improvement and has been rejected by the courts, why is it imposing closure yet again?

[Committees of the House, November 17th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Newton—North Delta for her passionate defence of programs that would address chronic and rising youth unemployment and increasing poverty in this country.

I am still flabbergasted by my Conservative colleague across the way who tried to compare the $2 or $3 a day that the Conservative government wants to provide to families to the $1,600 a month it costs the average family in Toronto to pay for child care. The Conservatives are telling Canadians that they are giving them $2 or $3 a day and that they can raise the other $1,400 or $1,500 a month by themselves. This is an appalling and irresponsible attitude toward families. This means that families simply go without child care. There is no other way to put it.

Does my colleague from Newton—North Delta think the Conservatives even understand the pressures that working families are under, if they can say that for $2 or $3 a day they have taken care of child care when thousands of families in this country cannot afford child care because of the Conservative government's negligence?

[Committees of the House, November 17th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. As you know, just before the break, the member for Winnipeg North was basically ruled out of order five days in a row. He was doing better now, but he is starting to get off into his own private world. As we know, he has to be relevant to the committee report and should stay focused on that. I just want to raise that. He seems to be going off on tangents again.

[Committees of the House, November 17th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comments, but he seems to underplay what has been a dramatic and tragic rise in youth unemployment. He sees table 4 in the report, like we all do, which shows the rate of youth unemployment when the Conservatives took office, or just after, at 15.7%, rising in 2013 to 20.1%. The increase has been dramatic in provinces like my own province of British Columbia, where it is 66%.

These are tragedies. As the member for Chambly—Borduas spoke about just a few minutes ago, there is scarring that takes place permanently with that degree of youth unemployment. We already have record levels of student debt across the country, so young people are now mortgaged in many ways. They have record levels of student debt, and now, under the current Conservative government, we are seeing record levels of youth unemployment.

How are they going to pay down their student debt? How are they going to actually move to a career when we have unemployment rates that are skyrocketing under the current Conservative government? Why have the Conservatives not undertaken the suggestions that have been put forward by the opposition, including by the NDP, that would actually serve to reduce the high levels of youth unemployment we are seeing in this country?

[Committees of the House, November 17th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I notice table 4 in the report talks about the unemployment rate for young people. The first side of the table shows the unemployment rate when the Conservatives came to power, and then we see, as the member mentioned, what it is now. There is a staggering increase in unemployment among young people. It has risen from 15.7% when the Conservatives took power to over 20% now. Those numbers have been reflected in staggering increases in youth unemployment rates in many provinces, including my province of British Columbia, which has seen a 66% increase in the number of unemployed young Canadians. There are staggering increases.

We often talk about the Conservative government doing so little for young Canadians, and the figures are right there in black and white. We have seen a staggering increase in unemployment among young people, yet recommendations are not put into effect. Could the member for Chambly—Borduas comment on how the Conservatives can see that staggering increase in youth unemployment, yet do nothing about it?