Peter Julian

[Supply, May 31st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I do not see quorum in the House.

And the count having been taken:

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, May 18th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, the member referred, I thought somewhat derogatorily, to a Baptist minister from Saskatchewan who recently, with Canadians from coast to coast to coast, was voted the greatest Canadian of all time, bar none. After the most extensive voting process in Canada's history, people chose Tommy Douglas as the greatest Canadian of all time.

I know, having been to Saskatchewan often, that the people of Saskatchewan are extremely proud of that heritage, and extremely proud to have founded the first medicare system that was brought in right across the country because of the efforts of Tommy Douglas. They are extremely proud of the incredible work of the administrations of the CCF and the NDP that brought a province into the modern age in the most effective way possible.

So, for that member to speak derogatorily about someone who is not only dear to the hearts of people from across Saskatchewan but indeed the greatest Canadian, as voted by Canadians, I find somewhat perplexing.

However, I do want to touch on another point. He referred to fiscal management. As the member should know, and I am sure he does not because there seems to be some difficulty with financial literacy within that caucus, there was a study done of a 20 year period, comparing Conservative, Liberal, Parti Québécois, Social Credit and NDP administrations across this country from 1981 to 2001. It would be no surprise to the member that the worst fiscal managers, from the actual fiscal period returns, were actually the Liberals. Some 85% of Liberal fiscal returns were actually in deficit. The second worst were the Conservatives, where 66% of the fiscal period returns, not the budgets, were in deficit. The best record belonged to the New Democrats, where most of the time, when we projected surpluses, we achieved them and we did them without harming people and by building provinces where every one mattered.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, May 18th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, as I rise to speak on the budget bill I wish to congratulate Carole James, who is the leader of the B.C. New Democratic Party, for her tremendous breakthrough yesterday with over 40% of the vote in British Columbia. I would also like to congratulate the new member of the legislative assembly for New Westminster, Mr. Chuck Puchmayr and the new member of the legislative assembly for Burnaby-Edmonds, Mr. Raj Chouhan, for their clear victories in that election yesterday.

I mention my communities because the context of this budget discussion is extremely important. When we arrived on the Hill last fall, we were dealing with a series of crises that have not been addressed for over a decade. We are talking about a crisis in homelessness where there are increasing numbers of homeless across the country. In my region of the lower mainland we have tripled the number of homeless at a time when we are reaping record corporate profits.

We have an increase in child poverty. As we saw last fall, we are now looking at over 1.1 million poor children in Canada which should be a source of national shame.

When we talk about the education system, I met, when I knocked on over 6,000 doors in the election campaign last year, dozens of young people who could not go into post-secondary education because of tuition fee increases. Not being able to go into post-secondary education is not just something that affects those families, it affects the entire community. It affects the entire nation when young people cannot go on to post-secondary studies because they are cut off. Increasingly post-secondary studies are for the wealthy.

We have also seen the environment deteriorating. There was a the Kyoto plan to decrease greenhouse gas emissions by 20%. We have actually seen an increase of 20% in greenhouse gas emissions.

That is the context in the community for the budget bill that was originally presented earlier this spring. This budget bill as we all know, presented as one of its foremost planks corporate tax cuts of $4.6 billion. We had just gone through an election campaign and there had been promises made and commitments made as they had been in previous elections by the Liberal Party, and indeed by the Conservative Party, to address some of these issues.

One of the fundamental aspects of the bill was corporate tax cuts of $4.6 billion and to my surprise, we saw the Conservative opposition actually supporting this kind of budget mismanagement. Some $4.6 billion shovelled out the door to the corporate sector that is currently experiencing record profits and the Conservatives did not say a single word.

That is the context for the NDP budget amendment, Bill C-48, which now makes Bill C-43 much more responsive to what we are actually seeing in communities across the country. I understand the Conservative opposition is going to oppose this because the Leader of the Opposition actually stated a couple of weeks ago he did not want to listen to what the MPs were hearing from their ridings and the public. Indeed, he said he would disregard those comments when it came to forcing an election.

However, in reality Canadians have had over the past 10 to 12 years a deterioration in their quality of life. The original budget did not address in a meaningful way all of those substantive issues that needed to be addressed.

The NDP pushed the Liberal government and negotiated effectively with it in order to bring in budget amendments that finally dealt with those issues. There is $1.6 billion in investment to finally start dealing with the housing crisis and the homelessness crisis that is growing, particularly in British Columbia. It was an issue in the provincial campaign and led to the substantial breakthrough that I mentioned earlier.

There is $1.5 billion to deal with the post-secondary education crisis to finally start lowering tuition fees, so that more young people and more adults can access training, post-secondary education, and those things that should be a right of all Canadians, and also in that way contribute to our economy and communities.

There is $900 million for the environment, finally providing back to cities support for rapid transit which is something extremely important if we are going to deal with the environmental crises and the environmental issues that we face.

At a time when we must be seeking more stability around this planet, there is $500 million in foreign aid, so that Canada starts to meet its commitment for foreign aid to address the appalling poverty that people around the world and that children around the world are facing.

We know that today, in this 24 hour period, 29,000 children will die of starvation and disease. These are preventable deaths, but they die these horrible deaths in part because there is not sufficient foreign aid to address the grinding and horrible poverty in which they live. The NDP budget amendment, Bill C-48, that now takes Bill C-43 and makes it a better balanced budget, addresses that in talking about $500 million in foreign aid.

What has been the response to these issues and the fact that the NDP has stood up on these issues that for so long have not been addressed? I would like to read into the record some of the comments. From the chair of the Canadian Urban Transit Association:

This move shows true leadership in making transit a focal point for sustainable urban development.

From the chair of the National Coalition on Housing and Homelessness:

Thank goodness reason prevailed. Canadians need to see real progress on social housing. We don't need another time out for an election. This revised budget should be passed.

From the president of the Canadian Council for International Cooperation:

With this deal, the NDP has pushed the Liberals closer to meeting Canada's international aid obligations.

From the Canadian Federation of Students:

The [Liberal-NDP] deal ensures that the funding will be available for provinces who are willing to take steps to make post-secondary education more accessible to low- and middle-income families.

From the Sierra Club of Canada:

There is no more time for politics on this issue. All parties must work together and for now that means passing the budget and getting action underway.

These are the kinds of comments that are being voiced in communities and main streets across Canada from coast to coast to coast. This budget now, because of the NDP amendment, finally addresses urgent needs that Canadians are facing.

The question we must ask ourselves is this. Given that the issues of education, homelessness, with numbers on the rise unfortunately, and the environment are being addressed, why do the Bloc Québécois members object to a measure that moves forward on things that Quebeckers need so much? Several elements of Bill C-48 are designed to improve people's the quality of life. That is not insignificant; it is important. I know that the Bloc Québécois shares these values.

This is incomprehensible to me, given that we are trying to introduce improvements. Granted, not all needs are covered. But there are only 19 NDP members. Had there been more of us, we might have been able to do more. Nevertheless, this budget is a definite improvement that will make a difference for Quebec, with $1 billion over two years. It will make a difference for Montreal and for public transit, as $20 million is earmarked for that. That is not insignificant. These are important elements.

I mentioned that, with 19 members, we had nevertheless managed to make considerable advances on issues of concern to people in the regions of Canada. We will continue to work in that fashion, to improve legislation in the House of Commons to ensure that Canadians can benefit from it.

[Committees of the House, May 2nd, 2005]

Is that how you guys ran the Airbus agreement?

[Committees of the House, April 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, we need to proceed very quickly on this. The recommendation on the commission of inquiry is to strike it immediately and give it a mandate to investigate the avian flu outbreak.

The problem is that the CFIA has gone off into its little corner and done its own review without getting public input from the people who were most seriously impacted and involved. The experts, as I mentioned, are avian veterinarians in British Columbia who saw firsthand the problems and the mistakes that were made throughout the crisis.

On the one hand, we have a large group of individuals who understand what happened, who are ready to comment, who are ready to bring forth recommendations and who are ready to go into the details of what went wrong last year and to tell us why we had an initial quarantine and control that was then completely disrupted and a second quarantine zone again was breached. Those are the things we need to know. We need to know why a containment procedure fell apart and failed twice. It was only through good luck and the persistence of the local people working very closely with industry that we were finally able to contain the outbreak. However not one in that group of experts and individuals were consulted. CFIA has gone off and done its own whitewash.

The public inquiry would allow us to get the story from CFIA of course, but also from those individuals and those experts in the field who were there so we can learn the lessons to ensure this never happens again. The only way to do this is to do it quickly and effectively. I still cannot believe why the government is refusing.

[Committees of the House, April 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I know that being a British Columbian you understand the importance of the issue and I appreciate your willingness to hear my comments. It is very clear to me that members of the government do not think British Columbia is important and obviously do not think agricultural producers are important either.

We have the reluctance of the government to initiate public inquiries. Let us talk about what kind of public inquiries it avoids.

We have had a motion from three corners of the House to have a public inquiry into the Air-India disaster. Twenty years later no one has been found guilty directly of that tragedy. Three hundred and twenty-nine individuals died. No one has been found directly guilty of that tragedy and the families of the victims have been calling for a public inquiry for 20 years. Three corners of the House adopted, overwhelmingly, a motion to call for a public inquiry and the government, showing its utter and total contempt for democracy, refuses to initiate one.

We see again, now that we are talking about a public inquiry into the avian flu outbreak, with what contempt the government holds Parliament and with what contempt it holds Canadians.

[Committees of the House, April 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am the one smiling now. It is funny to see any member of the government, which has not acted on anything of importance to Canadians over the last 12 years, standing up and saying that what the government is really trying to do by shutting down the agriculture committee report and the call for a public inquiry is to take action or, as we say en français, noyer le poisson. That is its façon, to act decisively, to send the report back and to not deal with a public inquiry.

We certainly know why the government is sensitive to public inquiries. It has not done too well in public inquiries. We hear from the Gomery commission, which the government was very reluctant to set up and was only set up under tremendous public pressure, the revelations every day about the incredible difficulties--

[Committees of the House, April 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, this is unbelievable, really unbelievable. We have moved forward a concurrence motion on a report that comes from the agriculture committee and which very clearly talks about the need for action.

Members in three corners of the House have moved this concurrence motion forward because of the importance of the issue and the importance of action, but what we are seeing again, in an appallingly abusive way, is the Liberal government trying to shut down action on an issue that cost British Columbia, to take the farm gate receipts and the secondary economic impact, nearly $400 million, nearly half a billion dollars.

The agriculture committee held hearings in Abbotsford and came forward with a series of key recommendations, including the first recommendation, which resulted from an NDP amendment:

That an independent commission of inquiry be struck with the mandate to investigate the serious 2004 avian influenza outbreak in British Columbia.

Now the government is trying to shut this down, send the report back and delay things further on an issue that the agriculture committee has already flagged as a fundamental issue. This is absolutely unbelievable.

I suppose it is not surprising given all the other events of the last few weeks, the game playing around the budget implementation bill, and the appalling abuse of power that we saw on Monday night when the government House leader shut down opposition days, I guess because Liberals felt that the opposition was too effective a job in holding the government accountable for its actions and lack of actions in so many areas.

Now we see the government once again trying to shut down any sort of action or decisive impact to resolve issues that have an enormous impact on Canadians. It is absolutely unbelievable to me.

I should mention to what a great extent this shows disrespect for British Columbians. Because of the intervention of the member of Parliament for Abbotsford, we were fortunate to actually have two days of hearings on January 18 and 19 in Abbotsford on this important issue. What came back repeatedly from individuals in Abbotsford during those two days of public hearings was the importance of having a full public inquiry because the issue was not well handled. There were huge errors, which I will get into in a moment. Very clearly, there has been no proper investigation of what happened in that outbreak.

It is important to note that the CFIA report, which the government seems to feel is the final word on this issue, was done up even before the public hearings in Abbotsford, if members can believe that. The CFIA refused to take any public input whatsoever except from a very select group of people that it had hand-picked and who would not criticize the CFIA to any great extent. The CFIA produced its report and put it out to committee members and members of Parliament across the country on the day before the public hearings the agriculture committee was holding in Abbotsford.

In good faith, British Columbians came forward to give their best judgment of what happened, the mistakes that were made, the issues that were not dealt with and the problems with communication, all those issues that are fundamental in nature. As British Columbians came to give their testimony to the agriculture committee, the CFIA had already wrapped up its report and sent it out. It has not altered it since. There were no lessons learned from the public. There were no lessons learned from local experts. CFIA drew from its hand-picked list a series of recommendations that made it look not too bad and then put that out prior to the two days of public hearings.

Here is what we see now. Very clearly the agriculture committee has heard the comments of British Columbians in the Fraser Valley, the people who lived through this, the people who suffered through the mistakes that were made by the government and suffered through the lack of communication. The fact is that it took days for decisions to be made and they had to communicate with Ottawa to do anything. Those people came forward in good faith and said, “We need a public inquiry to really get to the root of these problems and to deal with it in such a way that this never happens again”.

We have seen what respect and what contempt the government has for British Columbians of good faith who came forward at those agriculture hearings and called for a public inquiry. Complete and utter contempt for British Columbians from every part of British Columbia. That is what we see from the government by this move right now.

It should not be surprising to us. We have already seen it with Air-India. We have seen it repeatedly when Parliament called for action on the dirty money scam, the ad scam, and paying back the money that was taken. The government has refused to implement the will of Parliament. We have seen it time and time and again. As a result of that, we are seeing Parliament's actions being thwarted by a government that does not understand the meaning of the word “democracy”.

We have an agriculture committee report. Members of Parliament moved this forward for concurrence, so we can get to the bottom of it, launch the public inquiry, find out what went wrong, prepare if, God forbid, there is another outbreak, and learn from the mistakes of the past. The government is trying to shut it down again. It is absolutely appalling. Words fail me. The level of contempt that the government has for Parliament, for Canadians, and in this case specifically for British Columbians, is beyond belief.

Let us talk a bit about the hearings. We know that the impact of the avian flu outbreak was huge. I am talking about lost farm gate receipts, the secondary economic impact of $400 million, and hundreds and hundreds of lost jobs. The region still has not fully recovered from that outbreak.

We had local experts and individuals who came and testified at the agriculture committee hearings in Abbotsford. They were able to give us some of the fundamental information that CFIA did not want to collect, or did not deign to collect. The information that CFIA did not want to hear was critical of decisions that were made.

However, this is the only way to learn from this outbreak. It had an enormous impact on the lower mainland of the Fraser Valley in British Columbia. As a British Columbia MP I feel, as my colleagues do in three corners of the House, that we must deal with it, correct the mistakes that were made, and move on in as rapid, thorough and effective way as possible. We see the government trying to one more time block any progress on this. If there is another outbreak in a few months or a year, we will not have the measures in place because there has never been a thorough examination that needs to take place.

Let us talk about what happened. I am going to cite the producers' account of the euthanasia and depopulation procedures at the first and second farms diagnosed with avian influenza in British Columbia in 2004. Four people, distinguished individuals, including the only two avian veterinarians in British Columbia, co-wrote this report. I am talking about Dr. Stewart Ritchie and Dr. Victoria Bowes. They went into detail about what happened around the time of the first and second outbreak.

I am going to quote a few passages for the record from this important report and I should mention this is a report that CFIA has never read because its officials did not want to. The CFIA had hand-picked experts produce a report and threw it out before the public hearings in British Columbia to the immense disrespect of British Columbians. Since then the report has not been changed at all. In fact, the experts that were consulted were all outside British Columbia and were all outside Canada. The report was sent to Europe and Hong Kong. The CFIA did not want to actually have anyone who knew anything about the crisis outbreak and the mistakes that were made actually reading the analysis.

The experts note:

On February 7, 2004, the owner of a modern broiler breeder farm in Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada noticed that his 51 week old flock of 9,000 broiler breeder chickens (Flock A) took double the normal time to consume the allotted amount of feed, as well as noted there was a slight increase in mortality.

On the first day of increased mortality samples of dead birds from Flock B were submitted for further investigation to the BCMAFF-AHC...On February 18, 2004 the CFIA declared that the Federal Government was in control of this outbreak, the farm was placed under quarantine and provisions were made for the pre-emptive euthanasia and depopulation ofthe two flocks.

Let us talk a bit about the euthanasia procedures that were taking place on February 9, 2004. Approximately 3,500 kilograms of chicken carcasses were ground up, after they were euthanized, together with 1,000 kilograms of barn litter per load. Each of those 15 mixed loads were transported approximately 400 metres along a public road, that also went over a small stream, to the owner's residential driveway where the contents of the portable mixer were dumped directly onto the paved driveway. This material was then pushed with a tractor front-end loader into an open dairy feed bunker for the purpose of composting.

The owner of the first farm affected and the attending CFIA veterinarian both commented at the time that this was taking place in the open, and that there were strong winds originating from the north. The filling of the bunker proceeded throughout the night and at 5 a.m. on February 22, the bunker was only able to contain the equivalent of 10,000 birds and it reached full capacity at 60% of what was needed to be disposed of. Since local disposal options were limited, the remaining infectious material was placed in plastic lined cardboard totes using the front-end loader. They were then transported to an incineration site in Princeton, B.C., which is over the mountains through the Manning Park area.

On February 23, 2004, the day after depopulation was completed, the CFIA lifted the quarantine at this farm despite the presence of a large quantity of composting, infected carcasses. In the CFIA report, we do not hear mention of this because the CFIA report had already come out prior to this information actually being released.

We had composting, infected carcasses. The quarantine was lifted. Surprise, surprise. On March 6, 2004, a full 14 days following the depopulation activity on the index farm, a second broiler breeder farm located 1.5 kilometres southwest of the original farm was diagnosed with the avian influenza. Which way were the winds blowing? They were from the north and from the original farm.

It was not a surprise at all. The quarantine had been shut down. They were composting carcasses all around with this highly infectious avian flu virus and what happened? To the surprise of nobody, particularly the experts who were in the field, 14 days later we had a second outbreak.

The depopulation of this farm did not happen until March 13, 2004 because CFIA required that all diagnostic tests be confirmed at the national foreign animal disease laboratory in Winnipeg. During the interim seven days, while waiting for official confirmation, the mortality in the affected barns on the second farm reached over 95%.

We went through a second euthanasia procedure. Dr. Victoria Bowes and Dr. Stewart Ritchie, the two avian veterinarians and experts were not consulted or involved in any way with CFIA's whitewash of the activities that took place in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia, but they state that the reasons are unclear why carbon dioxide gas was not chosen as the method of euthanasia. Instead, a mobile electric stunning machine developed for the euthanasia of spent commercial egg-laying hens was employed.

Birds were fed through an electrically charged chute for the killing process and the carcasses were then openly conveyed along a belt to be dropped into the top of reefer trucks. This procedure, which is no surprise to any of us, and which took place over three days, resulted in the dispensing of large quantities of infectious dust and feathers high into the air, as feathers and dust were noted to have travelled a significant distance and to have covered vehicles that were parked nearby.

In the case of the second farm, as in the case of the first farm, the producer questioned the wisdom of this method of disposal during strong winds. Anyone would understand that this method of disposal in strong winds was inappropriate, but the process continued until completion. We would not see that either in the CFIA whitewash. That is why we need a public inquiry.

I hope that members of the government who are present here today are ashamed, having learned some of the details rather than referring to their talking points. I hope they understand how crucial this issue is to British Columbians and how crucial this is for the agricultural sector all across the country.

On the second farm and seven days later, a third cluster of commercial poultry farms located downwind, within two kilometres of the first two farms, were diagnosed with avian flu. This came as no surprise to anybody in the House and no one who was at the agricultural committee hearings in Abbotsford on March 22, 2004.

On April 1, 2004 it was diagnosed outside of the original high risk zone, which was defined as a five kilometre radius zone around the flock where avian flu was first diagnosed. Over the next eight weeks a total of 42 commercial poultry farms in the Abbotsford area were identified as being positive.

This information is not in the CFIA whitewash. This information has not gone to the government. For the government to obstruct the work of the agriculture committee and to block what British Columbians of good faith have brought forward for us to take action on is absolutely despicable. There is no excuse for this action.

As information comes out from three corners of the House, I hope members of the government will understand how despicable these actions were. This series of convoluted amendments are trying to whitewash the report or drown the report. The government is trying to cover up a series of mistakes that were made in the first quarantine zone and in the second quarantine zone, and led to an outbreak that cost almost $500 million to British Columbians and hundreds of jobs. For the government to whitewash this affair is absolutely appalling and inappropriate.

We have the evidence. We had two days of hearings, January 18 and January 19, 2005, which clearly indicated the absolute need for a public hearing. Many witnesses came forward who indicated that we needed to learn from this crisis without any doubt. This almost became a catastrophe. We need to have a full public inquiry. We need to consult with the experts who have been left aside by the whitewashing of CFIA. We need to get to the bottom of this.

We are not talking about something of little importance. We are talking about something that has had a profound effect on the agriculture community in the Fraser Valley in British Columbia. We are talking about an issue that has the potential to decimate other parts of the country as well. A clear majority on the agriculture committee indicated a public inquiry was vitally important in order to fully get to the bottom of every aspect of the crisis last year and to prevent the reoccurrence of outbreaks.

One of the things that we called for, and the first recommendation that the agriculture committee called for, in order to prevent the reoccurrence of any outbreaks was for the commission to review the effectiveness of the emergency preparedness and implementation strategies that were deployed in British Columbia regarding zoonotic diseases.

No one in the House doubts that this is a priority. No one in the House doubts that the government needs to take action. Members of the opposition have brought forward this motion for concurrence and it would be a shameful moment indeed if members of the government tried to block the will of British Columbians and the will of our agricultural sector.

[Gasoline Prices, April 19th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak to motion M-165 by the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou. This motion calls for the creation of a petroleum monitoring agency and amending the Competition Act so that the Competition Commissioner would have the power to launch investigations, summon witnesses and ensure confidentiality.

I am speaking in favour of this motion because we are very familiar with the plight of Canadian families all across the country. For 10 years these families have been suffering from an income shortfall. All across the country, average workers have lost 60¢ on their hourly rates. They have lost 60¢ in real terms. At the same time, we know that they have been working longer and longer weeks. All this means that Canadian families have fewer and fewer resources.

In this state of affairs, it is very important to protect these families when the industry or companies decide to take advantage of the situation to raise prices unnecessarily. It is a way to boost their profits, but on the backs of consumers of course.

I am speaking in favour because when we look at gas prices we know that it is affecting people across this country. In the Vancouver region, the riding of Burnaby—New Westminster where I come from, gas prices have now hit $1.03 a litre. In other parts of the country it is approaching $1 a litre. In Sydney, Nova Scotia, is at 97¢, Halifax is at 96¢, and Yarmouth is at 98¢. In other parts of the country it is approaching $1 a litre.

Some declarations in the House over this motion have stated that it is not because of windfall profits that the prices have been moving so extremely high, but that it is because of the price of crude per barrel. That is indeed why these prices have risen so much.

Historically, we know that prices of retail gasoline, adjusted for inflation, have remained on average fairly stable. However, the prices have decreased. The price of crude, for example, was about $15 a barrel in the 1990s and we did not see significantly lower prices at the pump during that period. In fact, the normal rule of thumb is that when a barrel of crude goes up $1, the price at the pump goes up 1¢.

Over the last three months we have seen the price of crude increasing per barrel by $14 and the price at the pump has not increased by 14¢. In places like Burnaby and New Westminster the retail price of gasoline has increased 20¢ to 22¢ a litre. We are not talking about a situation where wholesale prices have made the difference in the retail price at the pumps. In fact, it is quite the contrary. What we are seeing is an acceleration. As the price of crude is going up at the wholesale level, we are seeing a marked increase for consumers across this country.

We know that we have to address the situation. We cannot simply agree because the industry says, “The price of crude went up so much, we have jacked the prices up and that is all right”. We have to look at all the facts. The facts are that the big five oil companies in Canada have had skyrocketing profits estimated at $7 billion this year. Imperial Oil was $1.68 billion, Husky was $1.3 billion, and Petro-Canada was $1.66 billion. We are seeing record profits in the oil industry as well.

As prices have gone up at the wholesale level a certain amount, we are seeing windfall profits being forced upon consumers because the Liberal government has done nothing and, same old same old, the Conservative opposition says, “Yes, let the oil companies gouge consumers”.

One of the speakers before me said that there was no evidence of collusion. There is certainly not any from the Liberal government that is not looking after the interests of Canadians and consumers, but let us look at the senate permanent subcommittee on investigations in the United States that has some experience dealing with antitrust and anti-competition efforts to gouge consumers. In an April 2002 report by the U.S. senate permanent subcommittee on investigations, it found that markets, in which a few firms dominated, such as Canada, tended to decrease supply in order to raise prices.

The Competition Bureau looked into this issue and because it is toothless under the Liberal government, rather than look at the entire issue of how wholesale prices have gone up a certain amount and retail prices much more and rather than look at the issue of how we have reduced supply and how that is being manipulated for windfall profits, it chose to simply look at the retail price at the pump. That is not defending consumers; that is not defending Canadians. That is why this motion is so important. We need to monitor this in the best interests of all Canadians.

I would like to mention that the efforts of the Liberal government, when we talk about environmental efforts and initiatives, have been absolutely pathetic. We are looking at a situation where, when the government set targets to decrease greenhouse gas emissions by 20%, it missed the mark so badly that greenhouse gas emissions actually increased by 20%.

We have seen a government that, in dealing with both the oil industry and the auto industry, has dealt with voluntary compliance measures. Voluntary compliance is as good as any other request one makes. There is no meaningful way of meeting targets that are set for voluntary compliance.

I should mention that we had a reduction in what the oil and gas industry should have put in to meet the Kyoto objectives. We had talked originally about 55 megatonnes. The Liberals capitulated, as they have in so many other areas, and reduced the annual emission targets to 37 megatonnes. I should also mention that 20% of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions came from the oil and gas sector in 2002.

Unfortunately, we have no action from the Liberal government to protect consumers and Canadians. We know that at the retail gas level, gas station owners are hardworking business people, but they are dealing with reduced supply, a small number of refineries, and they are in a bind as well, yet the government has done nothing.

In this corner of the House we are doing things. We called for a competition inquiry into the relationship between corporate concentration and gas price increases that have gouged Canadians. As well, the hon. member for Windsor West brought Motion No. 177, dealing with the petroleum monitoring agency, to the industry committee. As a result we had the industry committee itself recommending that we create and fund a petroleum monitoring agency to ensure that we understand what is happening with the oil and gas industry and to ensure that consumers and Canadians are protected.

In two corners of this House, the Liberal corner and the Conservative corner, they could not care less about consumers and Canadian families that are dealing with more and more challenges as their actual real wages fall, and as government programs get cut, but in this corner of the House we are standing up for consumers and Canadians. We have seen windfall profits. We have seen the gouging of consumers by taking advantage of a moderate rise in the wholesale price to bring about a huge rise in the retail price.

We will continue to speak out. We will support this motion because it is in the interests of Canadians from coast to coast to coast, and we will not let up. We will continue to fight for Canadians.

[Wal-Mart, April 18th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, recent revelations about the former head of Wal-Mart's U.S. operations have indicated that he used improper methods to finance secret anti-union activities. This is not the first time Wal-Mart has done this.

In the U.S., the management of Wal-Mart is paying $11 million in fines after using illegal immigrants to clean its stores. In January, Wal-Mart also paid fines after violating child labour laws. Wal-Mart is also facing a class action lawsuit on behalf of 1.6 million current and former female employees after alleged systematic and illegal discrimination.

In Canada, Wal-Mart's closure of its first unionized store in Jonquière, Quebec was a thuggish attempt to smash freedom of association.

There is every reason to believe that the actions of Wal-Mart in the U.S. are being duplicated in Canada. We call on the government to investigate the anti-labour and anti-employee practices of Wal-Mart and to work with the provinces to ensure that Wal-Mart respects its employees' fundamental rights.