Peter Stoffer

[National Housing Act, March 11th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I rise today with great pleasure to speak on what I consider to be one of the most important debates in the House of Commons when it comes to the social housing needs of all Canadians.

I wish to give accolades to my colleague from Churchill, the critic for this area. She has done an excellent job on behalf of the New Democratic Party in pointing out the major flaws within this bill.

Members may wish to have a copy of a book written by our member for Vancouver East entitled Homelessness, An Unnatural Disaster: A Time to Act , a guide to the study she did across the country with members from social housing, NAPO and groups of that nature to discuss the social housing needs.

I also recognize that the Conservative Party of Canada is now doing a similar tour of its own. I wish the party good luck with coming up with long term solutions for the problems that exist.

As a young lad in 1974, I attended the UN sponsored habitat conference in Vancouver on housing and the need for housing not only in Canada and the Americas but around the world. It is interesting to sit here today in the House of Commons and now have this debate on a domestic level 25 years later. It is quite fundamental.

I want to start with something very interesting which is how Liberals, especially those in cabinet, can flip-flop and change their opinions literally at the drop of a hat.

In 1990 the then official opposition and chair of the Liberal Party task force on housing, the current finance minister, condemned the government of the day for doing nothing while the housing crisis continued to grow out of control: “The government sits there and does nothing. It refuses to apply the urgent measures that are required to reverse this deteriorating situation. The lack of affordable housing contributes to and accelerates the cycle of poverty, which is reprehensible in a society as rich as ours”.

I and my party could not agree more. The question is why did the finance minister change is mind. Why did the Liberal Party change its mind on many other issues? On such a fundamental issue as this one, why did the so-called caring finance minister change his mind and literally destroy the advancement of 75,000 new social housing units in this country?

I come from the beautiful province of Nova Scotia where the federal government has abandoned all responsibility for social housing and literally tricked the current Liberal government in Nova Scotia to take over responsibility for it. It is absolutely reprehensible that a federal Liberal government would abandon its social housing policies in the beautiful province of Nova Scotia.

I would like Liberal or opposition members to come with me to Catalina, Newfoundland. When we did a fisheries tour with the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans we saw a row of houses completely abandoned because those people had no more jobs and there was no more work. They had to go elsewhere in Canada to find a place to live and work. Meanwhile, a perfectly good home was left abandoned. This is the history of our country. Farmers in the prairies and in the Atlantic provinces and fishermen in the east and west have had to abandon their homes to look for work elsewhere in the country because the centralized governments of our day completely abandoned the extremities of this nation.

There is no way we can support the bill because of what it does to aboriginal people and first nations reserves. I will not go into the details of it as it has been explained quite well already.

All members of the Liberal Party of Canada have to do is read a fantastic magazine out of Newfoundland called The Downhomer . The Downhomer will send them at a cost of $36 Canadian, no tax, a copy of a Ted Stuckless print. It is a picture of two Newfoundlanders in a dory with a make and break engine. They are towing a home on logs across the bay as was done during the resettlement program. That picture says a thousand words on the devastation of the resettlement program which moved people from their ancestral homes for so-called economic development. People from Newfoundland and Nova Scotia are abandoning their homes now and moving elsewhere to other parts of the country.

Homelessness is no surprise. Cities like Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Montreal and Halifax are in a crisis state. It only makes sense. They cannot keep taking, taking, taking and destroying the social programs and then turn around and say it is a surprise that there is homelessness in Toronto. They cannot say “What a shock” or “When did this happen”.

For the life of me I cannot understand why the Liberal government abandoned all of the principles of their sixties agreement. Back in the sixties the current deputy minister was left of centre and has now completely abandoned all those principles. The government has abandoned the great principles of former Prime Minister Lester Pearson. It has abandoned the principles of Warren Allmand. It has abandoned most of those principles for the so-called fiscally conservative right which benefits the few and puts the majority at disadvantage.

I recommend that the Liberal Party of Canada, especially the deputy House leader, if he wishes, go to Newfoundland, or The Downhomer would be proud to send a lovely print of the two Newfoundlanders in the dory with the make and break engine. I have a copy of that beautiful print hanging on the wall of my office. Every day it proves to me that we have a serious crisis when it comes to homelessness.

A fundamental basic right of the nation and of all world citizens should be decent shelter. I do not understand why a rich and wealthy country can abandon that basic, simple principle. It just does not make sense.

[Petitions, March 10th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is from the shellfishers organization of Prince Edward Island, which calls upon parliament to direct Revenue Canada, Human Resources Development Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to harmonize record-keeping requirements for shellfishers and to inform them properly of these requirements.

[Petitions, March 10th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to present two petitions in the House of Commons.

The first petition is from a member in my constituency by the name of Donna Goler. She basically states that the petitioners call upon this parliament to enact legislation to provide protection for children from convicted sex offenders.

[Fisheries, March 5th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, there was further proof last Monday that this government's policy in fishery matters favours the corporate destructive sector over the small inshore fishery. Last Monday High Liner Foods reported an increase of a 50% allocation increase catch on their quota for 1998 while at the same time this government announced a 10,000 tonne further reduction of the quota for groundfish for inshore fishermen.

Why does this government continue to destroy the hopes and dreams of thousands of inshore fishermen, their families and their coastal communities?

[Legalization Of Marijuana For Health And Medical Purposes, March 4th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise on behalf of the PSAC workers, especially the blue collar workers of Nova Scotia and those across the country. Probably one of the most discriminatory policies of this current government is its policy on regional rates of pay.

In 1993 the Liberal government stated “The time to end regional rates is now and if elected we will eliminate that”. The government is now six years into its mandate and the President of the Treasury Board stated that he thinks regional rates of pay is a good policy.

I would like to read a card that was written in 1995:

In the opinion of this House, the government should seriously consider abolishing regional rates of pay now enforced for certain federal government employees, in accordance with its stated policy of pay equity.

That was from a formal Liberal member of parliament, Ronald MacDonald.

The current member of the House from Kenora—Rainy River stated:

The motion is a very good one and should be supported by the government and all members opposite to give people work and pay based on their abilities, their seniority and their classifications, not on where they live.

The key part of that statement is “not on where they live”. In the previous House that member was the parliamentary secretary to the minister of human resources.

No truer words have ever been spoken. The only problem is that the government has completely ignored them.

I quote the Ottawa Citizen from March 2:

The Liberal government seems intent on “breaking the back” of its unions with “hardball” labour policies that have left rank and file public servants underpaid, demoralized and facing poor working conditions, says the chairman of the Senate finance committee.

Terrance Stratton, who headed the committee's year long investigation into the brain drain in the public service, warns that the government's hardline position on capping salary increases at two per cent a year will accelerate the flight of experienced talent to the private sector. It does not help matters that, at the same time, senior executives [of the government] got raises of up to 20 per cent, plus bonuses.

Gilles Paquet, director of the centre of governance at the University of Ottawa, stated that the committee's report underscores that the Liberal government has no agenda for its public service other than the one driven by the finance department to cut costs and save money: “The government doesn't give me the feeling that it respects the public service. It ended the notion of a career public servant and then turned around and asked them for more and more loyalty. Give them less and less money and more and more work. It just doesn't add up”.

Again, no finer words have been spoken in such a long time when it comes to the issue of pay equity, regional rates of pay and the quality of life and work for our federal public service, especially the blue collar ones.

The fact is regional rates of pay are discriminatory. Just because you live in Halifax does not mean you should be paid less than if you live in Vancouver. Ninety-seven per cent of all public servants in this country, RCMP, military, members of parliament, all get paid the same base salary no matter where they live, whether it is Whitehorse, Inuvik, Vancouver or Sheet Harbour in Halifax. It does not matter, they get paid the same except when it comes to the lowest paid workers of the public service, the blue collar workers, the warehousemen, the electricians, the plumbers. It is an absolutely discriminatory policy.

It just does not fly for the Treasury Board president to say that it is because of provincial legislation and provincial responsibilities that he does not want to end regional rates of pay.

[Supply, March 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to be brief. The member for Vancouver Kingsway said that they had difficulty with the provinces establishing a day care to fulfil the Liberal promise of 1993. I have the 1993 promise right here and I should remind the House that provincial leaders do not run for federal politics. Only governments do and the five political parties.

This Liberal government ran in 1993. Its promise was to create 50,000 child care spaces in each year following a year of 3% economic growth, to a total of 150,000 over three years. It also said that for families which need two incomes to survive and for single parents who want to get off welfare and other social assistance and get jobs, access to quality child care was a must.

Nowhere in the promise of 1993 does it say that the government would co-operate with or even discuss with the provinces. This was a federal Liberal promise which was broken by this government.

Once again I ask this member of the Liberal Party why they made the promise and why they broke it.

[Supply, March 4th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I want to ask the question again to the Liberal member because I have not received the answer from any of the other Liberal members.

In 1993 this government promised day care for low income families and families across this country. That promise was broken. My question is why?

[Supply, March 4th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I was not planning to rise but the member mentioned EI and now I want to say a couple of points.

In 1989 one of my predecessors, Mr. Broadbent, put a motion to the House to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000. We have had four years of Conservative government. We have had six years of Liberal government, and now child poverty is fourfold in the country. Also the use of food banks is on a rise. It is absolutely astounding that the government can stand by and this member can try to defend Liberal action in any way.

The member mentioned EI. Under the government $21 billion has been ripped away from the workers and employers, some $7 billion this year alone. As has already been admitted by the Minister of Human Resources Development, that money has been spent on other programs. This money belongs to the employees and employers, especially working mothers who could stay at home. The rules were changed. If a woman decided to stay at home and have maternity leave it was very difficult to achieve that.

Those are the facts of the matter. Would the hon. member respond to that, please?

[Supply, March 4th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, again I thank the hon. member and his party for bringing forward this very important debate. I have a couple of questions for him.

One is on the national standards for all families, especially for those who are low income or single parent. Would he and his party not agree that the Canada pension plan, although we have difficulties with some aspects of it in terms of the premium payments, is a good idea for those people with low income so that they will have some kind of pension in their later years? Many low income families cannot participate in the RRSP program.

Would he agree that that program as well as national day care for low income families are good to have on a national basis?

[Supply, March 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am quite taken aback by the fact that the hon. member said it was a difficult decision to raise his own children. My wife and I decided to raise our own children and it was not difficult to make that decision. It was an honour and a privilege we had raising our own children.

I did some reading as well. I read the 1993 red book of the Liberal Party. My question was not answered before by the member from Parkdale so I would like this member to answer it now. Why did the Liberal government break its promise on day care facilities for Canadian families?