Philip Toone

[Nááts’ihch’oh National Park Reserve Act, October 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured today to speak to Bill S-5, which would amend the Canada National Parks Act to create a reserve called Nááts’ihch’oh.

Parks are obviously very important to Canadians, and you can find them all over the country. Just today, the House has debated two bills on parks: the one we are discussing now, and the one we discussed earlier this morning to create an urban park in the Toronto area. This shows that Canadians are very interested in creating and preserving our parks and reserves in Canada.

When he was Quebec's environment minister, the leader of the New Democratic Party resigned and gave up his limo in order to protect Mont-Orford park. The Liberal government at the time wanted to sell the park—or at least part of it—to private interests. It was a shock and it was unacceptable. The leader of the NDP did the right thing. He protected the park, at the expense of his political career at the provincial level. Fortunately, this meant that we could snag him to come here, so that he could become the next prime minister of Canada. We think that was the right choice. Defending our parks is a fundamental value.

This bill would create a park in the Northwest Territories. The hon. member for the Northwest Territories did a great job of presenting and defending his stance. It is our duty to defend this bill and move forward. However, let us be clear: the bill has some serious flaws. It does not create a park. Rather, it creates two parts of a park. A road through the middle of the park will allow mining interests to continue mining tungsten. It is a rather unique situation, and we find it unfortunate.

This bill complies with the agreements signed in the north, which took more than seven years to negotiate. Thankfully, those negotiations resulted in the bill before us today. However, it is unfortunate that it did not go further. What is the reasoning behind creating a reserve or park if not to protect the fauna and flora? In this case, the government is trying to find a way to develop natural resources instead of creating a park that will protect the caribou and the other species in the area.

The loss of biodiversity in the world is very disturbing. We need to take measures today to ensure that Canada does not lose any more biodiversity, especially since Canada is recognized around the world as a country that believes in protecting the environment. Unfortunately, this bill suggests that the Conservative government seems to have forgotten that Parks Canada's mandate is to preserve the environment, not exploit it.

Naturally, people in the region are interested in the fact that this will create natural wealth and the idea that there may be a multiplier effect on the economy. We see this across Canada: parks have a considerable impact on wealth and tourism. In other areas where Parks Canada has unfortunately had to cut its budget—because of the Conservative government's massive budget cuts—the agency can no longer carry out its mandate or really help spur economic growth.

Here is an example from back home in the Gaspé. Forillon National Park is now closed all winter, period. No services are available. Unfortunately, the current government is not a partner in economic growth. I also want to point out that to get to Forillon National Park, you have to take a plane, the train or a bus.

Unfortunately, the government is not stepping up in that regard either. There is no bus to get there, the railway is in terrible condition, and the train no longer goes there. The government needs to come up with a budget for Parks Canada that makes sense so that the bill before us can have a real and lasting impact.

I would now like to go over some Parks Canada figures. Really, these numbers are pretty scary. As everyone knows, Parks Canada cut 638 jobs in the 2012 fiscal year. Its budget was cut by 7.1%, which is a lot of money.

The Toronto Star reported that Parks Canada has been putting off close to $3 billion in repairs. There is a total of $2.8 billion in deferred work. That means buildings are falling down.

Getting back to Forillon National Park, I hope that the people of the Northwest Territories will look closely at what is happening in other national parks so that they can be prepared for the Conservatives' lack of support for this park. The federal government has more or less abandoned Forillon National Park. The buildings are in poor shape, and all of the expropriated houses in the park are falling down too.

Hon. members will recall that 40 years ago, when the park was created by the federal Liberal government, it found a rather unique way to create the park: it partnered with the province. The province owns the park, and the federal government manages it. Unfortunately, the federal government has abandoned its role as manager. Now, the owner, namely the provincial government, has no regulatory or statutory power to spend money to improve it. The Conservative government has a duty to improve the park, but it is not doing so.

Today, the government wants to create a park in the Northwest Territories. I hope that the people there will take note that the government often is nowhere to be found when it comes time to provide support.

I would like to point out some shortcomings and share the concerns of some experts. This is what Alison Woodley, of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, had to say about the park's creation:

—the park boundary proposed in Bill S-5 will not achieve this conservation goal because it leaves out much of the important habitat for woodland caribou, including critical calving and breeding grounds, as well as for grizzly bears and Dall's sheep. It leaves out a significant part of the Little Nahanni River, which is a major tributary of the South Nahanni River and includes some of the most important habitat in the area.

This is the part that I thought particularly interesting: “Bill S-5 falls short of being a significant conservation achievement”. Again, that is from CPAWS, an organization known for its proper management of parks. It has helped the government establish parks and sustain parks in the past, and in this particular case, it has made it clear that the project we have in front of us simply does not measure up.

We need more and more stringent commitments on the part of the government to make sure that this park would fulfill the needs and the obligations that the government negotiated through the various treaties and through the court obligations that were imposed upon it.

Unfortunately, I do not think the government quite understands that when it has an obligation, it is expected to fulfill it with all due support, with all due money and with all due resources that should come to bear on the project. This is not one of those cases. It is the beginning. It is simply a beginning. We are going to have to go an awful lot further to make sure that this project would have long-term success.

Fortunately, the best outcome for this project, for the bill, is that we do adopt it. At least it would go to committee and we would try to improve on it. However, if we adopt it as is, certainly the most beneficial thing would be that when the NDP does form a government, we would be able to improve it so that it is a real park that we can really be proud of.

[Nááts’ihch’oh National Park Reserve Act, October 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, of the three options for the park's area, it is unfortunate that the government chose the smallest area.

Could the member speak about the consultation process? Were people satisfied that the smallest option was chosen for the park? Was this proposal in keeping with what these people wanted, or did it come from the government?

[Nááts’ihch’oh National Park Reserve Act, October 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to my colleague's speech. Her research is excellent. She obviously knows the file well and truly believes in protecting our environment. For that reason, I congratulate her.

There have been so many cuts at Environment Canada and Parks Canada in particular that one has to wonder what possible future these parks can have. We keep hearing from the government side that the creation of this reserve is an economic opportunity, but it sounds like it is more of an economic opportunity for the mining sector than it is for people who try to protect the environment.

With all of the cuts at Parks Canada, does my colleague feel Parks Canada has enough resources to develop this park properly?

[Fisheries and Oceans, October 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the situation is critical in the Gaspé rivers. Fewer and fewer salmon are swimming upstream. This year, there was a drop of over 60%, including in the York and St. John rivers. This has not happened in 30 years, according to the managers. We have to find out what is happening.

Does the government plan to investigate?

[Business of Supply, September 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question and it certainly is a question for debate.

What has happened in this place seems to be that the culture has changed. It had seemed rather normal and expected that if one asked a question, one would get an answer. It seemed appropriate that if one asked a question, the answer would have something to do with the question being posed. Perhaps in the past, the House treated questions with more respect. It treated the duly elected representatives of the people of Canada with more respect and actually answered questions with an answer that proved that respect. Unfortunately, today, we do not seem to be at that point.

We need new tools. The tools of the past I do not think were anywhere near as clear or necessary as they are today. I do not think that in the past the level of disrespect that we see in the House today was anywhere near as bad. This place is degrading. Question period has become more of an art than a science. We need to have some ground rules, and I think the motion is going to be the first step in that direction.

[Business of Supply, September 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, certainly, more robust change should be looked at very attentively. There have been attempts in the House. For instance, the motion he mentioned toward the end of his question, that bill is going to go through an amendment process, where it is probably going to be denatured to the point that it will not change all that much in the House. However, the will of many members that there should be changes in the House has been voiced and I certainly hope it is going to take a much more concrete form.

We have certainly seen in other parliaments, such as in the U.K., there have been concrete changes made, where the speaker does have a lot more control over the proceedings. It would be interesting for the committees that are accountable to these items, such as the procedures and House affairs, to look at this more attentively.

That is not the motion in front of us today. The motion today is to give the speaker more control over question period. However, that we start going back toward accountability in this place is something that is laudable. It is something that should be the target, and we should never lose sight of it.

[Business of Supply, September 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, today I have the honour to present my ideas on the motion on oral question period. Unfortunately, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons changed the motion.

The motion now reads “That this question be now put”.

He turned the question on its head. It is quite troubling that the government chose to proceed in this fashion.

Let me explain. When the words “That this question be now put” is on the floor, as is described in O'Brien and Bosc, page 650, “the previous question restricts debate and expedites the putting of the question..”. It does so in two ways.

First, the previous question precludes the moving of amendments to the main motion and, therefore, any debate that might have ensued on those amendments.

Second, the previous question can have the effect of superseding a motion under debate since, if negatived, the Speaker is bound not to put the question on the main motion at that time. In other words—

according to O'Brien and Bosc,

—if the motion “That the question be now put” is not adopted, the main motion is dropped from the Order Paper.

I will add, Mr. Speaker, that I will be splitting my time with the member for Hull—Aylmer.

So here we are. The House leader of the government side has made it so that we are going to have a vote later on, possibly tomorrow, at some point soon, where the government has used a procedural trick to ensure that the question “That this question be now put” will likely fail. By the traditions of this House, the motion then disappears.

The Conservatives do not want us to be able to discuss this motion. They do not want to be on record that they are opposed to question period actually serving its purpose, which is to hold the government to account. They do not want people to know that they do not want to be held to account.

The Conservatives came into power almost 10 years ago now, with much ballyhooed principles that they were going to hold the government to account, that they would be transparent, that they were going to put in acts, such as the Federal Accountability Act, which was supposed to make this place more transparent, more accountable. Well, the Federal Accountability Act did not go very far.

If we use the example of what we see in front of us with question period, we know for a fact that the Speaker right now is tied. He only has power over the quality of the question, and apparently not any particular power when it comes to the quality of the answer.

According to the House of Commons compendium, the question has to be within the administrative responsibility of the government; the question has to be brief, and the question has to seek information.

However, when it comes to the answer, we do not have a lot to work with.

We have Speaker Jerome, in 1975, telling us that the minister who is answering the question, or his representative, has a number of responses that are possible. He may answer the question. He may defer the answering of the question. He may take notice of the question. He may make a short explanation to why the answer cannot be furnished at this time, or he could say nothing.

The Speaker has to have much more control over what is being done in this place. The Speaker is there to ensure that the question is pertinent. The Speaker is there to ensure that the House has a certain decorum, so the question can be asked in a manner that is well understood. The Speaker seems not to be able to tell the answering side what the quality of that answer is going to be.

The motion in front of us, before it was superseded by the House leader's procedural trick, was to give the Speaker exactly that power, so he could intervene if a responder does not respond to the question properly, does not respond to the matter at hand. The answer should have to bear the same controls as the question. The answer should have to do with government business.

The answer should not be what the person's pizza preferences are. The answer should not have to do with whatever image pops into the head of the member answering at that particular moment. It cannot be questions about what a particular member may or may not have done in the last 100 years. The answer has to deal with government business. That is the point of having question period.

According to the compendium, when asked the question, “What is the point of question period?”, Speaker Jerome stated:

If the essence of Parliament is Government accountability, then surely the essence of accountability is the Question Period in the Canadian House of Commons.

The point of question period is to hold government to account. The point of the answers that we seem to be getting is to defer any responsibility. Conservative members do not want people to be thinking about what the government has done. They do not want people to think that the government is actually accountable to the representatives of the people.

The House of Commons is the place for the government to be held accountable. We have a form of government in this country called responsible government. Responsible government does not mean that the government is held responsible in any general fashion. Responsible government is the particular way that the House of Commons in the U.K., the House of Commons in Canada and other commonwealth nations have chosen to form government.

Responsible government means that the ministers are held accountable in the popular assembly, the place where the people are represented. The people, through their elected representatives, can ask questions of their government and expect to hear answers. We are not getting those answers. We have seen time and time again that the government does not seem to be in any position to give any answers.

The current government will spend enormous amounts of money to fly people across this country and around the world to make statements, for instance, on pensions, which it did in Switzerland and not in the House. Instead of giving answers when it comes to European free trade, it will fly European legislators around on very expensive trips, but again it refuses to answer questions in the House.

We need accountability and we simply do not have it. The motion before us is so that the Speaker will have the tools to ensure that the answers have to do with the questions and with government business, specifically the government business asked about in questions by members of the House.

Members of the House have a responsibility. It is largely the role of the opposition, but it is also the role of members who are not ministers or parliamentary secretaries, members who are in the governing party but are not members of the government per se. All members of the House who are not directly connected to the government have a role and responsibility to ask questions of their government to make sure that the government is being held to account.

When we hear questions on this side of the House, they are generally directed to a particular minister and certainly have to do with government business. If they are not, the Speaker controls it. When we hear questions from members of the Conservative Party, they are generally infomercials for the government's particular issue du jour. We need more accountability in this place.

Responsible government presumes that the members of the House want their government to be held accountable. It seems that over the last many years, slowly but surely, that power has eroded. The executive sits in the House, unlike in the United States where the executive sits apart from their house of assembly. The executive sits right here in front of us and we have the opportunity to ask questions directly to it, but for historical reasons that have crept up very slowly but very insidiously over time, we have allowed the government to get away with things.

We have allowed government members not to answer questions. We have allow them not to be held accountable in the manner that they must. We have allowed them to pass omnibus bills that are almost impossible to get through in the time allocated for us to study them. We cannot possibly ask all of the questions that are pertinent to a brick that is several hundred pages long.

We need the tools. The House has created specific offices to help us with that control. The Auditor General's office, the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer and various tools have been created. The problem is, for instance, the Parliamentary Budget Officer's budget is simply insufficient to do the work that he needs to do, especially when the government introduces omnibus bills that are very difficult to get through. The executive seems to be making a point of making it as hard as possible for government members to be held to account.

As legislators, as members of the House, we need to start taking our role of control over the executive seriously. The motion is one step toward that. It is a small step, but a step in the right direction. We cannot forgo our responsibilities. We have to be held to account as members, and as members we have to hold our government to account.

I am very happy to see that the other opposition party seems to be supporting the motion. I certainly hope that the governing party is going to as well.

[Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, September 26th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciated my colleague's speech. I think that her conclusions are of particular interest. We often hear from the other side of the House that the bill before us is based on the Nordic model. Quite frankly, that is far from the truth. It is outright criminalization of prostitution. Unfortunately, the bill does not in any way respond to the Supreme Court ruling.

I was wondering whether my colleague could comment on the fact that the Conservatives are not listening to the Supreme Court. The NDP has said many times that we should respect Supreme Court rulings and rely on them in order to take the right approach when drafting our bills.

Does my colleague agree that the bill before us does not reflect the Supreme Court ruling and requires drastic changes to gain the support of Canadians?

[Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, September 26th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank our colleague from Ottawa—Orléans for his speech. I do not agree with him, but his speech was well thought out.

Unfortunately, the bill before us does not seem to reflect the Supreme Court's ruling, which dealt with the safety of women and not with criminalizing prostitution. As the parliamentary secretary and member for Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe said, this does not prevent women from engaging in prostitution in a protected area away from the street.

As pointed out in the Supreme Court ruling and the testimony, a safe and secure place is not necessarily a place where women can engage in prostitution.

Does the member agree with the leader of the NDP, who says that the bill should better reflect the Supreme Court's ruling and not just focus on criminalization?

[Fisheries and Oceans, September 25th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, in July, the Ocean Breaker, a factory ship, was seen fishing in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. We have a regulation prohibiting factory ships from fishing in the gulf, and there are no exceptions. A permit was issued, contrary to DFO's own regulations.

This is not healthy management, it hurts local fishers, and it proves that the minister has not given up on her latest attempt to eliminate the fleet separation policy.

Why did the minister issue that permit?