Pierre Dionne Labelle

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1, May 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I apologize for referring to the Prime Minister by his surname. I withdraw that remark.

Budget 2013 could lower economic growth by 0.12% and eliminate thousands of jobs, reduce direct program spending and slow growth in gross domestic product. Bear in mind that this year's budget will extend $5.2 billion in cuts every year until we achieve the alleged zero deficit. Whatever the Conservatives may say, this budget, like the other austerity budgets previously introduced, will slow rather than stimulate Canada's economy.

Why then move so quickly toward eliminating the deficit, despite the International Monetary Fund's urging to calm down, reflect, and rely on something other than known errors of economic theory?

In fact, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer's calculations, the government will achieve an even larger surplus than planned of $3.7 billion in 2015-16, when Canadians will go to the polls. Is that the reason for these reductions and cuts, the possibility that the government may have $3.7 billion in hand before the election to invest at the appropriate time for strictly political purposes?

My colleague Peggy Nash recently mentioned this. In Bill C-60, the Harper government is doing nothing to support—

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1, May 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, hon. members, allow me to digress for a moment before getting to the heart of the matter.

The new leader of the Liberal Party knows nothing about the middle class. He does not know what it is like to lose his job or to have to wait for employment insurance benefits. He does not know the problems that come with receiving an unexpected bill. He cannot understand the difficulties the middle class experiences.

As with the last two budget implementation bills, the NDP opposes Bill C-60 for its content and for the process. I will use my time to explain why.

The austerity measures of the past few years, both in North America and in Europe, have not produced the desired economic results, to say the least. Just recently, the staunchest supporters of austerity measures had to acknowledge two mistakes that had been made. Our Conservative friends do not seem to be aware of them or do not understand their implications.

Last October, the International Monetary Fund—the IMF—acknowledged that it had made a calculation error in assessing the impact of those austerity measures, particularly in the southern European countries. What was the error? Simply that it used a fiscal multiplier estimated at a 0.5% drop in GDP. This was seriously underestimated, not a little, but a lot: nearly three times that ratio.

What the IMF is admitting is that the negative factor was not 0.5, it was actually between 0.9 and 1.7. In simple terms, that means that a one-point cutback in public spending did not result in just a 0.5-point drop in GDP, but a drop of between 0.9 and 1.7 points. Understandably, that revelation has caused considerable discomfort in Europe.

There is every reason to think that the real reason for that discomfort is ideological. Yes indeed. Greece was used as a testing ground out of which only one of the two theories of the cosmos would emerge victorious: Keynesian interventionism versus the liberalism of Friedman, which, like our colleagues opposite, hopes to see the state disappear, or at least be reduced to a minimum. The mastermind behind this operation knew all along that it would lead to the irrevocable and permanent disappearance of Keynes’s legacy, since it would prove that austerity and nothing but austerity would lead to growth. Small mistake. It is exactly that belief that is shared by our ideologue colleagues opposite.

The IMF experiment turned into a fiasco, a huge fiasco. In Europe, it is responsible for 4,000 suicides, the impoverishment of 3.5 million people and a two-year drop in life expectancy. It is also responsible for an unemployment rate that is beyond comprehension, an explosion in the number of elective abortions, abandoned infants, the dismantling of human lives and families, homeless people in numbers that are out of control, because of the ongoing destruction of the middle class—yes, that is right, we are talking about the middle class—and the intolerable spectacle of Greeks, in the 21st century, hunting through garbage to find something to eat. Those are the horrors of austerity.

Europe seems to be suffering the terrible consequences of a mistaken estimate, in view of the negative growth rates, approaching zero, experienced in recent years and exploding debt followed by unemployment rates that just keep going up.

The International Monetary Fund’s chief economist, Olivier Blanchard, has in fact said that economic activity is so weak in Europe that all governments that are still able should do nothing that risks shrinking their social safety net.

Is a shrinking social safety net not what we are seeing in Canada with the planned cuts to employment insurance?

I would like to talk about the second economic error that was recently acknowledged by staunch supporters of austerity measures. Reinhart and Rogoff, two economists at Harvard University, asserted that a country's economic growth slowed when its debt exceeded 80% of GDP. The Conservatives, who abhor deficits, are panicking.

This false economic assumption was used by far too many supporters of fiscal restraint. Numerous countries relied on this study, which was exploited for political purposes, and took the same stance on fiscal restraint, with serious consequences: civil servants' salaries were frozen, there was structural reform, taxes were raised and so on. That is exactly what the Conservatives are proposing with Bill C-60.

On April 17, the attention of economists around the world was focused on a discovery made by Thomas Herndon, a young economist at the University of Massachusetts. With the help of his professors, he recalculated the famous Rogoff and Reinhart numbers. They realized that when debt exceeded 90% of GDP, average growth was not -0.1%, it was 2%. The reason for this difference is that Rogoff and Reinhart do not seem to have included a number of countries in their calculations. They excluded Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Belgium between 1946 and 1950. Their calculations were inaccurate, and the premise that growth stagnates when debt exceeds 90% of GDP is false. Herndon's study proves that.

What does all that mean for Canada? Despite these proven errors, despite the warnings of the International Monetary Fund and the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the Conservative government is sticking to austerity measures by introducing Bill C-60. In a 32-page paper published by his office, the Parliamentary Budget Officer calculated that the Conservative government's 2013 budget will have a net negative impact on the labour market over three years. Employment will fall by 8,000 jobs in 2015, 14,000 in 2016 and 10,000 in 2017. The net impact of the budget-cutting measures that the Conservative government has taken since 2012 will amount to a loss of more than 67,000 jobs in 2017.

The Conservatives, who like to boast of their job creation record, are living in an ideological bubble. In the meantime, 1.5 million Canadians are out of work and we now have 240,000 more unemployed youth than before the recession. Despite that fact, the only measure in Bill C-60 that will create jobs is the addition of new cabinet ministers.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer has clearly stated that the Conservatives' savage cuts announced in budget 2013 are not necessary to restore a structural budget surplus. On the contrary, combined with the anemic global economic recovery, the austerity measures imposed by the Harper government will further slow economic growth and job creation.

Budget 2013 could lower—

[Petitions, May 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition signed by residents of Prévost who are opposed to Vidéotron erecting a telecommunications tower in their community. They feel as though the rights of residents and people in neighbouring communities were not respected.

[Business of Supply, April 25th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, far be it from me to pick apart my colleague's arguments, but I want to take a closer look at the two figures he mentioned.

He talked about 737 megatonnes in 2005 and 702 megatonnes in 2011, which is a reduction of 35 megatonnes. He also talked about a period of uninterrupted growth. I would like to remind my esteemed colleague that, during that period, we experienced the worst financial and economic crisis since the last world war. I would like to know how many of those 35 megatonnes are directly attributable to the economic slowdown and how many to measures adopted by the government. I am having a hard time telling them apart. Can my honourable colleague clarify?

I would also like to know what measures have been taken with respect to nitrous oxide in the agriculture sector?

[Combating Terrorism Act, April 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the comments by the member for Laurentides—Labelle.

I would like to know what he thinks about this. The fight against terrorism allows a number of things to happen. I am particularly thinking of the increased use of drones in the U.S. I hope that, one day, a motion condemning the use of drones by our allies will be tabled in the House, because I think that provides fertile ground for terrorism.

Last week, I read an article about a drone that gunned down a city in Pakistan and killed twelve small children.

Could the hon. member comment on that?

[Combating Terrorism Act, April 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the danger lies in the potential for abuse.

When fundamental rights are taken away, the authorities can abuse power. Consider my neighbour who was arrested because of the police sketches of people with beards and long hair. Today, we would call this racial profiling. We do not want racial profiling in Canada.

We want our police officers to have the money and the tools they need to prevent terrorism without resorting to racial profiling. That might work one time in 20, but every other time it leads to legal errors. In such cases, all of society loses.

[Combating Terrorism Act, April 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, when the member says that terrorism today is not the same as it was in the past, he must be forgetting that there were deaths in Quebec, that bombs were planted and, above all, that the law invoked took away civil liberties and turned out to be unnecessary.

I do not understand how he can say that terrorism today is not the same as it was in the past, and that the situation is different. I am sorry, but I do not agree with what he said. One day, the Trudeau government's legacy with respect to this issue will be judged by history.

We already know that the RCMP, and others, had established terrorist cells. How was the situation used by those in power? We still do not know. One day, we will find out.

[Combating Terrorism Act, April 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by saying that we were all outraged and shocked by the events that happened in Boston, and we offer our heartfelt sympathy to the families.

In our democratic societies, we cannot tolerate the use of violence for political ends, whatever they may be, and we strongly condemn it.

After the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the American and Canadian governments panicked and decided to put a set of measures in place quickly to enhance the fight against terrorism. One of those measures was Bill C-36, the Anti-terrorism Act. Some clauses in that act were enacted temporarily—they were applied for an initial five-year period to see whether they were necessary and effective. Today we are seeing an attempt, in Bill S-7, to incorporate those clauses into the act on a permanent basis.

When I read the brief on Bill S-7 by Denis Barrette of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, I was struck by his comments on preventive detention. That term brings back painful memories of the October crisis of 1970. In Quebec, we have experienced terrorism. I remember the military barracks that were blown up. I remember the death of a sergeant, the bomb at the Montreal Stock Exchange and bombs in mailboxes. The governments of the day decided to suspend civil liberties and, rightly or wrongly, to invoke the War Measures Act. I was young at the time. I was 14 years old and going to high school.

In my neighbourhood of bungalows, we watched as 40 soldiers, armed to the teeth, got out of their vehicles. They went around to the houses knocking on doors to talk to us about things we knew nothing about. They asked us whether we knew people connected with the Front de libération du Québec. They had composite drawings. At that time, we did not have the photographs and all the digital equipment we have today. The soldiers showed us composite drawings of bearded men with long hair who might have looked like our neighbours. They asked us whether we knew those people or had seen them. They went to the home of my neighbour, who had a beard and long hair, and they took him away. He looked like the person in the composite drawing. Did he have connections with the FLQ? No one knew. The people in my neighbourhood knew the guy because he worked in a café. Young people went there and I imagine they may have smoked some substances that were illegal at the time, but to our knowledge he was not a terrorist, and it turns out that in fact he was not one.

When the War Measures Act was declared, the authorities carried out 36,000 searches without warrant and arrested 457 people. They called that "preventive arrest". That is just what we find in the bill before us now. When a government panics, it makes preventive arrests. When I read in the notes that preventive arrests would be possible, I decided that we must maintain our current laws, because the police have enough laws at their disposal. Yesterday we saw the arrest of two suspected terrorists, Jaser and Esseghaier. There was no need to make preventive arrests, take people into police custody and interrogate them, wait for their responses and put them in prison if they did not live up to police expectations. We went through such a period of preventive arrests in Quebec and where did it get us?

How many of the 457 people who were “preventively” arrested were charged with belonging to a terrorist movement? One may well ask. The Keable commission investigated. There were some answers. There was the MacDonald commission, which was blocked by the Supreme Court of Canada, because provincial commissions are not entitled to investigate the activities of the RCMP.

Some day, perhaps, when all the documents have been made public, we will know all the facts about this dark period in Canadian history and Quebec history. For now, we know that the suppression of civil liberties during that time was unjustified and produced nothing. Many people still claim even today that when the War Measures Act was declared, the police already knew where the kidnappers of James Cross and Pierre Laporte were. That is our basis for holding on to the laws that make it impossible for someone to be arrested without knowing why, that ensure that anyone arrested has the right to remain silent and be represented by counsel, and that ensure that the force of the state should never be used to compel individuals to testify against themselves.

In conclusion, I will read from the statement made by Mr. Barrette when he appeared at the committee I mentioned earlier. I will read it completely, for the people watching us and for those who still believe it is necessary to maintain civil liberties despite increasing terrorism. In fact, terrorism sometimes makes us forget our fundamental principles that make us want to live in a free and democratic society. Terrorism has achieved its goal when it succeeds in limiting our civil liberties, because that is its goal.

The International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group and the Ligue des droits et libertés believe the provisions relating to investigative hearings and recognizance with conditions to be both dangerous and misleading.

Parliamentary debate of this matter ought to be based on a rational and informed review of the Anti-terrorism Act, a piece of legislation that was rushed through Parliament after the events of September 11, 2001 in a climate of fear and in response to considerable pressure from the United States.

Today, what is the real, objective need for these two provisions? From the time they were adopted in 2001 until they were terminated in 2007, the only time they were used was in connection with the Air India affair, which as we know, resulted in an unfortunate fiasco. In 2007 and now, police have been able to investigate and block terrorist plots without using the provisions being discussed. That is clear. It is possible to prevent terrorist attacks using the legal tools we already have. There is no need to further limit individual and collective rights.

Moreover, since 2001, 10 years ago, of all the investigations leading to charges or convictions, none has required the use of these extraordinary powers, including the case of the Toronto 18, a more recent case involving four people from the Toronto area, and even yesterday, the case involving the two people who planned to derail a VIA Rail train. We know that these provisions could be used in a way we consider abusive. I am thinking of the Air India case. We believe that Canadians will be better served and protected if the ordinary provisions of the Criminal Code are used, rather than these unnecessary provisions.

Reliance on arbitrary powers and a lower standard of evidence can never replace good, effective police work. That goes without saying.

[Taxation, April 22nd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives may try to seem holier-than-thou, but people are not fools. They know that an increase in customs tariffs is an increase in taxes, period.

For instance, recreational fishers will have to spend more money this summer. Fishing lines, reels and rods will be more expensive. The Conservatives's tax hike will also affect outdoor enthusiasts and campers. They will raise taxes on camp stoves, coolers, and hatchets. Really, what do they have against camping?

Why do the Conservatives want to tax outdoor enthusiasts?

[Employment Insurance, April 17th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, in my riding, the Conservatives are ordering a former machinist at Aveos, a father of six, to pay back $9,000 in employment insurance benefits.

He and 1,500 other Aveos workers are in the government's crosshairs, all because Aveos shut down when the Conservative government refused to enforce the Air Canada Public Participation Act.

Why are the Conservatives so determined to make employment insurance claimants pay the price for the government's bad decisions? Will they get off the backs of Aveos workers?