Randall Garrison

[Petitions, February 25th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the first of many petitions, containing signatures from hundreds of Canadians in my riding and across the country, in support of Motion No. 460, which urges the government to provide protection for the southern resident killer whales. It has been 10 years since they have been designated as an endangered species, and we still have no recovery plan in place.

[An Act to amend the Federal Sustainable Development Act (duty to examine), February 14th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in favour of Bill C-481 at second reading, and wish to congratulate my colleague, the member for Brome—Missisquoi, for his foresight in introducing the bill.

Indeed, I am one of the members of the House who is optimistic enough to hope that we have not passed the tipping point in the damage we have done to the environment. However, even if we have not passed the apocalyptic tipping point, we have already gone so far that we have unleashed changes in our environment that will be difficult and expensive to deal with. We, as the current tenants on this planet, are already certain to leave a huge environmental debt to future generations.

Bill C-481 is an amendment to the Federal Sustainable Development Act, an act which was passed unanimously by this House in 2008. Amending that act by passing Bill C-481 would ensure that all future laws and regulations introduced by the federal minister would be in compliance with the principles of the Federal Sustainable Development Act. This would require the minister to give notice of any incompatibility to the House of Commons at the first opportunity.

The Department of Justice already has an obligations to examine all bills and regulations for conformity with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Bill C-481 simply adds another aspect to this process.

Unfortunately, the government has adopted a very narrow definition for protecting the environment, as we can easily see in budget 2014. This is a budget which contains no mention of climate change, let alone any significant commitment to combat this threat to our common future. Instead, the largest measure, what the government calls environmental protection, is nearly $400 million to improve highways and bridges so Canadians can drive through their national parks.

No one should mistake what I am saying. Of course, I support measures to reverse the neglect of the infrastructure in national parks. However, this hardly qualifies as environment protection or a measure to address climate change.

There are some additional measures in the budget which move us in a positive direction to the environment, such as a small expansion of the tax support for clean energy generation, and $500 million for implementation of the Species at Risk Act. It is my hope that a portion of this allocation for the Species at Risk Act would be used to implement a recovery strategy for the southern resident killer whale. This is a strategy that I called for in Motion No. 460 last fall, and we have yet to hear a word from the government about implementing that. In fact, on Vancouver Island, we are still waiting for action to protect this iconic species, more than 10 years after they were listed as endangered.

It is not just in the budget where we see the Conservative government ignoring the principles of the Federal Sustainable Development Act, which I remind the House was passed unanimously in 2008. Let me turn to the question of water as an example.

In the alternative federal budget 2014 called “Striking a Better Balance”, produced by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, there is an excellent chapter devoted to what is happening to what should be our most precious resource: water.

What would a sustainable development approach to water entail? We would, of course, need a national water policy that would entrench the principles of water as a human right and as a public trust. Instead, we have no national policy on water at all. Then we would need comprehensive strategies and plans for protecting water resources, mechanisms to monitor and assess the implementation of those plans, and accountability mechanisms to ensure that water is actually protected. All of these are missing in Canada.

If we had Bill C-481 in place, the gap in the performance of the government when it comes to water would be made explicit. Bill C-481 would force us to evaluate things in the current budget, such as government support for expanding offshore drilling in the Arctic, or government support for pipeline projects in terms of sustainable development. These are tests that it would surely fail.

Returning to the alternative federal budget for a moment, we can see some of the things that could have been in the budget, and proposals which would pass the sustainability evaluation test. The alternative federal budget calls for establishing a national framework for water protection and recommends some urgent projects necessary for halting the decline in the quality of our water resources and beginning the process of restoration.

It calls for strong measures to protect our groundwater. Our attention to groundwater protection has been woeful, especially considering that one-third of Canadians depend on groundwater for their drinking water. We lack even the thorough mapping of our groundwater resources that is necessary before we can tackle this program. We urgently need legislation to prohibit the extraction of groundwater in quantities that exceed the recharge rate. We need legislation to establish the principle of local users first, and to ban the bulk exports of water resources. All of these are measures that could have been included in what the government likes to call its “action plan for 2014”.

Another proposal would take action to turn Canada away from its dependence on fossil fuels. It not only contributes to climate change, but it also has a severe impact on our water quality, particularly in the ecosystems downstream from the tar sands.

Of course, if we cast our thoughts back to the Conservative omnibus budget of 2012, we would recall the wholesale withdrawal of the Conservative government from freshwater protection, with a narrowing of habitat protection to only those waters that support commercial fishing. How could anyone argue that it would have survived the scrutiny proposed by Bill C-481?

I have spent some time discussing the government's failures to protect our precious water resources. I have done so not just because of its urgency, but because the bill we are debating today, proposed by the member for Brome—Missisquoi, would provide a practical way of moving forward and making sure that all future governments work toward a more sustainable future.

It will be interesting to see how the Conservative government ultimately decides to respond to this bill, given that all parties previously supported the Federal Sustainable Development Act. I would think, therefore, that members on the opposite side would also be willing to support Bill C-481.

I know that my time is short today, and I could give many more examples of the Conservative government's failures to adhere to the principles in the Federal Sustainable Development Act, but I want to come back to some concluding principles that we need to honour here in the House.

One of these has to do with Canada's international trade. A lot of damage has been done at the international level not only by our failure to be leaders but also by our being awarded the fossil of the day award for opposition to progress on international environmental accords. Good environment protections are needed to improve Canada's international trade relationships and to help fix this damage to our international reputation.

The Federal Sustainable Development Act, which was, again, unanimously agreed to, said that sustainable development is a principle that must be at the heart of government decision-making. However, we have a Conservative government that has been in power now since 2006 and which discards those sustainability principles every time it gets the chance to.

The government tries to argue that we have to choose between a healthy economy and good jobs and a clean, sustainable environment. In fact, we cannot have one without the other. We know from all of the economic studies that investments in clean, renewable energy, dollar for capital dollar, create far more jobs than our continuing over-investment in fossil fuel industries do. Not only that, investments in renewable energy create jobs in every community in Canada, not just in the few privileged communities that sit on top of resources.

Once again, if we return to that principle of sustainable development, it is not just environmental sustainability we are talking about, it is economic sustainability. If we are to pursue a sustainable future, we have to create jobs in communities all across the country.

In my own riding, I am particularly inspired by the T’Sou-ke First Nation. I have talked about it several times in the House. When it comes to sustainable development, the T’Sou-ke First Nation is setting a shining example for all Canadians. It held a retreat of the whole communities, where leadership was provided by the elders. They said, “Let us become the first solar first nation in the country. Let us move off the grid. We lived for thousands of years without the electricity grid, so let us move off it”.

Today, the T’Sou-ke First Nation is independent of the power grid. It generates its own power, both through solar panels on the roof of its first nations office and through something else that is very interesting: the T’Sou-ke First Nation trained its young people to become solar installers, and now it has solar hot water. I believe that it is installed in every house on the reserve, with one or two at the end that are missing. Now, it also has a trained workforce that can go out and work in other communities to help them become less dependent on non-renewable energies.

Let me conclude by saying that what we need to do, as suggested in Bill C-481, is ensure that our decisions are informed by sustainable development. We must make sure that we do not create environmental and financial burdens for future generations.

The Conservative government's record on environmental issues is clearly one of failure. When it comes time to choose, Canadians will see that only the New Democrats can be trusted to stand up for Canada's environment, now and for future generations.

[Northwest Territories Devolution Act, February 14th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine for a very insightful speech on Bill C-15.

One of the things the member mentioned was the way in which particularly the Conservative government tends to ignore local input. For instance, I wonder if he sees some parallels with the way the Conservatives ignore local input and local priorities in the way the rail service in his area has been treated. I wonder if he sees any parallels with the bill before us on that.

[The Budget, February 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Malpeque for his question. It is one of the things that I was most disappointed with in the budget. As I said in my speech, the government seems to believe that jobs create themselves.

We know that one of the quickest ways to get job creation going is to do things that would help promote small business. If the government had done something about poverty or seniors living in poverty, those people would go out and spend that money in their local communities. They would spend it in small businesses, their corner stores, and they would help to get the economy going again. However, there is nothing here where the government creates a climate that would help small business grow and develop. There is nothing for youth employment, which is a very severe crisis all across this country.

[The Budget, February 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am not going to thank the member for his question because I think his question is quite distorted. I have never said anything to attack the families who work in the oil sands. I am saying that if we put all of our eggs in the basket of fossil fuels we are headed down the wrong road.

I am not saying close down the oil sands and lay off those workers. What I am saying is let us have a sustainable future that will provide family-supporting jobs all across the country, and not just in one area. We will see what happens when we come to the end of those oil sands investments. If oil prices drop, those people are going to be laid off very quickly. This is not an affordable industry in the long term.

With regard to the second part of the member's question, I am not opposed to balanced budgets. The government has choices to make, and the government has chosen to give up billions of dollars in revenue by giving tax cuts to big corporations and then paying for those on the backs of ordinary working Canadians.

[The Budget, February 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to rise to speak to budget 2014. Having looked at the budget, unfortunately, I find it a cynical document with nothing in it to address the most urgent needs of Canadians.

I cannot find anything in the budget for child care. I cannot find anything for affordable housing, I cannot find anything for veterans, and I cannot find anything that would help make life more affordable for ordinary families in this country.

Instead, the Conservatives have tabled a political document, one that is much more concerned with setting the stage for an election budget in 2015 than it is in meeting the real needs of Canadians.

The Conservatives are unfortunately continuing down the austerity path, with large, though quiet, cuts in government expenditures. These would result in job losses in communities all across the country and reductions in critical government services.

It seems clear that the Conservatives have held back on announcing a balanced budget, both to justify further cuts in services and then to allow them to present an election year budget with whatever tax cuts or new expenditures the Conservatives would think might convince voters to forget their poor economic performance and re-elect them. No matter how much they try to hide that record, we know there are 300,000 more unemployed in Canada now than before the recession. Moreover, federal debt is at an all-time high, and Canada is running all-time high trade deficits. So much for the Conservatives being better managers of the economy.

Where are the incentives for job creation in the budget? New Democrats have proposed practical measures to help Canadians get back to work, like job creation tax credits for youth and small business. Instead, the budget perpetuates the chaos in job training programs and seems likely to prolong a dispute with the provinces over job training. In the meantime, what will we see? I am expecting more ads for non-existent programs.

We have also heard the Conservatives in the last couple of days repeatedly ridicule the leader of the third party for his statement that budgets can somehow balance themselves. While it is, I admit, a somewhat unusual statement, I think it is actually one that describes well the Conservative approach to employment, where they seem to believe that jobs will create themselves and that the government has no role in trying to help make sure Canadians have those family supporting jobs they are looking for.

At a time when we have seen several economists come forward to point out the obvious, that the historical record of austerity budgets is that they never lead to growth and prosperity, we can only wonder where we would actually be now in this country if the minority government situation in Canada had not forced the Conservatives to adopt a stimulus program in the early days of the recession. However, in this budget, we can see that the Conservatives have reverted to their ideological form and are now back to trying to cut their way to prosperity.

There are also some other ways in which the budget reverts to form for the Conservatives. This is also a budget with no mention of climate change. Instead, there is money to speed up project approvals at the National Energy Board, with some $28 million over two years. This, of course, is a confirmation of the intention of the Conservative government to continue down the wrong path of over-investment in the fossil fuel industries, which are, of course, major contributors to global warming. The budget fails to eliminate the ongoing subsidies to big oil and in fact expands them with the introduction of further tax breaks for offshore oil and gas exploration.

What would New Democrats like to see instead? We would like to see restoration of the eco-energy retrofit program. It would not only put us on a path toward more sustainable energy, but also help homeowners reduce their energy bills, making it easier to make ends meet at the end of the month.

Some of my colleagues on the other side might ask, is there nothing positive I can see in this budget? I will admit there are a few things here that may be positive. I say that with reservation, because I too often have seen references to things the government intends to do that have either failed to materialize or have been so deluded to have little real impact on the economy.

Still, I am glad to see a promise to do something about pay-to-pay billing. I am glad to see money to expand access to high-speed Internet in rural and remote areas, and I am glad to see interest-free loans for those in the red seal apprenticeship programs.

I am also glad to see the government re-investing in food safety, and I am glad to see this promise to re-hire 200 food inspectors. I have to remind the government that this is necessary, because it previously cut more than 300 inspectors in its ill-advised shift to an approach where companies inspect themselves. This is the same approach it tried to apply to rail safety, which has resulted in tragedies like those we saw in Lac-Mégantic in Quebec.

Although I am prepared to recognize a few good things, I have to say that these are far outweighed by some important cuts that will have a heavy impact on constituents in my riding. While this is generally a do-nothing budget, and I agree that is true, there are some things here that will have real impacts.

One of those things is the attack on the supplemental health benefits of retired public servants. I have more than 1,000 retired public servants living in my riding, who have written to me with concerns about the government's treatment of their future. The Conservatives are unfairly doubling the health care costs of a large group of seniors who already live on fixed incomes. They made their plans based on a good faith bargain that was struck with the government. That has been betrayed by the Conservative government, and they have no way to respond because they are already retired. This will cause very serious problems.

I heard a member on the other side, in debate, say that they can choose not to have extended health benefits. Of course, we know what that will lead to, which is probably financial disaster for seniors without extended health care benefits.

Another serious problem in my riding is the two-year freeze on spending in all government departments. We know that annual operating costs will inevitably increase. This freeze will result in across-the-board reductions in important government services and mounting job losses, whether through attrition or lay-offs. We have seen the Department of National Defence put off capital expenditures that it promised, which will lead to the delay of purchase and delivery of important equipment to the Canadian Forces.

Another thing we have seen in this budget is a renewed attack on charities and trade unions. It is clear that the Conservative government is bound and determined to use bureaucratic witch hunts to go after those it perceives to be its enemies.

As I am concerned that I have limited time to talk about this budget, I want to go back to what I think is missing from it. There are many things, easy things, that are not high cost, that the Conservative government could have done to help families make ends meet at the end of the month.

In this budget, we find no cap on ATM fees. In the debate on ATM fees, again and again I heard Conservatives stand up and say they did not understand what the problem was. Why did people not just go to their own bank?

I can tell members that there are parts of my riding where people do not have a bank. They are forced to depend on these cash machines that charge up to $6.00 or $7.00 for withdrawals.

There is nothing in this budget on excessive credit card fees. I am not just talking about consumers here, but both consumers and small business. These excessive credit card fees contribute to the skyrocketing profits of banks and reduced bottom lines for small businesses. When many families run out of money at the end of the month, they do not really have a choice other than to use the credit card to buy necessities, and they end up paying these high fees.

There is nothing in this budget that restores services to veterans. In my riding, which is a very large military riding, I sat down with veterans at the Legion, along with my NDP leader, just after Remembrance Day. We met with injured veterans and heard their very personal stories of how tough it is for them, and how tough it will be when they lose face-to-face services that they need to help them with serious operational health injuries, including mental health injuries.

Instead, in this budget we see that the government intends to press ahead with its closures and reductions of service for veterans. Its line, which I frankly find insulting to veterans, is to say that there are basically 600 phone lines, or offices that veterans can go to, which have no specialization in their needs and, in practice, are unable to help them.

There is nothing in this budget to address skyrocketing household debt, advance public safety, and there is no commitment to expand the renewable energy sector. The renewable energy sector is one that creates far more jobs in communities across the country per dollar of capital expenditure than does investing in big oil and gas. There is nothing for the millions of Canadians who are looking for those good family-supporting jobs, which so often disappear from our local economies.

What we have is a do-nothing budget. It is a political document designed to give room to the Conservatives to try to bribe Canadians with their own money to vote for them again in 2015. I could not be more disappointed in the Conservatives' record and this budget.

[Northwest Territories Devolution Act, February 11th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Calgary Centre for her question because it illustrates the problem on the other side of the House.

The Conservatives continually see people as obstacles to development. On this side of the House, we see people as integral to development. If we do not have the support of people, and if they do not achieve benefits locally from a development process, then it is not a good project.

Whenever people raise those questions about how development would meet the needs for long-term, sustainable, family-supporting jobs, the Conservatives see that as opposition to development. I think that is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the people in the north and in my province of British Columbia are saying. They are not opposed to development, but they want to know if that development would create jobs, support their families, and sustain the environment in the long term.

[Northwest Territories Devolution Act, February 11th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague, the member for Western Arctic, not only for his question but also for his tireless advocacy of northerners in this Parliament, and for the full respect of their right to be treated like all other Canadians and to have a voice in managing their affairs in the future.

I think the member brings up a very good point in that we have an example in the Inuvialuit settlement agreement and the regional government, which is working very well. However, it would be left in place while other people in the Northwest Territories would be denied the same opportunity.

The member points to what we can only call “irony” as it was the federal government under the Mulroney Conservatives that encouraged the development of regional governments. Now, a later Conservative government comes along, suggests something completely different, and begins to dismantle those regional government powers. I think this will lead to a feeling inequality within the Northwest Territories.

[Northwest Territories Devolution Act, February 11th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to the NDP amendments to Bill C-15 at report stage.

I want to start on a personal note, my own observations of the glacial progress toward devolution and self-government in the Northwest Territories.

My first job out of university was with the Government of the Northwest Territories, and this was some 40 years ago when the Commissioner of the Northwest Territories was appointed by the Prime Minister and acted as a colonial governor of the north. I lived there for two years, working as the deputy registrar of vital statistics and the superintendent of treaty Indian band membership. That gave me the privilege of working with first nations all across the Northwest Territories at that time. I got to know the young and emerging leaders, at that time, who are now the chiefs of the Northwest Territories.

It was also the time that the first proposal for the Mackenzie Valley pipeline was made. At that time, nations were asking for time to get themselves organized to do the training they needed to organize their own government, so they could respond to development projects. What we now see, some 40 years later, is that they do have that capacity to manage their own affairs and are really asking that the federal government respect the agreements they reached with the federal government in terms of local development boards. That is why the leader of the NDP moved the amendments today, to remove the two sections that would undercut the whole purpose of devolution and self-government progress in the Northwest Territories.

When I left the NWT, I returned to UBC to do graduate work in political science, and I actually wrote my M.A. thesis on government and politics in the Northwest Territories and the contradictions that existed at that time between the colonial system and the desire for self-government among first nations in the north.

Staying on the personal note for just a while longer, after teaching for a few years I came to work for the NDP leader at the House of Commons in 1981, and I was attached to the Special Committee of the House of Commons on Indian Self-Government. Once again, I was privileged to work with first nations all across the country in what resulted in the Penner report, which was the seminal report on self-government 30 years ago and which argued that there needed to be a firm economic basis for first nations self-government, and there needed be to recognition, which subsequently came in the Constitution, of the inherent rights of aboriginal people.

We have made some progress in terms of rights, and first nations have made lots of progress in terms of their capacity. However, we have been very slow in taking that through to a devolution of the Government of the Northwest Territories and coming up with a truly democratic processes in Canada's north.

Since that time I have only been an observer, living in a province, as most Canadians do, where there is full self-government and where there is local input into the important resource development decisions. Therefore for me, it is very frustrating to have Bill C-15 before us today in its present form. No one disputes that there are very good things in this bill and that devolution of the powers over resources to the Northwest Territories government would provide the basis for long-term economic security in the north. Devolution is supported in the north, and it is supported by all parties here in the House.

The arguments in the 1970s and 1980s, when I was working both academically and as a researcher on this, were always made that the Northwest Territories was not really financially self-supporting and, therefore, was not really entitled to self-government. Of course, at that time and to this day, resource revenues from the north were assigned to the federal government. In fact, if we went back to the 1970s and assigned those resource revenues as they would have been in a province, then the Northwest Territories was equally as self-supporting as were any of the maritime provinces and Newfoundland. However, those resource revenues go directly to the federal government to this day.

The last time we had a transfer of responsibilities in the north was in the 1980s, when the Government of the Northwest Territories took over education, health care, transportation, and renewable resources like forestry and wildlife. It has been very successful in running a normal democratic government in the north. Now we have had a 20-year delay before we are prepared to make the transfer of those remaining responsibilities over the natural resources to the NWT. Therefore, this bill does a very positive thing, saying that, yes, now public lands and resources and waters would be governed by the Government of the Northwest Territories and 50% of the resource revenues for resource development of public lands would go to the Government of the NWT. It is not 100%, but a deal has been struck here where 50% would go to the Government of the Northwest Territories in return for an ongoing transfer by the federal government, which has probably been accepted by the north as providing some kind of resource stability, because we know that resource revenues can be quite volatile.

Unfortunately, we have another situation here like ones we have seen many times in the House of Commons. Whenever the Conservatives claim to be rolling out the red carpet, we have to take a close look for the tacks that are underneath that carpet before walking down it happily.

Here the red carpet is devolution. The tacks that are under the carpet are the amendments to the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act. That is why the Leader of the Opposition, seconded by the member for Western Arctic, proposed to remove sections 136 and 137 from the bill this morning. It would take out those tacks that have been hidden in the bill.

As many speakers have pointed out, these two sections would take the four regional resource management boards—I should say three boards and the one board for those regions that do not have land claim settlements—and it would collapse them into one board. Then all the decisions on land and water use in the Northwest Territories, apart from those lands that are under the Inuvialuit settlement act, would fall under a single board.

That board would replace regional boards created under land claims settlements that were signed by the Sahtu, the Tlicho, and the Gwich'in first nations, signed in good faith by both parties at the time. Why try to replace those regional boards, which give local voice in development projects, with one superboard now?

It is not really clear where this idea came from. In reviewing the hearings, testimony, and consultations, we see it is not an idea that seemed to come from the north. It is an idea that is apparently modelled on what goes on in Alberta, in terms of approval of resource projects. It is certainly not something that anyone in the north asked for.

Now we are in the situation where, in order to get devolution, the Government of the Northwest Territories has had to agree to an act that includes these changes.

This morning we heard the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development arguing that regional boards somehow interfere with resource development, but if we actually look at the facts we see the system seems to be working quite well. In the last year, both exploration activity and resource revenues in the Northwest Territories were up.

More importantly, regional boards work in respecting local rights and in building local support, which is essential for the long-term success of regional development projects.

For me, Bill C-15 illustrates, once again, the failure of the Conservatives in terms of trust and respect for local people, and trust and respect for first nations.

First nations have waited for many years for the rest of us to recognize and respect their rights, and to recognize that this respect for aboriginal rights is essential to achieving our common goals as Canadians. If we want to move forward together, we have to actually do it together as equal partners.

In these two sections of this bill, Conservatives are also demonstrating their failure to trust local residents. Local residents will support sustainable development of resource projects, but they will do so only when they provide family-supporting local jobs and at the same time respect the long-term needs of their communities, whether those are economic needs, environmental needs, social needs, or cultural needs.

In my province, we have just received the report from the joint review panel on the northern gateway pipeline. I was privileged to attend some of those hearings in Kitimat, where first nations and local residents came forward expressing their concerns about the long-term impacts of this project on their community and expressing their very strong feeling that, in fact, there were not enough jobs being created at the local level to justify the threat to existing jobs in fishing, hunting, and tourism.

I think the point here is a parallel one. Having one panel at a national level to review the northern gateway pipeline is similar to what the Conservatives are proposing for the Northwest Territories, one panel to look at the whole region.

While devolution has been long delayed and we would all like to support it, it is disturbing that it has been combined in this case with changes to the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act. This could result in court challenges that would further delay the devolution that we would all like to see.

More seriously, it also demonstrates a fundamental disrespect for the land claims agreements that were signed with the Sahtu, the Gwich'in, and the Tlicho in the Northwest Territories. I would like to see us finally reach a position in this country where we recognize the necessity of moving forward as equal partners with first nations in every respect and with full respect for the agreements we signed with them, not to later try to reinterpret them according to some other definition of the words that were included.

[Public Safety, February 10th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, building safer communities should be a priority for any government, but in yet another example of Conservative mismanagement, Conservatives are cutting the 45-year-old program that allows first nations to police their own communities in partnership with the RCMP. This terminates a vital front-line service for many remote reserves where the nearest RCMP detachment is often several communities away.

My question is simple. Will the government reverse this ill-advised and dangerous decision to terminate the first nations constable program?