Randall Garrison

[Business of Supply, January 28th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is very clear how Canada Post planned. Its CEO went to the Conference Board of Canada, asked for a report saying that home delivery should be eliminated and prices increased, paid for the report it wanted and then used it as the excuse to do what it intended to do all along. I certainly would agree with the member that there are many other ways to deal with the changes that are taking place in our economy that affect Canada Post.

One thing I have heard from some people is, of course, that young people do not mail letters. No, of course, they do not. They shop online and get things delivered to their homes. We are seeing changing patterns through the generations, but it is a pattern that Canada Post should have tried to figure out how to capitalize on because, as many members before me have said, this is an operation with the largest retail network that spans the entire country. Surely to God, managers who are paid as much as they are could figure out a way to make an additional profit, which might take up any slack that occurs in the future.

We definitely do not have a crisis at Canada Post, and we definitely should not be standing here today considering the elimination of one of our essential services. We owe it to seniors, to people with disabilities and to the struggling small business community to continue this essential service.

[Business of Supply, January 28th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question, but it is peculiar in a couple of ways. One is that he is a member of a government that is making a proposal to end home delivery without considering alternatives like how much a postal bank would cost and how that could support the delivery. It is also a government that has appointed a CEO who is paid more than $500,000 a year to ask basic questions like that and who has 21 vice-presidents assisting him who might have questions like that, which might have been able to save home delivery in Canada. No, they were too busy to ask those questions. I am not sure exactly what they were doing, but it was not planning to maintain home delivery for Canadians across the country.

[Business of Supply, January 28th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, as this is my first opportunity to speak after returning from holiday break, let me state the very obvious, and that is how much I enjoy being back in my riding for more than just a Friday and a Saturday.

Let me state the other obvious, my shock at being back in the polar vortex when the daffodils in my yard are already about four inches tall and the first ornamental fruit trees bloomed in our neighbourhood this week.

More seriously, I welcome the fact that the holiday break gave me a chance to talk to my constituents. It gave me the opportunity to do important things like visit the Edward Milne Community School in Sooke where, as usual, I faced tougher questions from high school students than from people almost anywhere else I go.

While some have questioned the seemingly cynical timing of Canada Post's announcement of service cuts, strangely, it facilitated my dialogue with constituents. That is what they wanted to talk to me about all through the break period. Wherever I went, the most common topic was the Canada Post proposal to eliminate home delivery.

This is a loss of a service very important to seniors and those with mobility issues, but I also heard from small business owners in my riding who communicate with their customers through Canada Post and who fear that their mailings will not make it from that community box into the house. It is hard enough to get people to pay attention to mail between the mailbox and the recycling bin, but if it never gets to the house at all, small business are quite worried that it will take away one of their main ways of communicating with customers.

Canada Post has the obvious mandate to deliver mail. It has been doing so profitably, returning $1.7 billion to public coffers in 16 out of the last 17 years. It is a bit rich for the Conservatives to stand up and talk about a crisis we are having with Canada Post when it is a profit-making corporation. Yes, things have changed and Canada Post has to change with the times. However, we are not in a crisis situation that caused this drastic reduction in public services. Why did Canada Post not turn a profit in one year? That was the year Canada Post locked out its employees.

It is true that in my riding not everyone has home delivery service, but it is also not true, which the Conservatives seem to conclude, that those people would not rather have home delivery than community boxes. In fact, I appeared on local radio right after this decision was made, and we heard from a disabled resident in a part of my riding that does not have home delivery. She cannot access the mail in a community box due to her disability. She contacted Canada Post and asked what she was supposed to do. She was told to get someone to get her mail for her. Her right to have access to mail was being denied by the fact that community boxes are not accessible to most people with disabilities.

Conservatives have tried to divide Canadians on this issue by putting forward the false statement that only one-third of Canadians have home delivery. They have forgotten about the 5% who have rural delivery at their boxes and those who get delivery at apartments, somehow saying that this is not home delivery.

In fact, only 25% of Canadians get delivery at community boxes, and I bet that most of those, if they had a choice, would choose home delivery.

Why is this wrong-headed idea of the Conservatives going ahead? They have put forward a number of excuses that we have heard over and over here today.

The first of those, of course, is that Canada Post is an independent crown corporation and it made this decision without any reference to the government. I find this a bit strange when we all know that the public owns Canada Post, and the Conservatives have filled the board of Canada Post with people who are not known supporters of public services, including a president and CEO who is a director of the Conference Board of Canada, a group that, coincidentally, issued a pessimistic report on Canada Post in the spring of 2013.

What were the options in that report, which forecast a $1 billion deficit? They were ending home delivery and increasing the price of stamps. Now we find out, of course, that the report was in fact commissioned by Canada Post, by the CEO of Canada Post who sits as a director on the Conference Board of Canada's board. Here we have an obvious conflict of interest, as well as a report that projected a shortfall of $1 billion. However, in the first year after the report came out, it was wrong by more than $350 million on the performance of Canada Post.

Canada Post appears to be at arm's length when it is convenient, but not at arm's length at other times. I remember when we first came into the House of Commons in 2011, those of us who were first elected then, and the government used its legislation to end the labour dispute. Why was that an emergency that required all-night debate? It was because it would halt mail delivery.

Now we have the same government back in the House saying that it is okay to halt mail delivery. There is a bit of inconsistency here in the way we treat the issue of Canada Post.

The second excuse is that it had already consulted Canadians. We know that the consultations were done primarily online. In British Columbia, the only communities that were invited for consultation were Nanaimo, Vancouver, Coquitlam and Kamloops. No one in my riding or in any of the ridings near the area I represent was asked to be part of that consultation. Interestingly, the results from that narrow consultation are not being released by Canada Post, so one would think that it did not hear what it wanted to hear since it is not willing to even tell us what that limited sample told it.

The third excuse I have already touched on, that being that Canada Post's business plan is necessary to avoid a future crisis and losses that might extend to $1 billion a year. If it really were faced with this crisis, as my colleague from Trois-Rivières said, those with even basic training in business would say that a good strategy would not be to raise prices and cut services. That would dig a deeper hole. Instead, other nations have looked at how they use the largest retail outlet network in the country, something that spans urban and rural Canadians, to make more profits to support maintaining this essential service.

We have the example of New Zealand Post, which got into the proposal for postal banking. Earlier, I heard one of the members ask how we would capitalize that and pay for it. New Zealand Post had no trouble doing that. It is making a profit off this business, in addition to maintaining its essential service.

One of my personal favourites is that we might have seen Canada Post bid on the broadband auction. It could have used its retail network to provide real competition to the big three telecom companies by entering the cell phone service business. Competition would have been a good thing for the big three. Of course, with a board at Canada Post dominated by private sector business people, it is not an option it even looked at.

A closer look at the business plan for Canada Post reveals something else that is interesting. It has a president and CEO who is paid nearly $500,000 a year. This is an organization with two group presidents, whatever that means, seven senior vice-presidents and twelve vice-presidents. According to its 2012 annual report, the senior management group of 22 people received more than $10 million in annual compensation, not including $2 million in termination benefits. The CEO of Canada Post did say it would look at cutting some of these 22 presidents and vice-presidents after it finished eliminating up to 8,000 family-supporting jobs across the country. This is a curious economic strategy at a time when the Conservative finance minister keeps reminding everyone that the economy remains fragile. How will eliminating thousands of stable, full-time, well-paying, family-supporting jobs, distributed in communities all across the country, contribute to our economic recovery? The answer to that is obvious.

On this side of the House, we are definitely hearing from our constituents on this issue. Several of my colleagues have held town hall meetings like the ones in Victoria and North Delta, which had standing-only crowds, including seniors who are concerned about maintaining their independence. This week I heard from the daughter of a man who is still living on his own at the age of 95. His ability to access his post and take care of his own business is an important part of his independence and dignity as a senior. This is very much threatened by putting up a box. In my community there is certainly not room on every block so it would be two or three blocks away from this senior who would lose his ability to take care of himself and his independence.

We heard from people with disabilities at these meetings. I mentioned earlier the very concrete example of the difficulties that people with disabilities have when it comes to accessing community mailboxes.

We heard from members of the public who do not want one of these in front of their house. The municipalities in my riding have taken up the concern as to how they would install community mailboxes safely and conveniently in existing neighbourhoods. It is a real problem. Who would bear the expense of the planning and construction? How would they accommodate traffic around those in existing neighbourhoods? The municipalities in my riding have promised to pass resolutions asking Canada Post to reconsider this idea of ending home delivery.

In conclusion, this is not just an urban issue. My colleague from British Columbia Southern Interior shared with me a letter he wrote to the minister almost immediately after the cuts were announced.

In this letter, he makes many of the same points I have made in my speech, but he emphasizes the impact of the elimination of home delivery in rural communities in B.C., like Nelson and Trail, which not only have steep hills but have something Victoria does not have, and that is regular icy winter weather to deal with. He also pointed out that in most rural areas in British Columbia there was no consultation of any kind and that job losses in rural communities would be very hard to make up and they would have a severe impact.

This leaves me with a question. The Conservatives say they are not really hearing an outcry against this policy, which would make Canada the only developed country without home delivery. Are they really not hearing the outcry or are they just not listening?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, January 27th, 2014]

With regard to the Canadian Firearms Advisory Committee established under the authority of the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Act: (a) what is the current list of committee members; (b) on what date were each of these members appointed or reappointed; (c) what is the term of appointment for each member, including dates; (d) what is the position on the committee of each member; (e) how many times has the committee met since its creation, (i) on which dates, (ii) in which locations; (f) what were the topics discussed at each meeting; (g) which meetings has the minister participated in, by phone or in person; (h) how many departmental staff are assigned to support the committee; (i) what is the budget provided for the committee; and (j) how much has the committee spent on travel and hospitality since its creation, broken down by year?

[First Nations Elections Act, December 10th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's question raises a question for me. If he was a member of the Manitoba legislature and first nations had failed to be consulted in the Meech Lake accord, why was the single vote that defeated it Elijah Harper's? Why was it not the member's also, if he claims to recognize the failure of consultation and the exclusion of first nations at that time?

It is a good example of what happens when first nations are excluded from the process in which they should rightfully be included in.

[First Nations Elections Act, December 10th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's questions illustrates my point. I have paid attention. I know he has that power now, but what did first nations say when they were consulted about what should happen in disputed elections?

First nations actually made a proposal that we should establish a commission of first nations representatives who would hear disputes about leadership and elections in first nations communities. Instead of the minister making a decision, first nations themselves could govern themselves and appeal to a commission of first nations that would make those decisions.

Again, it illustrates my point exactly, that true consultation means hearing the other side and what it has to say and making a legitimate effort to include those suggestions in the bill. In doing so, that would provide a fundamental respect for self-government for first nations. Unfortunately, the government failed to do that. That is one of the reasons I am opposing the bill.

[First Nations Elections Act, December 10th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by saying that I am going to share my time with the member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques.

I rise at third reading to speak against Bill C-9, which has a very long title, and to demonstrate that I have actually read it, I am going to go through the title. It is An Act respecting the election and term of office of chiefs and councillors of certain First Nations and the composition of council of those First Nations.

I am always a bit resentful when members on the other side imply that disagreement means that we have not actually read a bill. In fact, I am disappointed to be in this situation of opposing this bill, because there was actually a promising start with some first nations in terms of trying to come up with a bill to reform the regulations under the Indian Act for conducting elections. However, somewhere this went off the rails, I believe. It is also disappointing because we have been discussing these kinds of issues of governance for a long time. I want to spend some time on how we got here, or more accurately, on how we are stalled at the place where we are now.

When I said I wanted to talk about how we got here or about how we are stalled here, I am really referring to the broad underlying issue of first nations self-government. This is a principle that was first recognized by this Parliament more than 30 years ago, when all parties agreed to support what was called the Penner report, in 1983. This report was named after the chair of what was called the Indian self-government committee. This was an exceptional committee in the House of Commons in that it invited a first nations representative, Roberta Jamieson, a very respected Mohawk leader, to sit as a full member of the committee. It was certainly the first and perhaps the only time any committee of this House of Commons has had someone from outside the House sit on a committee. The reason for doing that was that we wanted to make sure that first nations were heard.

The committee travelled the length and breadth of this country, literally from coast to coast to coast, to hear directly from first nations and their communities. I know about this committee quite well, because as a young researcher at the House of Commons, I was actually attached as staff to the committee, and I travelled across the country for nearly a year with the committee.

What the Penner report did was groundbreaking in what it recommended and in that it actually listened to first nations in their communities. In adopting the Penner committee report, the House of Commons broke new ground, because the House of Commons said that Canadians needed to recognize the right of self-government for first nations and needed to entrench that right in the Constitution. Then there needed to be legislation to implement self-government by recognizing first nations as a third order of government, independent of federal and provincial governments, in their own areas of jurisdiction.

This marks a journey that began 30 years ago to make first nations self-government a reality in this country, and unfortunately, Bill C-9 indicates that we still have not gotten there.

The new approach taken by the Penner committee was entrenched in the Constitution Act, 1982, which recognized and affirmed existing aboriginal rights and treaty rights and provided for constitutional conferences to be held later to define and implement those rights. Unfortunately, in the four conferences held between 1983 and 1987, there was a failure to get agreement on how to define those rights and on how to move forward with legislation to implement them.

The year 1987 marked the biggest setback for the recognition of self-government we have seen in this country, with the failure of that constitutional conference on self-government and with the exclusion of aboriginal people from the talks leading to the Meech Lake accord. Of course, fate sometimes has a way of paying back, so when it came time for the Meech Lake accord to be approved, it failed. It was defeated in the Manitoba legislature by a single vote, that of the respected first nations leader Elijah Harper.

There was an attempt to reset the debate at Charlottetown, and aboriginal people were included in that next round of constitutional talks. The Charlottetown accord would have explicitly entrenched the right of self-government in the Constitution, but it was subsequently, unfortunately, defeated at referendum.

I am going to continue just a little longer down this road of talking about history, because it explains what is fundamentally wrong with Bill C-9, as it is presented to us.

In 1996, we had the publication of the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, which echoed what had been said in the original Penner report, now some 13 years before. It said again that we needed to recognize and entrench the right to self-government; to recognize first nations governments as a third order of government, equal in every way to federal and provincial governments; and to reorganize our federal institutions to reflect those facts.

Unfortunately, the response of the Liberal government in 1998 was simply that they were open to talking. The Liberals did not actually do anything to implement those recommendations.

Alongside this halting political process, there were important legal developments based on the recognition of aboriginal rights in the 1982 Constitution. This refers to the Supreme Court of Canada decisions, beginning with R. v. Sparrow in 1990, which established that the federal government has a duty to consult and to accommodate first nations when considering any infringement or abridgement of an aboriginal treaty right. The Supreme Court of Canada has found this duty to flow not only from section 35.1 of the Constitution Act but also from the fiduciary responsibilities of the Crown to aboriginal people and from the duty to uphold the honour of the Crown by dealing with aboriginal people in a fair and just manner.

Returning to Bill C-9 directly, no one argues that the election process under the Indian Act could not be improved, but there are two much more important questions at play here. How does Bill C-9 stack up when it comes to these two constitutional principles governing relationships between the federal government and first nations: the recognition of the right of self-government on the one hand and the duty to consult on the other? I submit that on both grounds, the bill fails and fails miserably.

Consultation means more than just asking people to speak and then ignoring their concerns. Again, a process that started well with the first nations in the Atlantic provinces and with the Manitoba chiefs went off the rails when people raised concerns about particular aspects of the bill. The government decided to press ahead, despite losing the support of its partner in those consultations. This is not what consultation means in Canadian law. Consultation means to hear the other side, to take seriously their concerns, and to accommodate those concerns when it comes to first nations' rights. This has not been done in the bill.

Respect for self-government also means that we recognize first nations governments as equals in the constitutional order. What is fundamentally wrong with the bill, and what first nations object to, is giving the minister the right to decide which kind of election first nations should use.

The bill would allow even those using custom elections to be forced under the provisions of this new parallel process, even over the objections of that first nation. If the minister believed there was something wrong in the first nation in terms of corruption or the election process, the minister could unilaterally decide to force them into a selection process for their leaders that they did not choose. This fundamentally disrespects the right to self-government.

I have five first nations in my riding. Elections in four of those are conducted under the Indian Act. The Songhees Nation, Scia'new First Nation, T'Sou-ke Nation, and Pacheedaht First Nation are running under what, admittedly, is an act with some problems, in particular the two-year term for leaders. However, they were not consulted directly and have not asked for these changes.

One of the nations in my riding, Esquimalt Nation, operates under custom, and certainly Esquimalt has not been consulted and would object strenuously to giving the minister the power to force them away from their customary elections.

First nations in my riding should be concerned about that lack of consultation, but they are even more concerned about the lack of respect for first nations as equal partners in Confederation.

Unfortunately, the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development confirmed earlier today in the House the bullying attitude of the Conservatives when it comes to first nations by restating his position, once again, that he will not discuss funding for first nations education unless they first agree to accept his bill to reform first nations education. Again, it is fundamental disrespect for consultation and fundamental disrespect for the equality of first nations.

I see that I am running out of time. Let me say that in my riding, certainly, we have no problem with the leadership of first nations. We have a large number of initiatives that have been undertaken by chiefs in our ridings, including Chief Rob Sam, of the Songhees Nation, which is about to open a wellness centre; Chief Andy Thomas, of Esquimalt Nation, which has entered a partnership for apprenticeships in the shipbuilding industry; Chief Russell Chipps, who is in a partnership to build a new housing development on the Scia'new Reserve; and Chief Gordon Planes, who has led his nation in becoming a solar nation, according to a division of his elders, and has taken the first nation off the grid, with solar hot water in every nation and solar cells on the first nations office roof. It is certainly a great initiative. The Pacheedaht Nation, under Chief McClurg, recently purchased a tree farm licence to provide sustainable care of the forest and sustainable economic development in his community.

This is a bill that tries to fix a problem that does not really exist in my riding. It would do so without consulting the first nations of my riding, without listening to them and without respecting their right to self-government.

[First Nations Elections Act, December 10th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member how he feels about the process of consultation, because I think that is one of two issues with the bill. In addition to the lack of respect for self-government, there is a lack of consultation on so many issues.

Yes, there were some first nations that wanted to talk about elections, but when they said things the government did not want to hear, the government proceeded with the bill anyway. It is going ahead without respect for what consultation really means, which is not just to let people speak but to hear what they have to say and act on it.

I wonder what the experience of consultation with first nations in the member's riding might be.

[Navigable Waters Protection Act, December 2nd, 2013]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-557, An Act to amend the Navigable Waters Protection Act (Vancouver Island).

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce An Act to amend the Navigable Waters Protection Act (Vancouver Island). I am introducing this bill today in an attempt to counteract some of the negative consequences of the Conservatives' second budget bill, which removed all environmental protection for each and every lake, river and stream on Vancouver Island. This bill would restore that protection which is so important to the future salmon runs, to recreation and to tourism on central and northern Vancouver Island, by specifically protecting Nimpkish Lake, Owikeno Lake, Horne Lake, Kennedy Lake, Great Central Lake, Sproat Lake and the Campbell River.

This bill complements the bill I introduced previously to provide similar protection for the Goldstream River in my own riding.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Privacy, December 2nd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, he also said that there was a need for an oversight body.

Canadians also have good reason to be concerned about what the government is doing when it comes to their personal information.

Let us take the story of Ellen Richardson. She was flying down to the states for a 10-day Caribbean vacation, but never made it. She was denied entry into the United States. The agent said that it was because of her previous hospitalization for depression, information that should have been private. She was stunned.

Could the minister explain to the House how a U.S. border agent would know about a Canadian's private medical history?