Randall Garrison

[Canada Elections Act, June 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I must say that despite the late hour, I am really enjoying the debate at this point. We get to hear the Liberals list the past scandals of the Conservative Party and the Conservatives list the past scandals of the Liberal Party. For the New Democratic Party, it is really enlightening to have a reminder of the records of both parties on these questions.

My question for the hon. member is one that we posed earlier. We have concerns about this bill, but we are prepared to vote for it, send it to committee, and try to make a bill that works for all Canadians.

My question is this: can the hon. member tell us if the Liberal Party is willing to work with other parties to improve this bill or not?

[Salaries Act, June 8th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I will assure the member I said no such thing. I said that responsibilities of the ministers differ, not that those are not important topics. There is also the amount of supervision they have to do of staff and the number of programs they have to manage, but it is not that the topics themselves are unimportant. They are very important, and I take them very seriously.

I have criticized the new position of Special Advisor to the Prime Minister on LGBTQ2 Issues. It amounts to little more than being the head gay, because it has no staff, it has no budget, it has no programs attached to it. That does not mean I do not think the topic is important. I am a gay man in this country who has faced inequality through my whole life.

It does not mean I do not think it is important; I just recognize the difference in jobs.

[Salaries Act, June 8th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for that serious question about the other part of the bill. In British Columbia, I have the privilege of representing a riding that probably has the lowest unemployment in British Columbia and probably the lowest in the entire country. For my riding specifically, that office and those programs had not had a big impact. Where they do have a impact in my province is on the northern end of Vancouver Island, the rural areas of Vancouver Island where opportunities, especially for young people, are quite limited. They also have a big impact in the interior of British Columbia and the north of British Columbia, and they have a very big impact in some of the larger aboriginal communities.

I am worried that the elimination of these people with a specific focus on the areas that really do need that economic development will cause some problems for us down the road.

[Salaries Act, June 8th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I look forward to your answer.

I know that the member earlier talked about preferring to be at home with his dog. I have two dogs and a partner at home, and while they are very used to my being away at this time of the year, I would like to be there. I am not sure how they feel at this point in the year.

Seriously, this is not about the clients at all and it is not about which issue is more important. If we take the very narrow sense of the bill, it is about ministers' responsibilities. All I said is that if they have different responsibilities, I am fine with their having different pay. I think this is simply aimed at correcting the political problem the Prime Minister created for himself when he said the Liberals have gender parity in cabinet and then proceeded to assign different levels of responsibilities to men and women.

[Salaries Act, June 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I love being heckled on this because I do not have a whole lot to say on this, so the more heckling the better.

Mr. Speaker, another peculiar thing in the bill is that they have shoved in something that I actually kind of like, and that is the ministers of economic development agencies. I do not know what that is doing in the bill, but I guess the Liberals had to have some more to fluff it up and make it look more substantial.

Unfortunately, now the bill would eliminate the ministers of Western Economic Diversification, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, the Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions, the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario, the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, and the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency. All of those have important work to do.

I just do not understand the logic, but somehow we are going to eliminate those so we can bump up these others. I guess that must be why these points got into the same bill. Again, it does not make a whole lot of sense to me tonight, but it could be because we are at 7:30 and I have been speaking on various things since 10 o'clock this morning.

I guess the real question I have to ask the government tonight is, why are we not here debating legislation to implement real pay equity for Canadian women workers across the country? We had a committee that worked on this issue, did some very good work, reported back to the House, and recommended we have such legislation. Then somebody, somewhere, seems to have said, “That is hard. We cannot do that before 18 months. It has to wait.” Instead we are debating this bill instead of a bill that would help some of the lowest-paid women workers in the country who have some of the more difficult jobs.

We have a tradition in this country when it comes to wages. We look at jobs and ask if they are dirty and done by men, and then we say that such jobs require a lot of money. However, if they are hard and require high levels of education but are done by women, such as nurses and caregivers, then they do not require a lot of money. We have things out of whack.

Why are we not standing here debating real pay equity legislation for those jobs in federal jurisdiction? That is what I would like to be working on tonight. That would interest my constituents. I would have had dozens and dozens of people talking to me about the best way to make pay equity a reality for women in this country, and not the silence I have had from my constituents on this bill.

I only have a couple more things I want to say. I am looking forward to the warning that my time is almost up. I am not taking this bill seriously. I have to thank the Speaker for the warning that I have a lot of time left. I am not taking it seriously, because, as I said at the beginning, it is not a serious piece of legislation. It is not something we should be spending our time on. There are so many problems for us to address in this country. There are so many things we could be putting our hard work into, and this is not one of them.

As one of six openly gay members, I am aware that the government promised an apology and promised to work on restitution for those who were harmed in their careers, harmed in their family life, harmed in many ways, perhaps by being fired from the public service for being gay or being kicked out of the military for being gay. A motion unanimously passed in the defence committee last October, calling for a revision of service records so that people who had served in the military and had already qualified for pensions but were dishonourably discharged for being gay could get the benefits they had already paid for and had already earned.

I would rather be standing here tonight talking about how we are going to implement that kind of legislation than talking about something that will only affect privileged women in cabinet. That is all this debate is about tonight, except for the Prime Minister's reputation, as I said earlier.

We have other things to tackle. In my riding, we have had some very severe problems with ocean debris. We are facing World Oceans Day coming up tomorrow. We have a government that announced a coastal protection strategy, and I cannot even remember what it was called. It does not mention debris. There are no provisions at all for cleaning up the debris.

We heard earlier today in this House what has now become one of those truisms that soon, very soon, we will have more plastic by weight in the ocean than fish. That is a pretty sad commentary on where we are going. I would rather be spending my time tonight talking about bills to help reduce the plastics in the ocean. That is something we should tackle. That is an urgent problem.

Related to that, we could be tackling the question of abandoned vessels. We have all kinds of important work to do in this Parliament. Instead, we have Bill C-24 before us. I am happy to say that I will vote against this bill, probably at every stage, and probably every time it comes up. It will not really make a lot of difference, because we have a Liberal majority government, and this government has the arrogance to proceed with bills like this instead of the real priorities for Canadians. It disappoints me greatly.

As I have said before, I am kind of naive. I often think that the government will get its priorities straight, or should get its priorities straight, and get on with the real business that should be in front of this House.

[Salaries Act, June 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I have to say I am disappointed to be here tonight, sitting until midnight, spending time on a bill like this. Of course, we had some remarks in earlier questions that tried to make it the responsibility of the opposition that the government has not gotten through its agenda, which is simply absurd.

The government has had all the time in the world to get its agenda through, and the fact is that it has a very small agenda even at that. The average number of bills I have heard by this time in a government's life would be 40 or 45. We are looking at a government that has passed something like 18. There is not a lot to do, yet we are still sitting until midnight to get it done. It seems a bit absurd to me.

I had questions about why we had a motion on the Paris accord, but I came to a different conclusion. I thought it was quite useful, in the end, to have a motion on the Paris accord because it demonstrated that the Liberals' and the Conservatives' positions were exactly the same on the Paris accord. They voted together. I thought that was a useful clarification for the public that the Liberals and the Conservatives have the same targets and the same lack of action on the Paris accord. I will take back my criticism of that motion as being a waste of time. I really thought it was going to be a waste of time, but I take back my criticism of that one and I say it was actually quite useful.

On Bill C-24, the bill before us tonight, I have to tell members about the number of calls, emails, and letters I have received from constituents on the bill. It would be zero. Nobody in my constituency cares at all about this bill. The only people who care about it are people who are total insiders in the Liberal Party.

The need for the bill was totally created by the Prime Minister's faux parity that he created in his cabinet. If he was really going to have a cabinet that had parity or equity between the genders, there would have been an equal number of men and women in the real, important jobs in cabinet. Instead, the Prime Minister created a problem by appointing women to mostly junior jobs in his cabinet. Now we have a bill in front of us to fix that problem. That seems absurd to me.

Why do we have differences between the pay of different ministers? I actually think it is a good idea. If there is a full minister who brings things to cabinet and has a department to run, that is a different job from being a minister of state who does not have a whole set of programs to look after but has a reduced set of responsibilities. I can personally live with two different kinds of salaries if there are two different kinds of responsibilities, because that is the basic principle of pay equity. It is equal pay for work of equal value, and if it is different work it is fine to pay people differently.

The problem for the Prime Minister was, of course, that he put mostly women in the junior jobs and mostly men in the big jobs. Therefore, his cabinet did not look as equitable as it should have. As a result, we end up here in a midnight session debating a bill to fix the Prime Minister's political problem.

As I said, there was nobody interested in my riding. I am sure if people in my riding were watching they have already changed channels. I actually recommend that at this point, because I think the bill is a waste of parliamentary time.

We are talking about minister of state positions that would become regular minister positions: the Minister of La Francophonie, the Minister of Science, the Minister of Small Business and Tourism, the Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities, and the Minister of Status of Women. I think those are all important jobs. I just do not think they are the same jobs as the Minister of National Defence or the Minister of Health or the Minister of Justice. I believe there are real differences.

The bill would not change anything about those jobs. It would not give those ministers new responsibilities that are the same level as the full ministers. They might actually be able to persuade me to support this if the bill were saying that the Minister of La Francophonie would have the same full powers of a minister to bring things to cabinet and would have a department to administer, but they would not.

[Business of Supply, June 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoy working with the hon. member, but he should know me well enough not to cite Margaret Thatcher to a gay man or expect me to agree with her on almost anything. I will say that she was absolutely wrong on most things, and I would include her quote on this as one of the things on which she was wrong.

When the member asks what the point is, he is sounding an awful lot like the Liberals, and it is one of the things I am getting used to in the chamber, these two parties sounding very much alike, even though one claims to have brought change. In response to his question, that is not the way diplomacy works. I would say that, even if I am naive and even if New Democrats are well meaning in their attitude to other countries, if the result of the negotiations was that one country gave up nuclear weapons, we would be one step closer to a safer world.

[Business of Supply, June 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to give a flippant response—although it is very tempting to say “How's that going, eh?” when it comes to the fissile treaty—because I believe that is a good thing for us to be doing. I would love to see progress on that treaty, but is the member honestly saying that we can only do one treaty at a time and we have no resources to pursue anything else while we are making very little progress on that treaty?

Using a view of history, I would dispute that it is useless, as the government continues to say, to hold talks to ban weapons when the nuclear powers are not there. We will absolutely be able to do this if we bring the pressure of the entire world to bear on those seven countries and, as I said, if we provide additional leadership in trying to cool off the conflicts that make those countries so fearful that they have to possess nuclear weapons. It is not a question of doing one or the other or saying that, because we are doing one thing, we cannot do any of the rest.

[Business of Supply, June 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Victoria.

I am pleased and proud to rise today to speak in favour of this motion calling on Canada to support the draft convention on the prohibition of nuclear weapons. Some of the things I will say at the beginning of my remarks are well known.

There are more than 15,000 nuclear weapons in the world, and about 95% of those are owned by the United States and Russia, but there is good reason to believe that the U.K., China, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel also possess nuclear weapons.

It is important to note the second thing that most people who are tuned into this topic are aware of, that nuclear weapons are the only weapons of mass destruction that are not explicitly prohibited by an international treaty. That is why I am both shocked and appalled, although that phrase may sound trite, by the attitude of the government on this question.

More than 120 countries are participating in the negotiations. Yesterday I sat here during question period and I heard the Prime Minister call the negotiations “sort of useless”. His reason for calling these talks “sort of useless” was that the states that possessed nuclear weapons are not participating.

How will we make any progress on this issue if we do not apply pressure from the rest of the world on those countries that hold nuclear weapons? How will we get any of them to understand the necessity of renouncing not only the possible use but the possession of nuclear weapons?

There are really only two threats right now to the existence of humanity on this planet. One of those threats is global warming, and we have participated and the government claims leadership. Canada has participated in all of the international conventions to attack this main threat to humanity's existence.

We have not said that we will no longer participate in the Paris agreement because some leader of a country close to us does not believe that we should participate. That would be the same logic the Prime Minister used for not participating in the draft convention talks for the prohibition of nuclear weapons. It makes no sense to me. It is also a cavalier attitude that treats this issue as trivial. I would submit that this is anything but trivial, because it is the second threat to the existence of humanity on this planet.

Thinking back to Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the use of nuclear weapons at that time, these were very small weapons in comparison to what exists today. We found out later that they were the only nuclear weapons in existence at that time There were no great stockpiles and, if they had not worked, there were not lots more to try to use.

Today, 15,000 nuclear weapons exist and there is no guarantee, with the proliferation that has already taken place, with the number of countries that already have access to this technology, that we are going to be able to control this. There is no guarantee that we will be able to stop these weapons from falling into the hands of groups at a sub-state level, groups that we might want to label as terrorist groups. Who knows who might get access to these weapons because of the broad distribution of the technology at this point?

It is incumbent on us to take every action we can to make sure that nuclear weapons are destroyed and no longer available for use by anyone on this planet. It is like firefighting. We train firefighters. We get them to work as hard as they can on fire prevention as well as putting out fires. Firefighters do not just go to fires and turn on the hose. They work every day to try to educate the public and to identify threats. In this case, it would be far too late if we waited until nuclear weapons were used to then say it was tragedy and we should have done something.

This is like fire prevention. This is like disease prevention. I cannot understand not just the Prime Minister but other members on the other side whom I've heard saying just recently that this is a waste of time. One of the things we are short of is time. We are short of time on climate change. We are short of time in banning nuclear weapons. We need to make the best use if whatever efforts we can to make sure these weapons are destroyed.

New Democrats have long held this position. It is not something new for us. Canada previously held this position, and Canada previously has been a leader in trying to work against the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Canada is part of the international treaties to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

It makes no sense to me that the government is not participating in these talks, and not just participating, but we should be leading the talks. We should be applying the pressure on those of our allies who have nuclear weapons, and we should be offering whatever support they need to make that decision. Is there some way, through this convention, that we can offer greater security to those who feel so threatened that they feel they need nuclear weapons? Let us have Canada stand up diplomatically and try to solve those problems, to provide the leadership on those problems so that countries no longer feel so threatened that they have to possess these weapons of mass destruction. Again, it is not just participating; it is being a leader. lt is putting forward the ideas through this treaty and through surrounding actions that will get us to a place where we no longer face this threat.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of standing with Hiroshima survivor Setsuko Thurlow, a Canadian citizen who, as a child growing up in Japan, was severely injured and lost many family members and friends as a result of that nuclear explosion. I am very proud of her and the campaign that she carries on. She received a standing ovation at the United Nations. I would challenge the Prime Minister to tell Setsuko Thurlow that her campaign is useless. I would challenge him to do that.

However, the government would not even meet with her. Liberals would not even show up when she was here to hear what she had to say. With her was Cesar Jaramillo, the executive director of Project Ploughshares, which has worked tirelessly against all kinds of weapons, but in particular against nuclear weapons. I challenge the Prime Minister to tell Cesar Jaramillo that the work he does for Project Ploughshares is useless work. It is beyond belief that we have a prime minister who was so cavalier about this issue in question period yesterday. It is beyond belief after the speech that the Minister of Foreign Affairs gave in the House saying that, given the instability of the world, it was incumbent on Canada to step up and take a leadership role and that, because the United States is withdrawing from its responsibilities, it is going to be a more dangerous world. A day after that the Prime Minister stood and said here is something we are not going to lead on; we are not going to lead on trying to get rid of nuclear weapons.

A day after that we had the new defence strategy released. I am a somewhat naive member of Parliament sometimes. Having heard the Minister of Foreign Affairs say we are are going to step up to take a leadership role, I actually expected to see that in our defence strategy. Instead, the defence strategy has not one new dollar for the Canadian military in this fiscal year, but promises for increased funding that are 10 and 20 years down the road.

The crises we face of international insecurity are now, not 10 years or 20 years down the road. Do not get me wrong. I have no complaint about a government that is going to plan for our future needs and equipment and that is going to cost those out properly. The problem I have is the gap between those promises and the reality we face every day in the Canadian military. We are about to take on a NATO mission in Latvia, which I and my party fully support. It is important to send a message to both Putin and Trump that the Baltics are NATO members and an attack on one is an attack on all. That is a very important mission for us.

We have also promised to take on a peacekeeping mission in Africa, another mission that I very much look forward to hearing about even though we are about six months late. How is the Canadian military going to take a leadership role in both those missions when its budget increase this year was less than the rate of inflation? We are asking it to take on new duties, which I am very proud of, with fewer resources than it had last year.

I am a bit confused about the government's real attitude to international affairs. What does it expect Canada to accomplish if we are going to leave the obvious avenues for leadership vacant? I call on all members of the House to think very seriously about the implications of Canada continuing to be absent from these negotiations that would lead to a treaty that would make nuclear weapons illegal and that would lead to a much safer and secure world. Yes, the task is hard, but Canada did not shrink from this when it came to the Ottawa treaty to ban landmines. We did not shrink from this when we advocated for the International Criminal Court. Why are we shrinking from that responsibility to lead at this point? I have no answer to that question, and I would like the government to explain to me why it is not taking that leadership role.

[National Defence, June 1st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, we know that torture and summary executions are immoral and run counter to Canadian and international law. They also alienate potential supporters in the fight against ISIS and produce information that is dangerously unreliable. The Minister of National Defence knows well the ongoing controversy surrounding possible Canadian complicity in torture involving Afghan detainees.

Now that the minister has decided Canadians should be advising and assisting Iraqi forces, in the face of recent evidence of gruesome torture and summary executions, will he now commit to a full investigation of our military co-operation with Iraq?