Rathika Sitsabaiesan

[Community Support in Scarborough, November 18th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, as we return to Ottawa after a week in our communities we have all been struck by the devastation in the Philippines. Many members of my community have family and friends living through this crisis. I join them in praying for the safety and well-being of their loved ones.

This is a sobering reminder about the importance of giving back to our communities, globally and locally. The people of Scarborough are giving back. Recently, the Rosedale community held a food drive and served Scarborough families by collecting over 3,000 non-perishable food items by going door to door. Since 2008, Scarborough has seen a 38% increase in food bank usage. The Rosedale food drive has been doing an incredible job in compensating for the changing realities in our communities as a result of the Conservatives' economic inaction plan.

I am humbled to be partnering with the Toronto Police Service toy drive and the One More Wear Foundation by using my office as a donation location. I encourage anyone in Scarborough to come by and drop off toys and clothing for a family this holiday. I am proud and thankful for these community organizations and the many other people living in Scarborough who give to families in need, at home and abroad.

[Crisis Management, November 6th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, Conservatives at all levels are finding new ways to mess up damage control.

They took the Senate expense controversy, and in trying to quiet it down before their convention, instead blew it up all over the front pages.

Throughout the scandal, the Prime Minister will not answer for what is going on in his office, will not answer for his changing stories, will not answer for the actions of his appointees, and of course now the RCMP is knocking at the door of the PMO looking for evidence.

Then there is Conservative Rob Ford. Mayor Ford is doing his best to make the Prime Minister's crisis management look good.

First his brother is sent out to blame the police chief; then the mayor admits to smoking illegal drugs; later, instead of doing the right thing, the troubled mayor launched his re-election campaign.

It is all in a day's work for the Conservative damage control machine. Canadians deserve better, and Torontonians deserve better.

[Business of Supply, November 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question and his passion, because just like Canadians, he is very passionate.

He is right when he says that Canadians are smart. I believe that Canadians are smart and that they will not put up with the government pulling the wool over their eyes for much longer. They are smart, and they know what transparency means. They know what accountability means.

The government, and especially the cabinet, which is the government, is there to be accountable to Canadians. The member asked who is going to pay. It is, once again, Canadians who are going to pay. It is everybody in this country who is paying taxes. Those are the people who are paying for this scandal, this cover-up, and everything that is happening. Those Canadians are the ones who are footing the bill for the government to pull the wool over their eyes. Canadians are smarter than that. They know.

[Business of Supply, November 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned that the Liberal Party has been involved in this Senate scandal discussion and debate since day one. Were they? Where were they?

Maybe they were involved since day one, because they are in the Senate, and they are part of this whole debacle. They are part of everything. They have their own senator who is under investigation. They were part of this since day one. They are part of the scandal itself.

Since the official opposition brought this forward in this House, why has the leader of the Liberal Party used only three of his possible 45 questioning opportunities to talk about this issue in the House of Commons?

[Business of Supply, November 5th, 2013]

I appreciate the Minister of Foreign Affairs for not supporting the Liberals who are heckling me, apparently. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for that clarification that was provided to me.

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister and the current Conservative government need to stop changing their story. That is what we are asking for, and that is what Canadians are asking for. They want them to come clean to Canadians by answering all the questions to the Prime Minister's Office and the Prime Minister himself about his involvement with the Senate scandal, Senator Duffy, Senator Wallin, and any of the senators.

They need to start by releasing all related documents that are available. So far what we have are documents and information leaked by Senator Duffy. To be honest, I prefer the information coming straight from the horse's mouth. That means directly from the source.

The Prime Minister and the Prime Minister's Office have been very busy trying to cover up their own alleged corruption, while the Liberals have appeared totally disinterested until, all of sudden, now.

Meanwhile, both Conservatives and Liberals continue to vote against sensible New Democrat proposals to restrict Senate partisan activity, partisan travel, partisan fundraising, and partisan activity overall. That is what we tried to propose, and our friends across the aisle on both the Conservative team and the Liberal team opposed that proposition.

Canadians are tired of an unelected, unaccountable, and under-investigation Conservative and Liberal Senate. That is why New Democrats advocate that the only real solution to this entire problem, this $90-million or $100-million boondoggle, whatever we are going to call it, is to abolish the Senate. That is the NDP's position. It has been the NDP's position for a very long time, and it will continue to be the NDP's position.

The NDP will continue to use all means available to us to continue to keep the government accountable.

There is one thing I want to add. When the leader of the official opposition asks questions in this House, we do not really get answers.

When I speak to people in my community of Scarborough—Rouge River, they are actually starting to get irritated and annoyed about what is happening in the Senate. They ask me questions, and I do not really have answers for them, because, to be honest, we do not get answers from the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister's Office, his parliamentary secretary, his cabinet ministers, or anybody on the Conservative side. Nobody provides real answers.

The same questions the leader of the official opposition, the leader of the NDP, put forth in the House of Commons to the Prime Minister are the same questions I am being asked in my community in Scarborough.

People want to know the answers to simple questions. Was Nigel Wright dismissed, or did he resign? That is a pretty simple employment question. There must be paperwork to back up either one of those claims. It is a pretty simple question, but we cannot get a straight answer from the Conservatives.

How many cheques are there in total? People are asking me these questions, and I do not have any answers.

How many people in the Prime Minister's Office knew about the Duffy cover-up, and who are they? We have heard that there were a “few”. We have heard several, nine, 13, and 14. We do not know. Once again, we are looking for truth. We are looking for transparency. We are looking for accountability. Canadians really do deserve better.

Another question is why the Prime Minister claimed that only Nigel Wright knew about the cover-up. Now, of course, he has changed his story. Now a few people in the Prime Minister's Office knew about it. How many are a few? Usually, in traditional language usage, a few is more than two, so it could be three, but we do not know, because he also said several. What does that mean?

Another question is whether the Conservative Party was ever going to pay for Mike Duffy's fraudulently claimed expenses. Do the Conservatives consider Duffy's and Wallin's expenses inappropriate? We have heard both sides, whether they think they were appropriate or were not appropriate. Mr. Speaker, you know that in Hansard, both of those comments are available for Canadians to find.

What I am getting at is that Canadians deserve the real story. We, as elected members of Parliament, are the 308 representatives of the millions of Canadians across the country. We deserve to get the truth so that we can take that back to our constituents. We are not getting that. We are getting multiple versions of stories.

All I am asking for, on behalf of my constituents, is one story, the truth, that is the only story we hear. That is all I want: one truth; one story.

Another question constituents in my community are asking is whether I know when and how often the Prime Minister actually spoke with Nigel Wright. I do not have an answer for that, either. I really do not have answers to give my constituents. They are asking me this when I am at the grocery store or at a community event. When I am celebrating Diwali with my constituents, they are talking to me about the Senate scandal.

They are asking me questions about what is happening and about how the government is wasting Canadians' money and not using it for important things, such as ensuring that our young people are getting jobs and access to education. They are saying that average Canadians are not getting access to jobs, because the government is not creating jobs here in Canada. It is a government that supports jobs being shipped out of the country, yet it is covering up a scandal of a cheque for more than $90,000 or $100,000 and is spending extra money making up different versions of stories.

All Canadians want is that the truth come out and that their own lives and the lives of all Canadians improve. We are not getting that.

There are many questions my constituents are asking me. They want to know how many lawyers were involved in the Prime Minister's Office's cover-up of the Duffy affair. Who were the lawyers?

On Wednesday last week, a cabinet minister defended the Prime Minister's former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, who played a central role in the Senate scandal and the PMO's orchestrated cover-up. He said:

I know Nigel Wright to be a person of good faith, of competence, with high ethical standards.

Yet we saw the Prime Minister say that Nigel Wright acted on his accord and had nothing to do with anything.

Who was that minister? It was the Minister of Employment and Social Development and Multiculturalism.

I believe that in opposition, we need to have true propositions to actually improve the Houses of this Parliament, and that is what the NDP is doing. That is what we will continue to do.

[Business of Supply, November 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, at the outset, I want to let you know that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Pierrefonds—Dollard.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in favour of the motion. It is encouraging to see the Liberals finally taking some action. I was disappointed when my friends refused to support the NDP motion we put before the House to limit Senate partisan activity. The NDP motion would have limited Senate partisan activity funded by Canadians, which would have held the Senate accountable today, not next week or next month or after a hearing or at some point in the future. However, our friends in the House did not deem that topic important enough to support.

Moving on to the motion before us today put forward by our Liberal colleagues, it is interesting that they have put the motion in front of the House now. We know that last week alone, the leader of the official opposition, the leader of the New Democratic Party, and our Prime Minister had 43 interactions, 43 exchanges of questions, on this PMO scandal, while the leader of the Liberal Party used only three of his party's 45 possible questions.

We all know that it is the NDP that will continue to use all means possible, all means available to us, to ensure that we are keeping the government accountable and are doing the work that needs to be done on behalf of Canadians to ensure transparency and accountability in this House.

Whatever the Minister of Foreign Affairs said, I could not hear, because his microphone was not on. However, I will assure him, once again, that it will be the NDP that holds the government to account.

[Petitions, October 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I stand on behalf of petitioners in the greater Toronto area with respect to the creation of Rouge national urban park. Since 100 square kilometres of public land assembly surrounds the Rouge River and Duffins Creek watersheds in Toronto, Markham, and Pickering, this publicly owned provincial, federal, and municipal land is predominantly designated under the provincial greenbelt natural heritage system. It is home to the endangered Carolinian and mixed woodland/plain-life zones of Canada. It is also the ancestral home of the Mississauga, Huron-Wendat, and Seneca first nations and their sacred burial and village sites.

Since the plan for the Rouge national urban park concept and the May 2012 draft confines the park area study to 57 square kilometres instead of the 100 square kilometres of public land assembly needed for a healthy and sustainable Rouge national park, the petitioners are requesting that the land be protected and that 100 square kilometres of public land assembly be brought together for the Rouge national urban park.

[Petitions, June 18th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, today I stand to submit some petitions on behalf of constituents from all over the GTA—from Etobicoke, Richmond Hill, Markham, of course the city of Toronto and Mississauga—with respect to the Rouge Park.

The current Rouge Park is home to endangered Carolinian and mixed woodland/plain life zones of Canada, the zones with one-third of Canada's endangered species. It is also the ancestral home of the Mississauga, Huron-Wendat and Seneca first nations and their sacred burial and village sites.

This is the last chance we will have to create a large national park in southern Ontario, an area with 34% of Canada's population and 77% of its land in agriculture and human settlement use, with only about 1/400th of the lands protected in national parks. The petitioners are requesting many things, but they are also requesting that the Government of Canada conduct a rational, scientific and transparent public planning process to create Rouge national park's boundaries, legislation and strategic plan and include first nations and Friends of the Rouge Watershed on a Rouge national park planning and advisory board.

[Petitions, June 14th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I stand today to present petitions on behalf of constituents who are calling on the Government of Canada to act on Rouge Park. We know that the current Rouge Park is home to endangered Carolinian forest and mixed woodland/plain life zones in Canada, zones with one-third of Canada's endangered species. It is the ancestral home of the Mississauga, Huron-Wendat and Seneca first nations and their sacred burial and village sites.

This is the last chance to create a large national park in southern Ontario, an area with 34% of Canada's population and 77% of its land in agricultural and human settlement use. Only 1/400th of its land is protected in national parks.

The petitioners respectfully urge the Government of Canada to ensure that Rouge national park strengthens and implements the ecological visions, policies and integrity of approved Rouge Park plans, the provincial greenbelt plan, the Rouge natural heritage action plan and the Oak Ridges Moraine conservation plan to ensure that the Rouge national urban park will be the best park. We know, of course, that it will be the largest urban park in North America. To make sure it will be--

[Health, June 14th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it was once a key election promise, but now Conservatives brush off health care wait times as purely provincial. The federal government is the fifth-largest provider of medical coverage in Canada, including first nations, the military and our veterans. Wait times are a concern for all Canadians, but Conservatives have gone from making them a top priority to refusing to even acknowledge their responsibility for them.

Where is the minister's plan for at least reducing the wait times for the 1.3 million Canadians who are directly covered by the federal government?