Robert Chisholm

[Canada-Korea Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, September 24th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, like my colleagues, I am very pleased to stand in the House and speak about Bill C-41, an act to implement the free trade agreement between Canada and the Republic of Korea.

Let me start by saying how pleased and proud I am of my colleague, our trade critic, the member of Parliament for Vancouver Kingsway. He has been on this file for a couple of years now, and he has done a masterful job of carrying forward with the New Democratic Party vision on trade.

The member has analyzed any agreements that have been made public, which, by any stretch of the imagination, are few and far between. That member has done a great job, not only in examining and analyzing any details that we do find out, but also in speaking with people involved in trade from one end of this country to the other and around the world to help develop our policy.

New Democrats want a strategic trade policy whereby we restart multilateral negotiations and sign trade deals both with developed countries that have high standards and with developing countries that are on progressive trajectories. Countries such as Japan, India, Brazil, and South Africa are examples.

The precise terms of this agreement are perhaps not what we would have negotiated, but it is fair to say that we think that—surprise, surprise—it is not a bad deal on balance. We have some concerns about the agreement, but it is a deal that we think deserves to be supported.

Unlike the Canada-China FIPA, this agreement does not tie the government's hands for 31 years. It is unlike CETA, in which the investor state dispute settlement mechanism chapter would continue to apply for 20 years after cancellation of the deal. Under the Korea free trade agreement, it can be fully cancelled after six months.

It is important that members of this House, particularly the Liberal members, understand that it is important to make sure people use their heads when they are negotiating any deal and make sure that they understand what is contained within that deal.

As I said when I started out, we certainly support the idea of trade, but we need to think about it in a responsible manner. We need to approach it in a common sense fashion, as any democratic government would, to make sure it is in the best interests of the people of our country. For example, we need to make sure we do not make deals that tie the hands of sub-national governments, as happens with investor state dispute mechanism provisions.

We need to understand that we are a democracy, that we uphold democratic principles in this country, and that we are not going to give up those principles. We are not going to give up the rights of citizens and governments to make decisions over purchasing and over matters that are determined through democratic process. We are not going to cede those rights to corporations, either here or elsewhere.

What do we want? New Democrats want to deepen Canada's trade linkages with the Asia-Pacific region, something that we recognize is essential to maintaining Canadian prosperity in the 21st century.

We want the government to do more to support our automotive industry, for example. We understand that there are some concerns about the impact that reducing the 6.5% tariff will have on the automotive sector. We have to recognize that the automotive sector is under increasing global pressure as a result of competition, so the government should be participating actively with the automotive sector to make sure that it is providing the supports necessary to maintain a vital and vibrant industry that provides a lot of family-sustaining jobs.

We support breaking down trade barriers, but we believe that government should provide the support the Canadian industry needs to remain competitive in a more open world. We agree with the various organizations and individuals who say that governments need to do more than simply sign trade agreements. They must do more to promote Canadian exports, attract investments, and help Canadian companies penetrate the South Korean and other Asian markets.

Finally, we want a strategic trade policy, as I said earlier, whereby we have multilateral negotiations and sign trade deals with developed countries that have high standards and with developing countries that are on a progressive trajectory.

What do we have here, then?

As has been explained by my colleague, our trade critic, we have three main criteria for trade agreements that we look to in evaluating them.

First, is the proposed partner one that respects democracy, human rights, adequate environmental and labour standards, and Canadian values? I would suggest that South Korea is such a country.

Since South Korea emerged from a dictatorship in 1987, it transitioned into a vibrant, multi-party democracy with an active trade union movement, relatively high wages, a diverse civil society, and freedom of expression. In fact, in recent years, we could learn a great deal from a country like South Korea. It has invested billions in an ambitious green growth strategy aimed at improving energy efficiency as well as boosting renewables and green technology. It clearly respects high environmental and labour standards and it shares our values of human rights and democracy.

Second, is the proposed partner's economy of significant or strategic value to Canada? I would suggest that again South Korea passes the test.

South Korea is Canada's seventh most important trading partner and third in Asia, behind the two largest economies, China and Japan. In 2013, Canadian exports to South Korea totalled $3.4 billion, while Korean exports to Canada totalled $7.3 billion. We export the same amount to South Korea as we export to France and Germany. We import the same amount as we do from the U.K. This is Canada's first trade agreement with an Asian country, and it provides an opportunity to take advantage of the Pacific region, which is extremely important.

Third, are the terms of the proposed deal satisfactory? Again I suggest that in this case they are satisfactory.

With regard to jobs, the agreement will create a level playing field for Canadian companies and workers exporting to South Korea.

In agriculture, the free trade deal is essential. Canada has suffered significant losses in market share for Canadian agricultural exports to Korea following the implementation of the Korea-U.S. FTA.

In the aerospace sector, there is general support for a Korean FTA among manufacturing sectors, notably from Bombardier and from aerospace industry associations. The deal will gradually remove 100% of industrial tariffs, with an estimated value of $1.9 trillion in business to be generated by this sector of the economy.

With regard to seafood, there is a 47% tariff on Canadian exports to Korea. It will be eliminated. It is a big deal for seafood exporters in my community on the east coast and for exporters on the west coast as well.

With forestry and wood products, it is the same thing. This is a good deal.

However, I mentioned that there are concerns about the impact this deal may have on the auto sector. We are calling on the government to pay attention to those concerns. They are very legitimate, and we want the federal government to do more to support the auto industry in Canada.

We will propose solid, effective policy measures to strengthen the Canadian auto sector. It is a move that needs to happen, so I would indicate that to members.

We are using our heads when it comes to analyzing the trade deal. In this case, we give a thumbs-up.

[Business of Supply, September 23rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, there is nothing that we want more than for people to have an opportunity to work if they are able, and to be able to find family-sustaining jobs.

Of course, the current government has a terrible record in terms of creating jobs. The Conservatives worked with Canada Post to ensure that another 8,000 family-sustaining jobs are going to be lost in this country.

The small, medium-sized, and large businesses in Dartmouth—Cole Harbour do not need this. They are creating jobs, opportunities, and economic development despite the current government. We are working closely with them to ensure that they continue to do that.

However, I can tell the House that people come into my office who are unemployed through no fault of their own, and they have to wait upwards of 40 days to even get an answer from Service Canada about their claims. That is wrong, and the government should be ashamed of treating unemployed workers that way.

[Business of Supply, September 23rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question. I appreciate that the member for Winnipeg North is himself in a situation in which his party continues to change with the prevailing winds. That is like the Liberal Party. The Liberals campaign on the left and they govern on the right. They always have and they always will. Therefore, they never really know what they stand for, because it changes at any given time.

What the NDP stands for is supporting working people in this country. It stands for supporting small business people. It stands for making sure that the EI fund is used for what it is supposed to be used for, which is providing employment insurance benefits, ensuring that workers are there when they are needed by employers, and ensuring that people are supported between their employment opportunities. That is what the New Democratic Party stands for and always will stand for.

[Business of Supply, September 23rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Parkdale—High Park.

There is nothing more clear than this debate right here, right now. The Liberals have introduced a motion about how to further use the money of workers and employers, just the same way the Conservatives have done.

The Liberals were on their feet a second ago talking about how this was all about creating jobs and surely the NDP was in favour of that. Yes, we are, but out of general revenues that every taxpayer pays into. I know the Liberals do not understand this, nor do the Conservatives, but this fund is for unemployed workers. It is for paying benefits and for supporting people through training and education.

In the 1990s and the early 2000s, the Liberals absconded with $54 billion of worker and employer money and put it into general revenues, so I can understand they are a little confused now. They want to continue to do what they have done forever. Not only did they do that, but they cut away at the eligibility requirements for EI. The Conservatives kept doing the same thing to the point now where not only have the two parties taken off with $57 billion worth of worker and employer money, but now only 36.8% of people who are unemployed are eligible. Sixty-seven per cent of unemployed Canadians get denied. The fund is not there for them.

What is the answer? The Conservatives' answer is to cut premiums. Do they want to cut them for employers and for workers? No, just for employers. They continue to run a surplus now. It is estimated to be another $3.5 billion. Have they thought about the fact that the people who are unemployed and their families in Atlantic Canada, or downtown Toronto, or throughout the country, need the support because they are unemployed through no fault of their own. They do not think of that. They think about how they can make political hay out of the fact that they have allowed the surplus to accumulate. That is what they are doing.

What have the Liberals done? What have the MPs from Prince Edward Island done? Have they said not to touch that money, that it is for workers and employers, that this is money they have paid into EI to ensure that when people are unemployed they have some support? Have they said that Prince Edward Island has a high level of unemployment in their seasonal industries and those people deserve some support? No.

It is the same thing with the Liberal MPs in Nova Scotia and across the country. They think they can do better than what the Conservatives have done. The Conservatives are estimating to take $550 million out of the EI fund as a result of a scheme they have come up with.

The Liberals, with their proposal, have suggested it is only going to be $275 million. However, they screwed that up too. They messed up with their calculations. No one is surprised by that whatsoever. What is it going to cost? What did they forget to do? They based their calculation on net employment rather than gross employment. What is the difference? It is $1.2 billion. The members over here suggest that it will take $1.5 billion more out of the EI fund, and the Liberals ask why we would not support that.

In 2011, the NDP came up with the small business hiring tax credit proposal. In other words, if small businesses could prove that they created new jobs, then they would get a tax credit. They would get money back from that straight-up.

The people of Canada thought this was a good idea. Businesses thought this was a good idea. The Conservatives decided to take it on and they introduced it, but they only kept it going for two years. I do not understand why they did that.

I would suggest that the Conservatives have been under some fire, so instead of messing around with their supposed balanced budget as a result of cutting millions of dollars out of services to Canadians, including seniors, scientists, people on disability and veterans, they decided to come up with a new tax credit.

Where are they getting the money from? They are digging into the pockets of working people. It is unfair. There are no links whatsoever to job creation. They are just hoping. They are going to sprinkle a bit of dust and hope that some jobs will pop out of that. There is no linkage whatsoever.

Not only is that the case, but the government is increasingly shifting the responsibility for paying for this. It is not the responsibility of employers or other businesses. The responsibility falls on working people who pay into the EI fund. How can that be fair in this day and age?

If the government were committed to the idea of providing a tax credit to businesses for creating jobs, and it should be committed because it saw that the idea worked, then it should come forward with that kind of proposal. We would support it. We came up with the idea in the first place. We thought it was a good idea when the government brought it in before. We thought it was a bad idea when it took it away. This is the wrong way to go.

This would not help the unemployed. What kind of money are talking about in terms of those 37% of unemployed Canadians who do get employment insurance benefits? We are talking about an average payout of $395 a week under EI. Under the Conservative government, not only is the number of people who are receiving that money going down, but that amount is increasingly going down.

The seasonal industries in Atlantic Canada play an important role in our economy. What makes me so upset is that the Conservatives have brought about changes to eligibility requirements that have affected communities throughout Atlantic Canada. My colleagues from Atlantic Canada and Quebec talked about this problem. Members of the Liberal Party spoke to their constituents and others in Atlantic Canada about this problem.

We now have an opportunity to speak clearly about the fact that what the government has done is wrong. It does not deal with the EI fund. It does not deal with criteria or eligibility. It does not deal with the amount that unemployed workers receive. Nor does it deal with the problems that small businesses and seasonal industries are experiencing as a result of people not being there and the need for training. The government does not deal with any of that whatsoever.

With this proposal, the Liberals are trying to out conservative the Conservative Party. They are trying to take the bad math out of it. They are abandoning unemployed workers in our country, and that is shameful. I will spend some time talking about this to people from one end of the country to the other.

[Employment Insurance, September 23rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals and Conservatives teamed up to take more than $57 billion from the EI fund, money that was meant to pay for workers' benefits.

Atlantic Canada is still reeling from cuts to employment insurance, and access is at an all-time low.

Now they both have new plans to raid the fund for their own political advantage. This has to stop.

Will the minister support my bill to protect the EI account and finally put an end to Liberals and Conservatives stealing money from workers and employers?

[Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, September 22nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is any question that the government has lost its way on this and many other issues. Conservatives appear not to hear very well when people raise concerns. For example, my colleague, the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, introduced a bill calling for a national strategy against bullying that unfortunately did not get support from government members.

That is the kind of opportunity we have to provide the leadership Canadians are looking for on this and a whole host of other issues.

[Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, September 22nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, there was a huge number of concerns raised about the authorities overreaching as it related to provisions within the bill. Those concerns were brought to the committee and the NDP members of the committee introduced a number of amendments to try to deal with things like changing reasonable grounds to suspect, to reasonable grounds to believe, specifying the meaning of police office to police officers and removing public officers.

The point is that we need to implement and enforce the law, but we also need to ensure that there is some control over how that is done, that there is transparency and that people need know there are limits to their authority.

[Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, September 22nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to some extent to participate in the debate at this particular time, at the report stage.

I want to start by commending my colleagues, our justice critic and other members of the justice and human rights committee, who have worked so hard on Bill C-13 and introduced 37 amendments at the committee stage to try to take away some of the more onerous portions of this particular bill so that it would not, for example, spend the rest of its life in court being challenged constitutionally. It has taken a fair bit of effort and energy, I know, and patience on their part to do what they have done. I want them to know how much I appreciate it.

I want to, also, remind members that back on October 17, 11 months ago almost, I rose on a point of order to say that I was concerned about the issue that had been raised in my private member's bill, Bill C-540, making it a criminal offence to distribute non-consensual intimate images. While I had heard from the government in the throne speech and from utterances of the then minister of justice that he supported this in principle, I was concerned that the issue would get bundled up in a major piece of legislation, a controversial piece of legislation, and that it may get delayed or lost.

I sought unanimous consent at that particular time to consider Bill C-540 deemed read a second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. I did so because everyone in the House, of all parties, to a person, said that they supported the idea of holding people to account, changing the Criminal Code to ensure that the non-consensual distribution of intimate images was a crime and that people were going to be held accountable. I then moved a motion to say, let us move this to committee right now. This is a serious situation. It's affecting families. It is affecting lives across the country. Let us deal with it now. There is a will here. Let us find the way.

Unfortunately, that was turned down by the government.

It is interesting. The government then brought in Bill C-13, the initial portions of which dealt with the same issue that my private member's bill did, a little more thoroughly, of course, but it dealt with it. However, then the government did exactly what I and many of us were afraid of. It tacked on a great deal of what was in the former bill, Bill C-30, which it had to yank off the table two years ago because it was so soundly repudiated by privacy experts and others from across the country. The government attached it to the back of the cyberbullying bill.

When it introduced the bill, it did so in the company of the parents of people who had committed suicide, who had taken their lives as a result of cyberbullying, and it said, “We're here to deal with this”. It did not talk about the other parts of it.

Of course, there was great hope in those families and by advocates across the country that the government was going to move forward on this. Lo and behold, as is too often the case with the Conservatives, we got involved in a very controversial debate. We began to learn more about what was really in the bill, and advocates and privacy experts from across the country began to raise concerns.

Even one of the parents, who stood with the minister when the bill was introduced, said at committee that even though she wanted the Criminal Code to be changed to make the non-consensual distribution of intimate images a crime and that there should be consequences, she could not abide what else was in the bill, the outrageous and invasive parts of the bills that would allow for information on the Internet to be more accessible to authorities.

As was talked about in the recent Spencer case, the Supreme Court said it was about barring Internet service providers from disclosing names and addresses. It said that Canadians have the right to be anonymous on the Internet.

Here we have a bill that has been cloaked as an attempt to deal with the heartbreak and anguish experienced by families across the country as a result of their loved ones being bullied mercilessly through the Internet. It is a bill that has been identified as being meant to deal with that, yet in fact it is much more.

I had the opportunity to talk today with another parent. I explained to that parent what had happened, how things have progressed, the concerns that we have with the bill. I explained that the NDP would not be supporting this legislation.

He knew this anyway, because of work we had done in the past, the support I have provided, and the things we were doing together with other people to build awareness and to try to deal with this scourge of teen suicide. He understands my commitment. He, too, is shaken by the infringement on privacy provisions that are part of this bill. I am not going to tell the House that he gave me a pass, but he understands my concerns. He appreciates that I have tried to work, and will continue to work, with him and others to deal with this problem.

The point is that we are here. It has been a year and a half since I introduced the private member's bill, and it is another year and a half into this serious problem. We have still not dealt with it.

I get discouraged sometimes in this House when it seems that we cannot get from one point to the other without creating all kinds of controversy and hard feelings, bitterness and division.

Right now, as we speak, there are people in communities who are helping to build awareness of why cyberbullying is wrong. They are coming up with strategies to identify when teenagers and others are beginning to experience feelings of depression and suicide.

One of the parents I spoke to said that the most gratifying thing that happens as he goes across the country talking to junior and high school students is when the 12-year-olds and 13-year-olds come up to him. They are saying there is a problem and that this is what they are doing about it. The students are telling him what they are doing because they recognize it.

This is what is happening in communities across the country. People are recognizing that they have to step up and do something, because unfortunately governments are not up to the task.

[Coastal Fisheries Protection Act, September 18th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I talked about the way this bill came in through the back door being a sign that the government did not care very much about it and did not think it was very important.

We saw it delayed by at least a year. This legislation is meant to ratify the international agreement that was completed in 2010. We are now in the fall of 2014, and we still have not done it.

The member raised an important issue, and that is the responsibility we have as members of Parliament to ensure that legislation does what it says it is will do, that all the clauses work together and do not contradict each other.

Frankly, and I do not know about other members, I find it an embarrassment that legislation has gone through the process and is then found to be wrong and inconsistent with the Constitution. In fact, in one case the bill that was finally concluded by the Senate was the wrong legislation.

We have to do a better job. The government has to do a better job at managing how we deal with important legislation.

[Coastal Fisheries Protection Act, September 18th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, this is something I spoke about a bit because in so many areas, whether it be the lack of commitment the government members showed supporting that member's bill to stop shark finning, or the work that needs to be done in the Arctic on the Arctic donut hole to ensure we get some international control over fishing in that area, or the failure to respond to the Cohen Commission report on the Fraser River sockeye, at every step the government has shown that it is not committed to a sustainable fishery and a healthy ocean.

We are rightly concerned. While we support the legislation, the intention of participating in an international agreement to stop the illegal, unreported and unregulated fishery, we are concerned that the government will not provide the resources to ensure this is properly enforced.