Scott Simms

[Committees of the House, February 24th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the sixth report of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans entitled, “Review of Changes made in 2012 to the Fisheries Act: Enhancing the Protection of Fish and Fish Habitat and the Management of Canadian Fisheries”. Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.

I would also add that the committee heard from many groups, including indigenous communities and inshore fishers, primarily in eastern Canada, in relation to this study. While the majority of the committee felt that some of the feedback from these groups fell outside the scope of the committee's study, the committee will be providing this information to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard by way of letter.

Yesterday we had the honour of discussing private member's bill, Bill S-208. I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the seventh report of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans in relation to Bill S-208, an act respecting national seal products day. The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House without amendment.

[Harry Harnum, February 24th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to pay tribute to Harry Harnum, or as we called him, Chief Harry. Harry served with the Bishop's Falls fire department for 41 years and for 28 years he was our chief. Through many fires and floods, Harry risked his life for his community and he truly was our inspiration.

We need look no further than his own family. Today, his son Gary is the fire chief of Bishop's Falls. His other son, Ed, is the deputy fire chief. His son Craig is the deputy fire chief of Corner Brook. His grandson Steven is now a professional firefighter and his other grandson, Tyler, is now a firefighter for the Department of National Defence at CFB Trenton.

His son Harry, daughters Beverly and Cathy, nephews, daughters-in-law, also firefighters and his greatest friend and wife for 64 years, Jewel, are indeed a family of heroes.

Chief Harry passed away this week and will be laid to rest later today at his other home at the Calvary Pentecostal Church. Yesterday, his son Craig wrote to me and said, “I am sure the honour guard of Bishop's Falls will be standing proudly with heavy hearts as they lay to rest one of their finest”.

God bless.

[Ottawa River Watershed, February 23rd, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague who I have known for quite some time. As he compliments our colleague from Edmonton, I would like to compliment him in his expertise, even preceding his time in the House of Commons.

He spoke about the Ottawa River Regulation Planning Board. It sounds to me that it is quite restricted in allowing other opinions. He uses the Fraser River as a prime example. I would like him to comment further on that and to describe to the House what stakeholders need to be included right now and what his initiative will do to include them.

[Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement Implementation Act, February 6th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I have worked with the member and have travelled with him on this particular issue, and I will get to that in a moment. However, I want to address the issue which the member brought up about carbon pricing. The Conservatives seem to be saying that we are the only ones in the world who are doing this right now, that is, carbon pricing to help with the environment, but there is a universal acceptance that all of our current and future trading partners are doing it. I will leave that as it is, because in this case, I think the Conservatives are trying to make something out of what is not there.

In the case of this particular agreement, the member and I have shared the same table in Europe and we have talked about this. We have also talked about a parallel agreement called the strategic partnership agreement, which gives us a baseline of a political union, in a sense an informal political union, so that our ideologies match, and we are fundamentally agreeing with human rights and all other measures before we launch into the commercial aspect of this agreement.

I thank the member for his work and, by extension, the member for Abbotsford as well.

[Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement Implementation Act, February 6th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate many of the concerns the member has, certainly about the private property issue he brought up from the Conservative debate. I thought that was well done, and I thank him for that. However, from the logic of one stronger dominant partner over the other in any particular trade deal, I do not quite follow the logic about the Brexit situation.

Now that section 50 has been triggered and will, no doubt, come to pass, when it comes into force following a vote in Europe on February 14, I believe, following Bill C-30, if it passes, we will have entrenched quite a bit in a very substantial trade agreement, along with a strategic partnership agreement that is more political in nature but certainly very important. To me, that puts Great Britain on the other side of his logic, where it has to negotiate something with us as it leaves the European Union.

Perhaps he could explain to me further where his logic prevails over mine.

[Committees of the House, January 30th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fifth report of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, in relation to a motion adopted by the committee on Thursday, April 21, 2016, entitled “Wild Atlantic Salmon in Eastern Canada”.

Pursuant to Standing Order 109 of the House of Commons, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.

I want to thank all members of the committee, and certainly our analysts work worked very diligently, as well as our clerk.

[Request for Emergency Debate, January 30th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I request unanimous consent to revert to presenting reports from committees.

[Committees of the House, December 8th, 2016]

In the spirit of mutual admiration, Mr. Speaker, I say the same about my experience working with the member and others on electoral reform in the past, including the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley and the leader of the Green Party as well. We have had many great discussions.

To the member, that is the valid point that we are trying to seek here with representation in the House. That is why we committed to making the previous election the last one held under the first past the post system.

The member may not like a lot of the details about the survey, but the survey is good in that it goes back to what Thomas Axworthy said, which was to explore the values of where we want to go and not get caught up in all the details first. The details will follow, but let—

[Committees of the House, December 8th, 2016]

I apologize if my speech is interrupting his heckling, but I will continue.

Here is the situation. That party never engaged the electorate on this. I was there when the Conservatives did the Fair Elections Act. I use air quotes because it is quite comical. The Conservatives never once said anything about a referendum. That is #disingenuous, if they want to call that a Twitter campaign activity.

[Committees of the House, December 8th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, there are also many jurisdictions that did not have a referendum. There are also many jurisdictions that had a longer conversation, and he pointed to New Zealand in this regard. There are also jurisdictions that had a much smaller conversation and made that choice.

Electoral reform was discussed in the election campaign, and I say that there was an interest and hunger to have something that would strengthen this federation, as I spoke about earlier.

That is the point of this. I have no problems discussing the idea of a referendum, but the problem is that everyone is racing to the bottom or ultimate solution to this without engaging the values of this country on what we want to do.