Sean Fraser

[Business of Supply, June 12th, 2017]

--so with respect, I believe we are on the right track, and these policies will make a positive difference to the Canadian economy.

[Business of Supply, June 12th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I thought it ironic that we are painted on the one hand as loving quoting these CEOs but on the other hand of taxing them too much, to the point that they are furious with us. I think the truth lies somewhere in between. The fact is that we are trying to adopt policy that will help grow the Canadian economy, writ large.

Specifically, on the issue of competitiveness, if we miss out on the front crest of the wave of green industry, of clean investments, we will not be competitive, because the rest of the world will leave us behind.

Specific to the natural resources industry in Alberta, though, I would like to point out that I had a look at the Stats Canada report this morning, and year over year, May 2016 to May 2017, we have seen a 9.9% uptick in jobs in that sector--

[Business of Supply, June 12th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure, as always, to rise in the House to contribute to the discourse on what may be the most important issue facing my constituents, and that is the Canadian economy. The motion essentially seeks to address four constituent parts. The first is a broad statement about the Canadian economy. Then it has three sub-issues: softwood lumber, the western Canadian energy industry, and the western Canadian grain farming, specifically the transportation sector.

Before I get into each of these and explain why I will not support the motion, I would like to point out that the assumptions built into the language of the motion do not accurately reflect the facts at hand. I will start with the statement of the overall economy.

There is an attempt to build a narrative that the governing party is not an effective manager of the economy. I disagree wholeheartedly.

I find it somewhat ironic that around the same time the motion was put forward, we saw a very positive jobs report. Specifically, we have seen over one-quarter of a million new jobs in Canada over the six month period preceding, including just last month, with 55,000 new full-time jobs. Unemployment has gone down from 7.1% to 6.6%, and GDP growth is at 3.7% in the first quarter.

The reason I lay these statistics out is because I find data to be a helpful tool when we form analyses. Instead of projecting a narrative that we would hope would be true, it is important we consider the facts along the way.

We have seen a plan starting to take hold. I know history will be the judge of the success of this government and its economic performance, but the early signs are encouraging in my opinion. The economy is growing. The plan seems to be working, and I am quite proud to be part of it.

I would like to address each of the sub-issues raised in the motion, the first being the softwood lumber dispute.

Of course this is an important and challenging issue that faces regions of the country differently, including Atlantic Canada where I live. There is a number of stellar producers in my own backyard, like Scotsburn Lumber, Williams Brothers, Ledwidge Lumber, that have done a great job, historically, of employing Canadians. This is a fight that we continue to fight every day.

The opposition would have Canadians believe that we have stumbled over this as a federal government, but the agreement did expire under the last government. Although it is not our fault, it is our problem. I have been working closely with the minister and with my Atlantic Canada and Nova Scotia colleagues to help find a solution to this pressing issue for our producers.

In my conversations with the minister on this file, I have full faith in her ability to go head-to-head with the toughest negotiators south of the border. However, the fact is that right now she is facing a climate of protectionism that we have not seen in my lifetime when it comes to this file or trade more generally. Our neighbours are going to do what they think is in their best interests. However, the folks at the helm on our side are very capable and I have full faith in their ability to get a resolution. In the interim, we have introduced an important aid package to ensure we are there to help at a time when help is desperately needed.

On the energy file, specific reference is made to the western Canadian energy sector and carbon pricing. This is of extraordinary importance. I am no enemy to the energy industry. I have made a living working as a lawyer in Calgary and have significant experience working with oil and gas companies in different parts of the energy sector. I understand the strategic importance of this industry to the Canadian economy. However, the characterization of a price on carbon as an attack on the economic industry is wrongheaded, respectfully to the member who has put forward the motion.

We have to understand that the atmosphere in Canada and across the world belongs to all of us. Polluting that atmosphere is not and should not be free. Putting a price on carbon is the most effective way to reduce emissions and help mitigate the negative impacts of pollution that contribute to anthropogenic climate change. Moreover, I see this as a massive opportunity for us as Canadians. With the ability to develop a skilled workforce, we can take part in a growing industry that will contribute to clean growth and help reduce emissions at the same time. When this opportunity is staring us in the face, I cannot help but take a crack at it, and we are on the right track.

We are making investments in green infrastructure and putting a price on carbon. Some of the biggest energy companies in Canada and around the world are proponents of this approach, companies like Synovus, Suncor, Shell, CNRL, Total, TransCanada, Enbridge, and so on. Some of the people who on a first blush might stand to lose the most are some of the biggest supporters of this kind of an approach to climate policy. I am proud we have industry leaders who have stepped up to the plate.

The final issue raised in this motion has to do with grain farmers, specifically the impact of certain rules and the potential expiry of a unique feature of Canadian transportation called inter-switching.

In 2013, we were facing a truly unique circumstance, with a bumper crop in western Canada and a very harsh winter that made it very difficult to get all our products to market in a timely way. I have had some exposure to this issue, although I am from Atlantic Canada, in my role as a member of the transportation, infrastructure, and communities committee, where we dealt with it. What we saw was that at the time, there was actually a short-term, prudent measure that helped, in an emergency situation, get products to market. This was a difficult situation that needed to be addressed.

The tool created at that time to deal with a pressing circumstance may not be the best tool for the long term. What we have in Bill C-49 is a commitment to long-haul inter-switching such that if there was only one company that could meet transportation needs to get goods to market, we would introduce competition of sorts that would allow a farmer to piggyback on the rates that would be offered had there been another rail company there.

We have made a commitment that rather than dealing with short- or medium-length inter-switching to 160 kilometres, we are going to implement a long-term solution. I cannot help but notice that Alberta's barley growers have indicated that this is fantastic news. The Western Producer, a publication in western Canada, said that the Minister of Transport met with producers and listened carefully and agreed with what was said.

This is a positive development. We have engagement with different communities and policy that is going to, hopefully, meet their needs in the long term and not simply be a response to a short-term issue.

I will try to wrap up by revisiting the initial point I made. What we are trying to do is focus on steps that are going to improve the economy in the long term. I recognize that there are communities that are hurting today, including many I represent, that need jobs more than anything. What we are trying to do is put a plan into action that is going to help kick-start economic growth in the short term and sustain policies that will contribute to long-term economic growth.

We are seeing investments in innovation. For example, at St. Francis Xavier University, Dr. Risk's Flux Lab has, with the help of federal funding, been able to create a product that has entered into a commercial partnership. It detects gas leaks by affixing a detector to the front of a vehicle. This kind of technology would not have benefits just in my community. It would be able to help reduce greenhouse emissions across Canada by preventing leaks and would employ people in the process.

We are seeing investments in infrastructure, such as municipal infrastructure projects, that have kept people in my communities employed during months when they might ordinarily be laid off.

We are seeing commitments to expanding trade relationships between Canada and its trading partners, because we know that with the natural resources we have and the skilled workforce we have, we can produce more and higher-value goods than we can consume as a country. What we need to do is expand our trade relationships to ensure that communities across Canada have the opportunity to benefit.

I appreciate that this may take some time, and more time than many members of this House would like, including me. If there was a job for every one of my constituents tomorrow, I would be the first person advocating for the policy that would give it to them. The fact is that this is a long and difficult process, but we have to start today. I believe that the government is on the right foot, and I look forward to the historical record that will be laid down, because I have to say, the early signs are quite encouraging.

[Petitions, June 12th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to present a petition on behalf of constituents living in the communities of Sheet Harbour, Tangier, and Mushaboom on the issue of palliative care.

Specifically, the undersigned would like to identify hospice palliative care as a defined medical service covered under the Canada Health Act so that provinces and territories can use transfers from the federal government for this kind of important care.

[Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, June 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, this House unanimously passed a motion from my colleague, the member for Fundy Royal, to study Atlantic immigration and the retention of newcomers.

For 10 years, the Harper Conservatives ignored and insulted Atlantic Canada, and after yesterday, it looks like the NDP has sided with the Conservatives. On this side of the House, all 183 of us proudly support Atlantic Canada and our colleague from Fundy Royal.

Can the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship please update this House on what our government is doing to support prosperity and economic growth in my region of Atlantic Canada?

[June 5th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, on the issue of time allocation, I find this a difficult issue to take seriously at times because of what I have watched go on in this chamber over the course of the last few months. Again, perhaps this is out of a bit of naïveté, but I did not expect to come here and have to take half my day voting on which member stood up first. Canadians expect us to make investments and to move forward with an agenda that will actually turn into results in their communities.

As to the question of the parliamentary budget officer, I believe this is an important officer. I look forward to the day where we can, through the Speaker, break this up and have the officer give independent feedback on each piece.

[June 5th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's question and I congratulate him on his participation in a hard-fought leadership race for the official opposition.

I would like to say that perhaps this is my optimism or naïveté as a young member of Parliament from Atlantic Canada, but I sincerely believe that the days of parochialism are gone from Atlantic Canadian politics. When I can stand up and say, “We are going to judge our ministers and our members based on results, not by where they come from”, I will be proud. The results have been delivered.

With the Atlantic growth strategy, it is the first time I have seen a regional focus to policy and investments that are creating jobs in my community, that are going to improve the strength of those communities, and that will make Atlantic Canadians more successful.

[June 5th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, as I mentioned, there has been a shift in attitude since we have come into government that recognizes the potential in Atlantic Canada.

This has been put into action through the Atlantic growth strategy that was formed after the feedback from 32 Atlantic Liberal MPs and which was able to partner with the regional ministers and of course the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, who then reached a deal with the four Atlantic Canadian provinces to come up with a strategy that focuses on key areas that are going to drive growth.

With our demographic challenges, immigration is a major issue. What we have seen is a pilot project announced that will see at least 6,000 new families coming to Atlantic Canada to fill the labour needs of our labour market where a Canadian cannot be found to do those jobs.

We see a focus on innovation that is going to spur small- and medium-sized business growth. We see a focus on clean growth, and I note ACOA has set aside $20 million specifically for environmentally green projects. I could go on, but I want to give time to other members who want to ask questions as well.

[June 5th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to rise to contribute to the debate on Bill C-44, which would implement certain provisions in budget 2017.

We have heard members canvass some of the specific investments that we would make through the budget. What I would hope to do over the course of my remarks is offer a more personal twist, given my experience as someone who represents small towns and rural communities in Atlantic Canada.

I will hit on a few themes over the course of my remarks, but I would like to explain very briefly why I ran for politics and how this budget will help remedy some of the problems I saw.

I grew up in a family with six kids. Both of my parents were teachers. If the kids in my family had been asked 10 years ago what we wanted to do, we all would have said that we wanted to stay in Pictou County and make our lives and our careers there. Ten years later, when I was thinking about running for office, not one child in my family was living and working in the area we called home while growing up. There is a problem with that scenario, and it is not unique to Pictou County, Nova Scotia. It spreads throughout Atlantic Canada. This is a focus for me, and will be for the entire time I hold this job.

I see measures in budget 2017 that will help create a robust economy in Pictou Canada, the rest of Atlantic Canada, and the country as a whole. This is something our Prime Minister gets as well.

Recently, during a visit to the Nova Scotia Community College campus in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, he indicated that gone were the days when the only option was to move out west to find work. If we provided the skills and education to young people, they could grow up and raise a family on the east coast in the hometowns where they had always lived. This is inspiring to me. I know the last prime minister referred to Atlantic Canadians as living in a culture in defeatism. This difference in attitude makes a difference. However, these are not empty words; they are followed with unique actions.

I do not have time to highlight all the things I would like to, but I will point to a couple of programs that have led to projects in my riding.

We have invested in infrastructure, including post-secondary education infrastructure. Nova Scotia is unique in its number of universities. It has 10 universities and many more Nova Scotia community college campuses. Just next to my hometown is the Nova Scotia Community College campus. We are contributing to a new trades innovation centre. The principal of that campus, David Freckelton, has worked his tail off to turn this project into a reality. However, it was only made possible with the investments of this government in our communities' infrastructure. This will create jobs in the short term, but, more importantly, in the long term this will ensure that the friends I went to East Pictou Rural High School with and my neighbours in New Glasgow still will be able to fill those positions that open up in machine shops throughout rural Nova Scotia. We will be educating the skilled trades people for the next generation.

In addition, programs at St. Francis Xavier University have recently been announced through infrastructure funding to create a new centre for innovation and health. Given the health care challenges in Nova Scotia, knowing we have more seniors per capita than any other province in Canada, this centre will pay dividends for generations.

We have also seen a contribution to the Institute of Government, which will help inspire people from different walks of life to take part in political leadership. I note specifically that program has included a leadership program for women as well, which is a tremendous contribution to our community.

It is not just infrastructure investments and post-secondary education. We are investing in the kind of infrastructure that makes a difference in the communities I represent. Small craft harbours provide an excellent example. I have basketball teammates from home who are fishing out of communities like Lismore. If we are investing in the wharves along the Northumberland Strait and the eastern shore, we are not just creating jobs in the next few years but we are securing a safe place to harvest what has become our nation's second-most valuable export. At the same time, we are pursuing export strategies to help bump up the price of our marquis seafood product in Nova Scotia, lobster, to ensure we are sustaining rural economies for years to come.

We are also partnering with municipalities to a degree that we have not seen before. Over the past few days, I have had representatives from my riding of Central Nova here for the FCM conference. They have been lauding the 2017 budget as a game changer. This has allowed projects like new water and waste water systems in a community like Plymouth. Friends of mine who grew up just down the road and have worked for great construction companies in my community say that this is the time of year that they are normally laid off. However, because there is a project going ahead, they are not only able to find work and contribute to the economy, but also build a project that is going to help the community grow. These are smart investments and I throw my full support behind them.

There are also key transportation pieces of infrastructure that need investment, and this is where the budget is going to come through as well. We have one of the deadliest stretches of highway running right through my community. There have been 15 deaths since 2009 alone. Knowing that we have a partner in the provincial government that is willing to pursue a twinning project to help improve safety is a wonderful thing, but it is also going to create a phenomenal number of jobs in my community over the next seven years.

Local business people have been coming to my office since the beginning of my term as a member of Parliament advocating for the P.E.I.-Nova Scotia ferry connection to be funded, but also to set up a framework for long-term funding. This is something that was announced recently with a focus on transportation infrastructure that will allow producers, like Scotsburn Lumber, to make a long-term plan to get its products to market. It will allow trucking companies to perhaps get three trips instead of two to the island in a day. It will contribute to the local economy for years to come.

There is another issue I would like to hit on in the limited time that remains, and that is the fact that the budget has applied a gender lens to a degree I have never seen in Canadian politics.

It has been one of the great professional honours of my career to date to serve as a member of the status of women committee. Over the course of our nation's history, women have been suppressed and excluded from full participation in Canadian society and the Canadian economy. That is not the result of chance. That is the result of decisions that have been made over the course of a generation. However, the budget has considered specifically how the policies identified and, hopefully, adopted through this legislation will make a difference, not just in the lives of Canadians en masse but also specifically how they will impact women differently.

Some of the programs we are seeing rolled out are investments to the tune of $100 million to develop a gender-based violence strategy. I have to thank the champions in my community who have been working on issues like this. I was so pleased to serve on a panel when we announced funding for the bystander intervention project, launched in partnership with different communities in Antigonish, including the campus community of St. FX; Lucille Harper, who has been an absolute champion for women's rights in the community over the course of her lifetime; and other tremendous panellists who served and told the stories of their experience living in the nearby first nations community, or generally, in the community, and how a lack of bystander awareness and intervention has contributed to social problems like gender-based violence.

We have also seen funding allocated for gender and diversity training for judges in the budget. I would like to thank the former interim leader of the official opposition for her work. We were able to collaborate on the status of women committee to ensure that judges have the training materials they need, which would be provided through this budget, to make sure they understand the unique considerations that might come before a court, for example, in a sexual assault case. We do not need another statement like the boneheaded ones we have seen in the cases of Justice Camp, and more recently, Judge Lenehan in Nova Scotia. Quite frankly, those attitudes are outdated, and if we can do something in the House to prevent the injustices we have seen in sexual assault cases in our communities, that is the least we owe women living in Canada today.

In the remaining minutes I have, I will shift my focus to a few social programs that are funded under budget 2017, which I fully support.

We have seen tremendous investments in health care. As I mentioned, with the large proportion of seniors we have in Nova Scotia, one of the long-term solutions to our demographic woes needs to be enhanced in-home care. While there are some improvements being made, the system does not work as effectively as it should. Budget 2017 would implement the accord between the Province of Nova Scotia and the federal government, which would see not only the largest transfer from the federal government to my home province for health care, but in addition, funds have been earmarked for in-home care to the tune of $157 million, and $130 million for mental health.

This means that people who need quality care in their homes will have CCAs, who put up with incredibly difficult working conditions and schedules, to provide quality care at a better price in their homes, where our seniors would rather be. We do not need to be financing people to the tune of $1,000 a day for long-term hospital stays if that person can receive appropriate care in his or her home.

My grandfather, who is a veteran, has had tremendous benefits and has been able to stay in his home because he has had in-home care, supported by the Department of Veterans Affairs. We should apply what we have learned with our veterans to the rest of our community and ensure that all Canadians have quality access to in-home care, so that our seniors can retire with dignity and remain in their homes as long as they are able to.

I could go on for days about the virtues of budget 2017 and the priorities of our government, but as I am running out of time, I would like to say thank you for the opportunity, Madam Speaker, and I will be supporting this piece of legislation.

[Business of Supply, May 11th, 2017]

Through you, Madam Speaker, I would like to address the handful of concerns the hon. member opposite has raised.

With respect to things like time allocation, I find this to be a difficult pill to swallow after I have been forced to leave committee to vote on at least three, maybe four, occasions on issues such as who stood up first, on issues about adjourning debate and shutting down the House when we are seeking to move forward a legislative agenda and bring these issues to the light of day. I cannot accept in good faith an argument about the use of time allocation and that we are trying to rush on that basis.

With respect to the involvement of groups like BlackRock, a number of issues have come up in the House. We have been the subject of allegations of conflict of interest any time there has been a member of an industry we are seeking investments from, whose involvement is in providing expertise. The alternative would be to exclude industry players who have knowledge that could be useful.

With respect to the comments on the Asian infrastructure bank, that is not something I actually raised in my remarks, although there are a number of different infrastructure banks my hon. colleague from London raised previously, such as in the U.K. and Australia.

This is going to provide an opportunity for different groups to invest. It is going to see money from different countries come into my community. I am proud to support it.