Sheila Malcolmson

[Status of Women, May 9th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, it is frustrating how the rhetoric of the government does not line up with its legislative or spending priorities. What the member just described in detail, I could have done myself, except for the finish, which has no action associated with it. Therefore, women are not going to get any benefit of pay equity until after the next election, if the government follows through and keeps its word.

At the status of women committee, the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, the largest nursing organization in Canada, representing 200,000 nurses, who are largely female as it is a gendered industry, said that an important first step for economic justice for women in Canada would be to implement the 2004 pay equity task force recommendations. Why is the government so slow to act?

[Status of Women, May 9th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, the Liberals promised pay equity 42 years ago. That was a promise made by former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau. They promised it again in 2016, with no rationale at all for the delay. In 2016, a unanimous all-party committee called for pay equity legislation by June of 2017. Here we are, almost a year later, and there is still no legislation. All the women's organizations that testified at committee said there is no reason for delay, and they said repeatedly that justice delayed is justice denied.

In December 2017, the labour minister said, “Our consultations on how to do this are over”, and still we have no pay equity legislation in the House.

The budget documents said that pay equity is essential for women's economic justice, but the budget had no money for pay equity. Barb Byers, who is the former secretary-treasurer of the Canadian Labour Congress, said:

Let us also be mindful that women have been waiting for longer than [14] years. We have been waiting for decades and decades, and while we wait, the debt owed to those who are caught in the wage gap continues to mount.

My team asked the Library of Parliament to calculate the cost of that debt over the 2004-2017 period. The calculation begins in 2004 because that is when the previous Liberal government had a pay equity task force and had legislation and never moved on it. The Library of Parliament calculated that over this period, the wage theft from Canadian women was equivalent to $678 billion in wages. That figure represents about 33% of the gross domestic product in 2015. That is a colossal effect.

Fourteen years have passed since the pay equity task force called for pay equity legislation, and over those years, Canadian women would have had $678 billion more in their pockets. Still there is no legislation and no money in the 2018 budget.

Last year, an alternative federal budget was put together by progressive NGOs across the country under the banner of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, and it stated that $10 million a year would fund pay equity. The CCPA also recommended it in last year's budget, and nothing was done. For this year's budget, the Canadian Labour Congress asked the federal government to, at a minimum, fund the establishment of a pay equity commissioner and a pay equity office and the infrastructure needed to implement legislation once it comes. Again there was nothing. No funds were devoted to implement pay equity.

To the minister's representative, why does the government continue to delay justice with respect to funding for the implementation of pay equity, and how much longer will women have to wait to be paid equally for work of equal value?

[Department of Public Works and Government Services Act, May 9th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, as a member of Parliament proud to represent the fine forest base community at Nanaimo— Ladysmith, at the foundation of our community and still a driver of so many jobs in the region, I am very pleased to support the bill proposed by my friend and colleague, the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay, Bill C-354, an act to amend the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act. The bill would create room in the public procurement process for building with wood, achieving climate change savings, and also local economy benefits of building more with wood.

On Vancouver Island, there are more than 100 small and medium value-added wood manufacturing businesses. There are 1,100 employees altogether on Vancouver Island, a major economic driver. This is borne out every year in reports by the Vancouver Island Economic Alliance. We are very committed to forestry and to adding jobs at every opportunity we get. If we are going to cut the trees, we may as well create jobs and get more value-added benefits at home.

Specifically, in my community, since 1988, Coastland Wood Industries has been a value-added innovator. It is North America's number one manufacturer of plywood veneer and fence posts. After peeling the logs repeatedly to get the veneer off, what remains is a perfectly-sized fence post? Who knew that Nanaimo would have the number one manufacturer of fence posts in North America?

Coastland is an extremely strong and committed employer. The partnerships that Coastland has with the Snuneymuxw First Nation are a model for businesses across the country. They are working to employ and train Snuneymuxw youth and are very committed to their partnerships around land and being a good neighbour. They also have a firewood program to help Snuneymuxw elders, which is another example of value-added forestry. It is so encouraging.

Also, in our community, both TimberWest and Island Timberlands are major drivers of a lot of good community work. They are very important community partners. I look forward to getting out on the land with them this summer and looking at some of the marmot recovery projects they are helping to fund.

Western Forest Products is in Nanaimo and in Ladysmith. A lot of people go to work at these mills. They are milling red cedar, Douglas fir, hem-fir, yellow cedar, and Sitka spruce from a big region coming into the riding and adding that value.

A number of years ago, Harmac Pacific mill was purchased by its employees, and is now largely employee-owned. They are using residual wood waste from their pulp mill to generate renewable energy, enough to power 18,000 homes. It is at the heart of the economy, good unionized jobs and employee ownership as well. They are a real point of pride in our community.

Another really nice partnership on the value-added forestry side is the Vancouver Island University carpentry program. It has strong partnerships with Nanaimo CHBA and other local contractors, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners Local 527. It also works really well with city of Nanaimo building officials.

My my favourite partnership is with Habitat for Humanity where Vancouver Island University carpentry students got their practicum or their credits. Instead of building a fake building that they frame, built up, and then torn down, they worked with Habitat for Humanity to build new affordable housing in Nanaimo, which was just opened a year or so ago. Those students did everything from framing, to the heavy equipment operators having cleared the site, and the interior decorators having finished off the homes. It was such a point of pride. I am grateful to VIU for helping the young carpentry students get invested from the very beginning in building affordable housing.

All of this value-added work and local expertise fits in with the intention of my colleague's legislation. The groundwork is very well prepared by municipal governments and by the provincial government in British Columbia.

In my riding of Nanaimo—Ladysmith, Ladysmith Town Council passed a resolution in December 2010, which said:

WHEREAS BC's forest industry has been and will continue to be an integral part of the economic, social and business life of the Town of Ladysmith;

AND WHEREAS the BC Government has passed a Wood First Act to facilitate a culture of wood by requiring use of wood as the primary material in all new provincially funded buildings, in a manner consistent with the British Columbia Building Code;

AND WHEREAS the Town Council of the Town of Ladysmith deems that building with wood is consistent with natural resource, economic, and social stability;

BE IT RESOLVED that the Town of Ladysmith will continue to support the development of its wood culture by:

being a wood champion and supporting the BC government's Wood First Act by adopting this Wood First resolution;

ensuring that the performance of wood systems and products are considered whenever appropriate in all municipal buildings to maximize the achievement of Ladysmith's Civic Green Building Policy;

ensuring that all municipal infrastructure projects in Ladysmith receiving provincial or wood industry financial support employ the appropriate structural or architectural use of wood; and

ensuring that where possible, preference is given to the use of domestic wood products.

My colleague from South Okanagan—West Kootenay's legislation is the federal chapter of this work that has moved from local business, to local municipality, to our provincial government in British Columbia, and now into the federal realm to boost the use of wood in federally funded infrastructure projects and institutional buildings. There is so much support for this.

The Forest Products Association of Canada has estimated that a 100,000 square foot wood building would store 5,300 tonnes of CO2. It would also contribute 2,100 tonnes of avoided greenhouse gas emissions. This net carbon benefit in a single building is equal to taking 1,400 cars off the road for a year.

The Canadian Climate Forum has also lauded the use of the engineering innovations that have allowed us to build tall wood buildings. It says the potential exists to construct low-carbon emission skyscrapers using mass wood, large wood veneers and beams made from glued laminated wood veneer strands or timber.

There was a great presentation from the British Columbia Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions. It has a whole bunch of ways it wants to see governments amend their forestry policies. It plugged very hard the benefits of storage of carbon in wood products. If we put our wood into paper, it does not last very long. If we put it into big laminated beams and then build it into our institutions, which will last for decades, we are benefiting local economy and jobs and also anchoring in climate change savings.

I support my colleague's bill. It would require the Government of Canada to consider using wood products when building, maintaining, or repairing federally owned buildings. Decisions as to which construction materials would be used would be based both on cost and on a climate calculation.

Although the technology is proven and we have good examples, the challenge today is getting builders and those procuring building materials to seriously consider wood as a structural material, not just a finishing material.

The bill, if passed by the House, and it looks like it will be, is to force the federal government to consider wood when building, to make an honest assessment of the potential materials and then build with what is best. As the largest procurer in Canada, the federal government could give this sector a real boost by using this cutting-edge technology at home.

The only concern I have heard is on the firefighting side, and I might be able to talk about that more in questions. I am certainly cognizant of what I have heard some firefighters in my community say, but I am confident from an engineering perspective and the reassurance we have been given at committee that we are in good hands.

I look forward to seeing the House move forward in a good way on the legislation.

[Petitions, May 9th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, there are more bulk carriers anchored in the Salish Sea than we have ever seen before. Therefore, today I table petitions in the House, which are a continuation of thousands of signatures we have received.

The petitioners call on the transport minister not to approve five new bulk anchorages proposed for Gabriola Island where I live. Five new anchorages, each for 300-metre freighters, risk oil spills, habitat destruction, and the jobs dependent on the sport fishing industry.

There are signatories from Abbotsford, Surrey, Fort McMurray, Saskatoon, Nanaimo, and Gabriola Island. We commend the petition to the transport minister.

[Public Safety, May 8th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, astoundingly, at the public safety committee yesterday, a Liberal member asked the incoming and first female RCMP commissioner, “How will a lady tell the guys to behave?” Such language, directed at the commissioner tasked with tackling harassment, sexual harassment, and bullying in the RCMP, is unquestionably sexist and undermining her leadership. Does the public safety minister feel that the question was appropriate? If not, what is he going to do about it?

[Fisheries and Oceans, May 7th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, with respect, the member did not answer my question so I will ask it in a different way.

If she is so pleased with Bill C-64 and it is so ready to go, why is it stalled again? It has been two months. Communities are demanding a much broader solution than what is in Bill C-64, but nevertheless, let us bring it back to the House and get it done. What could possibly be the explanation? If the bill is in such perfect shape, why not bring it back now?

If the government is going to continue to delay, can the member please assure me that the transport ministry is using this long delay for good purpose and actually inserting the solutions coastal communities asked for into Bill C-64? So far they were all voted down at committee, so I hope the transport minister has a different view.

[Fisheries and Oceans, May 7th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, it is coming up to the middle of May. The boating season in British Columbia has already begun. Therefore, I am here to encourage the government to move forward on its legislation to deal with the long-standing problem of abandoned vessels. These problems are well enumerated.

I know the government has said repeatedly that it shares my commitment to finding a long-standing resolution, a comprehensive, country-wide solution, as most other maritime countries have, in some cases decades ago.

My question is not about the level of the government's commitment. Rather, I am seeking a very specific update on when the government will return Bill C-64 to the House for further debate. It was two months ago that it was returned by committee to the House.

I will also indicate my hope that the reason for the delay in returning the bill to the House is that the minister himself is considering the amendments I proposed at committee, which the Liberal members of the committee voted down. The government is maybe still considering the fine details of those amendments. That is the only reason I can imagine for why the government would not already have the bill back to the House and be moving forward with the next stages of debate and reading stages. We could finally see some resolution, especially for the boaters this summer, who could be out there saying it is great that an abandoned vessel solution was legislated by their federal government. It would build some faith and trust.

Members will remember that the bill was fast tracked by the NDP. It was quite rare to get the unanimous consent of the House to move it to committee so quickly. I was very glad to have been able to initiate that. I was glad that the House agreed, that the transport committee decided to switch its focus from its other business to focus on the study, and that we had so many witnesses who spoke so clearly about the solutions that coastal communities have been advocating. They were in my legislation, Bill C-352, which was blocked by the Liberal-dominated procedure and House affairs committee, and then voted down by Liberal members. It was not even heard in the House. Nevertheless, I tried to transport the elements of that legislation into the minister's bill, Bill C-64.

Therefore, as a reminder on some of those pieces that I hope maybe the minister is considering now, it being the only explanation for why Bill C-64 would be so delayed, is the government now considering bringing into its bill a vessel turn-in program, modelled on the cash for clunkers program? Is it considering creating a dedicated fee to put a fund aside to deal with the backlog of abandoned vessels, since Bill C-64 does not address that backlog? Is the government planning to legislate to formalize the Coast Guard's role in dealing with abandoned vessels? When that was in former MP Jean Crowder's legislation three years ago, in a previous parliament, all of the Liberal Party voted in support of it, including the now transport minister, fisheries minister, and the Prime Minister. Is the government delaying Bill C-64 so that it can incorporate those coastal solutions into the abandoned vessel legislation?

[Canada Labour Code, May 7th, 2018]

I welcome the question, Mr. Speaker.

It is true. At a time when threats of violence were phoned in or mailed in, that was one thing. The rest of the world did not see them in the way that people do on social media. Either way, I want to give deep thanks to all of the workers who support us as parliamentarians. They screen us from some of the most difficult comments, but they themselves take the brunt of that. That is a workplace issue, and I thank them for protecting us so well.

The thing I am concerned about, though, is that the sexual, misogynistic, hateful things that are said online are for everybody to see. I am concerned that others watching, especially women and marginalized groups, who have a hard time getting into places like this anyway because of the barriers they face, look at those comments online and think, “Do I want to subject my family to that?” We should not be doing anything that turns people off.

Therefore, the very first and best remedy that we have is to restore to the Canadian Human Rights Act the protections removed by the Conservative government—the Liberal government should have done this already—and to make online threats and comments subject to complaint in the same way that phone calls and letters are.

[Canada Labour Code, May 7th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, being unable to discern what that question was, I will take the opportunity to run through a list of the amendments that my colleague presented at the committee that were rejected. We have already talked about the role of the public safety and national security committee's motion that was moved, which, despite many witnesses calling for it, was not taken up by the government. We also proposed strengthening the prevention of mental illness in the Labour Code. Something that teamsters urged us to do was to have a very strong intervention on mental health. That was a motion that was rejected. There was a proposal that the fundamental corporate policies be listed in the Canada Labour Code so that this be fully transparent. Another idea was to schedule mandatory training sessions on sexual harassment so employers are fully aware of their responsibilities. I have another list twice as long, but I will leave it there.

[Canada Labour Code, May 7th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, we are at quite a time in our country. I am honoured to be representing Nanaimo—Ladysmith at this time.

First, we have an unprecedented opportunity for gender equality around the world. At the same time, I would argue that we have an unprecedented awareness of the impact that sexual harassment and workplace violence, and harassment, period, can have on workers and the fact that harassment should never be part of any job.

I think of my grandfather, John Osler, who was a lawyer for labour when there were not any in Canada, and the recognition of the violence done physically to people in the workplace and the importance of putting in place laws and frameworks to protect workers' physical safety. We now know our responsibility in this day and age is to have the same level of protection for people's workplace environment as it relates to harassment and sexual harassment. Therefore, we cannot pretend we do not know.

I am very aware of the media investigation this weekend about the threats against the life of New Democrat Premier Rachel Notley. I know she is not alone. Women in this House have been profiled as having received sexual harassment and threats of physical violence against them. Harassment is not part of a politician's job, so I am sorry for Rachel Notley.

While watching some of the media this weekend with my mom and dad, they observed that there was a great deal of hand-wringing but very little concrete action. What are we actually going to do? Talking about it or reporting on it is not enough.

I was reminded of two years ago when the status of women committee, in its 2016 all-party consensus report, made recommendations to the government, to this Parliament, in particular recommendation 18. This is in the context of its study on ending violence against young women and girls, but, inevitably, there was a great deal of testimony that we heard about online harassment and cyberbullying. Young women, like Rehtaeh Parsons and Amanda Todd, were harassed to the point that they took their own lives. There are horrible stories with which no family should ever have to contend.

When we asked the witnesses for remedies, they said that the previous Conservative government had removed part of the Canadian Human Rights Act, maybe for reasons of freedom of speech, which turned out leaving a very serious hole in our human rights legislation that we needed fixed immediately. Therefore, our recommendation was:

That the Government of Canada introduce legislation to restore Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act which permitted rights complaints to the federal Canadian Human Rights Commission for the communication of hate messages by telephone or on the Internet.

However, here it sits two years later. The government received an all-party recommendation to repair the damage the Conservative government did in the Harper era.

While we are talking about harassment in the workplace and while our attention is focused on the death threats that Premier Notley received, as reported last week, let us remember there are actions that we can take, and I urge that we take them. We need a little less conversation and a little more action.

Bill C-65 is an example of action, which the New Democrats welcome. We welcome anything that makes workplaces freer from harassment and creates a clearer path for employees. For employees on the Hill, there is this strange kind of cone of no-rules land somehow around the Labour Code, especially as it relates to harassment and sexual harassment. Therefore, we are glad to see the bill here. We are also glad that all parties have been able to work together, especially with the labour movement, which has very good advice on this file to try to bring changes to the bill.

We know the need is real. Fifty-three per cent of Canadian women have experienced unwanted sexual pressure. Fifty per cent of Canadian women have experienced some form of sexual harassment in the workplace. Sixty per cent of respondents experienced some form of harassment in the workplace, with nearly half of those from people with authority over them. Therefore, power is a big part of this dynamic. Women who are racialized, queer or indigenous and women living with disabilities all have a much harder time and receive a disproportionate amount of harassment and violence in the workplace. Therefore, the work needs to be done.

This legislation is mostly procedural. It sets up an investigatory process through which issues of violence or harassment in the workplace could be investigated fully and without prejudice. That is the intention. It follows two similar streams through both Parliament and government-regulated workplaces and industries such as telecommunications, transport, and banks, which is about 8% of the national workforce, as well as the people that work here with us in Ottawa and in our constituency offices to provide us with vital support, as well as federally regulated workers across the country. The rules apply to parliamentarians and everybody.

We are glad to see the bill before the House. However—and there is always a “however”—there are some gaps, and we worked quite hard to try to fill them. I salute my friend to my left, the member for Saskatoon West, who is our former labour critic, and my colleague to my right, the member for Jonquière, both of whom led the charge in committee to try to bring many amendments forward and perfect the bill as much as we could.

Our strong disappointment remains that the joint health and safety committees have basically been removed from the process. These committees have worked for years, and it is a great disappointment that this legislation would remove them from doing their effective work. Every labour ally who came to committee asked for these committees to be returned to their roles. We proposed amendments, but they were not accepted by the Liberal-dominated committee. That continues to be a great disappointment. In the words of CUPE, the union that represents 650,000 workers in this country, limiting the role of the health and safety committees will have “a chilling effect” on workers' willingness to come forward and participate in the process.

The Liberal bill is an employer-driven process. If an employer is harassing an employee or if an employer has failed to create a safe workplace and regulate the other employees, then quite reasonably the person experiencing the harassment may not want to participate fully in a process that is dominated and controlled by his or her employer.

The health and safety committees have doing all kinds of good work in different areas of the Labour Code for all this time. If they had been used, an existing tool would have been used and an impediment to complaints would have been removed.

CUPE has deep experience in federally regulated industries. It has 650,000 members across the country, many of whom work in rail, ports, communications, and energy, all places that would be protected by this legislation.

We tried to bring forward a number of other amendments. Fortunately, three of them were taken up, including one with respect to the definition of “harassment” in the legislation, which all of our labour allies had called for. Certainly those of us who are employers want to have that clarity. I am glad that our perseverance resulted in that definition being brought in.

We also had input from the teamsters union, which wanted changes made to the Labour Code. It was pushing the government to clarify that mental health was included as part of this legislation. The Canadian Labour Congress very strongly voiced its concerns about a lack of capacity for labour investigators. PIPSC, the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, was well represented. Workers at the DFO biological station in my riding are members of PIPSC. It is a very strong advocate. It wants to see Bill C-65 guarantee adequate representation for those involved.

In closing, I would like to thank the government for bringing this legislation forward. I would also like to thank Conservative and New Democrat members for being able to advance some of the changes that we wanted to see, but I continue to urge the government to draw on the deep experience of the labour movement, which has been doing this hard work for many years. Let us not leave to regulation what we could transparently include in legislation right now.