Sheila Malcolmson

[Indigenous Peoples and Canada's Justice System, February 14th, 2018]

Mr. Chair, right now the status of women committee is studying the experience of indigenous women in the justice system and in jails. The stories we are hearing are 100% terrible. It is an even worse story than we had understood.

A particular theme that has come from a great number of the witnesses is that extra burden that was put on indigenous women when the previous Conservative government brought in mandatory minimum sentencing. It took away the discretion of judges. Say, for example, a woman is an accessory to a crime. Her car is used as the getaway vehicle and her boyfriend is charged. It used to be that the judge could say, “You can serve your time on the weekends and you can get your sister or your grandmother to look after the kids on the weekends when you're in jail.” That is all gone. That judicial discretion is gone because of what the Conservative government put in place.

Here is an example. Jonathan Rudin from Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto:

What happens then is that the person goes to jail, and if they don't have someone to look after their kids...they will lose their kids....Even if the person gets their children back, they will have been removed from their families.... [T]hat experience of being taken from your family and put into foster care...is incredibly damaging.

How could this be happening in this country at this time? We know how much damage generations of residential schools did to disrupt family parenting, and our judicial system is doing it right now. The Liberal government two years in has not kept its campaign promise to—

[Status of Women, February 14th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, for 30 years Canada Post fought its female workers in court. It is shameful.

Two years ago, the Liberals voted for our NDP motion to give women the respect we deserve and implement pay equity, but we still have not seen any movement. The Prime Minister claims to be a feminist, yet the government has not legislated pay equity in law. Women want concrete action today. We have waited far too long already.

With the budget coming in two weeks, will the government finally introduce measures to legislate equal pay for women? We are looking for action, not words.

[The Environment, February 13th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I think maybe my friend opposite did not hear the first four minutes of my speech.

There is a lot to support in the transport minister's Bill C-64, but it is missing the entire program I have just described. I have not heard any rationale from the government about why it is leaving it out. It was described by the Washington State derelict vessel removal program, which has been in operation 15 years, as now an integral part of its prevention program.

Knowing there is nothing in the transport minister's bill to deal with the backlog of abandoned vessels, will the government accept the amendment I am going to propose in committee to introduce a voluntary turn-in program for abandoned vessels to deal with the backlog?

[The Environment, February 13th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I rise again to describe the abandoned vessel that sank in Ladysmith Harbour, the 90-foot, 100-year-old Anapaya. It has been on Transport Canada's vessel inventory of concern since 2014. It had been identified as a risk to sink. When it went down, after being overwhelmed by rain and the bilge pumps could not keep it up, the Coast Guard, bless it, took action. It boomed the wreck and contained the oil spill. That was so important for Ladysmith Harbour, because there are shellfish jobs at risk from even the smallest oil spill. The Coast Guard acted, which we are very grateful for. It lifted this 90-foot-long, beautiful old wooden boat from the bottom of the harbour, with everyone saying the whole way along that it would have been much easier to have prevented the boat from sinking in the first place.

A significant take-away for me afterward was that the previous owners, in fact the people who had been living on the Anapaya, knew that she was nearing the end of her life. She was an abandoned boat by the time she sank. The previous owners said they did not have the economic means to prevent her from sinking, but if there had been a vessel turn-in program, the same that Oregon and Washington states have very successfully used to get at the backlog of abandoned vessels, it would have prevented it from sinking and becoming a problem in the first place. This was a significant element of my abandoned vessel legislation, Bill C-352, which was famously blocked in the House. It was the first time that had ever happened to a bill. I went through all the appeals and was told that it was the Liberal majority that squashed it in the end.

The interesting thing is that now that we are studying the transport minister's bill, Bill C-64, at committee, I have been able to ask all kinds of witnesses if they wish that a vessel turn-in program were still part of the legislative offer for Canadians. It makes sense. It has been proposed by local governments in British Columbia for many years, and it was on that basis that I included it in my legislation, Bill C-352.

In the last few days, there has been testimony from Troy Wood, the manager of the derelict vessel removal program in Washington state, saying that the vessel turn-in program was the prevention arm of their very successful derelict vessel removal program. Sara Anghel, president of the National Marine Manufacturers Association, said there is no place to take boats before they become a hazard for her industry, which is significantly made up of vessel manufacturers and marine operators. She said they would welcome the opportunity to create a viable recycling program and there needs to be a place to take them.

The committee also heard from Kyle Murphy from Washington state, Peter Luckham, chair of Islands Trust Council, and Anna Johnston from West Coast Environmental Law. Georgia Strait Alliance said very clearly that in the transport minister's bill, it is left wondering about the absence of a voluntary turn-in program that could deal with this backlog and help vessel owners, who do not have the means to dispose of them responsibly and do the right thing.

I ask the government why it did not include a vessel turn-in program in its legislation to resolve abandoned vessels.

[Business of Supply, February 12th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, before coming here as an elected member from British Columbia's coast, I was an elected member of the local government. I heard a lot of concern about oil tanker traffic with respect to the Kinder Morgan pipeline. I heard about how it would jeopardize existing jobs, our wild salmon industry, and tourism. Much money is generated on the basis of a pristine environment, and that is partly why we have had to stand up and oppose oil tanker traffic from Kinder Morgan.

I would like to hear my colleague's comments on the purported jobs that Kinder Morgan said would accrue to British Columbia from construction and pipeline operations, because to us it looks all downside, no upside.

[Business of Supply, February 12th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, because coastal communities in B.C. were very concerned about the effects of bitumen once it hits the oceans and marine environment, in 2011, as Islands Trust Council chair, I started writing letters to then prime minister Stephen Harper asking what the science was, how he was going to respond, if he had studied what would happen when this heavy bitumen hit the marine environment, and whether it would stay suspended long enough for the skimmers and oil spill response teams to be able to act. There was no answer from the Conservatives. Then prime minister Stephen Harper eroded the National Energy Board process so much that by the time the Kinder Morgan pipeline was reviewed, there was no public testimony and no cross-examination of evidence allowed. When the Royal Society of Canada and others wanted to bring evidence on bitumen in the marine environment, it was blocked based on the fact that it would be prejudicial to Kinder Morgan. Then the new Liberal Prime Minister embraced both the failure to regulate bitumen and the flawed National Energy Board review. The way I see it, Premier Horgan is now filling that gap by saying he is going to regulate and study what happens to bitumen in the marine environment.

To my Conservative friend, do you feel any regret for having undermined science and the regulatory process so much that we are here today?

[Canada Elections Act, February 9th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to hear my New Democratic colleague's views in this area. We all hear that our constituents, voters, Canadians want to see themselves reflected in the government, both in the seats that are here but also reflected in the outcomes of public consultations and public participation. I know that very active youth activists, especially, feel deeply betrayed by the government abandoning its promise, repeated 1,500 times, that it would make every vote count. It had broad public support, and the parliamentary committee made a lot of strong recommendations that the government totally ignored.

Bill C-50, for one, feels like a distraction from that broken promise on true democratic reform. As well, the Liberal government ignored the previous committee study, in the previous Parliament, that could have informed this work, and then also ignored the amendments that the NDP made at committee. It just did not even give them consideration.

How do these betrayals affect public support for the political process and for the democratic process? What is lost when those promises are broken?

[Petitions, February 9th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, to protect our coast and fill a big hole in federal leadership that has existed for decades, petitioners call on the government to deal with the long-standing problem of abandoned vessels, and in particular, to legislate improving vessel registration; to put a fee on vessel registration to deal with the cost of vessel disposal, to get the cost off the backs of taxpayers; and to pilot a vessel turn-in program. These are all elements of my bill, Bill C-352, which was blocked by the government. They are now being raised in testimony at the transport committee by repeated witnesses. It is very good reinforcement for the voices here from Prince Rupert, White Rock, Surrey, Delta, Abbotsford, Bella Coola, and Williams Lake, B.C.

[Fisheries and Oceans, February 9th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, Gabriola Island opposes new freighter anchorages proposed off our shores. For Wyoming coal exports to China, there is zero local benefit . Our chamber of commerce, local governments, and fishermen all say bulk anchorages threaten the community and the sensitive ecology of our coast.

The Liberals promised that there would be no projects without social license. Promised reports on consultation are missing. Now that habitat protection has been restored to the Fisheries Act, it reveals that this review was faulty.

Will the minister listen to Gabriolans and stop these bulk anchorages now?

[Business of Supply, February 8th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I want to be clear in my question for my colleague from Victoria. We are not talking about the finance minister's bungled consultation this summer when he accused small business owners and doctors of being tax cheats and closing their loopholes. That was completely discredited and completely unfair.

Our motion today is aimed at closing the CEO stock option loophole, a campaign promise that the Liberals made in 2011 and 2015, but failed to keep. They also promised to go after offshore tax havens. If the government had kept its promises, these together would have brought $11 billion in revenue back to Canada every year.

I am interested in my colleague's view on what we could spend that $11 billion windfall on if we had better priorities? We have heard about pharmacare, affordable child care, treating veterans equitably, honouring the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal for compliance orders on funding indigenous kids, welfare and education fairly.

What is my colleague from Victoria hearing from his constituents about their spending priorities?