Ted Hsu

[Senate Reform Act, October 3rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I am not entirely satisfied with the answer from the parliamentary secretary to the question posed by my hon. colleague from Bourassa.

The hon. parliamentary secretary and I come from a province where the government is opposed to having a Senate and would like to abolish it. I was wondering if the parliamentary secretary would like to comment on what would happen if a province decided that it did not want to participate in Senate reform because the province wants to abolish it. What if a province does not want to participate in the process as set down by the government in the bill?

[Business of Supply, September 29th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the NDP on a fine motion today. I would like to go beyond that a bit and address an answer to a question that was posed to the member for Parkdale—High Park. I was not quite happy with that answer.

The member for Parkdale—High Park was correct in making the connection between the behaviour of the Conservative government and the behaviour of Herbert Hoover leading into the Great Depression.

Another thing that happened in the Great Depression was that there was trade friction between Canada and the United States. Countries put up trade tariffs.

I am wondering if my hon. colleague would care to comment about the buy American policies that the U.S. job stimulus proposal has and the position of the Ontario provincial NDP which now has a buy Ontario policy. Perhaps she could comment on the danger of a tit-for-tat trade war, just as there was in the Great Depression.

[Business of Supply, September 29th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance bragged about the Conservative government taking a million people off the tax rolls.

I noticed that we have a one-quarter million more people unemployed. So, I know how some of those people got off the tax rolls.

Does the member for Kings—Hants think that the Conservative government is on track to take more people off the tax rolls in this way?

[Safe Streets and Communities Act, September 27th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member spoke about stopping terrorists by striking their wallets. It seems that the same government that says it wants to stop terrorists by striking their wallets may have been paying off terrorists like al-Qaeda in North Africa in order to secure the release of Canadians. It seems that the terrorists may have reinvested that dividend into more terrorism.

Where is the consistency of the government that claims it wants to stop terrorists by striking their wallets?

[Safe Streets and Communities Act, September 27th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, the honourable member told us that he is the father of young children. So am I.

We lived for a little while in Oakland, California and at nights we could hear gunshots in the distance. California is a jurisdiction that has tried with its “three strikes you're out” law to put more people in jail for longer time periods. It found it ended up spending more money on prisons than on education. This is a jurisdiction which was not made safer for little kids by putting more people in jail.

This is an example of a case where Conservatives putting more people in jail for longer time periods has not made the streets and communities safer, and has imposed a tax burden on future generations. What is the member's answer to that? Can he answer the question that my daughter would want to ask if she were here today?

[Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, September 20th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to know what the hon. member thinks about what the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism was saying yesterday. He said that the purpose of this bill was to influence the economic decision of prospective refugees abroad.

[Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, September 20th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the bill under consideration is in violation of article 31 of the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees that our country has signed. It is something that good members of the global community would want to pay attention to.

Could the hon. member tell us how passing this bill will affect the status of Canada in the world community?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, September 19th, 2011]

With regard to oil spill clean-ups in Northern Arctic waters: (a) what dispersants does the government use or have plans to use in this process; (b) what is the quantity of the government’s stocks of these dispersants; (c) what tests has the government conducted concerning the use of these dispersants in the clean-up of an Arctic oil spill; (d) what tests has the government conducted concerning the effects of these dispersants on (i) the Arctic environment, (ii) Arctic wildlife; (e) when and by whom were the tests in (c) and (d) conducted; (f) what were the costs of the tests in (c) and (d); (g) does the government have a regimen in place for the ongoing evaluation of dispersants to be used in Arctic spills; (h) how are the dispersants which the government evaluates graded in terms of effectiveness for use in the Arctic; (i) in the event of such an occurrence, does the government have plans to use a dispersant to break up a spill at the source of the leak in Arctic waters; (j) what is the government’s assessment of the effectiveness of the use of dispersants at the source of a spill in the clean-up process; and (k) what, if any, tests has the government conducted to develop a strategy for using dispersants to break up spills at the source, and what are the costs for these tests?

[Questions on the Order Paper, September 19th, 2011]

With regard to the Department of Natural Resources and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, for every year since 2006, how many full-time staff have been employed by the Low Level Radioactive Waste Management Office?

[Questions on the Order Paper, September 19th, 2011]

With regard to the operating budget freeze at Natural Resources Canada: (a) what measures were taken to limit spending in the last fiscal year; (b) how many full-time and part-time employees were lost to attrition; (c) how many full-time or part-time employees were laid-off; (d) how many full-time and part-time employees were hired; and (e) what is the projected attrition rate over the next five years?