Thomas Mulcair

[Infrastructure, October 19th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the minister for everything that moves in Quebec just admitted, here in this House, that the Champlain Bridge repairs were the result of, and I quote, “political direction”.

Since the $1.4 million given to BPR by Senator Léo Housakos was a matter of “political direction”, the question is: what does Senator Léo Housakos do for BPR, an engineering firm? He is not even an engineer. He is just a Conservative.

Is this acceptable, yes or no?

[Canada Labour Code, October 6th, 2009]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-455, An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code (French language).

Mr. Speaker, it is truly an honour for me to introduce a bill today that will ensure the application of the provisions of the Charter of the French Language in businesses under federal jurisdiction, whether they be chartered banks, interprovincial transportation companies or telecommunications companies. The Charter provisions give rights to workers, for example, to receive documents in their own language, and prevents an employer from requiring knowledge of a language other than French if it is not required to do the job.

There has been a controversy in recent years over whether or not to change the Official Languages Act. We are not changing the act. Instead of making ambulatory references to the Charter, we took all the provisions of the Charter of the French Language and incorporated them into the Canada Labour Code. We believe that this is a real, concrete recognition of the Quebec nation, without changing the Official Languages Act. Everyone wins here, because it does not take anything away from the English-speaking linguistic minority in Quebec.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[The Economy, October 6th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, two things are missing from the statement of the Minister of Finance, made by his amanuensis, the Minister of Transport. They are a recognition of the fact that the problems began in Canada before the current international crisis and, more importantly, a vision for the future. I will start with the first one.

When the Conservative government slashed corporate taxes, it had the support of the Liberals, who felt the government was not moving fast enough. The government reduced these taxes by $60 billion. How did the Conservatives find the tax room to do that? The answer is simple. They took the $57 billion in the employment insurance fund and put it in the general revenue fund.

Some people will say that this was government money anyway, but the problem is that the money in the employment insurance account was put there by employees first and foremost, and also by employers. Whether a forestry company turned a profit, broke even or lost money, it was obliged to pay EI premiums for every one of its employees.

Because this money was used to create tax room to give tax breaks to the wealthiest companies—a company did not pay tax if it had not made any money, so the only companies that got tax breaks were the wealthiest ones like the banks and the oil companies—forestry and manufacturing companies in Quebec wound up subsidizing big oil and the chartered banks, which had no need for such subsidies.

What is more, the government has absolutely no vision. The Conservatives talk about jobs, but what is their vision of the future of sustainable development and our responsibility for future generations? The oil sands are just one example of the Conservative government's failure to understand that every time they take action in Parliament, they must look at how it will affect future generations economically, socially and environmentally.

Instead of posing with future generations, for once the Conservatives should try taking action to help future generations by creating the jobs of tomorrow and having a vision for clean, renewable energies throughout this extraordinary country. Not only will they create wealth, but people will have sustainable jobs in an economy that respects the rights of future generations to have the same standard of living, the same quality of life and the same living environment as we do.

[Business of Supply, October 1st, 2009]

Of course, Madam Speaker. Just to clarify, I was referring to the fact that they joined forces against him to replace him. But when that did not work, they ended up with the one they have now.

Before you intervened, I was saying that they signed the Kyoto protocol. In his book and his speech to the Chamber of Commerce of London, Ontario, this is what Eddie Goldenberg said.

He said, “We never had a plan to institute Kyoto. We only signed it to galvanize public opinion”. The Liberals signed it for purely political purposes. It was a public relations stunt. Instead of having the record that the Liberals believe they have on the environment, their real record on the environment is the worst in the world.

While the Liberals were in power for 13 years, instead of reducing greenhouse gases by 6% as mandated by the Kyoto protocol that the Liberals signed hypocritically, they increased Canada's greenhouse gas production by 35%. That is their record. The worst record in the world.

That is political cynicism. That, above and beyond any other consideration, is the reason that the Liberals were turfed. They talk a good game. They will say absolutely anything that they think needs to be said to get themselves elected and once in power they do not do a thing.

We are supposed to feel that when they signed the Kelowna accord that it was a great achievement. That was after 13 years and it gave nothing. They are still crying today, saying that they really wished that they had a fifth mandate so that they could continue to do nothing.

I know about the Kelowna accord. I was sitting in cabinet in Quebec City when it was signed. The Kelowna accord was about the election of the Liberal Party of Canada. It was not about helping first nations because for 13 years those members did nothing to help first nations.

That is the sad reality and the record of the Liberal Party of Canada. All talk, no action. That party has never accomplished a thing.

That is exactly what happened this summer when they took one of their loudest and least productive members, someone who was passed over for cabinet in three successive majorities, stuck her in a room with their loudest and least productive member and lo and behold nothing happened.

What was required to get a result on employment insurance for Canadians, for the families who need it? A responsible political party, the NDP, to stand up and say, “We are fighting for Canadians”. Many people have lost their jobs during this economic crisis. Families need help. What are we going to do?

We held out our hand. We discussed. We obtained $935 million for 190,000 families. The Liberals are going to try to give us morality lessons. Not on your life, Madam Speaker.

[Business of Supply, October 1st, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I was very interested in what previous members had to say, and I think that it would be useful at this juncture to remember why we are here tonight.

For three and a half years, we have had a Conservative minority government. Before that, we had a Liberal minority government. This is actually our second Conservative minority government. In other words, this is the third time that Canadians have decided to give their government a minority mandate. This is a sign that people want us to find ways to work together.

We just heard the Liberals talk about cynicism. The member for Toronto Centre said that it is not working anymore and that people have become too cynical about politics. I would like to review a number of very relevant facts.

The minister across the way made the point well before in response to one of the Liberal members when he said that this is an attempt to make Parliament work. That is exactly what Canadians are expecting of their elected officials.

The NDP has consistently stood up for its principles in voting for the things that the people who put us here have asked us to do. Let us look at what the Liberals have actually done in the last couple of months.

These are the same Liberals who love to waive their index fingers under other people's noses. They voted to remove a woman's right to equal pay for work of equal value. They voted to destroy the Navigable Waters Protection Act. We voted against it and if this type of thing ever comes up again, members know that we will vote against it again.

What is on the table today is $1 billion for employment insurance that the leader of the New Democratic Party was able to obtain when he held out his hand and said, “We want to work in the public interest. We want to make Parliament function. We cannot go through a situation where Canada has an annual general election”.

Rather than spending $350 million on an election that nobody wants and that probably will not change anything, we are going to be putting $1 billion into the pockets of 190,000 Canadian families. That is what we were put here to do.

I was listening before when the member for Papineau stood and started talking about all his ancestors and his relatives who had been in this House. There is an old Irish expression that when the only thing people can talk about is their ancestors, they are a little bit like a potato. Everything that they have of interest is under the ground.

However, let us look at the actual dossier, the actual results of the Liberals on the environment, shall we? Talk about corrosive cynicism.

They signed the Kyoto protocol. I was listening as the member for Toronto Centre got weepy, got teary-eyed in his defence of the former leader, the one that he helped backstab. He got teary-eyed about what a wonderful man he was. Let us look at what he did when he was environment minister, and let us look at what Eddie Goldenberg admitted the Liberals had done in signing Kyoto.

In the spring of 2007, Eddie Goldenberg, the former chief of staff to Jean Chrétien, gave a speech--

[Harmonized Sales Tax, October 1st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy he asked the question. The Conservatives like regressive taxation, which hits the most disadvantaged the hardest. That is the problem. In the case of Quebec, this has already been done and it is owed money.

According to the Conservative tape, the negotiations with Quebec are moving right along. However, according to the information published yesterday by Jean-Marc Salvet in Le Soleil, they are at a standstill. Although my question is simple, it requires them to press the pause button on their tape recorder.

Will Quebec be getting the $2.6 billion due it because Quebec has already harmonized?

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, September 29th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Nickel Belt for his question. It is completely unrealistic to believe that the mere act of signing such an agreement will have any impact whatsoever. In fact, the reality is just the opposite.

Rather than using its moral authority to tell a country that if it wants an agreement it must have a good human rights record, Canada is condoning, accepting and sanctioning the state of affairs in Colombia. Rather than using these agreements to bring about positive change, we are about to ensure that the government of that country can turn to its people and tell them that a country like Canada, with such a fine human rights record, has just signed an agreement with it, which is tantamount to an endorsement that all is well in Colombia. However, we have just given a number of examples that prove that this is not at all the case.

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, September 29th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Brome—Missisquoi suggested a very relevant comparison because if the two parties signing such an agreement are not equally matched, we will never be able to ensure that its provisions are carried out in the public interest. Once again, the only parties that will benefit are multinational corporations that consider borders to be something of a nuisance. They will figure out how to take advantage of the situation every chance they get.

Consider the diamond wars going on in Africa and conflicts over other natural resources where foreign interests are pillaging nations despite obligations to follow various international trade regulations. Clearly, we are fooling ourselves if we think that by signing this agreement, somehow, magically, we will create laws where there is no way to enforce them.

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, September 29th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, Konrad Adenauer, Jean Monnet, Robert Schuman—visionary figures all—took it upon themselves, with their nation states, to build something beautiful in postwar Europe on the ruins of a continent that had been through the worst war in human history.

First they created a common market for coal and steel, which subsequently became a general common market covering more and more countries. They demonstrated, by this very fact, that there is nothing wrong with the concept of a free trade agreement, provided—and this is the key condition that is missing here—that there is prior agreement on a common vision of the rights that must be respected. This is what makes the Liberals’ discourse so hollow, so empty, so void of any moral sense. There is nothing very surprising about that though. All we need to do is go on-line on the Internet to hear their leader say, in his best professorial tones, that perhaps we shall need “targeted assassinations”. That is the leader of the Liberal Party saying things like that. The leader of the Liberal Party not only supported the war in Iraq but supplied George W. Bush and Dick Cheney with the terminology they used to justify the use of torture. They were not to say “torture” any more but “enhanced interrogation techniques”.

He provided the 1984 terminology, the Liberal Newspeak that could justify almost anything. That is what we are dealing with here. What a disgrace that a party which used to support a just vision with a charter of rights has been reduced to making bogus arguments in favour of a free trade agreement with a country that has the worst human rights record in the western world: Colombia.

Canada should again reject the proposed agreement with Colombia because the prior requirement for any agreement is that all the problems have been ironed out. The Liberal attitude, though, is if you build it, it will get better. But that is Field of Dreams, not the real world.

I have a list here of 28 union members who were killed simply because they were part of a union trying to exercise social rights in Colombia. A 29th person has just been added. It is a tragedy. We saw the Liberal member who just spoke. It was as if she had not lived the last 30 years. That was the argument the Progressive Conservatives used at the time when the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed. We will increase trade among our countries. We will create wealth. So what has been created?

Now, ever since the signing of NAFTA, the Canadian middle class has watched its income drop continuously. That is the sad truth. When I was Quebec's environment minister, I banned the pesticide 2,4-D, which is manufactured by Dow Chemical, an American company, and based my decision on the work of one of my predecessors, Mr. Boisclair. We are going through it again, the same as the first attempt to undermine Canada's sovereignty before the courts.

Does anyone remember what happened with Ethyl Corporation? Does that ring a bell? That company produced a fuel additive that Canada found harmful to human health.

Using NAFTA, they sued the Canadian government and were awarded tens of millions of dollars in compensation for having dared say that we did not want their products added to our gas only to be spewed into the atmosphere. That is the reality of a free trade agreement that was not thought through.

Would anyone in this House agree to sign a free trade agreement with a country that allows slavery? The answer is obvious: of course not.

Would anyone rise in this House and have the audacity to say, “Let's sign the agreement. It will make us rich. Perhaps they will no longer need slavery in that country”? Of course not.

Would we sign a free trade agreement with a country that forces children to work in factories? Would we advocate that? Of course not. We would say that those problems need to be solved first.

How is it that the Conservative government, supported by the Liberals on this, is trying to fool us by convincing us that we have good reason to sign this agreement, that like magic, contrary to what everyone else around the world has experienced, signing this agreement with Colombia will miraculously change things for the better in Colombia, and no more union activists will be murdered, as is the case now.

That is nonsense and is not supported by any real-world experience. The only ones who will benefit from this agreement are the multinational corporations that are trampling the rights of workers, social organizations and trade unions in Colombia.

When I was president of the law students’ association at McGill University in 1976—I was finishing my law school studies—I was assigned to represent one side in a debate against Ralph Nader, the famous American lawyer who was fighting for social rights at that time. His position, and I did not agree with it at the time, was that the multinationals had become too powerful and were superseding nation-states. Given what I have seen as Minister of the Environment, seeing how the North American Free Trade Agreement has been applied and has given corporations the right to impose the use of a substance that is considered and believed to be toxic to the environment and human health, there are grounds for concern.

People who call themselves Liberals joining with the Conservatives and trying to impose this agreement in Colombia, in spite of the evidence of what is going on there, in the country with the worst track record for social rights and human rights—it is beyond comprehension.

I congratulate the Bloc Québécois on its principled position in joining with the NDP against Bill C-23, to implement the agreement they want to sign with Colombia.

The way to go about this, if we want to follow the potential model and produce good results, is to demand change first. We do not need to look back as far as post-war Europe, we need only look at the model we have in the North American Free Trade Agreement. It will undoubtedly be recalled that the Americans, fearing that their factories would relocate to what were called the maquiladoras, along the Mexican border, demanded a parallel agreement on the environment. It should be pointed out that this agreement on the environment ultimately has to be incorporated into the main chapter and have greater capacity for enforcement. However, for the first time in the history of these agreements, a social and environmental aspect that affected people’s health was considered, and we said we would not sign until that was resolved.

How is it that the Americans can demand this, when it comes to the environment, when it suits them, and we in Canada are not even capable of standing up and telling the government of Colombia that we do want more and better trade with them, provided they resolve these problems first?

[Taxation, September 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, while the Conservatives are busy harmonizing tax increases in Ontario and British Columbia, Quebec is still waiting to be compensated for harmonizing theirs in the 1990s. I am talking about $2.6 billion.

Instead of his usual bluster, could the Minister of Finance answer the question for once in his life? When will Quebec be compensated?