Wayne Easter

[Respect for Communities Act, January 30th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I believe the member has already spoken. If you check the record, you will know for sure. I know he asked enough questions that he could have spoken about ten times. They were all reasonable questions.

[Business of Supply, January 30th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, while the member spoke about how the military changed her, I felt I wanted to applaud at that point. There are other people from the military, and all parties here, feel the same way. That sense of pride and appreciation for the military that she showed in her remarks is really commendable, and I want to say that at the beginning.

The member talked a fair bit about the difficulty of calling a government number, or even talking to an individual, and getting the response to go on the Internet or call another number. I came out of the farm movement. There were some very tough times in the eighties, and we had farm stress hotlines to prevent suicides. When those calls are made, when people are under stress, regardless of the occupation, and especially so in the military, there has to be a live person at the other end. There absolutely must be.

I ask if the hon. member could express more about the difficulty and the stress of being one of those individuals making a call for help and not getting an adequate response?

[Business of Supply, January 30th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague for Cardigan asked the minister a question during question period. The minister answered what my colleague just said: Dial the 1-800 number. That is not adequate. What we are talking about here is the loss of services to veterans.

In today's Charlottetown paper, The Guardian, there is an article about two Veterans Affairs caseworkers handling files from Charlottetown, and they say that they are completely overwhelmed by the workload. They are not working in Charlottetown now.

Ms. Bradley, the employee, outlined how bad she felt, because she could not provide adequate services, since she has 1,100 files. I will quote what she said:

We've already taken on files from the Charlottetown office. The impact that I have seen already is that the wait times are increasing for veterans. They are waiting weeks for phone calls back. We just don't have the time to service them the way the Charlottetown office did.

I ask my colleague what kinds of measures have to be taken to overcome this difficulty the cutbacks by the Minister of Veterans Affairs are causing for the reality veterans calling in for help have to face.

[Employment Insurance, January 30th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, government policy should enhance job growth and improve income. However, in the P.E.I. seasonal economy EI is having the opposite impact. Take a farmer's seasonal employee for example, who is needed only a day and a half a week at this time of year and paid $16 an hour. After deductions and the EI clawback of 50¢ on every dollar, the employee is left with less than $6 an hour. The employee is poorer and the farmer has trouble attracting employees. It is starting an underground economy. Will the minister stop inflicting this economic hardship and reconsider the policy?

[National Defence, January 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, no one is arguing against the security agency. We are arguing for proper review and proactive review by members of this place and the other House, in a proactive way, as all the other Five Eyes countries do, to review what the security intelligence agencies do before it in fact happens.

Even the parliamentary secretary's former colleague, who was chair of SIRC, Mr. Chuck Strahl, raised some concerns about CSEC when he was before committee. He said that changes had to be made.

That is what we need to look at. The government has to get its head out of the sand and ensure that proper, proactive action is taken with CSEC and the other intelligence agencies. That is accepting our responsibilities.

[National Defence, January 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, on November 28, I raised a question related to the activities of Communications Security Establishment Canada related to that agency's co-operation in providing services to gather intelligence during the G20 meeting held in Canada.

The specific question was: Would the Prime Minister come clean and tell Canadians why he provided access and facilitated this illegal action by CSEC?

The minister responded by pointing out that CSEC is monitored by a commissioner and that CSEC, according to the minister, continues to act lawfully. However, that statement by the minister is not quite accurate.

In the commissioner's most recent annual report, the commissioner, at page 20, states that in a small number of instances there was the possibility that CSEC had directed its activities at Canadians, “contrary to law”. These matters were not resolved to the commissioner's satisfaction at the time of his 2012–13 annual report.

What this minister and the government must begin to understand is that the information made public by Edward Snowden regarding the NSA in the United States has implicated Canada's intelligence gathering agencies. These revelations are very serious.

It just so happens that yesterday I attended an important symposium in Toronto organized by the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. It was appropriately named, “Big Surveillance Demands Big Privacy”. Ms. Cavoukian, the Information Commissioner of Ontario, stated in the forward to the meeting that “the focus of this year's symposium was born from the steady stream of revelations by Edward Snowden, who came forward to expose just how invasive and pervasive government surveillance has become in our lives”.

She went on to say that “in what could be considered a direct blow to Canadians, it was revealed that our very own Communications Security Establishment Canada, CSEC, was working alongside the NSA hand-in-hand in what was beginning to look like a worldwide assault on privacy with no government accountability”.

Those are pretty strong words.

I listened to many speakers at the convention and they all called for action. Mr. Ron Deibert spoke of his hope that these revelations would serve as a wake-up call to Canadians. Andrew Clement raised the concern that so much Canadian data passes through the United States and can fall under its surveillance systems.

My hope is that this secretive government will realize the need for parliamentary oversight in a proactive way. I proposed that parliamentary oversight in Bill C-551, but the government has not come forward with its own bill in that regard. It is needed.

An all-party committee, of which two ministers who are currently in the government sat on, unanimously called for that committee, as well as you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We need to get there. That committee is needed. I ask the government to consider it.

[Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, January 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I too welcome the member for Toronto Centre.

My question relates to what the government needs to do to ensure that benefits from trade agreements accrue back to Canadians.

The fact of the matter is that while the Conservative government is absolutely great on rhetoric, it is terrible on results when it comes to trade agreements, other than signing them. It is one thing to sign them, but we need a positive balance at the end of the day for the sale of Canadian goods and services.

Here are the facts with respect to the Conservative government. Since November 2008, the government has managed 48 months of trade deficits. From January 2011 until November 2013, there were consistent trade deficits every month. The present Conservative government is the first government in 30 years that has had an annual trade deficit, so although the government signs agreements and provides great rhetoric about what it is doing, the results are not accruing back to create middle-class jobs.

My question is this: what more needs to be done to stop the government's failure in terms of trade results?

[Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, January 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, one has to ask: Where will the government not go just to add another number and say that we now have x number of trade agreements? That is what it is all about.

I listened to the words of the parliamentary secretary. He went to great lengths to use all the right words in all the right places, but the facts on trade do not bear out his words. This is the first government that has had a trade deficit in 30 years. He talked about the CETA agreement at great length, not Honduras, and he said it could create x number of jobs. Could? We have not even seen the text yet. It has not even been presented in the Parliament of Canada.

What he did say, though, was that there are new rules on dispute settlements. I have a question on that. In 32 of the last 44 months, they have had a trade deficit. In the dispute settlement in our agreement with the United States, Canada's beef industry is suffering badly because of the aged cattle restriction the Americans have and because of the COOL agreement.

Instead of negotiating with Honduras, which has a terrible human rights record, what are Conservatives doing to settle the trade dispute with the United States, which really matters to Canadian farmers?

[Business of Supply, January 28th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary asked the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour for some facts.

I have some facts here from Canada Post's financial results from 2003 to 2012.

The fact of the matter is that except for 2011, it made a substantial profit. Even in 2012, Canada Post, from operations before taxes, made $131 million. That is the group of companies. Canada Post, specifically, made $98 million.

I have to ask the parliamentary secretary, when the Canada Post group of companies made roughly $1,581,000,000 over 10 years, what has happened all of a sudden? Is the member for Random—Burin—St. George's right when she says there really is a move here to create the conditions to privatize Canada Post? Is that really what is happening on the government side? Is it creating the conditions for privatization of Canada Post when, in fact, it has been making money?

It made this announcement when not many people were watching and it does not look at other options. What is wrong here? What really is the government's game? I ask because, ultimately, the minister is responsible for it, even though it is a crown corporation.

[Respect for Communities Act, January 27th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the question from the member for Kootenay—Columbia. We are kind of talking past each other, I believe, in the House.

In terms of InSite, this is not a question about legality or illegality. The fact is that these products are bought illegally on the streets, and they are going to be used. The real question is how we prevent the further spread of HIV-AIDS and how we protect people's health. The reality is that it is happening, and we need to address the problem.

In terms of InSite itself, I would say to the member that the real issue is protecting people's health, not just users but others as well, including those who might have sexual relations with somebody who is a drug addict.

It is about the health of society and preventing further damage to society. That is what InSite is all about, and that is why it should remain.