Wayne Marston

[National Defence, October 4th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, this weekend the Minister of National Defence revoked an invitation to a moderate imam to speak at defence headquarters at an Islamic history month event. The minister went over the heads of his own officials to arbitrarily cancel this speech at the last minute.

Dr. Delic is known as a bridge builder who promotes peaceful dialogue between different faiths. Canadians from all backgrounds benefit from such open dialogue.

Will the minister reinstate the invitation as a show of good faith?

[Steel Industry, October 1st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, as you have heard, SteelWorkers 1005 and U.S. Steel were in contract negotiations when the company suddenly announced the closure of its last blast furnace.

We had Xstrata, Vale Inco and now U.S. Steel. Again and again, foreign companies are flaunting agreements signed with the government.

What action can Hamilton workers expect from their government beyond the current lawsuit, or is the minister just planning to sit this one out?

[Seniors, September 30th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, over the summer, I listened to seniors in my riding and from across the country and here is what they told me: first, we must ensure that old age security payments never again go two years without a cost of living increase; second, we must stop the clawback of GIS when there is a cost of living increase to CPP; and third, we must do something to bring down the cost of medications.

To deal with those issues, New Democrats have tabled a number of proposals.

First, we propose to increase the GIS enough so that no senior lives in poverty.

Second, I tabled Bill C-564, my seniors' CPI act. This bill would create a CPI measure based upon the purchases that seniors actually make, rather than the one currently used, which is an average of the purchases of all Canadians.

Soon our health critic, the member for Halifax, will roll out her national affordable medications proposals.

Seniors have been telling me that they feel invisible in this country. I want to tell seniors today that they are not invisible to New Democrats.

[Canada-Panama Free Trade Act, September 30th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, the member for Crowfoot talked about this agreement earlier regarding child labour and the supplemental side agreement. If the Conservatives are sincere in their efforts to right human rights, to protect labour laws, why do they not put it into the full agreement instead of a side agreement that has no real value?

[Business of Supply, September 28th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, when the member for Mississauga—Streetsville raised the question of what was the motive of the government to go to this position, as I recall the end of the last session, the government was getting pilloried by questions about the Afghan detainees, the supremacy of Parliament.

When we watched the headlines throughout the summer, what was the point of discussion? It was the mandatory long form census. The Conservatives succeeded, much like a magician who distracts us with one hand while they pick our pocket with the other one, in deflecting the conversation away from those items that were very clearly damaging to them.

Would the member for Mississauga—Streetsville agree that is potentially what the Conservatives might have been up to?

[Seniors CPI Protection Act, September 28th, 2010]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-564, An Act respecting a Senior Consumer Price Index.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Vancouver East for supporting me on this important bill.

When seniors get an increase because of CPI, they feel that they are being slighted because seniors do not buy electronic goods nor do they buy brand new cars. The way that the CPI is calculated, targeting what normal working people base their purchasing on, does not reflect the reality of seniors.

Therefore, I am introducing the bill today to try to target more efficiently to those areas that senior consumers need. I want to say that I am excited by this bill, which we call the seniors CPI protection act.

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

[September 27th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for the information he is providing, but I would remind him that in the throne speech, the government said that it was going to take a look at the status of pension funds in CCAA and BIA, and people are still waiting.

Seniors who are living on these pensions are very concerned that if that company gets into trouble and vulture capitalists buy their way into it, then we will have a significant problem.

I will commend the government, though. Recently, in P.E.I., it agreed with the position of the NDP. We said that we would call for an increase in CPP. We are calling for a doubling. I do not expect that it will hit that mark, but at least it is ahead of where the Liberals were when they said that they wanted a supplemental plan aside from that, because we might as well just use RRSPs.

Coming back to the CCAA, that is a very important component for seniors.

[September 27th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, before the summer recess, I posed this question to the government. I pointed out the fact that last year CHCH-TV employees in Hamilton had their underfunded pension plan wind up with an $8 million deficit. The result was they would receive only 85% of the money they were expecting to be able to plan on for their retirement. The rub here was that executives at Canwest were given $41 million to top up their underfunded pension plan just before they went into CCAA protection.

Canadians are asking how that happened in a federally regulated industry. They also want to know when the government is going to accept that pension assets are deferred wages and not some corporate slush fund.

In light of the pension situations at Abitibibowater, Fraser Papers and other companies across Canada, I found the minister's response that day lacking in sincerity. The Minister of Industry in his response attempted to deflect the responsibility from his government by stating:

—the Minister of Finance and his parliamentary secretary have been hard at work, working with the provinces and territories, which are where 90% of the pensions were in fact regulated. To make sure we have a more comprehensive view on this, we have asked the NDP members to be part of the process.

The minister also said, again referring to the NDP, “We have asked them to be constructive”.

The House will know that I have been constructive and have been part of the process of examining the pension situation in Canada. I repeatedly brought this issue to the floor of the House. I shared in meetings with the government the views of Canadians I received during 37 meetings with seniors from coast to coast. I also had meetings with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance seeking to move forward my Nortel bill on protecting pension assets during CCAA and BIA. I even went so far as to seek the support of the House for my private member's bill, the Nortel bill, which was denied in this place by both Liberals and Conservatives.

The minister further stated in response to my question the government's mantra that those members revert to when they are always running on empty, “They keep voting against our budgets, so that is not helpful”.

I decided to offer the minister the opportunity to come here today to directly clarify for Canadian pensioners, in perhaps a little less rhetorical nature, the question he was asked.

[Combating Terrorism Act, September 21st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, my Bloc friend's critic in this area has done a good job of putting forward evidence to support the position that the NDP and the Bloc have taken to oppose this proposed legislation.

Two years ago at the subcommittee on justice and human rights, when we were studying Omar Khadr's situation, Senator Roméo Dallaire came to that committee and spoke to us about the slippery slope that we had set upon when one Canadian is given more or less rights than another Canadian.

This summer at the G20 we saw evidence of police forces in Toronto going too far where there were preventive arrests happening there. We heard earlier today from the member for Vancouver Kingsway that 900 of the 1,100 people were released almost immediately, which was clear evidence of that violation. Preventive arrest is a huge step down that slippery slope.

If the government's legislation is enacted, what does the member think will happen with our police forces at that point in time?

[Combating Terrorism Act, September 20th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, when we think in terms of those types of legislation that come before us, we ask ourselves what they are about. One of them is the street racing bill. For criminal negligence causing death or injury, those tools are available to the police to deal with these offences. It was a serious issue in a part of Canada. and I will not go into the particular area, but the reality of the situation is that the tools were there. We have not heard about a massive usage of this new legislation and that is an example of where a demonstrated fear was taken advantage of for crass political reasons as far as I am concerned.