Wayne Marston

[Committees of the House, March 12th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, it is difficult to understand how a leader of a country like our Prime Minister, when looking at a case such as this, would want to split hairs, to try to divide it. In other words, I do not think it is appropriate for a government to start deciding guilt or innocence. A government's role is to protect the rights of its citizens, especially citizens who have been put in conditions like Omar Khadr has lived through during the last six years. In fact, we are into the seventh year now.

It is totally unacceptable to Canadians. I have heard from dozens of Canadians. We have had petitions in the House to say very clearly they do not accept the government's position.

[Committees of the House, March 12th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for your very wise ruling.

As I was saying when the interruption occurred, members will know that the foreign affairs and international development committee recently retabled the 2008 subcommittee report on the Omar Khadr case. In fact, we were previously debating concurrence in that particular report the very day the House was prorogued in the fall. It is the same conclusions and recommendations from that 2008 subcommittee report contained in this retabled report that I am seeking concurrence in today.

Prior to the subcommittee undertaking its look at the Omar Khadr case, there were few voices in Canada speaking out for justice for him. I am proud to say that of the few voices speaking out on this case, the most consistent were from the NDP. The members for Windsor—Tecumseh, Burnaby—Douglas and Ottawa Centre were there among those very few voices speaking out in this House, and good members of the Bloc also were raising concerns about the Omar Khadr case.

To be very clear, this was not a popular case because of the Khadr name. In the court of public opinion, Omar Khadr was not faring well. Canadians knew the Khadr name but in truth they had few facts and little idea of the boy's actual predicament. Once the facts started to become known, Canadians' sense of fairness started to show itself.

I began my first intervention at the subcommittee by stating the fact that Omar Khadr's government had not given him the help all Canadian citizens deserve and that this was absolutely deplorable. I truly expected that once informed of the facts of this case, Canadians would genuinely be moved by Omar's story. Once they heard that at the time of his capture, Omar Khadr was a boy, a child soldier of 15 years of age, and also when Canadians heard how he was shot twice in the back and nearly executed by American special forces, they would be moved. When television networks like the CBC decided to tell his story to Canadians and when they saw the wounds on television, they would be moved.

Once they learned the story, Canadians began to become very concerned about this case. As they learned the conditions he was held under as a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, their concern increased. Finally, when Canadians saw those tapes last year clearly showing a boy of 16 anguished as he realized the people from Canada he had hoped would help him become free were there instead to interrogate him, as that boy cried out for help, that was when Canadians truly felt for Omar Khadr.

I believe the position repeatedly espoused by the Conservative government in this House is flawed. It is flawed because it hinges on one single point, that being the Conservative government will not accept that Omar Khadr was a child combatant at the time of his capture. If the Conservative government or the Liberal government before it ever accepted that premise, it would have been incumbent upon them to petition first the Bush, and now the Obama, administration to return him to Canada. Once returned to Canada, his case would proceed here under the Canadian judicial system.

That is why we heard over and over during question period in this House such a flat response from the government. I offer here today that the government's often repeated response was as passionless as its original view of Omar Khadr.

I will turn now to a few other facts in this case, some that came to light during the subcommittee's review.

While in custody, Omar Khadr had to cope with what the Americans called enhanced interrogation techniques. In addition, for over six years at Guantanamo Bay, Omar Khadr was held with adult detainees. Now he faces the very possibility of life in prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in the United States.

Witnesses before our committee offered compelling views of his case and its implications for Canada. One very passionate witness, Senator Roméo Dallaire, said that Canada is headed down a slippery slope by failing to obey the United Nations conventions on child soldiers to which it is a signatory.

Senator Dallaire said:

[T]he minute you start playing with human rights, with conventions, and with civil liberties in order to say you're doing it to protect yourself...you are no better than the guy who doesn't believe in them at all.

I agree. Case after case that we have heard of late offer evidence that Canada has indeed started down that slippery slope, even to the degree that Canada appears to have been complicit in torture by proxy.

This is certainly not how Canadians want their government to act.

Another witness before the human rights subcommittee, former United States special prosecutor for the UN war crimes trial in Sierra Leone, Mr. David Crane, testified that he believes Khadr should be treated as a child soldier. Mr. Crane gave testimony before the committee that, during the Sierra Leone war crimes trials, he refused to prosecute 8,000 child soldiers. Mr. Crane said he thought it was important to bring Khadr back and to have his case fairly and openly considered in Canada.

Mr. Crane went on to testify that no child has the requisite mental capability of this situation, regardless of whether they volunteer or not. I believe and many other better-informed professional Canadians agree with Mr. Crane's observations.

I have said before in this place that our democracy is a very fragile thing. I also believe that Canadians often fail to realize this point. Perhaps it is understandable because, to get our Constitution, all that Canadian governments had to do was write a nice letter to our Queen.

Canada's veterans of foreign wars will tell you very quickly the cost of protecting and sustaining our democracy. Today, Canadian Forces in Afghanistan are tasked with enhancing the conditions under which a democracy might flourish there. Is it not ironic that the very government that has Canadian troops fighting in Afghanistan to protect the rights of the Afghani people will not protect the rights of Canadian citizen Omar Khadr, rights guaranteed under United Nations covenants to which Canada is a signatory?

Internal reports released last year from Canadian officials who visited Khadr state that Omar Khadr is a “good kid” and that they believe he has not been radicalized. Also, according to the same reports, Mr. Khadr clearly understands that he is in Guantanamo because of his family. The government, along with accepting that Omar Khadr is a child soldier, would do well to also accept that he was in the area of combat solely due to his father leaving him with a group of fighters.

Our subcommittee, as well as supporters of Omar Khadr, whether it is community or legal representatives, took into account the concerns of Canadians as we moved forward with our report. We understood that evidence that Omar Khadr is not a threat was an opinion. Having recognized this, the subcommittee, beyond its own conclusions, decided on a series of recommendations to support Omar Khadr to address those important community concerns.

At this point, I would reiterate some of those conclusions.

They obviously recommended the termination of the military commissions, which has taken place under Mr. Obama. They object to the position stated by the United States that it reserves the right to detain Omar Khadr beyond the commissions. They recommend that the Government of Canada demand Omar's release from U.S. custody to the custody of Canadian law enforcement and that it call on the director of public prosecutions, and so on.

I will conclude, Mr. Speaker.

In particular, the subcommittee calls on the relevant Canadian authorities to ensure the appropriate rehabilitation of Omar Khadr. I submit to the House today that Omar Khadr is salvageable. All he wants from his country and government is another chance. Witness after witness before the Subcommittee on International Human Rights said that Canada must petition the U.S. to repatriate Omar Khadr.

The Supreme Court of Canada has said that Omar Khadr's rights have been violated. The Supreme Court of the United States has said that the rights of detainees in Guantanamo have been violated. As his first act, President Obama has moved to right the wrong that was Guantanamo and order the facility closed.

Canadian officials are saying that Omar Khadr is not a threat and instead is a victim of his upbringing. After six years and two successive governments failing Omar Khadr, it is time for the government to do the right thing.

I will close with the following question, asked so many times in various forms in this place. When will the Prime Minister listen—

[Committees of the House, March 12th, 2009]

moved that the third report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development presented on Thursday, February 26, 2009, be concurred in.

I will be sharing my time this morning with my good friend from Burnaby—Douglas.

It seems that time passes very quickly. Just a year ago, on March 11, at the meeting of the Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development I moved a motion to study the case of Omar Khadr and to submit our findings and recommendations to the main committee. I moved that motion to study the case of Omar Khadr because the handling of his case is so fundamental to Canadians' very sense of what is just and their expectations that Canada will assume its responsibilities under the international covenants it signs.

Mr. Speaker, you will know that the foreign affairs and international development committee has--

[Canada-EFTA Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, March 11th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly see the relevance between all the trade agreements from the very first one.

The member might have noticed in my remarks that I referred to the Council of Canadians. It was part of my initial activism. I was the very first president of the Hamilton chapter of the Council of Canadians, and that was where that foundation was built. That understanding came from there.

[Canada-EFTA Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, March 11th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, first, as I said in my remarks, I do not think free trade has been free for Canada at all. The hon. member asked what we should have been doing in initially.

Back in the time of that original free trade agreement, we had proposals for sector by sector management, managed trade. That is what the auto pact was. People of the day, who were concerned about free trade, said that we should have looked at the individual sectors and modelled after the auto pact. I think that strategy would have served Canada better. I am sure within this place many free traders believe the entire opposite.

Simon Reisman, who negotiated on behalf of Canada, was a proponent of selling water to the United States, yet he was on our side. He was part of a compact, a group that was prepared to sell water to the United States.

From my perspective, we were sunk from the very beginning on that agreement.

[Canada-EFTA Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, March 11th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, as I stand today to speak to Bill C-2, yet another free trade agreement, I am concerned for the workers of Hamilton and for Canadian workers as a whole.

Canada has gone through over 20 years of free trade agreements. In my riding of Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, particular the Hamilton East portion, I have watched this seemingly endless parade of companies that have left Hamilton or closed as a direct result of free trade. My observation is that most Canadians do not feel free trade is free at all.

I watched Burlington Street in Hamilton go from a dynamic, bustling centre of manufacturing to a mere shadow of its former self. In fact, the very day the original draft free trade agreement was tabled, the first one between Canada and the United States, Firestone Canada in Hamilton, on the words of that draft agreement, closed its once proud plant on Burlington Street.

We, the labour movement and organizations like the then brand new Council of Canadians warned them, Because most Canadian cities were within 100 miles of the American border, we warned them that with free trade and the removal tariff barriers our plants owned by American companies would move or close.

I take absolutely no satisfaction in having been right. During the first two years of that original free trade agreement, between 1988 and 1990, Ontario lost 524,000 manufacturing jobs. Canada and Hamilton, in particular, quite literally bled jobs to the United States and Mexico.

Hamilton, long known for steel production, was once one of the leading textile manufacturing sites in all of North America. Those plants are long gone. During the past 20 to 25 years, Canada and, to a great degree, much of the free world has been on the track, a track comprised of deregulation and free trade as espoused first by Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Brian Mulroney.

For evidence, look to today's crisis in the American market, a place where business was conducted in this wild west environment. Now we can see the outcome, the lack of proper regulation or deregulation and the requirement of enforcement. It is almost like the sheriff left town and Wall Street ran rampant with that reckless abandon, which we have become so aware of in the last few months.

Canada once had an auto pact, which protected our market and ensured employment in that important industry and the associated support industries. The Liberals, when in government, let that agreement slip away. Now we not only have cuts to auto plants, but Hamiltonian steelworkers are being laid off. In fact, we are seeing thousands upon thousands of support jobs lost along with those direct manufacturing jobs.

For Hamilton and Hamilton steel plants, this has proven to be devastating. No orders means no work which means layoffs.

As I said before, I can recall in 1988 when the labour movement and other organizations like that newly minted Council of Canadians were warning that this day would come if the Government of Canada signed on to that free trade agreement.

Similar warnings were issued in 1993, regarding NAFTA. The Liberals were at the front with those warnings. In fact, they were warning themselves. They made promises that they would not sign onto NAFTA, which they did shortly after winning that election.

Today Canadian industries are very fragile. Industries like shipbuilding, in particular, need attention from their government. Canada has been known worldwide for the quality of our shipbuilding, but other countries have worked hard to protect their shipbuilding with massive subsidies to aid their development, such as with Norway. Canada has lagged and has not had the comprehensive strategy to protect this important industry.

At committee, the New Democratic Party tried to protect this industry with no less than 16 motions, which were turned back by the chair with the aid of the Liberal Party members present. For the information of the members present today, shipbuilding is exempted from NAFTA.

At committee, the Shipbuilding Association of Canada made it clear that shipbuilding must be removed from the Canada-EU trade agreement. This agreement would reduce Canadian tariffs on ships from 25% to zero over 10 to 15 years. If we allow this to happen, we will lose our market altogether.

Members also need to know that the United States has always protected its shipbuilding industry ever since the Jones bill of 1920. That legislation protects the U.S. capacity to produce commercial ships. The Jones act requires commerce between U.S. ports on inland waters to be reserved for ships that are U.S. built, U.S. owned, registered under U.S. law and U.S. manned. In recent years the United States has implemented a heavily subsidized naval reconstruction program. All of this is to the direct benefit of its shipyards and its U.S. workers.

Where has Canada been? Canada can and must do the same thing. Canada must separate shipbuilding from this free trade agreement.

Finally, the shipbuilding sector must be completely excluded from the agreement, as I have said. The government should immediately put together an enhanced, structured financing facility, along with an accelerated capital cost allowance for this industry. An important component would be a buy Canadian strategy.

We have heard this buy Canadian strategy at a number of levels. We heard it first when the United Steelworkers made representation to the Congress in the United States on the buy American plan.

Within the free trade agreements to which we are now party, there are provisions that allow for a buy Canadian strategy. They allow for municipalities and provincial governments to buy Canadian. There are some limitations to that, but the Conservative government does not seem to want to entertain this option at all. In fact, the so-called free traders of the world raise their arms in concern when it happens, but that could be the very foundation for the salvation of not only shipbuilding, but our manufacturing sector altogether.

[Canada-EFTA Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, March 11th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP critic on this issue has shared with us some of the letters that he has received, and one is particularly striking to me. I come from the labour movement originally. This letter is from a disheartened worker who has signed his letter, “Another soon-to-be unemployed shipyard worker”. In his letter, he said, in part:

One of the most surprising things to me as a shipyard worker is that all stakeholders in the industry including owners and operators and unions from coast-to-coast have emphasized the need for the support during the many committee meetings....It's a shame that the Liberal party of Canada feels that it has to remain a puppet of the Conservative government in supporting another bad free trade deal for Canada.

I would like the member's view. I am sure he has seen the same letter. It goes on further, but I do not want to make it partisan here. This letter is from a hurting worker in this country.

[Guaranteed Income Supplement, March 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I stand today in support of the member's motion, Motion No. 300, and I commend the member for bringing this important issue before the House and for the passion that she showed today as she spoke to us.

I will reiterate a bit about the motion, although other speakers have already spoken to it. The motion calls for parliamentary action to ask the government to:

...as soon as possible introduce a bill providing: a $110 a monthly increase in the guaranteed income supplement paid to pensioners; the continuation of the payment, for a period of six months, of the old age security pension and supplement to a person whose spouse or common-law partner has died;

The motion also asks that the government make automatic the registration for people 65 years of age who are entitled to the guaranteed income supplement.

Last, it asks that the government make a fully retroactive payment of guaranteed income supplement for seniors who have been previously shortchanged.

Of course, such requests as those contained in the motion are very much in keeping with the NDP's ongoing work to improve the lives of seniors. For that reason, I am pleased to support such a motion designed to enhance the income security of Canada's poorest seniors. In fact, the motion is more or less in line with the policies the NDP has been arguing for, for years.

The reality facing our country is that our seniors are finding it increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to make ends meet. They do not just worry about their retirement incomes. They are the fastest growing group of Canadians living in poverty. Even though our seniors built this country, people who should be our country's heroes in so many ways, today far too many of these seniors suffer silently, living lives of poverty and neglect, neglected by their own federal government.

In fact, that is how it was put to me recently by a delegation of prominent seniors who visited my office. They said that it was as if seniors were invisible to this country. They have worked hard all of their lives and have played by the rules but now, with every bill they open, they are paying more and getting less.

International Woman's Day was marked just last Sunday. I find it more than ironic that it is older women who are hit the hardest during these uncertain times. Low income rates among senior women remain more than double those of senior men: 3% of men and 7% of women. As women tend to live longer than men, it is unattached senior women who suffer most of all.

I will paint a picture cobbled together by research from Statistics Canada.

First, if we take the maximum amount available to a senior from old age security and combine that with the maximum guaranteed income supplement, we are still well below the after-tax low-income cutoff. These programs provided almost one-third of the income of senior women in 2003. Older women tend to have incomes lower than men because they participated less in the paid labour force and, if they were employed, their wages, on average, were less.

The Conservatives talk about choice for women to stay home and raise their children but then they are penalized when they do so. In 2004, about one in five women had never worked outside the home. Further and again, as women live longer, they are at greater risk of running out of savings in their lifetime.

According to a 2006 study, senior women suffer much more financially from widowhood than senior men. Over a 10 year period, senior widows saw their income decrease in the five years after the death of their husband. Over the same period, widowers' incomes actually increased in the five years after the loss of their wife.

In 2005, it was estimated that the incomes of unattached, low income older women were, on average, about $2,220 below the after-tax low-income cutoff. In 2004, the mean before-tax income of women over 65 was 67% of men.

Women tend to receive lower CPP benefits because of their historically low earnings and because the majority of Canadians do not have a workplace pension plan. The types of jobs women do and the lack of pension coverage make it difficult for women who work throughout their lives to accumulate retirement incomes and to provide a secure financial future for themselves.

The 2001 Seniors in Canada Report Card published by the National Advisory Council on Aging identified the economic status of unattached seniors, particularly women, as the area where priority action was needed. Five years later, despite a minor increase in their incomes, the 2006 report card shows that unattached women are still very much at risk of living in poverty.

Moreover, low income seniors must deal with a convoluted maze of uncoordinated federal, provincial and territorial programs. On top of this, seniors also face the clawbacks associated with GIS. This is something I hear from my constituents in my office in Hamilton East—Stoney Creek. A slight increase in income can affect GIS and other benefits and increase costs and taxes for low income seniors. If a person receiving the GIS cashes a $1,000 RRSP, the individual could see her GIS benefits reduced by up to $500. If the person is among the 50% of GIS recipients who pay income tax, she could pay a further $250 in income tax.

Furthermore, other provincially and territorially administered benefits face the possibility of being reduced and/or being eliminated altogether. In the worst case scenario, small increases in income outside of these programs could very well result in a net loss of income for the senior.

In effect, low income seniors are trapped. Because of this tangled web of disincentives, they are actively discouraged from earning additional income to make their lives more enjoyable. Moreover, and with respect to this motion, I am often asked by seniors why they are not automatically registered for GIS. Qualifying for old age security means people already meet the income requirements for GIS and yet they must apply for the latter to receive it. Every July, people who have not reapplied for their GIS benefit are suspended from receiving those benefits until renewal applications are completed.

In 2005, and I am borrowing data again from the National Advisory Council on Aging, there were approximately 115,000 late applicants for GIS. The council believes that most of this benefit bottleneck can be accounted for because seniors are not renewing the GIS on time. Approximately 138,000 seniors who qualify for GIS do not receive it.

This will simply not do. It makes sense that seniors who are eligible for the benefit should automatically be registered for it. The income security system for seniors is difficult enough to negotiate as it is and seniors do not need yet another form to fill out.

The motion before us today solves this problem by automatically registering seniors for GIS and by providing full retroactivity with respect to the payments they have missed.

In keeping with the spirit of the motion being debated, I would like to conclude with the following message. I and the NDP believe passionately that no senior should live in poverty. Accordingly, we would like to see the combined GIS and OAS benefits increased so that they are equal to or greater than the low income cutoff. We also believe that the clawbacks associated with GIS should be eliminated immediately. In addition, we would like to see better coordination of provincial, federal and territorial programs. To better protect unattached senior women, we also would like to see an automatic and compulsory sharing of pension rights under CPP, employer pension funds and retirement savings plans.

We, in this Parliament, must ensure that all of our seniors have the financial support they need to live dignified, independent lives free from the scourge of poverty. We must take every opportunity to enhance their income security. This motion is a very good step in that direction and I thank the member opposite for tabling the motion here today.

[Tibet, March 10th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, today we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan national uprising. Fifty years ago, 300,000 Tibetans surrounded the Dalai Lama's palace to protect their young leader from the Chinese military. That dedication to the Dalai Lama is today reflected not only here in Canada but worldwide.

The NDP reaffirms its commitment to supporting human rights in China, including the collective self-determination rights of the people of Tibet. The government of China must respect freedom of religion, speech and assembly for Tibetans. I would remind the House that on February 15, 2007, the House of Commons gave unanimous consent to a motion by NDP MP Peggy Nash. It said:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should urge the government of the People's Republic of China and representatives of Tibet's government in exile, notwithstanding their differences on Tibet's historical relationship with China, to continue their dialogue in a forward looking manner that will lead to pragmatic solutions that respect the Chinese constitutional framework, the territorial integrity of China and fulfill the aspirations of the Tibetan people for a unified and--

[Steel Industry, March 4th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the shutdown of U.S. steel operations in Hamilton and Lake Erie has hit the people of my community very hard. Over 2,100 people do not know when they will get to go back to work. Now the Canadian press is reporting that the minister was unaware and was caught by surprise.

If the minister is that out of touch with the steel industry, he should resign.