Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to enter the debate. Four minutes is not a lot of time. I will pick one area and see if I can get into a second one. One particular area I would address is an issue that runs as a thread through the whole bill. We are talking about the RCMP in our communities, but we are also talking about the RCMP as a workplace where ordinary Canadians are workers in that workplace.

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present in both official languages the 11th report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts in relation to its study of Chapter 4—Regulating Pharmaceutical Drugs—Health Canada of the fall 2011 report of the Auditor General of Canada. Pursuant to Standing Order 109 of the House of Commons, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.

Pensions  Mr. Speaker, Friday's Supreme Court ruling on pension protection shows more than ever how outdated this country's bankruptcy laws are. Employees are still being pushed to the back of the line when companies go into bankruptcy protection. A worker could spend their whole career paying into a pension just to see their contributions and dreams of retirement vanish.

Employment Insurance  Mr. Speaker, that does not explain why the government stood up and blocked legislation that we brought in that would have fixed this problem. The government's attack on workers goes on. Last week, the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development, who once described EI as “lucrative”, defended her new quota system by describing the unemployed as “the bad guys”.

Employment Insurance  Mr. Speaker, workers in this country know that it is the NDP they can count on to stand up for their rights and not just mouth the words. We will always support those who depend on part-time work to make ends meet. We will always vote against legislation that cuts EI disproportionately for seasonal workers.

PETITIONS  Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to present a petition from Canadians calling on the Government of Canada to introduce regulations under the Motor Vehicle Safety Act requiring side underrun guards for large trucks and trailers. They are also calling on the government to harmonize Canadian vehicle safety standards with ECE Regulation No. 73.

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 10th report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts in relation to its study of chapter 1, Canada’s Economic Action Plan, of the fall 2011 report of the Auditor General of Canada. Pursuant to Standing Order 109 the committee requests the government table a comprehensive response to this report.

Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act  The hon. member does not know what my ultimate objective was. I will wrap up by just saying that for all the government members' to-ing and fro-ing and lighting themselves on fire over what the official opposition is doing, if they had just followed through with the commitment and the compromises they made in the previous bill and brought that here, we would stand by those compromises.

Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act  Mr. Speaker, I do appreciate the opportunity to join in the debate. It works out good that my colleague spoke before me. The first thing I want to do is read back into the record comments that were made on November 4, 2011, by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence with reference to this legislation in its earlier version.

Standing Committee on Public Accounts  Mr. Speaker, chapter 5 of the fall 2011 Auditor General's report is indeed an important audit of the Department of National Defence. That is why the committee chose that chapter. That is why we actually scheduled a public hearing. We set aside the public hearing and postponed it to allow the committee to work on the Auditor General's report on the F-35.

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the ninth report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts in relation to its study of chapter 2, Replacing Canada's Fighter Jets, of the spring 2012 report of the Auditor General of Canada. Pursuant to Standing Order 109 of the House of Commons, the committee requests the government table a comprehensive response to this report.

The Environment  Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of the Environment and I discussed the fact that the cost of cleaning up one of North America's most toxic sites, Randle Reef in Hamilton Harbour, has been adjusted. He knows that Hamilton city council and local stakeholders have now committed their full one-third of the new adjusted costs.

Lincoln Alexander  Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to pay tribute to a cherished Hamiltonian, a man with both the royal jelly and the common touch, the Honourable Lincoln Alexander, who passed away peacefully last Friday. First elected to the House in 1968, the man we knew simply as Linc became Canada's first black member of Parliament in the then riding of Hamilton West, which would later become my riding of Hamilton Centre.

Member for Elmwood—Transcona  Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Conservative member for Orléans and the Parliamentary Secretary for the Minister of Public Works did not talk about their ridings; they talked about the official opposition. The member for Elmwood—Transcona has only made one statement in the House since we returned.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, if we look at the issues that were contained in Bill C-26, there are lessons there too. That bill covered things like health care; pay equity; municipal affairs, which is arguably the biggest part of provincial business; public employee contracts; environmental laws; and freedom of information laws.