National Aboriginal Day  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to recognize National Aboriginal Day this Sunday, June 21, as we kick off 11 days to celebrate Canada. Appropriately, we begin this celebration with an acknowledgement of Canada's first nations, Inuit and Métis people, recognizing their primacy in this great land.

Privilege  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the chair of the committee and the hon. member for raising that point and to stress that those of us on this side of the House have that concern too. We wanted to ensure that if there was a problem somewhere in the system, that it was fixed. However, we wanted to also express that we were concerned about any possibility of a breach of the confidence of that report.

House debate  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Cooperation for his response, which I think is fair, honourable and displays a sincerity. I want to thank him very genuinely. The aid is something that is a concern on both sides of this House and I appreciate that the government is taking steps.

House debate  Mr. Speaker, on April 20 of this year, I raised a question of the government's commitment to providing aid to the victims of the conflict in Sri Lanka, which has waged for over two decades. As everyone in the House knows, violence escalated tremendously this past year. It was not until the third week of May that the government of Sri Lanka claimed victory over the LTTE, which in turn conceded defeat the next day.

Public Transit  Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Transport claims to support urban transit, so Toronto made but one request for infrastructure spending: new streetcars. The minister's response? Profanity. He told Torontonians in a word or two where we could go. Is this what we can expect from a minister of the Crown?

Public Transit  Mr. Speaker, on this side of the House we know about frustration, especially today. A vulgar attack on the people of Toronto is unacceptable, in public or in private, by a minister of the Crown. We are once again hearing the true feelings that the government has for Toronto. However, Torontonians are thick-skinned.

Protecting Victims From Sex Offenders Act  Madam Speaker, we may have to take some lessons in learning how to stall on committee work because we do not have the 200 page manual on how to keep committee work from not happening. Our job is to make committees work, to fix the legislation that the government presents, to try to improve it, to try to make something positive in the government.

Protecting Victims From Sex Offenders Act  Madam Speaker, the government and its members always seem to have the ability to forget that this is now. It is not then. The government has been in place for three years and it had the opportunity, repeatedly, to bring its agenda about. The Conservatives seem to forget that they are the government and we have respected that they are the government.

Protecting Victims From Sex Offenders Act  Madam Speaker, I have been elected here to make a positive contribution in this discussion, to attempt to look into the future, and to try to correct the problems which might have happened in any government. I am not going to defend it. I am not going to try to do that, but I am simply going to say that we are going to be looking at this legislation.

Protecting Victims From Sex Offenders Act  Madam Speaker, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, we want to take time with the legislation in committee. Stakeholder groups have approached us. They have provided absolutely essential information to us and we want to do the best things for Canada. The minister in his statement responded to the changing of the channels and I find that quite interesting.

Protecting Victims From Sex Offenders Act  Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak on this proposed legislation. I will state at the outset that I am in support of it going to committee for consideration and hopefully improvement. While this legislation has some of the bones that we need to improve the sex offender information registry, it is sadly lacking in some other areas.

Infrastructure  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for her support of this private member's motion. I, too, speak in favour of it. I will begin by talking about my experience in northern Canada, having lived in Yukon for six years and experiencing the challenges one has while living in the north with respect to both public infrastructure and social infrastructure and simply servicing smaller communities as well as the larger cities.

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns  With respect to the new United States Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s (APHIS) user fee requirements for Canada: (a) what did the government do, if anything, to negotiate this fee change with the United States; (b) what communications occurred between Canada and the United States in preparation for this fee change; (c) what notice, if any, was provided to Canadian railway companies by the United States government of the August 25, 2007 interim rule authorizing APHIS to collect fees to cover costs for agricultural quarantine, inspection as well as planned increases to the program’s inspection capacity related to ports of entry in Canada; (d) does the Government of Canada know why the exemption removal was issued by the United States government, as an interim rule, as opposed to publishing a proposed rule for comments; (e) why was the targeted risk management model for customs reforms in North America not followed; (f) what overall purpose did the additional inspection under the APHIS proposal demonstrate; and (g) why is this fee being imposed on railway companies seeing as railways do not engage in the shipping of any substantial quantities of agricultural products across the border?

International Day Against Homophobia  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize that May 17 is the International Day Against Homophobia. This day causes us to celebrate the human rights Canadians enjoy and to reflect on the tremendous challenges facing gay and lesbian people around the world. The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

House debate  Mr. Speaker, the very last thing we need to do on this side of the House is take any economic lessons from that side of the House. This is the natural opposing party that simply refuses to govern. Forty months ago, you inherited a government that was sound. You cut taxes at the wrong time.