Employment Insurance Act  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to join in the debate. Let me also congratulate my Bloc colleague, the member for Manicouagan, who sponsored Bill C-280. What we are dealing with in terms of what the government has done is one of the most disgraceful acts of abuse of power that one could imagine.

Civil Marriage Act  I am a dreamer. I take pride in that. I am a dreamer in terms of what the country can be. Following that member is not my kind of dream. I want to also make reference to the fact that religious freedoms have been protected. The Supreme Court has stated: ...the guarantee of religious freedom in section 2(a) of the Charter is broad enough to protect religious officials from being compelled by the state to perform civil or religious same-sex marriages that are contrary to their religious beliefs.

Civil Marriage Act  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to join in the debate. At the outset, it is my intention to cast my precious vote in favour of Bill C-38, in favour of the charter and in favour of all my constituents having all their charter rights. I want to begin by talking about the charter.

Labour  Mr. Speaker, when Canada ratifies international treaties, we have an obligation to enforce them. The leadership of UFCW, NUPGE and the Canadian Labour Congress today have pointed out that Canada is a signatory to the United Nations international labour organization. We have ratified ILO conventions that promise to allow freedom of association and the collective bargaining process.

Airline Industry  Mr. Speaker, blaming a free market economy for government's failure to protect consumers just will not fly. For 17,000 Jetsgo travellers there is nothing but heartbreak, confusion and anger today. When this government deregulated the airline industry, it failed to bring in basic consumer protections.

Airline Industry  Mr. Speaker, that is ridiculous. Nobody is suggesting that at all. Consumers are not the only ones devastated this morning. There are 1,350 Jetsgo employees waking up to find their jobs are gone and they have no protection for their pensions or wages owed. Bill C-281, the NDP's workers first bill, is aimed directly at protecting vulnerable workers caught in exactly these tragic conditions.

The Budget  And who voted for it?

Supply  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to join in the debate today. I support the motion in front of us for a host of reasons. The first thing I would like to address goes back to the comments of the President of the Treasury Board who earlier today said that the first thing was that it seems that whenever we want to inflame debate, all we have to do is throw up the aura of some dishonest or inappropriate behaviour.

Wal-Mart  Mr. Speaker, 10 years ago, the Levi Strauss clothing company had over a dozen manufacturing plants in Canada, including in my hometown of Hamilton, but then along came Wal-Mart, which forced Levi to close all their North American factories and move their operations to poverty-wage Asia, killing off thousands of Canadian jobs.

Canada Labour Code  Mr. Speaker, Wal-Mart's closure of its first unionized store is being characterized as economic terrorism, a blatant attempt to smash organizing activities across the country. Wal-Mart has forced manufacturers to relocate overseas at the cost of thousands of Canadian jobs and now it has sent a message to its 70,000 Canadian workers telling them that they do not have the right to organize, they do not have the right to collective bargaining, and they do not have the right to decent wages or hours of work.

Canada Labour Code  Mr. Speaker, those words do not do us an awful lot of good after the first comment of “it's not my responsibility”. The fact of the matter is that Wal-Mart is an international corporation. This is affecting Canadians right across the country. In Saskatchewan, for instance, right now Wal-Mart is challenging the laws that protect workers' rights during an organizing drive.

The Environment  Mr. Speaker, this morning a group of proud Canadians from Hamilton stood outside the federal government's offices in Downsview, Ontario to apologize to federal civil servants and to urge the enforcement of Canadian environmental law. They have apologized because the city of Hamilton has launched a $75 million lawsuit against 64 civil servants and four Chrétien cabinet ministers for the alleged crime of doing their job to protect Canadians by applying the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act in the matter of the Red Hill Creek Expressway.

Immigration  Mr. Speaker, when a young Moroccan woman named Saadia El Ouardi was ordered by her father to marry a man more than twice her age, and who already had two wives, she refused. He then threatened to kill her to regain his so-called honour, and she fled to Canada to save her life. But, last weekend she was deported to Morocco, despite her father's continuing threats, despite the fact that her son Timmy is a Canadian citizen and despite the appeals of the community in Hamilton where she made her home.

Brabant Newspapers  Mr. Speaker, the Brabant newspaper chain publishes many papers in Hamilton communities. Cost cutting measures and layoffs have allowed Brabant to reap record profits. While investors are raking it in, Brabant and its masters at TorStar Corporation cancelled 600 kids' paper routes.

Canada Border Services Agency Act  Mr. Speaker, I think all of us are like-minded in moving forward. This will be one of those times when we may have disagreements along the way about how we do something, but no doubt we are all resolute in the raison d'être of the bill and the absolute critical need to ensure that our borders are as safe as possible as well as being efficient as possible.