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42nd PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION
EDITED HANSARD • NUMBER 331
CONTENTS
Wednesday, October 3, 2018
House of Commons Debates
VOLUME 148
NUMBER 331
1st SESSION
42nd PARLIAMENT
OFFICIAL REPORT (HANSARD)
Wednesday, October 3, 2018
Speaker: The Honourable Geoff Regan
[Statements by Members]
[English]
We will now have the singing of O Canada, led by the hon. member for Calgary Midnapore.
[Members sang the national anthem]
STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS
[Statements by Members]
[English]
Nunavut
Mr. Speaker, in Nunavut we share a vision that we can build a sustainable economy that will support our community, create job growth, reduce our dependency on Ottawa and put our standard of living on par with Canadians in the south. To do this requires substantial investment from the federal government to address urgent needs in four critical areas: food security, community infrastructure, housing, and skills and employment training. Only once these needs are addressed can we truly begin to build a sustainable economy.
The government is taking steps in the right direction. Since I was elected, over $1.25 billion in funding has been announced, and it is nice to see a renewed interest in improving our quality of life. However, the funding is slow in finding its way into our communities and is often spread out over a number of years, minimizing the impact.
In this session of Parliament, I will be focusing on these areas. I look forward to consulting and working with my colleagues on finding solutions for a brighter future for Nunavut.
[Translation]
Quebec Election
Mr. Speaker, as you know, Quebeckers went to the polls on Monday. Today I would like to congratulate the people of my riding who exercised their right to vote. I would also like to congratulate everyone who helped the voting process go smoothly at all the polling stations. Above all, I would like to congratulate all the candidates. They care about the well-being of their fellow citizens, and by participating in the election, they have contributed to our democratic tradition.
I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the outgoing MNAs who worked so hard for the people of Sanguinet, La Prairie and Châteauguay. On Monday, the people of Quebec elected Coalition Avenir Québec to represent them for the next four years, and the people of my riding were on board, electing Danielle McCann in Sanguinet, Christian Dubé in La Prairie and MarieChantal Chassé in Châteauguay.
I would like to congratulate them on their impressive victory and wish them all the best in the years to come. There is nothing I want more than to serve families alongside these new MNAs.
[English]
Thanksgiving
Mr. Speaker, this coming Monday, Canadians will celebrate Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a time when family and friends come from far and near to share a meal and spend quality time with one another. We might enjoy a turkey dinner and pumpkin pie as we connect with our loved ones.
While I enjoy those aspects of Thanksgiving as much as anyone, I do not want to miss the real reason for giving thanks. I thank God for his beautiful creation, for the bountiful harvest Canadian farmers and gardeners have enjoyed, for my constituents in Kitchener—Conestoga, for my colleagues here in the house and especially for my family.
We are all blessed to live in the best country in the world, Canada, and to enjoy the freedoms we have. However, while we celebrate here, we cannot afford to forget those like 15-year-old Leah, who is currently being detained and lives under threat of execution by Boko Haram for refusing to give up her Christian faith. For me and for Leah and for hundreds of millions of global citizens, it is this foundation for life for which we are most thankful.
Mr. Speaker, to you, your family, and to all Canadians, happy Thanksgiving.
Oxford, Nova Scotia
Mr. Speaker, the town of Oxford, in my riding of Cumberland—Colchester, is currently dealing with a sinkhole 40 meters in diameter that just appeared near the Oxford and area Lions Club playground. This sinkhole has swallowed up 50-foot trees and is threatening structures in the area.
I first want to salute the officials on the ground for diligently working so hard over the last few weeks to ensure that the town is as safe as possible, including Mayor Patricia Stewart; Mike Johnson, the coordinator of emergency measures for Cumberland county; and Amy Tizzard, the Province of Nova Scotia regional geologist. They have worked tirelessly to monitor this unpredictable sinkhole as it has grown from a small depression to a giant hole.
Ground penetrating radar is now on site and will hopefully provide information regarding the potential for future sinkholes in the area or growth of the current one. It is important that the residents and businesses in Oxford know what is happening and that they are safe.
I would like to thank the office of the Premier of Nova Scotia, Stephen McNeil, who responded to calls for help and kept us in the loop until the appropriate equipment was on site.
Retirement Congratulations
Mr. Speaker, 65 years ago, Austin Hunt began a life of public service that sees him retiring as the longest serving politician in Canada. As a young man, he volunteered to drive Lester B. Pearson, and he quickly rose through the ranks, serving as his campaign manager for three successive campaigns. Five years later, Austin was serving as a councillor in Billings Township. He quickly became the mayor and was never defeated in a municipal election.
Austin's belief that civic engagement is more important than partisan politics helps explain his political longevity. He sought to build bridges and improve relations between his community and neighbouring first nations. He also spent time as the president of regional councils and associations and served on the executive of numerous other local committees, boards and associations. Perhaps most importantly, Austin Hunt has always been accessible to the people he serves, who have elected him time and again.
I urge all members to join me in congratulating Austin Hunt, a pillar of the community, as he retires from electoral politics at the age of 92.
I wish Austin a happy retirement.
Women's History Month
Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to recognize the start of Women's History Month. Throughout Canadian history, women have played a vital role in building the country we know and love today. As business leaders, politicians, doctors, artists, and in all fields, women in Canadian history have made a lasting impact.
Their contributions are clear in my riding of Brampton South, where women like Angela Johnson, president of Carabram; Adelina Velasco, of the Brampton Filipino Club; Rosemary Miller, of the Brampton Tennis Club; Myrna Adams, president of the Senior Citizens' Council; youth leaders like Sandeep Hans and Tina Patel, and many more, continue to be shining examples of what Canadian women can accomplish.
I encourage everyone to use the hashtag #MakeAnImpact and to tell us about the women and girls making an impact in their communities.
Charles Fielding
Mr. Speaker, I proudly rise today to pay tribute to WWII veteran Charlie Fielding. On September 5, Hanna, Alberta's favourite resident died, just 16 days shy of his 100th birthday. He truly was a remarkable man, and I am honoured to have known him for a very long time. It was my privilege to speak at his memorial service to a packed hall. Over the years, I witnessed the tremendous impact he had on all, but especially the children of Battle River—Crowfoot.
In his later years, Charlie dedicated his time and energy to ensure that our youth knew the importance of Remembrance Day and of honouring veterans. Charlie was instrumental in getting veterans to schools throughout our riding, and he did it for the veterans as much as for the students.
In closing, I would like to express the sentiments of many residents of Hanna, which I wholeheartedly share. This November 11, Charlie's spirit will certainly be felt by those in the community. We will remember him forever as a brave soldier, the ultimate gentleman, a fantastic conversationalist and an example of kindness and decency and more.
May Charlie rest in peace.
[Translation]
2831 Mont-Bruno Cadet Corps
Mr. Speaker, teamwork, self-confidence, leadership and civic-mindedness are juts a few of the traits we want to impart to our youth, our leaders of tomorrow. I want to thank 2831 Mont-Bruno Cadet Corps, which seeks to do just that. For 50 years now, the corps has been engaging young people aged 12 to 18 in athletic, educational and outdoor survival activities.
In 1970, the forward-thinking 2831 Mont-Bruno Cadet Corps became the first in Quebec to allow girls to join the cadet corps. That initiative was made possible thanks to the dedication of Major Robert Whitelaw, Captain Lucien Lussier and Lieutenants Gilles Blais, Yvon Bourgon, Jean-Louis Nadeau, Raymond Bellemare and Raymond Loubier.
I commend the legacy of the founders of 2831 Mont-Bruno Cadet Corps and applaud their hard work.
[English]
Mississauga Erin Mills
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to welcome the Mississauga Erin Mills Youth Council and Mississauga Erin Mills Women Council to Parliament. They are currently watching democracy in action, and very soon will be meeting with our Prime Minister for a chat about their projects and their ideas for Canada. These two councils are empowerment in action. They have been working tirelessly to engage our constituents with issues that matter most to women and youth. They have held events on women's health, youth financial literacy, anti-bullying initiatives, women in politics, women in business, climate change, youth mental health and so much more.
I thank my dear women council and youth council for their work, compassion and commitment toward making our Mississauga—Erin Mills riding the best place to live.
I also announce, with a heavy heart, the passing of my dear friend and community leader, Shahid Rashdi. His contributions to Mississauga and Canada were great. May he rest in peace and may his family have support in this tough time.
B.C. Wine Industry
Mr. Speaker, yet another concession the current Liberal government made in the USMCA was to allow U.S. interests to dictate what wine can be sold in British Columbia's grocery stores. For many small family-run wineries, this might see them crowded off the shelves in favour of big, corporate California wineries. That is a real concern for the B.C. wine industry.
The current Liberal government also fought against the Comeau case at the Supreme Court, and continues to do nothing to increase internal trade. If the Liberal government will not stand up for B.C. wine against the United States, will it at least stand up for Canadian wine here in Canada?
I am calling for the Liberal government to take immediate steps to open up direct-to-consumer shipping of wine in Canada. Wineries in the United States enjoy this opportunity in their own home market, and it is time for Canadian wineries to have this same right to sell directly to Canadians. Mr. Speaker, free my grapes, free my grapes.
Peter Adams
Mr. Speaker, it is with sadness that I inform the House of the passing of Peter Adams, MP for Peterborough from 1993 to 2004.
Peter loved Peterborough and Peterborough loved him. MPP from 1987 to 1990, Peterborough's Citizen of the Year in 1991, honorary doctorate from Trent University in 2010, Order of Ontario in 2012, one way or another all of his awards and distinctions circled back to his beloved Peterborough. At one point, Peter even tried to convince me that the city was named after him.
In Parliament, he advocated for science before it was fashionable to do so. He was concerned about the Arctic before global warming became so alarming. He was a partisan Liberal, but embraced consensus and collaboration before they became bad words.
A marathoner, Peter ran the good race of life to the end.
He was a mentor and friend to the current MP for Peterborough—Kawartha, the Hon. Minister of Status of Women. She will miss him. I will miss him.
I thank Jill and family for lending him to our nation.
[Translation]
Canadian Leaders at Sea Program
Mr. Speaker, this summer, as part of the Royal Canadian Navy's Canadian leaders at sea program, I had an opportunity to participate in naval exercises that showed us what it takes to be a sailor.
Operation NANOOK was an eye-opening experience, as we saw first-hand the sacrifices that our men and women in the navy have made to protect our country. They work for us 24 hours a day.
[English]
Thanks to our Minister of National Defence, who reinstated this program, Canadians have the opportunity to experience first-hand what our Canadian Armed Forces do for us. While aboard the HMCS Charlottetown, I realized just how much the sailors sacrifice. They are away from their families for months at a time. They go beyond the call of duty. They risk their lives. Their motto, “all challenges squarely met”, is a testament to their bravery and courage in never backing down in the face of danger.
True to their slogan, “Ready, Aye Ready”, these sailors stand always ready to defend Canada. We thank them for their service.
International Trade
Mr. Speaker, this summer, I had the pleasure and the opportunity to travel across this country and speak with over 150 stakeholders who are being hurt by U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs. These stakeholders had one overwhelming demand: that the government stop the uncertainty and get a new NAFTA deal.
The Prime Minister got a new deal all right. It was a deal of concessions. The Prime Minister failed our steel and aluminum producers, because they are still being tariffed and now there is no end in sight for these tariffs. Steel and aluminum workers are already having to cut their hours. Some companies are laying people off and are reducing their sales. Business owners I have met with are struggling to stay afloat with no support from the government.
The finance minister promised $2 billion to affected businesses, but what did he really offer? He offered employment insurance and additional loans. Forcing companies to take on more debt or somehow easing workers into unemployment are not solutions. The Liberals have to get these tariffs lifted, and they need to get them lifted now.
Women's History Month and Islamic History Month
Mr. Speaker, October is Women's History Month and Islamic History Month.
What better way to celebrate this than by recognizing a strong Canadian Muslim woman? Alia Hogben is an irrepressible voice for women's equality. She fiercely fights against misogyny and gender-based violence. Alia also calls out Islamophobia and all other forms of bigotry.
She received an honorary doctorate from Queen's University. In 2012, she became the second Canadian Muslim woman to be awarded the Order of Canada for her work on women's rights. In 2014, Maclean's declared her one of Canada's 50 most important people. Ms. Hogben has been involved with the Canadian Council of Muslim Women since its creation. She recently retired as its executive director. In recognition of her service, the CCMW will be establishing a scholarship in her name.
Alia inspired a generation of boys and girls to be champions of equality and human rights. We all owe her a debt of gratitude.
Women's History Month
Mr. Speaker, for Women's History Month, we honour feminist trailblazers who fought hard for social justice and yet gender equality has been blocked by decades of successive Liberal and Conservative failure: no pay equity and no universal child care. Front-line feminist groups struggle to keep their doors open from a lack of core funding.
As New Democrat Rosemary Brown, the first black woman elected to any legislature in Canada, said, “We must open the doors and we must see to it that they remain open, so that others can pass through.” On a truly historic day in Parliament, these doors opened and Daughters of the Vote filled these seats with young women from across the country. Three hundred and thirty-seven women sat in the House on that day, more than had filled Parliament in 150 years of Confederation. I have since witnessed dozens of these young leaders making real change across our country.
Let us make history, let us honour feminists past and let us open the doors for the next wave of women making real change.
Justice
Mr. Speaker, Tori Stafford was just eight years old when she was kidnapped, raped and murdered by Terri-Lynne McClintic in 2009. We now know that the Liberals have allowed McClintic to move from a medium-high security prison to a healing lodge designed for criminals near the end of their sentences. This just proves that the Liberals are in favour of putting the comforts of criminals ahead of the rights of victims and their families.
Under our Conservative government, we listened to Canadians and took steps to correct aspects of the judicial system that allowed for re-victimization, legislation such as the Victims Bill of Rights and life means life. When will the government start supporting victims of crime, do the right thing and move McClintic to the medium-high security prison where she belongs?
Nobel Prize in Physics
Mr. Speaker, our government knows how important equity in science is. That is why I am honoured today to stand in the House and recognize Canada's Donna Strickland.
Donna Strickland, born in Guelph, is an associate professor at the University of Waterloo and this week joined the ranks of only two other women, Marie Curie and Maria Goeppert Mayer, to win the Nobel Prize in physics. She is the first woman in 55 years to win this prize. Along with Arthur Ashkin and Gérard Mourou, she won the Nobel Prize for groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics.
[Translation]
We know that equity and research excellence go hand in hand, and we have played a leadership role in promoting diversity in science. We are now making the largest research investments in Canadian history.
[English]
As Ms. Strickland said, “We need to celebrate women physicists because they're out there”. She added, “I'm honoured to be one of those women.”
Today, all Canadians can be proud of her achievement.
ORAL QUESTIONS
[Oral Questions]
[English]
Justice
Mr. Speaker, nine months ago, Tori Stafford's killer was behind bars and today she is in a healing lodge. Tori's killer was convicted of the most heinous crime imaginable, something the public safety minister called “bad practices”.
Tori's family has called on the Prime Minister to use all of the tools available to him to fix this situation. Today, members will be voting on a motion that would do just that.
Does the Prime Minister agree with the decision to transfer Tori's killer to a healing lodge?
Mr. Speaker, our hearts go out to the family of Tori Stafford for the loss they have endured.
The offender in question was moved from maximum security to medium security in 2014 under the Conservatives. She remains in medium security today.
As reports have shown, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act does not permit politicians to make one-off decisions in regard to the placement of individual inmates. However, the minister has asked the commissioner of correctional services to review this decision to ensure that it was taken properly and in accordance with long-standing policy.
[Translation]
International Trade
Mr. Speaker, throughout the NAFTA negotiations, the Prime Minister said that he would protect supply management, but he failed to do so. The Prime Minister made major concessions on access to our dairy market and agreed to limit our milk protein exports. We know that the United States is very generous to its dairy farmers, with annual subsidies of approximately $22 billion.
Can the Prime Minister confirm what concessions he received regarding the support given to American dairy farmers in return for the ones he made at the expense of Canadian farmers?
Mr. Speaker, this agreement preserves and maintains supply management. Its future is no longer in question.
With regard to market shares, we promised farmers that they would receive full and fair compensation. The changes to market access in this agreement are similar to those in the TPP, which was lauded by the Conservatives. Supply management is protected and farmers will be compensated. As always, the Conservatives are playing political games.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, there is a major difference. The deal under the CPTPP and CETA was to exchange gains in terms of market access in other countries. These concessions have nothing in return. The Prime Minister tries to compare these concessions to other deals, but under the agreement he just signed, the Canadian government will be imposing tariffs on Canadian exports.
We know that the United States has a wide variety of supports and billions of dollars worth in subsidies for its dairy producers. Therefore, in exchange for backing down on what Donald Trump wanted, can the Prime Minister tell us exactly which measures the U.S. has agreed to eliminate?
Mr. Speaker, I think most Canadians understand that Sunday night was a good moment for Canadians. We secured access to our most important trading partner in a time of uncertainty. We demonstrated that our approach of standing up for Canadians and staying firm in our principles was the right one.
The relationship with the United States goes beyond politics, as it should. I want to give a specific shout-out to the many Conservatives, from Brad Wall to Scott Moe, Brian Pallister, Brian Mulroney, Kim Campbell, Jean Charest, Rona Ambrose and James Moore, who all stood up for—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Speaker, it is clear that the Prime Minister needed all the help he could get when it came to his negotiating position with Donald Trump. Even after all of that, he still had to back down on so many key areas. He backed down on pharmaceuticals, meaning that Canadian patients and the provincial health care systems will have to pay billions more.
Can the Prime Minister tell us exactly how much Canadian patients will have to pay after he has adopted Donald Trump's rules on prescription drug costs?
Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives cannot help but play politics on big issues, but we are staying focused on Canadians.
It is wonderful to hear the Conservatives suddenly preoccupied with prescription drug costs, because they have never wanted to do anything on that.
However, we have made sure that Canadians know that we are serious about moving forward with pharmacare. We will move forward in lowering prescription drug costs for Canadians, and nothing in this deal prevents us from being able to do that for Canadians.
Mr. Speaker, there is something in this deal that would make that program even more expensive. The Prime Minister has just backed down, by giving Donald Trump's policy preference over Canadian pharmaceuticals, meaning higher prices for patients.
In return for backing down on pharmaceuticals, on accepting a cap on autos, what has he got in return?
Yesterday, the Minister of Foreign Affairs said that the most important gain from this agreement is retaining what we already had.
Specifically, did the Prime Minister receive an end to tariffs on steel and aluminum for all of his concessions?
Mr. Speaker, we in the House should not be surprised when the Conservatives choose to play politics.
I have to admit I am surprised on this one, given that just last year Stephen Harper and the Conservatives were imploring us to capitulate and accept any deal at any price. Stephen Harper's memo said, “It does not matter whether current American proposals are worse than what we have now”.
Over and over, the Conservatives urged us to take Harper's advice and surrender immediately. That was not our approach. We stood up for Canadians and got a good deal.
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, it is funny to hear the Prime Minister talk about playing political games here.
No less than three times yesterday, the Minister of Foreign Affairs talked about the elimination of chapter 11 of NAFTA as a great victory for her and her government.
The thing is that the Liberals are the ones who fought at the negotiating table to keep a version of that provision, which allows companies to go after governments directly. Donald Trump is the one who wanted to get rid of chapter 11. We are glad to see it go.
Are the Liberals so desperate that they have to rewrite history?
Mr. Speaker, we are very pleased to have eliminated chapter 11, which has cost Canadians $300 million over the years.
We know that it is important to protect the government's ability to legislate on environmental protection and labour rights.
We stood our ground to get rid of that chapter. We are very pleased that Canadians are no longer subject to it.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government is trying so hard to find a positive angle to this deal with Donald Trump that it is wilfully misleading the House on this.
Yesterday, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and today the Prime Minister are bragging about the fact that the elimination of chapter 11 of NAFTA is a great victory for them and their government. The problem is that they are the ones who fought to try to keep it. Donald Trump was the one who tried to get rid of it.
Of course, we are glad that chapter 11 is gone, but how desperate is the Prime Minister that he now wants to rewrite history?
I have to remind the hon. member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques that we do not accuse someone of wilfully misleading the House or deliberately misleading the House. One can say that someone misleads because that, of course, could be by accident, but he cannot say “wilfully”. I would ask him to withdraw and apologize for that.
[Translation]
I will be very clear and give the member another opportunity to withdraw his comments and apologize.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, I am sorry. Instead of wilfully misleading the House, I will claim that he is misleading the House.
Mr. Speaker, Chapter 11 has cost the Canadian government hundreds of millions of dollars over the years, which is why we are pleased that we signed an agreement that eliminates chapter 11.
The ISDS provisions, which we worked hard with people on in the CPTPP and CETA to diminish and even eliminate, are something that we have always stood against.
We believe that governments should have every right to protect the environment, to protect labour standards, and that is what we ensured with this accord.
Natural Resources
Mr. Speaker, let me quote the Federal Court of Appeal again, that “Canada's efforts fell well short of the mark set by the Supreme Court of Canada” when it came to consulting indigenous peoples on Trans Mountain.
How can the Prime Minister claim that he will consult again when he has repeatedly said in the House that this project will be built no matter what?
Does the Prime Minister not realize that he is in fact totally abdicating his constitutional duty to consult and accommodate indigenous peoples and obtain their consent?
Mr. Speaker, the court ruling on TMX actually gives us a blueprint to move forward in the right way. We know that proper, deep consultation with indigenous peoples is essential for moving forward on any projects. They have to be moved forward in the right way. That means working with indigenous peoples. It means getting community consultations right. It means working to ensure that the environmental science is top-notch. That is what we recognize. That is what we will move forward with in a responsible way to get things done the right way, because that is what all Canadians expect.
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, we believe that the Prime Minister must be true to his word. If he is prepared to recognize those who have the right to say yes to this project, he must recognize the equal right of others to say no to the pipeline project.
Does the Prime Minister not recognize that consulting when the decision has already been made is not the type of consultation required by the Supreme Court of Canada?
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member opposite for actually acknowledging that there are people from indigenous communities who are saying yes to this project and there are people from indigenous communities who are saying no. We will work with them, as the court has asked. We recognize that improvements can be made to the consultations and to partnerships with first nations, and we are working on that in the meaningful way required by the court.
Justice
Mr. Speaker, a woman who was convicted of the rape and first degree murder of an eight-year-old girl was transferred to a healing lodge that does not even have fences. Security is so lax that there were 18 recorded escapes from this type of facility between 2011 and 2016. Our motion, like the one the Ontario government unanimously adopted on Monday, calls for this decision to be reversed.
My question for the Prime Minister is simple. Will he vote in favour of our motion, as Canadians from across the country are calling for, yes or no?
Mr. Speaker, our hearts obviously go out to Tori Stafford's family for their loss.
The inmate was transferred from a maximum-security facility to a medium-security one in 2014, while the Conservatives were in government, and that is where she remains today. As news articles have shown, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act does not allow politicians to make decisions on individual inmate transfers. The minister has asked the commissioner to ensure that this decision is consistent with long-standing policies.
Mr. Speaker, little Victoria's father wrote the Prime Minister a message last weekend. He asked him, from father to father, if the Prime Minister could kneel before his child's headstone, knowing they spent the last three hours of their life begging and pleading for mommy or daddy to come save them. He asked the Prime Minister if he could sleep soundly knowing that. He pleaded with the Prime Minister to do the right thing to ensure that this injustice is reversed and that the killer returns behind bars.
The Prime Minister has the power to take action. Will he vote in favour of the motion we have moved here in the House?
Mr. Speaker, just like all Canadians across the country, our hearts go out to Rodney Stafford. The inmate was transferred from a maximum-security facility to a medium-security facility in 2014, under the Conservatives. She remains in a medium-security facility today.
The Conservatives should know that the minister does not intervene in such decisions, because that is precisely what the member for Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis has stated in the past, when he was minister. The minister has asked the commissioner to review her decision. As the Conservative member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo said, the independent judiciary process must be allowed to take its course without political interference.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, Canadians continue to call on the Prime Minister to do the right thing and send Terri-Lynne McClintic, the killer of eight-year-old Tori Stafford, back to prison. While he and his public safety minister dither with this review and refuse to review the transfer, which did not occur in 2014, but just a few months ago, with McClintic now enjoying life in a healing lodge without a fence.
I ask the Prime Minister on behalf of Tori's father and on behalf of Canadians to do the right thing, to vote yes on our motion today and order McClintic back behind bars.
Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives continue to play a very dangerous and, quite frankly, repulsive game of politicizing a tragedy and speaking for others who they have no business speaking for.
We continue to state, obviously, that this is a situation in which a previous Conservative government reclassified an offender, from a maximum-security institution to a medium institution. This individual is currently in a medium-security facility.
As Stephen Harper's former—
Order, please. I would ask the hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot and others not to interrupt when someone else has the floor. Each side gets its turn, and we have to listen whether we like what we hear or not. That is kind of essential in democracy.
The hon. member for Parry Sound—Muskoka.
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister accuses us of games, but I remember being in the Ontario legislature as an MPP 18 years ago when the Ontario legislature voted unanimously to ask the federal government to stop a transfer of a cop killer to Club Fed.
The Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, who was solicitor general at the time, stood in the House and reversed the transfer. Why was that good enough 18 years ago? Why is he playing political games now, saying he cannot do anything on behalf of Tori Stafford's family and on behalf of Canadians? He should do the right thing.
Mr. Speaker, as has been demonstrated, the minister does not intervene on a case-by-case basis.
If we want to talk about things in the past, let us talk about the Conservative member for Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, who said, in his capacity as public safety minister, just a few years, “I do not control the security classification of individual prisoners.”
Perhaps the Conservatives will listen to Ben Perrin, who was Stephen Harper's former lawyer, who said, “I’m concerned with politicians being the ones who decide how any particular individual offender is treated.”
Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the excuses that the Prime Minister continuously gives to the House and to the Canadian public with respect to his unwillingness to transfer Terri-Lynne McClintic from a healing lodge, with no fences and no barriers, back to where she came from, Grand Valley Institution, with fences and bars.
I understand the government will not be voting in favour of our motion today, but does the Prime Minister know whether there will be some of his backbenchers who will see the light and know that this is a moral issue and that they should do the right thing?
Mr. Speaker, I would indeed suggest that this is a moral issue. This is about the contrast between a party and a government that respects the rules and respects the independence of our judicial system, that appreciates the professionalism of our correctional services, and a party of ambulance-chasing politicians who are quite frankly demonstrating a contempt for the principles of law and debate in the House. It is inexcusable.
Mr. Speaker, at least the Prime Minister can show some kind of emotion, even though it is self-righteous indignation that we would actually question him on an issue as important as making sure convicted killers of children are in appropriate institutions, both to protect the integrity of the justice system, but as well to protect the public and any visitors within that institution.
If he is blind to it, get out of the way and let us go back to government and get this right.
Mr. Speaker, it was under the Conservatives that the decision was taken to reclassify from a maximum security to a medium security. Of course, we point out that I am sure they just followed the recommendations and the proper functioning of their public servants, of the professionals in our corrections agency when that transfer happened.
All we are asking is that the Conservatives continue to respect the system in place, which we have asked be verified and be followed up on to ensure that all the rules were appropriately followed.
[Translation]
Natural Resources
Mr. Speaker, today, the Liberals have decided not to appeal the Federal Court ruling on the Trans Mountain expansion. Why? Because the court is right.
Despite their promises, the Liberals used the same process that the Conservatives used and failed to have meaningful consultations with indigenous communities. Now the court is slapping them on the wrist and they have to go back to the drawing board.
They want to restart the consultation process, but how can this consultation be honest and sincere when the government has already made up its mind? It is no different than saying, “Your call is important to us, but the answer is no”.
Mr. Speaker, we thank the court for its clarifications on what to do to engage in even better consultations with indigenous peoples, to show them that we are serious and that we sincerely want to have new nation-to-nation relationships with indigenous peoples. That is exactly what we are going to do.
We are going to sit down with them to hold even more consultations and to ensure that this project is done right if we move forward. That is what Canadians, indigenous peoples, and our justice system expect.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is now promising to finally meaningfully consult indigenous peoples on the Trans Mountain pipeline proposal. No, seriously, this time he really means it. Here is his problem. He has already made up his mind about the project. Therefore, asking indigenous peoples for their opinion, but refusing to hear the word “no” is the very definition of paternalism.
How about this? Why does the Prime Minister not go and sit with indigenous leaders so they can teach him what free, prior and informed consent actually means or does he only agree with indigenous rights and title when indigenous people agree with him?
Mr. Speaker, I take this opportunity to highlight what the member opposite well knows, that proper consultations with indigenous peoples are possible and lead to good outcomes for everyone. A great example is the LNG Canada announcement that highlighted how much we could work with indigenous peoples.
I know the member must be very pleased, because it will benefit people right across northern British Columbia, to have moved forward on this LNG Canada proposal, which will help indigenous peoples, will grow our economy, will get our resources to markets other than the United States. This is a good day for Canada and it happened because of proper consultation with indigenous peoples.
Justice
Mr. Speaker, for weeks, the Minister of Public Safety has tried to pass the buck over the outrageous decision to transfer child killer Terri-Lynne McClintic to a healing lodge. However, no matter how hard the minister tries to avoid taking responsibility, the buck stops with him. He has the authority to reverse the decision. He has the authority to put McClintic back where she belongs, behind bars. Why will he not?
Mr. Speaker, once again, the Conservatives are showing they will not let the facts get in the way of a political opportunity, and that is a real challenge for them and for Canadians watching.
Let me set the facts straight. As reports have shown, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act does not permit politicians to make one-off decisions in regard to the placement of individual inmates. Those are the facts. The Conservatives, yet again, are playing politics.
Mr. Speaker, let me give the Prime Minister the facts. This was an eight-year-old girl who was heinously murdered and these people were convicted of first degree murder and sent to prison, behind bars. Are you telling me that sending this convicted first degree murderer—
Mr. Speaker, the bottom line is that in southwestern Ontario we are angry. As a parent, as a member of Parliament, will the Prime Minister do what is right and put this convicted murderer behind bars where she belongs?
Mr. Speaker, let me highlight that people not just from southwestern Ontario but right across the country are upset and stand with Tori Stafford's family on this terrible tragedy. Right across the country, people's hearts go out to the family.
In 2014, the individual in question was reclassified from a maximum- to a medium-security facility. Those are the facts. The Conservatives are playing politics in a particularly inappropriate way.
Mr. Speaker, as a mother and a grandmother, I can only imagine the pain and suffering that Tori's family has experienced. Tori's father has been begging the Prime Minister to reverse the decision that has allowed Terri-Lynne McClintic to serve her time at a healing lodge in Saskatchewan.
When will the Prime Minister listen to Tori's father, do the right thing, reverse this decision and put Tori's killer back behind bars?
Mr. Speaker, our hearts go out to Tori's father, to her entire family, on this terrible tragedy. We understand the anguish and the questions they have and the difficulties they have lived with over the past years.
The corrections act does not permit a minister to weigh in directly on the classification of an individual prisoner. The minister has asked the corrections services to look into what happened here to ensure everything was done according to proper procedures and to make recommendations if the procedures need to be changed.
Mr. Speaker, Tori Stafford's family does not want the Prime Minister's heartfelt sentiments; it wants him to take action. The family does not want the Prime Minister's excuses; it wants Tori's killer back behind bars.
The Conservatives do not respect the decision to put this killer in a healing lodge without fences. We want her back behind bars and so does Tori's family.
Why does the Prime Minister not use the authority he has, take action today and put this killer behind bars?
Mr. Speaker, I would ask the Conservative members to not make guesses about what Tori's family wants and instead be honest about what they want. They want to play politics with a heinous tragedy. They want—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Order, please. Members to not get to all talk at once; they speak one at a time. As I was saying, democracy requires it. Let us have a little respect for this institution.
The right hon. Prime Minister.
Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives want to play politics with this issue. The Conservatives want to drag up this terrible murder and try and look at political gain on this. They have been politicizing this for well over a week, with all the passion they can muster, and they are debasing the nature of the House and the—
[Translation]
International Trade
Mr. Speaker, no matter how great the Prime Minister says the new USMCA is, it comes with no guarantee the 10% surtax on aluminum and the 25% surtax on steel will be eliminated, so it is not a success.
Small and medium-sized businesses in Quebec, our small businesses, are vulnerable to fluctuating prices because of those taxes. Workers are worried.
Does the government have a plan to fix this situation soon, or will it be taking things one day at a time as usual?
Mr. Speaker, small and medium-sized businesses, entrepreneurs and workers across Quebec and the rest of Canada are glad we have signed this agreement with the United States. All the same, as I told steel and aluminum workers when I visited their plants, our government will protect them.
Canada's countermeasures will remain in place until the unfair steel and aluminum tariffs are lifted.
Throughout the negotiations, our goal was always to create conditions that will help grow the middle class and provide more benefits to Canadians.
We will keep working to protect our workers.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, in the new USMCA, we learned that Canada will finally eliminate chapter 11. Canadians have been hit with millions of dollars in legal fees and payouts to private corporations. Now, thanks to the tireless work of the New Democrats, labour and civil society, it is gone.
Canada has been the most sued country under ISDS and, for years, the Liberals have argued to keep this clause. They argued to keep it in the CPTPP, which they will be ramming through this week, and created a whole new investor court system in CETA.
Will the Liberals finally commit to no future ISDS in trade agreements?
Mr. Speaker, the member for Essex knows well that the people in Windsor are very happy with this deal, which secures Canada's auto industry for the coming decades. It demonstrates a real win for the Canadian auto and auto parts suppliers' industry. However, yes, we also got rid of the investor-state dispute resolution system, which has cost the federal government more than $300 million in penalties and legal fees.
I am glad to hear the member opposite's support for the USMCA. We continue to work to defend people in Windsor and right across the country.
[Translation]
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship
Mr. Speaker, next week is Citizenship Week.
Our government made significant reforms to the Citizenship Act in order to ensure fairness while preserving the integrity of our citizenship program, which was exploited by the Harper Conservatives to create division.
Can the Prime Minister tell the House about the progress that has been made since our government made changes to Canada's citizenship program?
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Vimy for her question and for her dedication to new Canadians.
Since we amended the act, nearly 150,000 newcomers have joined our great Canadian family. That is 40% more than we had under the Conservatives. We also reduced the wait time for applications from 24 months to 10.
Next week, we will hold 54 citizenship ceremonies and welcome 13,000 new Canadians. On this side of the House, a Canadian is a Canadian.
International Trade
Mr. Speaker, speaking of Canadians, unfortunately hundreds of thousands of Canadians working in the steel, aluminum and softwood lumber industries are directly affected by the U.S. tariffs.
In Quebec, the aluminium industry is essential. It represents $5 billion, nine aluminum plants and 20,000 jobs.
The Prime Minister keeps repeating that the deal with the Americans is a good one. Can he tell us, yes or no, if the U.S. tariffs on aluminum are still in place?
Mr. Speaker, as I told steel and aluminum workers when I toured their plants, our government is there for them. Our countermeasures will remain in place until the unfair tariffs on steel and aluminum are removed.
During the negotiations, our goal was to create the conditions to grow the middle class and provide more opportunities for Canadians. We will continue our efforts to eliminate these tariffs. That is what Canadians expect and that is what we will do.
Mr. Speaker, Canadians actually expected these tariffs to be eliminated during the negotiations with the United States, but they are still in place.
In Quebec alone, the aluminum sector represents 20,000 jobs, the steel sector represents 15,000 jobs, and the softwood lumber sector represents 46,000 jobs.
Need I remind the Prime Minister that he has been the member for Papineau, Quebec, for 10 years?
What does he have to say to workers in the industries targeted by the U.S. tariffs, given that he has failed to do anything for them?
Mr. Speaker, I am surprised to hear the Conservatives playing Monday morning quarterback, considering that last year, Stephen Harper and the Conservatives begged us to give in and accept an agreement at any cost. Stephen Harper's memo said, and I quote, “it does not matter whether current American proposals are worse than what we have now”.
We on this side of the House refused to give in. We were patient and persistent, and we succeeded in negotiating a good deal for Canadians.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, former prime minister Stephen Harper predicted the Liberal government would capitulate and he was absolutely right. For the first time in the history of trade deals, there are more tariffs after the conclusion of the deal than there were when the negotiations actually started.
My colleague asked when the steel tariffs will be removed. The Prime Minister has backed down on pharmaceuticals, dairy, and so much else. I ask again, when will the steel tariffs be removed? When?
Mr. Speaker, I will highlight that even though the Conservatives in the House are continuing to play politics, there are Conservatives across the country who understood that standing together for the good of the country was important. That is why former Conservative prime ministers like Brian Mulroney and Kim Campbell, premiers like Brad Wall, Scott Moe and Brian Pallister and others stood strongly on team Canada to make sure we negotiated a good and right deal. It is why we were able to count on smart Conservatives like Rona Ambrose and James Moore, who stood with us understanding that relations with the United States are bigger than mere political points. Unfortunately, not all Conservatives—
Mr. Speaker, says the Prime Minister who has been repeatedly misrepresenting the position of the Conservative Party on this negotiation from the very start.
It is true that many Conservatives entered on a rescue mission to try and help the Prime Minister who was clearly floundering from the beginning. Now we have the result. He backed down on pharmaceuticals with higher drug prices for Canadian seniors. He backed down on dairy, imposing Canadian tariffs on Canadian farmers.
Why did he give up so much to get absolutely nothing that we did not already have?
Mr. Speaker, not only did we secure access to the United States for our middle class and for our workers at a time of protectionism and uncertainty, we got rid of the ratchet clause. It infringed on our sovereignty by preventing our government from controlling our access to energy resources.
In the face of stiff opposition from the Americans, we kept chapter 19 in the dispute resolution system. We got a cultural exemption that now will apply to digital platforms. That is modernizing NAFTA. We got rid of the ISDS that cost Canadians so much. The auto sector got a big win here in Canada and we have new, enforceable environmental and labour standards.
Mr. Speaker, the failure of the Liberal government to get the U.S. to lift the steel and aluminum tariffs is hurting employers in my riding of Windsor, in Essex County and the rest of southwestern Ontario. Tool and mould manufacturers that rely on specialized metals from the United States are fed up. The government failed to secure an end to the punitive tariffs imposed by the U.S. during the recent USMCA negotiations, and some of these businesses have already had to relocate to the United States. What is the government doing to keep jobs in Canada now?
Mr. Speaker, I know well, having heard from many Canadians in Windsor and across southwestern Ontario, that they are very pleased we have moved forward to secure the auto industry in southwestern Ontario and in Windsor. We protected good, middle-class Canadian jobs that will continue long into the future, because we have secured the future of Canada's auto industry with the USMCA.
I look forward to getting the support of the members from Windsor, because folks in Windsor are really pleased we have moved forward on protecting their jobs long into the future.
Mr. Speaker, in the NAFTA renegotiation, the Prime Minister left steel and aluminum industries hanging in the wind, but he has also abandoned small businesses across the country, like northern boat sellers who are paying punishing import duties because of the Prime Minister's tit-for-tat war with Donald Trump.
Would he explain his logic to Clint Chartrand of Guiho Saw Sales in Timmins, who is being hammered by punitive penalties from the government, why the government has squeezed $300 million out of hard-working Canadian businesses and has only paid $11,000 back? When are these penalties going to end against Canadian businesses?
Mr. Speaker, right across the country, Canadians have been clear that they want us to stand strong, be firm and stand up for Canadian jobs. That is exactly what we did.
The members opposite do not have to take my word for it. They can ask Jerry Dias of Unifor, who said that this is a much better deal than the deal that was signed 24 years ago. Perhaps they will listen to Hassan Yussuff, the president of the Canadian Labour Congress, who said, “The USMCA gets it right on labour provisions, including provisions to protect workers against employment discrimination on the basis of gender.”
This deal is a good news story for middle-class Canadians right across the country.
Mr. Speaker, we know that the Prime Minister backed down to Donald Trump on so many files. In fact, Donald Trump's senior economic adviser thanked him for backing down so graciously.
After combing through the deal trying to find something to latch onto that he can claim as a positive, he tells us it is investor state and the ratchet clause. The Prime Minister actually fought to get the investor-state proposition into the TPP, and the energy ratchet clause has never been used. However, steel and aluminum tariffs have been in effect and are hurting Canadian jobs. Has he removed those tariffs?
Mr. Speaker, we will continue to stand up for Canadians in the steel and aluminum sector. Despite what the member opposite says, we have had an awful lot of wins, on top of obviously securing our access to the U.S. market.
We have eliminated the ratchet clause that prevented our government from controlling access to our energy sources. We got a cultural exemption that, in the spirit of modernizing NAFTA, will now apply to digital platforms. We got rid of the ISDS platform. We got a new auto deal for Canadians that will secure our auto sector. We have enforceable environmental and labour standards, which I know the Conservatives—
Veterans Affairs
Mr. Speaker, Lucille's husband, Morris, served our country for 28 years. He developed PTSD while serving his country dutifully and honourably. He witnessed acts of violence and faced unimaginable horrors.
When the minister did not respond to her letter, Lucille contacted my office, saying how horrified she is that Garnier, who never served a day in his life, is receiving veterans benefits due to the PTSD he developed while murdering officer Campbell.
Could the Prime Minister explain to Lucille why Chris Garnier is still receiving veterans benefits?
Mr. Speaker, our government places the highest priority on ensuring veterans and their families have the support and services they need when and where they need them.
The member knows well that I cannot talk about the specifics of any individual case on the floor of the House. However, we have been firm in our commitment to enhance access to veterans benefits, unlike the Conservatives, who cut front-line staff, closed offices and balanced the budget on the backs of veterans.
We continue to follow up on making sure all the rules have been followed, and we will make modifications if necessary.
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, Canadians want to know where is the justice in a criminal receiving benefits while he is serving his sentence. Veterans want to know where is the justice in a criminal receiving benefits reserved for our brave veterans.
Once again, is Christopher Garnier still receiving these benefits?
When will the Prime Minister demand justice for Canadians, for our brave veterans, and for the family of Constable Catherine Campbell?
Mr. Speaker, all of us here are mourning with Constable Campbell's family.
This is a tragic situation, and the minister took steps to change the policy so that this kind of thing will never happen again.
The minister increased oversight measures, and the department is reviewing the policy. We will continue to support veterans and family members who need help, all while maintaining the integrity of the system.
[English]
Innovation, Science and Economic Development
Mr. Speaker, new technologies have changed the way we access information, shop, live, socialize and work. As a result of these changes, our economy has transformed to become increasingly data driven. These transformations have brought with them new and uncharted challenges surrounding the changing nature of work, privacy, information and consent.
Can the Prime Minister tell the House how our government is helping to unlock the potential of a data-driven economy while balancing Canadians' right to have their data and privacy protected?
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Richmond Hill for his passion on this file.
We recognize the potential of a data-driven economy must be balanced against the right of Canadians to have their data and privacy protected. We have launched a national consultation on digital and data transformation to better understand how we can drive innovation and ensure Canadians have trust and confidence in how their data is used. We want to hear directly from Canadians on how to grow the economy while protecting their data, ensuring privacy and building trust.
Justice
Mr. Speaker, two years ago, the Supreme Court overturned a bestiality conviction on a child molester because it ruled the law does not cover non-penetrative acts. Since then, the Prime Minister has not included this simple definition change in any of his legislation while bestiality charges are not being laid and more cases are being impacted.
Why is the Prime Minister failing to protect humans and animals by refusing to pass updated bestiality legislation?
[Translation]
Foreign Affairs
Mr. Speaker, the planned demolition of the Palestinian village of Khan al-Ahmar by the Israeli government contravenes international law.
The European Parliament, for example, passed a resolution stating that this demolition “would further threaten the viability of the two-state solution and undermine prospects for peace”.
Meanwhile, we are still waiting for our Prime Minister's reaction and for him to say something.
Why is he remaining silent on this serious problem that affects peace, security and human rights?
Mr. Speaker, as steadfast friends of Israel, we are extremely concerned by the potential demolition of the Bedouin village, Khan-al Ahmar.
Canada has been actively communicating with Israeli officials to prevent this demolition. We are particularly concerned about the demolition of the school's village last week. We believe that no party should take unilateral action that could compromise the prospects for a two-state solution.
[English]
Public Safety
Mr. Speaker, Davenport residents have let me know that their data privacy, their online information and the threat of hacking are a priority and a worry for them.
Our government takes our responsibility to protect the private information of citizens and the integrity of our critical infrastructure systems very seriously. We committed $155 million for a new Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, establishing a unified government source of unique expertise and support.
Can the Prime Minister update this House on the implementation of the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security?
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Davenport for her hard work on behalf of her citizens.
We know that good cybersecurity is critical to Canada's competitiveness, economic stability and long-term prosperity. This week we launched the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security we had promised in budget 2018. This new centre will provide Canadian citizens and businesses with a trusted place for cybersecurity advice. Canadians can rest assured that their government is prepared to meet the cybersecurity challenges of today and tomorrow.
Carbon Pricing
Mr. Speaker, just moments ago, in Manitoba, the Premier of Manitoba, my premier, Brian Pallister, announced that Manitoba is rejecting the carbon tax. There will be no carbon tax in Manitoba.
Now that another province has said no carbon tax for its province, will the Prime Minister recognize that a carbon tax penalizes Canadians, penalizes farmers, penalizes industry and penalizes Canadians? It does nothing to help the environment. Will he do the right thing and do what Brian Pallister did today and say no to the carbon tax?
Mr. Speaker, I continue to find it puzzling as to why Conservatives insist on making pollution free. We believe the polluters should pay, and that is why we are putting a price on pollution. We would prefer to work with provinces right across the country, but if they are unwilling to make sure that polluters pay, we will bring in federal measures to both collect a price on pollution and return that money to hard-working citizens right across the country.
Natural Resources
Mr. Speaker, today, October 3, is the NEB deadline for comments on the list of issues in the redo of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline review. As an intervenor in the initial failed and flawed process, I have written the National Energy Board asking that it include the upstream and downstream climate impacts of the proposed pipeline, just as it did in the case of the private sector's energy east. It certainly seems fair that it be held to the same standard. Does the Prime Minister not agree?
Mr. Speaker, the review the NEB will undertake is related to the recent court decision on marine scoping. Direct and upstream impacts were reviewed under our interim principles, announced in January 2016.
As we have demonstrated, we are moving forward with this project in the right way. We are ensuring that we protect the environment and consult properly with indigenous peoples. To grow the economy and protect the environment, we need to do both at the same time. That is exactly what we will do.
Presence in Gallery
Points of Order
[Points of Order]
Mr. Speaker, in the course of question period today, the Prime Minister answered a question that I posed to him, and in it he indicated that I was an ambulance chaser. An ambulance chaser is a term for an unethical lawyer. I am a lawyer in my profession. I take great offence to being called an ambulance chaser. I would like to give the Prime Minister the opportunity to do the right thing and apologize, since only last evening, he said himself that he was not going to play this kind of politics.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Speaker, I would like to apologize to the House of Commons for some unparliamentary behaviour I exhibited yesterday. It was a long day. It was a passionate debate. Unfortunately, I let the passion get the better of me. Therefore, I would like to apologize to the House of Commons for unparliamentary behaviour yesterday, and it will not happen again.
Mr. Speaker, the deputy leader of the Conservative Party has just asked the Prime Minister to apologize for using an unparliamentary term. I would like to know from you, Mr. Speaker, if “ambulance chaser” is an unparliamentary term.
I thank the hon. member for raising this. I will look at this and come back to the House if necessary.
The Right Hon. Prime Minister is rising on the same point of order.
Private Members' Business
[Private Members' Business]
[English]
Department of Health Act
The House resumed from October 2 consideration of the motion that Bill C-326, an act to amend the Department of Health Act (drinking water guidelines), be read the third time and passed.
It being 3:17 p.m., pursuant to an order made on Tuesday, October 2, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at third reading stage of Bill C-326 under Private Members' Business.
[Translation]
(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)
(Division No. 890)
YEAS
Members
AboultaifAlbas
Albrecht
Aldag
Alghabra
Allison
Amos
Anandasangaree
Anderson
Angus
Arnold
Arseneault
Arya
Aubin
Ayoub
Badawey
Bagnell
Bains
Barlow
Baylis
Beaulieu
Beech
Benson
Benzen
Bergen
Bernier
Bezan
Bibeau
Bittle
Blair
Blaney (North Island—Powell River)
Block
Bossio
Boucher
Boulerice
Boutin-Sweet
Brassard
Bratina
Breton
Brison
Brosseau
Caesar-Chavannes
Calkins
Cannings
Caron
Carr
Carrie
Casey (Cumberland—Colchester)
Casey (Charlottetown)
Chagger
Chen
Chong
Clarke
Clement
Cooper
Cormier
Cullen
Cuzner
Dabrusin
Damoff
Davies
DeCourcey
Deltell
Dhaliwal
Dhillon
Diotte
Doherty
Donnelly
Dreeshen
Drouin
Dubé
Dubourg
Duclos
Duguid
Duncan (Etobicoke North)
Dusseault
Dzerowicz
Eglinski
Ehsassi
El-Khoury
Ellis
Erskine-Smith
Eyking
Eyolfson
Falk (Battlefords—Lloydminster)
Falk (Provencher)
Fillmore
Finley
Finnigan
Fisher
Fonseca
Fortier
Fraser (West Nova)
Fraser (Central Nova)
Freeland
Fuhr
Gallant
Garneau
Garrison
Généreux
Gerretsen
Godin
Goldsmith-Jones
Gould
Gourde
Graham
Grewal
Hajdu
Hardcastle
Hardie
Harvey
Hébert
Hehr
Hogg
Holland
Housefather
Hughes
Hussen
Hutchings
Iacono
Jeneroux
Jolibois
Joly
Jordan
Jowhari
Kent
Khalid
Khera
Kitchen
Kusie
Kwan
Lake
Lambropoulos
Lametti
Lamoureux
Lapointe
Lauzon (Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry)
Lauzon (Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation)
Laverdière
LeBlanc
Lebouthillier
Lefebvre
Leslie
Liepert
Lightbound
Lloyd
Lobb
Lockhart
Long
Longfield
Ludwig
Lukiwski
MacAulay (Cardigan)
MacGregor
MacKenzie
MacKinnon (Gatineau)
Maguire
Malcolmson
Maloney
Marcil
Martel
Masse (Windsor West)
Massé (Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia)
Mathyssen
May (Cambridge)
May (Saanich—Gulf Islands)
McCauley (Edmonton West)
McCrimmon
McDonald
McGuinty
McKay
McKenna
McKinnon (Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam)
McLeod (Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo)
McLeod (Northwest Territories)
Mendès
Mendicino
Mihychuk
Miller (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound)
Miller (Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs)
Monsef
Moore
Morrissey
Motz
Murray
Nantel
Nassif
Nater
Ng
Nicholson
Nuttall
Obhrai
O'Connell
Oliphant
Oliver
O'Regan
Ouellette
Paradis
Pauzé
Peschisolido
Peterson
Petitpas Taylor
Philpott
Picard
Plamondon
Poilievre
Poissant
Qualtrough
Raitt
Ramsey
Rankin
Ratansi
Rayes
Reid
Rempel
Richards
Rioux
Robillard
Rodriguez
Rogers
Romanado
Rota
Rudd
Ruimy
Saganash
Sahota
Saini
Samson
Sangha
Sansoucy
Sarai
Scarpaleggia
Scheer
Schiefke
Schmale
Schulte
Sgro
Shanahan
Sheehan
Shields
Shipley
Sidhu (Brampton South)
Sikand
Simms
Sohi
Sopuck
Sorenson
Spengemann
Stanton
Ste-Marie
Stetski
Strahl
Sweet
Tabbara
Tan
Tassi
Thériault
Tilson
Tootoo
Trost
Trudeau
Trudel
Van Kesteren
Vandal
Vandenbeld
Vaughan
Vecchio
Viersen
Virani
Wagantall
Warawa
Warkentin
Waugh
Webber
Weir
Whalen
Wilkinson
Wilson-Raybould
Wong
Yip
Young
Yurdiga
Zahid
Zimmer
Total: -- 284
NAYS
NilPAIRED
Members
BennettFortin
Kmiec
Rusnak
Total: -- 4
[English]
Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order.
This point of order goes to the integrity of this place, and I need to raise it immediately. Just moments before the vote, my colleague, the deputy House leader, the member for Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, called over to the Prime Minister. He is leaving now—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Order. Members know that we are not to mention the presence or absence of a member. Let us hear the hon. opposition House leader.
Mr. Speaker, just moments ago, my colleague called over and said to the Prime Minister, “Are you in charge of the Speaker?” I did not call that over; I happened to overhear it. The Prime Minister looked over at us, and there were a number of us, and he said, “ Yes, I am.”
We are hoping the Prime Minister would address that. We know you, Mr. Speaker, are in charge of your role, and the Prime Minister should not be in charge of you, and he should not believe that he is in charge of you. He certainly should not be telling us that.
I was hoping we could hear from the Prime Minister on that.
GOVERNMENT ORDERS
[Business of Supply]
[Translation]
Business of Supply
The House resumed from October 2 consideration of the motion.
Pursuant to order made on Tuesday, October 2, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion of the hon. member for Portage—Lisgar relating to the business of supply.
[English]
The question is on the motion. Shall I dispense?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
Some hon. members: No.
[Chair read text of motion to House]
(The House divided on the motion, which was negatived on the following division:)
(Division No. 891)
YEAS
Members
AboultaifAlbas
Albrecht
Allison
Anderson
Arnold
Barlow
Benzen
Bergen
Bernier
Bezan
Block
Boucher
Brassard
Calkins
Carrie
Chong
Clarke
Clement
Cooper
Deltell
Diotte
Doherty
Dreeshen
Eglinski
Falk (Battlefords—Lloydminster)
Falk (Provencher)
Finley
Gallant
Généreux
Godin
Gourde
Jeneroux
Kent
Kitchen
Kusie
Lake
Lauzon (Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry)
Liepert
Lloyd
Lobb
Lukiwski
MacKenzie
Maguire
Martel
McCauley (Edmonton West)
McLeod (Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo)
Miller (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound)
Motz
Nater
Nicholson
Nuttall
Obhrai
Poilievre
Raitt
Rayes
Reid
Rempel
Richards
Scheer
Schmale
Shields
Shipley
Sopuck
Sorenson
Stanton
Strahl
Sweet
Tilson
Trost
Van Kesteren
Vecchio
Viersen
Wagantall
Warawa
Warkentin
Waugh
Webber
Weir
Wong
Yurdiga
Zimmer
Total: -- 82
NAYS
Members
AldagAlghabra
Amos
Anandasangaree
Angus
Arseneault
Arya
Aubin
Ayoub
Badawey
Bagnell
Bains
Baylis
Beaulieu
Beech
Benson
Bibeau
Bittle
Blair
Blaney (North Island—Powell River)
Bossio
Boulerice
Boutin-Sweet
Bratina
Breton
Brison
Brosseau
Caesar-Chavannes
Cannings
Caron
Carr
Casey (Cumberland—Colchester)
Casey (Charlottetown)
Chagger
Chen
Cormier
Cullen
Cuzner
Dabrusin
Damoff
Davies
DeCourcey
Dhaliwal
Dhillon
Donnelly
Drouin
Dubé
Dubourg
Duclos
Duguid
Duncan (Etobicoke North)
Dusseault
Dzerowicz
Ehsassi
El-Khoury
Ellis
Erskine-Smith
Eyking
Eyolfson
Fillmore
Finnigan
Fisher
Fonseca
Fortier
Fraser (West Nova)
Fraser (Central Nova)
Freeland
Fuhr
Garneau
Garrison
Gerretsen
Goldsmith-Jones
Gould
Graham
Grewal
Hajdu
Hardcastle
Hardie
Hébert
Hehr
Hogg
Holland
Housefather
Hughes
Hussen
Hutchings
Iacono
Jolibois
Joly
Jordan
Jowhari
Khalid
Khera
Kwan
Lambropoulos
Lametti
Lamoureux
Lapointe
Lauzon (Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation)
Laverdière
LeBlanc
Lebouthillier
Lefebvre
Leslie
Lightbound
Lockhart
Long
Longfield
Ludwig
MacAulay (Cardigan)
MacGregor
MacKinnon (Gatineau)
Malcolmson
Maloney
Marcil
Masse (Windsor West)
Massé (Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia)
Mathyssen
May (Cambridge)
May (Saanich—Gulf Islands)
McCrimmon
McDonald
McGuinty
McKay
McKenna
McKinnon (Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam)
McLeod (Northwest Territories)
Mendès
Mendicino
Mihychuk
Miller (Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs)
Monsef
Moore
Morrissey
Murray
Nantel
Nassif
Ng
O'Connell
Oliphant
Oliver
O'Regan
Ouellette
Paradis
Pauzé
Peschisolido
Peterson
Petitpas Taylor
Philpott
Picard
Plamondon
Poissant
Qualtrough
Ramsey
Rankin
Ratansi
Rioux
Robillard
Rodriguez
Rogers
Romanado
Rota
Rudd
Ruimy
Saganash
Sahota
Saini
Samson
Sangha
Sansoucy
Sarai
Scarpaleggia
Schiefke
Schulte
Sgro
Shanahan
Sheehan
Sidhu (Brampton South)
Sikand
Simms
Sohi
Spengemann
Ste-Marie
Stetski
Tabbara
Tan
Tassi
Thériault
Tootoo
Trudel
Vandal
Vandenbeld
Vaughan
Virani
Whalen
Wilkinson
Wilson-Raybould
Yip
Young
Zahid
Total: -- 200
PAIRED
Members
BennettFortin
Kmiec
Rusnak
Total: -- 4
Privilege
[Privilege]
Mr. Speaker, today I rise to add my voice on the question of privilege by my hon. colleague, the member of Parliament for Montcalm.
The House of Commons, on September 26, 2017, adopted, by unanimous consent, the following motion:
That the House reiterate its desire to fully preserve supply management during the NAFTA renegotiations.
I would like to bring your attention to the way this motion is fundamentally different in English and French House of Commons records.
In its original form, the motion is as follows:
Que la Chambre réitère sa volonté de maintenir intégralement la gestion de l’offre dans le cadre de la renégociation de l’ALENA.
In French, the word “volonté” can be translated in some contexts to the word “desire”, as it was done here. However, I would argue that, in this case, the motion was clearly expressing the will of the House and not only its desire.
As a fully bilingual institution, it is our duty to make sure MPs can function in their language of choice, and to ensure that unilingual MPs, and those hoping to become bilingual, have access to a translation that is as accurate as possible. Therefore, I would argue that, in this case, it is very important to understand the meaning of the motion adopted by the House by unanimous consent last September.
The English version of the motion has to be adapted to the French and should actually read as follows, “That the House reiterate its will to fully preserve supply management during the NAFTA renegotiations.”
The difference in meaning here is significant and really should be taken into account when examining this question, especially since the word “volonté” actually comes back in this question of privilege.
In the House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, at page 598, it reads as follows:
However, orders or resolutions presented or adopted by unanimous consent express the will of the House and are as binding as any other House order or resolution.
You will notice that in this case, “the will of the House” is translated in French by “la volonté de la Chambre”. Therefore, I urge you to consider this motion as clearly expressing the will of the House, since the meaning is perfectly clear in French, the language in which this motion was moved.
I understand the jobs of the interpreters and translators are very difficult, and this is in no way to blame their incredible work.
I would add that the House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, reads as follows on page 589:
When unanimous consent is sought, the Chair takes care to ascertain that no voice is raised in opposition; if there is a single dissenting voice, there can be no unanimity. Whenever the House proceeds by unanimous consent, the fact is noted in the official record.
This procedure was followed to the letter, and the official record shows that this motion was agreed to by the House.
However, as my colleague pointed out, and as many in the NDP have been denouncing for a long time, the conclusion of the negotiations on the new NAFTA resulted in Canada opening up 3.59% of the Canadian milk and dairy products market to American products. Given that the House had agreed on a motion that was specifically expressing the will of the House to fully preserve our supply management system, it is difficult to understand how the government could give up yet another significant portion of our supply management system.
Let me conclude by saying that farmers are watching the current government and expect it to live up to not only its words but to its votes as well.
I thank the hon. member for adding his arguments to those of the hon. member for Montcalm. Of course, I will come back to the House in due course.
The hon. member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound is rising on a point of order.
Points of Order
[Points of Order]
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order, a very serious one, and I hope you will allow me the time. I will be as brief as possible.
I want to start by saying that I think I can speak for every member of the House when I say that we respect the Speaker and we all want to continue to do that. What has happened here today and how you deal with it is going to reflect on that.
A member of the House, who is no longer here, indicated that he—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Order. The member did not indicate a particular member, but I would ask him not to get into who is here or not here. I would ask him to carry on.
My mistake, Mr. Speaker.
The other aspect was referring in the House, whether jokingly or not, and I do not think it was, to any individual in this place running you, which I think is a wrong thing to say no matter whether he or she were serious.
The thing that really bothers me and has not been dealt with is that the member for Milton, one of the most respected people in this place, stood on an issue that is absolutely unparliamentary and was brushed off by that same individual, who then walked out.
Mr. Speaker, how you deal with that is going to reflect one way or the other.
I thank the hon. member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound. I can assure him that I will review the words that were used today during question period.
Of course, I appreciate the interest of all members in good order in this place and I appreciate the assistance of all members in creating order in this place, whether it comes to unparliamentary language or other activities that create disorder.
ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS
[Routine Proceedings]
[English]
Government Response to Petitions
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to one petition.
While I am on my feet, I move:
That the House do now proceed to orders of the day.
The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
Some hon. members: No.
The Speaker: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.
Some hon. members: Yea.
The Speaker: All those opposed will please say nay.
Some hon. members: Nay.
The Speaker: In my opinion the yeas have it.
And five or more members having risen:
The Speaker: Call in the members.
And the bells having rung:
(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)
(Division No. 892)
YEAS
Members
AldagAlghabra
Amos
Anandasangaree
Arseneault
Arya
Ayoub
Badawey
Bagnell
Bains
Baylis
Beech
Bibeau
Bittle
Blair
Bossio
Bratina
Breton
Brison
Caesar-Chavannes
Carr
Casey (Cumberland—Colchester)
Casey (Charlottetown)
Chagger
Chen
Cormier
Cuzner
Dabrusin
Damoff
DeCourcey
Dhaliwal
Dhillon
Drouin
Dubourg
Duclos
Duguid
Duncan (Etobicoke North)
Dzerowicz
Ehsassi
El-Khoury
Ellis
Erskine-Smith
Eyking
Eyolfson
Fillmore
Finnigan
Fisher
Fonseca
Fortier
Fraser (West Nova)
Fraser (Central Nova)
Freeland
Fuhr
Garneau
Gerretsen
Goldsmith-Jones
Gould
Graham
Grewal
Hajdu
Hardie
Harvey
Hébert
Hehr
Hogg
Holland
Housefather
Hussen
Hutchings
Iacono
Joly
Jordan
Jowhari
Khera
Lambropoulos
Lametti
Lamoureux
Lapointe
Lauzon (Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation)
LeBlanc
Lebouthillier
Lefebvre
Leslie
Lightbound
Lockhart
Long
Longfield
Ludwig
MacAulay (Cardigan)
MacKinnon (Gatineau)
Maloney
Massé (Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia)
May (Cambridge)
McCrimmon
McDonald
McGuinty
McKay
McKenna
McKinnon (Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam)
McLeod (Northwest Territories)
Mendès
Mendicino
Mihychuk
Miller (Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs)
Monsef
Morrissey
Murray
Nassif
Ng
O'Connell
Oliphant
Oliver
O'Regan
Ouellette
Paradis
Peschisolido
Peterson
Petitpas Taylor
Philpott
Picard
Poissant
Qualtrough
Ratansi
Rioux
Robillard
Rodriguez
Rogers
Romanado
Rota
Rudd
Ruimy
Sahota
Saini
Samson
Sangha
Sarai
Scarpaleggia
Schiefke
Schulte
Sgro
Shanahan
Sheehan
Sidhu (Brampton South)
Sikand
Simms
Spengemann
Tabbara
Tan
Tassi
Tootoo
Vandal
Vandenbeld
Vaughan
Virani
Whalen
Wilkinson
Wilson-Raybould
Yip
Young
Zahid
Total: -- 160
NAYS
Members
AboultaifAllison
Anderson
Angus
Arnold
Aubin
Barlow
Beaulieu
Benson
Benzen
Bergen
Blaney (North Island—Powell River)
Boucher
Boulerice
Boutin-Sweet
Brassard
Brosseau
Calkins
Cannings
Caron
Carrie
Clarke
Clement
Cooper
Cullen
Davies
Deltell
Donnelly
Dreeshen
Dubé
Dusseault
Duvall
Eglinski
Falk (Battlefords—Lloydminster)
Falk (Provencher)
Finley
Gallant
Garrison
Généreux
Godin
Gourde
Hardcastle
Hughes
Jolibois
Kent
Kusie
Kwan
Lake
Lauzon (Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry)
Laverdière
Liepert
Lloyd
Lobb
Lukiwski
MacGregor
MacKenzie
Maguire
Malcolmson
Marcil
Martel
Masse (Windsor West)
Mathyssen
May (Saanich—Gulf Islands)
McCauley (Edmonton West)
Miller (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound)
Moore
Motz
Nantel
Nicholson
Nuttall
Obhrai
Pauzé
Plamondon
Poilievre
Ramsey
Rankin
Rayes
Reid
Rempel
Richards
Saganash
Sansoucy
Shields
Shipley
Sopuck
Sorenson
Stetski
Strahl
Sweet
Thériault
Tilson
Trost
Trudel
Van Kesteren
Vecchio
Wagantall
Warawa
Warkentin
Webber
Wong
Yurdiga
Zimmer
Total: -- 102
PAIRED
Members
BennettFortin
Kmiec
Rusnak
Total: -- 4
Government Orders
[Government Orders]
[English]
Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Implementation Act
Bill C-79--Time Allocation Motion
Mr. Speaker, an agreement has been reached between a majority of the representatives of recognized parties under the provisions of Standing Order 78(2) with respect to the report stage and third reading stage of Bill C-79, an act to implement the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership between Canada, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. I move:
That, in relation to Bill C-79, an act to implement the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership between Canada, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam, not more than one sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration of the report stage of the said bill and not more than one sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration of the third reading stage of the said bill; and that, 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for government orders on the day allotted to the consideration at report stage and on the day allotted to the consideration at the third reading stage of the said bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required, for the purpose of this order and in turn, every question necessary for the disposal of the stage of the bill then under consideration shall be put forthwith and successively without further debate or amendment.
[Translation]
I believe the hon. member for Beloeil—Chambly wishes to rise on a point of order concerning the motion.
The hon. member for Beloeil—Chambly.
Mr. Speaker, depending on the answer that you give me, I may afterward seek the unanimous consent of the House to move a motion. My question has to do with the use of Standing Order 78(2). This tool has rarely been used in the seven-plus years that I have been a member of the House. I would like you to clarify whether it requires the support of the majority of the recognized parties in the House. I believe the Conservatives support that use of the standing order, despite their dislike for the Liberals' use of time allocation.
The matter that the hon. member is raising seems to be a question for debate and not a point of order. There is already a motion before the House.
The hon. member for Beloeil—Chambly for a request for unanimous consent.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, given my better understanding of Standing Order 78(2), I want to ask unanimous consent of the House for a motion. It would allow us to have proper debate, a 10-hour debate instead of four. The motion would be as follows: That, given the government's attempt to allocate just one day of debate at the report stage and at the third reading stage of Bill C-79 is likely to amount to less than one hour of debate at report stage and less than three hours of debate at third reading, in relation to Bill C-79, an act to implement the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership between Canada, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam, not more than one sitting day, or five hours, whichever is longer, shall be allotted to the consideration at report stage and third reading stage of the bill; and that 15 minutes before the expiry of the time allotted to the consideration at report stage and the time allotted to the consideration at the third reading stage of the said bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this order, and in turn every question necessary for the disposal of the stage of the bill then under consideration shall be put forthwith and successively without further debate or amendment.
I could hear my colleagues getting impatient, but I wanted to take my time for the interpreters.
First, I of course always appreciate the work of the interpreters who have sometimes, I am sure, a great challenge following the speed of my interventions.
Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
Some hon. members: No.
The question is on the motion of the government House leader. Shall I dispense?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
Some hon. members: No.
[Chair read text of motion to House]
The Speaker: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
Some hon. members: No.
The Speaker: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.
Some hon. members: Yea.
The Speaker: All those opposed will please say nay.
Some hon. members: Nay.
The Speaker: In my opinion the yeas have it.
And five or more members having risen:
(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)
(Division No. 893)
YEAS
Members
AboultaifAldag
Alghabra
Allison
Amos
Anandasangaree
Anderson
Arnold
Arseneault
Arya
Ayoub
Badawey
Bagnell
Bains
Barlow
Baylis
Beech
Benzen
Bergen
Bibeau
Bittle
Blair
Bossio
Boucher
Brassard
Bratina
Breton
Brison
Caesar-Chavannes
Calkins
Carr
Carrie
Casey (Cumberland—Colchester)
Casey (Charlottetown)
Chagger
Chen
Chong
Clarke
Clement
Cooper
Cormier
Cuzner
Dabrusin
Damoff
DeCourcey
Deltell
Dhaliwal
Dhillon
Dreeshen
Drouin
Dubourg
Duclos
Duguid
Duncan (Etobicoke North)
Dzerowicz
Eglinski
Ehsassi
El-Khoury
Ellis
Erskine-Smith
Eyking
Eyolfson
Falk (Battlefords—Lloydminster)
Falk (Provencher)
Fillmore
Finley
Finnigan
Fisher
Fonseca
Fortier
Fraser (West Nova)
Fraser (Central Nova)
Freeland
Fuhr
Gallant
Garneau
Généreux
Gerretsen
Godin
Goldsmith-Jones
Gourde
Graham
Grewal
Hajdu
Hardie
Harvey
Hébert
Hogg
Holland
Housefather
Hussen
Hutchings
Iacono
Joly
Jordan
Jowhari
Kent
Khalid
Khera
Kusie
Lake
Lambropoulos
Lametti
Lamoureux
Lapointe
Lauzon (Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry)
Lauzon (Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation)
LeBlanc
Lebouthillier
Lefebvre
Leslie
Liepert
Lightbound
Lloyd
Lobb
Lockhart
Long
Longfield
Ludwig
Lukiwski
MacAulay (Cardigan)
MacKenzie
MacKinnon (Gatineau)
Maguire
Maloney
Martel
Massé (Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia)
May (Cambridge)
McCauley (Edmonton West)
McCrimmon
McDonald
McGuinty
McKay
McKenna
McKinnon (Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam)
McLeod (Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo)
McLeod (Northwest Territories)
Mendès
Mendicino
Mihychuk
Miller (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound)
Miller (Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs)
Monsef
Morrissey
Motz
Murray
Nassif
Ng
Nicholson
Nuttall
Obhrai
O'Connell
Oliphant
Oliver
O'Regan
Ouellette
Paradis
Peschisolido
Peterson
Petitpas Taylor
Philpott
Picard
Poilievre
Poissant
Qualtrough
Ratansi
Rayes
Reid
Rempel
Richards
Rioux
Robillard
Rodriguez
Rogers
Romanado
Rota
Rudd
Ruimy
Sahota
Saini
Samson
Sangha
Sarai
Scarpaleggia
Schiefke
Schmale
Schulte
Sgro
Shanahan
Sheehan
Shields
Shipley
Sidhu (Brampton South)
Sikand
Simms
Sopuck
Sorenson
Spengemann
Strahl
Sweet
Tabbara
Tan
Tassi
Tilson
Trost
Van Kesteren
Vandal
Vandenbeld
Vaughan
Vecchio
Virani
Wagantall
Warawa
Warkentin
Webber
Whalen
Wilkinson
Wilson-Raybould
Wong
Yip
Young
Yurdiga
Zahid
Zimmer
Total: -- 224
NAYS
Members
AngusAubin
Beaulieu
Benson
Blaney (North Island—Powell River)
Boulerice
Boutin-Sweet
Brosseau
Cannings
Caron
Cullen
Davies
Donnelly
Dubé
Dusseault
Duvall
Garrison
Hardcastle
Hughes
Jolibois
Kwan
Laverdière
MacGregor
Malcolmson
Marcil
Masse (Windsor West)
Mathyssen
May (Saanich—Gulf Islands)
Moore
Nantel
Pauzé
Plamondon
Ramsey
Rankin
Saganash
Sansoucy
Stetski
Thériault
Trudel
Weir
Total: -- 40
PAIRED
Members
BennettFortin
Kmiec
Rusnak
Total: -- 4
The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-79, an act to implement the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership between Canada, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam, as reported (without amendment) from the committee.
There are seven motions in amendment standing on the Notice Paper for the report stage of Bill C-79. Motions Nos. 1 to 7 will be grouped for debate and voted upon according to the voting pattern available at the table.
[Translation]
I will now put Motions Nos. 1 to 7 to the House.
[English]
Motion No. 1
That Bill C-79 be amended by deleting Clause 7.
Motion No. 2
That Bill C-79 be amended by deleting Clause 8.
[Translation]
seconded by the member for Repentigny, moved:
Motion No. 3
That Bill C-79 be amended by deleting Clause 9.
[English]
Motion No. 4
That Bill C-79 be amended by deleting Clause 11.
Motion No. 5
That Bill C-79 be amended by deleting Clause 12.
Motion No. 6
That Bill C-79 be amended by deleting Clause 19.
Motion No. 7
That Bill C-79 be amended by deleting Clause 50.
She said: Mr. Speaker, I wish I were rising today with some hope that we would be having more of a fulsome debate. It is very unfortunate that the Liberals and Conservatives have decided to join forces in a very rarely used provision in this House in order to ram through Bill C-79, the CPTPP.
It is quite baffling to me because the amendments really focus around the ISDS. In the CPTPP, we have fully signed on to the investor-state dispute settlement which today we heard from the Prime Minister he is happy to see gone in the new USMCA deal we have with the United States. Not only do I find this baffling, but Canadians also find this baffling. Of course, we welcome the elimination of this provision with the U.S. and Mexico because we have been the most sued country in the world under this provision. It has not worked well for us. I believe there are members on the opposite side who are also not happy with this provision.
I focus on this because it speaks to the hypocrisy and inconsistency we are seeing in this House when we see this approach to trade. On one hand we are saying that ISDS is a bad provision and needs to be gone, which is quite welcomed from the Liberals but quite shocking as well because it was not the Liberals who wanted it gone in the new USMCA. It was the U.S., and more specifically President Trump, who wanted it gone. We see this flip-flopping with the Liberals. How is it they are standing today pushing through debate on a deal that includes this very provision? It is baffling to me.
Not only is that baffling, but so is what we have given up in terms of dairy. Despite all the promises in this House from the Liberal government that it would completely protect our dairy sector in the new deal, the USMCA, we now know that is completely false. The Liberals have not protected it. They have knocked down two key pillars of supply management. We know that when we come back to this deal with the U.S. in six years it will be at the top of the list, and the Liberals will be happy to give it up again. They have betrayed family farmers in my riding of Essex and family farmers across this country. Why are we now signing a deal where we will further damage family farms and auto workers?
Speaking of auto workers, what we were able to achieve in the USMCA for auto workers is good. It is positive. We prevented that 25% tariff, and that is most definitely something Canadian auto workers are pleased to see. However, right on the heels of that, we are signing onto an agreement that is going to hurt auto workers. This is incomprehensible. How is it that the Liberals say they are going to protect people and workers in our country and the very next second they do the exact opposite?
I am not sure Liberals understand what they are signing onto. From the very limited debate we have had in this House, I would say that is clear. We should be having 10 hours of debate but it is now down to four hours of debate on an agreement that is thousands of pages long and will cost 58,000 Canadian jobs. It is bizarre to me that even the Conservatives do not want to debate this fully. They certainly have been saying that everything in this House deserves full debate, but today we saw that is not the case and they are happy to partner with the Liberals. Canadians are left shaking their heads to see the difference between Liberals and Conservatives in this House today in the approach to trade.
On the ISDS question I asked the Prime Minister today, it was interesting to me how he glowingly spoke about their being able to remove it, how fantastic it is, and invoked Jerry Dias and Hassan Yussuff. Yet, when I spoke with Jerry Dias on the phone this morning, he was shaking his head and saying that it is a betrayal for the Liberals to sign the CPTPP. How is it that on one hand the Liberals are saying they are going to stand by auto and on the other hand they turn around and do the exact opposite?
The Liberals are making fools of Canadians by trying to have them believe that in some way they care about working people in Canada. The CPTPP is a betrayal to working people. It is a betrayal to family farms. It contains ISDS provisions, which the government has now had a second coming on and has finally decided is not a good provision, but not to worry, they are still going to put it into the agreement over there. That is okay. We should just not look too closely over there.
Again, I have to point to the Conservatives, because the Conservatives have been up reading, I would say, by all accounts, what I consider to be NDP viewpoints on trade on the USMCA in the last few days, as though Canadians believe that the Conservatives stand up for working people, as though Canadians believe that they protect farmer, when they in fact are the architects of the TPP.
There is absolutely no comprehensiveness or progressiveness around the TPP. If we speak with the lead negotiator of the TPP, we will find that the text is identical. What has happened is we have a suspension of 20 provisions and we have some tweaks, and we have actually lost some of the side letters. There is no change to the text of the TPP whatsoever. By putting a new name on it that suggests otherwise is simply false. It is misleading to Canadians.
Canadians are not buying it either. When we had the original TPP, 18,000 Canadians wrote to the Liberal government. All but two of the 18,000 people told the government not to sign the CPTPP, and yet, here we are. Once again, we have this full consultation where there is an impression that when Canadians express themselves to the government, they will be heard.
However, the government is falling down on that day after day in this House. The Liberals will consult, but they have already made up their minds on exactly what they are going to do. Whether we are talking about indigenous rights, workers' rights or family farms, that is what the Liberals are doing. No one is fooled by what is happening in this country right now.
I want to talk about the mandate letters that came out. The progressive elements were included initially in the mandate letter for the international trade minister at the time, the fresh mandate letter of 2015. It included all of these progressive trade elements, like a gender chapter, environmental rights, indigenous people, labour rights, all of these wonderful things that Canadians would really like to see as part of our deals. In the CPTPP, sadly, none of those things exist. Not one of those things ended up being in the actual agreement.
To include “progressive” in the title is a farce. There is no indigenous chapter or language. The words “climate change” are not even mentioned, and by the way they are not in the new U.S. deal either. The USMCA does not even mention the words “climate change”. There are no labour provisions in the CPTPP that will help working people.
There are regressive provisions. Now, we are going to be in competition with countries like Malaysia, where the wage is frightening to our Mexican partners in the new U.S.-Mexico deal. The wages are so low, the treatment is so low, and there are no labour standards and no environmental standards.
What happened to the government's gender lens it was going to apply to all of the work it does? It has completely evaporated. It does not exist in the CPTPP.
The promise that was made to people about the type of trade, the type of consultation and, quite frankly, what happened in the new trilateral deal that we have in the USMCA, did not happen at all in the CPTPP. None of those people were in the room. In fact, in a Montreal round when that particular deal was being negotiated under the NAFTA name, the minister and all of the officials were there meeting with stakeholders all weekend long, talking about the new deal we were going to have with the U.S. and Mexico, and they left those meetings without saying one word about the CPTPP. They flew away and signed the CPTPP.
Again, we have this incomprehensible mess of a trade agenda that the Liberals are presenting to Canadians, and we have Conservatives in this House who are happy to join hands and go down this path. I want working people in Canada to know, I want farmers in Canada to know, I want everyone who struggles to pay for their prescriptions to know, and I want everyone who cares about our environment to know that today, the Liberals, along with the help of the Conservatives, have turned their backs on them. They have exposed themselves for the free traders that they are, and there is nothing they will not sign and nothing they will not give up.
Mr. Speaker, it is always interesting to have an opportunity to listen to the member. She always has lots of energy behind her speech. I appreciate that. It is very evident she has done her research.
I would like to bring her back to 2015. Her party was not in support of CETA. It is not in support of the CPTPP and is not in support of the USMCA. I remember back at election time when the leader at the time said he had not even read the deal, which was the TPP at the time, and said that the New Democrats were not in favour of it. He did not even know what was in it yet.
When she speaks about the 58,000 jobs lost, our government will work closely with that industry to support them with compensation. However, she is not talking about the hundreds and thousands of jobs that will be created through these deals. These deals are very important for Canadians not just today but this will lead to prosperity for the next 30 to 100 years.
Mr. Speaker, that comment was completely void of fact. The member talked about reading the agreement. Perhaps he should read it himself and understand what his own government, through Global Affairs Canada, is saying about the deal, because the job losses are acknowledged by Global Affairs.
There is very little increase to the GDP, some $4.2 billion in 22 years. Economists call that negligible. We trade that in one day. To say that over 22 years, to give up all these jobs, to jeopardize family farms is something he supports, the member should go back, read the agreement and understand what he signed on to. I can assure him that I have.
He mentioned CETA. Here we are a year on from signing CETA and we have lost exports to our CETA partners. They have increased imports. There is a flood of imports and our exports are lower now than when we signed a year ago.
His government can keep opening doors with bad trade deals all it wants, but the only thing that is happening through those doors is a flood into our country, which is costing us jobs. Our Canadian exporters are not seeing the benefit of trade for multiple reasons, which the government fails to address. I would encourage the member to go and read the CPTPP.
Mr. Speaker, let us not beat around the bush. This agreement is basically a beautifully written corporate rights document, allowing them to ship capital to all of these different countries, and it is going to leave Canadian workers in the lurch.
What I want to hear from my hon. colleague is the incredible imbalance that exists between corporate rights and labour rights. From my understanding, corporations were given a beautiful tribunal in which to settle their scores with local governments that dare to legislate in the public interest. However, if labour leaders have a complaint, they have to prove that complaint had an impact on trade before it even comes into effect. If the murder of a labour leader for fighting for human rights in other countries does not have an impact on trade, it will not kick in under this.
I wonder if my colleague could expand on that and on the complete imbalance and negligence of the Liberal government to stand up for workers around the world.
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for working very hard on the agricultural file and making sure that farmers' voices are heard in the House, because certainly we have folks on both sides of the aisle who, with the CPTPP, are happy to throw our farmers under the bus. Even the compensation to farmers that originally existed under the Conservatives has completely evaporated under the Liberal government. It is gone. There is nothing for the market share that has been opened. I thank him for that work.
What he is saying is completely factual. We are already tariff-free with 97% of the CPTPP countries we have signed on with. This deal is not about trade. This deal is about enshrining rights that go against our own sovereignty in our country through ISDS, which the Prime Minister admitted in the House today is a regressive provision that needs to be removed. Why then, less than an hour after the Prime Minister left the House today, are the Liberals signing on to an agreement that includes this regressive provision?
Human rights, which my colleague mentioned, is another important issue that we can address effectively in trade deals. This Liberal government and the Conservative one before it failed to do even that basic minimum to enshrine human rights, and that is a shame.
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, today I am presenting amendments to Bill C-79. The Green Party is naturally opposed to agreements that are designed to protect the rights of investors and big foreign corporations.
[English]
On that, I am proud to say that we are the only party in the House that has consistently and always opposed investor-state dispute resolution agreements in every trade deal that has come through here.
I want to thank the hon. member for Essex for her work on this as well. It is very clear that the New Democratic Party does oppose investor-state agreements in the context of the CPTPP. In that, we were only joined by the Bloc Québécois today in objecting to shortening the debate. Even though the NDP, the third party in this place, was prepared to bend and allow a shortened debate, its amendment, which was rejected in this place, would have allowed debate that went for five hours as opposed to being shortened to almost no hours. It was amazing to me that the compromise position of the NDP was not accepted and that the large parties in this place, the Liberals and Conservatives, were all too quick to rush this bill to conclusion.
The trans-Pacific partnership, which we are entering into in this rushed fashion, has been refashioned as the comprehensive and progressive trans-Pacific partnership agreement, but it is very clear that it is not progressive, and it may not even be comprehensive.
I want to focus initially, as others have in this place, on what we celebrate, and I do want to be clear that I celebrate the achievements that were just achieved in replacing NAFTA with what has now been rebranded, Trump style, the USMCA. However, parts of the USMCA remain troubling. I should mention what they are. There is the erosion of supply management that protects not only our dairy farmers but other protected agricultural sectors. It presents a threat to human health in Canada if dairy products contaminated with bovine growth hormone are allowed to enter our marketplace. We remain concerned about the USMCA giving longer patent protection to pharmaceutical companies, thus driving up drug costs. We remain concerned about other sectors that are impacted by the new USMCA. However, we are relieved that the auto sector will survive this. We are relieved that many other sectors have not been negatively impacted as much as Trump had threatened.
The big good news out of the USMCA is what the Prime Minister mentioned earlier today, which happens, ironically, to be the subject matter of the amendments I argue in this place today. What the Prime Minister celebrated today, and I could not be more overjoyed, and “overjoyed” is the word to use, was the end of chapter 11 in NAFTA.
Chapter 11 was the world's first investor-state dispute mechanism. It was the debut of a concept that is so inherently anti-democratic that it is astonishing how it has managed to creep into nearly every trade agreement Canada has signed since. Now, essentially, the grandfather of all investor-state dispute resolutions is gone, but the illegitimate progeny continue to contaminate democracies around the world.
I will never forget how Steve Schreibman, a noted trade lawyer in Canada, described ISDS when he was fighting for intervenor status on behalf of Sierra Club Canada in one of the many chapter 11 cases that we ultimately lost. It was the one brought by S.D. Myers of Ohio, which claimed, believe it or not, that it was an investor in Canada, although it had never actually built anything here. It claimed that its rights had been infringed, because Canada banned the export of PCB-contaminated waste. We lost that case. Members may not believe it, but at the time an investor-state dispute resolution panel ruled that Canada had violated chapter 11 by banning the export of PCB-contaminated waste to the U.S., it was illegal under U.S. law to allow its importation. In this area of trade law, the only precedent to help figure it out is to reread Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, because none of it has ever made any sense.
I was about to quote Steven Schreibman in that case. He said that chapter 11 investor state dispute mechanisms are “fundamentally corrosive of democracy”.
Here we are in this place celebrating today, and I do celebrate. I want to thank, on the record, the Minister of Global Affairs for her extraordinary work in bringing through a concluded agreement with an administration as incoherent and unpredictable as the one that currently occupies the White House. Regardless of political stripe, Canadians should celebrate that. We have much more in common as Canadians than differences with those trying to score political points against the government for managing to navigate anything in the topsy-turvy world one encounters when dealing with the President of the United States.
We celebrate this big achievement that chapter 11 of NAFTA is gone. Why, then, are we inserting chapter 9 in the CPTPP, which does the same thing, but with different countries? With the advent of CPTPP, if we pass Bill C-79 as it is without accepting my amendment, we will now be subject to the same corporate rule, where foreign corporations from Australia, Brunei, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico—we already had a Mexico ISDS under NAFTA—New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam have superior rights to domestic corporations.
There is another truth that must be told about these agreements, because, really, Canada is not at risk from TPP investor-dispute mechanisms from Chile, Mexico or Vietnam. I say that because there is a pattern. Here is the pattern, which we know from hundreds of cases reviewed by two major European Union think tanks, the Corporate Europe Observatory and the Transnational Institute. They looked at hundreds of these cases that allow foreign corporations to sue domestic governments. Was there a pattern? Do governments tend to win? Do corporations tend to win? That is not the pattern one finds, but there is a pattern: the larger economic power always wins.
When Philip Morris, a U.S. corporation, decided to sue Uruguay because it dared to put health warnings on cigarette labels, Uruguay was going to lose, and it did. When it is a U.S. corporation, such as Ethyl Corporation, SDMyers, AbitibiBowater or Bilcon, the very worst case, the U.S. corporation will win and Canada will lose.
Canadian corporations, on the other hand, trying to sue in the U.S. nearly always lose, because we are a smaller economic power. That is why it is extraordinary that it was the U.S. that wanted to remove this agreement and Canada that used it. I hope we were using it the whole time, holding it back knowing it was a bargaining chip we were prepared to play, but we should never have fought to hang on to chapter 11 of NAFTA. It is so deeply offensive.
Here is the evidence. “Profiting from injustice” is the name of the study, and the subtitle is “How law firms, arbitrators and financiers are fuelling an investment arbitration boom” and gaining enormously financially. It is basically, like the words used earlier in this place in a different context, ambulance chasing. Basically, law firms, arbitrators, financiers and individual lawyers have made out like bandits on chapter 11 cases and other ISD cases. The arbitrators are for-hire judges. There is no court. They are individual lawyers who are arbitrators, who, in the same firms, often represent corporations suing countries. There is no justification for leaving this in the CPTPP.
We have another precedent besides removing it from NAFTA, and that is that in the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with the EU, individual countries have opted out of ISDS while still joining in the overall trade deal.
Investor-state dispute resolutions are anti-democratic. They have nothing to do with trade and everything to do with transferring democratic rights to corporations. We should pass my amendment, please, and take ISDS out of the CPTPP.
Mr. Speaker, I can appreciate that the leader of the Green Party has been consistent, along with the New Democrats, on trade and trade agreements. Both parties just do not feel that trade agreements are something we should be moving forward on.
I want to give a specific example of why an agreement of this nature is a great benefit. It is all about enabling communities and businesses to gain access to markets. The leader might recall a company called HyLife, which is in rural Manitoba. It is a pork-processing plant. It exports, I believe, 90% to 95% of its product out of the province of Manitoba to Japan, I believe. Without those exports, that company would not exist. That company provides literally hundreds of jobs in the small but beautiful and dynamic community of Neepawa. It provides opportunities for many farmers and others.
Canada is a trading nation. One of the ways we can have those good-quality middle-class jobs is by allowing more trade to occur. Countries around the world recognize that if they want to advance the middle class and advance trade, what they need to do is secure those markets. That is what this bill would do.
I would ask the leader of the Green Party to maybe reconsider and recognize that there are significant benefits too.
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Winnipeg North will know that in my speech, I focused on the investor-state dispute mechanisms, which have nothing to do with expanding markets, access to markets or trade.
However, since he raises the example of hog barns in Manitoba, I want to remind him that farmers in Manitoba did not want massive hog farms. In town after town, they tried to protest them. The former government of Gary Doer suspended the right of municipalities to say no to mega-farms for hogs. The result is the contamination of Lake Winnipeg and significant toxic eutrophication because liquid hog waste has contaminated it.
These issues are complex. The small family farms created more jobs and more healthy ecosystems for Manitobans than massive hog barns, which leave the pollution behind for the people of Manitoba, while shipping the product out.
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech. It is easy to see why she is focusing on a specific amendment that she feels is valuable and worth defending. Of course, the royal Liberal bulldozer paid her no heed.
I would like to know the member's reaction. I am not an expert in international trade, but I hear that in the U.S., both major parties in the legislature get to participate, since they get updates on the proceedings and discussions on admittedly complex treaties. By contrast, we here in Canada are dependent on the members across the aisle.
I would like to hear the member's thoughts on that.
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Longueuil—Saint-Hubert for his question. It is sort of funny, but I want to share a story that comes from Robert Reich, a former Clinton cabinet secretary. He said that not one member of the U.S. Congress read the NAFTA document before the vote.
One really important thing I want to point out is that the MPs here and the members of Congress in the United States are not comfortable with the documents and have no time to read them. The situation is the same in both countries, in Canada's Parliament and in the U.S. Congress. Now we do not even have enough time for debate. However, it is very rare to find even one person who has made the effort to do some real research on the issues.
I personally have been working hard for years to oppose agreements that favour foreign corporations and have the potential to harm our democracy.
Order. It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Vancouver East, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship; the hon. member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue, Veterans; and the hon. member for Essex, International Trade.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak once again to the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, CPTPP, and the benefits to Canadians from coast to coast to coast and across all sectors of our economy.
As my hon. colleagues have noted, the need for Canada to diversify our trade and investment has never been stronger. Trade has long been an engine that drives our economy, and we have a tremendous opportunity to capitalize on new markets, which this government is opening up across the board. Canadian jobs and prosperity depend heavily on our connectivity with other countries around the world. This is why our government has committed to expanding Canada's access to markets beyond North America.
CETA has opened up markets across the Atlantic Ocean in Europe and the CPTPP would provide us with incredible new opportunities throughout Asia and the Pacific. We are also engaged in ongoing free trade agreement negotiations with the Pacific Alliance and Mercosur as well as exploratory discussions with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The CPTPP would be a cornerstone of Canada's ongoing diversification agenda.
Combined, the 11 CPTPP members represent a total of 495 million consumers and 13.5% of global GDP. Canada's exports to our CPTPP partners totalled nearly $27 billion in 2017. The CPTPP would provide Canadian companies, large or small, with a tremendous opportunity to continue to expand their business in Asia. Implementing and ratifying the CPTPP would strengthen our existing FTA partnerships with Chile, Mexico and Peru, and provide preferential access to seven new markets: Australia, Brunei, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and Vietnam. Once this agreement enters into force, and we are moving swiftly to that end, Canada will have 14 trade agreements that provide preferential access to 51 different countries. Combined, these represent nearly 1.5 billion consumers and over 60% of the global economy. Estimates project that the CPTPP would boost Canada's economy over the long term, and that growth will be driven by increased exports of goods and services and increased investment into Canada.
This means more jobs and more prosperity for hard-working Canadians and their families. The CPTPP would deliver 10 new markets on a level playing field so more Canadian businesses can expand their customer base and increase their profit margins. That is what happens when tariffs come down and access is open. Most of these tariffs, 86%, in fact, would be eliminated immediately upon the entering into force of the agreement, so that our exporters can take advantage of new business opportunities in CPTPP markets right away.
The CPTPP would also establish mechanisms to address non-tariff barriers such as technical barriers to trade and sanitary and phytosanitary measures. Our exporters often cite non-tariff barriers as one of the most significant challenges when seeking to gain entry into a new market. In this regard, the CPTPP would help our exporters gain preferential access to large and fast-growing markets in Asia by establishing rules on these barriers to trade, creating a more predictable and transparent trading environment.
As a result of the CPTPP, Canadian exporters would be able to level the playing field with their competitors who currently enjoy preferential access to markets like Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam. Likewise, the CPTPP would allow companies to gain a competitive edge over those from countries that do not have the same level of access. The agreement would not just help Canadian companies export to Asia, but also help them establish customer relationships, networks and other joint partnerships, which are essential to doing business in the region.
This will offer Canada the opportunity to further integrate with Asia's regional and globally connected supply chains. It is in these supply chains where we anticipate the potential for remarkable growth.
Canada will also be at an advantage to export more agriculture and agri-food, fish and seafood, industrial machinery and everything in between. Quality made-in-Canada goods are in demand for a rapidly rising middle class throughout the region and there is no country better placed to provide those goods than Canada.
New markets for our agriculture and agri-food products mean more opportunities for Canadians to export fruit from British Columbia, beef from Alberta, wheat from Saskatchewan, pork from Manitoba, icewine from Ontario, maple syrup from Quebec, blueberries from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and potato products from Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador, just to name a few.
Opening up new markets for our fish and seafood industry means more opportunities for salmon, halibut, lobster, clams, mussels and snow crab, supporting close to 76,000 Canadian jobs based mostly in rural and coastal regions from coast to coast to coast.
Opening up new markets means opportunities for Canadians employed in the diverse and productive resources and manufacturing sectors from across the country, such as aerospace, chemicals, cosmetics, industrial machinery, medical devices, information and communications technologies, metals and minerals, pharmaceuticals and plastics.
The benefits of the CPTPP do not stop there.
The agreement will also provide Canadian companies, service providers and investors alike with transparency, predictability and certainty in their access to CPTPP markets through its dedicated chapters covering trade in services and investment.
The CPTPP will provide preferential access for Canada's service providers across a broad range of sectors, including legal, architectural, engineering, transportation, environmental, education and financial services.
This access will be further supported by what is called a “ratchet mechanism”, which locks in the level of market access provided to Canadian service providers under the CPTPP.
This, combined with provisions on national treatment and most favoured nation treatment, means that Canada's access to CPTPP service markets can only improve over time as our partners implement policies towards greater liberalization, including when they complete FTA negotiations with other countries around the world.
I would like to talk about some of the more progressive elements of the CPTPP that support our government's commitment to ensuring that the benefits of trade are widely shared. I want to talk about these because these issues have been at the heart of pushback on trade.
On labour rights for example, the CPTPP includes a dedicated chapter that enhances workers' rights and ensures that economic development does not come at their expense. It also encourages parties to promote equality and the elimination of discrimination against women in the workplace.
When we truly level the playing field, we give more people the confidence to compete and succeed and the reassurance that comes from knowing the government has their backs.
Canadians recognize there is no better time for our economy than now to diversify our markets. Our government is committed to expanding market access for our businesses, for our workers and ensuring that we, at the same time, uphold values that Canadians care deeply about.
It is really important that the House pass this legislation as quickly as possible. I am willing to work with my Senate colleagues and our government is ready to assist them in passing the bill.
Mr. Speaker, I have never heard such an impassioned plea for jobs to leave our country. What we heard from the parliamentary secretary is that he approves of the 58,000 jobs that are going to leave our country under the signing of this and not only approves of it, but wants us to speed it up, which Liberals and Conservatives have joined hands to do today so that they can further harm our auto sector, our farmers and dairy farmers, our supply-managed farmers.
I do not think it is something to be incredibly proud of today. The member mentioned labour. Who is opposed to this deal and thinks it is bad for working people? The Canadian Labour Congress, Unifor, United Steel Workers, CUPE, UFCW, and I could go on and on. Working people are not fooled by flowery speeches in the House that say something is good for working people. The proof is in the pudding and it is not in here.
I would also like to say that there is broad access he mentioned for workers to come to our country and that is true. In chapter 12, we have offered that broad access and for the first time our building trades are now under threat officially in a trade agreement, which we heard from coast to coast to coast not to sign onto, that it was a dangerous provision.
I would also like to talk about auto workers because while we have some provisions in the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada deal that auto is quite happy with, they are very unhappy with the CPTPP. When the member talks about chains being supported, what is going to be harmed are auto supply chains.
I have a specific question for the parliamentary secretary and I hope it will not be talking points coming back at me because it will be disrespectful to auto workers. How will the auto side letter in the CPTPP be good for Canada's auto sector?
Mr. Speaker, I know that Canadians are not surprised when they see the NDP oppose a trade deal. If you go back to the 1990s talking point that the NDP had, they opposed NAFTA and said that millions of jobs would be lost. Now Canadians know—
I want to remind the hon. members that the rules, the last time I read them, are that you ask a question and you wait for an answer. You do not ask a question and interrupt the question.
Now that I see everyone has calmed down, I will let the hon. parliamentary secretary proceed.
Mr. Speaker, I respect my hon. colleague's opinion. I am just saying that Canadians are not surprised that the NDP is once again opposing a trade deal and once again fearmongering and misleading Canadians by saying that thousands of jobs will be lost. However, I do respect where the member is coming from and we have a disagreement. We disagree that Canada's economy depends on trade and free trade is good for Canada's economy and good for workers.
I was present at committee when the member asked officials about the side letter within this agreement that Canada was able to secure. She asked whether the letters are binding or not. She asked about labour rights and about non-tariff barriers. Officials who are not political assured her that these side letters are enforceable.
Mr. Speaker, I particularly liked to see how the parliamentary secretary highlighted the fact that Canada is a trading nation and that we have so many trading partners. Canada is the only country with free trade agreements with every country in the G7 because we respect and appreciate the fact that trade relationships are important.
Given the climate and the political environment that exist today, I am wondering if the parliamentary secretary can comment on how important it is to make sure that we continue to diversify our trading relationships so that we have many different trading partners as opposed to an approach where we would just be doing our primary trading with one partner.
Mr. Speaker, my colleague is right and Canadians know that Canada is a trading nation. Millions of jobs depend on our ability to trade with other nations. We in Canada recognize today more than ever that it is really important to not depend solely on one customer for our goods and services. Therefore, Canadians support the idea of opening up access to new markets.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today on behalf of my constituents in the great riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke to be part of the debate ushering in a cornerstone of the legacy of prime minister Stephen Harper. I will start by recognizing the hard work over the past decade by our world-class trade negotiators and Prime Minister Harper, whose vision led this Parliament to pass a record number of free trade agreements.
The path to reaching the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership began under the previous Conservative government. We would not be here today were it not for the hard work and heavy lifting by Canada's longest serving and, easily arguable, best minister of international trade in decades, the hon. member for Abbotsford. Canada's consumers, entrepreneurs, farmers, miners and manufacturers will benefit under this agreement, thanks to the hard work of the member for Abbotsford.
For my constituents who faithfully follow the speeches in Parliament and anyone else watching at home, it is necessary to explain the importance of trade and what this trade agreement is all about. Trade agreements are important because one out of every five Canadian jobs depends on international trade, and these essential trading relationships help generate 60% of our nation's wealth as measured by gross domestic product.
The CPTPP is a comprehensive agreement for a trans-Pacific trade partnership. It is the current version to the trade agreement with countries of the Pacific Rim signed by the previous Conservative government. It includes 11 countries: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. It was signed in March of this year and after the Prime Minister's failures on the North American Free Trade Agreement, there now seems to be some attention being paid to trade agreements, which has been lacking by the government.
The sense of urgency to pass Bill C-79 now and to ratify the CPTPP may be a result of concessions by the Liberal Party to give a foreign country, in this case the United States, veto power over whom Canada can sign a trade agreement with. Vietnam, one of the signatories to the CPTPP, is considered a non-market economy. The Liberals, under the terms of the botched NAFTA renegotiation, surrendered Canadian sovereignty.
As a result, the United States could exercise the power given to them by the Liberal Party and veto our participation in the CPTPP because of the presence of Vietnam in the agreement. It did not have to be this way. If the current government had taken seriously the need to be proactive in seeking out new markets for Canadian products, this agreement, which was handed to the current government ready to go, would be in place now and we would not have to have this debate so late in the game.
Hopefully, after the botched negotiations with the Americans over NAFTA, the Conservative Party, Canada's government in waiting, will help this bumbling government get the job done with the trade agreement it handed to them ready to be signed. CPTPP reduces tariffs in countries representing 13% of the global economy, or a total of $10 trillion. The Peterson Institute for International Economics estimated that the Pacific Rim trade agreement version signed by the previous Conservative government would boost Canadian income by over $20 billion over the next decade.
The agreement comes into force 60 days after at least six signatory countries ratify it and the deadline to ratify it is February of 2019. After that, we lose our first-mover advantage, the way Canada lost out when we came on board after the U.S. and Mexico signed a trade agreement to replace NAFTA. Canada will have to play catch-up with the other signatory countries if we continue to delay.
Canadians are, indeed, fortunate for all of the heavy lifting done by the previous Conservative government on this trade agreement. Many Canadians I spoke to in the last several months were convinced that the hidden Liberal agenda on NAFTA was aimed at failing. The decision by the Liberal Party to sell out Canadian agricultural producers, in this case dairy farmers, by failing to protect farmers, consumers and taxpayers during trade negotiations with our largest trading partner is only more bad news for Canadians already suffering from huge debt and huge taxation levels.
The sell-out was inevitable, considering how badly the Canadian-American relationship has been mismanaged. The Liberal Party responded to the election pledge by the U.S. President to rewrite the North American Free Trade Agreement with a $20 million gift to the Clinton Foundation. Yes, that is the same U.S. political presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, who was tapped to participate in the controversial pay-to-play cash for access fundraisers favoured by the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party put partisan interests above the good of Canada.
Canadian control of Canada's food supply and the efficient use of resources to deliver nutritious high-quality products from the farm gate to the consumer's kitchen table is at the core of Canada's supply management system. Farmers have not recovered from the last attack on their livelihoods, made last summer when the Liberal finance minister started to change the tax laws to make it easier for people to lose their family farm to foreigners and corporations than it was to pass the family farm on to the next generation. While Conservatives support the family farm as the heart of rural life, food security, just like border security, is a low priority for the selfie Prime Minister, who is obsessed with himself.
The Conservatives have negotiated dozens of trade deals without losing supply management. We have never been in such a weak negotiating position where supply management could be used a barrier to a trade deal. If Canadian food security were a sticking point to an agreement, that is an indictment of the current government and the extraordinarily weak position it has left Canada in. Hundreds of thousands of Canadian jobs and the overall health of our country depend on trade. This is why Canadians are so fortunate to have had this trade agreement we are discussing today negotiated by our previous Conservative government.
A Conservative government would never have been so disrespectful of someone like the political leader of our largest trading partner, whose good will so many Canadian jobs depend upon. The United States is Canada's most important trading partner. Twenty per cent of Canada's GDP is tied to our commercial relationship with the United States, and over 74% of Canadian exports go to the United States. The member for University—Rosedale should have known better than to appear, in the middle of sensitive trade negotiations, on a panel with extremists that featured a video slandering the U.S. president. As the global affairs minister, she should have been instructed that the fine art of diplomacy does not tolerate amateurs.
The livelihoods of families are at stake. Canadians cannot afford a government that puts its own political interests ahead of the country's economy and Canadian jobs. Conservatives believe in clean air, low taxes and good jobs and a healthy economy. A clean environment and well-paying jobs are only possible when people are treated with respect. The gains Canadians made from the hard work of our previous Conservative government to cut taxes for all Canadians and successfully negotiate favourable new trade deals are being undone by the Liberal spending government. In its zeal to undo our Conservative legacy on justice for victims, funding for our military, and cutting taxes for low-income Canadians first and foremost, the government ignored trade. Only now has the Liberal Party seen the wisdom in the Conservative policy of pursuing multiple trade agreements.
The Liberals opposed Conservative cuts to the GST and HST and now propose a bogus carbon tax, which is nothing more than an HST on steroids. A tax is a tax is a tax, and excessive taxation kills Canadian jobs. Conservative trade policy creates jobs.
With the CPTPP, the current government has embraced our Conservative legacy on trade, and we can be thankful that we are passing CPTPP now because the economic future of Canada does not look good under this Liberal spending government. The regressive left has never believed in free trade.
Auto workers and pensioners in places like Windsor and St. Catharines tell me that they are in mortal fear of losing their jobs and any hope of a comfortable retirement when the carbon tax hits their households.
Our Conservative government pursued trade deals among our allies and developing democracies with so much energy because of our vision for Canada and the confidence Conservatives have in Canadians.
Mr. Speaker, I want to start by thanking the member for Abbotsford for his work on this. I think it is fair to say that this process started under the former government. The Liberal government took over that process.
Together, through the work of both parties, we were able to produce a good result for Canadians at the end of the day. There is nothing wrong, every once in a while, with saying that we agree on something, that we are supportive of each other and that we are working for the same goal.
Towards the beginning of the hon. member's speech, she said that we are trying to ram this through the House, yet moments ago the member just voted in favour of a time allocation motion on this. How can the member say that the government is trying to ram it through the House when she was supportive of a time allocation motion to force a vote on this?
Mr. Speaker, just because the government has been so truant in getting this bill forward does not mean that we are going to roll it through without serious debate and without letting Canadians know what it is all about.
Hopefully, it will be passed before the failure of the new agreement with the U.S. and Mexico comes to pass, and before the threat of this CPTPP deal going by the wayside as a consequence of it is a reality.
[Translation]
The hon. member for Longueuil—Saint-Hubert is rising to speak, but I cannot recognize him because he violated the rules. I am sorry. I think he will be allowed to speak in the House again in a few days.
The hon. member for Bow River.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the speech and a lot of the things brought forward by my colleague.
She mentioned some of the people she worked with before and some of the hard work they have done with trade agreements. Could the member comment further? She would know the history of some of the work they did. Our former minister is not in the House today, but he did a lot of work on that. Maybe the member could remind us of some of the tremendous work he did.
Mr. Speaker, the former minister was instrumental in this trade agreement, the trans-Pacific partnership. In the middle of fighting an election, he managed to get this trade agreement signed. He took time away from his own campaign and, thank goodness, not only got the job done on the TPP but won his election as well.
I would also like to mention Gerry Ritz, who was a very effective trade minister. We all worked together on the comprehensive trade agreement with Europe. Talking about real consultation, those ministers went to small communities, not just to Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal, and called in people from the farming and other sectors who would potentially be impacted by any agreement. They listened to and took their concerns into consideration before they started negotiating. That is why we are in a position to pass a trade agreement successfully at this point.
Mr. Speaker, since the CPTPP includes investor-state provisions that allow investors to sue Canada for regulating in the public interest on issues like health and the environment, could the member tell the House why she supports an agreement with such harmful provisions?
Mr. Speaker, it does not matter what I did or did not say in my speech, and I certainly did not touch on anything she is asking about. The point is that the NDP would find something wrong with any trade agreement, because they do not agree with them.
Over the weekend, I was speaking to line workers from the auto manufacturing sector, and even those who do not work on the line, who are worried about their neighbours and family members and their businesses. They were worried that they would be impacted if the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement did not go through. They said that it is so important that we also have other agreements with other countries so that we can still build autos to go to other places, so that Windsor does not become a ghost town.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to support Bill C-79, the implementation of the comprehensive progressive trans-Pacific partnership.
We live in unprecedented times. Steadfast relationships we have had for years are being challenged, ideology is taking the place of facts and compromise and trust in international institutions and agreements are reaching a new low. These pillars, which are threatening us as never before, are really the very source of Canada's success diplomatically and economically.
Canada has a proud history organizing multilateral agreements and ensuring they will bring more than just military or economic security. Lester B. Pearson once said about NATO that it should, “promote the economic well-being of their peoples and to achieve social justice, thereby creating an overwhelming superiority of moral, material, and military force on the side of peace and progress.” Trade agreements like NAFTA and CPTPP are excellent examples of what Lester Pearson was talking about.
In the time I have today, I would like to delve into the importance of trade to the future of Canada.
The CPTPP is a major trading bloc, comprising 11 countries, representing 495 million people and a combined GDP 13.5% of the overall global GDP. This is where the next century of growth will occur and the CPTPP is a bridge for Canadian goods and services into this important and expanding market.
Canada is the fifth largest agricultural exporter in the world, and the industry employs 2.3 million Canadians. That is one in eight jobs in Canada. When CPTPP enters into force, more than three-quarters of agriculture and agri-food products will benefit from immediate duty-free treatment, with tariffs on many other products to be phased out over time.
This is very important for my riding of Guelph, which is an agricultural centre for Canada, both in research and in production. This is going to create new market access opportunities for Canadian pork, beef, pulses, fruit and vegetables, malt, grains, cereals, animal feeds, maple syrup, wines from Niagara, spirits, processed grain and sugar.
CPTPP will eliminate 100% of the tariffs on Canadian fish and seafood products. The vast majority of tariffs would be eliminated immediately, while a smaller number would be phased out over periods of up to 15 years. Tariff eliminations will make Canadian exports of a wide range of products such as salmon, snow crab, herring roe, lobster, shrimp, sea urchins and oysters more competitive, while providing protein to a growing part of the world.
Coupled with Canada's new oceans protection plan, which will help preserve and sustain Canada's coastal waters and fish stocks, the CPTPP will also offer Canadian fisheries a sustainable industry that can supply these growing Asian markets.
The CPTPP will benefit more than just Canada's agricultural sector. This agreement offers plenty of opportunities for Canadian industry. Under this agreement, 100% percent of tariffs on industrial goods and consumer products will be eliminated. The majority of Canadian industrial goods exported to CPTPP countries will be duty-free immediately upon entry into force of this agreement, with most remaining tariffs on industrial goods to be eliminated over 10 years.
Guelph is home to Japanese based employers Hitachi Construction Truck Manufacturing and DENSO Manufacturing. Even Sleeman Breweries is owned by Sapporo from Japan. This provides us excellent business connections by one of the key countries in the CPTPP. Canada being one of the first of the six signatories and core supporter of the comprehensive and progressive deal that was renamed by Canada, would be a further win for Canadian business and put us where we need to be.
Just as we cannot delay in getting this stable national democracy without progress in living standards, likewise we cannot have one world at peace without general social and economic progress.
The recently announced LNG development project includes Japanese partner Mitsubishi, showing Japan's commitment to investing in Canada's energy market to provide it a stable and trusted future supply of energy that has 25% less CO2 per energy content than diesel and half the CO2 to BTU that bituminous coal has. The $40-billion investment is Canada's largest external investment in the history of our country.
The CPTPP has measures to promote civil society and address concerns around labour and the environment. There is an entire chapter on labour and basic workers' rights. Rights guaranteed in the 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work must be reflected in law and practice for member nations. This includes the elimination of child labour, forced labour, discrimination and respect for freedom of association and the right to bargain collectively. Provisions in this chapter are also enforceable.
The CPTPP agreement includes provisions to enhance environmental protection in this region and to address global environmental challenges, which is one of the most ambitious outcomes negotiated by Canada to date. Provisions in this chapter are enforceable through the dispute settlement mechanism of the agreement. Again, it is another first for Canada.
Another way the CPTPP promotes the well-being of the middle class in Canada and other CPTPP nations involved is through a stand-alone chapter on small and medium-sized businesses in the text of the treaty. This is a first for any Canadian trade deal.
This chapter includes provisions to ensure that SMEs have access to information specifically tailored for their use, making it significantly easier for Canadian SMEs to explore and navigate the CPTPP markets and to develop trade with those nations. It also includes enforceable provisions on state-owned enterprises to promote fair business practices.
The world needs more Canada. Canada must use all the tools available to bring positive change to the global community. To confine ourselves simply to the diplomatic sphere denies us one of the most powerful levers at our disposal, namely, our economy.
Trade agreements are an excellent way for achieving these goals. They build on economic growth. They include social and environmental progress. At the same time, they benefit the middle class in the nation's involved.
Once the CPTPP enters into force, it will be one of the largest free trade agreements in the world and it will provide enhanced market access to key Asian markets. However, it is also part of a suite of agreements that we have around the world that include CETA, with us trading with Europe, and now includes the new USMCA agreement that is in stages of development with the United States and hopefully will come into force in the near future.
Canada must be a part of all these agreements. We are actually the only G7 country that is a part of all of these agreements. They give us the opportunity to grow our manufacturing industry and help our farmers and our intellectual properties reach new markets. They benefit Canada economically as well as socially and environmentally.
I am looking forward to supporting the legislation in the next bit. I am looking forward to helping in whatever way I can through the businesses and the people in Guelph.
Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House will be supporting the legislation.
I want to ask the member an important question.
A couple of weeks after the current government was elected, the Prime Minister was down in Manila for the first APEC summit with Mr. Obama. Mr. Obama was quoted as saying that the US and Canada would soon be signatories to the original TPP, and Mr. Obama asked the PM to ratify the deal as soon as possible. At that time, the Prime Minister was not in a hurry. He said that the deal was made by a previous government and that he had to consult about it.
This week we have two deals. We have the CPTPP and this new deal with the Americans.
In hindsight, does the member think that instead of dithering on that first deal it would have been better for Canada if we had the original TPP or does he think the situation we are in right now, where we have lost quite a bit in the new Canada-US-Mexico deal, is going to be a better situation, with two separate agreements?
Mr. Speaker, the member's question gives me a chance to highlight the fact that we did not rush into the deal with respect to a TPP. We wanted a comprehensive package that included safeguards on labour, safeguards on protecting women in the workforce and safeguards on the economy and the environment going hand in hand. Rather than rushing into that deal, we worked through the comprehensive part of it and were successful in renaming it a comprehensive deal.
It is the same with the deal that we reached this week with the United States and Mexico. We also negotiated comprehensive elements into that, which reflects the Canadian culture, our nature and where we want to see the world heading.
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.
Like Guelph, Saint-Hyacinthe is a major centre for agricultural education and research.
I represent a riding where agriculture is very diversified. My colleague named the various sectors that will benefit from the TPP and some of those are in my riding.
I think it is a shame that we are entering into an agreement that pits farmers in the same country against one another. Some benefit and others do not. In my opinion, this does nothing to bring our communities together.
Pierre-Luc Leblanc is a major poultry farmer in my riding and the president of Éleveurs de volailles du Québec, the Quebec poultry farmers' association.
According to that association, under the TPP, the poultry industry will lose more than 2,200 jobs, which will slash their contribution to Canada's annual GDP by $150 million.
What does my colleague tell the dairy, poultry and egg farmers in his riding who are penalized by this agreement?
[English]
Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member across the way for welcoming the agriculture committee to her riding in the last few months. It was great to see her interacting with the industry. I know she is very passionate about that.
I would say this to the people who are working in the poultry industry. We are looking at a 2.1% change in quota coming in from other countries through the CPTPP. That will be phased in over a period of five years, beginning in five years, and will be phased in over another period of 15 years.
Therefore, it is important for them to understand that a light switch is not being turned on and immediately these changes will happen. That will give us an opportunity to develop value-added markets. If we can do value-added processing of chicken or poultry products, it gives us an enormous opportunity to ship those value-added products to the CPTPP countries. In the long run, I think we will see a great benefit for Canadian producers, even the ones within the supply-managed sectors, as we develop more value-add opportunities for Canadian businesses.
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise this afternoon to talk about the CPTPP.
I would like to recognize a few members of Parliament who made tremendous strides for our country on trade. There were a great number of people on the negotiating team, but certainly I would like to recognize our former prime minister, Stephen Harper, our former agriculture minister, Gerry Ritz, and of course, our former trade minister, who is still a member of Parliament. Those three individuals worked tirelessly to make sure we brought this deal home in 2015.
There are a tremendous number of trade deals that were accomplished from 2005 all the way to 2015. It was right in the midst of the election when the TPP agreement was signed. The beginnings of it date back a decade ago now. We entered into it in 2012. It is so important to have tariff reductions for our producers and to have access to 500 million people. It is tremendous.
In my area of Huron and Bruce County, we produce a lot of beef, pork and different commodities that will be cash crop commodities that will be sold in those different countries. The reduction in tariffs makes us very competitive against the United States, Brazil, Argentina and different countries that we compete with. No one can compete with us on quality and reliability with all those products, but those other countries are growing all those different commodities. We know in Japan, Vietnam and Malaysia, we will see a big uptick immediately when the deal is finally ratified. That will be great for our producers. It will be quite exceptional. There are other areas, such as manufacturing, etc. where there will be benefits, but in our area, it will be good.
The CPTPP truly looks like what one would expect a traditional trade deal to look like. There is give and take, but at the end of the day, all the countries are winners. We are really making progress on that front. I think back to the time that the chair of the Dairy Farmers of Canada said that supply management is set up for the next generation. That is a quote that goes back to the 2015 election, after the TPP deal was signed. It was a deal where we were able to make some concessions on our supply-managed front, to a point they could accept, but at the same time, pursue the interests of our non-supply-managed agricultural sectors and have tremendous gains.
Today, I called a few agricultural processors in my riding to see if they would like to make some comments on what they see is the future of this trans-Pacific partnership deal. They would not give me any comments. What did they want to talk about today? They wanted to talk about the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement. They were furious on a number of different fronts, and they were furious at the Prime Minister. I tried to get them to give me a quote on CPTPP and maybe throw me something on Japan, Vietnam or something they would see. They did not want to talk about that. In fact, they did give me a quote. It was a quote regarding the current Prime Minister, and I am sure I would be thrown out of the House if I used all the words one individual said to me.
They are furious. They are saying that trade deals are fine, that they are good and they will make good use of them, but the Prime Minister needs to wake up. He needs to realize the taxation disparity we now have between the United States and us. There are issues with red tape and bureaucracy in our country and they are going to continue to grow under the Prime Minister and the Liberal government. That is what they all wanted to talk about today.
Obviously, we will be supporting the CPTPP. However, on the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement, I said to one person today that it got so bad in the negotiations that we could not even negotiate getting the “C” in front of the “M” in the name. One would have thought the Prime Minister could have at least gotten the “C” in front of the “M”.
There are buy America provisions, steel and aluminum tariffs, further IP protection, pharmaceuticals and concessions on supply management that it appears none of them are going to ever be happy with. I am waiting to hear from the rural members of Parliament on the Liberal benches, and there are a couple. I am waiting for them to stand up for their farmers.
The hard pill to swallow for farmers in the supply-managed sector is that they did not get anything. The government could have gone to them and said, “We had to make a few concessions, but look at what we got. We have more than we could ever imagine.” That did not happen. I know the Prime Minister has been asked about 27 times in question period to state one concession from the U.S. administration and his hair almost lights on fire because he cannot think of one. The negotiations went on for 13 months and we have nothing to show for it, except a really bad deal, because nothing was dealt with on buy America.
Wisconsin wanted access to Canada for its dairy farmers and yet it is one of the biggest buy American states in the United States. One would have thought the Prime Minister or one of the people on the trade team would have thought that maybe they could get a few percentage points on access for dairy and in return the others would have to take buy America out of the equation, or at least get something.
I would say the Liberals are lucky that Stephen Harper got this one to the finish line. However, the U.S. deal is your baby and you did not even get it to the one yard line in your own end.
I would remind the member that he is to address the Chair and not the individual party or members.
It being 5:34 p.m., pursuant to order made earlier today, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the report stage of the bill now before the House.
[Translation]
The question is on Motion No. 1. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 2 and 4 to 7. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
Some hon. members: No.
The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes): All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.
Some hon. members: Yea.
The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes): All those opposed will please say nay.
Some hon. members: Nay.
The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes): In my opinion the nays have it.
And five or more members having risen:
The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The recorded division on Motion No. 1 stands deferred. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 2 and 4 to 7.
[English]
The next question is on Motion No. 3. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
Some hon. members: No.
The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes): All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.
Some hon. members: Yea.
The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes): All those opposed will please say nay.
Some hon. members: Nay.
The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes): In my opinion the nays have it.
And five or more members having risen:
The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The recorded division on Motion No. 3 stands deferred.
The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded divisions at the report stage of the bill.
Call in the members.
(The House divided on Motion No. 1, which was negatived on the following division:)
(Division No. 894)
YEAS
Members
AubinBarsalou-Duval
Beaulieu
Benson
Blaney (North Island—Powell River)
Boulerice
Boutin-Sweet
Brosseau
Cannings
Caron
Cullen
Davies
Donnelly
Dubé
Dusseault
Duvall
Garrison
Gill
Hardcastle
Hughes
Jolibois
Kwan
Laverdière
MacGregor
Malcolmson
Marcil
Masse (Windsor West)
Mathyssen
May (Saanich—Gulf Islands)
Moore
Nantel
Pauzé
Plamondon
Quach
Ramsey
Rankin
Sansoucy
Ste-Marie
Stetski
Thériault
Trudel
Weir
Total: -- 42
NAYS
Members
AboultaifAlbas
Albrecht
Aldag
Alghabra
Allison
Amos
Anandasangaree
Anderson
Arnold
Arseneault
Arya
Ayoub
Badawey
Bagnell
Bains
Barlow
Baylis
Beech
Benzen
Bergen
Bernier
Bezan
Bibeau
Bittle
Blair
Block
Bossio
Boucher
Brassard
Bratina
Brison
Caesar-Chavannes
Calkins
Carr
Carrie
Casey (Cumberland—Colchester)
Casey (Charlottetown)
Chagger
Chen
Chong
Clarke
Clement
Cooper
Cormier
Cuzner
Dabrusin
Damoff
DeCourcey
Deltell
Dhaliwal
Dhillon
Diotte
Dreeshen
Dubourg
Duclos
Duguid
Dzerowicz
Eglinski
Ehsassi
El-Khoury
Ellis
Erskine-Smith
Eyking
Eyolfson
Falk (Battlefords—Lloydminster)
Falk (Provencher)
Fillmore
Finley
Finnigan
Fisher
Fonseca
Fraser (West Nova)
Fraser (Central Nova)
Fuhr
Gallant
Garneau
Généreux
Gerretsen
Godin
Goldsmith-Jones
Gould
Gourde
Graham
Grewal
Hajdu
Hardie
Harvey
Hébert
Hogg
Holland
Housefather
Hussen
Hutchings
Iacono
Jeneroux
Joly
Jones
Jordan
Jowhari
Kent
Khalid
Khera
Kitchen
Kusie
Lake
Lambropoulos
Lametti
Lamoureux
Lapointe
Lauzon (Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry)
Lauzon (Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation)
LeBlanc
Lebouthillier
Lefebvre
Leitch
Leslie
Liepert
Lightbound
Lloyd
Lobb
Lockhart
Long
Longfield
Ludwig
Lukiwski
MacAulay (Cardigan)
MacKenzie
MacKinnon (Gatineau)
Maguire
Maloney
Martel
Massé (Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia)
May (Cambridge)
McCauley (Edmonton West)
McCrimmon
McDonald
McGuinty
McKay
McKenna
McKinnon (Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam)
McLeod (Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo)
McLeod (Northwest Territories)
Mendès
Mendicino
Mihychuk
Miller (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound)
Miller (Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs)
Monsef
Morrissey
Motz
Murray
Nassif
Nater
Ng
Nicholson
Nuttall
O'Connell
Oliphant
Oliver
O'Regan
Ouellette
Paradis
Peschisolido
Peterson
Petitpas Taylor
Philpott
Picard
Poilievre
Poissant
Qualtrough
Ratansi
Rayes
Reid
Rempel
Richards
Rioux
Robillard
Rodriguez
Rogers
Romanado
Rota
Rudd
Ruimy
Sahota
Saini
Samson
Sangha
Sarai
Scarpaleggia
Schiefke
Schmale
Schulte
Sgro
Shanahan
Sheehan
Shields
Sidhu (Brampton South)
Sikand
Simms
Sopuck
Sorenson
Spengemann
Stanton
Strahl
Sweet
Tabbara
Tan
Tassi
Tilson
Trost
Van Kesteren
Vandal
Vandenbeld
Vaughan
Vecchio
Viersen
Virani
Wagantall
Warawa
Warkentin
Waugh
Webber
Whalen
Wilkinson
Wilson-Raybould
Wong
Yip
Young
Yurdiga
Zahid
Zimmer
Total: -- 232
PAIRED
Members
BennettFortin
Kmiec
Rusnak
Total: -- 4
I declare Motion No. 1 defeated. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 2 and 4 to 7 defeated.
[Translation]
The next question is on Motion No. 3.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, I believe if you seek it, you will find agreement to apply the results from the previous vote to this vote, with Liberal members voting no.
[Translation]
(The House divided on Motion No. 3, which was negatived on the following division:)
(Division No. 895)
YEAS
Members
AubinBarsalou-Duval
Beaulieu
Benson
Blaney (North Island—Powell River)
Boulerice
Boutin-Sweet
Brosseau
Cannings
Caron
Cullen
Davies
Donnelly
Dubé
Dusseault
Duvall
Garrison
Gill
Hardcastle
Hughes
Jolibois
Kwan
Laverdière
MacGregor
Malcolmson
Marcil
Masse (Windsor West)
Mathyssen
May (Saanich—Gulf Islands)
Moore
Nantel
Pauzé
Plamondon
Quach
Ramsey
Rankin
Sansoucy
Ste-Marie
Stetski
Thériault
Trudel
Weir
Total: -- 42
NAYS
Members
AboultaifAlbas
Albrecht
Aldag
Alghabra
Allison
Amos
Anandasangaree
Anderson
Arnold
Arseneault
Arya
Ayoub
Badawey
Bagnell
Bains
Barlow
Baylis
Beech
Benzen
Bergen
Bernier
Bezan
Bibeau
Bittle
Blair
Block
Bossio
Boucher
Brassard
Bratina
Brison
Caesar-Chavannes
Calkins
Carr
Carrie
Casey (Cumberland—Colchester)
Casey (Charlottetown)
Chagger
Chen
Chong
Clarke
Clement
Cooper
Cormier
Cuzner
Dabrusin
Damoff
DeCourcey
Deltell
Dhaliwal
Dhillon
Diotte
Dreeshen
Dubourg
Duclos
Duguid
Dzerowicz
Eglinski
Ehsassi
El-Khoury
Ellis
Erskine-Smith
Eyking
Eyolfson
Falk (Battlefords—Lloydminster)
Falk (Provencher)
Fillmore
Finley
Finnigan
Fisher
Fonseca
Fraser (West Nova)
Fraser (Central Nova)
Fuhr
Gallant
Garneau
Généreux
Gerretsen
Godin
Goldsmith-Jones
Gould
Gourde
Graham
Grewal
Hajdu
Hardie
Harvey
Hébert
Hogg
Holland
Housefather
Hussen
Hutchings
Iacono
Jeneroux
Joly
Jones
Jordan
Jowhari
Kent
Khalid
Khera
Kitchen
Kusie
Lake
Lambropoulos
Lametti
Lamoureux
Lapointe
Lauzon (Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry)
Lauzon (Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation)
LeBlanc
Lebouthillier
Lefebvre
Leitch
Leslie
Liepert
Lightbound
Lloyd
Lobb
Lockhart
Long
Longfield
Ludwig
Lukiwski
MacAulay (Cardigan)
MacKenzie
MacKinnon (Gatineau)
Maguire
Maloney
Martel
Massé (Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia)
May (Cambridge)
McCauley (Edmonton West)
McCrimmon
McDonald
McGuinty
McKay
McKenna
McKinnon (Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam)
McLeod (Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo)
McLeod (Northwest Territories)
Mendès
Mendicino
Mihychuk
Miller (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound)
Miller (Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs)
Monsef
Morrissey
Motz
Murray
Nassif
Nater
Ng
Nicholson
Nuttall
O'Connell
Oliphant
Oliver
O'Regan
Ouellette
Paradis
Peschisolido
Peterson
Petitpas Taylor
Philpott
Picard
Poilievre
Poissant
Qualtrough
Ratansi
Rayes
Reid
Rempel
Richards
Rioux
Robillard
Rodriguez
Rogers
Romanado
Rota
Rudd
Ruimy
Sahota
Saini
Samson
Sangha
Sarai
Scarpaleggia
Schiefke
Schmale
Schulte
Sgro
Shanahan
Sheehan
Shields
Sidhu (Brampton South)
Sikand
Simms
Sopuck
Sorenson
Spengemann
Stanton
Strahl
Sweet
Tabbara
Tan
Tassi
Tilson
Trost
Van Kesteren
Vandal
Vandenbeld
Vaughan
Vecchio
Viersen
Virani
Wagantall
Warawa
Warkentin
Waugh
Webber
Whalen
Wilkinson
Wilson-Raybould
Wong
Yip
Young
Yurdiga
Zahid
Zimmer
Total: -- 232
PAIRED
Members
BennettFortin
Kmiec
Rusnak
Total: -- 4
[English]
The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
Some hon. members: No.
The Speaker: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.
Some hon. members: Yea.
The Speaker: All those opposed will please say nay.
Some hon. members: Nay.
The Speaker: In my opinion the yeas have it.
And five or more members having risen:
(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)
(Division No. 896)
YEAS
Members
AboultaifAlbas
Albrecht
Aldag
Alghabra
Allison
Amos
Anandasangaree
Anderson
Arnold
Arseneault
Arya
Ayoub
Badawey
Bagnell
Bains
Barlow
Baylis
Beech
Benzen
Bergen
Bernier
Bezan
Bibeau
Bittle
Blair
Block
Bossio
Boucher
Brassard
Bratina
Brison
Caesar-Chavannes
Calkins
Carr
Carrie
Casey (Cumberland—Colchester)
Casey (Charlottetown)
Chagger
Chen
Chong
Clarke
Clement
Cooper
Cormier
Cuzner
Dabrusin
Damoff
DeCourcey
Deltell
Dhaliwal
Dhillon
Diotte
Dreeshen
Dubourg
Duclos
Duguid
Dzerowicz
Eglinski
Ehsassi
El-Khoury
Ellis
Erskine-Smith
Eyking
Eyolfson
Falk (Battlefords—Lloydminster)
Falk (Provencher)
Fillmore
Finley
Finnigan
Fisher
Fonseca
Fraser (West Nova)
Fraser (Central Nova)
Fuhr
Gallant
Garneau
Généreux
Gerretsen
Godin
Goldsmith-Jones
Gould
Gourde
Graham
Grewal
Hajdu
Hardie
Harvey
Hébert
Hogg
Holland
Housefather
Hussen
Hutchings
Iacono
Jeneroux
Joly
Jones
Jordan
Jowhari
Kent
Khalid
Khera
Kitchen
Kusie
Lake
Lambropoulos
Lametti
Lamoureux
Lapointe
Lauzon (Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry)
Lauzon (Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation)
LeBlanc
Lebouthillier
Lefebvre
Leitch
Leslie
Liepert
Lightbound
Lloyd
Lobb
Lockhart
Long
Longfield
Ludwig
Lukiwski
MacAulay (Cardigan)
MacKenzie
MacKinnon (Gatineau)
Maguire
Maloney
Martel
Massé (Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia)
May (Cambridge)
McCauley (Edmonton West)
McCrimmon
McDonald
McGuinty
McKay
McKenna
McKinnon (Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam)
McLeod (Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo)
McLeod (Northwest Territories)
Mendès
Mendicino
Mihychuk
Miller (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound)
Miller (Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs)
Monsef
Morrissey
Motz
Murray
Nassif
Nater
Ng
Nicholson
Nuttall
O'Connell
Oliphant
Oliver
O'Regan
Ouellette
Paradis
Peschisolido
Peterson
Petitpas Taylor
Philpott
Picard
Poilievre
Poissant
Qualtrough
Ratansi
Rayes
Reid
Rempel
Richards
Rioux
Robillard
Rodriguez
Rogers
Romanado
Rota
Rudd
Ruimy
Sahota
Saini
Samson
Sangha
Sarai
Scarpaleggia
Schiefke
Schmale
Schulte
Sgro
Shanahan
Sheehan
Shields
Sidhu (Brampton South)
Sikand
Simms
Sopuck
Sorenson
Spengemann
Stanton
Strahl
Sweet
Tabbara
Tan
Tassi
Tilson
Trost
Van Kesteren
Vandal
Vandenbeld
Vaughan
Vecchio
Viersen
Virani
Wagantall
Warawa
Warkentin
Waugh
Webber
Whalen
Wilkinson
Wilson-Raybould
Wong
Yip
Young
Yurdiga
Zahid
Zimmer
Total: -- 232
NAYS
Members
AubinBarsalou-Duval
Beaulieu
Benson
Blaney (North Island—Powell River)
Boulerice
Boutin-Sweet
Brosseau
Cannings
Caron
Cullen
Davies
Donnelly
Dubé
Dusseault
Duvall
Garrison
Gill
Hardcastle
Hughes
Jolibois
Kwan
Laverdière
MacGregor
Malcolmson
Marcil
Masse (Windsor West)
Mathyssen
May (Saanich—Gulf Islands)
Moore
Nantel
Pauzé
Plamondon
Quach
Ramsey
Rankin
Sansoucy
Ste-Marie
Stetski
Thériault
Trudel
Weir
Total: -- 42
PAIRED
Members
BennettFortin
Kmiec
Rusnak
Total: -- 4
PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
[Private Members' Business]
[English]
Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities
That the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities be instructed to undertake a study on the labour shortages of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, to consider, among other things, (i) the challenges associated with a lack of skilled workers in the construction industry, (ii) possible recommendations on how to increase construction skill development in the region, (iii) analysis of the Atlantic Immigration Pilot initiatives as a model to address the skilled worker need in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area; and that the Committee report its findings to the House within six months of the adoption of this motion.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I would like to set the stage for Motion No. 190. Our government is so proud of the $180 billion we are investing in infrastructure. Both our residential and construction sectors as well as our ICI, industrial, commercial, institutional, sectors are experiencing tremendous growth.
We have an economy that has created 600,000 jobs since we took office. Our unemployment rate is at a 40-year low. LNG, the biggest private sector project in Canada's history, was announced yesterday. Our new USMCA trade agreement with the United States and Mexico, in addition to CETA with Europe and our CPTPP deal with our Pacific partners, has put Canada in an enviable position.
Our government is seizing the moment, seizing these opportunities and ensuring that all Canadians, women and girls, men and boys, indigenous, no matter the colour of one's skin, sexual orientation or the place they come from, when they arrived in the country, and they could have come here generations ago or yesterday, are at their best so they can take advantage of these tremendous opportunities and can contribute as a collective and personally to this prosperity, all the while growing our middle class and those working hard to join it.
Today, I am putting forward Motion No. 190, aimed at addressing the ongoing challenges that the construction industry is facing due to a lack of skilled labour in the sector within the greater Toronto Hamilton area, the GTHA. I would like to see recommendations put forward, along with an analysis of Motion No. 39, the Atlantic immigration pilot project as a template and the use of permanent immigration, to assist in addressing this huge challenge.
The homes we live in, the businesses where we work, our hospitals, schools, roads, bridges, underground sewers and pipes, all of those places are built by construction workers. It is hard work, when temperatures on a work site can be as much 30° below, or 38° above or in rain, snow and sleet. In many cases, it is backbreaking work for the men and women who build our cities, towns and villages.
Brick by brick, block by block, stone by stone, these construction mid-level skilled trades like bricklayers, form workers, framers, carpenters are the backbone of the construction industry and they are in short supply across the country. The shortage is exacerbated especially in the high growth greater Toronto and Hamilton area.
These are good-paying, family sustaining jobs, but Canadian parents and schools are not encouraging our kids to get into, as I like to say, “mud on our boots, dirt in our fingernails”, type of work.
I have listened to stakeholders, labour leaders, workers, contractors and industry advocates who have expressed major concerns in regard to a severe labour shortage of qualified employees. With an increased labour shortage, businesses are not only hampered momentarily, but also have significant difficulty planning for future growth.
This motion is geared toward providing residents of my riding of Mississauga East—Cooksville, the GTHA and all of Canada with a plan for sustainable economic growth in the construction sector.
The GTHA is home to a thriving construction industry. The construction sector has become Canada's biggest job generator in percentage terms, consistently expanding and currently accounting for almost 5% of the entire Canadian labour market. Over the next 50 years, Statistics Canada projects that the population will grow, reaching an estimated 51 million by 2063. This projected increase in population will continue to drive construction demand for years to come.
However, there is a critical shortage of skilled labour currently. It is expected that across Canada a quarter of the entire construction workforce will retire in the next 10 years. Just in Ontario, the mismatch in skills is projected at a $24.3 billion loss in forgone gross domestic product and $3.7 billion lost in provincial tax.
Besides foregone revenue, the labour shortage has far-reaching consequences for an industry that accounts for 6% of Ontario's GDP. As the Canadian population ages, it is estimated that around 87,000 construction workers will retire within these next 10 years. That is nearly 20% of Ontario's construction workforce.
Looking forward, an aging workforce and retirements will account for a higher share of new job openings over the next decade. While the age profile of the Ontario population is growing older, natural population growth plus immigration to the province should help sustain overall population growth across this scenario period. Nevertheless, the pool of available local youth entering the workforce is in decline, while retirements are on the rise.
Construction employment in Ontario has increased by approximately 200,000 workers since 1997 and now accounts for 6.9% of total employment here in Ontario. However, at the pace the industry is growing, it will need not only to replace the retiring personnel but also to attract additional workers, with an estimated 20,000 to 80,000 new recruits needed by 2027 to keep up with the demand in Ontario alone.
The current apprenticeship system that we have needs to be analyzed in-depth. Multiple studies have shown that the completion rates of apprenticeships are roughly only 50%. Half the apprentices are not persisting.
Currently, a distortion exists between youth, skills and skilled trades. However, as the nature of employment is currently changing, skilled trades will continue to have a strong demand for labour for a long time into the foreseeable future.
Skills Canada has estimated that in the next 10 years, 40% of new jobs will be in the skilled trades, but only 26% of young people aged 13 to 24 consider pursuing a career in the skilled trades. Skilled trades tend to be the second choice for most, with university and college seen as the preferred path. There has to be a concerted effort to demonstrate that trades are an equal route to personal success and satisfaction, and an equal first choice for our youth.
Demand in the construction industry is expected to grow in the foreseeable future. A number of surveys of large and small contractors indicate that 32% of these contractors expect to be doing a lot more business in 2018 compared with 2017, while 51% will be doing at least the business they were doing last year or more. Therefore, we are talking about well north of 80% of these construction businesses saying that theirs is a robust sector. They need more workers. They need skilled labour. Studies all point to a confident, healthy construction sector, but it is experiencing a crisis when it comes to the hands on the job that they need.
Additionally, there will be a continued demand due to growth in immigration, government affordable housing programs, climate change mitigation, maintenance and renovations, and restoration work. Members here have seen all the work around the Hill, and we thank those workers for building up our workplace here.
It is imperative to study the labour shortage in order to create the policies that we need to enable the construction sector to thrive and continue to provide good, well-paying jobs for Canadians.
The incentive towards having young people pursue careers in the skilled trades may take time to catch on and to be implemented. There needs to be a policy implemented that will ensure continuity between a generation of retiring skilled labourers and the construction industry's increasing demand for skilled labour.
In just four years from now, there will be more seniors than youth. By 2030, there will be just two people in the workforce for every one that is retired. This demographic shift that is beginning to take place will have a drastic impact on the labour market and will be especially evident in the construction sector.
Critics argue that the skills shortage is exaggerated as there remains youth unemployment within Canada, yet all these professional associations, those that are on the ground, along with industry professionals, agree there is a shortage in the workforce that will only continue to grow. Unemployment among older and experienced workers is at an all-time low, with numbers dipping under 3%. This trend is indicative that older workers are staying on longer, while younger ones lack the necessary skills to fill those vacancies.
From a policy-making perspective, collaboration with all involved stakeholders is required: employers, apprentices, journeypersons, employees, and organized labour and unions. I want to thank many of them for having had discussions and consultations on this much-needed initiative. The entire scope of the phenomenon needs to be studied.
Private member's motion, Motion No. 39, on immigration to Atlantic Canada, was commissioned to study ways to increase and retain immigrants in Atlantic Canada with an objective of implementing policies that will strengthen the workforce and provide economic growth. Although there are differences between the construction sector and the entire economy of Atlantic Canada, valuable information will become available through that pilot that could assist with this motion.
As the construction industry continues growing, it is also subject to a dramatic demographic shift. Construction has provided opportunities for success for generations of immigrants and Canadians alike. The industry has provided skill-building opportunities while serving as a launching pad for many immigrants coming to Canada in hope of building a better future, helping to construct our homes and building what is now the primary capital asset of so many Canadians. Motion No. 190 hopes to address the current challenges that are associated with the lack of skilled labour in the greater Toronto and Hamilton area in the construction sector. I would like to see recommendations that could be put forward to assist the industry, and to look at the Atlantic experience as a template for how to provide the industry with skilled construction workers.
This is so important. I know right now it focuses on the GTHA as a containment to see how something like this would work before rolling it out across the province and the country. I have spoken to many the members in the House. The member for Kitchener South—Hespeler will be speaking to this and his work within the industry will bring much experience and life to the words I have been saying just now.
When speaking with the members, they tell me about the shortages they are experiencing in their ridings. They have brought support to the motion, understanding full well that employers are coming to their offices the same way they have come to mine, to explain how difficult it is today to find that mid-level skilled labour. It is available. We have workers who come in as temporary foreign workers. They may stay here for a year, two years, three years, four years, but what they are looking for really is to be permanent residents and set a pathway to citizenship.
That is what this motion is about. It is looking for recommendations where we can have a stream of immigration in mid-level construction. We are talking about bricklayers, carpenters, form workers and many of the people we see out on our roads doing that work. That is skilled labour.
I had someone once question whether bricklaying is really skilled labour. He should try laying bricks. It is a skilled job, and they do it so well and do it fast. It is because our young people are not getting into those fields today that we need to fill that gap and then encourage young people to understand that these are good-paying jobs. Yes, they are jobs where they have to work with their hands. They are out there in the field, but they are good-paying jobs, and they will be jobs forever. We have a very young country at 150 years. We are going through a renewal with construction.
I hope I can have the members' support for my Motion No. 190.
Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, the member for Mississauga East—Cooksville for his impassioned support for the skilled trades. In his presentation, he talked about the reason that he is focusing on the GTA and Hamilton. I have travelled across Canada. Agriculture, hospitality, and tourism are all discussing their inability to access labour. It is a huge priority for them.
I wonder if the hon. member would welcome an amendment to expand the scope of the motion to include other areas of Canada, other than just the GTA and Hamilton.
Madam Speaker, yes, I have heard about many other sectors that are also experiencing some labour challenges. With this private member's motion, I wanted to ensure there was a focus, a containment, a deep study and understanding of what would be the best way forward in addressing this labour shortage in construction.
Why the GTHA? It is partly because I live there and it is where the problem may be the biggest, but it was a way to contain this project so that we could learn. If it is successful, there will be the opportunity to expand and the possibility of expanding into other sectors down the road if this works as a model. However, at this time, it would be focused on the construction sector.
Madam Speaker, I would like to know why it was necessary to bring this to the House as a motion. Why would he not have done this in committee?
First, Madam Speaker, I do not sit on the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development or the Status of Persons with Disabilities or the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. This was through the consultation that I had with many in the labour sector, be it LiUNA, carpenters, painters, many different labour organizations, the large contractors doing many of our roads and bridges, etc., also some of the smaller home builders. They would like to see the success that we have had with the Atlantic growth strategy that also came through the House as a motion. That was a good model to launch something like this for the construction sector.
We thought this was the best path forward to do the study and then hopefully move forward with the program.
Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for bringing this motion forward. It is very timely.
The Conference Board of Canada estimated that Ontario will face a shortage of 190,000 skilled workers in 2020 and by 2030 that number will be roughly double. Can the hon. member speak to that and how his motion will be timely to ensure that we fix this problem before it gets any larger?
Madam Speaker, the member is quite right. In my speech, I talked about a way to fill the gap through a permanent solution. What is not working today is bringing in temporary foreign workers who only stay for a short time. That is a band-aid.
The industry is looking for a way to fill a huge labour shortage it has right now and then train more young people. We need to do a better job in terms of encouraging young people and letting them know about the opportunities that are available in this industry, especially the mid-level type jobs, the form workers, carpenters, painters and bricklayers. Those are the jobs that really need to be filled.
I can say that when people come to this country as bricklayers, they will stay on as bricklayers for the next 30 or 40 years of their career and will become real artisans. We see that in the work that is being done here on the Hill.
Madam Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to speak to Motion No. 190, the private member's motion brought forward by my colleague from Mississauga East—Cooksville. I agree with some of his comments but have to disagree with others.
One of the aspects of his speech which I agree with is the fact that we are undervaluing a lot of these careers, whether they are in construction, agriculture, tourism or hospitality. We have to do a much better job of speaking with students when they are in high school, or even elementary school, and talk about the incredible opportunities available to them in these types of careers. Absolutely, one may be starting on the front lines as a dishwasher or a labourer, but there are opportunities to work up the ladder, be successful in that career and earn a very strong income. In concert with industry, as parliamentarians and parents, we need to do a much better job of ensuring that industry gets the word out to the schools and guidance counsellors. It needs to be part of the curriculum in order to ensure these careers are understood as the incredible opportunities that they are.
I grew up in a rural area, and the misperception when I was younger was that anyone who wanted to go into skilled trades was making a bad decision and it meant they could not make it in university or college. If they only knew the wages available in some of those skilled trades, the guidance counsellors may have given us different advice.
I want to talk about the scope of this study. It concerns me that it is so focused on Toronto and Hamilton. It highlights an issue with the Liberal government. It has become so urban-centric, so GTA-centric. I have spent the last several years travelling across the country focused mainly on agriculture, but I have spoken with many other industries and they are concerned with the inaccessibility of labour. It is a crisis out there. Some businesses have closed. I met with a greenhouse operator in B.C. just last week, who closed her vegetable greenhouse because she could not get the labour. Many of the other businesses we have spoken with are at risk of closing because they cannot access the labour.
The Liberal government has set a very high target. It wants $75 billion in additional agriculture exports by 2025. It is an aspirational goal but it can be done. Agriculture is ready. However, every tool that it has in order to reach that goal is being taken away. One of those critical pillars is access to labour. I would like to see this motion expanded to include other industries, sectors and certainly other parts of the country.
I appreciate my colleague's comments about why he focused this on the GTA, but to compare what is going on in the GTA to what is going on in rural Saskatchewan, Canada's north or the labour shortage in Quebec City is really difficult. There are so many different factors involved. I would like to see the scope of this motion expanded.
My colleague also spoke about some of the great accomplishments the Liberal government has had. I find it ironic that he is concerned about the labour shortage. He talks about the $180-billion infrastructure promise that the Liberal government made in 2015, yet only 6% of those funds have actually been committed to real projects. We cannot get any of these major infrastructure projects built because the money is not rolling out the door. The Trans Mountain pipeline is an infrastructure project which is on very shaky legs. It makes it hard to get Canadians back to work and get them encouraged about going into the skilled trades when they see none of these projects are going to happen. It is disconcerting.
We have to ensure there is a bright future. If we want to ensure young people understand the value of these jobs, they also have to see there is a career opportunity in these jobs, and that some of these opportunities will be there. Right now, I can sense their frustration. Why should they go into some of these skilled trades, such as pipefitting, welding or steel work, if we cannot get any of these infrastructure projects built? That is a critical piece of this. The government needs to start showing that it can get these projects done, get the money out the door and make this a priority. That is highlighted for rural communities, and is certainly what I have heard in my trips across rural Canada. Canadians are extremely frustrated that they see everything with the Liberal government is urban focused.
The map that came out last week in the Huffington Post or iPolitics showed where the vast majority of infrastructure dollars have been committed. The vast majority are in urban centres. I understand that this are where the mass part of the population is, but they cannot do that and neglect some of our rural areas at the same time. That is why I think it is important that we expand the scope of this motion and this study at the HUMA committee, of which I am a very proud member.
We have to look at some of the other issues that are part of this: higher taxes, punitive regulations, surrendering our sovereignty as part of the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement, not being able to remove steel and aluminum tariffs and not being able to get a softwood lumber agreement. All of these have an impact on attracting Canadians to these types of careers. They need to understand that are there is opportunity and a future there. Right now, with the pace this is going, Canadians see the writing on the wall. There is not a future in some of these careers, because the jobs simply will not be there long term. That is extremely disconcerting.
Let us take a look at Bill C-68 and Bill C-69. Regardless of what happens with Trans Mountain, it is very clear that if these pieces of legislation go through, we will never have another major infrastructure project built in this country, whether it is a pipeline, a mining operation or another resource extraction initiative. It is going to be very difficult to get these projects built.
When I speak to some of our stakeholders in agriculture, construction and hospitality and tourism, there is no question that their inability to access labour is much beyond a motion at a committee. It is a crisis. They need action on this quickly.
I am going to support this study, because I think we can get some really good recommendations out of it. It is still worthwhile going through that process. I hope we get some tangible recommendations from the study.
Again, we have had businesses close, and others are at risk of closing. We heard it at the agriculture committee yesterday. Some of the farmers and ranchers were talking about the mental stress they are under. One of the reasons they cited for that mental stress was the inability to access labour for their businesses. They are taking on much too much. They are working hard, long hours. It is difficult navigating the temporary foreign worker and seasonal agricultural worker programs. They said, almost unanimously, that over the last three years, under the Liberal government, being able to navigate these programs has become almost unattainable.
My hon. colleague talked a little bit about the temporary foreign worker program. We have to find a permanent solution to what is a permanent problem. Just tweaking the temporary foreign worker program or making some adjustments to that program is not good enough. We have to have bold changes when it comes to accessing labour.
Exhausting what resources we have right now to deal with illegal border crossers is not the way to do it. We need to put our focus on processing the applications of legitimate immigrants who are going to be coming to Canada and having a significant, positive impact on our economic development. These are people who are going to be filling job vacancies in skilled labour areas where we desperately need those jobs filled. That has to be another part of this discussion. Where do we put our focus in immigration? How do they access that system? How do our stakeholders access that system? How do they get through that process?
We have to build a pathway to Canada. I hope this is going to be part of that. Again, we need bold changes. I really look forward to working with our stakeholders across Canada as part of this study to come up with a permanent solution to a permanent problem to address the labour crisis that is happening right now across Canada.
Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise in the House today to speak to the motion before us, Motion No.190.
I want to start by laying out exactly what the motion is asking for, so that people can be clear on what is being discussed.
The motion directs:
That the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities be instructed to undertake a study on the labour shortages of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, to consider, among other things, (i) the challenges associated with a lack of skilled workers in the construction industry, (ii) possible recommendations on how to increase construction skill development in the region, (iii) analysis of the Atlantic Immigration Pilot initiatives as a model to address the skilled worker need in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area; and that the Committee report its findings to the House within six months of the adoption of this motion.
Therefore, I want to be clear that we will be supporting the motion at second reading because we believe there is value in doing a study about labour shortages at committee. We will of course re-evaluate our position once the study is completed.
I have a question, which I have asked before. Why was it necessary to bring this to the House as a motion? Why could it not have been done and introduced at committee?
I also have to wonder why the member sponsoring the motion has limited, as the previous speaker noted, the scope of the study to just the GTA and Hamilton areas. It seems to me, especially given the lack of data available on labour shortages in Canada, that a more ambitious Canada-wide study might be more useful and appropriate.
In doing my research in preparation to speak to this motion, I did speak to individuals involved in the construction industry in the area under consideration and found that they might have a view quite different from that of the sponsor of the motion. I spoke with several representatives of the building trades in the area, and while they would welcome any study on labour shortages in their industry, they are somewhat skeptical of this motion. Their view is that the supply of workers is not the problem, but rather the supply of employers willing to pay a fair wage. It is also the view of workers in the industry that there need to be incentives, good wages and benefits to attract workers to fields like construction and skilled trades, and that in the region defined in the motion, this is even more critical given the cost of living.
I certainly hope that the committee will invite the building trades unions to be part of any hearings or study that would take place, as they have a great deal of knowledge and expertise with the issues under review.
It is my view that we should consider the need for front-line services so that job seekers and employers needing workers can connect. I think we need to consider the importance of providing training and training opportunities, especially in the fields and industries where there might be a shortage of workers. It would also be helpful to look at how the federal government could work in partnership with the provinces to invest in education and training in skilled trades.
Of course, ensuring that skilled workers are available to meet labour demands is a responsibility the government should take very seriously. A more sustainable and equitable solution would be to see Canadian workers, employers, unions, educational institutions, and federal and provincial governments working together strategically to meet our labour force goals. We have repeatedly urged the government to collect better data to properly assess the labour shortage. Some industries and some regions are far more affected than others. It is not the same across the country and across sectors.
We welcome another study at committee, as it would be an opportunity to shed light on the labour situation. We need to make sure that employers focuses on providing fair wages. As I said earlier, it is unclear whether Toronto and Hamilton are experiencing labour shortages in the construction industry. We cannot allow employers in Ontario simply to have another source of cheap labour only to avoid their responsibility to spend on training and wages. The onus should be on the government and employers to first invest in training and offer more desirable working conditions and wages to workers before looking to migrant workers to fill jobs.
In reference to having the committee look at the Atlantic immigration pilot program as a model, I would urge caution and would suggest that there are economic reasons why we should oppose the reliance on solving skilled shortages through immigration alone. We need to put an emphasis on training and education of our domestic workforce where there are high levels of unemployment, both regionally as well as in many aboriginal and, in particular, ethnocultural communities.
Importing skilled labourers must be combined with the development of a strategy for training and developing future skilled workers in Canada to respond to future labour shortages. While we clearly support economic immigration, we should be wary of a narrow overreliance on immigration as the sole solution to our skills shortages. A better solution would rely on immigration along with developing the skills base of domestic labourers.
Motion No. 190 proposes to study the pilot program as a solution. As of March 2017, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada started accepting permanent resident applications through the Atlantic pilot program. Unlike other initiatives, employers are not required to obtain a labour market impact assessment for jobs offered within the pilot program. The Atlantic program is an employer-driven program, so the employers are the ones who are seeking the foreign nationals to work for them. While this program offers better outcomes than the temporary foreign workers program, it has not been able to attract the numbers of workers expected. Additionally, we would want to confirm that there are shortages before omitting the labour market impact assessment.
It is important to remember that Conservative government actions had distorted wage markets to the point where lower wages will give Canadian workers a further disincentive to seek training. Specifically, they announced that employers can pay temporary foreign workers in high-skilled occupations up to 15% below the market Canadian wage. Before this change, employers had to first attempt to hire Canadian workers at the market wage. If they were not successful, they were committed to hire a temporary foreign worker at below market wage. This gave employers an incentive to not post a job paying anything above a market wage.
The change would add an incentive to post high-skilled jobs at below market rates. In the short run, this would mean a larger supply of labour competing for jobs paying lower wages. In the long run, it would likely put downward pressure on the market wage, which would drive down wages for all workers in high-skilled jobs. Facing the prospect of lower wages, Canadian workers would have less incentive to invest in training or education. This in turn may make it even easier for employers to import temporary foreign workers due to the lack of available Canadian labour.
The issue of labour shortages is very important. More study and more data collection are needed to properly assess the situation. Having more information about labour shortages would be useful, so we in the NDP support a study at committee.
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to support the motion of my colleague from Mississauga East—Cooksville.
Skilled workers are the backbone of Canada's economy. The study proposed by the motion would examine ways we can respond to the skilled labour shortage in the greater Toronto area and the Hamilton area.
I worked many construction jobs in the summers when I was in university, so I can speak first-hand about the importance of skilled workers in the construction industry. Before entering my political career, I took electrical engineering at the college level. I worked in the industry as an electrical apprentice for a little while. As the member mentioned in his speech, about 50% of individuals finish their apprenticeships. I actually did not finish my apprenticeship. I switched to political science at the University at Guelph, so I am part of the 50% that do not finish their apprenticeships, but I did learn a skilled trade.
I have been successful in other jobs I have done in the past. I learned how to successfully wire my own basement when I purchased my first home. I learned a skilled trade, and I know how important it can be in one's life.
In the next decade alone, Canada anticipates seeing more than one-fifth of the people in the construction labour force retire from the job site, taking their skills with them. In Ontario alone, the construction workforce accounted for 1.6% of its GDP in 2015, and it employed half a million workers in the construction industry in 2016.
Across Canada, more than 1.4 million people work in the construction industry. It is expected that roughly 250,000 of those workers will retire in the next 10 years, and only 215,000 new entrants will be available to fill the gap, creating a national deficit of 32,000 workers. That figure could climb even higher due to an expected increase in construction activity as Canada's population continues to grow.
Canada is facing a serious skilled labour shortage. A number of sources predict that the demand for skilled tradespeople will accelerate in coming years. The Globe and Mail reported that Canada will face a shortage of one million tradespeople by 2020.
The Conference Board of Canada has estimated that Ontario will face a shortage of 190,000 skilled workers by 2020, and that number is projected to rise to 560,000 by 2030. According to the Conference Board of Canada, Ontario is losing out on as much as $24.3 billion in economic activity annually because employers cannot find people with the skills they need to innovate and grow in today's economy.
There are three possible sources of new construction industry workers in the skilled trades: youth, newcomers and under-represented segments of Canada's population, such as women and indigenous people.
Bob Collins, the senior economist for BuildForce Canada, recommends relying on new Canadians, the indigenous population and women to meet the rising demand for employees in Canada 's construction sector. I understand that by 2027, young people entering the workforce will fill only about 10% of construction jobs.
As a member of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, I have always been a strong advocate for economic immigration. ln Atlantic Canada, the percentage of workers retiring is expected to reach 25%, which means that Atlantic Canada has the challenge of filling these labour gaps. As a possible solution to this, the committee extensively studied the Atlantic immigration pilot project. ln 2017, under the program, New Brunswick sent out job offers to 487 foreign workers and has upped its 2018 quota to 800 people. Meanwhile, Prince Edward Island managed to completely fill its annual allotment of 120 people in 2017, and it endorsed 15 people earlier this year.
Here in Ontario, we can adopt lessons from the Atlantic immigration pilot project. The program can serve as a great model to address the skilled worker shortage in the greater Toronto area and within a 100-kilometre radius of the GTA.
In addition, I understand that there are a significant number of tradespeople who came to Canada as temporary workers and, due to the demand for workers, have overstayed their visas. We should be offering a path to permanent residency for these workers.
In addition, I understand that there are a significant number of tradespeople who came to Canada as temporary workers who, due to the demand for workers, have overstayed their visas. We should be offering a path to permanent resident status for these workers.
Conestoga College in my riding of Kitchener South—Hespeler is a leader in skilled trades training for women. Through gender-specific programs and opportunities for mentorship, Conestoga has assisted many women and men in pursuing a rewarding career in skilled trades. Non-traditional occupations for women, such as skilled trades, can offer a direct route to a secure and fulfilling future. Also, construction industry trade unions operate training centres and offer apprenticeships and should be supported for their work in trades training for diverse populations as well.
All of these options could be explored by the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. The committee could come forward with recommendations on how to increase construction skill development.
Employment increased by 33,900 in Ontario in the second quarter of 2018, with all the gains in full-time work. This rise in employment shows that our economy has the potential to grow and that we can find ways to address the labour market shortages in the construction industry.
We have heard a lot of speeches today from many members across the aisle. We have a labour gap in the skilled trades. Members' speeches have concentrated on the GTA and Hamilton, but this shortage goes all across Canada.
As I laid out in my speech, this is going to continue to grow year over year and become a larger gap. We will have an even larger shortage, which will be a hit to our economy. However, if we correct this now, get the issue to committee and study it, and put in measures through education and encouraging more of our population and youth to get into the skilled trades and these well-paid industries, we can correct this now before it becomes a bigger problem.
Therefore, I support this motion to address this very real and pressing issue.
Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Motion No. 190 today, introduced by the member for Mississauga East—Cooksville. I stand here also as the deputy shadow minister for employment, workforce development and labour. I am so thrilled to work with the previous speaker, the shadow minister for employment workforce development and labour, the member for Foothills, Alberta. This file is very important to us and to all Canadians.
There are many challenges in the construction industry and I want to give a few statistics before I delve into what I want to talk about. The Canadian Construction Association says that its sector employs almost 1.4 million Canadians. That is seven per cent of Canada's total workforce. That is significant. Annual construction is responsible for about $120 billion in economic activity, or seven per cent of overall GDP in Canada.
Construction work in Canada will continue to be a large economic contributor for years to come and it is essential that all governments support the efforts of the industry and efforts to attract skilled workers and provide workers with the training and support they need.
As we heard earlier, the Liberal government announced $180 billion in spending on infrastructure several years ago. Unfortunately, I hear from many contractors in my constituency and province that they are not seeing the money. The statistic we heard earlier was that only six per cent of that $180 billion has been let and is actually working on real projects. That is very concerning.
I want to talk about my own experience in the construction industry. I am involved in the heavy construction aggregate industry, so I have a firsthand knowledge. I am a member of the Manitoba Heavy Construction Association and I spent time working on the aggregates committee, as my company is involved in that type of work.
It is very difficult to attract skilled workers such as apprentice heavy duty mechanics or welders, and there are lots of different reasons for that. It is difficult to attract drivers. The transportation industry in Canada is robust. Some of the largest transporters internationally and across Canada are located in my riding, so there is a heavy draw on class 1 vehicle motor operators. They also contribute to the construction industry by driving gravel trucks and heavy equipment haulers.
There is also a serious lack of heavy equipment operators in the construction industry that contributes to the overall shortage of workers. One of the aspects that is missing is training for heavy equipment operators. Training is not very accessible. We do not have a program for it in any of our colleges or universities, and oftentimes it is the job creator who does on-the-job training for heavy equipment operators. This is a direct cost to contractors and employers and something that governments need to look at.
The scope of the motion has been narrowed by definition in the motion to the GTA and Hamilton areas. Several speakers, including speakers from within the Liberal Party, have indicated that it is a very narrow scope and that there would be good reason and merit to expand the scope of the study to include the construction industry right across Canada. The member who presented the motion should entertain expanding the scope of the study, because the issue is not just problematic in the GTA and Hamilton areas.
In fact, the Business Development Bank of Canada says that 40% of Canadian entrepreneurs are already having difficulty finding the workers they need. I have some statistics from the BDC. In Ontario it is 40%. The member obviously is very aware of that. The scarcity of workers in British Columbia is also at 45%, and in the Atlantic region it is 50%. Quebec is at 37% and in the Prairies we do a little better at 32%, but there is a significant need for workers in the construction industry. I would encourage the member who presented the motion to be open to expanding the scope of this study to include all sectors right across Canada.
How do labour shortages affect construction? Contractors are sometimes faced with the problem of not knowing if they will have adequate labour resources to complete a project, so they have to bid on projects accordingly. When they do that, the price of a project goes up and we see construction prices rise as entrepreneurs and contractors have to anticipate that they may not be able to complete a project on time because of construction labour shortages. That is something we need to look at as well.
Another thing that was mentioned earlier is that our trade sectors and Red Seal programs need to be given proper attention. That is why, when the previous Conservative government rolled out programs that supported the Red Seal training program, it was very well received. It encouraged people to consider enrolling in colleges, even universities, that would train them in the trades, with the ability to get licensed and their Red Seal certification. The Conservative government supported that financially for employers and employees to pursue that avenue.
If schools, high schools and parents would encourage children that there are very viable, honourable careers in the construction industry, I think more young people would explore the idea of participating in the trades. A lot of folks absolutely love working in the trades and if they received that encouragement in schools and at home, I think we would see a significant increase in young kids enrolling in trades programs. That is something that I hope this study will also conclude: that we need to get youth interested in the trades.
Working in trades is a very good occupational option for a lot of people. I know a lot of people in the mechanical side of the heavy construction industry, whether it is automotive or heavy industrial mechanics, making well into six figures, and there is nothing shabby about a six-figure job these days. That is something most people do not realize is available and attainable in the trade and construction industries.
There are a lot of challenges in the construction industry, but one challenge I want to allude to is seasonal work. As we know, we live north of the 49th parallel and we have winter. Winter has hit Calgary with record snowfalls already this year. My wife sent me a text this morning showing that there is snow in southern Manitoba today. The construction industry is seasonal. We need to recognize that. That creates specific challenges not only for getting the work done but also employing people in the construction industry. We have to have programs and backstops that accommodate the fluctuation in the construction industry so that people do not only have work for six months of the year and then have to look for other types of employment to support their families.
We have to make sure there are backstops in place that support workers in the seasonal construction industry. There are some trades, of course, and some construction that carries on year-round, but not all construction. We need to be sensitive to that and I am hoping that the study will recognize that and offer up some solutions.
Another sector I would like to talk about, which is not directly related to the construction industry, is the aviation industry. I happen to be a pilot, so I have some interest in that. The aviation industry employs 154,000 people and right now Canada is facing a shortage of 3,000 pilots. We heard recently in the House that our military is short 450 pilots. Therefore, we are experiencing labour shortages not only in the construction industry but in many different sectors.
I know this study focuses specifically on the Canadian construction industry in the GTA and Hamilton areas. I hope that study will be expanded. I am looking forward to the outcome of the study and supporting the motion.
Before I resume debate, I will inform the next speaker that I will, unfortunately, have to interrupt him.
The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands has two minutes for now.
Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for Mississauga East—Cooksville for bringing forward this extremely important motion. I also want to congratulate him for bringing it to the House rather than straight to committee, as has been suggested by one of the NDP members.
The reason I say that is because when a motion comes before the House and gets the authority and sanctioning of the House to then proceed to committee, it has the full weight of the House behind it and it signifies to the committee that this is an important subject matter for the committee to undertake, given that the House has endorsed it.
Getting to the member's motion specifically, this is the exact kind of motion we need at this time when it comes to the trades. We have heard the statistics about shortage in trades, obviously in the GTA but throughout Canada. In fact, throughout North America and parts of the G7 countries are experiencing these shortages.
Mike Rowe is an American TV personality who used to have a show called Dirty Jobs. It was about visiting various job sites and trying to highlight what it was like to have a job in the trades.
Unfortunately, a lot of the stereotypes that come about as a result of having a job in the trades, as not being quite on par with other jobs, have developed over time and have brought us to where we are. I think back to my grandparents who came here from both Italy and Holland.
ADJOURNMENT PROCEEDINGS
[Adjournment Proceedings]
[English]
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship
Madam Speaker, I have been advocating for the government to put in place a plan to deal with the influx of people making asylum claims in Canada since January 2017.
For a plan to be effective, we must recognize the global context. We must ensure that our border communities are supported and are safe. We must ensure that the integrity of our asylum system is upheld and that our policies and actions respect the international obligations and the rights and human dignity of asylum claimants.
Nearly two years and later there still is no plan. Instead, the government continues an ad hoc approach. We now have four ministers on the file and we cannot even get an accurate answer on the public record on the state of things. All too often, the Liberal government will say one thing and then turn around and contradict those words with its actions.
Last week was Gender Equality Week. The so-called feminist Prime Minister loves that label, but how can he claim it while remaining silent as the Trump administration engages in a policy that blocks asylum claims based on gender-based violence?
Just to be clear, there are 65.8 million people who are forcefully displaced globally, 25 million of them are recognized by the UN as refugees and 75% of those refugees are women and children.
We all recall how the Trump administration and immigration policy ripped children away from their parents and threw them into baby jails. That resulted in 860 children in the U.S. border patrol holding cells for longer than the 72-hours court-mandated limit. One of those children was held in confinement for 25 days.
Shockingly, three months after the court ordered the children to be reunited with their parents, 100 of those children are still in federal custody. Oh my God, the number of children whose parents have been deported, who the U.S. government has no way of finding, is 26. I cannot even imagine what that is like.
This information should be so upsetting for all of us. It should send shockwaves down the spine of a civilized nation. This should be a wake-up call for those who still want to insist that the U.S. is a safe third country.
The truth is that the Prime Minister's lack of courage in challenging Trump on this gross and blatant violation of international laws and covenants makes us complicit.
A week ago, the Minister of Border Security would not rule out the option of applying the safe third country agreement to the entire Canadian border, as proposed by the Conservatives, effectively suggesting that our borders should be shut down to asylum seekers. Never mind that it would be a violation of international laws, but as if taking a page out of Trump's approach would somehow be good for Canada. This kind of approach by the government has only provided space for divisive anti-immigrant and anti-refugee rhetoric to gain a foothold in Canada.
The lack of leadership has allowed space for the Conservatives to mislead and misinform the public on a near-daily basis. It has provided space for anti-immigration measures to find their way into the election platforms of the provinces. Let us look what happened in Ontario, and now the most recent election in Quebec. Surely the government realizes that its approach is not working.
The government should honour Canada's well-earned reputation by showing real leadership and courage. It should exercise Canada's authority by invoking section 10 of the safe third country agreement and suspend it now.
Madam Speaker, I want to assure my colleague across the way that as the Minister of Border Security works with his colleagues in the U.S. to modernize the safe third country agreement and as our government works to properly triage and provide refuge to irregular migrants in accordance with Canadian law in our international obligations, I am happy to stand and remind the member opposite of the humanitarian leadership, the action taken and the results delivered by this government over the last number of years.
To begin, I would remind her of the national effort that led to the welcoming and resettlement of over 50,000 Syrians in less than two years.
[Translation]
Thanks to the generosity of Canadians across the country, we were able to give these refugees hope and a fresh start. The quick and efficient resettlement of Syrian refugees by Canada was praised around the world.
[English]
As well, I would remind the House and Canadians that our government has provided assistance to survivors of Daesh and their family members, including vulnerable Yazidi women and children.
[Translation]
Since December 31, 2017, Canada has issued just over 1,200 visas to survivors of Daesh sponsored by the government. We worked closely with several international organizations to ensure their safe travel and to help them resettle in Canada.
[English]
Canada has earned a reputation as a recognized international leader as well in settlement and integration. Newcomers to Canada receive the information that they need about life in Canada as well as the communities in which they intend to settle. They receive language training. They receive help finding a job. They connect with established immigrants and Canadians to help survey the community, get around and become comfortable.
Once they are here, immigrants and refugees have access to a full suite of settlement supports and services provided by over 500 specialized service provider organizations from coast to coast to coast in all regions of Canada.
Our government is also making significant new investments in our settlement programming, and we have enhanced coordination with our provincial and territorial counterparts to ensure stronger outcomes, particularly for refugees.
When it comes to planning resettlement, under our multi-year immigration levels plan, government-assisted refugees landing in Canada will increase from 7,500 in 2018 to 10,000 government-assisted refugees in 2020. That is an increase of over 33%. Our plan to resettle 18,000 privately-sponsored refugees in 2018 is more than triple what was in place when we took power in 2018. Also, under this government, Canada's 2018 target to resettle refugees has doubled to 20,000 refugees across all streams.
Finally, in budget 2018, our government announced a new commitment to welcome and resettle an additional 1,000 vulnerable women and girls, who we know will be welcomed with open arms in Canada. This additional 1,000 refugees are in addition to the government-assisted refugee targets in our multi-year immigration levels plan, and are accompanied by the appropriate budget allocations to ensure its success.
I conclude by saying we continue to show leadership on the international stage in our humanitarian efforts.
Madam Speaker, we have heard from many experts that the situation before us is not a crisis, yet the Liberal government has managed to turn it into a leadership crisis.
We heard yesterday at committee, and the parliamentary secretary was sitting right there, that it is the safe third country agreement and no other factor causing these irregular crossings. If people had access to a safe, orderly means of entering into Canada to make an asylum claim, they would do so.
The government should stop putting asylum seekers at risk, stop forcing them to cross over irregularly, and put order back at the border crossings by suspending the safe third country agreement. It should adequately resource the Immigration and Refugee Board, so it can do its job and expeditiously process asylum claims.
Finally, it should learn from the Syrian refugee initiative and acknowledge that refugees left in limbo for four months in a hotel is not a plan.
Madam Speaker, I am glad my colleague mentioned the testimony delivered yesterday at committee, because every single witness at that committee stressed that it was in fact not a crisis that we are seeing in Canada right now. We are undertaking a significant study on migration trends in the 21st century, and our colleague across the way knows there are many contributing factors that lead to asylum seekers showing up irregularly in Canada.
I want to reiterate that the record of humanitarian leadership under this government, is a record that I know Canadians are proud of and that the world has lauded Canada for.
There have been 56,000 Syrian refugees welcomed to Canada, and 1,400 survivors of the brutality of Daesh, many of whom are Yazidi women and girls. We have an additional commitment to resettle 1,000 vulnerable women and girls. There has been a doubling of our refugee levels to 27,000 in 2018. There has been a tripling of the privately sponsored refugee stream to match the generosity of Canadians.
We are proud of that record, and I believe Canadians are as well.
[Translation]
Madam Speaker, I asked the Prime Minister a question about the services provided to francophone women. I appreciate that he recognized that it is an especially troubling situation that needs to be addressed. However, even though he said he would try to take action, he did not say anything about what he would do. This situation requires immediate action. These women veterans served their country with honour. Not only is it more difficult for them than their male counterparts to access services, which is completely unacceptable in an egalitarian society, but it is even more difficult for francophone women to access these services. They are discriminated against on two grounds: gender and language.
Since the Liberals did not specify how they would go about addressing this situation quickly and effectively, I rise today to ask them what they are going to do. Women veterans are used to the military method, which has a specific objective and very detailed plans. They know exactly what they will be doing. They deserve a much more comprehensive answer than being told that the government will do what it can to solve the problem.
The services in question may be related to problems that are very difficult to explain. There is a danger in telling women veterans, especially francophone ones, that they can have faster access to services if they agree to be served in English. Some women may agree because the situation is urgent, but they are not able to express themselves as clearly in a second language, or else they do not understand all of the nuances of what they are being asked. This means that they could miss out on services or benefits to which they are entitled.
A number of cases of sexual assault and harassment have come to light in recent years. Many women veterans have been victims, and this often has huge consequences on their careers, their mental health and their personal lives. We absolutely cannot ask them to wait longer than men to talk about it and to access services related to events in their military career. It is very worrisome if the military is unable to provide these women with services in their first language or is telling them to agree to receiving services in another language so they will not wait so long.
Considering the seriousness of the health problems that may affect these veterans, particularly in terms of mental health issues, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, the government must do more than simply say it will look into the issue. It must give a detailed explanation of what it will do right now to fix the situation as quickly as possible.
How will this be done and how much time will it take? These women veterans deserve a clear, detailed answer.
Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for drawing the attention of the House to this question as well as that of the Prime Minister, who first provided her with a response. I also want to take this opportunity to thank the hon. member for her service in the Canadian Armed Forces.
We know that some female members of the Canadian Armed Forces who are released for medical reasons encounter delays in receiving the benefits to which they are entitled. There are men who also have to wait, as well. We agree with the ombudsman and the hon. member that the time it takes for veterans to receive their benefits is a problem that needs to be resolved. That is why we have hired nearly 470 new frontline officers to address this problem.
Is that perfect? No, we must continue to do more. We have to do better with our frontline officers, but we must also improve the delivery of services in French in the department. As a francophone, I will be a great advocate for this file to ensure that francophone men and women are properly served in French. The Canadian Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Canada are making significant progress in this regard, but there is still a lot of work to do.
[English]
Over the last three years, there has been a 32% increase in applications for disability benefits. This is a good thing. It means that more people are aware of the benefits available to them and are coming forward for the help they need.
We have invested more than $10 billion in new benefits, programs and services, including the new caregiver recognition benefit, the education and training benefit and the veterans emergency fund. These benefits will ensure that female veterans, and all veterans, receive the services they need to support their overall well-being and that of their families.
[Translation]
This is not just about processing a backlog of applications. To meet the increased demand, we have improved the services provided by our officers and reduced each officer's caseload. What I can say is that we want to further improve our services.
We have invested an additional $42.8 million as of this fiscal year to enhance capacity at Veterans Affairs Canada.
I think that answers the member's question about how we are going to address this problem.
[English]
Veterans Affairs and the Canadian Armed Forces have made significant progress in streamlining the process. They are working hard to modify the system and processes to gain efficiencies and to ensure that individuals coming forward receive the benefits and services they need.
[Translation]
The two departments have also developed a seamless transition plan that enables staff at Veterans Affairs Canada to tackle potential obstacles before military personnel are released from the Canadian Armed Forces.
[English]
Veterans Affairs has been triaging disability benefit claims so that veterans who are applying for mental health support get their applications adjudicated on a priority basis to make sure that they get access to treatment as quickly as possible. Applications are also expedited for those veterans and family members at medical risk, in financial distress or with unmet health needs.
[Translation]
No veteran should have to wait for the support and benefits they are entitled to. A two-tier program would be unacceptable. Our government—
Madam Speaker, I would like to tell my colleague that I agree that veterans should not have to wait to have access to services.
However, the specific questions that I have for him are these. What has been found to account for the fact that some veterans do not get services at the same time as others because of their gender? What has been found to account for the fact that francophones do not get services as quickly as others?
I want to know what specific measures the government is going to take to ensure that gender- and language-based discrimination are completely eliminated from our veteran support system.
Madam Speaker, as we said earlier, it is simple. The answer was clear. We have work to do.
We inherited a system that was lacking. We are in the process of improving the system that was in place and we are providing proper services. We hired an additional 470 people. We invested $10 billion in various programs. We are taking back control. As I said in my first answer, we must improve the delivery of all services to veterans in French.
[English]
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise on a question I had earlier this year on May 7. The question was about NAFTA and where we were at at that time. Of course there was a lot of information coming out of the United States at that time and Canadians were very worried about what type of deal we would reach. Now we know that Canada has signed on to the USMCA, a new name for the agreement, and many concessions were made by Canadians.
I will start with a positive. The auto provisions are good, and this is indicative of having people in the room who understood auto. The stakeholders who were in that room understood the impact of what was being negotiated there.
In very stark contrast, none of that happened in the CPTPP, which the Liberals are trying to ram through right now with the help of the Conservatives.
On the one hand, we had stakeholders in a room and we were able to achieve something. On the other hand, with another deal, there were no stakeholders, there was no consultation, no communication and we have given it up. While there is a positive in the USMCA, it is merely being cancelled out by what is happening to auto in the CPTPP. We cannot on one hand champion a sector and then on the exact same day turn around and sell that sector out in another trade agreement. It is bizarre what we have experienced in the House this week.
I want to talk about chapter 11 being removed. I want to thank New Democrats who have stood in the House. I want to thank labour and civil society that have fought to have this provision removed across the country. I congratulate all of them on this success. For years and years they mounted campaigns to have chapter 11 removed. It is a huge victory for them.
Again, in this confusing Liberal trade policy, we listened today to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Foreign Affairs talking about how ISDS has been bad for Canada. I am pleased they have woken up to that fact, something they used to talk about when they were in opposition but forgot about when they became government. Under them, in CETA, we have created a brand new investor court system that they said was the gold standard of trade agreements. Now, in the CPTPP we are signing on to ISDS provisions again, on the very same day in the House. This is the conundrum of Liberal trade policy. On the one hand it is bad in one trade deal, but on the other, it is good in this trade deal. Canadians are baffled in trying to make sense of what the Liberal government is doing in terms of trade and on that file.
We also know that dairy has been sacrificed again. This is death by a thousand cuts. What we are talking about are losses that happened in CETA and CPTPP where the Liberals and Conservatives have joined to push through with dairy concessions. Under the Conservatives, at least there was some type of compensation that existed. That has completely evaporated under the Liberal government.
I want to read a tweet from the Dairy Farmers of Canada yesterday about compensation. This was directed to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. It said, “Compensations: Stop suggesting our livelihood can be bought”.
There is no amount of money that will bring a family farm back when it has been lost, and there is no amount of safety that is more important than our food safety in our country, and we are giving that up in this agreement.
We also know about the IP provisions. There is an increase to the cost of pharmaceuticals for Canadians, so my question is—
Madam Speaker, when the member rose in the House in May, she raised the issue of uncertainty among Canadian businesses and individuals due to the NAFTA negotiations that were ongoing at that time. She need not worry anymore, and I hope she will join me in celebrating the announcement that took place at the beginning of this week that we have a new United States-Mexico-Canada agreement.
The conclusion of this deal will bring certainty and stability that contribute to the continued prosperity of our economy. Not only that, this deal is going to make Canadians' lives better, and it will be profoundly beneficial for our economy, for Canadian families and for the middle class.
The rules of origins for autos are revised to require higher levels of North American content, which will incentivize production and sourcing in North America, plus, we have a new labour value content provision that requires a certain amount of the making of cars to be done by high-paid workers. This is a tangible and real boon to our auto workers and will ensure that Canadian auto production is secure for years to come.
I am glad to hear my colleague across the way laud the provisions that secure good labour standards and good economic opportunities in the auto sector in Canada.
We have also secured an exemption from any future use of Section 232 measures. First, if Section 232 measures are to be implemented against any sector, we will now have 60 days to negotiate a better outcome for Canadians. Second, if there are Section 232 tariffs on autos, we have an exemption for up to 2.6 million vehicles, not including light trucks. For auto parts, that exemption is worth $32.4 billion U.S. These are levels that far exceed current Canadian exports, and they mean security and stability for our auto workers.
It has been especially gratifying to hear from auto workers about this deal and what it means to them. For example, a CBC article from yesterday quoted Lino LoMedico, a team leader at the Chrysler assembly plant in Windsor, saying that Monday “was a new day” for workers.
As we know, the steel and aluminum tariffs from the U.S. remain in place, but our response on that issue is as firm as ever. Our strong dollar-for-dollar retaliation measures against the U.S. remain in force. We put them in place because we have to stand up for our workers and we have to defend our economy. Actions that threaten our prosperity cannot, and under this government will not, go unmet.
We are providing help and support to businesses and workers affected by tariffs, including by making up to $2 billion available to defend and protect their interests.
As our negotiation of the USMCA shows, our government is there for Canadians. We know that their jobs, their retirement savings, their investments and their well-being depend on their government fighting for their interests, and that is exactly what we have done.
Madam Speaker, the middle class in Canada is steel and aluminum workers, and steel and aluminum workers have called this deal a sellout because of the complete and utter failure of the government, in signing this deal, to remove the steel and aluminum tariffs.
I want to read a quote from Ken Neumann, who is the Canadian director of United Steelworkers here in Canada. We are talking about the livelihood of tens of thousands of people, so I want to read one line.
The Liberals made concession after concession, until the Trump administration got the deal it wanted.... So much for the “win-win-win” deal promised by the government.
These workers have been betrayed by the Liberal government.
Madam Speaker, we can be most proud of the work done by our negotiators to secure this United States-Mexico-Canada agreement. It is a deal that is good for Canada's economy. It is good for Canadian workers and Canadian families, and it is good for Canada's middle class.
Many Canadians agree with that sentiment. For example, Jerry Dias, from Unifor, said that he is “pleased...with what we were able to accomplish at the bargaining table”, adding that “the auto industry in Canada is alive and well and will be thriving for generations to come” because of this new agreement. As we have said all along to our workers, this government has their backs.
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