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Results: 1 - 15 of 164
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
2011-03-21 14:03 [p.9007]
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to wish all Canadians who are celebrating Nowruz all the best in the year ahead.
The passing of the vernal equinox is a sign of rebirth and awakening of nature, a moment of renewal that celebrates life. As we celebrate this time, we are given the opportunity to reflect and give thanks for past blessings and look forward to the hard work that we as members of Parliament will continue to do to help build a society that is inclusive of all its members.
At this time of renewal, I wish everyone a year filled with happiness and success. As members of Parliament, we should do everything we can to ensure that this new year provides opportunities for everyone.
I ask my colleagues in the House to join me in wishing everyone health, happiness and success for the new year.
[Member spoke in Farsi]
[English]
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
2011-03-10 14:46 [p.8909]
Mr. Speaker, nine Conservative members shared close to $200,000 stolen from taxpayers.
This was a fraud that was created, planned, monitored and then hidden by top Conservative Party officials.
They often talk about the rights of the victims of Earl Jones.
When will these nine members give back the money stolen by the Conservative Party from their victims, the taxpayers?
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
2011-03-10 14:47 [p.8909]
Mr. Speaker, they broke the law. They falsified invoices. They committed fraud. Four senior Conservatives are now facing the possibility of jail. This was not a few renegade criminals. This fraud was created, it was conducted, it was controlled by the Conservative Party. This was a planned Conservative Party fraud and it was a fraud against Canadian taxpayers.
When will they pay the--
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
2011-03-07 14:42 [p.8718]
Mr. Speaker, it is clear that the Minister of Citizenship does not understand the seriousness of the matter or, worse, he does understand, but he just does not care about his responsibilities as minister. He is using his office and his position as minister to get votes from people in ethnic or very ethnic communities.
Is the minister not ashamed to use and manipulate new Canadians in that way?
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
2011-03-07 14:43 [p.8718]
Mr. Speaker, it is his position as minister. The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration decides on quotas for new Canadians. He decides on who gets to come to Canada. He gets to decide on who stays here. He gets to decide on which families get to be reunified.
However, it is also the minister who is using his office, his position, his connections and his detailed government information to work for votes from ethnic and very ethnic communities.
How can the Prime Minister condone this abuse of power and influence and this conflict of interest?
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
2011-03-04 11:07 [p.8667]
Mr. Speaker, last week, with my former and, let me stress, future Brant MP, Lloyd St. Amand, I toured a dozen-plus abandoned or scaled-back businesses in Brantford. These closures represent hundreds of lost jobs. It was sad.
However, one person said, “Not so. We've taken over one of those plants, so it is a wonderful story”.
I congratulate Brant Screen Craft for the expansion of its company, for making use of the emptied Crane facility, and for creating jobs. That part of the story is indeed excellent.
the purpose of the tour, however, was to highlight the still far greater preponderance of losses. Being able to use the Crane facility is good but the fact that Crane had to close and all those jobs were lost is, I repeat, sad.
I have asked the folks at Brant Screen Craft to give credit where it is due. They said that their corporate tax cuts were responsible for their decision to expand and it was in fact the Liberal government that drastically reduced corporate taxes from 29% to 19%. I am glad that our years of Liberal work in making that competitive helped Brant Screen Craft.
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
2011-03-04 11:33 [p.8672]
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has now ordered that all federal departments, boards, agencies and commissions no longer use the phrase “Government of Canada”.
We are not just talking about press releases, but all sorts of documentation. Apparently the word “Canada” is too offensive to the Conservatives and they now think that the government does not belong to Canada but is somehow the Prime Minister's alone.
With the “H” word now to be used at all times instead of “Canada”, what is next? The Prime Minister's face on the $5 bill? It is blue after all.
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
2011-03-04 11:34 [p.8672]
Mr. Speaker, the Treasury Board guidelines were actually changed since then.
I would ask, what rule is the Prime Minister not willing to break? Replacing “Government of Canada” with the Prime Minister's own name, suggesting it is his own personal fiefdom, violates Treasury Board communications policy, federal identity program policy, the Conflict of Interest Act and the conflict of interest code for members of Parliament.
We have heard more examples of rules being broken today alone. This is more rule-breaking—
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
2011-02-11 11:20 [p.8061]
Mr. Speaker, Canadians are facing stark choices. It is the government's deep deficits and increasing debt that are forcing those choices.
We care about families. The Conservatives prefer fighter jets.
We prefer to be tough on the causes of crime. The Conservatives prefer to spend billions on U.S.-style megaprisons.
We prefer to see Canadians retire with dignity. The Conservatives prefer to give billions to a mere 5%, the wealthiest, the biggest companies.
What do the Conservatives not get about what Canadian families really need?
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
2011-02-11 11:21 [p.8062]
Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are breaking the law to protect their own law and order agenda. What irony.
They have seen the facts. They have seen the projections for their crime legislation, but they will not let anyone else see them, even though the law says they should. The same thing for corporate tax projections.
Excuse us if we have gone a little past accepting, “Just trust us”.
Why do the Conservatives not just come clean and admit that they cannot afford their own reckless agenda?
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
2011-02-09 15:32 [p.7945]
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition on behalf of a large number of residents of Willowdale urging the Minister of Foreign Affairs to intervene on behalf of Canadian permanent resident Saeed Malekpour, a resident of Richmond Hill who is under a death sentence in Iran, and that the government appeal to the government of Iran to provide a fair judicial process.
Many Iranian Canadians in Willowdale and across Canada worry deeply about the safety and rights of friends and loved ones still in Iran.
I am proud to present the petition and to express our collective concerns on their behalf and on behalf of all Canadians worried about human rights and justice in Iran.
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
2011-02-03 10:40 [p.7654]
Mr. Speaker, is my colleague aware of whether the government at any point in time in these negotiations with the United States even bothered to ask for reciprocity? Not to say that I necessarily agree with that or would even agree with the deal if there were reciprocity, but I find it rather extraordinary that the government would bend over backward and offer something to the United States that I think significantly affects Canadian privacy and would not even ask for the same thing in return.
Again, I stress I am not suggesting that even that would be a good thing, but just in terms of process, I would like to know if the hon. member is aware of any effort in that regard on the part of the government.
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
2011-02-03 11:29 [p.7660]
Mr. Speaker, we find ourselves in a rather difficult position because although we have significant concerns about the privacy of Canadian travellers, the government, through its failure to do anything to protect those interests, has allowed us to get to the point where we have, in effect, become hostage to demands from the United States.
Canadians obviously now are faced with concerns about commerce and the challenges to travel, but where on earth was the government when this issue first came up? This is not the first time, either. The Conservative government seems to be far more interested in placating or pleasing the United States than in even listening to Canadians' concerns.
A number of my colleagues have proposed some significant amendments, which I am very pleased about. My hon. colleague from Eglinton—Lawrence was extraordinarily eloquent in describing the concerns about Canadian privacy. I have a much larger concern, which is how we got here in the first place.
When the Conservative government was first asked to agree to this, it did not even ask for reciprocity. How is the government acting on behalf of Canadians when it will not even ask for fair and equal treatment for Canadians? I find it appalling. This is another example of the government's apparent desire to please the Americans rather than listen to Canadians.
Another example is the fact that the Prime Minister is in the process of negotiating a security perimeter agreement with the United States. He is doing it in the United States. He is doing it with the Americans. He is not speaking with Canadians about this. He is not answering any questions about what this might mean. Once again, it is all in the guise of security.
At some point Canadians are going to have to take a stand and say that using the word “security” and spreading fear that somehow we are under attack at all times is simply not true in Canada. It is wrong to make the people of this country fearful all the time. It is just not right. It is also particularly offensive to me to use the word “security” and fearmongering as a foil to hide the failures of the government to do so much more with the United States.
Although the bill deals with aeronautics and air travel, it is more of the same in what the Conservative government has not done in terms of trade. For example, the security perimeter is being billed as the answer to the thickening of the Canada-U.S. border and that this is something we should agree to, even though we have no idea what is in it as we were not part of the discussions. That is reserved for the Prime Minister and the Americans.
We are being asked to support this. We are going to be asked to support an idea of a North American security perimeter because it will enhance trade and help reduce the thickening of the Canada-U.S. border from a trade perspective.
There has absolutely been a thickening of the border. Liberals do not disagree with that at all. For many Canadian businesses, whether in the agriculture or agrifood sectors, all sorts of other businesses, as well as Canadians travelling back and forth, there has been a significant thickening of the border, which has created lots of problems and, indeed, many jobs lost in this country. To say it is entirely due to security is completely false.
Onerous country of origin labelling rules have absolutely nothing to do with security. Buy American legislation has nothing to do with security. The proposed legislation in the United States to deal with foreign trade representatives is extraordinarily protectionist and has nothing to do with security.
Increased fees to simply get across the border have nothing to do with security. There are all sorts of examples of how the border has been thickened, not because of security, but because of protectionist sentiment in the United States which, thanks to the most recent elections, has only increased.
A number of people think that the Tea Partiers are somehow more Republican in the sense of being more open to free trade. On the contrary, I am afraid a significant number of the Tea Partiers, and a significant number of the new congressmen and women, are more against trade than their predecessors which is of real concern to us here in Canada. The government simply seems to let it go.
We have done very little, we being Canada, and I put the blame squarely on the Conservative government. The government has not been on the ground in Washington. The current ambassador has been doing yeoman's work, but he is one person. We have not been on the ground nearly enough, negotiating and lobbying. Yes, lobbying, because that is how the American government works. We have to be on the ground to protect Canadian interests. We have to be on the ground in Washington. We cannot just respond and at the last minute expect to accomplish something. We have to be on the ground. We have to be working with the Americans. We have to explain why Canadian interests are important to them and how that affects their interests in return.
We have to be working at the state level. It is simply not enough to do a photo op in Washington. We need to have Canadian representatives working on the ground at the state level with the governors, with the congressmen and congresswomen in Washington, but we need to be on the ground doing far, far more.
I will bring that back to the question at issue today. Has anyone been doing that? Has there been any effort in the United States to protect Canadians' interests? Has anyone said that we do not think the United States should have all that information about Canadians, simply because they are flying over the United States, that we have some real concerns about that?
As my colleague described, we worked very hard to establish legislation to protect the privacy of Canadians and we are very proud of that legislation. In one fell swoop we ended up being held hostage in such a way that we have to exempt this particular situation from the protection of privacy of Canadians.
The government seems far too interested in pleasing the Americans, listening to the Americans and adhering to American interests. I have nothing against the Americans, but in this situation we are sacrificing the interests of Canadians in order to please the interests of the United States. That is simply not acceptable.
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
2011-02-03 11:38 [p.7662]
Mr. Speaker, the proof is in the pudding. We would not have a buy America act if we had enough people representing Canadian interests on the ground before it happened. The buy America act and the response, by the way, that only includes 37 of the states, so even then is incomplete, was a reaction after the fact. People were scrambling.
The fact that we have had such difficulty with protectionist sentiment and protectionist legislation in the United States is the problem, and if we have that problem, we know we are not doing enough.
It is not a commentary on the diplomats who are there. The ones who are there are very capable, but we simply do not have nearly enough resources or the will on the part of the government to do it.
Second, in terms of the Liberal government, I would assure the hon. member that if, in a Liberal government, we had been asked to sacrifice the privacy of Canadians in this way in terms of control over airspace, the Americans have control over airspace, just as we have control over our airspace. This goes further and we are now being held hostage. If a Liberal government had been asked to do this, we would have asked how we could work this out so we did not accede to this and sacrifice the privacy of Canadians.
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Martha Hall Findlay Profile
2011-02-03 11:40 [p.7662]
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question and the effort of my hon. colleague in dealing with this issue.
I will not speak for the critic in that regard. My preference in this now, because we have reached a stage given the concerns about commerce and air traffic, where we are being held hostage. We have arrived at this point too late.
Having said that, my hope is that over the next little while, and hopefully after a change of government whenever that might happen, there will be a much greater effort to work out a solution with the United States to address these concerns in a much more effective way.
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