Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Davenport for splitting her time with me. I am rising at this hour, grateful for the chance to address Bill C-40, but I am very much wanting to share with other members in this place that, as we are speaking here, there is a group of very dedicated peace activists making their way to Ottawa. They call themselves the peace train. I joined them on Friday in Vancouver and rode with them as far as I could before having to get off the train to make sure I got an airplane back to Ottawa in time for today’s debate, but it is telling and important that people across Canada are increasingly being drawn to the peace movement. They recognize that our country is going through a transformation from being a country celebrated around the world for historic work for peace. Of course, former prime minister Lester B. Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize for creating peacekeepers within the United Nations. He did so when resolving the Suez crisis, which at the time cost the lives of Commonwealth soldiers, some of whom are still buried in Gaza. We cannot reach their graves, of course, because of the ongoing genocide, but we gathered on that peace train. Their slogan is, “Train is a verb”, and they are calling for the re-establishment of the Lester B. Pearson peacekeeping centre for training. We are now falling behind allies around the world in our failure to keep up with the numbers and support for peacekeepers. I learned the other day that we have cut funding for the removal of landmines. One of our more recent signature accomplishments under the former minister for foreign affairs, the Hon. Lloyd Axworthy, was the Ottawa process that led to the treaty to ban landmines. We are MIA on the treaty for the prohibition of nuclear weapons. We do not even send observer delegations to the UN meetings, although some of us as parliamentarians do attend with global parliamentarians for the prohibition of nuclear war. As such, it is worth noting this with great sadness. I should mention we were greeted at the Edmonton train station by one of my heroes, the former member of parliament for Edmonton Strathcona. He served as a Progressive Conservative in that capacity, and then he was a senator in the Canadian Senate and the ambassador to the United Nations from Canada on nuclear disarmament, a position that no longer exists, which is telling all on its own. The hon. Doug Roche met us and encouraged us. He said to please take the message forward that Canada needs to be active in nuclear disarmament. We are not. Right now and in this debate, there is no doubt. On behalf of the Green Party, I need to say that we support making sure that we address the gaps in adequate support to our military, the brave, very dedicated and self-sacrificing young men and women who choose to join the Canadian Armed Forces. Of course, very heavy on our hearts right now is the tragic loss in CFB Wainwright from the wildfire of last weekend, but it is worth noting that there is a transformation happening in Canadian society writ large, where, in referring to military spending, we no longer refer to it as something we need to do in our own defence, but as a growth sector for our economy. It was not that long ago that former president Eisenhower warned the United States of the perils of relying on a military-industrial complex, but we are building one here. Our arms exports have gone up dramatically. We did not used to be an arms-trading country. Project Ploughshares tracked it and just reported last year that there was an all-time high of billions of dollars coming into Canada from our sale of military equipment and military arms, yet sometimes we dress this up as though we are supporting a Canadian defence sector. I noted just before the last speech, and the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith made note of the fact, that nothing in Bill C-40 says that where we spend money on defence has to benefit the Canadian economy, especially when we move more and more to arm’s length. That spending could be supporting U.S. corporations, or whatever, around the world where armaments are made or jet fighters are built. We want to be spending money on those and will be doing so increasingly at arm’s length from political accountability. Of the newly announced spending since last year’s budget from the government, fully 70% of new spending is going to the military. I will also highlight this announcement: The Prime Minister announced that a subsidy of $2 billion in federal public funds, described as building Canadian jobs and supporting Canadian industry, will be going to General Dynamics’ operations in London, Ontario, to build armoured personnel vehicles. Of course, General Dynamics in London, Ontario, is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Dynamics in the United States, so there is nothing there about where we are putting our funding and building in preparation for our own defence, which Canadians certainly support. There is a lot of concern over our defence in the Arctic, a vast region where we are inadequately prepared for conflict. We are very concerned as Greens about making sure that the Canadian navy has the resources it needs. We are an ocean nation with three oceans, and we are not even prepared for the kind of marine surveillance we need against illegal fishing. There are a lot of ways in which we need to see defence spending lifted. Bill C-40 fits into a pattern that I am seeing from the new government, and I want to spend some time speaking of the pattern that extends beyond military spending. Of course, as we know, the Defence Investment Agency was created on October 2 of last year as a special operating agency. Other members have mentioned what has gotten done since the creation of this special operating agency, and now we would be moving it to a Crown corporation. It is important to note that while the CBC website says that the Canadian corporation for defence investment “will report to a newly created associate minister of defence”, the bill does not say that. It says that the Governor in Council “may” create a position for an associate minister of defence. When it refers to the responsible minister, it does not say the responsible minister is the Minister of National Defence. It says that at some point in the future, cabinet would decide who the responsible minister for this bill should be. Meanwhile, decisions would be made increasingly by a Crown corporation that operates at arm’s length from the government. We know that when we have debates in this place, people ask things like whether the government will commit to restoring a line for VIA Rail, for example, which is a debate I remember from within the last day or so. The response from Liberal members is that they cannot interfere with a Crown corporation. They cannot tell it that it must restore a stop because it is a Crown corporation and is separate. This bill would indeed create a Crown corporation. The Defence Investment Agency would be a Crown corporation and would remove a level of direct accountability in a line of authority to the minister. The other thing that happens is that sometimes my Conservative colleagues refer to this as the growth of bureaucracy, but I question that, because the people working in these Crown corporations do not necessarily work as civil servants within the Government of Canada. They can be hired from the private sector or wherever they come from. I am drawn to a comparison, and this may seem far afield. There is a corporation called Epiq. The Government of Canada, through Health Canada, has given Epiq the contract to manage the class-action funds available for the thalidomiders, the people in Canada who have had a lifetime of experience as survivors of thalidomide. They do not like the term “victims”. Epiq, a foreign for-profit corporation, is making $1 million a year in often refusing basic justice to thalidomiders. That is just a small piece of a growing pattern of passing things out of government over to third party private sector consultants. I question if Bill C-40 will deliver results for our defence contractors, our military and our men and women in uniform, or if it will be just another shadowy government operation that we cannot track.
