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CANADA House of Commons Debates VOLUME 141 Ï NUMBER 114 Ï 1st SESSION Ï 39th PARLIAMENT OFFICIAL REPORT (HANSARD) Tuesday, February 20, 2007 Speaker: The Honourable Peter Milliken CONTENTS (Table of Contents appears at back of this issue.) Also available on the Parliament of Canada Web Site at the following address: http://www.parl.gc.ca 7029 HOUSE OF COMMONS Tuesday, February 20, 2007 The House met at 10 a.m. GOVERNMENT ORDERS [English] Prayers BUSINESS OF SUPPLY OPPOSITION MOTION—NATIONAL ANTI-POVERTY STRATEGY ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS Mr. Tony Martin (Sault Ste. Marie, NDP) moved: Ï (1005) That, in the opinion of the House, there is a growing prosperity gap in Canada that is making it harder for working and middle-class families to make ends meet and sees [English] more and more Canadians, including women, children, seniors, aboriginal people and people with disabilities, slipping into poverty and therefore calls on the government, CRIMINAL CODE in cooperation with the provinces and territories, to implement a national anti-poverty Mr. Peter Julian (Burnaby—New Westminster, NDP) moved strategy beginning with the reinstatement of the federal minimum wage to be initially set at $10 per hour. for leave to introduce Bill C-406, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (victim restitution). He said: Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to stand in the House today He said: Mr. Speaker, the NDP has a very comprehensive crime to move our party's motion that calls for a national anti-poverty fighting strategy. We believe the most effective crime fighting strategy beginning with the reinstatement of the $10 minimum wage. strategy is to ensure the crimes are not committed in the first place. I will be sharing my time with the member for Parkdale—High One of the components that we have talked about as well is Park. ensuring victims are adequately compensated. My bill, an act to amend the Criminal Code for victim restitution, would change the Over the course of today, my party will lay out what we see as the word “may” to “shall” in subsection 738.1 of the Criminal Code. In elements of a national anti-poverty plan. other words, this would direct judges, as opposed to allowing them leeway, to order that offenders make restitution to victims of their Before I got into politics in 1990, I was a soup kitchen director. I crimes. got into politics to fight poverty and, 17 years later, I am still fighting. I wish I could say the fight was over. By ensuring that direction is provided to judges, rather than leaving it as an option, would help to fast track compensation for As I travelled across Canada over the past two years, first on a crime victims. We believe this is very important. tour looking at early learning for children and, more recently, talking with people about poverty and the growing prosperity gap, I was We will continue to fight to ensure that crimes are not committed struck by the deep level of compassion and caring that exists. and that resources are available in the community but when there are However, people are increasingly uneasy about the disparity they see victims of crime we believe that restitution should be provided and around them and their own tenuous grip on some security for that is the intention of this private member's bill. themselves and their families. (Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed) They remember a time when community mattered and govern- *** ment could and did make a difference. Canada has a rich tradition and history of gathering together as a community against geography, QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER distance and weather to ensure that no one got left behind or was Mr. Tom Lukiwski (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of forgotten. the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be People are looking for a vision consistent with the Canadian story, allowed to stand. where we wove a safety net of basic income, health care, education, The Speaker: Is that agreed? unemployment insurance and pensions for all, the kind of vision that Canadians still remember. It was no accident that Tommy Douglas Some hon. members: Agreed. was voted the greatest Canadian. 7030 COMMONS DEBATES February 20, 2007 Business of Supply Today there is a competing vision, one vision playing itself out Other stories emerge. In Halifax, I was told of the disproportionate over the last 15 years, rooted in the Margaret Thatcher thesis that number of women facing poverty; women who go hungry to feed there really is no such thing as society, rather a world of individuals their children; the disappearance of good, well paying jobs in the who see money and the market as the driving force behind all human manufacturing sector in the Niagara-Hamilton corridor of Ontario; activity. The result is a growing uneasiness and dissatisfaction. There the overwhelming aboriginal face of truly destitute poverty in is a poverty and inequality that are symptoms of a structural Thunder Bay; the huge increases in health issues for people living in dysfunction affecting more and more of our citizens and newcomers the poorer neighbourhoods of Saskatoon; whole families living in to our land. motel rooms through the winter in the Penticton area of B.C., then disappearing, with children gone from school when the tourists Thomas Walkom wrote recently in the Toronto Star: arrive in the spring. It is thought that they live in the mountains and —the poor are the canaries in the coal mine. The deliberate attempts to campgrounds while picking fruit and working on farms to make a reconfigure Canada over the past 30 years—by gutting social programs, living. I was also told about the more than 50 disabled people living dismantling national institutions and insisting that market forces alone can solve every problem—have affected everyone. But they've hit the poor first and hardest. on the streets of Victoria, and the deteriorating and diseased stock of affordable housing in Toronto and Vancouver. Mr. Walkom goes on to say: We shouldn't care about poverty just to be nice. We should care about poverty because, in the end, this story isn't just about the 11 per cent or 16 per cent of the population...officially designated as low-income. It is about the deliberate erosion of middle-class Canada. It's about us, too. Canada has not had a national affordable housing program in over 15 years and what does exist is being torn down and replaced with Over the past nine months, I have travelled across the country to expensive condos at an alarming rate. communities big and small. I have seen and heard the stories of misery and hurt and the tremendous effort of good people with little resource trying to make a difference. It is what I call a bad news- good news and yet even more bad news story. The bad news is that the statistics flowing from institutions like About 175 people gathered in Castlegar, B.C. and told me of their the National Council of Welfare indicate that poverty is more struggles to get ahead, the roadblocks, the lack of resources and the pervasive and deeper than ever. The good news is that we are hearing cutbacks, in particular to early learning and child care. about it again. For too long, it has been hidden and invisible. National newspapers are writing about poverty. People are willing to come to meetings to talk about it. However, the even more bad news is why we are hearing about Students at Brock University in St. Catharines told me about the poverty again. The number of homeless is estimated to be as high as challenges they face trying to access post-secondary education, the 250,000 and in places that we would never expect. Studies are ever-increasing tuition and ancillary fees and the cost of housing and showing alarmingly high numbers of people working full time all living expenses, while summer work is harder to get and pays only year and yet not earning enough to make ends meet. minimum wage that does not keep pace with inflation. Ï (1010) I have been travelling on an anti-poverty campaign to learn first- hand about its reality in our country. I made a commitment to bring Poverty is debilitating and mind numbing. Poverty can paralyze those stories, hopes and recommendations back to Parliament. and kill the spirit. Combined with thoughtless, harmful public policy, In Calgary and Victoria, two communities where the economy is poverty can rip out our hearts and souls. Poverty can actually kill. booming, there is no affordable housing. Alarming numbers of people are living on the street as shelters, church halls and warehouses prove insufficient. The homeless are in the very shadows of the prosperous oil companies with their tax breaks. I remember the summer of 2001 and the story of Kimberly In Calgary, I visited a shelter that beds down on floormats 1,000 to Rogers. Kimberly lived on social assistance and decided to go to 1,200 of the 3,500-plus homeless living in that city. I watched as two college to better her situation. She was in her third year, soon to city buses took another 100 or so to the suburbs to be bedded down graduate, when she successfully applied for a student loan. What she on mats in warehouses. The rest find refuge where they can, most did not know was that the Mike Harris government in Ontario at that under bridges and in parks, while city hall passes laws making it time had passed legislation to make it illegal, criminal behaviour, to criminal behaviour to do so.

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