- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Timmins—James Bay
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 63%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $134,227.44
- Government Page
- May/24/24 12:55:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is really important that we see that commitment to workers' rights at the federal government level to withdraw their wages and not have to deal with the private security companies, the scab buses coming in and the violence that ends up on the picket lines. I have seen the abuse of workers' rights in the mining communities I represent. When we establish a norm, it will bring both sides back to the table quicker. When mines have not stockpiled a year's worth of nickel and decide they are going to use scab labour and starve their out opponents, that destroys not just the relationship but communities in the long term. People leave and do not put up with it. This is a good way to settle this.
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- May/2/24 12:42:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, New Democrats worked long and hard to make sure that this project for Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia got off the ground, because we need to get serious about the renewable sector.
What worries me is that the rest of the world is moving much faster. Our main competitor is the United States. There is one project in Rhode Island where 250,000 homes will get energy, and the Vineyard project is 400,000 homes. The Europeans are moving, and China is leaving everybody in the dust, and yet the ITCs, the input tax credits promised by the government in 2023, are still not out there. I am talking to people in the industry, the mining industry in particular, who are looking to go stateside.
We cannot build this new economy without kick-starting the ITC credits that are needed. When are they going to come out? We cannot leave our regions behind.
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Madam Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House. I am certainly very proud to rise on Bill C-58, an act to amend the Canada Labour Code and the Canada Industrial Relations Board Regulations, to end the practice in federally regulated workplaces of being able to bring in scab labour. This is something that New Democrats and the labour movement have fought many years for, and we are determined to make this a reality.
At the outset, I want to thank the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay who spoke about the history, because history is important. He mentioned the history of the Rossland miners and the Western Federation of Miners, and the transformation they brought across this country.
I am proud to be from Cobalt where the 17th district of the Western Federation of Miners was formed under Big Jim McGuire. The fact that the fight for the eight-hour day began in the mines of Cobalt on April 28, the international day of mourning for workers killed on the job, relates directly to the Cobalt Miners Union winning the right to workers' compensation in 1914.
My grandfather, Charlie Angus, died at the Hollinger Mine, and my other grandfather, Joe MacNeil, broke his back underground at the McIntyre Mine. Both were members of Mine Mill and then the Steelworkers. When I was growing up, anybody who came from a mining town had a relative who had been injured or killed on the job. However, organized labour fundamentally changed that.
The right of labour to organize, the right of labour to fight for a better future, is the history of our country and of the United States. They talk about the birth of the middle class in the United States as being the 1938 sit-down strike in Flint, Michigan where the auto workers were not going to put up with precarious work—
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- Jun/7/23 7:07:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I did want to weigh in on this. I have no opinion on whether the hon. Conservative is a rat or not. That is not something I want to speak to.
However, I do feel that we are watching tactics by the Conservative leader, who lives in Stornoway. I am very concerned that this is undermining confidence, and it is very important that we have confidence, particularly when my region is burning and people are being evacuated.
I am asking the Speaker to look into this because Canadians expect us to do our jobs and not to interfere and act like we are juveniles. I am asking if the Speaker would agree to look into this—
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- May/15/23 5:03:59 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, we know all about the need for the precautionary principle in mining communities, because we heard about “trust industry” and how we could not move too quickly or jump to conclusions for decades.
Our graveyards are full of dead young men. If one walks into graveyards in Timmins or Kirkland Lake, one will see that up to 1955, the average life of an immigrant miner was 41 years old. They died of silicosis, radon and radiation; later, they died from the diesel underground. They died from stomach cancers from the oils that were on the drills.
All the time, we were told, “We don't know how to prove this.” The way it was proven was with something called the widow's project. They went door to door to meet the widows to find out what happened in those stopes, all while industry said to trust it and that everything was fine. The precautionary principle has been paid in the lifeblood of workers and of Canadians.
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- May/2/23 2:47:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canada needs to get its critical mineral supply chain off the ground, but Doug Ford has thrown a major spike in this by doing away with the duty for mining companies to come up with the funds for environmental cleaning. There is not a first nation anywhere that will allow mining without the guarantees for closure. Doug Ford is now driving his bulldozer all over the duty to consult and the result is Treaty 9 has launched a $95-billion lawsuit against Doug Ford and the government.
What steps will the minister take to ensure that sustainability and the duty to consult remain at the heart of our critical mineral strategy?
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Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for my colleague and great interest in the issue of making privacy a fundamental human right.
One of the shocking things we found with the last bill was from the Privacy Commissioner. He ruled that the company Clearview AI had broken Canadian law by allowing all manner of photographs of Canadian families, individuals and children to be sold on a market with facial recognition technology. He called that out as illegal but told us that under the new law, it would be almost impossible for him to go after Clearview AI because his rulings could be overturned by a board the Liberals will appoint above him.
We trust our Privacy Commissioner and we need to protect privacy. I want to ask my hon. colleague why he thinks the Liberals are undermining privacy at this time.
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- Oct/24/22 12:37:31 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, it is very important we pass the bill, and I am shocked the Conservatives, of all things, are embracing toxic chemicals as a fight against the Liberals.
I would have spoken much more about the middle class, but the Liberals sure have done a pretty good job over the years with their neo-liberal policies of kicking the middle class back into the working class. We need to maintain that, but part of that is certainty. The Conservatives are talking about mining projects getting off the ground in three years. That is ridiculous.
I come from mining country. Mining development requires consultation with indigenous communities. It requires doing the heavy lifting. Once we have done that, we have certainty. I will talk about many mining companies and how that certainty is essential for reassuring the long-term development and that investors understand we are doing it right. We need to have that climate in Canada.
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