Rob Merrifield

[Hazardous Materials Information Review Act, October 16th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to stand and give my commentary on this important legislation. It speaks to the important subject of hazardous materials and the use of them by the citizens of Canada and its industries. It is important for people to have the information so they can deal with this material in a way which is safe as well as productive.

First, I compliment those who have worked so hard to produce the three amendments, not only the labour sector that on day to day work with these materials in many different ways. I also compliment the industry and federal, provincial and territorial governments, which came together collectively and brought forward some of these recommendations. It is important we applaud their efforts.

I look forward to looking at this proposed legislation further when the House votes on it and sends it to the health committee. At committee we will examine it and bring forth witness to discern how perhaps we can make the legislation better. We will certainly give it a full review so we can pass laws in this chamber that are in the best interest of Canadians.

We are looking at three amendments. The first one is to reduce the time it takes to require the review of confidential information that may be covered under patent law. We respect and understand the full amount of wealth, money and investment that it takes to create a product and we want to ensure that proprietary information is protected. At the same time, we must ensure, first and foremost, the safety of the citizens of Canada. We also must ensure that individuals know that the formulations they are working with are appropriate.

One example I can think of that more explains the first amendment is the products that are very familiar to all Canadians. They are not necessarily hazardous, but they drive the point of what the proposed legislation would do. It is protecting formulations and yet ensuring that those citizens who are engaging in these products are safe.

One that comes to mind is Coca-Cola. That product has been on the market for many decades, yet no one really knows what goes into the formula. It is important that Canadians know that the product they drink, if they drink it in moderation, will not be harmful, but the formulation is protected. It is important that we understand that. Moderation also goes to another subject we are talking about in the health committee and that is obesity in a country.

Another product I can think of is Colonel Sanders' secret recipe for his chicken. We do not know what products go into the recipe, but we need to know they are safe.

It is the same thing for hazardous material. We need to know that the formulations which go into be products are safe if they are handled according to the recommendations on the package, but also that they are protected, and in the process we protect patent law.

In essence that is where we are on the first amendment, which I applaud. I think it reaches that golden balance between the two. It is important, as we look at the proposed legislation, that we recognize this. I do not think people have many arguments with the first amendment, as long as we strike that balance.

The second amendment deals with speeding up any corrections of the formulations for the workers who are handling the hazardous materials to ensure they are safe. If we are handling a product and we know there is a problem with it, we need to have the opportunity to correct the information and get it to the person who uses the material as fast as we possibly can. It is important that we streamline the red tape so this can happen.

When it comes to labelling of a hazardous product, it is very important that not only are we absolutely accurate in the product label, which is just part of it, but we also have to be absolutely clear in how that accuracy of information is delivered so that it is understood by the person reading the label. We can be absolutely accurate in the product label and still not accomplish what needs to be done to make sure that those individuals who are using the product understand that it is a safe product. This goes back to my years in agriculture, when I handled a significant amount of hazardous products in the pesticides we used on our farm.

I remember when we changed from the imperial system to the metric system and went from acres to hectares and from ounces to grams and kilograms. Not only was it important for us to understand that the formulation on the label was accurate, but it also was important that we, the people using the products, understood the hazards if we did not read properly and really understand the labelling.

So when it comes to labelling, on both sides of it, it should be absolutely precise and accurate but it should also be understood. We find this not only with hazardous materials. There is actually a piece of legislation about the labelling of foods that has been brought forward by a member of this House. I would say the same thing: when a piece of information is given and is put on a label it has to be absolutely accurate. If it is not absolutely accurate, then it is deceptive. If it is deceptive, it is bad information. We have to make sure these labels are right. When they are not right, we have to make sure that we correct them very quickly. We also have to make sure that they are very much understood by those using them.

On the second amendment, if we find that a correction needs to be made, we can accelerate the process so that the individual or industry using a hazardous product, whoever it might be, gets the information sooner rather than being held up in red tape after the 75 days of articling happens.

I think these first two amendments both are very important and very worthwhile. This House should consider them in improving this piece of legislation as it is laid before this House and as it goes out as far as changes to the laws in the country are concerned.

When it comes to the third amendment, we are really talking about the idea of an appeals process and making sure it is there. I believe that is the way we should be with all pieces of legislation or anything we do as far as government is concerned. We need to make sure we are a government that is transparent and accountable and does things in a timely fashion, that we do not bog down our citizens in red tape when it comes to legislation or these types of things. It is an area that we absolutely have to accelerate in to make sure that everything is done in a way that is all of those things.

When we look at this legislation, we look at three things. We look at making sure that we disclose the claims and that the formulations are safe for Canadians to use. We look at making sure that we speed up any corrections that have to be made so individuals can make informed choices when they use these products. We look at making sure that appeal processes are not bogging down the system in red tape.

These are the three amendments I see in this piece of legislation. When we examine Bill S-2 in committee, we will examine these amendments more thoroughly and bring witnesses forward in a more fulsome way and have a debate on it. I am looking forward to that.

I would say to this House that from what I see so far in this piece of legislation at this stage, we should pass this piece of legislation here in this House and get it into committee so we can take a more fulsome review. That is what is in the best interests of Canadians. That is what this House should be concerned about as we move forward with this piece of legislation and all pieces of legislation for the betterment of Canadians.

[Committees of the House, September 18th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the second report of the Standing Committee on Health, entitled “Even one is too many: A call for a comprehensive action plan for Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder”.

Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to the report.

I also have the honour to present, in both official languages, the third report of the Standing Committee on Health, entitled “Silicone Gel-Filled Implants: Areas of Concern”.

Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to the report.

[Food and Drugs Act, September 18th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege for me to speak to the bill from my colleague from Scarborough Southwest, the member who has brought the bill before the House. He has actually had the bill in committee before and it has been discussed many times. I do not think anyone in the chamber would argue with the intent of the bill, that individuals in Canada should be able to have the information they need.

Before I get into my deliberations, I must take exception to my hon. colleague who just spoke. The member said that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health made partisan comments in his speech. I do not believe the parliamentary secretary's comments were partisan at all. I would suggest that if my hon. colleague really intended to do something about this issue, he was in a majority government for 13 years and could have actually dealt with the issue of labelling far sooner than by way of a private member's bill. I find it rich that we got those comments from my hon. colleague across the way.

Let us talk about the actual private member's bill that is before us as it flows into what the health committee is doing at the present time. The committee is involved in a study on childhood obesity. We understand from StatsCanada that 26% of the children across this country are obese or overweight. This is reflected not only in our children but also in our adults. We have a very serious problem in this country. It is an epidemic that we have to address.

The argument is not with the intent of the bill. The argument might be whether this is the right vehicle. Is the problem in society that Canadians do not know what they are eating, or is the problem that they are choosing to eat the wrong things? Canadians know that they should move away from their computers and television sets and be more physically active and eat healthier diets. Is the issue a matter of knowledge or a matter of choice and making the wrong choices?

I like the idea of this private member's bill for the aspect that it certainly allows members the opportunity to raise awareness of the issue. That is a very positive thing. We are going to continue that in the health committee as we address childhood obesity. The committee will be hearing witnesses from across the country and discerning some of the blocks that can be moved with respect to what we can do at the federal level to address the obesity problem.

Many of us in the chamber are very concerned about the health care system. The baby boomers are getting into their older years and they are starting to consume a tremendous number of health care dollars. We realize the pressure they will put on our health care system will be significant over the next 30 years. The pressure really has not started yet. It will start within the next decade and will intensify toward 2040-41. Then the pressure will not be relieved, but only will slow down.

If obese children start having heart and stroke disease, cancer and diabetic problems they will be hitting the health care system at the same time. Even from a demographic perspective we have to address obesity in our country as aggressively as we possibly can. We need to raise awareness and let the population understand the battle that we are in so that Canadians can discern for themselves and as a nation what can be done collectively to address our health care problems.

Many lives can be saved by addressing the problem. Canadians can live healthier lives. The health care system can be saved a tremendous amount of money as the population takes responsibility.

We are arguing whether this bill is the right way to proceed. Do we have to legislate every part of our society so that people understand that they are eating the right foods? One of the problems I have with this bill is the labelling aspect. If a label is not accurate, then it is a misleading label.

This comes from my agricultural side. A food item has a certain molecular composition of fats. For example, if a french fry is fried in palm oil, it is 50% saturated fat. If a french fry is fried in soybean oil, it is 20% saturated fat. If it is fried in canola oil, it is 7% saturated fat. These are the kinds of things that change the molecular composition of the fat content of a french fry.

The genetics of an animal will also change the amount of fat that is in a certain ingredient. A good example would be certain cuts of beef. The amount of feed or the type of feed that the animal was fed and the age of the animal impact on the amount of calories in the product that an individual consumes.

We have to give accurate information. If we do not give accurate information, then we would be providing misleading information. I suggest that many things in this bill would lead to misleading and clumsy information. If the bill goes to committee, we will address it as aggressively as possible. At the present time, I believe that legislating this sort of thing is not the direction in which we need to go. We need to inform the population about how to address obesity. This is the direction I applaud and I will push for this as aggressively as I possibly can. I do not believe this is the vehicle we should be using at the present time.

[Interparliamentary Delegations, June 22nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1), I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, the report on the participation of Senator Jerry Grafstein, the co-chair of the Canada-U.S. interparliamentary group, at the “Fresh Water for the Future: Policies for Sustainable Water Management in Canada” policy research initiative to the Privy Council Office, Gatineau, Quebec, May 8 through May 10, 2006.

[Interparliamentary Delegations, June 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1), I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, a report of the Canada-U.S. Interparliamentary Group at the Canadian-American Border Trade Alliance Conference: The Canadian-U.S. Border -- A Unified Focus, held in Ottawa, Ontario, on April 30 to May 2, 2006.

[Stollery Children's Hospital Foundation, June 13th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I stand today to honour an exceptional citizen of the great riding of Yellowhead. Braden Mole was only eight years old when a tumour was discovered in his brain. Since his diagnosis, he has had four brain surgeries and has suffered a stroke, but Braden has persevered.

This weekend, Braden, now 15 years old, is holding his second annual fundraiser to benefit the Stollery Children's Hospital Foundation. To date, his efforts have raised over $71,000 for the foundation. This year, his goal is to raise $200,000 to provide the hospital with a rotating x-ray machine.

It is amazing what an individual can achieve with hard work and a positive attitude, whatever his lot in life. Braden's efforts are a testament to his strong character and citizenship. Instead of letting this challenge overcome him, Braden has turned it around and has given the entire community something to look toward.

I extend congratulations for his accomplishments to Braden. I will see him this weekend.

[Business of Supply, June 8th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, we live in a competitive world and we need to be able to compete.

As a government we can redesign the environment in which businesses work in order to give them the competitive advantage. We can do that by lowering some of the taxes, which is what we have seen in the budget. We have lowered taxes by $20 billion to allow individual Canadians, businesses and corporations to compete.

[Business of Supply, June 8th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right in the sense that we need to do everything we can to reduce the barriers to higher learning for our young Canadians. I think those were the nuts and bolts of his question. However, on how we get there I think he is suggesting that this one vehicle should make that happen.

Illiteracy is something we have to fight. Every nation in this world has to fight it. An illiterate population serves no one. Education is mainly a provincial jurisdiction but we can do some things to help that out.

I had the opportunity to meet with a first nations group in my riding just recently and was excited to hear that it had taken the Alberta curriculum and designed a program through e-learning off their reserve and connected 17 other reserves to it. The result is that their program has a 75% completion rate. I would challenge any reserve population in this country to match that stat.

It is exciting to see that some of those ideas are out there and we are looking very seriously at them. That kind of innovation will help.

More than that, in the budget we made sure that immigrants coming to this country would get through the red tape and that the barriers to the labour force would be reduced. Do members realize that there are 13 different jurisdictions, 15 different regulatory professions and 400 different regulatory bodies that an individual faces when they come into Canada to get them from there into the labour force? We set up an agency to sit down with these individuals, catch them when they come into the borders and address their needs so they can get into the labour force as soon as they possibly can and become productive Canadians.

Those are some of the specifics that are in the budget, which is why the member likely voted for the budget. I applaud him for that. He did the right thing then and he should continue to do that, and we will have a great country.

[Business of Supply, June 8th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Edmonton Centre.

I thank the House for the opportunity to speak to this important issue. The motion talks about something that is very near and dear to me and my constituents. There is no question that the number one issue in my riding at the present time is the lack of a labour force because of what is happening in Alberta.

My colleague was just explaining that a tremendous number of individuals from Newfoundland and Atlantic Canada are moving to Alberta to take the opportunity of having a great future in the oil patch. We like that. It is not necessarily that anyone has to come. The opportunity is there for people to come and we wish for them to exercise that because the need is great and the opportunity is equally as great.

It is not a secret that because of the growth in the oil sector we have outstripped the rest of the country within the last 12 months as far as job creation is concerned. What we are seeing in the oil patch is something that we have never seen in Alberta either. We saw a boom in the oil patch in the 1970s but it was really a shadow of what we are seeing right now. When I go back to my riding and talk to people who have worked in the oil patch they explain how accelerated the demand is and what the opportunities for work are.

This is good news and bad news. We know that we need professional jobs not only in the oil patch, but in science and in technical services as well. We also need people in entry level jobs. In all those sectors we need to match the individuals who come to look for work with the opportunities that are there. That becomes the magic that would be the best result for everyone on both sides of this situation.

Alberta faces a significant shortage. How do we deal with it for the future of Alberta? Are we going through a bubble in the oil patch or is it something that is going to be there for a considerable amount of time?

When I look at Alberta's wealth and the opportunities there, it has nothing to do with Alberta. These are natural resources that have been there for many years and will be there for many more years. It is not only the 100 years of projected levels of extraction from the oil sands, but we are also looking at coal bed methane which is just starting and the projection is 635 years in that industry and another 800 years in coal.

Are they finite resources? Absolutely they are. Do they need to be managed properly? Absolutely. We need to make sure that we maximize our benefits and broaden the economic and social horizons in Alberta and across the country. All of Canada gains when provinces are strong. People in Atlantic Canada, Saskatchewan, British Columbia or any of the other provinces where people are looking for opportunities can come and work and then go back to their respective homes after being fulfilled in the job. The wealth is really quite significant.

In Alberta and Canada in general we are facing a serious shortage of tradespeople. We cannot get them just from going to Atlantic Canada, Saskatchewan or any other place. We are going to have to do more. We cannot build a nation by just looking at our own national labour force. We have to go further than that. We have to make sure that we increase skilled labour from all sides. That is what we intend to do.

To excel in the global economy Canada needs a competitive edge. We need to create a climate that encourages investment and innovation. We also need to improve the skills of Canadian workers and promote lifelong learning. We also want to encourage more people to pursue a career in the trades by reducing the cost of apprenticeship programs. We have seen that in our budget. We are going to be talking about some of the things in the budget that address the problems. We have to take action to increase apprenticeship support and apprenticeship programs. We will consult with the provinces, the territories, employers and unions on new measures to promote the careers in skilled trades.

This is graduation season and many members of Parliament go to a lot of ceremonies to address the graduates. I have had the opportunity to address graduates right across my riding. I take note of what their plans are in the fall. Those plans have progressively changed over the last three or four years. More and more individuals are coming out of high school and deciding not to go on to post-secondary school. University has become a much less coveted place for them to go. Many are going into the trades. This concerns me to some degree because I am a great advocate of education, but I am also a great advocate of the right education for individuals so that they can provide for their families in the future.

Apprenticeship jobs in my riding and in Alberta in general likely outstrip most university graduate jobs. We have to look at how we are going to deal with this. We have dealt with this in our budget by allowing a tax credit of 10% for apprenticeship wages up to a maximum of $2,000 per apprenticeship per year. The apprenticeship incentive grant is a cash grant of $1,000 a year for the first two years of an apprenticeship program in one of the red seal trades. We are providing $500 million over the next two years to boost the ranks of skilled trades in Canada. This will benefit about 100,000 new apprentices across Canada.

We know that the cost of tools is a barrier for many of those in a trade or those who are considering entering a trade. Our budget provides a tool tax deduction of $500 a year.

Those are some of the things we need to do in order to deal with the massive shortage of skilled labour not only in Alberta but right across Canada.

Our government wants to increase access to post-secondary education as well. We know that in order to compete in the 21st century education has to be a strong component. The Conservative government is providing $370 million of new investment to foster excellence and accessibility to colleges and universities. We are also eliminating the federal income tax on income from scholarships, bursaries and fellowships. This will benefit 100,000 students at a cost of $95 million over two years.

We are also providing a textbook tax credit which will benefit about 1.9 million Canadian students at a cost of $260 million over two years.

This government is expanding eligibility to the Canada student loans program by reducing the parental contribution requirements. This means another 30,000 Canadian students will benefit from this proven program.

These measures alone will not solve our skills shortage. Alberta faces a potential shortfall of 100,000 workers over the next decade. Forty per cent of manufacturers surveyed in Alberta are facing crippling production difficulties because of the lack of labour.

The Conservative government is going to make sure that our young people have better access to education. We are going to push for students in Canada to get an education, but we have to go farther than that.

Immigration also plays a part. When people from around the world come to Canada we have to match their abilities to the jobs we are asking them to do. We are going to make sure that their credentials are good not only for them but for Canada. If an individual is trained in another country and we do not accept that training, we are not doing that individual and our country any favours. We have to understand that they have the ability. We have to recognize their credentials as soon as we possibly can so that new Canadian citizens can enter our labour force and become productive members of our society.

It is no wonder that this House voted unanimously for this budget because it is exciting. This is the most exciting budget we have seen in this House for many years, at least in the last five that I have been here. I am proud to be part of a government that has introduced a budget like this one, which deals with issues in a concrete way. These are not pie in the sky ideas. These are concrete ideas that will help Canadians, that will help our labour force. They will certainly help ridings like mine and in fact all the provinces to become stronger which will make a country that will be very strong into the 21st century and beyond.

[Business of Supply, June 8th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague and I was intrigued with his early comments about the Bloc members and how he was very upset and could not believe that they were going to support the budget.

The last budget was a phenomenal budget. It was one that Canadians have really embraced. Even the latest polls show that over 70% of Canadians think this is a great budget. But it is more than that. This is a budget that this individual supported a few days ago and this House supported unanimously. I find it a little disturbing to see this kind of lecture coming from my hon. colleague who just spoke. I wonder if he would describe the contradiction.