Category: Uncategorized

Libby questions Prime Minister about Employment Insurance

Posted on

Posted on 2009.06.17

Libby questions Prime Minister about Employment Insurance

HANSARD
House of Commons
Question Period

Libby Davies (MP Vancouver East):
Mr Speaker, the marriage of convenience between Conservatives and Liberals has blossomed into true love.

And what’s their message for Canadians?

If you have H1N1 – take an aspirin. If you’re putting groceries on your credit card – our big fonts will show you just how deep you’re sinking. If you lost your job – here’s a blue ribbon panel to figure out EI… sit tight ‘til the fall! When will these partners in crime get real?

Instead of appointing panels, why won’t the Prime Minister act for the jobless today?

Right Hon. Stephen Harper (Prime Minister, CPC): Mr. Speaker, we have already taken important action for the unemployed, but the NDP voted against it. NDP members decided they would vote against it before they even knew what it was. They have decided they will be against any further proposals before they know what they are. In effect, we have le Bloc anglais down there.

Libby Davies (MP Vancouver East):
Workers need help now, not months from now. When my party negotiated Budget 2005 we delivered.

We turned $4.6 billion in corporate tax breaks into:
$1.6 billion in housing
$1.5 billion in post-secondary education
$1 billion in transit, and more.

After all that tough talk from the Liberal leader all jobless Canadians get is a blue ribbon panel?

Cold comfort for the 1.5 million laid-off Canadians!

When will the Prime Minister stop playing at his opponent’s low level and start acting to help those jobless Canadians?

Liberals join Conservatives to pass heavy handed drug bill

Posted on

Posted on 2009.06.15

Liberals join Conservatives to pass heavy handed drug bill

Ottawa – The Liberal Party teamed up with the Conservatives this week, to pass a bill that will impose a mandatory minimum sentence for the trafficking of just one marijuana plant.

Warnings from expert witnesses in Canada and the U.S. about the costly failures of mandatory minimums in the U.S. didn’t stop the Liberals from working with the Conservatives to bring in Bill C-15, a law that by all accounts will have no effect on drug crimes in Canada.

“Mandatory minimums have been an expensive failure in the United States, divert needed resources from prevention, treatment, and harm reduction measures, and further criminalize what must be recognized as a public health issue,” said Davies.

The John Howard Society, the Canadian Bar Association and Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network who testified on C-15, all warned that these sentences mostly target low-level drug users and street dealers, and not the drug-lords and king-pins that the Conservatives have promised to go after.

“Not one witness, not one study, could show that mandatory minimums work to reduce drug use or drug crimes,” said Davies. “The U.S. is repealing these laws as fast as they can, so why is Canada looking backwards on this issue?”

Davies, who won amendments at Committee to mitigate the worst aspects of the Bill, calls C-15 “A heavy handed approach that criminalizes drug users and takes Canada in the wrong direction.”

-30-

Top