VICTORIA – Dr. Keith Martin, MP for Esquimalt – Juan de Fuca commented today on the announcement of a new national park reserve on the East Coast. The governments of Canada and Newfoundland and Labrador have announced the establishment of a new National Park Reserve. The new reserve will protect more than 10,000 square kilometres in Labrador.

“If Newfoundland and Labrador can get this done, then certainly the Province of British Columbia should also be able to protect our west coast,” said Dr. Keith Martin. “Time is of the essence. If we are going to protect these lands we must act now before they are sold to the highest bidder.” (more…)

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G8 Summit Needs International Action Plan To Reduce Childhood, Maternal Mortality

In a National Post opinion piece, Canadian Member of Parliament Keith Martin, “who chaired the drafting committee at the 2009 G8 International Parliamentarians’ Conference in Rome, which put together a plan of action to reduce maternal and infant mortality,” welcomes the recent announcement by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper that maternal and child mortality will be a focus of the G8 summit this summer. Martin asserts that “the summit cannot be just another milquetoast, feel-good document. The leaders must announce a comprehensive International Action Plan to reduce childhood and maternal mortality.”

Martin outlines the plan to reduce maternal mortality that he and other parliamentarians crafted last summer, that included, as he writes, calls “for strategic investments in access to primary care: basic surgical facilities, medications, a full array of family planning options, diagnostics, adequate nutrition, clean water, power, and most importantly, trained health-care workers.” Martin suggests, G8 leaders “can use this as a template to mobilize the world’s most powerful nations when they meet in Ontario this summer to end this global tragedy” (2/4).

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As Printed in the National Post February 4, 2010

Every minute of every day, a woman dies giving birth. The toll is staggering: 530,000 pregnant women a year perish, 95% of them in developing countries. Remarkably, 80% of these maternal deaths are from five entirely preventable or treatable causes: sepsis, hemorrhage, eclampsia, obstructed labour, or as a consequence of a septic abortion.

For every death, dozens of women sustain life-altering and irreversible injuries. Many develop obstetric fistulae that leave them incontinent of urine and feces, and pariahs within their own developing-world communities. (more…)

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The world needs a central command-and-control centre to respond to disasters quickly and orderly.

Five days after the massive earthquake hit Haiti, little aid was reaching the beleaguered people on the ground. Access to crucial medical care, food, and water was scant. Extractive efforts beyond what the people were doing with shovels and their bare hands were largely non-existent. Haitians, starving, dangerously dehydrated, and exposed to a withering sun, were dying by the thousands. This, despite the fact that large quantities of donated emergency supplies were sitting on the tarmac of the country’s main airport in Port-au-Prince.

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PETER MANSBRIDGE (HOST):

Yeah, the perils of being an opposition leader. Rex, most underrated [politician this year]?
…

REX MURPHY (REPORTER):

Peter Stoffer and Keith Martin. There are certain backbenchers who, by virtue of their personality, their tone, they’re civilized people that do a lot to ransom all the other activities on Parliament Hill. Those backbenchers, like the one that Allan mentioned, they do a lot to keep the system in motion. And these two, in my mind, Martin and Stoffer, are fairly equivalent.

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Keith speaking with Carole MacNeil on CBC News Now about how he will vote on the HST.

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Government is refusing to look at the facts and the science
By Dr. Keith Martin, MP

The rush to choose a sewage treatment site for Victoria before all the facts are available belies a much larger problem. This initiative to spend $1.2 billion to build one or more sewage treatment plants in Victoria is based on myths, fear, perception, and an appalling lack of due diligence on the part of both the federal and provincial governments. It entails the deliberate refusal to listen to the science. Indeed, the facts are being ignored…

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Keith spoke with Kathleen Petty about the HST on CBC Radio’s “The House” this past weekend.

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The following editorial appeared in the Sooke News Mirror this week.

A way forward to fix the HST
By Dr. Keith Martin, MP

As the provincial and federal governments introduce their legislation to implement the HST, it would be wise to look at a number of measures that would help mitigate the impact this tax will have on small businesses and consumers.

To be fair, there are a few benefits. Some goods made in BC will be less costly to produce, which could lower their price for consumers. There should also be a reduction in the administrative burden on businesses. However, these benefits will be overshadowed by an increased tax burden on seniors, the poor and major sectors of BC’s economy, especially tourism, restaurants, homebuilding, and the service sector. For example, many people don’t know that the HST will add a 12% tax every year on the management fees charged on mutual funds. Since we know that most people will not have enough money to retire on, why would we introduce a hefty tax that penalizes people who are trying to save for retirement? In fact, the more you save, the more you will be taxed.

So what can be done to reduce the harm the HST will have that both the feds and the province could embrace: (more…)

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Yesterday, Dr. Keith Martin spoke about his opposition to the HST in British Columbia while on Power and Politics on CBC.

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