Bill C-31 (Historical)

Eliminating Entitlements for Prisoners Act

An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act

This enactment amends the Old Age Security Act to preclude incarcerated persons from receiving benefits under this Act while maintaining entitlement to benefits for, and avoiding a reduction in the amounts payable to, their spouse or common-law partner under this Act.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

We'll see how that works in practice.

I have a question about the budget. Bill C-31 calls for more extensive detention services. You currently have three federal immigration detention centres and agreements with the provinces whereby people are held in provincial prisons at Immigration and Citizenship Canada's expense. Paradoxically, I see no correlation with your budget. And yet, based on what you and government members have been saying, more expensive and prudent detention measures are needed. So, how is it that you are detaining more people but have no budget for this?

[Russell Wallace]

Thank you.

One of the things is being accountable systemically as well, thinking about Bill C-31 and all these things that define status and define what women are in terms of all those issues that come to mind.

One thing that also comes to mind is that my wife has worked with Health Canada for 17 years in an office full of aboriginal women, but they have never got any further than.... I don't know what the terms are, but they never got into management positions. So looking at all these aboriginal women who might have worked there for 25 years or so but never got beyond a certain point, she called it the buckskin ceiling. Other women have a glass ceiling they can break through, but these women had the buckskin ceiling, where you would hit a certain point and they couldn't break through. So looking at systemic accountability in that way....

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

I have the honour to inform the House that when the House went up to the Senate chamber His Excellency the Governor General was pleased to give, in Her Majesty's name, the royal assent to the following bills:

Bill S-3, An Act to implement conventions and protocols concluded between Canada and Colombia, Greece and Turkey for the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income--Chapter No. 15

Bill S-210, An Act to amend the Federal Sustainable Development Act and the Auditor General Act (involvement of Parliament)--Chapter No. 16

Bill S-2, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and other Acts--Chapter 17

Bill C-3, An Act to promote gender equity in Indian registration by responding to the Court of Appeal for British Columbia decision in McIvor v. Canada (Registrar of Indian and Northern Affairs)--Chapter 18

Bill S-215, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (suicide bombings)--Chapter 19

Bill C-464, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (justification for detention in custody)--Chapter 20

Bill C-36, An Act respecting the safety of consumer products--Chapter 21

Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act--Chapter 22

Bill C-28, An Act to promote the efficiency and adaptability of the Canadian economy by regulating certain activities that discourage reliance on electronic means of carrying out commercial activities, and to amend the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act, the Competition Act, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and the Telecommunications Act--Chapter 23

Bill C-58, An Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the federal public administration for the financial year ending March 31, 2011--Chapter 24

Bill C-47, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 4, 2010 and other measures--Chapter 25

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, Canadian Council on Learning; the hon. member for Vancouver Kingsway, Public Safety.

Pensions

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to announce that Bill C-31, Eliminating Entitlements for Prisoners Act is scheduled to receive royal assent today.

This means that as of January 1, criminals like Clifford Olson who are serving time in a federal prison will no longer receive taxpayer-funded old age security and GIS benefits. This is just another example of how our Conservative government is putting victims first, not criminals.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, our Conservative government is putting an end to the wrong and unfair practice of prisoners receiving tax-funded old age security benefits through Bill C-31, Eliminating Entitlements for Prisoners Act.

Prisoners already have their basic needs met at the expense of taxpayers. Canadians should not be paying for these criminals twice.

Could the Minister of HRSDC please update this House as to the status of our bill to take these benefits away from prisoners?

Pension Entitlements

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-31 would put an end to the outrageous practice of paying mass murderers like Clifford Olson old age security. Our government is ensuring that law-abiding taxpayers do not pay criminals twice. Thankfully, all parties in the House supported passage of this bill through the House and over to the Senate, where I am pleased to report it has begun second reading.

I urge the Liberal leader to encourage all of his senators to pass this bill through the Senate just as quickly as possible.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, today, Clifford Olson has another parole hearing. It is a reminder that this mass murderer has been receiving taxpayer-funded old age security benefits despite the fact that taxpayers already pay for his stay in prison. Our Conservative government is putting an end to this wrong and unfair practice.

Bill C-31 would eliminate old age pension entitlements for prisoners serving life in prison.

Would the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development please update the House on the status of this important bill?

Gender Equity in Indian Registration Act

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development]

Mr. Speaker, I want to take a moment to express my support for Bill C-3, which we call the gender equity in Indian registration act. The legislation now before us represents an effective response to a ruling of the Court of Appeal for British Columbia. The court ruled that certain registration sections of the Indian Act are discriminatory under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Rather than declare these provisions of the Indian Act to be immediately null and void, the court temporarily suspended the effect of its decision to allow Parliament to amend them. Should Parliament fail to amend these sections of the Indian Act before the suspension expires, which is now set to happen in January 2011, the court's ruling would take full effect. This would mean individuals residing in British Columbia or affiliated with B.C. bands could not be registered. As parliamentarians, we can play a central role in preventing this from occurring.

As I said, rather than declare these provisions of the Indian Act to be immediately null and void, the court temporarily suspended the effect of its decision to allow for Parliament to amend them. Should Parliament fail to amend these sections of the Indian Act before the suspension expires, which is now set to happen in January 2011, the court's ruling would take full effect. This would mean that individuals residing in British Columbia or affiliated with B.C. bands could not be registered. As parliamentarians, we can play a central role in preventing this from occurring.

To fully appreciate the advantages of Bill C-3, one must have at least a basic grasp of previous revisions of the Indian Act. I would like to take just a few minutes to remind my hon. colleagues of this historical context.

As my hon. colleagues recognize, the Indian Act provides the main framework for the relationship between registered Indians and Canada. Now more than 130 years old, the Indian Act has been amended many times. The heart of the ruling by the Court of Appeal for British Columbia touches on a series of amendments dating from the mid-1980s. The inspiration for these amendments was the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, along with a commitment by the Government of Canada to eliminate discriminatory aspects of federal legislation.

To accomplish this goal, the government of the day launched a comprehensive effort to amend the Indian Act. The discriminatory nature of the Indian Act was never in doubt. At the time, the legislation stipulated that a woman with Indian status would automatically lose her status if she married a man without status. A man with status, however, would retain status regardless of whom he married.

After considerable research, analysis, engagement, discussion and debate, Parliament endorsed a series of amendments in 1985, popularly known as Bill C-31. In its ruling, the Court of Appeal for British Columbia focused on the 1985 amendments and their effects on issues of status, entitlement and registration.

At issue are subsections 6(1) and 6(2) of the Indian Act. Subsection 6(1) includes a provision whereby Indian women who lost their status through marriage before 1985 can regain it, while the children of these women became entitled to first-time registration under subsection 6(2).

The new subsections significantly improved the Indian Act, and Bill C-31 soon became law.

At issue are subsections 6(1) and 6(2) of the Indian Act. The former includes a provision for Indian women who lost status through marriage before 1985 to regain it, while the children of these women became entitled to first-time registration in accordance with subsection 6(2).

The new subsections significantly improved the Indian Act and Bill C-31 soon became law. Although the amended Indian Act eliminated gender discrimination for the future, it did not solve the lingering effects of certain past gender discrimination. The descendants of an Indian brother and sister who had each married non-Indian spouses were still treated differently. Even though an Indian woman who had married a non-Indian could regain her status after 1985, her children would be eligible for registration under subsection 6(2), not under subsection 6(1), while their cousins, the children of an Indian man who had married an non-Indian woman before 1985, would be eligible for registration under subsection 6(1).

This also affects subsequent generations, because someone with subsection 6(2) status must parent with another person with Indian status in order to have a child who will be eligible for registration.

If a child has a parent with subsection 6(2) status and the other parent does not have status, the child will not be eligible for registration. So the grandchildren of women who regain status through subsection 6(1) would not be eligible for registration unless both their parents were registered Indians.

In contrast to this, the grandchildren of the Indian man and his non-Indian wife would be eligible for Indian registration even if they did not have two status Indian parents.

The Court of Appeal for British Columbia acknowledged that the 1985 legislation was a bona fide attempt to eliminate discrimination on the basis of sex. At the same time it concluded that there was unequal treatment that needed to be rectified by Parliament through amendments to the Indian Act.

Rather than immediately striking down the offending sections of the Indian Act, the court called on the Government of Canada to implement a solution within a specified period, which has been extended to January 2011.

As soon as the Court rendered a decision in the McIvor case, the Government of Canada took action to identify and implement an effective solution, which became Bill C-3. The legislation now before us is the product of comprehensive study and engagement with first nations and other aboriginal groups.

Led by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, the process began with the publication of a discussion paper outlining the issue and describing potential amendments to the Indian Act. The next step of the process involved a series of 12 engagement sessions staged across Canada. Three national aboriginal organizations, being the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, the Native Women's Association of Canada and the National Association of Friendship Centres, also co-sponsored one session each. A total of approximately 900 people participated in the sessions and INAC officials received more than 150 written submissions.

Based on the views expressed, federal legislation was drafted and introduced as Bill C-3 in March of this year. The House referred Bill C-3 to the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development for further study. The committee amended the bill, including a very broad amendment that significantly altered the bill and a corresponding amendment to the short title. Both of these amendments were subsequently struck from the bill as a result of a ruling that they were outside the scope of the bill.

The committee also removed one of the clauses of the bill and added a provision requiring the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development to review and report on the impacts of Bill C-3 within two years following passage of the bill.

I was pleased to see that clause 9 was restored at report stage. Clause 9 is an important provision that protects not only the Crown, but also first nations from claims for compensation based on previous decisions regarding registration that were made in good faith.

Another government amendment at report stage made technical changes to clarify language in the provision requiring a report to Parliament.

With these changes, Bill C-3 fully deserves the support of the House.

We must do our utmost to ensure that the laws of Canada are charter compliant. This was reinforced by the Court of Appeal for British Columbia when granting an extension to provide more time for this important legislation to be passed by Parliament. The court stated:

We would also observe that while efforts of Members of Parliament to improve provisions of the Indian Act not touched by our decision are laudable, those efforts should not be allowed to unduly delay the passage of legislation that deals with the specific issues that this Court has identified as violating the Charter.

As individuals elected to represent Canadians and to uphold the law, it is our duty to act in the interest of justice. Concerns for equality and justice lie at the core of Bill C-3. In a tangible sense, a vote for the proposed legislation is also an expression of support for the notion that all Canadians are equal before the law.

The McIvor decision, along with the engagement sessions held last year, has touched off a healthy debate in this country about the Indian Act and a host of topics related to Indian identity. While this debate illustrates that our democracy is alive and well, this is a broader discussion about registration, membership and citizenship. That is why an exploratory process will be launched to explore outstanding issues not addressed in Bill C-3 once the bill is passed.

The legislation now before us aims to address a specific problem identified by the Court of Appeal for British Columbia. Rather than discuss how well Bill C-3 would resolve this problem, however, many commentators have chosen to propose ways to overhaul the Indian registration regime or to replace the Indian Act in its entirety. The free exchange of ideas is always welcome, of course, but I encourage members of the House to focus on the specific merits of Bill C-3 as they respond directly to the court's decision.

The Government of Canada recognizes that opportunities exist to develop solutions to ongoing problems related to status, registration and citizenship. However, progress on these complex issues cannot be achieved in isolation or overnight without first passing Bill C-3.

As my hon. colleague no doubt recall, when Bill C-3 was introduced in this House, the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development announced that an exploratory process would be launched to explore broader issues related to the Indian Act.

The process will feature close collaboration with national aboriginal organizations and various first nations groups. In fact, the government has already invited proposals from the Assembly of First Nations, the Native Women's Association of Canada, the National Association of Friendship Centres, the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples and the Métis National Council on the exploratory process.

Given the number of groups involved and the complex nature of topics, such as band membership, Indian registration and concepts of citizenship, a thorough discussion and analysis of these issues will take time. Given the importance of these topics, the process must not be rushed.

In the meantime, the court's January deadline draws steadily closer. The exploration of the broader issues of registration, membership and citizenship is important, however, this must not come at the expense of passing legislation that will eliminate the specific cause of gender discrimination as identified by the court of appeal for British Columbia.

Bill C-3 focuses solely on this purpose. From the outset, the goal has been to respond effectively to the court's ruling prior to the deadline. While this objective remains of primary importance, the proposed legislation would also have a number of other positive impacts.

As the members of this House are aware, discrimination is one of the barriers that prevents many first nations peoples from participating fully in Canada's prosperity. And Canada will never achieve its full potential until all Canadians, aboriginal and non-aboriginal alike, can contribute to this country's social, cultural and economic fabric. The only way to eliminate the barrier of discrimination is to systematically address underlying causes, for example, by amending the sections of the Indian Act specifically identified by the Court of Appeal for British Columbia.

As the members of the House recognize, discrimination is one of the barriers that prevents many first nations peoples from participating fully in Canada's prosperity. Canada will never realize its full potential until all Canadians, aboriginal and non-aboriginal alike, can contribute to the social, cultural and economic fabric of our country. The only way to eliminate the barrier of discrimination is to systematically address underlying causes, such as by amending the sections of the Indian Act specifically identified by the Court of Appeal for British Columbia.

Support for Bill C-3 would also strengthen the relationship between Canada and first nations peoples. In recent years the Government of Canada has worked alongside national aboriginal organizations and first nations groups to address a long list of issues, such as drinking water, education and child and family services, among others.

This collaborative, open and honest approach has fostered mutual respect and trust. It has also fostered significant progress on each one of these issues.

Bill C-3 offers an opportunity to further this momentum. Support for Bill C-3 sends a simple, explicit message: Canada will not tolerate unjust discrimination against first nations peoples.

More than 20 years ago our country enacted a landmark piece of legislation that speaks volumes about Canadian values. The Canadian of Rights and Freedoms has since become a cornerstone of our democracy, a practical instrument that protects even the most vulnerable of our citizens.

As the court has reminded us, Bill C-3 deals with the specific issues that violate the Charter, according to the court. That is why I encourage all of my hon. colleagues to join me in supporting Bill C-3.

As the court has reminded us, Bill C-3 deals with the specific issues that it has identified as violating the charter. On that basis, I encourage all of my hon. colleagues to join me in supporting Bill C-3.

Eliminating Entitlements for Prisoners Act

[John Baird, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that you would find the unanimous consent of the House for the following motion. I move:

That, notwithstanding any standing order or usual practices of the House, Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act, be deemed read a third time and passed.

(Bill C-31. On the Order: Government Orders)

November 16, 2010--Third reading of Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act--the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-31. I have listened to a number of good presentations today on the bill. The member for Windsor—Tecumseh spoke at length about how the government had missed a good opportunity to offer restitution to victims of crime.

It was either in 1970 or 1971 when the Manitoba NDP government of Ed Schreyer became the first in Canada to bring in the criminal injuries compensation program. The program has been updated since that time. Compensation for victims of crime has been an issue in Manitoba for the NDP since 1971.

The member for Windsor—Tecumseh pointed out that Ontario had a similar fund as did some other provinces, but the federal government did not. For the enterprising Conservatives on the government side, it seems to me that this would be a logical thing for them to consider because they want to align themselves with victims. They want to do the right thing for victims. Setting up a parallel federal compensation program for victims of crime would be a well-received government initiative.

In terms of funding for the initiative, the member for Windsor—Tecumseh has suggested that the moneys that would be received in general revenue by cutting off the pensions to federal inmates could be put into that fund for compensation to the victims.

I know I only have a few minutes today, but tomorrow I can read out a list of the rules and restrictions on the compensation fund for Manitoba and I am sure the federal government could set up a similar type of fund.

In terms of how much money would be put in that fund, the parliamentary secretary mentioned today that the government was looking at saving a potential $2 million on federal prisoners alone, all 400 of them, and another $10 million perhaps on the 600 provincial prisoners provided the government could get all the provinces to sign on to the program.

The member for Windsor—Tecumseh pointed that when the bill went through committee, members were unable to determine exactly how many prisoners were drawing a pension. There is really no way for the government to know how many people are collecting pensions while in prison. This $2 million may be more or less a bogus figure that the government is perpetuating when it says that it plans to save on the federal portion of the pensions to prisoners.

Nevertheless, this is just another example of the government proceeding on the basis of projections without having them fully worked out, thought through and written down. We proved that with the government's crime bills earlier this year. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has provided information indicating that these bills will cost a lot of money. If we base it on the parliamentary secretary's assumption, we are already proving that $2 million is not really an accurate figure. Regardless of what the money is, if the government could at least use this opportunity to put the money into a compensation fund for victims that would be a positive thing.

As has been mentioned, there are a number of court ordered restitution orders that prisoners have to follow. They may be impacted when we take away these pensions. There is also the possibility of opening up lawsuits against perpetrators. Russell Williams certainly would have assets that some of the victims could access.

Exposing criminally obtained assets to the victims would be something positive. The government has now sort of missed the opportunity to do this. This is an opportunity on which it should have perhaps followed up.

In terms of why the government—

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am proud to stand up on behalf of the New Democratic Party and speak about this bill.

As I mentioned earlier today, there are few topics that are more profound than those that involve crime and punishment. When we talk about punishment, we are talking about some of the most serious issues that any mature society can deal with. We are dealing with tragedy, with victims, with pain, damage, some of it permanent, and it is always something that legislators need to take with the most serious of intentions and the utmost good faith.

I am not sure that the bill before us, Bill C-31, was born out of that kind of approach. In the last six months, the prospects of Clifford Olson getting a pension came up in the news and the government then sprang into action, as it often does with crime bills, by governing by exception. The Conservatives will take a case that comes up in an exceptional circumstance and then they will rush to legislate, and I think this bill is a product of that. That is regrettable, and I would urge the government and all parliamentarians to take a more considered, more fact-based and more effective approach to making policy when it comes to Criminal Code amendments and when it comes to determining how we deal with those who have breached the rules of society.

Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act, I will say at once, suffers from a very common problem that is becoming increasingly used by the government, and that is the interjection of hyper-partisan short titles of the bill. I heard a cabinet minister today say that the opposition is just focusing on the short title. I think there is something more important at stake, and that is the integrity of the laws of the Government of Canada. There are many lawyers in the House. I myself am a lawyer, and the way that the government has interjected its own partisan leanings into what should be an objective and lawful description of the laws that all citizens of this country have to abide by is regrettable.

The Conservatives have described this bill in short form as the “Eliminating Entitlements for Prisoners Act”, which again is probably not accurate. For sure it is partisan and it does not do justice to what we as parliamentarians ought to be doing in the House.

The bill suspends payments of old age security and guaranteed income supplement payments to all persons 65 years of age and older while they are serving more than 90 days in a federal correctional facility. Of course, a person has to be sentenced to two years or more in order to be in a federal correctional facility in this country.

The bill would suspend payments of the spousal or survivor allowance to eligible individuals between 60 and 64 years of age, while that individual is serving time in a federal facility. The bill does maintain OAS and GIS payments to spouses and partners of those who are incarcerated. They are to receive these payments at the higher single rate, based on their individual, not combined, spousal income. To that degree, I would offer my approval and support to the government for at least having the foresight and care to not penalize spouses of those incarcerated in federal institutions who are over 60 years of age.

The bill would maintain the spousal allowance benefits to the spouse of incarcerated individuals. It also allows provinces to opt in by entering into agreements with the federal government to suspend OAS and GIS and spousal allowance benefits under the terms that I have mentioned, to all individuals incarcerated for a sentence that exceeds 90 days in a provincial facility.

Notwithstanding what I have just said, benefit payments would still be paid during the first month of incarceration, and benefit payments would resume the month that an individual was released on earned remission, parole, statutory release or warrant expiry upon application by that individual.

I want to first deal with a little bit of history, because I think this is instructive. It is interesting that prior to 1979 in this country, inmates in federal penitentiaries did not receive old age security or GIS.

Interestingly, I think Canadians would be very surprised to learn that it was a Conservative government, Joe Clark's government of 1979, that restored pensions to prisoners serving time in federal institutions.

I think this shows just how far the government has strayed from any notion of progressivity that once was a hallmark of the Conservative Party in this country, as it was then called the Progressive Conservative Party. Canadians need to know that Conservatives gave prisoners pensions in this country. I would ask that the members on the other side of the House reflect on that at some point and think about where they have come from and where they are going.

I have some quotes from the Hon. David Crombie, who was the Minister of National Health and Welfare at the time. This is what he said in 1979 when he, as a Conservative, was granting pensions to offenders in federal institutions in this country:

If I may refer now to the provision which will end the suspension of the OAS benefits for prisoners, this is also an improvement of some significance....

This provision has, over the course of years, proven both difficult and unfair. When OAS pensioners are imprisoned and their benefits are subject to suspension, any delay in effecting the suspension can result in overpayments which must be collected when the pension is released. Even if there is no overpayment, the lack of benefits during imprisonment can mean that these people are released with little money at an advanced age and few prospects for making a living.

There are fewer than 100 persons affected by this provision in any given year. The cost of maintaining payment of their OAS benefits is a small fraction of a per cent of program costs. However, if even one prisoner is able to find a better life as a result of this change, and one prisoner's spouse is not deprived of her allowance, it will be well worth the effort....

I invite the support of all members of this House for this particular step, to improve the humanity of a program now in place, and for the broader examination which we hope to carry out, in co-operation with provincial governments and the private sector, to ensure that we have the best possible pension system that we can afford to provide retirement protection for all Canadians.

That is what Conservatives said in 1979.

What they want to do now is strip pensions from certain people in this country, in this case prisoners, and they have done absolutely nothing to address senior poverty in this country or to improve the Canada pension plan or any pension legislation that will actually help our seniors have a retirement and live in dignity in their golden years.

That said, I also want to point out that at that time, in 1979, there were about 100 people who would be affected by the pension. It is not much different today. I have done some research and discovered a number of facts.

There are 398 people over the age of 65 in the federal corrections system. That was as of March 31. Interestingly, many countries have similar legislation, including the U.S., the U.K. and Australia. At least six provinces and territories now stop social welfare for more than three months when people are in prison: British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec and the Northwest Territories.

I think it is important to ask the government where we sit in terms of comparing ourselves to other countries in the world when it comes to how we are dealing with issues such as this.

I want to talk about some of the positive aspects of the bill, because I think it has some positives and some negatives. First, there is an inherent and undeniable logic to suspending payments designed to provide for the basic necessities of life in cases where our taxpayers are already funding the basic necessities of life for people who are sentenced to federal prisons.

I want to stop there. That makes some sense. I think it would pass the smell test for Canadians that old age security is intended to provide a certain amount of money to seniors. It is not very much. I think it is approximately $10,000 a year, and that would go to helping a person pay for shelter and food. One could argue, and I think it is a valid argument, that if individuals are in a federal institution and already have their accommodation and food taken care of, the justification for receiving that OAS payment may not be there.

I think there is some small savings to this measure. It has been estimated that suspending OAS and GIS payments to prisoners over the age of 60 would save about $2 million a year immediately and up to $10 million per year if all provinces and territories opted into this program.

I want to reiterate that I think the way this legislation is drafted mitigates to an extent the financial impact on spouses of offenders in federal institutions by allowing them to receive OAS and GIS payments at the single rate and based on their individual rather than combined spousal income, although it must be recognized that a spouse of an offender and their family very likely would stand to be hurt by this provision because they would be deprived of that spouse's income that would otherwise come to the family.

There are some negative aspects of the bill. The constitutionality of these provisions has been questioned. Some may view this provision as an attempt to add a sentencing provision to someone. It brings up the concept of civil forfeiture, which was a concept abolished in the British Commonwealth system some 150 years ago. That is the notion that when people are convicted of a crime, the sentence that is carried out by the state is that they are deprived of their liberty and they are deprived of their ability to walk freely in society. Those I do not think should be underestimated in terms of the profundity and the impact of those losses.

But otherwise a person, even in a federal institution, still retains certain rights as a citizen. They have the right to vote. They have their basic human rights. They have the right to communicate with their lawyers. Stripping them of their private property, as was done in Britain 150 years ago where people convicted of an offence might have their property, personal or real, seized by the Crown, which would throw families into poverty, and where they had debtors' prisons, has been a concept that most mature, civilized societies have rejected. So the concept of stripping someone of an entitlement that is universal in this country may be seen in that respect.

I think it could be argued that this bill would violate the universality aspect of our OAS system, a principle that I think a lot of people in this House hold dear.

We do not accord universal health care or OAS payments generally based on our evaluation of whether that person is a likeable person or whether that person has done something with which we may disagree. We generally accord those principles to every Canadian citizen as a matter of citizenship and as a matter of right. It can be considered worrying that when we open the door to taking away a universal benefit such as this bill would propose, it may open a door to which there is a sliding scale, the destination of which we know not. An example could be that if the logic of this is why are we paying for prisoners' room and board when the taxpayer is already paying, it leads to an argument that maybe we should do that if a senior citizen breaks a hip and has to be in the hospital for three months. Could the argument then be made that while the taxpayer is already paying for the lodging and food for that person for the three months, therefore we should suspend that person's OAS or GIS payments for that three-month period?

What about people who are in psychiatric hospitals or under the care of the state for mental health issues? Is that the next argument that the government would make, that we should be stripping OAS and GIS from those people?

I think we have to be very aware of where this bill could take us.

As I pointed out, the bill would have an unavoidable negative financial effect on some spouses of inmates who would lose out on almost half of the joint income used to support them. This may have a significant negative impact on spouses who are under the age of 60 and are being supported by the OAS and GIS payments made to an individual who is subsequently incarcerated, because no federal pension benefits would be provided to them.

In those cases, HRSDC officials have indicated that the provincial social assistance systems would be required to support those individuals. Once again, I think we are seeing a case where a piece of federal legislation may have a deleterious effect on the provinces by downloading onto them the requirement to use their welfare programs to support certain people who otherwise would not need that support.

I think this is very similar to the two-for-one piece of legislation where the result of us taking away the two-for-one credit for pretrial custody would no doubt result in many more prisoners spending much more time in provincial remand centres and provincial institutions and cost the provinces much more money.

Suspending pensions for inmates may also affect their ability to make court-ordered restitution payments to victims, something that is widely recognized by victims' advocates as a key component of healing, and what criminal justice experts regard as an important rehabilitative process for offenders.

We must also remember that most offenders are already poor. In fact, poverty is one of the determinative causes of crime. For those individuals who are released back into society, there is a positive social benefit in having their difficult reintegration process aided by savings of several thousand dollars. This is true particularly for seniors, who will be even less likely to quickly find employment after release.

This government bill was targeted at individuals like Clifford Olson, which every member of this House agrees has committed crimes of unspeakable evil. We all agree that Mr. Olson should never, ever see the light of day, and that Mr. Olson should not get any entitlements beyond the bare minimum that a humane society would accord a prisoner like him. But whether or not that is a sound basis upon which to make policy is a different question.

I would have preferred to see the government introduce legislation that targeted the removal of pensions for people serving life sentences. That would have been a more measured approach that would have accomplished what I think is the goal. But this bill takes away OAS and GIS from every single senior in the federal system. We could have a member of our society who is 59 or 60 years old and who gets sentenced to 2, 3, or 4 years. That person may have an interest in maintaining an apartment or house, because he or she is going to come out in perhaps two or three years. This bill would have a very deleterious effect on such people.

This legislation was motivated by a desire to reflect Canadians' great distaste and horror at the prospect of Clifford Olson receiving a pension. But we must realize that this has broader effects.

I want to talk about something my hon. colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley brought up. It is a positive suggestion by our party that ought to be considered by the government, namely, if we support this bill and it is passed, we should take that $2 million to $10 million a year and, instead of putting it back into general revenue, put it into programs that aid the rehabilitation of senior prisoners.

We can leave aside the people who have life sentences, people like Clifford Olson. Rehabilitation is not an option for those individuals. We all agree on that. But there are 300 or so senior citizens in the federal system who are going to come out, and who did not commit crimes like Mr. Olson. They are not murderers. They have not committed manslaughter. They are people who have been convicted of all manner of crimes, but most of their crimes are not anywhere near those that Clifford Olson committed. Perhaps we can take that money and do some good with it. We can target that money to programming that will help them reintegrate into society.

Steve Sullivan, the victims' ombudsperson, who was not reappointed by the government, has pointed out that victims do not want offenders to serve longer periods of time. They do not want them to suffer unduly. All they want is for those offenders to come back into society and not reoffend. They want to be able to walk safely in their communities and in our streets. That is what those victims want. It is what we all want. Any policy measure, any bill, any piece of legislation that is considered by this House should be measured against that standard. Will it help that offender not to reoffend? If it does not, then we know that we are playing politics. We are not making sound policy.

I also want to talk a bit about pensions. It is interesting that the government has done nothing to improve the pensions or the income security of seniors since it was elected in 2006. The government has been in power for coming up to five years, and that is a decent amount of time for government to reveal what its agenda really—

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I arrived this morning to listen to some more of the debate and followed it closely as it has moved through the system. The summary of the bill states that:

The enactment amends the Old Age Security Act to preclude incarcerated persons from receiving benefits under this Act while maintaining entitlement to benefits for, and avoiding a reduction in the amounts payable to, their spouse or common-law partner under this Act.

This was prompted by a report, before last summer, that the serial killer Clifford Olson was receiving old age security.

Canadians were outraged and parliamentarians agreed and, in fact, all parties agreed that we should move forward with this.

Whenever we do a bill, however, it is not just good enough to say that we all agree, just pass it and let us go. We have to very careful, and some members have already spoken about potential unintended consequences. I must admit there are some circumstances in which questions could be raised. So, I want to touch on a few of those.

First, old age security, as we know it today, and members are familiar with this, is a benefit that is received by all Canadians who reach the age of 65 and is subject to certain criteria, specifically income, because there is a clawback provision, which means that if a person makes a lot of money in Canada they will not get the old age security.

Interestingly enough, up until I believe it was 1969, Canadians actually paid premiums for old age security. There actually was a specific premium on the tax return to make a contribution toward one's old age security. That makes it different for those who did and those who did not pay into OAS during their working careers. It was contributory and then it stopped, I think in 1970. So we have two different classes of senior, those who were in the OAS contributory plan up until 1970 and those who were not. That raises the question about whether or not there are any other areas in which people have different circumstances.

I wanted to raise these because it would appear that, in the haste to get this bill put together, some of these were not taken into account.

I also understand that once the bill was actually tabled and received a bill number, Bill C-31, it basically languished for a long period of time. It was not dealt with by the government quickly. In fact, it just sat there, and it was not until September 23 that we actually had the first hour of debate at second reading.

We have to ask this question. How is it that the Parliament of Canada can put together a bill so quickly and yet not dispose of it, given the time frame that has already passed, especially when, with discussion among the various House leaders and party leaders, there could be consent? Even today, the House leader did make a reference that we should, right now, have unanimous consent to support and to pass all of the outstanding justice legislation at all stages now.

That was proposed to the government in the last Parliament. to fast-track bills, and the government turned it down.

We have to ask ourselves, even though we are dealing with a specific bill, if we have learned any lessons from the process we have gone through and from what seems to be happening.

The pattern has been that when the government gets into some difficulty, when some tough issues come up, when it gets caught or trapped, such as with whether or not Canada is going to stay in Afghanistan on a training mission, and when there are a lot of concerns and a lot of issues, the government announces that the following week it will be bringing back all of its justice bills and we will debate justice bills for a whole week. We just have to look at the government's record.

That is not the way to do it, because it is basically politically motivated. When there is a difficult issue, when the government does not want people to dwell on a problem or it does not want a problem articulated too loudly, it switches the channel.

We have switched the channel and we are now on this bill. However, this bill has been with us since before we rose for the summer. Nothing happened to it until September 23, and then it was rushed through the House after a couple of hours of attention and sent to committee. Some concerns were raised by witnesses and amendments were made. When we work together, things can happen. But the bill, as I can see right now, could probably have been completed before we rose for the summer. If the government was serious about the bill, it could probably have been passed at all stages before we broke for the summer. That has to tell us something, and it concerns me.

The other point I want to raise is with regard to the process of bringing this legislation forward. The last thing that happens before the bill comes here and a minister rises to present it, is that the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada has to opine on whether the bill is charter-proof, whether the bill is in good form. We cannot have legislation before the House that would be in violation of the charter.

Interestingly enough, today in debate I engaged the member for Windsor—Tecumseh in a question or two about whether or not this bill is charter-proof. The Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada gave the opinion to cabinet and the bill was signed off and presented to the House. That does not mean that there cannot be a challenge.

The member for Windsor—Tecumseh also said that the bill would only apply to about 600 prisoners out of the 14,000 in our prisons in Canada. Many of them probably would have income from other sources and may very well earn enough income so they do not get old age security. It is very unlikely that they would get it.

If we took all of the people out who would maybe entertain a charter challenge on the basis that they were being discriminated against under the charter, the number of those 600 is really reduced. Some might have so much money that they do not care to do it because it is of no interest to them. Somebody in the middle might not be able to afford to go through the process. The member concluded that, in our situation, a charter challenge probably would never come forward.

The issue came out at committee. If members consulted some of the committee evidence, they would find that the issue did come out. The Canadian Criminal Justice Association raised the validity of the charter on this matter as one of its first points.

When I see things like this happen, I have to ask myself whether or not we have learned any lessons from the past. It is difficult to understand how legislation can be questionable under the charter and has not been nailed down 100%. That might be the first point. Why is it, if it can be demonstrated that there is a risk about whether or not a bill is charter-proof, that it would be up to someone who was aggrieved by the legislation to fight that case?

We have the potential for some unintended consequences. The issue of unintended consequences was raised by the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour in his speech as well. If our enthusiasm and our motivation for changing the Old Age Security Act is because everybody would like to punish Clifford Olson, is there somebody else who may be touched by this but we have not thought it through?

The speech given by the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, who is a member of the committee, by the way, really concerned me. In committee he said that Correctional Service Canada did not seem to be fully informed about the prison population, about inmates' financial considerations, health issues, families, who was splitting benefits, whether they were eligible to do that where there were spousal payments, whether there were orders from other jurisdictions for moneys to be withheld and attached by some other court order.

There is a fair number of details, and none of these things have come up in speeches given by government members. There is one reason, and it is that they do not give speeches. They have someone to present a bill and then they sit on their hands. They do not give speeches or ask questions. They let the opposition parties spin their wheels, and they know that as long as they do not give speeches, they will not have to answer any questions.

That I find somewhat contemptuous of Parliament. Debate is an integral part of what we do here. If the government is not prepared to be accountable and transparent in what it is doing and how it is doing it, then we should express some concern. I hope more members will do that.

This particular bill is not rocket science. As has been outlined to the House, many countries have similar legislation wherein persons incarcerated over a certain period of time are not eligible to receive benefits. They include places like the U.K., Ireland, Austria and a number of other countries. They have various iterations of programs.

The question of unintended consequences is probably what the Bloc member who just spoke was most concerned about. Some people may not agree, but I find this interesting. When somebody over the age of 65 is in jail and will eventually get out of prison, that person needs to live and survive. Nobody wants to be a ward of the state and to be on welfare. People want to live in dignity.

Pension security has always been an issue, and of late a lot of Canadians have expressed that they have not adequately provided for their pension requirements in order to maintain a dignified lifestyle during retirement. Prisoners are still seniors, and the Bloc member gave a very good intervention from the heart about the fact that we should not consider prisoners to be devils, people who should be punished for the rest of their lives.

In fact, our criminal justice system has pillars that work against that kind of thinking. It is a system that, yes, includes punishment for crimes committed, but another important pillar is to provide rehabilitation so that when people ultimately come out of our prison system they understand what they did, are remorseful for it and are looking forward to picking up the pieces of their lives and making the best they can of it.

The other part is to provide for reintegration. That is the part this bill addresses and may be the unintended consequence. People who do not have a lot of money will receive old age security. However, people say that inmates receiving all of these benefits are not entitled to them and we should take it away. But all that does is take away the resources people may need for getting themselves reintegrated into society.

It may take away the money that will be necessary for their burial. It may take away money that is necessary for caring for any persons for whom they have responsibility or persons whom they love. It does not give them that opportunity. In fact, in some cases we will have people who will not be able to live in dignity after they have served their sentences and paid their dues.

We should learn from our experience in some of these bills. The bill was hastily done and there is some fear that we have to do this and everyone is going to jump onside simply because if we do not the public is going to say that we think Clifford Olson should get his old age security. There are many ways to do this, but we did not think about the victims of the crimes that were committed by those persons in jail. We did not think of what happens if the old age security is not paid to certain of these prisoners. That money stays in the coffers of the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development. It never goes anywhere near the victims. Probably one of the areas that we have not dealt with as legislators as much as we should is dealing with and helping victims of crime.

We also should be talking about the prevention side.

Our criminal justice system has many tentacles. A parallel would be when I first became a parliamentarian in 1993, and at the health committee, the first committee I was on when I became an MP, we were given a briefing on the state of the health system in Canada. We were told that 75% of what we spend is spent on fixing problems and 25% is spent on preventing them. Their conclusion was that the system or the model was unsustainable.

It is interesting. I see it as a valid parallel because right now the Conservative government is totally preoccupied with punishing people, but we have not talked very much about rehabilitation. We have not talked very much about prevention or reintegration. All we are talking about is punishing people who eventually will get out of jail and will have to reintegrate into society. We played with a number of bills that deal with parole, et cetera, and shortening that so that people spend a longer time in prison, even though all of the evidence indicates that people who earn parole and spend less time in jail are less likely to reoffend. We need to learn lessons like that and make sure that our legislation is cognizant of some of those details.

Earlier this morning the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca was speaking to another bill. One of his points was about how half the people in the jails in Canada suffer from mental illness and things like fetal alcohol syndrome. He said that the jails are filled with people who really should not be there and for whom rehabilitation is not possible. That would be another example of where in dealing with legislation, the thinking has to go on. In that case it was dealing with the sexual exploitation of children over the Internet. There are other aspects of legislation to be taken care of.

If we look down the list of the criminal justice bills, many of them are linear bills. Many of them have to do with sentencing. Many of them have to do with parole. They could have been rolled together into an omnibus bill, one to deal with sentencing principles and provisions. The reason the government has not done that and we are dealing with this one very linear issue in a bill is that the government does not want these things to be completed and made into law. The government wants to continue to have them there on the shelf, ready to bring them out, to recirculate and recycle them so that it can change the channel whenever it gets into some difficulty.

It is kind of cynical to say that, but the evidence speaks for itself. Many of these bills were active in the last Parliament, and they have come back. They were not reinstated in the same position after prorogation. Some came back and were actually put together in an omnibus bill. Others were not, but the names were changed.

I support the bill but we have missed some opportunities to make our criminal justice system better.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act, be read the third time and passed.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am glad the question came from my colleague from Saint-Maurice—Champlain, because his predecessor was the driving force behind that bill and that request.

The Bloc Québécois took an interest in this issue after it discovered that thousands of Quebeckers and Canadians had not received the guaranteed income supplement, which they were entitled to. The Bloc Québécois canvassed seniors associations all across Quebec and identified thousands of people. We know that there are still thousands of people who are not receiving the GIS. Because applicants have to produce their tax return, the simplest solution would be to automatically send a cheque to the people who are entitled to the GIS. Instead, the Liberals decided to shorten the form by reducing the number of questions, which means that people have to fill out another form to qualify. The Conservatives kept this practice but shortened the form even further to make it easier to fill out. So the GIS is not paid automatically.

Often the least fortunate have difficulty taking care of their own affairs either for health reasons or for other reasons. My colleague is right; it would have been very simple. That is what I am saying: the Liberals and the Conservatives are one and the same. All they want is to try to save money on the backs of the taxpayers to advance their own spending projects. The Conservatives are more focused on military spending, while the Liberals have other priorities. But the average citizen never wins. It is never the least fortunate that win. Money is being ripped out of the hands of the unemployed and of seniors when they are not automatically given the guaranteed income supplement. The government has decided not to help out forestry workers in order to save money because it decided to help Ontario's automobile industry instead. It is a choice.

These are political choices that the Conservatives and Liberals have made to the detriment of the least fortunate in Quebec. They then wonder why they do not win over this part of the population. It is simply because these people know the score. And it is not with a bill like the one introduced today, An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act, which does not address the real problems facing seniors, that the government will manage. The government could have introduced a bill called, “an act to prevent prisoners from receiving their old age pension”, but that would not have been as glamourous as the one they are currently introducing.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, first of all, I read the title of the bill, An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act. Once again, inevitably, when people see such a title for a bill, especially if they are seniors, they will think that the bill is going to affect their lives. Then, when they see the fine print under the title where it says “incarcerated persons”, they will be very disappointed.

That is the purpose of my presentation here today, that is, to point out once again that, by giving their bill a title as impressive as An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act, the Conservatives want to make us debate a subject that we all agree on.

Why did the Conservatives decide to spice up this bill's title and then indicate in the fine print that it pertains to incarcerated criminals? It is precisely to prevent us from talking about the real issues at hand and the real problems facing our seniors and older people.

I can understand that the Conservatives want to promote their law and order policy and ideology at all cost, but again, all that to say that this is a law and order bill. They want to punish criminals and take away their old age security if they have it. The problem with the Conservatives is that they are so obsessed with law and order that they have forgotten that the vast majority of older people, of our seniors, are living below the poverty line and deserve to have a bill, as the Bloc Québécois had wanted, that would improve the guaranteed income supplement by increasing it by $100 a month, in order to help seniors cope with increased housing, food and drug expenses.

In the meantime, prisoners are being housed and fed and their drugs are paid for. That is how the Conservatives operate. They decide to get rid of old age pensions for criminals, but they forget that the vast majority of our seniors do not have enough money to pay for their housing or to cover their food and drug costs. That is the reality. The Conservatives are obsessed with law and order and are abandoning good citizens who have paid taxes their entire lives, who have contributed to society and who are now seeing criminals get all the attention in relation to this bill.

We support this bill and have said so from the very beginning. All parties in this House support it. The problem is that we are still talking about it. We should have settled this matter and had a real bill to amend the Old Age Security Act in order to help our seniors who cannot make ends meet and who are living below the poverty line. We have to help them meet their own physical and mental health needs. However, that is not what we are discussing. The government prefers to talk about law and order and eliminating inmates' pension entitlement. As I said, we support this measure, as do all parties in the House.

Why has this matter not been settled yet? Quite simply because the Conservatives have decided to draw out the debate. That is what they want. They want us to talk about it and discuss it. While we discuss the so-called “Act to amend the Old Age Security Act” in Parliament, the people who read the title will think that they are being looked after and that seniors who have trouble making ends meet and who live below the poverty line will be taken care of. It creates a false impression that their needs are being addressed. Instead, the Conservatives are merely promoting their ideology, with the support of the Liberals—all too often we forget about the Liberals—and once again are ignoring the problems of seniors.

In closing, Bill C-31 before us must be passed as quickly as possible. It makes sense to preclude incarcerated persons from receiving their old age pension, particularly in light of the fact that they receive shelter, food, health care and medications free of charge while our seniors, who have worked their entire lives to advance our society, find it difficult to meet their own needs when it comes to housing, food and medications.

That is what the Conservatives, with the support of the Liberals, are forcing us to live with. For two years now, every time a budget vote has come around, the Liberals have stayed seated or not shown up with enough members. They are always there to support the Conservatives. They are like a crutch that keeps hobbling along. We have been watching the Liberals hobble along. Their disease is spreading to the Conservatives, who are limping along as well. That is how they operate.

I am pleased to say that we will support Bill C-31 because it will prevent prisoners, people who are incarcerated, from receiving old age security, and will still protect their spouses. These spouses will be considered single under the Old Age Security Act and will therefore be entitled to a larger guaranteed income supplement amount.

However, I must point out that the impressive title, “An Act to Amend the Old Age Security Act”, should not fool the public and the seniors who are watching us. This will not solve their problems. They deserve a monthly increase of $100 to their guaranteed income supplement, as suggested by the Bloc Québécois. They deserve a real debate and real changes to the Old Age Security Act so that they can have adequate income to pay for housing, food and medication. They have spent their entire lives advancing our society. We want them to know that the Bloc Québécois and all of its elected members will always defend them here in the House. That is what we do and will continue to do as long as they continue to place their trust in us.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-31 on behalf of the Bloc Québécois.

It is important for the people listening to us to fully understand. The title of the bill, An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act, will probably get some people's attention. In fact, as we know, the old age security program has not been enhanced for quite some time, except for a few minor changes. I met a senior who told me that recent increases barely covered the cost of a coffee. Therefore, the title—An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act—could be confusing. It might lead people to believe that the government is overhauling the Old Age Security Act. They will be disappointed because there is no major reform in this bill.

There are two words in the text of the bill, “incarcerated persons”, that shed light on the Conservatives' philosophy. They have decided to implement a law and order agenda, which includes preventing criminals from receiving their old age pension.

On the one hand, I would like to say that the Bloc Québécois agrees. This measure has received the nod from all parties in the House. I do not think that anyone approves of criminals in prison receiving the old age pension. It is an aberration of the system. On the other hand, why is this bill necessary? We must understand why the Conservatives decided to let this bill go to committee, with great debate and major discussion. The purpose was to get us talking about it and sidetrack us from talking about the real problems of the elderly, of our seniors living in difficult circumstances. Many seniors live below the poverty line. They deserve a real debate and a real bill to amend the Old Age Security Act so that, among other things, the guaranteed income supplement can be increased by $100 per month, as proposed by the Bloc Québécois.

With regard to the guaranteed income supplement, this bill proposes that spouses be treated as though they were single and that they be entitled to an increase in their guaranteed income supplement. That is fine with me. The criminal is in prison, but his spouse does not necessarily deserve to suffer substantial losses. Therefore, it makes sense that she be treated like a single person.

Once again, nothing in this bill addresses the problems our seniors face. We should have expected as much. Given its grand-sounding title, An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act, we expected meaningful old age security reform. However, this is not the direction that the Conservatives are taking and it is definitely not the direction that the Liberals are discussing. We heard them. The Liberals particularly do not want to talk about an increase in the guaranteed income supplement in case they take power since they do not quite know what to do about the expenditures they have announced. For them, therefore, helping seniors is not a way to help our society progress.

Take, for example, the bill introduced by the Bloc Québécois. Every day when they are here in the House, the members of the Bloc Québécois have at heart the interests of citizens, the men and women in Quebec who have worked hard throughout their lives to help our society progress. As I was saying earlier, it was not for nothing that we introduced a bill to increase the guaranteed income supplement by $100 a month, among other things. We also introduced a bill to address losses in company pension plans to help citizens who have seen or who may see a significant drop in their pensions because their company went bankrupt or experienced hardship, as was the case during the recent economic crisis.

The Bloc Québécois introduced a bill to provide a tax credit equivalent to 50% of lost revenues to individuals who have lost pension fund income. This would have allowed them to recover 50% and would have had a domino effect in the provinces, because once a bill like that passes in Ottawa, the provinces follow. This would have enabled those who lost money from their pension plans to recover part of that money through refundable tax credits. Once again, the Liberals voted against this bill.

I have experience here because I have had a plant shut down in my riding. It has now reopened because a new buyer was found, but the buyer did not purchase the company with its pension liabilities. The old company is still in talks and is under the protection of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act. The company's asset, the factory, was sold and the new buyer put it back into service. But the fact remains that the Fraser pension plan remains under the protection of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act. The pensioners were told that their pension plan was reduced by 35% instead of 40%.

It was a big news story. The Bloc Québécois introduced its bill in the House at that time, and the Liberals voted against it. There are still a few Liberals in the Outaouais, and they felt the need to put their oar in and say that they could not support the Bloc's bill, but that they would come up with their own proposal for solving the pension fund problems. The problem, though, is that these people have already lost money, and if they wait for the Liberals to return to power, they will be waiting for decades. The Liberals should have done something for these people and supported the Bloc Québécois's bill, but they did not.

As expected, the Conservatives opposed the bill. The Conservatives' way of helping the poor is to say they have to work. But when you are 55 or over and retired, it is not easy to find a job.

As for the forests, the Conservatives said it was necessary to diversify the economy. The forests are still there and the trees are still growing, but they said the people who worked in forestry had to become computer scientists. That is the Conservatives' approach. It is not a responsible approach, but something that was put down on paper here in Ottawa by high mucky-mucks who opted for monetary trade-offs and decided to put forestry workers into computer jobs.

In the 1990s, they tried the same thing with call centres, which sprang up all over the regions. Today, all the call centres have gone to India. The fact is that jobs that are created in an effort to diversify the economy are not stable. We can achieve stability in the forest industry by developing forest products and reviving the industry. The forests are still there, and as I said, they are still growing.

Once again, to get to that point we need to invest in research and development, support businesses and offer loan guarantees, as we have been calling for. They complied with WTO rules, but Conservative ministers made a big fuss saying that they did not comply while, at the same time, lawyers from the Canadian government were arguing the opposite before the WTO. Our opponents used statements made by ministers in the House to say that the Canadian government was saying one thing before the WTO and using its lawyers to argue its case while simultaneously telling the Canadian Parliament that this was not the way to proceed. The Conservatives have always acted like a dog chasing its tail. The Liberals cut off their own tail with the sponsorship scandal, so they cannot chase it anymore.

And these things might make you laugh, but they can also make you cry if you are a senior living below the poverty line when rent and food prices continue to rise and the measly old age security pension does not keep up with the rising cost of living. I am talking about the cost of living for seniors. The problem with the members of the House, the Conservatives as much as the Liberals, is that they do not seem to understand that the cost of living for seniors as calculated by Statistics Canada is not the average cost of living calculated by the department. And by the way, the Conservative Party was so tired of seeing the data from Statistics Canada that they changed the census form.

The cost of living for seniors includes food, medication and housing. But the costs of these items are not dropping; they continue to rise. Even property values are rising. Some would say that they are not land owners, but renters. But when the price of property rises, rent increases. If we do not build affordable housing for seniors, it is inevitable—

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act, which would eliminate entitlements for prisoners.

I was on the human resources committee which dealt with this bill after it passed the House with the support of all parties. We supported the bill then and we are supporting it again. We hope it is dealt with very quickly. However, that does not mean we do not have certain issues and questions. That is why we have a committee system in Parliament. We look at issues to ensure that however well intended a bill might be, it does not have unintended consequences that could come back to bite us after the fact.

My colleague from Mississauga South referenced that. His view is that it is very possible it will come back to bite us. I tend to agree. I am sure there are parts of it on which we will look back and ask why we did not spend more time on them at committee. We did raise significant issues at committee. My colleague from Windsor—Tecumseh raised some. We raised a number. They were dealt with.

In simple terms, to reinforce what Bill C-31 is about, under Bill C-31, the old age security pension, the GIS provided for under the OAS would not be paid to persons who are incarcerated in a federal institution and serving a sentence of more than two years, incarcerated in a provincial institution and serving a sentence of more than 90 days, or incarcerated in a territorial institution and serving a sentence of more than 90 days.

I think people would say that makes sense but they would want to know how it came about. I want to go through the timeline on this as I think it is somewhat instructive.

On March 26 news reports surfaced across the country that Clifford Olson was getting a pension while in prison. Because of the heinous nature of his crimes, people were understandably and rightly offended by that. That very day the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development made a comment in the House. This is what she said:

...I am very concerned and disturbed [about these reports]. Members can rest assured that we are making every effort at a very rapid pace to ensure the situation does not continue and that it is prevented from happening in the future.

Those were the comments of the minister on March 26. Our party's critic, the member for York West, indicated right away that we would support getting the bill through the House as quickly as possible. Yet it was not until June 1 that the government introduced Bill C-31. The House recessed for the summer on June 17 without the bill having been called for second reading.

On September 23 we came back from the summer break. We had some debates, and the second reading vote was on September 24.

On September 30, we had our first meeting of the human resources committee, referred to as HUMA. It was on October 7 that we finally met to deal with Bill C-31. In fact the first meeting the minister was meant to attend, she was unable to make it. That meant another meeting went by without our being able to act on this bill.

It is a duty of the committee to look at these bills. There may be some unintended consequences. That does not mean this bill could not have come before us quicker. I just say that to show that the official opposition, and I think all opposition parties, wanted to deal with this bill as quickly as we possibly could.

The question is whether this bill will do what it is supposed to do, which is to make sure that Canada's most violent and offensive criminals who are serving long periods of time in jail are not receiving OAS and GIS payments. I think we all agree on that.

On the other hand, there are a number of people who are incarcerated in the prison system and upon release after many years in jail, what are their options? If their options are prefaced by a complete lack of money and resources, what is the action that obviously will follow? In many cases the person who had been an offender will most likely reoffend because the person has no income.

That does not mean those people should receive the payments. We believe they should be withheld, but we wanted to ensure during the course of this that the system was not only taking the payments away when appropriate but also that the payments would resume when appropriate.

We were surprised, perhaps even astonished, at how little information the corrections service keeps on prisoners' families. In fact, the commissioner was unable to tell us some very basic information about the income status of some of the prisoners who were in the system, which obviously could have a direct impact on their families. That was one thing we found surprising. There was not as much information as we thought there should be.

What are other countries doing? I think every country in the world would look at their most violent criminals and say that they need to have a look at that and see if they should be treated differently.

Some work has been done on this. For example, the United Kingdom, Austria, Denmark, Ireland and Luxembourg do not pay state pensions during the duration of prison sentences. In some cases those are recent changes and in some cases that is the way it has been for some time. Austria and Ireland confirmed that the legislation specifically excluded convicted prisoners from receiving their state pensions but that it did not apply to those remanded in custody. Dependants could apply to receive a portion of the pension.

Just about all countries that responded stated that prisoners would not be entitled to the full resumption of their benefits once they left prison, which is certainly the case here, but, as my colleague from the NDP, the justice critic from Windsor—Tecumseh, indicated, the bill had to be amended for us to be certain that the process would be in place to ensure that those payments would continue as appropriate.

Some other EU countries do in fact pay state pensions to prisoners during their sentences. Belgium and the Czech Republic continue to pay state pensions. In France, the payment is made into a prison account. Ten per cent is deducted and allocated to the prosecution and 10% goes toward a release allowance. In Germany, elderly prisoners are entitled to receive state pensions during the period of their prison sentences that is paid into a private bank account. In Norway, sections 3 to 29 of the national insurance act suggest that pensions are subject to deductions during the prison service, according to rules similar to those applying to those in long-term accommodation. In health institutions, the prisoner will receive reduced payments.

Therefore, other countries have had a look at this and some have decided that they should go the route that Canada is going, which is to ensure that people do not get payments while they are in prison.

As I have indicated, we are supportive of this measure because we think it makes sense, but that is not to say that there are not legitimate concerns that have been raised. Some people have indicated that they are concerned that this may not withstand a charter challenge. I am not a lawyer. I have been accused of being one, but I am not a lawyer and I cannot speak effectively to that.

I do want to suggest that there was significant opposition. The Canadian Criminal Justice Association sent some information around to all of us indicating its concerns. Its main points with regard to Bill C-31 are: that it may be in violation of the charter; that it may set a precedent to deny benefits to others housed in government institutions, specifically mental health centres or hospitals; and that the bill may take away funds that may be needed for food and shelter upon release. This goes to the issue of what people would live on when they leave the institution.

The association goes on to say that a waiting period of weeks or months to reinstate payments would exacerbate this problem. I wanted to mention that because that was the biggest issue in our committee and the subject of the amendments, on which the opposition parties and the government eventually came to terms.

The association was also concerned that it may create additional victims out of families, spouses and children of prisoners, as pensions may contribute to household income, and that it could contribute to household disintegration due to lack of income, resulting in additional expenditures to Canadians. There were a number of other issues.

One of the association's biggest concerns, which was a concern expressed by a number of people throughout the country, is whether this is the best way to do criminal justice. Do we react to a headline of a story and then determine that is the course of action?

Back in early summer, Craig Jones, who was then the executive director of the John Howard Society, suggested that this was being used to divert attention from other problems plaguing the government. I want to indicate what his view was. Mr. Jones warned against quickly crafting new laws based on the most extreme examples of offenders. That was a legitimate concern and one that we had to take into account as we did our committee deliberations.

It is not hard to imagine that most Canadians would be generally in favour of suggesting that inmates should not get pensions. In fact, I would reference an Ekos poll taken back in April, shortly after this story broke, under the topic of entitlement to old age benefits while in federal prison. The poll showed that 59% of Canadians agreed with the statement that all federal prisoners should lose their benefits while in prison; 25% said that only federal prisoners with life sentences should lose their benefits; and 17% said that all federal prisoners who are entitled to federal pensions should receive them.

The percentages in the poll were not particularly surprising and probably spurred the government on to ensure that this legislation was brought forward.

However, as I said before, we think it could have been done quicker and, in fact, could have gone to committee before the summer break. Certainly our critic from York West indicated that we would have been very supportive of that.

There were a number of questions, but the key question and the first question I asked when we had committee meetings was: How do we ensure that this gets administered in a way that is not only reasonable for the families, who, in many cases are the unwitting victims of what their loved ones have done by committing offences, but also ensure that we have streets that are safe? How do the benefits get stopped and how do the benefits get started?

We agree that when somebody is in an institution they should not be getting old age benefits and GIS. The spouses could still qualify for GIS on their own income. If it is determined that prisoners will not get benefits while in a federal institution, how would that actually happen and how do we ensure it happens correctly on both ends?

The Commissioner of Correctional Service Canada, Don Head, presented to us on October 26. He took us through a number of things about what happens to inmates while they are in prison. He said:

I would like to address the mechanics of how Correctional Service Canada would help implement the withholding of old age security benefits. We have developed a draft informationsharing agreement with Human Resources and Skills Development Canada that would permit the disclosure by CSC of information on federal offenders age 60 years or older. This would include information on those who are incarcerated in order to facilitate the suspension of payments, as well as information on those who are recently released by virtue of parole or statutory release, so that payments can be reinstated.

I want to emphasize the words “as well as information on those who were recently released”. This would indicate that as prisoners are entering the prison system, when the time has come for their benefits to be stopped, that will happen automatically. On the reverse side, when prisoners come out, the bill stipulates that they must notify the minister, i.e. Service Canada, for the resumption of benefits. What the Commissioner of Correctional Service Canada indicated was that the department would provide information on those who were recently released.

That is a bit of a concern in that it means that people would be hitting the streets without any income to support themselves and potentially their families. We asked if there were a way that Correctional Service Canada could work with inmates as they are coming up for release, either being paroled or at the end of their sentence, to ensure they can make contact with Service Canada to avoid a month or two month delay when they get back onto the streets and hopefully back to their homes, if they have them.

I do not have any reason to doubt the integrity of the Commissioner of Correctional Service Canada or the people who work in the system. I think they are all very well-intentioned and do a very good job. However, they indicated that they could not assist us in ensuring that would be the case.

The nature of the amendments that were provided by the opposition were to ensure that prisoners getting ready for release, not just after they are released, would actually receive those benefits upon release. I think that was taken care of. We had discussions in committee and eventually the government and the opposition parties got together and agreed on some wording to that effect.

As I indicated, I do not know if it is a charter challenge. I am not a lawyer so I cannot speak very effectively to that. However, what makes perfect sense, I think, to most Canadians is that prisoners serving long sentences for serious crimes should not be getting OAS and GIS.

On the other hand, we need to ensure that there will not be some unintended consequences where families will simply have no option. In many cases, it is through no fault of their own that they are involved with people who commit these violent and serious offences.

The other part of this is the cost and/or the savings to the government. We have been told that there needs to be a coordination with the provinces but not all the provinces have signed on. The minister acknowledged this when she appeared before committee. She said that a number of provinces indicated that they would coordinate this with the federal government but that not all of them have. This is something that will need to be worked out, respecting provincial jurisdiction and the fact that some of these costs could be borne by the provinces. Somewhere between $2 million and $10 million, which are the numbers we heard, would be withheld or, in other words, saved. The government would spend $2 million to $10 million less a year.

When the minister appeared before committee, I asked her if that money could be used to support victims of crime. The critic for the Liberal Party indicated as far back as the spring that it was our view that the savings should go to victims of crime. There are some victims of crime organizations that have had funding cuts or their funding has lapsed with the government. I think we all agree that a lot of people who are victims of crime should get the benefit of the doubt.

If $2 million to $10 million will be saved, why can we not allocate that? We all understand that the money goes back to a certain department but there are lots of ways to allocate a certain amount of money and ensure it goes toward something specific. We think it is perfectly sensible and logical that the money should go to victims of crime.

The government talks about victims of crime a lot but it cut the budget of the grants for victims of crime initiative by 41% and the contributions for the victims of crime initiative by 34%, $2.7 million. There is a need by the groups working with victims of crime and we do not understand why that money, which in fact would be money saved because of this bill, could not be dedicated to them.

The saving of money was not the primary purpose of the bill. The primary purpose of the bill was to ensure that people who commit violent crimes do not benefit while in prison. Their costs are already being paid. Why would they need OAS and GIS? We understand that. However, if there are savings to be made, why could that money not then be turned over to victims of crime organizations?

The minister indicated that statutorily the money goes into the department, and we understand that, but whatever the savings are we could very easily designate those savings to the victims of crime. It is all taxpayer money and it all comes out of the same pot at the end of the day. We believe that amount of money, whether it is $2 million or $10 million, would make a bigger difference to victims of crime organizations than it would to the overall bureaucracy that administers OAS and GIS. We were a little disappointed, because we felt this was an initiative that was well worth supporting, that the government did not see fit to support that.

The committee meetings that we had on this were generally productive. As I said, we heard from a number of witnesses, such as Correctional Service Canada and victims groups. We heard some very compelling testimony from people who had been victims of crime. As one can imagine, they tell stories that most Canadians do not want to hear but when they do hear them they feel great empathy and compassion for the families.

The committee worked and at the end day we fashioned a bit of a compromise on an amendment to ensure that more would be done to ensure that long-term prison inmates would not hit the streets without anything for the good of society as much as for the good of themselves and their families. The bill is back in the House today.

I can support this bill. In our country now there is a big need to recognize that there are causes of crime that we can be tough on, but we also want to ensure that we are reasonable, fair and that we are not paying benefits to prisoners that, by and large, Canadians do not think they are entitled to, and I tend to agree with that.

We do not think it is a perfect bill, and there may well be some things that come out down the road, but for today it is an important step for Parliament to say that it is a step forward, that this is a better way of doing things, let us not make perfect be the enemy of better and let us pass Bill C-31.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will conclude my speech on Bill C-31, which aims to preclude criminals over age 65 from receiving old age security benefits.

My hon. colleague from Hochelaga was quite right to remind me earlier that there are several kinds of victims in society, including victims of crime and victims of economic crime, and that one serious economic crime is depriving people, such as seniors who are entitled to the guaranteed income supplement, and we know who is doing that. The same is true for people entitled to EI benefits. Yet, the Conservatives have found a way to take away those benefits.

The Conservative government sings its own praises and takes pride in defending victims' interests. But something is not right. My colleague from Compton—Stanstead introduced Bill C-343 in support of victims of crime. In accordance with the will of the majority of the House, this bill was studied by the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. But five Conservatives voted against it. That was the first time since I came to this House that a bill specifically meant to help victims of crime had been introduced and, contrary to expectations, the same Conservatives who claim to defend the interests of victims of crime voted against it. That is the real face of this party, which is hypocritical and lies to the public. All it wants is to complicate legislation concerning criminals.

I mentioned this morning that a number of these bills were supported by the Bloc Québécois because none of them were that excessive. The Conservatives have voted against our every effort to make amendments in support of victims.

To conclude, I would like to say again that we will support Bill C-31 because it establishes a balance between those who qualify for old age pensions and those who do not. Of course, criminals do not qualify. However, we strongly condemn the fact that the government is not following through on its commitment to help victims of crime. In fact, it stonewalls all attempts to do just that.

I hope that when the time comes, when we come back to the House for third reading of Bill C-343, all members of the House of Commons will vote in favour of it, including our Conservative colleagues who, this time, might have the heart to support victims of crime.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act, be read the third time and passed.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, at the committee my colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour spoke to me about introducing a motion that would divert the dollars being saved in this bill to the victims of crime. That budget for the victims of crime gets cut on a continuous basis. More money needs to be made available to those very victims who have suffered so much.

I have a wonderful young mother in my riding by the name of Louise Russo. Many members in the House are aware of her. She was picking up a sandwich at a sandwich bar for her daughter after night school and happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. There was a mob hit. Somebody went by and sprayed bullets into this upscale coffee shop with the intention of getting someone else but unfortunately happened to get Ms. Russo, as she entered to get that sandwich for her daughter that fatal night. She nearly died. She is paralyzed from the breast bone down. She is a young mother with a severely disabled child. Now there are two people in wheelchairs, Ms. Russo and her daughter.

When I inquired about what was available in the way of support for people like Ms. Russo, I found out that the maximum amount was $25,000. We have a woman who had been actively working and had a disabled child, and the only kind of compensation available to her was $25,000.

Victims of crime need to be supported in a variety of ways. Emotional support needs to be there, but clearly, financial support has to be there as well. Her ability to be employed, to have a successful job, has been taken away. In Bill C-31, some of the money could have been diverted for the victims of crime.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate our hon. colleague from York West on her speech. I think we have reached the same conclusions about Bill C-31. She raised the issue of protecting victims. It would be interesting to hear more of her thoughts on this.

We are used to seeing the Conservatives introduce bills to penalize criminals even more, but they almost never introduce anything to prevent crime. Some things, it goes without saying, we can agree on, such as Bill C-31, but the Conservatives rarely or never introduce bills to protect victims.

Can the member tell us if this bill contains any elements to protect victims? If not, what measures should be brought forward to protect the victims of crime?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to be here to speak to issues, especially things that we went on record some months ago as supporting, without having to listen to some of the rhetoric. I heard my colleague behind me use words that are inappropriate in the House, and I will just leave it at that.

It has been suggested that we on this side of the House are not supporting this bill. It has also been suggested that this has been a fast process. The bill was introduced in June. This issue was brought up first by the media, by the way, not by anybody else, in March. It took until June for the legislation to be introduced. Here we are on November 16 finally getting a bill passed. That has a lot to do with the fact that the committee worked very well with the intent of getting the bill back into the House. Otherwise who knows how long it would take to get it here?

Some of us are concerned and frustrated when we hear the other side say that we are not helping. We are the ones who have been pushing this forward since it was first announced in the media. The government has been advancing it at nothing short of a snail's pace. Let us be clear on that point.

The committee has done a good job. After all, it was a little more than a month since the committee was asked to examine Bill C-31. Members of the committee took the bill seriously. They did their homework and asked questions to make sure that we avoided unintended consequences. Hence the bill is now before us and it could be passed very quickly here and in the other place. It is fair to say that the committee members did a quick and thorough job of reviewing the bill, contrary to, as I indicated earlier, what the government did not do.

My primary concern stems back to the pace that business is being advanced in the House. A proactive government would move quickly on issues that concern Canadians and parliamentarians.

Most members know that Bill C-31 is legislation that is relatively simplistic from a legal perspective, which does not happen too often. It is not particularly controversial, nor is it divisive in its scope. After all, the entire bill, in both English and French, is less than six pages in total length. It is a very small bill.

Put another way, after more than five months of working on this legislation, we have successfully completed just 25% of the legislative process. Imagine, just 25% in five months; that is a snail's pace if there ever were one. If this is the best we can do, Bill C-31 will not pass into law until July 2012, long after when every reasonable person expects the next election to be held. We know what will happen. An election will be called; everything will die on the order paper and nothing will ever get done. This could have been done in September. The bill could have passed in September and gone to the other place. It is not often that we are asking the government why it is not moving something forward faster, but this is a very simple and small bill and it could have been passed by both houses by now.

This means the government wants to talk about this bill more than it wants to pass it. It wants to say that it is tough on crime more than it wants to back its rhetoric with real action. Most particularly, the government is clearly more interested in optics than it is in the elements of governing as responsible Canadians.

Permit me to be completely clear though. We are of the belief that the changes are long overdue and we do not oppose them. In fact, we support them. As I have said before, from the Liberals' perspective, we are certainly prepared to fast-track this legislation. I indicated in June when the minister introduced the legislation that we were prepared to fast-track this bill.

When I last spoke in this House on Bill C-31, my primary concern was simple. I wanted to make sure there were no unintended consequences attached to the bill. It is a requirement for all of us as legislators to ensure there are no unintended consequences on any legislation that is introduced in the House. Even though many of us had strong feelings from the start when the media flagged this issue, our government was not aware of this issue any more than anybody else was. It was members of the media, in the kind of work they do, who discovered Mr. Olson was receiving old age security cheques, which clearly bothered all of us.

While I was anxious to punish the guilty and to ensure that tax dollars were not being wasted, I also needed to be sure we were not punishing the spouses for the crimes of their partners. We all know that the spouses pay a big enough price and I do not believe any of us wanted to add to that difficulty.

It seems that the committee members were satisfied by hearing witnesses from various organizations throughout Canada. They listened to all sides of the issues to make sure that Bill C-31 would not have a negative impact on the spouses, and that the spouses, families and children would be protected.

In my mind there would seem to be no other reason that we would not send Bill C-31 to the other place. If the Prime Minister were truly committed to its speedy passage, he could direct his Conservative-dominated Senate to pass the legislation immediately. It could all be done before we rose for Christmas, if he really wanted it done. Of course, the Prime Minister has little interest in this approach, so one would wonder how serious he is about the issue, or is he just more interested in looking as though he were serious about the issue? That is for the Canadian people to decide at the appropriate time. After all, this is just another in a recent string of examples of the government's relentless drive for good optics.

According to the recently released public accounts, lapsed funding for the victims of crime initiative last year amounted to just under $4 million, or 45% of the available funds. That means in 2009-10, the Conservatives spent $4.8 million helping victims of crime versus $6 million which they spent this year to advertise how they helped those victims of crime.

One of the motions that was introduced at committee was that the $2 million, the amount of money saved by not sending the pension to the likes of Mr. Olson, should be given to the victims of crime organization so that we could help victims in as many ways as possible. However, my understanding is that the amendment was not passed at committee.

Those commercials we continue to see in the government's massive advertising campaign fail to mention that when the Prime Minister prorogued Parliament, he killed his entire crime agenda that we had heard so much about for so many years, much of which had the Liberals' support. However, once Parliament was prorogued, all of that fell off the agenda, just as this bill would if the Prime Minister were to prorogue Parliament tomorrow.

People have to understand what proroguing Parliament really does. The legislation that all of us work for, although not all of us necessarily support, is lost once Parliament prorogues. Every single bill at that time was back to square one. When Parliament resumed sitting in the spring, each one of them had to be reintroduced, one by one. That delays them, because they have to go through the same process again: first reading, second reading, consideration at committee, report stage, third reading and then they go to the other place. All that so-called big crime agenda that was necessary was lost. Some of it was not as good as it could have been; there were lots of problems with some of it, but we were supporting it. Then we had to start all over again in the spring. Yet if we listen to the Prime Minister's multi-million dollar ad campaign, we would swear that all of that legislation was in effect right now, which is simply untrue.

Call it retail politics, spin, wedge politics or whatever one wishes, but Canadians are being misinformed again and again by the government. I say it is time for that nonsense to stop and for the government to be honest about the kind of legislation that is being passed and the timelines in doing that.

In simple terms, Bill C-31 seeks to amend the Old Age Security Act to preclude incarcerated persons from receiving benefits under this act and at the same time to maintain entitlement to benefits for their spouse or common law partner. When we talk about unintended consequences, we had to ensure that the spouses and children of these individuals would not be harmed with the passage of Bill C-31.

As I have already said, the latter of these elements is, in my estimation, a pivotal thrust of this particular piece of legislation. We should never be too eager to cast a net without first ensuring that only those deserving of punishment are actually forced to endure it, and not their spouses and children.

Despite our often fierce partisan differences in the House, today we are looking at an issue that should unite all of us regardless of our political affiliation.

As we know, the old age security pension is intended to help seniors pay for their housing, clothing, food and transportation, which are expectations that many seniors struggle with each and every day.

I just came from a meeting at the industry committee where we were talking about Bill C-501. This is a bill that was put forward by one of my colleagues in the other party to try to deal with pensioners and bankruptcy collapse, to deal with what happens to people who work for companies that go bankrupt. This bill deals with the impacts on current pensioners and would-be pensioners. It deals with the devastation of trying to live on $1,200 a month and the many pensioners who are in poverty as a result of their company's going bankrupt.

This is a call on the government and all parliamentarians, and we were all very serious this morning regardless of party, to try to find solutions to the problem of Nortel, for example, and other companies. How do we better protect pensions and people's contributions in this country?

For thousands of seniors who are struggling with these growing bills on a fixed income, the thought that convicted and imprisoned criminals would be eligible for the same OAS benefit as they are is quite offensive and totally unacceptable for all of us.

Moreover, given that the old age security is meant to help a recipient pay for housing, clothing, food and transportation, it seems unnecessary for prisoners to get a cheque given that their housing, clothing, food and transportation are already paid for as a condition of their incarceration. It does not make a lot of sense that we give the same amount of money to seniors out there having to pay rent and buy their own groceries and clothing and all the rest of it, and yet people in prison, regardless of what they are there for, get all of that plus their old age security.

One senior said, “Maybe I should go to jail. At least I would have some extra money and all of my needs would be taken care of”. I assured that senior that once the gate was closed it might not seem like such a good idea.

As a legislator, I see the current reality to be redundant, unacceptable and, as I indicated earlier, something that should be changed without delay, without delay. I would like to hear the government move this through at votes tonight, move it into the Senate and ask the Conservative-dominated Senate to pass Bill C-31 immediately. This is precisely why I am of the belief that Bill C-31 should be advanced, as I indicated before.

I last addressed this issue in June when the minister introduced the legislation. I said at that time that I would not seek to draw this process out for the sake of speaking longer in the House. I did not intend to do that then, nor do I intend to do it today. What is needed today is action and it is needed now.

For the sake of clarity, contrary to my colleague's asking if we would vote for it, the Liberal position has been on the record since June, maybe before that, that we would support this kind of legislation. So that there is no question whether we will, the Liberal side of the House supports the stated notions of Bill C-31 unequivocally.

The next thing we know, though, there will be a massive email campaign going around to everybody in Canada saying to go after the Liberals, NDP and the Bloc because they may not support Bill C-31. Let me be clear. We have indicated from the beginning that we support it. We are going to continue to support it. In fact, we are asking the government to fast-track it through the Senate.

We agree that convicted and incarcerated criminals should not receive societal benefits, like the monthly old age security cheque. On a purely personal note, I would take this belief one step further.

I, like most Canadians, was horrified as I watched the trial of the former Colonel Williams. This person is now sitting in jail, but upon his formal retirement he could be eligible for a pension that he earned while a member of the Canadian Forces, a time that coincides with the time he committed his heinous crimes. There is something fundamentally wrong with the notion that he will be rewarded on the same scale as Canada's veterans of the war in Afghanistan. There is something terribly wrong with that.

Canada's pension systems, both public and private, need a great deal of attention. The Canada pension plan, old age security, the guaranteed income supplement and the various private options available are good. We are grateful that we have them and that the investments were made, but we need to do better.

We need to examine all facets of these systems in a way that will close the gaps, reduce the redundancies and enhance the benefits for all Canadians. I recently released a white paper on pension reform. That document was the product of more than a year of work by nearly 20 industry and pension specialists of every partisan stripe.

Whether we addressed the creation of a supplementary Canada pension plan, the tightening of regulatory loopholes, the enhancement of regular Canada pension plan benefits or the establishment of a pension bill of rights, the focus was not on politics. It was on substantive pension reform. Our primary focus was, and is, finding ways to make pensions stronger. Some days I wish that example could be adopted more often by the government and this House.

Twenty-eight recommendations later, I am convinced that we have a winning strategy, a comprehensive, multi-generational plan that puts people and their pensions first. The white paper, which can be found on my web page, fits hand-in-glove with Bill C-574, which I introduced on October 1.

Bill C-574 is a pensioners' bill of rights. Since the Mackenzie King government, a Liberal government I should remind the House, first introduced the Old Age Pensions Act 83 years ago, Liberals have fostered a long history of creating, enhancing and expanding pensions available to Canadian seniors.

From old age security, introduced by the Liberal government, to the Canada pension plan of previous Liberal governments and the supplement, also from a previous Liberal government, we understand the extreme importance of protecting and preserving pension security, adequacy and coverage for all deserving and law-abiding Canadians.

Bill C-574 is the next step in that process. Too often, financial illiteracy, inadequate opportunity and economic instability strip away the hard-earned savings of our seniors. That must stop.

Bill C-574 is the first bill of its kind ever proposed to better protect our seniors and their nest eggs. I am proud to have presented it. I clearly hope that all members in this House will adopt it at the appropriate time. I would urge colleagues to take part in that debate on November 23. As always, our seniors are counting on us.

Bill C-31 is yet another step that could be taken down this road. I stand ready to do whatever it takes to achieve these goals, and I look forward to working with my colleagues and with the government to pass measures geared to the same.

With the help of the government, I am hopeful that we can advance Bill C-31 quickly in this House and then, with the help of the Prime Minister, quickly through the other place.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-31, Eliminating Entitlements for Prisoners Act. With this legislation, the Government of Canada intends to amend the Old Age Security Act to suspend old age security and guaranteed income supplement benefits for incarcerated criminals.

Let me remind the House of what the bill sets out to do. Once passed, it will suspend old age security benefits to prisoners in federal penitentiaries who are serving sentences of two years or longer. Then in provinces that have agreed to help us implement the bill, an information sharing agreement will be signed, which will allow us to suspend old age security benefits for individuals sentenced to a term of 90 days imprisonment or more in that province or territory.

We want to see these changes implemented as soon as possible and the support of the provinces and territories will be vital to getting that done. It is important to note that this government has taken steps to minimize the impact of innocent spouses and common-law partners. The proposed bill ensures that low income spouses or partners of the prisoners will not lose their own entitlements to the guaranteed income supplement and the allowance. The guaranteed income supplement and allowance benefits to spouses or partners of prisoners will be adjusted so they are based on the income of the spouses or partners who are not incarcerated rather than the combined income of the couple.

The bill would bring the Old Age Security Act in line with other federal and provincial government programs and would suspend benefits to the incarcerated. Across the country, seven provinces and one territory already suspend social and income assistance to inmates.

There are international precedents as well. In the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia among others, also suspend the payment of state pensions to prisoners.

The purpose of old age security is to help seniors, especially those living on a fixed income, to meet their basic needs. It is an important program that recognizes that seniors helped build our great country.

Prisoners do not have to worry about these costs. They do not have to worry about things like paying rent or buying groceries. That is because their basic needs are already paid for by taxpayers. Hard-working taxpayers should not be paying twice. Prisoners should not be receiving old age security benefits. Our Conservative government believes that Canadians who work hard, contribute to the system and play by the rules deserve government benefits such as old age security. It is wrong and obviously unfair that prisoners who broke the law continue to receive the same benefits.

The bill is another example of our government's commitment to ensure fairness for hard-working taxpayers and putting victims and taxpayers first, ahead of criminals. The response we have heard from families of victims and victims organizations have proven to me that the bill is truly the right thing to do.

Let me name just a few of the people who support the bill: Sharon Rosenfeldt who is the mother of one Clifford Olson's victims and president of Victims of Violence; Ray King, the father of another victim of Clifford Olson; David Toner, president of Families Against Crime and Trauma; Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu; and Kevin Gaudet, Canadian Taxpayers Federation as well.

Ms. Rosenfeldt and Mr. Gaudet appeared before our committee during our study of the bill. Ms. Rosenfeldt's son was tragically murdered by Clifford Olson. For years she has been a tireless advocate for victims and their families. She urged for the passage of the bill. It is common sense that one cannot benefit twice at the expense of Canadian taxpayers. That is why Canadians are upset and outraged. The bill is important for the principles of fairness.

Mr. Gaudet informed the committee that their petitions in support of the bill received close to 50,000 signatures from Canadians across the country in only six weeks. He spoke about how it was not just victims and stakeholders who wanted the bill passed, but countless everyday Canadians cared so much about the bill that they had taken time out of their busy lives to voice their opinion.

When the minister spoke, she said that she had received more correspondence on this issue than almost any other. I have heard from several of my constituents and I know MPs from all parties in the House have also heard from their constituents. Canadians across the country have told us they do not want these benefits going to prisoners. We understand why they feel so strongly about this issue. Canadians are telling us they want the bill passed and they want it passed soon.

I am pleased to report that after extensive study at committee, the bill was passed, but we still have a way to go. We must complete report stage and third reading of the bill, as we are doing now. Then the hon. senators must study it and pass it before it becomes law.

I urge all parties to not unnecessarily delay the bill. Let us get the bill passed so we can ensure that mass murderers like Clifford Olson, Paul Bernardo and Robert Pickton do not receive these benefits while in jail. It is what Canadians want and expect. It is the fair and right thing to do.

I urge the House to get behind the bill to pass it as soon as is possible.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act, as reported (with amendments) from the committee.

Business of the House

[John Baird, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, today we are debating the NDP opposition motion.

Pursuant to any order adopted by the House earlier today, the vote on that opposition motion will take place on Tuesday, November 16 at the end of government orders.

Tomorrow the House will have the occasion to debate at second reading Bill C-32, Copyright Modernization Act, and the backup bill, should debate conclude at second reading, will be Bill S-9, Tackling Auto Theft and Property Crime Act, which I know is a key priority of the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada.

Next week, as the member opposite said, is a constituency week. I encourage all members to remember and recognize the sacrifices made by the men and women of our armed forces, on November 11.

When we return on Monday, November 15, we will call a number of bills, including Bill C-3, Gender Equity in Indian Registration Act, Bill C-31, Eliminating Entitlements for Prisoners Act, Bill C-35, Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants Act, Bill C-20, An Action Plan for the National Capital Commission, Bill C-28, Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act, Bill C-22, Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation Act and Bill C-48, Protecting Canadians by Ending Sentence Discounts for Multiple Murders Act. We would also consider calling other bills that may have returned from committee by the time we return.

Thursday, November 18, shall be the next allotted day.

In closing, I wish all members a productive constituency week.

Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the sixth report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in relation to Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act.. The committee has studied the bill and decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.

I would like to thank members of the committee from both sides of the House for their hard work, support and collaboration during the study of this bill.

[The Chair (Ms. Candice Hoeppner (Portage—Lisgar, CPC)), Conservative, Candice Bergen]

I call to order meeting number 30 of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, pursuant to the order of reference of Friday, September 24, 2010, Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act.

We will be proceeding now with clause-by-clause consideration.

We are very pleased to have two officials here from the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development to answer our questions. They are Mr. La Salle and Madam Birba.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you, Chair.

I don't normally take two rounds, but per your recommendation, I do want to clear the record.

There is something happening here. We've had a number of hearings on this bill and they've been pretty cooperative. We've asked our questions. All of a sudden we come to the Centre Block and we're televised and we start to get some allegations from the government that need to be corrected. I've corrected one of them already.

But the idea of Mr. Watson, who said that the opposition is out talking about the banking of OAS for prisoners.... The comment about Mr. Comartin's position, which I think he's cleared up....

It's important that people understand that this bill could have been dealt with faster. In fact, it was on March 26 that there were media reports that Clifford Olson was getting a pension. We were all outraged by that. On that same day the minister made comments in the House, saying that she would be bringing forward a bill very quickly. It wasn't until June 1 that Bill C-31 was introduced for first reading. There's a big gap there. We had indicated in that time that we supported the intent of Bill C-31. We intended to support the bill. We went further to suggest that, in our view, there should be money that is recouped through this bill that should go to victims of crime.

Let's not forget that the government has cut the budget of the grants for the victims of crime initiative by 41%, the contributions for the victims of crime initiative by 34%. They fired the federal ombudsman for the victims of crime. We think this money should go to the victims of crime.

I agree with Dr. Wong when she talks about people who have been harmed by people who are now in prison.

So I think it's just important that we understand that the opposition is doing their due diligence on this bill, but we are not stopping it. We are not opposing it. We are just trying to make sure that this bill does what it's intended to do, as we have done from the beginning, and as our critic on this issue, Judy Sgro, has done vigilantly since March 26 when these reports were made public.

That's what I want to say, Madam Chair.

If I have time, I'll give it to Madam Minna.

[Jacques Paquette]

In our discussions with Correctional Services--and that was my responsibility--what we were concentrating on was the case of the OAS and how we can prevent OAS being paid to people while they are incarcerated. When we looked at section 78 and at other means, and some of the limitations that section 78 has as well, our clear conclusion was that Bill C-31 was the most effective and cleanest way to achieve that objective.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

I just wanted to add something, but unfortunately, the minister has just left, although I suppose she will have an opportunity to read the comments made here in committee. The minister's last answer to my question was similar to what you just said. However, I want to raise one objection. There is no doubt, as my colleagues on this side of the table have stated, that we support Bill C-31 and would like to see it pass as quickly as possible. There is no doubt about that.

What we are trying to ascertain—and I am referring here specifically to my colleague and myself—are the potential financial repercussions for the dependents of these individuals. In other words, it's perfectly normal to punish the person who committed the crime, but what we are trying to find out is to what extent it is appropriate to also punish family members of the inmate who are financially dependent on him or her. That was the point of the question that Ms. Minna and myself asked earlier.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Bill C-31 already contains measures that consider dependents. One solution is to collect the information when the person is incarcerated. If you don't receive the information in time and the pension is paid for more than a month, do inmates or their spouses have to repay it?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

We looked at different ways of resolving the issue, but passing Bill C-31 is still the best option because it's easier, more comprehensive and more direct. It's the best approach.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Will there be consequences for a province if it refuses to sign on to Bill C-31?

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you.

Minister, thank you for coming. It's always wonderful to have you here with the committee. I think you know that all parties have indicated support for this and that we were all concerned when we found out there was a loophole in the system that allowed people like Clifford Olson to get these benefits.

In fact, our critic, Judy Sgro, had indicated support from the very beginning, and I think we could have moved it through to the committee even faster than it eventually came. But we also want to make sure that there are some people who are not Clifford Olsons who may have families or dependants, and I know my colleague, Ms. Minna, has some questions about that. Nonetheless, we think we need to move this along.

You referenced the provinces in your comments, those who have signed on to this. There are some provinces that haven't, and I wonder what action you're taking to convince them. Perhaps you could tell us what their concerns are with Bill C-31.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Good morning. Bonjour. I am really very pleased to be here to discuss Bill C-31, the Eliminating Entitlements for Prisoners Act.

Canadians were shocked and outraged when it was discovered that mass murderers such as Clifford Olson, who admitted to brutally killing 18 children, are receiving old age security and guaranteed income supplement benefits. In a few short years, Paul Bernardo is supposed to receive these benefits, as are Robert Pickton and Russell Williams. This not only angers Canadians but is also outrageous and offensive to me, to the Prime Minister, and to our government, which is why, as soon as we discovered this practice, our Conservative government took immediate action and introduced Bill C-31, which puts a stop to incarcerated criminals receiving these benefits.

Madam Chair, the purpose of Old Age Security is to help seniors, especially those living on a fixed income, meet their immediate day-to-day basic needs and maintain a minimum standard of living in their retirement. This is in recognition of the contributions that seniors have made to Canadian society, to our economy, and to our communities.

An inmate's basic needs, such as food and shelter, are already met and paid for by tax dollars contributed by hard-working Canadians. Canadians accept these costs because they want to make sure that criminals stay off the streets, and stay in jail, where they belong. What Canadians and our government will not accept are benefits meant for law-abiding, hard-working seniors going to incarcerated criminals. The OAS program is not a savings plan for prisoners in which they accumulate tax dollars for their own personal use off the backs of hard-working taxpayers. Since an inmate's basic needs are already met by public funds, Canadian taxpayers should not also be paying for income support through OAS benefits. It's grossly unfair to make law-abiding Canadian taxpayers pay twice for incarcerated criminals. In short, Madam Chair, whether someone is in jail for three months or thirty years, the fact is, the taxpayers are already footing the bill for their room and board.

Convicted criminals should not be receiving old age security benefits that are intended to help seniors pay for their basic expenses. Accordingly, Bill C-31 puts an end to criminals receiving OAS and GIS benefits while in prison. It aims to do this in two steps. First, once the bill has passed, it would terminate OAS benefits for prisoners sentenced to more than two years in a federal penitentiary. This would affect approximately 400 inmates and would save Canadian taxpayers approximately $2 million.

The federal government would then work with provinces and territories to sign information-sharing agreements to proceed with the termination of these benefits for incarcerated criminals who are serving 90 days or more in a provincial or territorial prison. This would affect about 600 provincial and territorial inmates per year and would result in savings to taxpayers of an additional $8 million annually, for a total of $10 million per year, if all provinces and territories sign on.

Bill C-31 is in line with what several provinces are already doing. In fact, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the Northwest Territories already do not pay social or income assistance to incarcerated criminals. I personally wrote to all of the provincial and territorial ministers to ask for their support and cooperation in signing information-sharing agreements once our bill is passed. I commend British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Newfoundland and Labrador for informing me that they support Bill C-31 and will work with our government to get an agreement signed as quickly as possible.

Madam Chair, I feel that it is important to note that we have been very careful to ensure that innocent spouses and common-law partners do not suffer as a result of the actions of their spouse. These innocent individuals will not lose their individual entitlement to the Guaranteed Income Supplement and the Allowances as a result of these proposed amendments. They will still receive benefits based on their individual income, rather than the combined income of the couple.

Bill C-31 is yet another example of our Conservative government ensuring fairness for hard-working taxpayers. It is yet another example of our government putting victims ahead of criminals.

In a nutshell, this bill is doing what is right and what is fair. Our government believes that Canadians who work hard, who contribute to the system and play by the rules deserve benefits such as OAS. Prisoners do not.

The proof that this bill is the right thing to do can be found in the truly overwhelming support we received for it. In fact, I've probably received more correspondence on this issue than any other. One of the people who touched me the most was a mother whose life was forever altered by Clifford Olson after he brutally murdered her son. Her name is Sharon Rosenfeldt and she is the president of Victims of Violence. When I introduced this bill in the House she said:

I commend the Prime Minister and the Minister for taking leadership on this important issue and ending entitlements for convicted criminals. It's great to see that this government is putting victims and taxpayers first ahead of criminals. The suspension of OAS benefit payments to inmates does just that.

Ray King is another parent whose life was forever changed by Clifford Olson's heinous crimes. When he heard this bill had been introduced he remarked, “It's the best news I've heard in a long time. I'm quite pleased the government has done something.”

These two individuals are part of a long list of people, which also includes David Toner, the president of Families Against Crime and Trauma in Toronto, and Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu, who support Bill C-31. These, ladies and gentlemen, are people who fight for victims and are hard-working, law-abiding Canadians who agree that this bill must be passed.

What has had an equally large impact on me has been the number of everyday Canadians who took the time out of their busy schedules to express their opinions. In just a few short weeks, 50,000 Canadians signed a petition by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation in support of this bill, and many Canadians have written to me personally or to their local member of Parliament.

When I first spoke on this bill, I provided a small sample of what Canadians have been saying. There are far too many citations to list them all here, but I want to provide a few more examples so the members of this committee can understand just how strongly Canadians support this legislation.

From Redvers, Saskatchewan:

The taxpayers of this country are providing room, board and medical care for these people who have chosen to disregard the rules of our justice system and the rights of those they have acted against. We should not be providing...pensions.

From Kingston, Ontario:

I am very annoyed that Clifford Olson, a convicted notorious killer, is receiving Canada's Old Age Pension. I am really, really angry about this and want you to change the law.

From Fredericton, New Brunswick:

You are right. [Prisoners receiving Old Age Security benefits] is an insult to his victims and to all Canadians.

From Vancouver, B.C.:

Thank you so much for promptly saying that you will ensure that prisoners will not receive OAS. I have always appreciated [your government's] actions to improve social security programs in a responsible manner that considers taxpayers as well as recipients.

Madam Chair, Canadians across this great country agree that ending entitlements to prisoners is the fair and right thing to do, and they want Bill C-31 passed into law. Canadians know that our Conservative government will always stand up for law-abiding, hard-working Canadians and their families. They know we will use their hard-earned tax dollars fairly, responsibly, and prudently. Bill C-31 is about the responsible use of public funds and the fair treatment of taxpayers. We're taking action to put an end to entitlements for prisoners and to ensure those Canadians who have spent their lives working hard and playing by the rules receive the benefits they deserve.

I hope all the members of this committee will stand up for hard-working, law-abiding Canadians, for what is right and fair, and support Bill C-31.

Merci. Thank you. I'd be happy now to answer your questions.

[The Chair (Ms. Candice Hoeppner (Portage—Lisgar, CPC)), Conservative, Diane Finley]

Good morning, everybody.

I would like to call to order meeting number 29 of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons With Disabilities.

Further to our study on Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act, we're very pleased to welcome our minister, the Hon. Diane Finley, as well as officials from the department.

Welcome, and thank you so much for being here. We look forward to hearing from you and to going around the table to ask you some questions.

Minister, at this time, I will turn the podium over to you. You have ten minutes. If you'd like, I could give you a one-minute warning when you're close to your ten minutes.

Thank you.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Will Bill C-31 also be studied by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights or by the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, or will our committee be the only one to study it?

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

I just have one question as a point of information, Madam Chair. Will Bill C-31 also be studied by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights or by the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security?

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Head and Mr. McCowan, according to Bill C-31, a person who is being fed and sheltered in a penitentiary must make a contribution, especially if they are receiving some income from the state, but how do we deal with cases of white-collar crime? Some of them are liable to receive sentences of more than two years of incarceration. As far as I am concerned, I do not know many such cases, but I know at least one who is over 65 and whose annual income is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. In one of these cases, there are millions of dollars involved. These people are not eligible to receive old age pension benefits nor can they receive the Guaranteed Income Supplement. Thus they will be fed and sheltered and laundered and it will all be for free.

How shall we proceed? If we can get our hands on the income of some of these people, we will do so, but are we going to let those white-collar criminals get free services? I am thinking out loud.

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for coming.

I have one or two very simple questions. Pursuant to Bill C-31, the government will certainly ask the Correctional Service of Canada to send the information regarding inmates who get Old Age Security benefits, so as to make the connections. Earlier, you said that you had very little information, and thus I suppose that you'll gather that information and send it to the department in order to prepare Bill C-31.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

And you would be continuing that program. This Bill C-31 is not going to change your practice in that regard.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

This is not the question that I am concerned with. I understand that you want to enforce the legislation.

According to our reading of it, section 78 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, if it was amended, could give us exactly the same result as Bill C-31 and it would allow you to collect the entire sum.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

I think that the section is very clear with regard to the use that can be made of the money that is collected. We studied this section carefully and, unless I am mistaken, you have also studied it carefully. It seems to us that a very small amendment would have been enough to make sure that you have the power to enforce this provision and to get the same result that we want to obtain through Bill C-31. Do you share my opinion?

[Don Head, Commissioner, Correctional Service Canada]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good morning, and thank you, Madam Chair and committee members, for the opportunity to discuss how the proposed bill would affect CSC operations, that being Bill C-31.

First I'd like to address how many federal offenders may be impacted by this bill and then I will provide you with some information about how we manage offenders' moneys while they are incarcerated. The Correctional Service of Canada is currently housing about 13,700 offenders in our institutions across the country. Of these, approximately 850, or 6%, are 60 years of age or older. And approximately 1,160, or 8%, of the 8,600 offenders supervised in the community are 60 years of age or older.

However, we are unaware of how many are actually receiving benefit payments, as some offenders who are receiving the payments may have the funds deposited to a bank or a credit union in the community rather than having it sent to them at an institution.

By way of background, I would like to describe how offenders' money is handled while they are incarcerated. Institutions manage two forms of accounts for offenders, a current account and a savings account. Offenders can receive a maximum of $6.90 per day for participation in work, training, or intervention programming. Offenders who refuse to participate in all programs and assignments receive one dollar per day. These funds may be subject to a number of deductions at source, including indebtedness to the crown, room and board, and contributions to the inmate welfare fund. Offenders may receive income from other sources, such as the sale of hobby crafts or government pensions such as old age security benefits, and they would until the coming into force of this bill.

Offenders are allowed to keep in their current account no more than 90% of any income received after deductions, to a maximum of $69 for a two-week pay period. This can be used for items such as telephone calls, canteen purchases, and the purchase of certain approved personal property items. Anything above the $69 per two-week period is placed in the inmate's savings account, which is only accessible for approved purposes and in support of his or her correctional plan.

Offenders are allowed to transfer funds from their savings account to their current account no more than four times per year and the total annual transfer may not exceed $500. Furthermore, they are required to maintain a minimum balance of $80 in their savings account. This, in part, is intended to ensure funds are available to them upon their release.

When an offender is released on day parole, full parole, or statutory release, all funds in the current and savings accounts are made available to him or her. As such, any offender who may currently be in receipt of their old age security benefits would not normally be able to access any funds in excess of $69 per two-week pay period while incarcerated. The exception to this is the transfers I mentioned earlier. So an offender's discretionary funds in his or her current account can be supplemented by a maximum of $500 per year.

These mechanisms are in place to ensure that offenders can properly budget for their release, to control the flow of money inside institutions, to ensure the safety and security of staff and offenders, and to support inmate welfare funds that assist with both the welfare of offenders and contribute to outside charitable contributions.

I'd like to come back quickly to the issue of room and board. In the case of an offender receiving a pension from a private or government source, commissioner's directive number 860 on inmate's money allows, at the discretion of the institutional head or warden, the deduction of up to 25% of an inmate's total income for the cost of room and board. This is to a maximum of $25 per week, which does not represent full cost recovery.

As my final point, I would like to address the mechanics of how Correctional Service Canada would help implement the withholding of old age security benefits. We have developed a draft information-sharing agreement with Human Resources and Skills Development Canada that would permit the disclosure by CSC of information on federal offenders age 60 years or older. This would include information on those who are incarcerated in order to facilitate the suspension of payments, as well as information on those who are recently released by virtue of parole or statutory release, so that payments can be reinstated.

This information would be provided to officials at HRSDC on a monthly basis, and again annually, to ensure data reliability. Correctional Service Canada will absorb all costs related to the enactment of proposed Bill C-31 and we are confident that we can put these mechanisms in place quickly.

Madam Chair, in closing, I wish to thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee. I welcome any questions you may have today.

[The Chair (Ms. Candice Hoeppner (Portage—Lisgar, CPC)), Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Good morning, everyone. I would like to bring to order meeting number 28 of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

Today we are continuing our study of Bill C-31, an act to amend the Old Age Security Act.

We're very pleased today to have witnesses from Correctional Service Canada. Welcome, Mr. Don Head and Mr. Ian McCowan.

I understand that one of our witnesses will be making a presentation, and then they'll be answering our questions. What we'll do is begin with the presentation.

Is it Mr. McCowan or Mr. Head who will be presenting?

Mr. Head will be giving the presentation. You have approximately ten minutes, sir, to make your presentation. At this time, we will turn the floor over to you and ask for your presentation. Thank you.

Justice

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development]

Mr. Speaker, the response from Canadians in support of our Bill C-31 has been overwhelmingly positive. Canadians agree with our government. They really believe that it would be grossly unfair for taxpayers to continue to fund pensions for convicted criminals when those criminals are already being provided room and board by taxpayers.

Canadians want this bill passed. I urge the opposition to pass it quickly because it is the right, fair and reasonable thing to do.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you.

Just for clarification, on Bill C-31 that we heard the witnesses on today, do we have four more meetings scheduled?

[Sharon Rosenfeldt]

My response would be to definitely do research into that section as well. My understanding is that isn't the way it is or the way Correctional Services interprets it, that's for sure.

I don't believe I would be in favour of that because I don't believe that is the intent of section 78. I would say I would definitely still be in favour of carrying on with the passing of Bill C-31 as it stands today.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

One could therefore conclude that.

Ms. Rosenfeldt and Mr. Gaudet, if we happen to realize that a provision of the act, which has not been applied, would allow us to achieve our objective, is there another dimension in Bill C-31 which has not been covered? Could we simply ask the Correctional Service to apply the act as worded? Could we simply state that bill C-31 has lost its stated purpose?

The question is for Mr. Gaudet and Ms. Rosenfeldt.

[Ruth Gagnon]

I would like to share with you my expertise as the director of a centre for former female inmates, more specifically as regards inmates who are released from jail.

Of course, given the way Bill C-31 is designed, we will find other mechanisms, amendments or ways to help these people re-enter society. We are talking about seniors who will be released by the time they are 70, 75 or 80 years old. As far as their families are concerned, don't worry: they don't have any. They are alone. There will be no social networks or family members waiting for them when they exit the prison gates. The vast majority of these people are men who have been in jail for many years and who will have to re-enter society. If the federal government does not look after them, for example by paying them a reduced old age pension, the provinces will do so under their welfare programs. One way or another, taxpayers will be the ones who will have to help them become members of the community once again. You have to make an application for Old Age Security six months before you are eligible, and there will be many administrative problems. In my opinion, amending the act will only lead to higher costs within the bureaucracy.

I understand that we need to reinstate fairness. I think that the Correctional Service is unfortunately partly responsible for the fact that it did not apply section 78 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. But the article is there and I think we can strike a balance without risking losing the universal right to Old Age Security. The Guaranteed Income Supplement is one thing, and Old Age Security is another. We can distinguish between the two. Senior inmates do not have the same needs as do seniors living in their community. I understand that, and these people agree, but to completely deprive them of their right to an old age pension...

In fact, most senior inmates will go back to their communities as taxpayers and citizens, and we will have to see what kind of transition measures will have to be taken. We will have to find them housing, among many other things. We will have to take this into account. We will also have to take the impact of all of this into consideration.

You talk a lot about dangerous offenders, who are the minority. Indeed, most elderly inmates are not like Mr. Olsen. You are focusing a lot on this minority. I understand that it is shocking. I put myself in the situation of Canadian taxpayers and I understand their anger in this regard, but these people are truly a minority.

[Sharon Rosenfeldt]

Something that I did take out of my brief, because it was going to be too long in my submission, is that we do not believe that Bill C-31 could be unconstitutional, nor does it violate the universality of our old age security system.

I am not a lawyer, nor have we discussed this with a lawyer, as we cannot afford one. However, through research in other countries, we believe--and I realize there's a difference between the U.K. and Canada, but it's simply to give an example--the U.K.'s finding in a particular case that challenged their convention would be similar to a finding in Canada in relation to Bill C-31 being unconstitutional or affecting universality.

We believe that our Constitution affords protection against discrimination, that is, treating differently, without an objective and reasonable justification, persons in relevantly similar situations. In this case, a comparison of prisoners with non-prisoners is a comparison of two different factual situations and as such should disclose no discrimination.

[Ruth Gagnon]

I would like to draw your attention to section 78 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. That section provides for detainees to help pay for their housing and food costs, in proportion to the benefits they receive. So that is already included in section 78 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. In other words, there is already a legislative mechanism allowing the Correctional Service to withhold part of the benefits that an older person might receive in prison, e.g., Old Age Security, and force the detainee to help pay for food and housing costs.

However, to date, the regulation has never been applied or been the subject of any guidelines. Why is that so? I cannot answer that question. Be that as it may, that section of the current Corrections Act could be implemented at any time.

It is said that Bill C-31 is intended to reestablish an element of fairness. Indeed, I believe that the Old Age Security Act, as it relates to incarcerated persons, creates an unfair situation as compared with older people living in society. However, we think that such administrative changes would be far less drastic than to completely exclude incarcerated persons from the social assistance system. An added benefit to that approach is that it would not compromise the principle of universality, while correcting the existing unfairness.

According to the current Correctional Service regulations, incarcerated persons are asked to contribute 30%, but that level could be increased to 40% or 50%, or lowered to 20%. I do not have the answer; that is something that needs to be discussed. That would allow older people to contribute to food and shelter costs, while retaining some of the money for their own personal expenses. We might even consider using part of the money to create a fund that could help them to eventually reintegrate their communities. Obviously, people aged 65 and over who return to the their communities no longer have a home, or anything for that matter, and will need help. Besides, the remainder of the savings could simply be used, as you are proposing—and I think that victims' organizations—

[Ruth Gagnon, Member of the Board of Directors, Director General of the Elisabeth Fry Society of Quebec, Association des services de réhabilitation sociale du Québec Inc.]

Madam Chair, members of the committee, I would like to thank you, on behalf of the Association des services de réhabilitation sociale du Québec, Inc., for having invited us to present our position.

The amendments proposed in Bill C-31contain, in our view, serious flaws. On the one hand, the amendments seriously infringe on the principle of universality of our social security programs. Instead of providing solutions, the bill raises many more questions which can only cause concern, to our mind. On the other hand, the bill does not take into account the repercussions it will have on the people it targets, because it falsely assumes that all of their basic needs are already being met by taxpayers.

I will now address the systemic aspects of the bill's repercussions. The Old Age Security Act was created to provide a social safety net for the elderly to help them meet their most basic needs and maintain their human dignity. This act recognizes the vulnerability of the people who are part of this group, which is due to their specific needs and limitations. Therefore, it is precisely because these are elderly people that the bill provides them with protection, and it is solely this characteristic which makes it necessary to have a social safety net, notwithstanding any other attributes these people may have.

The amounts paid out under Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement are not there to only help with food and lodging, which are, of course, very basic needs. These minimal amounts also help people with other needs, such as the purchase of clothing, good and services, which allow them to flourish as human beings.

The principle of the universality of social programs, more particularly social security and the right to an adequate standard of living, have been enshrined in various legal instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

On September 24 last, member of Parliament Jim Maloway of the NDP mentioned that the right of federal inmates to Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement was introduced by the Conservative government of Joe Clark in 1979. Therefore, this right was recognized, as were many other rights and freedoms, and this eventually culminated in the adoption of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms three years later in 1982.

Then and now, our Canadian society defended the principle of inclusion and the abolition of discriminatory measures. Yet this bill is the antithesis of these hard-won values. The bill proposes to exclude a group of citizens because they are different—they are inmates—although these citizens have the same needs and limitations as their age-related peers. Even worse, these citizens are in a far more vulnerable situation because of their incarceration.

The universality of Old Age Security is based on the equality of all senior citizens. If we exclude inmates from this social security program, it is not only discriminatory, but it contradicts the very essence of the Old Age Security Act, the purpose of which is to provide the necessary support to a vulnerable group, namely senior citizens. Violating the principle of universality is indeed of great concern. Who will be excluded next? A breach in the principle of universality can open the door to precedents which might lead to further exceptions.

Regarding the consequences for the group in question, not only does the bill violate the principle of universality, but it will also have serious repercussions for elderly inmates. It would be completely false to claim that should they be excluded from the program, the government would meet their needs to the same extent as it does those of other senior citizens.

I will now talk about the situation of elderly inmates. According to the Correctional Service of Canada, these elderly inmates have all kinds of problems during their incarceration, specifically health problems. Because of their previous lifestyle and due to their incarceration, elderly inmates grow old more quickly than Canadians in general. This situation was described by the Correctional Investigator, Mr. Howard Sapers, to the Special Senate Committee on Aging in 2008.

We will not revisit any of those issues.

The Correctional Service of Canada provides certain services to inmates, including housing, food and health care.

Nevertheless, anything that falls outside of the obligations of the Correctional Service of Canada must be provided by the inmate out of his own pockets. This includes anything relating to personal hygiene, or to recreational activities, for instance. The inmate pays for these things. It also includes all kinds of other things, such as toothpaste and clothing, basic personal hygiene products and recreational items. In short, if an inmate wants to have articles for personal use, he must pay for them himself at market rates, or sometimes pay even more, because these institutions only have a single supplier, which eliminates competition.

But the Correctional Service of Canada has implemented programs to help inmates transition into civilian life. Federal inmates can work in jail. Depending on how hard they work, they can earn between $5.00 and $6.90 per day.

The system is therefore based on social reintegration. It strongly encourages inmates to work. However, it is hard to apply this logic to elderly inmates because of their age and health problems. Do we really want to encourage them, or even force them, to work? The vast majority of them generally do not have any savings to help them go back to civilian life. This means that Old Age Security can help them afford food, lodging and basic practical things when they are released.

In fact, paying them Old Age Security is in keeping with the current correctional legislative framework.

[Sharon Rosenfeldt, President, Victims of Violence]

Thank you. Good morning to all committee members and everyone present.

My name is Sharon Rosenfeldt and I am president of Victims of Violence. Victims of Violence was started 29 years ago by my late husband, Gary, me, and a few other individuals who had a loved one murdered. We found there were not any services for people like us in our situation. There was no one to turn to for answers in our individual cases, and above all, there was no support, and we felt so alone. We were all thrust into a justice system we did not understand.

The organization grew and grew, due to other individuals contacting us looking for answers in their particular set of circumstances regarding their victimization. We did not have those answers, but we did our utmost to help them find out. Most of the time it resulted in changes having to be made to legislation, mostly to the Criminal Code.

Needless to say, criminal justice issues are many and, for the most part, very complex. Sometimes these issues fall under other ministries, such as the case today.

A significant observation we found was that the issues we were addressing and asking to have change were always quite controversial and sometimes emotional, simply because they were usually affecting the lives of human beings, the lives of the offenders and the lives of the innocent victims of crime.

On behalf of our membership, I would like to thank you for this opportunity to present to this committee on the importance of Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act. I must admit, I do not know how this particular issue got by our organization. However, it did, and I am pleased to have been invited here today to present our views.

Having said that, I would like to thank journalist Peter Worthington, who brought this important issue to the forefront, and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation for its work in having 50,000 Canadian citizens sign a petition.

We agree with and are in support of the principle of Bill C-31. The principle of Bill C-31 is clear in that the old age security program is funded through general tax revenues and is designed to help seniors meet their immediate basic needs and maintain a minimum standard of living in retirement. Since a prisoner's basic needs, such as food and shelter, are already met and paid by public funds, there is no reason for Canadian taxpayers to also fund income support for prisoners through old age security benefits.

We do not support the concept of having this bill only pertain to multiple murderers such as Motion No. 507 suggests. We look upon that motion as simply a Clifford Olson solution. That motion does not address the principle of Bill C-31 with which Canadians are outraged.

Clifford Olson's name is only the symptom of the issue we are here discussing today. His name only brought this issue to the forefront. The focus must be on the principle of Bill C-31.

In our research in relation to other countries, we found the U.K. to be the strictest in its legislation of payments of pension to convicted prisoners. The U.K. legislation states that convicted prisoners are not entitled to social security benefits. This includes state pensions even where people have contributed to them for many years. It applies irrespective of whether the prisoner is imprisoned in the U.K. or anywhere else in the world. The general rule is that convicted prisoners in the United Kingdom do not get any social security benefit at all, although payment of certain war pensions and industrial disablement benefits are suspended for up to a year and paid upon release.

Austria, Denmark, Ireland, and Luxembourg also do not pay state pensions during the duration of the prison sentence. Prisoners are entitled to their full pension rights on completion of their sentence.

France does pay state pensions, although its system is somewhat different. The state pension payment is made into the prisoner's account; however, 10% is deducted and allocated to the prosecution, when applicable, and 10% is set apart and goes into the prisoner's release allowance. Prisoners who do paid work while serving their prison sentence pay contributions that are taken into account for calculation of their state pension upon their release.

Greece does pay state pensions to some convicted prisoners. The prisoners who do not qualify for state pensions are those convicted of financial-related crimes such as fraud, theft, robbery, and damage to public property. They are excluded from receiving their state pension.

The Province of Ontario already prohibits inmates from receiving the provincial guaranteed annual income, the Ontario sales tax credit, Ontario sales tax transition benefit, and the northern Ontario energy credit.

In a statement, Minister Bradley stated:

These benefits are designed to help honest, hard working families pay for their necessities, and we are not allowing convicted prisoners to receive those benefits. Taxpayers are already paying for prisoners’ food and shelter.

The executive director of the John Howard Society is quoted as saying that he believes government could make a principled argument for inmates who will probably never leave prison and have all their needs met.

But clawing back OAS is another matter because it is a right of citizenship, and would require carving out an amendment for 'despised minorities'.

We believe that using the Olson angle is just a smokescreen. Citizenship is indeed part of the criteria, and it likely could be considered to be a right. But most seniors who qualify for old age security do not have their basic needs, such as food and shelter, paid for by the taxpayer, nor can they bank their old age security and guaranteed income supplement benefits, such as senior prisoners are allowed to do today.

I do not believe that senior prisoners are looked upon as “despised minorities”. That is very rude. Rather, it is common sense that one cannot benefit twice at the expense of Canadian taxpayers. That is why Canadians are upset and outraged. If you took the Clifford Olson name out of the headlines, taxpayers would still be upset, simply because they are paying twice. This bill is important for the principles of fairness.

In closing, I will quote from a pensioner who said:

If seniors go to a long-term care facility and cannot afford to pay, the government takes back their pension and gives them a small amount for spending.

Senior prison inmates receive free room and board, and they are allowed to keep or save almost $1,200 per month from their OAS and GIS benefits. As well, they receive the best of medical services, whereby a senior is only eligible for the basic needs.

This senior citizen gets it. That is why Canadians are outraged. They want their tax dollars to be used responsibly, and above all respectfully.

Thank you.

[Kevin Gaudet, Federal Director, Canadian Taxpayers Federation]

Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chairman and ladies and gentlemen of the committee.

My name is Kevin Gaudet and I am the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. We are a national, non-partisan, not-for-profit organization with more than 74,000 supporters across the country. We have offices in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, two offices in Ontario--Toronto and Ottawa--and recently we've opened an office, we're pleased to say, in Atlantic Canada. That office is located in Halifax.

The mandate of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is to advocate for lower taxes, less waste, and more accountable government. We've been doing this for a long time now; this is a year in which we celebrate our 20th anniversary.

We don't take government money nor do we issue charitable tax receipts. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the supporters of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation who made generous contributions to help bring me here today, as we did not accept the offer of the committee for its financial assistance to get here.

I'm pleased to be here today on behalf of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation to speak in support of Bill C-31, what we call the Clifford Olson bill.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation has played a large role in getting this bill introduced. I'd like to commend the government and the opposition parties for their rare speed in responding to this issue once it became public.

If I may, I would remind the committee as to how we came to be here today and the role the Canadian Taxpayers Federation has played in this issue. In late March, this last spring, an article appeared in the Toronto Sun in which Clifford Olson had bragged to Peter Worthington that he, Clifford Olson, was receiving old age security and guaranteed income supplement payments courtesy of the federal government and of course courtesy of the federal taxpayer. This amounts to some $1,169 a month, $14,000 a year for him and for every prisoner like him.

As soon as this story ran, my organization started to receive contacts from our supporters expressing great dismay with the situation. They were upset that such a heinous criminal should receive such generous and unnecessary largesse at their expense.

We decided that on behalf of our supporters we would put forth a petition calling on the federal government to cease the provision of OAS and GIS payments to prisoners like Clifford Olson. I must say, I was surprised and overwhelmed with the response. In my four years of involvement with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation I have not experienced that type of explosive response before in the number of petitions we've issued. It only took us about six weeks to receive more than 50,000 signatures on the petition. We've had a few other petitions in our past that have generated substantial support, arguably even more numbers, but to get 50,000 responses in six weeks is I think undeniably noteworthy.

We took the petition to Ottawa, where we were very pleased to present the petition to the Minister for Human Resources and Skills Development, Diane Finley. During our meeting with the minister, she did promise to act on the petition and put forth legislation in short order. She kept her promise and here we are at committee some six months later. I know that's relatively Herculean speed given the usual pace at which Parliament works. I think the government needs to be commended in that context.

Canadians and CTF supporters should be pleased to see some of the comments from Ms. Sgro, on behalf of the Liberals, who advocated speedy passage of the bill, and the qualified support expressed by Mr. Desnoyers of the Bloc Québécois and Mr. Maloway of the NDP. Of course, the CTF is happy again to see the support of the government on this issue.

In my role as the spokesperson for the CTF, I do spend a great deal of time being critical of government. However, when government and politicians do things right, we're mindful of the need to give credit where it is due, and we'd like to give it today in that context and this is just that case.

Parliament is moving quickly to end this injustice in providing these benefit entitlements to those who don't deserve them. Thank you for that. Only in Canada would someone serving 11 consecutive 25-year sentences for murder--I think they are concurrent actually, forgive me--collect more than $1,100 a month for old age security and guaranteed income supplements, but this is the case with Clifford Olson.

With federal and provincial prisoners combined, this could amount to some $7 million a year in payments to those who don't deserve them, for purposes that aren't required--payments that we argue ought to be stopped.

Old age security was created in 1951 and the guaranteed income supplement was added in 1966. They were, and still are, programs designed to help seniors make ends meet so that Canadians with little or no income have enough to live on. Robert Clifford Olson is a Canadian over the age of 65. He turns 70 on New Year's day. He is eligible and receiving his OAS and GIS. He will likely die in jail. He has no meaningful living expenses while there.

According to the most recent statistics on the Corrections Canada website, the average annual taxpayer cost of keeping a prisoner like him, a maximum security male, incarcerated was some $121,294 a year. That is $121,294 a year. That was for fiscal year 2006-07.

Mr. Olson was arrested in 1981 and admitted into federal custody in 1982, 28 years ago. It has cost taxpayers more than enough to keep him behind bars already. It adds insult to injury to pay him to be there as well by giving him important support entitlements that were designed to help seniors make ends meet. These entitlements were never meant to help line the pockets of people like him.

As a result of this petition, there have been a number of media stories and opportunities for people to provide e-mails and comments on websites. Let me bring to the committee one of the comments on one of those websites. It's the voice of a victim of Clifford Olson. Let me share her brief posting. It reads as follows: “I'm the stepmother of one of Olson's victims. I live on the same amount he receives, but I pay for my own food, clothing, and essentials.” She wrote that in capital letters. “Colleen's sister is struggling as a single mom to raise three children, and he wants his money.”

One of the other people posting on the website mentioned that the $2 million should go to families of the victims of his crimes: “Just put it into the old age pension and give us a better income”, she writes. “It's terrible how I have to struggle and pay taxes for him to never have to need anything. I also agree that he's grandstanding once again. How sad that there is even a group of people out there that think prisoners have rights.” Those are her comments. “He took my daughter's right to live, and with her went pieces of our hearts. This is really a very sad society”, she writes.

She points out how outrageous it is that struggling taxpayers are squeezed twice, first to house such criminals and then again by lining their pockets with those entitlements. It's this injustice that has to stop, and Bill C-31 does just that.

Thank you for having invited me today. I'd be pleased to take any questions in due course, should you have any for me.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Raymonde Folco]

We will now begin the 26th meeting of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities on this day of Tuesday, October 19, 2010.

On the agenda, in accordance with the order of reference of Friday, September 24, 2010, we will study Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act.

I would like to welcome, from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Mr. Kevin Gaudet, federal director, and from Victims of Violence, Madame Sharon Rosenfeldt, president. I understand that Madame Ruth Gagnon, member of the board of directors and director general of the Elisabeth Fry Society of Quebec, will not be here until 9 o'clock, but I propose that we begin the meeting right away.

One little note, simply to remind you, is that this part of the meeting will last until 11 a.m. At 11 a.m. until 1 o'clock this afternoon we will go in camera to discuss and hopefully finish our work on the poverty report.

We'll begin with Monsieur Gaudet and Madame Rosenfeldt.

Mr. Martin.

Eliminating Entitlements for Prisoners

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Speaker, our Conservative government believes that convicted criminals serving time in prison should not be receiving taxpayer-funded old age security benefits that are meant for law-abiding seniors. Canadians already foot the bill for prisoners' expenses and it is grossly unfair for them to be paying for incarcerated criminals twice.

That is why we introduced Bill C-31, the eliminating entitlements for prisoners act. Bill C-31, once passed, will ensure that mass murderers like Clifford Olson, Paul Bernardo, Robert Pickton and Russell Williams do not receive these taxpayer-funded benefits.

My constituents in the riding of Oxford have made their opinions loud and clear, as have Canadians all across the country. They want this bill passed. I implore the opposition to work with our Conservative government to get this bill passed quickly. It is the fair and right thing to do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

We're ready to begin. We have just over half an hour. Actually, I think these clocks are a little fast, so we have a good half-hour to speak to the officials from the department on Bill C-31.

I welcome Mr. La Salle and Mr. Paquette. Thank you for being here.

I understand that you don't have any opening statements and that you would be prepared just to take questions from the committee. Is that correct?

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

I'll just comment for the record so we know the context. We obviously have Bill C-31, which is a government bill that we need to look at. There is also Bill C-343, a private member's bill. I believe our deadline for when that has to be reported back to the House is November 5, so just keep that in mind, in context.

Mr. Savage, before we go to the other comments, were you thinking you wanted to look at this once all the other things were finished? What was your timeline?

The House resumed from September 23 consideration of the motion that Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Eliminating Entitlements for Prisoners Act

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-31. This is a controversial subject that has certainly prompted the government to spin itself into action when it became public information that Clifford Olson was receiving OAS and GIS benefits. However, no mention has been made at all about how, why and when these benefits were originally made available to federal inmates. I for one have been trying to find out just how that came about. My information is that the benefits were given to federal inmates under a Conservative government in 1979, the government of Joe Clark.

I would like somebody on the government side to stand and tell me why the Conservative government proceeded to give federal inmates OAS and GIS benefits back in 1979. Perhaps there is some Hansard of the day that we could refer to. Perhaps there was a directive. Perhaps it was done as a result of a court decision upon which the government had to act. However, certainly in the fullness of debate that we would expect in this House over a bill, or any bill for that matter, that information should be made available.

In dealing with the actual provisions of Bill C-31 and other related measures, the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan, in her presentation, pointed out that the NDP member for Burnaby—New Westminster did introduce into this House Motion No. 507.

I want to read Motion No. 507 for the members. It reads:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should prohibit the payment of Old Age Security and Guaranteed Income Supplement payments to individuals serving life sentences for multiple murders, except where the individual is released from prison, and allocate the proceeds to a Victims Compensation Program administered by the provinces.

That particular motion, which was introduced by one of our NDP members, is currently before the House and I am certain that it will be debated in due course.

However, in terms of the provisions of the bill, as we know from the debate this afternoon, the bill would suspend payment of the OAS and the guaranteed income supplement to all persons 65 years of age and older while they are serving time in a federal correctional facility, and that, as we know, would be a sentence of two years or more. The bill would also suspend payment of the spousal or survivor allowance to eligible individuals between 60 and 64 while that individual is serving time in a federal facility.

It also maintains the OAS and GIS payments to spouses and partners of those who are incarcerated and provides to receive these payments at the higher single rate based under individual not combined spousal program.

We also know that the CPP provisions would stay in place. They would not be affected by this bill.

Also, the bill would maintain spousal allowance benefits to the spouses of incarcerated individuals.

It would allow the provinces to opt in by entering into agreements with the federal government to suspend OAS and GIS and spousal allowance benefits on the above terms to all individuals incarcerated for a sentence that exceeds 90 days in a provincial facility.

The member who just spoke showed some concern about how this would work vis-à-vis the provinces. He was fairly clear that the federal component would not be a problem but when we were dealing with the provinces he has some concerns.

I believe all these issues can be dealt with when this bill goes to committee. We are dealing with second reading here. We are dealing with the principle of the bill. However, as the members know, when we get into the committee structure, many more aspects to this bill will be dealt with and amendments will be made at that time.

Notwithstanding the above, the benefit payments would still be paid during the first month of incarceration. The benefit payments would resume the month that an individual was released on earned remission, parole, statutory release or warrant expiry.

In terms of some of the positive aspects of the bill, and I think we have heard some comments this afternoon about that, there is a certain logic to suspending payments designed to provide for the basic necessities of life in cases where the taxpayer is already funding the basic needs of necessities of life. Suspending pensions for prisoners meets a test for a lot of Canadians. We have heard from Canadians on this issue in large numbers.

We know that $2 million would be saved immediately under the program and up to, I believe, $10 million a year if all of the provinces and territories were to opt in. We also know that the bill would mitigate to an extent the financial impact on the spouses because it would allow spouses to receive the OAS and GIS payments at the single rate based on their individual rather than their combined spousal income.

I want to retreat to the motion that was tabled by the NDP member for Burnaby—New Westminster, Motion No. 507, where he specifically deals with the issue and very narrowly focuses the resolution on the issue of payments to individuals serving life sentences for multiple murders, of which I understand there are approximately 19 people in that category at the current time. Except where the individual is released from prison, it allocates the proceeds to a victims compensation program administered by the provinces. We would not only have the benefit of stopping payments to serial murderers but we would have the added benefit of taking the money and presenting it to the victims.

If we are a Parliament that believes in help for victims, it seems to me that the member has thought of a proper approach to this problem by earmarking the OAS and GIS amounts to a victims compensation program administered by the provinces. To me, that is a much more sensible approach to the problem as opposed to the broader forum that this bill implies.

Having said that, I do not have any problem at all with this bill going to committee. I do not have a problem with it in principle. In the committee, the debate will follow through and get to all of the issues. Hopefully we will consider the suggestion by the member for Burnaby—New Westminster to confine it to multiple murderers, that we take the money and put it in a compensation fund to help victims, which is where it should go, and that perhaps we can make some amendments to the issue.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my good friend's comments regarding Bill C-31.

I, too, am very curious to know what the arguments were for making the OAS and GIC available to federal inmates back in 1979. If this is true, that was when Joe Clark, a Conservative prime minister, was in office. I would like to know whether this was an administrative directive on his part or whether it came to Parliament. If it came to Parliament for debate, surely there would be Hansard records of the day as to why that government would want to extend OAS and GIS to federal inmates in 1979.

Is the member aware of the discussions that went on in Parliament at the time or did the Joe Clark government simply issue a directive without any debate to provide these OAS and GIC benefits to federal inmates in 1979 when the Conservatives were in power?

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I was not a member of the House when Mr. Clark was the prime minister of Canada. What I can speak to is this legislation that is before the House.

All members must fairly admit that in the spring of 2010 when the newspapers published the story about Mr. Olson's entitlements and how much money he had actually saved from those entitlements and what his monthly stipend was, we were all caught off guard. We all bear some responsibility for the fact that this went unnoticed for so long.

Canadians were rightfully outraged when they found out that federal prisoners were receiving slightly in excess of $1,100 per month. The hon. member represents people in Winnipeg. I am sure a lot of the seniors in his constituency do not bank $1,100 per month. They use these stipends, this government assistance, to pay their mortgage, rent or heating bills. They do not bank $1,100 a month like a federal prisoner does.

When this government found out about this inequality and that the taxpayers were paying twice, paying prisoners' room and board and also paying the monthly stipend, it acted quickly. That brings us to the debate today on Bill C-31.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a delight for me to add my comments at second reading to Bill C-31, eliminating entitlements for prisoners. I will confine my remarks to the things that are actually in the bill, not the wild speculation of the previous speaker.

I commend the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development for sponsoring this important legislation and also for her excellent speech just over one hour ago.

The eliminating entitlements for prisoners act, Bill C-31, is a very important bill. It is important for taxpayers and for victims of crime and it is important for the principles of fairness.

As the minister has noted, our Conservative government is strongly committed to ensuring fairness for hard-working taxpayers. Ordinary, every day tax paying Canadians deserve fairness from their government, and this government intends to deliver fairness to those taxpayers.

The government provides many services and it also provides help, but that help comes from the tax dollars that the government collects. It comes out of the pockets of every hard-working tax paying Canadian, the Tim Hortons crowd if I may.

Income security is one of those things the government provides and it is important. It is important the government provide that help fairly to Canadians since, as I have said, that money belongs to Canadians. It does not belong to the government. It is taxpayer money.

When we are talking about fairness, and in this case we are talking about treating hard-working and law-abiding Canadians and their tax dollars fairly. We are also talking about doing what we can to ensure that victims of crime and their families are not faced with more pain. These victims should not have to watch the painful sight of their money and their community's money going into the pockets of the very criminals who hurt them and their families.

The Prime Minister has said it, the minister has said it and many of my colleagues, including me have said it. We will continue to put victims and taxpayers first, ahead of criminals.

Our government believes that Canadians who work hard, contribute to the system and play by the rules deserve government benefits such as old age security. This is what our government believes and I think it is what Canadians expect. I certainly know from hearing from many of my constituents by letter, by email, by phone call, that this is what my they expect.

It is obviously wrong and obviously unfair that prisoners who have broken our laws, who have broken our society's trust receive the same taxpayer-funded benefits as law-abiding Canadians. I am perplexed as to how it could be otherwise. I believe this, the government believes it and my constituents believe it. I am happy to say that the Prime Minister believes this, as do all Canadians.

Bill C-31, which I welcome, would ensure that criminals, those who have broken trust and broken our laws and made victims of their fellow Canadians, would no longer receive taxpayer-funded benefits while serving time in jail.

Right now, without this change to our laws, child murderers such as Clifford Olson are receiving these government benefits, notwithstanding that he brutally murdered 11 children.

As the minister told the House, in a few short years Paul Bernardo similarly will be entitled to these benefits. Some day in the not too distant future so will Mr. Robert Pickton. This cannot happen and that is why it is incumbent upon the House to act expeditiously.

These criminals, these murderers, to take just a small example, brutally and heartlessly took the lives of people living in their communities. Many of those lives were young, and they shattered and forever diminished the lives of those families who had members torn from them.

For criminals such as these to easily, blithely receive the same “assistance” from our government is simply wrong.

The assistance that the government provides is intended to help older Canadians with their costs of living after many decades of work and much contribution to their families, their communities and their country.

Prisoners on the other hand, criminals who have broken our laws so seriously that they are incarcerated in federal institutions and provincial prisons for long periods of time, do not need extra cost of living assistance. Why? Because they already have their costs of living paid for by the taxpayers of our country, the same taxpayers from whom these criminals have taken so much.

This is offensive and outrageous to our government, to our Prime Minister and to our Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development. This is also offensive to Canadians all across the country, and that is why I believe there is wide support for the bill, at least at second reading. We have heard from members on both sides of the House and it appears the bill will be near unanimously favoured when it comes to a vote. It is offensive to all Canadians.

As soon as this shockingly unfair and unjust situation was discovered, the Prime Minister asked the minister to take action as quickly as possible to put a stop to incarcerated criminals receiving old age security and guaranteed income supplement benefits. The abbreviations they are more commonly known by are OAS and GIS.

It is our government's intention, our commitment and our goal to fix this. Our government has shown that when we make a promise to Canadians, we take action. We follow through on our commitments to Canadians. That is why the minister acted with the haste that she did.

We are going to remedy this inequity and we are moving quickly to do so. Why? Because that is what Canadians want and that is what they demand. That is exactly what my constituents want, and it is happening here today. Today is part of that process, a process that I hope will continue to move swiftly.

I am going to touch on the main details of the bill. I think the attention is good and the details are relatively straightforward.

A prisoner's needs, such as food and shelter and their standard of living, such as it is, are already met and paid for by public funds, and that is by the hard-working Canadian taxpayers. That has a cost and we pay it. We pay it voluntarily and we pay it gladly.

What I and my constituents are not okay with is the provision of benefits that are meant for law-abiding hard-working seniors to instead go to prisoners. Canadian taxpayers should not be paying for double for income support through OAS and GIS benefits to these same prisoners. It is grossly unfair to force law-abiding Canadian taxpayers to pay for the criminals twice, first, by paying for the room and board and second, by paying for the supplemental benefits, the OAS and the GIS.

Once passed, the bill will terminate OAS and GIS benefits for federal prisoners. The federal government will then work with the provinces and the territories to stop these benefits for prisoners who are serving 90 days or more in a provincial or territorial institution.

I hope all provinces and territories respond as favourably to the minister and to this legislation as the British Columbia government has. I understand British Columbia is already on board and once this legislation is passed, it will similarly apply to provincial prisoners in the B.C. detention system.

I also hope all my colleagues in the House will respond positively and quickly. Our constituents, who are our bosses, our fellow taxpaying Canadians, expect us to use their hard-earned tax dollars fairly, responsibly and prudently. They have told us that, loudly and clearly.

I am sure all members of the House have received feedback with respect to the bill after it was announced last spring. Speaking on behalf of the considerable correspondence that I received, it was universally positive.

In fact, what encourages me most is the overwhelming response from Canadians. They have truly told us, loudly and clearly, what they believe is right and fair. We have heard publicly from the families of the victims of Clifford Olson. We have heard from the national victims support groups. Those people whose lives have been so damaged by the actions of these criminals are pleased and supportive of our government's action. They support the bill.

We have also heard from rank and file police officers from across the country, people who often see the damage first-hand that is brought on by these criminals.

We have heard from regular, everyday taxpayers across our country, as I referred to earlier the Tim Hortons crowd.

The minister received a petition in support of the bill. It was signed by nearly 50,000 Canadians. That is just the tip of the iceberg. Many more thousands of people have told us, have told the minister and our colleagues that the bill is necessary. The response that we have seen and heard has truly been remarkable.

When circumstances like this unjust entitlement are discovered and when Canadians speak out so clearly and so loudly, we must listen to them and heed to their calls, advice and demands.

It is not a credit to us that this unfair and wrong practice came into being and continued, with little if any notice. It is not a credit to any of us that those who did not know it, did little, if anything, to change it.

We cannot change the past, but we can certainly fix the present and improve things for the future. That is what we are doing today with the continued second reading of Bill C-31.

The bill is also in line with many of our Conservative government's other related actions with respect to the victims of crime and their families. We have a strong record of action and this legislation only builds upon that record.

The bill is in keeping with our Conservative government's commitment to put victims and law-abiding Canadians first, and certainly to put them ahead of criminals. It puts an end to the hard-working taxpayers paying twice for prisoners and to having victims of crime see their victimizers receive unjust public help.

Finally, the bill is about the responsible use of taxpaying public funds and the fair treatment to all Canadian taxpayers. It is the fair and right things to do and it is what Canadians want us to do. We need to listen to Canadians. We need to pass the bill.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for her presentation on Bill C-31. I certainly found her remarks to be very relevant to the provisions in the bill. She outlined them very well.

Certainly, in regard to this government's approach to just crime in general, we have seen it for the last five years now looking at changes to the Criminal Code in a very piecemeal fashion based on whatever is happening in the news media at any particular time. In fact, the government should be doing a total revision and revamping of the Criminal Code of Canada which has not really been dealt with in a major way for 100 years. That is what the government should be doing in cooperation with the opposition.

With regard to the pension system, the member clearly pointed out that, once again, the government should be looking at a comprehensive approach to the pension system. It should be looking at doubling the CPP system. If we were to put $700 million toward the GIS for I believe one-quarter million seniors, mainly women, we would be bringing them out of poverty in this country.

That is the approach the government should be taking and that is what the member is pointing out. The government should be looking at a universal approach here dealing with the problem in the country rather than simply jumping from issues that happen to be popular at a certain time that it thinks helps its poll numbers.

I have news for the Conservatives. They have been doing this for five years and it has not helped their poll numbers at all. I suggest they pull back and come up with a comprehensive strategy in both the pension area and in the crime area.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

If the member was listening I started my speech with clearly outlining the elements of the bill, raising some concerns around the issue of universality, putting into the context the overall approach that the Conservative government is taking to crime and punishment in this country.

It is an interesting comment from the minister that he cannot acknowledge the relevance of the aspects that put people into prison to begin with, that deal with rehabilitation issues, including access to funds while they are in prison and access to funds once they come out of prison,

This is all part and parcel of this piece of legislation. It is unfortunate that the Conservative minister simply does not see that the piecemeal approach that the government is taking to crime and punishment in this country is causing significant problems for aboriginal Canadians and for many other Canadians.

I would argue that what I have been saying is absolutely relevant to Bill C-31.

I will conclude by indicating, as other members of the House have indicated, that we feel the bill requires further study, that some of the unintended consequences around the potential impact on universality of old age security and guaranteed income supplement must be considered, that there needs to be a thorough review about whether there is any possibility that this legislation is unconstitutional and could violate the universality of our old age security system.

We also encourage the government, in any study, to take a much broader approach both to the criminal justice system and to looking at income security for seniors in this country.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising to speak to Bill C-31. I want to start out with a very brief summary of what is included in the bill. I also want to acknowledge the fact that a number of other speakers have talked about the importance of turning full attention to the bill and studying it so that we are not looking at unintended consequences.

Many members of the House were here a couple of years back when the government of the day passed a bill on voter identification that resulted in thousands and thousands of rural voters being excluded from voting because of a flaw in the bill. It was a bill that was rushed through the House, despite the fact that the New Democrats protested loudly about the problems with the bill. The government subsequently needed to bring forward amendments to its own legislation, because the bill had unintended consequences. I raise that as an issue in the context of this particular bill so that we do not try to rush through a bill that has unintended consequences.

I also want to acknowledge the member for Windsor—Tecumseh who has, as usual, done stellar work on this, and also the member for Vancouver Kingsway and the member for Hamilton Centre. All of these members have contributed to the NDP process in considering this bill.

The bill suspends payments of old age security, OAS, and the guaranteed income supplement, GIS, to all persons 65 years of age and older while they are serving time in a federal correctional facility when they are sentenced to two years or more. It would suspend payment of the spousal and survival allowance to eligible individuals aged 60 to 64 if they were serving time in a federal facility. It would maintain OAS and GIS payments to spouses and partners of those who were incarcerated and would provide that they receive these payments at the higher single rate based on individual, not combined spousal, income. It would maintain spousal allowance benefits to the spouses of incarcerated individuals and allow provinces to opt in by entering into agreements with the federal government to suspend OAS and GIS and spousal allowance benefits on the above terms to all individuals incarcerated for a sentence that exceed 90 days in a provincial facility. Notwithstanding the above, benefit payments would still be paid during the first month of incarceration. Benefit payments would resume the month an individual was released on earned permission, parole, statutory release, or warrant expiry.

There are two aspects of the bill that are troubling. One is that it appears that this could be the wrong method for dealing with this situation. The member for Windsor—Tecumseh has suggested that in looking at this, what we really should do is look at the criminal jurisdiction. He suggested that an order could be put in place at the time of sentencing or thereafter that would deal with these payments. The concern that arises when it is dealt with under income security for seniors is the fact that it could undermine the universality of our old age security and guaranteed income supplement.

I talked about unintended consequences, which are a concern for New Democrats and for seniors across this country if we apply this logic to anybody who is in federal care, anybody who is receiving benefits and housing. Just look at veterans who might be in long-term care hospitals, even though we are closing vets hospitals as we speak. If a veteran were in a long-term care hospital and was being provided for under veterans' allowances, what would happen to universality? Would that also be an argument for the government to claw back OAS and GIS? The questions around universality are really critical.

I want to refer to some issues related to universality. This quote comes from the Historica-Dominion Institute, which did a number of studies on universality. It talks about the impact on our society of the change in universality. This is something the House and the committee, if this bill gets there, need to consider. The section entitled “Social Security in Canada - a Receding Tide” says that “[t]he direction of these cuts and their overall purpose in improving the Canadian economy was laid out by the Conservative government in Ottawa in 1984”.

That was the start of the clawback of universality.

From this perspective, the government moved to eliminate universality in family allowances and old-age security. In 1989 the government introduced a “clawback” to both universal programs that required upper-income families to repay all of their benefits. The same applied to the highest-income seniors.

It goes on to talk about the impact on child tax benefits and whatnot.

Later on in the article, it says:

The Liberals, on their return to power in 1993, completed the sweep against universality by announcing in 1996 that the Old Age Security program would be replaced by an income-tested Seniors Benefit in the year 2001.

There are some different models out there. What we saw is an impact on seniors and families in this country that we are still living with to this day.

In this article, the Historica-Dominion Institute argues that there could be a new direction for social security in Canada:

A contrasting model of social security, one that is more commonly found in western European countries, is an integrative-redistribution model that provides universalist services to broad categories of need. This model has egalitarian goals that aim to lift individuals and families out of poverty and away from social exclusion.

It concludes by saying:

Evidence of social exclusion in Canada abound - the homeless, Canadian children growing up in poverty, the clientele of food banks and the army of unemployed. The one shining example of a Canadian social security program which promotes inclusiveness and a sense of community is Canada's system of public, universal, prepaid health care.

Of course, we know that in recent years that has also been eroded as more people have been forced into a two-tier health care system by long waiting lists, lack of access to drugs, and so on. However, universality is one of the fundamental principles Canadians look to.

A number of people have raised concerns about the approach the government chose to take by having this managed through Human Resources Development Canada under CPP/OAS/GIS instead of through a criminal jurisdiction.

I also want to raise a point. It is interesting that the first bill the Conservative government has brought forward to deal with pensions is this one that would strip federal old age security from federal offenders. It will save approximately $2 million. Those savings could go up if the provinces decide to opt in.

It is a sad comment on the approach to income security for seniors in this country. I would suggest that it probably fits in with the so-called tough on crime agenda the Conservatives are putting forward. The reality is that we have thousands of seniors in this country who are living in poverty. I wonder why the government did not choose to bring forward a pension reform bill that deals with the poverty facing these seniors in this country instead of this bill. I agree that the fact that federal prisoners are receiving old age security certainly warrants some attention, but I would question the current government's priorities.

I want to also mention that there is an alternative way to approach this. The member for Burnaby—New Westminster put forward a motion, Motion No. 507, which was much more narrowly defined, that would deal with clawing back the old age security/guaranteed income supplement from only murderers with life sentences for multiple murders. The Conservatives are actually proposing a fairly broad sweep of prisoners over the age of 65 in this proposed clawback of OAS/GIS.

Going back to seniors, recently we discovered that old age security was increased over the summer by 0.6% for seniors who live outside of prison. It was the first increase in over two years, and it amounted to $1.55 per senior. These are seniors. These are the poorest of the poor. These are the seniors who are worried about whether they can pay their rent, whether they can feed themselves, and whether they can pay their drug costs.

With all the attention we have placed on other matters in this House recently, seniors are simply being left off the agenda. There have been a number of groups and organizations working together that are calling on the current government for serious pension reform.

Certainly New Democrats have been front and centre on this. I also want to acknowledge the member for Sault Ste. Marie, who has been leading the charge to deal with poverty among seniors and other Canadians. Certainly seniors factor largely into a lot of the work the member for Sault. Ste. Marie has been doing.

In June, our leader announced a number of initiatives to deal with some of the income security issues for seniors. One of them, of course, was helping the quarter of a million seniors who are living below the poverty line. We can do it tomorrow by injecting $700 million into the guaranteed income supplement, which is part of old age security. That is one-twentieth of what the Prime Minister's corporate tax cuts will cost us annually by 2012.

Second, let us build on that bulletproof Canada pension plan. Let us phase in a doubling of maximum benefits to $22,000 per year. That means increasing the CPP deductions that appear on one's paycheque, but these deductions are savings, not taxes.

Of course, there are other organizations, such as the Canadian Labour Congress, that have also been calling for reforms to our income security system for seniors. Their first calls in asking the federal and provincial governments to work together, are one, to phase in a doubling of payouts from the Canada pension plan and the Quebec pension plan, and two, to immediately increase old age security and the guaranteed income supplement for all retirees.

They also go on to talk about the fact that what we really need to do is have a very broad strategy for dealing with all aspects of pensions in this country, whether it is for workers who have private sector pension plans that are under threat because their companies are going bankrupt, whether it is for workers who simply do not have another pension plan and are relying on the Canada pension plan, old age security, and the guaranteed income supplement to pay their bills, or whether it is to regulate some of the financial products and some of the risks for those people who actually have enough money left over to invest in RRSPs.

It is interesting that the very first approach to income security for seniors deals with federal prisoners. It does not look at those broad needs for our seniors.

There was an article in a paper called the Edmonton Senior in June, after this bill was announced, that said that ending prisoner pensions is not so simple. There were a number of interesting points, including some concerns about universality. The article in this seniors' magazine, which addresses issues that seniors are concerned about, also pointed out the fact that once again we are lacking an overall, comprehensive plan to prevent people from going to prison in the first place. Others, such as rabble.ca, have also raised the issue. For instance, there is the four-pillar approach to crime prevention that looks at all the things that can be done to keep people out of prison in the first place, whether that is a poverty reduction strategy, adequate alcohol and drug counselling, educational strategies, or adequate housing.

We acknowledge that people who commit crimes and are found guilty through our justice system need to have appropriate consequences.

I am the aboriginal affairs critic for the NDP. We know that aboriginal peoples are hugely overrepresented in federal and provincial prisons. Once they are in prison, they need appropriate programs for rehabilitation.

The article from Edmonton Seniors says:

The concern is not around whether or not senior prisoners should receive pension money, but what the correctional system is doing to prepare offenders for their release.

It goes on to quote Howard Sapers, the Correctional Investigator of Canada, who says:

We know that homelessness, we know that poverty, and we know that lack of resources in a number of areas are contributors to coming into conflict with the law. When an offender is released, whether they are 25 or 65, they face the same barriers that non-offenders would face if they don't have resources. And of course you want to encourage these folks to live peacefully and lawfully in the community. Simply put, there is some requirement to provide them with legitimate access to some financial means. That's the basis of income security programs in Canada to begin with.

He goes on to do an analysis of what prisoners have to pay for when they are in the federal system and so on.

This piecemeal approach to the criminal justice system again is quite troubling. To reiterate, we need prevention, we need a criminal justice system, we need police resources and so on that can actually deal with offenders and incarcerate them where appropriate, make sure that when they are inside that what we are doing is looking at rehabilitation and the tools and resources, so that when they come out of the system they can be reintegrated into communities in a peaceful and law-abiding way.

The piecemeal approach that we have seen from the Conservative government simply is not addressing all of those issues. I turn to Insite, the safe drug injection site in Vancouver, which we know is helping to keep people safe and alive, and hopefully out of the prison system by providing with supports at the safe injection site. Yet, we see the Conservative government constantly trying to find ways to close it down.

Instead of taking a look at the issues around drug and alcohol addiction in a more holistic kind of way, it is--

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on June 1, when the Conservative government introduced its bill aimed at eliminating old age pension benefits for prisoners, the Bloc Québécois clearly indicated that it planned on supporting this new measure. We will be supporting it, but only once we are certain that this bill, which was written at the last-minute, has been studied in detail.

Once again, the Conservative government, still severely blinkered by its right wing, Reform mindset, wants to pass this bill quickly to impress the voters with its ideology of stark, severe repression. It is hoping that the House will stand behind it and rush to pass this bill so that we can speed up the procedures needed to implement it.

The Bloc Québécois is not buying it. Let us be clear: this bill does not deal with an urgent issue. No one is in danger and no one is being unfairly penalized if this bill is not passed immediately.

I could list many urgent matters that are far more important than the measure proposed in Bill C-31, even if I only talk about current issues for seniors. I will stick to two of the seniors' issues that I feel are the most urgent.

Since last spring, advocacy groups for seniors' and retirees' rights in Quebec have taken to the streets to send a very clear message. Like the entire income security program, the guaranteed income supplement, or GIS, does not meet the basic needs of low-income seniors. In my opinion, it is far more urgent to pass legislation to improve the GIS.

That is why the Bloc Québécois has been proposing significant changes to the GIS for years. I sincerely hope that this Conservative government will hear the message that seniors will soon be sending them through petitions that the FADOQ network has been collecting since last spring to call for improvements to the GIS.

Despite the new indexing recently announced, the maximum amount paid in old age security benefits is clearly still not enough for seniors to pay for their housing, clothing, food and medication. Over 78,000 seniors in Quebec are living below the low-income line. The maximum GIS allowance is not even enough to get seniors out of poverty. I think this constitutes a genuine emergency.

For years now, the federal government has been unfairly depriving these people of the money owing to them. In order to access the GIS, one must apply. Tens of thousands of seniors in Quebec have been cheated because they have not applied for the GIS.

The Bloc Québécois will continue to work to improve the GIS in order to: increase the guaranteed income supplement by $110 per month; continue paying both pension and survivor benefits, for a period of six months, to a surviving spouse; automatically enrol people over 65 who are eligible for the GIS; ensure full retroactive payment of the GIS for all those who were shortchanged; and increase the surviving spouse's allowance to the same amount as the GIS.

I plan to address this matter again in the House in the very near future, because this issue is very important to me.

There is another urgent matter. In the previous budget, I reminded the Conservatives of the pressing need to bring back a real income support program for older workers, formerly known as POWA. Older workers who cannot find another job by the end of their EI benefit period are forced to turn to social assistance, now known in Quebec as employment assistance. They have to deplete all of their hard-earned assets to get that employment assistance.

Is that justice? Is that what we really want for the men and women who have spent years building our society? No, of course not. Urgent action is needed, but the Conservatives will not even consider it.

Today, we are being asked to pass at second reading a bill to amend the Old Age Security Act, which naturally deserves the attention of this House.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to fully explain the Bloc Québécois position to my fellow citizens. I believe this is a perfect example of the right approach to take when passing legislation that, for some, may once again reflect the rhetoric so often behind the bills proposed by our Conservative friends.

The Bloc Québécois will support Bill C-31 at second reading in order to study it in committee where, without rushing things, without blindly following the Conservative ship—which could soon sink as it navigates troubled waters—we will examine it in detail.

Passing legislation, establishing regulations and anticipating exceptions are some of the fundamental tasks that this House must carry out with diligence and discernment. Elected representatives must foresee all the effects and repercussion of the laws they adopt. That is the work of a good parliament and that is why, in this House, bills are customarily studied in committee after second reading.

Once the early enthusiasm disappears and calmer heads prevail, unfortunate gaps are sometimes discovered. Wisdom prevails.

This bill has three clear objectives. First, it precludes incarcerated persons from receiving old age security benefits when those persons are serving a sentence of two years or more in a federal penitentiary.

Once their sentence has been served, the person can notify the minister in writing of their release in order to re-register for old age security.

It goes without saying that the same applies to the guaranteed income supplement associated with OAS. With this measure that would affect roughly 400 inmates, the government hopes to save $2 million a year. We must, however, clearly identify here the pension program that Bill C-31 will affect.

The benefits that would be cut by this bill are not those from the Canada pension plan or the Quebec pension plan, which are benefits based on contributions received during years of work. Eliminated instead would be the benefits based on years of residence in the country, the benefits known as old age security, which also provide access to the guaranteed income supplement. OAS is given to almost everyone 65 and over.

It is therefore important to distinguish between the two plans and identify the real target of Bill C-31, namely OAS.

Second, Bill C-31 stipulates that an incarcerated person's spouse who is 65 or older be considered single. This would allow them to receive benefits as a single person, which are more generous than for persons married to a pensioner, in order to compensate in part for the drop in their household income.

The bill also allows an incarcerated person's spouse aged between 60 and 64 to continue receiving the spousal allocation even though in practice they no longer live together, again to compensate for the drop in household income. The Bloc Québécois feels that these are essential measures to avoid making spouses suffer unfairly for the incarceration of their partner.

Third, Bill C-31 proposes applying the same denial of benefits to persons incarcerated for at least 90 days in a provincial prison, if the province concerned concludes an agreement with the federal government. This type of agreement does not exist for now between Quebec and Ottawa.

If ever this type of agreement between Ottawa and each province went through, this could affect roughly 600 seniors held in provincial prisons and would save $8 million a year.

Those are the main points of the bill we are debating today at second reading. The Bloc Québécois has done its homework since June 1, and we have carefully analyzed the impact of this government bill, as we should.

Over the course of our analysis, three questions in particular came to mind.

First, does the practice of suspending social benefits exist in Quebec? Is it part of our social practices, and if so, how does it work?

In Quebec, pursuant to section 27 of the Individual and Family Assistance Act, and sections 19 and 26 of its regulation, an individual who is incarcerated in a penitentiary or prison is no longer eligible for last resort financial assistance as of the third month following the month of their incarceration.

Individuals become eligible again once they are released from the prison or penitentiary even if, for example, they are living in a half-way house as part of their rehabilitation.

Therefore, Bill C-31 does correspond to a practice that already exists within Quebec society.

The second question we have is the following: since this seems to violate the principle of the universality of old age security benefits, does Bill C-31 violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by creating a discriminatory measure?

It seems not to be the case. If someone made a claim of discrimination, they would have a hard time proving it, because the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age, or mental or physical disability.

The discrimination established by Bill C-31 does not involve any of the grounds listed in the charter and could not be considered an affront to human dignity. Basically, Bill C-31 does not contravene the Canadian charter.

And the third question is this: what real effect will this punitive measure have on the spouses of incarcerated persons?

The effect will vary, depending on the age of the spouse. The bill allows spouses aged 65 or over to be considered single, which would allow them to receive higher benefits than those paid to someone married to a pensioner. In addition, they can receive the maximum guaranteed income supplement of $652.51, as opposed to $430.90 for someone married to a pensioner.

As for spouses aged 60 to 64, they can still receive their spouse's allowance even though, in practice, they do not live with their partner. The loss of financial support from the imprisoned spouse could then be partially compensated through an increased allowance of up to $947.86 a month.

The Bloc Québécois is in favour of Bill C-31, which would keep prisoners from receiving old age security benefits and the guaranteed income supplement. It is in favour of having this studied in committee. We still have some specific questions to ask, notably to the civil servants who created the bill, those who will implement it and those who work at the parole board.

The responses we receive to our questions will determine the amendments we can introduce, if necessary, in order to ensure that the bill works well.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this issue today. It would be nice, given the fact that this is our first week back, if everybody would be respectful and people would get along with each other. Unfortunately, the insults continue to be there, no matter how hard we try.

This bill was first introduced at the beginning of June and, as the critic, I immediately got up to speed on it. However, I was quite disappointed that it took until now to actually deal with it. I would have preferred to have dealt with it as speedily as possible back in June because I and my colleagues feel very similar to the minister on this particular issue.

Despite our often fierce partisan differences, today we are looking at an issue that I believe should unite all of us, regardless of our political affiliations. Therefore, I will not be throwing any insults around as I speak to this.

Today we begin the exploration of Bill C-31, legislation, as outlined by the minister, that would prevent convicted criminals from being eligible to receive old age security benefits during their term of incarceration.

The old age security pension is intended to help seniors pay for their housing, clothing, food and transportation, an expectation that many seniors struggle with each and every day. All of us in the House, and myself as the critic for seniors and pensions, get calls every week about the difficulty seniors have, especially those at the low income levels, coping with everyday challenges, the low interest rates, the $1.35 increase in their OAS pension cheque, the difficulty many of them have finding housing and so on. Naturally, when Canadians or seniors hear about this they are clearly upset.

For thousands of seniors who are struggling with these growing bills on a fixed income, the thought that convicted and imprisoned criminals would be eligible for the same OAS benefits is offensive and totally unacceptable to all of us.

Moreover, given that OAS is meant to help the recipient pay for housing, clothing, food and transportation, it seems somewhat unnecessary for prisoners to get the cheque given when their housing, clothing, food and transportation are already paid as a condition of their incarceration. As a legislator, I see the current reality to be redundant, unacceptable and something that should be changed without delay.

With that in mind, I intend to keep my remarks brief today because I believe we should all work together to forward the bill to committee to ensure we analyze it efficiently and properly, get it back to the House and get it through.

I believe it is important that we be prudent as legislators to ensure that the things we do here do not have any unintended consequences in our rush and in our enthusiasm to pass the bill. Again, the only outstanding concern that I have centres on my desire to be sure, as indicated by the minister, that the changes in Bill C-31 do not prompt any unintended consequences that may place hardships on the spouse and family of a convicted or incarcerated person.

Of course, the Old Age Security Act is the legislation from which the monthly old age security benefit is derived but it also offers the guaranteed income supplement, a spousal allowance and a survivors benefit. Often the spouses of incarcerated criminals were not complicit in the crimes of their spouses and, as such, should not be further victimized by the removal of these important benefits.

I know the government has signalled that it agrees with these sentiments but, on a personal note, we should take the time to ensure that all is as it seems and as it should be. It is our duty as responsible legislators to do due diligence on every piece of legislation, to set aside our emotions at times and to ensure we are doing due diligence on everything we are passing on behalf of all Canadians.

Our position here as Liberals is very clear. We support the intent of Bill C-31. We agree that convicted and incarcerated criminals should not receive sizeable benefits, like the monthly OAS cheque. I stand ready to do whatever it takes to achieve these goals and look forward to working with my colleagues and with the government to pass the measures geared to the same.

The minister also talked about the $8 million to $12 million in savings as a result of this bill. I certainly hope those savings will be passed on to the seniors in this country and to the victims of crime.

Cuts continue to go to a variety of people. We know things will be difficult in the coming months and years when we deal with the massive deficit, but I would not like to see that deficit paid for on the backs of our seniors and other vulnerable people in our society. I implore the government to reinvest these savings, to which the minister referred, into the seniors of our country.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development]

moved that Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to this important bill, Bill C-31, the eliminating entitlements for prisoners act.

Our Conservative government is committed to ensuring fairness for hardworking taxpayers, and we will continue to put victims and taxpayers first, ahead of criminals. Our government believes that Canadians who work hard, contribute to the system, and play by the rules deserve benefits such as old age security. It is wrong and obviously unfair that prisoners who broke the law should receive these same benefits.

Bill C-31 will ensure that mass murderers like Clifford Olson do not receive benefits while they are in jail. This mass murderer is receiving these government benefits, even though he actually admitted to brutally murdering eleven children, forever altering the lives of their families and traumatizing the communities in which he committed these dreadful crimes.

In a few short years, Paul Bernardo is supposed to receive the same benefits. So is Robert Pickton. This is offensive and outrageous to our Prime Minister, to me, to our government, and to Canadians right across the country. As soon as this shocking process was discovered, the Prime Minister asked me to take action quickly to put a stop to incarcerated criminals' receiving old age security and guaranteed income supplement benefits. That is exactly what we are doing today. We are doing exactly what Canadians want.

Canadians know that when our Conservative government makes a commitment, we follow through, and unlike the tax and spend opposition, we will use their hard-earned tax dollars fairly, responsibly, and prudently.

Before I continue, I want to explain exactly what this legislation aims to do. The purpose of the old age security program is to help seniors, many of whom live on a fixed income, meet their immediate basic needs and maintain a minimum standard of living in retirement. This is in recognition of the contributions seniors have made to Canadian society, our economy, and their communities.

However, an inmate’s needs, such as food and shelter, are already met and paid for by hard-working Canadian taxpayers. Canadians accept these costs because they want to make sure criminals stay off their streets and stay in jail where they belong.

What Canadians are not okay with are benefits meant for law-abiding, hard-working seniors going to incarcerated prisoners. Since an inmate's basic needs are already paid for by public funds, Canadian taxpayers should not be paying for income support through OAS benefits. It is grossly unfair to make law-abiding Canadian taxpayers pay for incarcerated criminals twice.

In short, whether someone is in jail for two months, two years, or twenty years, the fact is that taxpayers are already footing the bill for their room and board, so the criminals should not be receiving old age security benefits intended to help low-income seniors pay for their basic expenses. Accordingly, once passed, this bill would terminate old age security benefits for prisoners sentenced to more than two years in a federal penitentiary. The federal government would then work with provinces and territories to sign information-sharing agreements to proceed with the termination of these benefits for incarcerated criminals serving 90 days or more in a provincial or territorial institution.

I was very pleased that the government of British Colombia was the first to announce its support for our legislation and its willingness to work with us, if and when this bill becomes law. I have written to all of the provinces and territories to gauge their support and I hope to hear from all of them. What is more, I really hope that they all agree to move forward on this very important initiative.

This bill will affect approximately 400 federal inmates and about 600 provincial and territorial inmates each year. In total, implementing this bill will result in a savings to Canadian taxpayers of $2 million annually once the change is made federally. The savings will increase another $8 million to $10 million per year if every province and every territory signs on.

I would like to point out that this bill would put the OAS Act in line with other federal and provincial, as well as international, practices. For example, the working income tax benefit and the employment insurance program both cease payments of benefits when an individual is incarcerated. In addition, most of the provinces and territories, including British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the Northwest Territories, already do not make social assistance available to inmates. The United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States, among others, all suspend the payment of pensions to prisoners as well.

We have been very careful to ensure that the innocent spouses and common-law partners do not suffer as a result of the actions of their criminal spouses. They will not lose their individual entitlement to the guaranteed income supplement and the allowances as a result of these proposed amendments. They will still receive benefits, but based on their individual income rather than the combined income of the couple.

In summary, Bill C-31 would put an end to the practice of prisoners receiving taxpayer-funded old age security benefits. Our Conservative government believes that this is the fair thing to do and we believe it is the right thing to do.

What matters more than what we think, or what anyone across the aisle thinks, is what hard-working Canadians across the country think. Let me tell the House that support for this legislation has been overwhelming. Victims of Clifford Olson and the organizations that support them have praised this bill.

One of the people by whom I was most touched was Sharon Rosenfeldt. She is the president of Victims of Violence. She is also the mother of one of Olson's victims and her life is forever altered by his heinous crimes. When this bill was introduced, Ms. Rosenfeldt said, “It's great to see that this government is putting victims and taxpayers first ahead of criminals. The suspension of OAS benefit payments to inmates is just that. I commend [the Prime Minister] and [the minister] for taking leadership on this important issue and ending entitlements for convicted criminals”.

Ray King is the father of another victim of Clifford Olson. When he learned that the government introduced this bill, he said this “is the best news I have heard in a long time. I am quite pleased the government has actually done something”.

David Toner, president of Families Against Crime and Trauma, also praised this bill saying, “We are thrilled that the Prime Minister and the minister have taken leadership and are putting victims ahead of the entitlements of prisoners. I commend the Harper government for introducing this legislation”.

It is not just the families of victims that support this bill; law enforcement has also been very supportive. I have heard from police officers across the country who believe that this bill is the fair and right thing to do.

As an example, Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu applauded the bill, saying, “It would be my hope that the innocent victims will no longer feel further victimized by watching their attackers receive old age pensions during their forced retirement from their careers of crime. I am sure this evolutionary change in legislation will be greeted warmly by the many victims of these criminals”.

Taxpayers across the country have made their voices heard by signing a Canadian Taxpayers Federation petition in support of this bill. In fact almost 50,000 Canadians signed the petition. When the bill was introduced, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation said, “When the government does something right, they deserve credit”.

As we can see, victims and other major organizations strongly support this piece of legislation. What has really made an impact on me is the reaction from everyday Canadians. The number of Canadians who care about this issue and who took time out of their busy lives to write, email, and call in support of this bill has been truly remarkable. In fact I have received more correspondence from Canadians who support this bill than I have on almost any other issue.

I believe that it is important that their voices be heard, so I want to share with you a very small sample of what Canadians are saying.

From Cornwall, Ontario: “It is ludicrous that Clifford Olson is entitled to benefits he does not need, does not deserve, and has not earned”.

From Campbell River, British Columbia: “Thank you so much for introducing Bill C-31 so quickly to the House. You are to be commended for listening to the people who were so shocked to hear of the outrageous amount of money going to incarcerated men and women in the form of OAS”.

From Winnipeg, Manitoba: “Thank you for saying what most Canadians think. It is truly an outrage that Clifford Olson would get a pension on top of what he has in prison”.

From Saskatoon, Saskatchewan: “Canadian taxpayers have too long been held to ransom by those in our society and nation who flaunt the mores and break the laws of decent, law-abiding citizens”.

From Edmonton, Alberta: “Thank you for bringing the issue of prisoner pensions forward and I wish you much success with your initiative. I am hopeful that wisdom prevails from all parties on this issue”.

From Oshawa, Ontario: “I am glad that Bill C-31 has been introduced. It is a step in the right direction. Let us just hope this bill moves swiftly through to becoming law, putting an end to this insane practice in Canada”.

And from Halifax, Nova Scotia: “You are correct, Canadians who have spent their whole lives working and obeying the rules are the only ones entitled to these benefits, and I applaud the Conservatives for recognizing this and actually doing something about it quickly. Again, thank you for your good work, much appreciated”.

The overwhelming support that we have received from Canadians across this great country is proof that this bill is the right thing to do.

As members may be aware, shortly after this bill was introduced, the government received a letter from Clifford Olson himself, written from prison. In it he states that he is against this bill and is going to take the government to court if it passes.

Well, if a criminal who brutally murdered 11 children does not agree with this bill, then I think that is even more proof that this bill is the fair and right thing to do.

It is very unfortunate that for decades previous governments ignored this unfair and wrong practice, but it is not surprising.

There is a fundamental difference between our Conservative government and the opposition members. They are more concerned with the rights of prisoners who break the law and terrorize innocent families than they are with the rights of victims and law-abiding citizens.

Our Conservative government, on the other hand, continues to stand up for the rights of victims and their families. And we have a strong record of action to prove it.

For example, we created the Office of the Federal Ombudsman of Victims of Crime to serve as an independent resource for victims in Canada.

Over the last three years, we have committed $52 million to respond to a variety of needs of victims of crime, including the victims fund, which provides resources for victims of crime; support for Canadians victimized abroad; National Parole Board hearings; testimonial aids to assist child victims and witnesses with videoconferencing testimony; and support for under-served victims, including northern and aboriginal victims.

Furthermore, budget 2010 provided additional funding of $6.6 million over two years, and we will introduce legislation to make the victim surcharge mandatory to better fund victim services.

We are also taking action to facilitate access to employment insurance sickness benefits for eligible Canadians who have lost a family member as a result of a crime.

Bill C-31 is in keeping with our Conservative government's commitment to put victims and law-abiding Canadians first, ahead of prisoners.

Our government took quick action to put an end to incarcerated criminals receiving taxpayer funded benefits that are meant to help Canadian seniors who have contributed so much and so many positive things to our country.

Bill C-31, the eliminating entitlements for prisoners act, puts an end to hard-working Canadian taxpayers paying twice for prisoners. The bill is all about the responsible use of public funds and the fair treatment of Canadian taxpayers. We are taking action to put an end to entitlements for prisoners and to ensure that those Canadians who have spent their lives working hard and playing by the rules receive the benefits that they deserve.

This bill is the fair and right thing to do. It is what Canadians want us to do. I implore the opposition to listen to Canadians, to put victims and taxpayers first ahead of criminals and pass this bill quickly.

Business of the House

[John Baird, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to officially congratulate the House leader of the official opposition on his first Thursday question and of course on his appointment as House leader. As I have already said, we want to make this Parliament work for Canadians and co-operate with all the opposition parties.

Let me also tell him, and particularly his leader, how very disappointed I am that I will not have the chance to work shoulder to shoulder with the great, wise helmsman from Wascana.

Let me take this opportunity to once again, in English, officially congratulate the House leader of the official opposition on his first Thursday question. As I have said in the past, we all want to work hard, we all want to work collaboratively to make this House work, and not just with him.

We also want to do so with our friends in the Bloc Québécois and the New Democratic Party.

As government House leader, one of my very first acts on the day of the cabinet shuffle was to reach out to my opposition counterparts. Since then, I have had the opportunity to sit down with each of them and to hear their views about making Parliament work. I look forward to working with them over the coming days, weeks, months and years to do just that.

As for the House schedule, we will continue debate today on Bill C-5 (International Transfer of Offenders), followed by Bill C-31, Eliminating Entitlements for Prisoners, and Bill C-22, Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation.

On Monday, we will call Bill C-8, Canada-Jordan Free Trade Act, and Bill C-28, Fighting Spam, an important piece of legislation presented by the Minister of Industry.

Tuesday, September 28, will be an allotted day, and on Wednesday and Thursday, the order of business will be Bill C-8, if not already disposed of on Monday, Bill C-46, Canada-Panama Free Trade Act, and Bill C-28, Fighting Spam.

Eliminating Entitlements for Prisoners Act

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)