Bob Dechert

[May 11th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, as I have already stated, all of the rules were followed in responding to the media request in question. As soon as the ad campaign ended, accurate information was available and it was provided. The prudent and responsible approach was taken.

I would like to ask the member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl and the Liberal leader to stop these ridiculous fishing expeditions, start listening to their constituents and start focusing on what matters most to Canadians.

I would ask if her and her leader will support our Conservative government's ongoing efforts to strengthen our economy and create jobs. Will they support our efforts to keep families safe by keeping violent offenders off the street? Will they support our efforts to strengthen the employment insurance system?

Those are the issues that Canadians care about and I suggest that the member should start paying more attention to what matters to her constituents.

[May 11th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have the opportunity today to clarify the facts of this issue, facts that the Liberal member is purposely ignoring in an attempt to score cheap political points.

First, I would like to clarify something. In the member's original question, she claimed that this was an access to information request. It was not. It was a routine media inquiry.

A reporter contacted the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada requesting information on the economic action plan help for workers ad campaign that ran during the Olympics two days before the ad campaign was completed. He specifically asked for two things: the cost and the frequency of the ads.

Ad campaigns are unique in that they do not have fixed costs. It is impossible to respond to the question of frequency of ads before an ad campaign is over. There are a lot of reasons as to why the number of ads that are aired usually differ from what was estimated and budgeted. It is also important to point out that the cost of an ad campaign depends on the frequency of the advertisements. As the frequency cannot be known until after an ad campaign is over, obviously the accurate cost cannot be known either.

As soon as the ad campaign ended, the frequency was actually known and the more accurate costs were available. That information was provided to the person who requested it. This was the prudent and responsible thing to do. Again, accurate information was provided in a timely manner.

I would also like to point out that all the rules and guidelines under the Government of Canada's communications policy were followed. Those are the facts.

I continue to be disappointed by the Liberals and the member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl. They keep distorting facts and going on fishing expeditions instead of doing what our Conservative government is doing, which is working on the issues that actually matter to Canadians and constituents like hers and mine, important issues like the economy and creating jobs, keeping families safe but keeping criminals off the street, improving employment insurance, protecting consumers at the pumps, creating jobs through investments in infrastructure, and cutting taxes so hard-working Canadians can keep more of their money to spend on things that matter the most.

Those are the issues that Canadians care about. They elected us not to play partisan games but to work on issues that are important to them and to their families.

I have already stated that all of the rules were followed in responding to the media request in question.

[Points of Order, April 26th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I was also at the meeting of the government financial services caucus that the member referred to and I can confirm that Mr. Jaffer was not in attendance, and was not in any way associated with that meeting.

[Committees of the House, April 23rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the second report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

In accordance with the order of reference of Wednesday, April 14, your committee has considered Bill C-475, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (methamphetamine and ecstasy) and agreed, on Thursday, April 23, to report it with amendment.

[Infrastructure, April 1st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, as part of Canada's economic action plan, our government is making unprecedented investments in infrastructure projects. To date, almost 16,000 projects are completed or under way in every corner of this country. Roads and bridges, college and university campuses, arenas and recreation centres, and water treatment facilities are being built, upgraded and renewed, thanks to our investments.

These stimulus projects are creating jobs and hope in the largest cities and smallest towns from coast to coast to coast. According to the Conference Board of Canada, infrastructure spending provides a larger stimulus to the economy during a recession, and “provides a bigger bang for the buck”.

The Conference Board of Canada finds that every dollar spent on infrastructure increases real gross domestic product by as much as $1.20, and with Statistics Canada reporting yesterday that Canada's economy grew for the fifth straight month, it is clear that Canada's economic action plan is working.

Jobs and economy remain our government's top priority.

[Criminal Code, March 22nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to thank the hon. member for Avalon for bringing this bill before Parliament.

I am privileged to speak on this important bill today, Bill C-464, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (justification for detention in custody). The proposed amendment adds only a few words to the Criminal Code, but they are very important words. They are words that emphasize the importance of protecting some of our most vulnerable citizens, our children.

Bill C-464 would add the words “any person under the age of 18 years” to paragraph 515(10)(b) of the Criminal Code. Thus the provision would read that the detention of the accused in custody is justified:

where the detention is necessary for the protection or safety of the public, including any victim of or witness to the offence, or any person under the age of 18 years, having regard to all of the circumstances including any substantial likelihood that the accused will, if released from custody, commit a criminal offence or interfere with the administration of justice; and

This means that when a judge is determining if an accused person should be released on bail pending his or her trial, the judge is to specifically consider the safety of children. Currently courts assess the safety of children when considering the safety of the public under paragraph 515(10)(b). This amendment serves to highlight the importance of children's safety being expressly reviewed at the bail hearing, a very important juncture in criminal proceedings.

This bill was first introduced by the member for Avalon on October 22, 2009. It then received general support during the second reading on December 4, 2009, and a government amendment was unanimously supported by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. The speed by which the bill has moved through the House and the consensus it has generated confirms that it will be a valuable contribution to the Criminal Code.

I would like to take a moment to speak of the two witnesses who appeared before the justice committee. Last week, David and Kathleen Bagby appeared to assist the committee in its consideration of Bill C-464. As we all know, the tragic and senseless loss of their son, Andrew, and their grandson, Zachary, is what propelled the Bagbys to seek legislative reform. At the committee hearing, they spoke of their heart-wrenching loss and also clearly articulated their desire to prevent a similar tragedy from befalling another family. The Bagbys found the courage to use their unimaginably painful loss as fuel for positive change. I thank them for appearing before the justice committee, and I thank them for their efforts to prevent other children from being harmed.

As mentioned, the justice committee unanimously supported the private member's bill as amended. The government moved an amendment to improve the bill by making it less restrictive. Instead of only referencing the “children of the accused” as initially proposed, the government moved an amendment to reference all persons under the age of 18. When determining if an accused person should be released from custody, courts will be expressly reminded to consider the safety and protection of all children affected by the accused person's release. Any danger presented by the accused in regard to any child, be it a partner's child, a neighbour's child or a biological child, must be considered before he or she is released into the community.

The Criminal Code sets out the bail, or judicial interim release, procedure and the grounds for detention of an accused. When police officers believe there are reasonable grounds not to release an accused, they are required under the law to bring them before a judge or justice of the peace within 24 hours or as soon as possible.

Subsection 515(10) of the Criminal Code sets out specific grounds to justify the pretrial detention of an accused. Under what is commonly referred to as the “primary ground”, bail can be denied when detention is necessary to ensure that the accused does not flee from justice and appears before the court when required to do so.

Under the “secondary ground”, the ground Bill C-464 seeks to amend, bail can be denied where it is necessary to protect the public. For example, if there is a substantial likelihood that the accused will re-offend or interfere with the administration of justice, he or she should not be released.

Third, bail can be denied under the “tertiary ground”, when the court considers it necessary to maintain public confidence in the administration of justice.

The task of assessing an accused's risk at the bail hearing can be extremely challenging. The investigation may be ongoing and the information available to the courts may be incomplete. Our justices are asked to make very important decisions in a very short time frame and in a fair manner that respects the values entrenched in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This amendment, it is hoped, can assist them with their difficult task by specifically reminding them to consider the safety and protection of children.

Although this judicial interim release regime operates well, tragic incidents, while rare, do occur. Placing limits on an individual's liberty is clearly necessary when failure to do so jeopardizes the safety of the public and, most particularly, the safety of our children.

Child safety should be considered at all stages of a criminal prosecution, from the arrest to the sentencing of an accused. This amendment would ensure that bail decisions are made with the safety of the child at the forefront.

Bill C-464 is in line with this government's criminal law reform efforts. The Conservative government is committed to the safety and protection of Canadian children.

Just this month, the government proposed legislative amendments to strengthen the national sex offender registry and DNA data bank, measures that will provide greater protection for our children.

Furthermore, as highlighted in the recent Speech from the Throne, this government will also introduce legislation to increase penalties for sexual offences against children and will protect children from Internet luring and cyber abuse.

In the recent past, this government has introduced legislation that aims to protect children. For example, the Tackling Violent Crime Act places stricter conditions on dangerous and high-risk offenders and protects children from sexual predators by increasing the age of consent. We have also increased penalties for street racing and gun crimes and terminated house arrest for serious, violent offences.

Clearly, a strong criminal justice system alone is not sufficient. The criminal justice system and provincial child protection regimes intersect and overlap in many ways. Child protection is a complex, multi-dimensional issue that involves the ongoing commitment and collaboration of community members, practitioners and policy-makers from across Canada.

Bill C-464 is an important step, but it is clearly not the only step to be taken. We must continue to work with our provincial and territorial counterparts to develop ways to better protect Canadian children. It is an enormous but essential task.

All of us want Canada to be a safe, secure place for our children. They are our future and deserve our protection. Bill C-464 emphasizes the importance of courts considering the safety of children when making decisions about the pretrial release of an accused.

I urge this House to give this bill its full support.

[Tribute Dinner, March 18th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, on March 25, Community Living Mississauga will be honouring one of Mississauga's most outstanding citizens, Mr. Victor Oh.

For decades, Victor Oh has selflessly contributed his time, talent and resources to community and charitable organizations. As president of the Mississauga Chinese Business Association, he ensured that the MCBA was a key sponsor of the race against racism.

Victor has been active in assisting newcomers to the Peel region to settle into our community. Each month, he hosts a reception for new Canadian citizens. He has also served as vice-chair of Safe City Mississauga and is the recipient of the Robert Boyne Memorial Award for his community work in promoting and advancing crime prevention.

Last year, the Prime Minister chose Victor Oh to travel with him on his historic visit to China as a trusted adviser.

I ask all members of the House to join with me in congratulating Mr. Victor Oh.

[THE BUDGET, March 8th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, pure scientific research is very important to Canada's future and in that regard, the government is providing, as I mentioned earlier, over $222 million to TRIUMF for nuclear and particle physics research.

In addition, we are providing an additional $75 million to Genome Canada for its ongoing genomic research which, coupled with matching private sector grants, would give it an extra $150 million.

However, commercialization, as the member well knows, is the way to create immediate jobs and that is what we need.

[THE BUDGET, March 8th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, as a member of the Standing Committee on Finance, I travelled across the country on prebudget consultations last year. Every university in Canada came to us and made a presentation on how important post-doctoral students are to the future of Canada and the future of research in Canada. That is why I am so thrilled that budget 2010 is providing $45 million to establish a post-doctoral fellowship program to help attract the research leaders of tomorrow to Canada.

It is also delivering $220 million in funding over five years to strengthen the world-leading research taking place at the TRIUMF centre in Vancouver, Canada's premier national laboratory for nuclear and particle physics research.

It is also increasing the combined annual budgets, as the member rightly pointed out, of Canada's research granting councils by an additional $32 million.

As I pointed out in my speech, Genome Canada will receive an additional $75 million which, coupled with private sector matching grants, would give it an additional $150 million for continued genomics research.

We have doubled the budget of the college and community innovation program with an additional $50 million per year.

We have provided $135 million to the National Research Council of Canada's regional innovation clusters program.

I could go on but I am probably running out of time. I commend to the hon. member the budget documents where he will see several more major additions to research funding in Canada.

[THE BUDGET, March 8th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak today in support of budget 2010, which continues year two of Canada's historic economic action plan. I will be splitting my time with member for Essex.

As the House knows, last year, as we debated budget 2009, Canada's economy was in the grips of the deepest economic recession since the 1930s. Due to the prudent and early actions of this government, our economy entered the global recession later and less deeply than most other nations. However, we were not immune and we were swept along with the current.

To address this global crisis, our government reacted swiftly by introducing Canada's economic action plan, which included timely and targeted investments in transportation, water treatment and delivery, colleges and universities, libraries, police and fire stations, affordable housing and recreational facilities among other infrastructure projects.

I would like to point out that the city of Mississauga received the largest contribution to important and necessary infrastructure projects from any Canadian government in history. In fact, the former Liberal member of Parliament from my riding said, “The recent infusion of infrastructure stimulus dollars from several different programs is the largest pot of money ever bestowed on the city of Mississauga and the region of Peel by our two senior levels of government”.

I am also advised by the mayor of Mississauga that virtually all of these approximately 138 projects are well under construction and that many have already been completed.

If people visited our fair city today, they would be hard-pressed to travel down any major artery without witnessing the sights and sounds of many ongoing, fast paced construction projects.

In addition, the Government of Canada has invested more than $35 million in Go Transit Mississauga, which will ease the daily commute for thousands of people. This calculated investment is taking cars off the road, reducing gridlock, decreasing smog and greenhouse gas emissions and improving delivery times for the goods and services produced in our region.

I am most proud of our government's historic investment in education, research and innovation through the construction of a new Mississauga campus of Sheridan College and the investment of $35 million in a new instructional centre at the University of Toronto Mississauga campus. I would like to inform the House that both of these educational buildings are well under construction as we speak.

I am very pleased to see that these historic and vitally important investments in our people and in our knowledge infrastructure will be continued and completed through budget 2010.

Budget 2010 introduces a number of new initiatives to enhance innovation, which I believe are important to help equip our young people to continue to build the economy of tomorrow. Some of these measures include investing $45 million to establish a post-doctoral fellowship program to help attract the research leaders of tomorrow to Canada, increasing the combined annual budgets of Canada's research granting councils by an additional $32 million per year and doubling the budget of the college and community innovation program.

The budget also provides Genome Canada with an additional $75 million for genomics research. I understand that with the matching private sector funds this will provide $150 million for this important research.

For those who were unfortunately laid off from their jobs in the depths of the global recession, our government has provided and continues to provide significantly enhanced employment insurance benefits and skills training benefits for long-tenured workers. These measures have helped ease the pain experienced by our manufacturing sector.

Indeed, the enhancements of budget 2009 to the work-sharing program saved many thousands of jobs across Canada. In fact, 160,000 Canadians have benefited from work-sharing agreements. By extending work-sharing agreements by an additional 26 weeks and allowing greater flexibility in the qualifying criteria, budget 2010 will continue to save jobs until our economy fully recovers.

Through all of these measures, our government has primed the economic pump. As the Minister of Finance reported last week, these measures have worked and our economic is once again pumping growth and new jobs.

As part of my duties with the Standing Committee on Finance, I had the privilege to travel across Canada and consult with many Canadians and various interest groups. It was made clear to me and to our committee that Canadians wanted our government to focus on jobs and on the economy. To highlight this commitment, since July 2009, the Canadian economy has generated 135,000 net new jobs and encouraging statistics on growth and job creation are emerging each month.

To be sure, there is more road yet to travel to return to the vibrant rate of growth that we enjoyed prior to the onset of the global recession. That is why budget 2010 is continuing to implement planned infrastructure stimulus measures, and continues to support and retrain laid-off workers and invest in innovation. However, at the same time as our economy rebounds our government is taking prudent steps to ease off on the accelerator to ensure that our debt and deficit remain manageable.

Following the implementation of the stimulus measures announced in 2009, our government is prudently proposing in 2010 to take measures to return to balanced budgets. We will do this by restraining growth in government spending and by undertaking a comprehensive review of spending on overhead and administration costs.

Our government is leading by example and tightening its own belt. We will do this by freezing the total amount spent on government salaries, administration and overhead. We will introduce legislation to freeze the salaries of the Prime Minister ministers, members of Parliament and senators.

As we know, it is easy to spend and there are always many good ideas for government spending programs, but governing responsibly means having to make tough but prudent choices. In my view, budget 2010 makes these prudent choices.

We will not do what many members of the opposition would propose. We will not balance the budget on the backs of the sick and our students by cutting provincial health and education transfer payments, as was done by the previous Liberal government in the 1990s, nor will we balance the budget at the expense of pensioners.

I am glad to see that this month we will be launching public consultations on how to improve Canada's retirement income system. Finally, we will not balance the budget by raising the tax burden on hard-working Canadians and introducing job-killing increases in business taxes.

As a former business lawyer with over 20 years of experience in advising entrepreneurs, I can say that applicable business taxes are a major factor in every decision to invest and create jobs in Canada. In the high tax era of previous governments, I unfortunately saw thousands of good job creation opportunities slip away from Canada's economy.

Today, one of the great hallmarks of our economy is our comparatively low deficit to GDP ratio and reasonable corporate and small business income tax rates. Canada's overall tax rate on new business investment is the lowest in the G7 and below the OECD average. By 2012, Canada will have the lowest statutory corporate income tax in the G7. In my view, Canada's comparative advantages in debt and tax levels among the G7 nations will continue to make Canada one of the most favourable places in the developed world to invest and create good, high value competitive jobs.

As the Minister of Finance has pointed out, before the recession Canada had the lowest debt to GDP ratio in the G7 and after the recession Canada will still have the lowest debt to GDP ratio in the G7 by an even wider margin.

Budget 2010 introduces a number of other key strategic new measures to enhance competition and reduce barriers for business. This includes making Canada a tariff-free zone for manufacturers by eliminating all remaining tariffs on productivity-improving machinery and equipment, and goods imported for further manufacturing in Canada.

This important initiative will be a significant incentive for our manufacturing sector. It is estimated that this commitment will create 12,000 jobs, diversify trade and boost Canada's manufacturing sector, as well as its overall productivity. I believe, by establishing the first tariff-free zone for manufacturing among G7 and G20 partners, this budget will have a great impact on the protection and creation of manufacturing jobs in my region of Ontario.

Budget 2010 introduces a number of important changes to the taxation of foreign investment in Canadian business which will greatly enhance the ability of Canadian businesses to attract foreign venture capital through revisions to section 116 of the Income Tax Act. In my business career, I saw too many innovative high technology entrepreneurs who were forced to relocate their companies and the high-value jobs associated with them to the United States in order to access needed venture capital.

Terence Matthews, one of Canada's most successful high technology entrepreneurs, has said, “This amendment will have an immediate positive and direct impact on Canada's ability to grow a robust Canadian technology industry”.

Recently, the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Mississauga—Brampton South met with business leaders in my city of Mississauga. According to press reports, they were told that “Mississauga and Brampton business owners want Ottawa to simplify regulations so they can concentrate on running their companies instead of tackling mountains of paperwork”.