Cathy McLeod

[Indigenous Affairs, February 6th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, back on October 18, I stood in this place and shared the tragic story of Jennifer Catcheway, whose parents have every reason to feel betrayed by the Prime Minister and his government.

Their beautiful 18-year-old daughter had been taken from them on her birthday in 2008. She had called her mother to say that she was on her way back to her family home in Portage La Prairie and was never seen again. Nine years later, police determined it was a homicide, but no one has been arrested and her body has never been brought home for her family to bury.

After years of waiting to tell their story, they were afforded just a couple of minutes at the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. This is obviously a massive offence.

The list of failures by the national inquiry is extensive, yet the Prime Minister continues to ignore the red flags or fix the process. Is this really the inquiry that he envisioned during the campaign?

The goals of this inquiry are incredibly important to bring answers and some measure of closure and peace to the victims' families and to provide a path forward for improving the lives of first nations, Métis, and Inuit women and girls, regardless of whether they live in urban centres or remote communities.

The national inquiry itself is in shambles. After just four months on the job, the second executive director has quit, adding to the list of more than 20 staff members who have resigned or been fired from the inquiry since it began. This includes commissioner Marilyn Poitras, who told the CBC that the inquiry was going down the same path as so many previous inquiries and would not provide anything new to fix these issues.

Then, in December, the Assembly of First Nations Special Chiefs Assembly passed a resolution calling on the Prime Minister to replace the remaining commissioners and reset the inquiry. Regional chiefs, like Kevin Hart, told the Prime Minister to address the situation right away. Francyne Joe, president of the Native Women's Association, told APTN, “We need someone to take ownership of this national inquiry.” The response by the Prime Minister is to sit on his hands and do nothing. There is nothing to see here.

The Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs said that her government would not interfere, that it was arm's length. They are responsible for this inquiry.

Not a week goes by without the media publishing yet another failure by this inquiry. Indigenous leaders are demanding the Prime Minister follow through on his lofty words and take personal action. This was a key campaign promise of the Prime Minister. If it does not succeed in the goal of bringing both peace to families and a path forward, then it is on him and the minister. He must address these red flags and failures as a concern and ensure that the government does everything it can to get it back on track, including the PMO, the Privy Council, and the department.

Canadians are asking this. Will the Prime Minister listen to the advocates, chiefs, and families of victims and get this inquiry back on track?

[Canada Elections Act, February 5th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on that point.

I look back at the summer. As people are aware, it was a horrific wildfire season in B.C.. Communities were devastated. The Prime Minister went up there, did a photo op, and, from my understanding, then went down to Vancouver and did a cash for access fundraiser.

I want to contrast that with our leader. He came up, did a community event, and did a fundraiser for the food bank to help people who were wildfire victims. That shows the difference between those two men and their sense of ethics. For one, it is cash for access for his party. For the other, it is to try to make things a little better for the people who were so devastated by the wildfire.

Could my colleague talk a little more about how this is a simple fact of ethics and doing the right thing?

[Ethics, February 1st, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister was found guilty of violating four sections of the Conflict of Interest Act when he took a private vacation on a billionaire's island in the Caribbean. We have been asking a very simple question for the last four days. The responses have been inadequate. They have been shameful and have been disrespectful to this place. The Liberals are saying, “There is nothing to see here. Oh, the Prime Minister broke the law, but it does not matter, move on.”

This is important. Why will the Prime Minister not pay back the money to Canadians?

[Criminal Code, January 31st, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I had two minutes, a long time ago, on Bill C-365. We are now resuming debate on a very important bill, put forward by my colleague.

In the brief two minutes I had before the Christmas break, way back in 2017, I did a little reflection on the B.C. wildfire season. I also talked a little about how disappointed I was that from the initial signals from the government, it would not be supporting the bill. To be honest, I found that very concerning, distressing, and to be frank, a little shameful, because this is an important measure that, if put in place, would ultimately help to protect lives.

I think what I need to do is pick up by explaining what the bill is about and bring it back to why it is so important for our firefighters, our men and women who respond every day to very difficult situations. It is also important to note that the bill has massive support from the people who would be most impacted by it, and that is a number of our different associations. We have really positive support from across the country, but unfortunately, it does not appear the government is listening.

What does the bill propose to do? It proposes a new and specific offence for theft of firefighting equipment that causes danger to life. There is a reason this has been put forward. It is that there is a gap in our existing legislation, because the current code's provisions applicable to cases of mischief or theft of firefighting equipment, especially in cases where each mischief or theft causes danger to life, have not gotten the proper treatment they deserve.

The second thing the bill does is that it proposes to establish mischief related to firefighting equipment as an aggravating circumstance. That would add gravity to the offence.

The third component of Bill C-365 seeks to establish clarity on what the objectives of the sentence should be when a judge is determining a sentence for any theft of firefighting equipment, regardless of whether or not danger to life has been caused. If someone vandalizes someone's home, or there is mischief related to some activities that perhaps young adults undertake, that is a significantly different offence in terms of its possible implications than when there is mischief, damage, theft, or loss related to firefighting equipment.

I do not have the statistics in front of me, but I suspect that in our country our professional firefighter departments that are staffed 24-7 perhaps have a little less to worry about because they have significant checks and balances, and paid staff. They are always there, having a good eye on the equipment and providing security. However, in the riding I represent, we have volunteer firefighters and departments all over. These are men and women who give up their time. They might go to a fire practice on a Wednesday night. They practice and they are there to respond to community emergencies. Their equipment is perhaps not as secure. They do not have the ability, because it is volunteer, to check as often as perhaps other places can.

We talked about the wildfires of 2017 in the communities I represent. I can remember that in 2003 there was another horrific season in the area of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo. We live in a small community. We have a volunteer firefighting department, and both my son and my husband were part of that particular department. When the province declared a state of emergency, it all of a sudden gave the authority for the province to call all of the volunteer fire departments into action to deal with the crisis.

As one can imagine, this fire department trained on a Wednesday, had done some live fire training, but certainly did not have the ability to respond. Nor did it have the equipment. The equipment it had was critically important.

I remember a day when the firefighters were called out to a grass fire outside their normal boundaries because they were now under provincial control. They headed up the mountain with the equipment. Had there been any flaws in how that equipment worked, it would have put their lives in danger. They were not as experienced, had been called to action in a place outside their normal area of expertise, and did not have a lot of training around grass fires, which were quickly expanding through the mountains. Had anything been tampered with or stolen, it could have been significant and dangerous. Quite frankly, lives could have been lost.

When the government suggests that this is in an unnecessary bill and that the penalties are already quite fine, it needs to think about the reality of the situation. People who steal or tamper with firefighting equipment know exactly what they are doing. They know they impact equipment used for response to serious and significant issues.

I ask the Liberals to reconsider this and think about the volunteer firefighters, like in the case in 2003 where it was my husband and son. Had they headed up this mountain where the grasses were burning and the equipment had malfunctioned, think of what the repercussions could have been. How would they have felt if someone had tampered with or stolen necessary equipment? Should there not be significant and appropriate repercussions? The government needs to rethink its position.

I want to congratulate my colleague who put forward the bill.

As one further thought, talking about the B.C. wildfires, the government indicated it would do everything possible to help. This is one thing it could do that would be very helpful in moving forward and protecting public safety.

[Tobacco and Vaping Products Act, January 30th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, over the years, we have seen many effective cessation programs. Obviously prevention is the best opportunity, to discourage children from actually starting the habit, through banning flavours. We know many public health dollars, both federally and provincially, have been spent on supporting cessation programs and supporting folks through things like QuitNow.ca. Someday it would be interesting to look at the cost of prevention. We talk about the interesting dichotomy between moving forward with legalizing marijuana, saying it is going to help with the costs of drug enforcement, and then spending probably a lot of money trying to discourage people from using it. It is a bit of an irony.

[Tobacco and Vaping Products Act, January 30th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the member raises a very good point. First of all, I totally disagree that we currently have glitzy, attractive packaging. Any package I have looked at in the last number of years has been quite appalling in terms of the actual images on it. It is also important to point out that, in most provinces, cigarette packages have to be put behind walls where children cannot see them, and the adults have to ask to have the cupboards opened to get their package of choice. What we are talking about is packaging that is not very clear. I mean, it is not sitting there on open shelves as it used to be. There are unattractive images on them.

Offsetting that, what is it going to do in terms of the contraband industry? That is a legitimate question to ask. We have done a lot around packaging and hiding the product, but with what impact? I hope it would be a concern for the Liberals also to see a significant rise in terms of contraband and cheaper products for children.

[Tobacco and Vaping Products Act, January 30th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to add my comments to the debate on Bill S-5, an act to amend the Tobacco Act and the Non-smokers’ Health Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts. After reading that very long title, people might be wishing to go back to the days of the Conservative government, when we had very catchy phrases for our particular pieces of legislation.

There are three components I would like to focus my comments on. One is vaping; the second is the intended plain packaging; and the third is the issue of flavours. If there is a little extra time, I might have some general comments on public health and the approach it is taking.

In May 2015, there was a unanimous report from the health committee. I was on the committee at that time. We worked hard, and we said that we needed a regulatory framework on vaping. We presented 14 recommendations to the government in May of that year, looking forward to the government's response. The report was unanimous and said that we needed a regulatory framework. As we know, there was an election a short time after that, and the government of the day did not have the opportunity to respond and move forward.

I find it interesting that this was in the mandate letter of the minister when the Liberals were first elected way back in the fall of 2015, a few short months after this unanimous report was presented with recommendations, and it has taken almost three years to get this particular piece of legislation to the stage it is at now. It speaks to how long it actually takes the government,when it sets something as a priority in the mandate letters, with a lot of the background work already done and a consensus within the House, to get what it says is a priority to the table. There are recent articles showing how ineffective the government has been in passing legislation, especially on something that has pretty solid support, such as the framework on vaping.

The government can never leave things simple, and it had to add a number of other issues to this piece of legislation, which I will talk about a little later. With regard to vaping, it is absolutely appropriate that there be some structure around it. Things like prohibiting the sale to minors, prohibiting promotion of vaping products that appeal to youth, and submitting information to Health Canada are all sensible pieces of moving this forward.

I know that some of my colleagues have mentioned this, but it is important to note. The member for Cariboo—Prince George, as many know, is in hospital right now, and all of us in the House wish him a very speedy recovery. It speaks to his dedication and passion for what goes on in Parliament that he has been watching the debate and sending messages to all of us as we are coming up for our opportunity to speak, asking whether we have seen a certain article or whether we are aware of this or that. I want to say to the member for Cariboo—Prince George that we wish him well. He should make sure he gets enough rest because he said he was going to look for a better balance.

I will bring to the attention of members the article he sent. It is very recent, from January of this year, and it is entitled “Teen baseball player’s stepmom calls for stronger vaping regulations after his death”. He was 14 years old. He was found collapsed in the bathroom with some vaping products beside him. Of course, his death cannot be directly attributed to them. The story is about his going to the hospital and how he died shortly thereafter.

However, it is enough to raise a caution. It is enough to say it was a young man who was exposed to a product, so there certainly are some things that we need to perhaps look at and watch from there, which really speaks to the fact that we might have a regulatory framework that is in place to provide some protection, but there is an actual need to continue the research.

I do not think anyone has talked to this particular issue. Right now it is a bit of a no man's land in terms of people selling products that are illegal, but here is a recent study that talks about the importance of research and knowing what is in the products that people are vaping. It links chemicals in flavoured e-cigarettes to a respiratory disease that is called popcorn lung. Right now people need to be very cautious because there are no controls in place in terms of what they are actually inhaling.

This says:

A chemical found in the vast majority of flavoured e-cigarettes tested by researchers in a new study has been linked to severe respiratory disease. The study out of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, released Tuesday, tested 51 types of flavoured e-cigarettes and refill liquids, known as e-juice.

It was actually a couple of years ago.

“ln our study we focused on flavours we feel are appealing to children and younger consumers,” the study's lead author Joseph Allen, assistant professor of exposure assessment science, said. “Flavours like Waikiki watermelon, alien blood, cupcake and cotton candy.”

The researchers said the flavouring chemical called diacetyl was found in more than 75% of the products tested.

This goes back to popcorn factories where people working there were getting a debilitating respiratory disease, bronchiolitis obliterans, and it is known as the popcorn lung. It is very serious and often can require a lung transplant—an irreversible lung disease.

What is concerning about that is smoking damages the lungs over a long period of time, but the effects of diacetyl and the creation of popcorn lung is much more rapid and much more concerning. It can be ingested, but when it is inhaled into the lungs, it is certainly a problem. We know it is in e-cigarettes. In the U.S. there are more than 7,000 flavours on the market, many of them containing this. Health Canada has not yet regulated e-cigarettes, so that is a word of caution for people who are using the product.

This leads me to the flavours issue. One of the things that our government committed to in the last Parliament was to ban the flavours that were appealing to youth. I know there were chocolate, strawberry, and banana flavours that were on the market and very appealing to youth.

At that time we had a pretty significant discussion and debate about menthol. There was a suggestion that we should also ban menthol, and the decision at that time was that menthol had been in cigarettes for many years; it is a product that is legal in Canada; it is a product whose risks adults who choose to smoke are aware of. They have chosen and used menthol cigarettes for years, and we thought it was unduly unfair for the government of the day to ban menthol.

I notice in this legislation that the new government has decided to go ahead with that. Perhaps members need to hear from people, especially adults, who had a lot to say about that issue, when a different decision was made in the past. I certainly agree with the issue around the strawberry, chocolate, and banana tobacco, but menthol was something we did consider.

There is not a lot of time, and the plain packaging is the final area that I want to note. We hear that it might be very helpful. We hear that it has not made a difference.

Coming from British Columbia, I did not realize how much of an issue contraband tobacco was until I came to this House and heard from my colleagues from Ontario. It was a pretty consistent conversation we had. The other thing is that, for the first time in my life, I saw these bags of contraband tobacco. Of course the Canadian government policies significantly impacted the contraband tobacco industry. There needs to be a very thoughtful conversation in committee on that particular issue.

In general, we support this going to committee. We think there are a few areas that perhaps need some additional consideration.

[Tobacco and Vaping Products Act, January 30th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I feel compelled to stand after the last question, because I recall very clearly that the former government dealt with the issue of removing flavours that were appealing to children from tobacco. The former government was part of a committee, from which a unanimous report was delivered in May of 2015. As we know, there was an election and a new government was in place. That unanimous report was ready for the Liberal government to take action on. All parties in the House agreed to it as it related to the vaping component and all the government had to do was move forward.

It is three years later and this has taken much too long. The government knew it had to do the job, it was in the mandate letter, and there is no excuse for it to have taken so long to take action.

[Questions on the Order Paper, January 29th, 2018]

With regard to the meeting between the Chief Administrative Officer of the Thompson-Nicola Regional District and the Policy Advisor and Special Assistant for Western Canada and the Territories to the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities, on June 1, 2017: what are the titles of all briefing notes provided by the government to the Policy Advisor and Special Assistant between May 1, 2017, and June 8, 2017?

[Canada Labour Code, January 29th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, like many in the House, I have been very concerned and upset by a number of the issues that have happened over the last number of months and, to be quite frank, over the last number of years.

I listened to the minister's speech, and she was right. Both systemic and cultural change will be important. I look forward to the bill going to committee to see how we can even make it better.

One thing concerns me, because we are looking at a continuum. We know the RCMP is available, but we have legislation by our former interim leader, which has sat in the Senate for months, on judges and their training. Ultimately, people who go through the process need to have confidence they will be heard through the justice system.

Would the member offer any encouragement for the Senate to move forward on that legislation? This is another piece of this important issue.