Dean Del Mastro

[Criminal Code, February 14th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I think my colleague made a very strong case for the bill.

I was quite disturbed by the comments made by the Liberal member who spoke a few moments ago about how a bill like this might apply to a certain mentality. I find that very degrading to Canadians who look for a government to strengthen the justice system. The bill does that and does it very emphatically.

We just heard a member across the way ask how the bill would help rehabilitate. In my view rehabilitation is a good outcome, but it is not why we send people to prison in the first place. We do that to keep our communities safer. Prisons were created for that reason.

Does my hon. colleague think the safety of the public should trump the rehabilitation of criminals?

[Criminal Code, February 13th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am always impressed with not just the thought that the hon. member puts into his speeches in the House, but also the great passion that he brings with it.

When the bill was first introduced by the Prime Minister, he was flanked by Jim Stephenson, the father of Christopher Stephenson who was abducted, raped and killed by a man who should not have been in society, quite frankly. He had been convicted on several occasions for significant crimes. I talked to Mr. Stephenson when he was in Peterborough. I know he is a big supporter of this bill and he believes it will protect society.

Has the hon. member had anybody in his riding raise concerns about the bill or is the opposite not true, that everybody who we seem to talk to supports the bill very strongly and the principles on which it stands?

[Employment Insurance Act, February 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address a number of items in the speech by the hon. NDP member.

He indicated that he has never heard an employer complain about the amount of money it costs for employment insurance. Quite frankly, I am surprised to hear that. Survey after survey from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business has indicated exactly that, that employers do feel burdened by the 140% contribution they have to make to employment insurance. It is a 1.4 to 1 ratio for employers.

There is a lot of talk about benefits and payments from employment insurance, but there are more ways to help people than with handouts. We want to create a vibrant, strong economy in Canada. We are going to do that by providing opportunity for people so they do not have to rely on supports like employment insurance.

Employment insurance is there to help people out when they need it, but they should not have to rely on it. We believe in providing good jobs. I would like to hear what the member has to say about that.

[Chemicals Management Plan, February 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, part of our plan for a healthier environment for Canadians includes the chemicals management plan which challenges industry to provide the government with information about how it is safely managing 200 chemical substances.

Earlier today the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Health announced that we are moving forward on collecting this information as quickly as possible.

Could the Minister of Health update the House on the government's initiative to address the health of Canadians?

[Criminal Code, February 6th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am not aware of any specific percentage. However, I am aware that the bill will specifically prohibit the defence called the two beer defence. Quite frankly this defence should not exist. I know that this defence actually circumvents the intent of our impaired driving laws that currently exist.

When persons bring in a few of their buddies who have been drinking with them, and have them testify that they only drank two beers and therefore could not possibly be impaired, that is not a defence that should be credible before the eyes of the court and not something that Canadians should accept.

I cannot speak to exact percentages, but when I speak to law enforcement officials, when I speak to representatives of MADD Canada, and when I speak to victims of drunk driving, they cannot believe that a defence like that exists in Canada. They want it gone. They want the perpetrators, the people who repeatedly drive impaired, brought to justice. That is why everyone should support the bill.

[Criminal Code, February 6th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join this debate and speak in favour of Bill C-32, a bill that amends the Criminal Code in relation to impaired driving.

A great deal has already been said about the provisions of the bill. I do not wish to go over the same ground. Instead, I want to focus on some of the objections to the legislation that have appeared in the media regarding the bill.

First, there have been some who question whether the bill is constitutional with respect to the drug impaired driving provisions of the bill. I remind the House that this was extensively canvassed when Bill C-16 was considered.

Of course, no government will present to the House legislation that it considers is going to violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, unless it is convinced that the bill will be upheld as a reasonable limit on those rights. The previous government obviously considered the bill charter compliant or it would not have introduced Bill C-16.

When Bill C-16 was in committee, the then minister of justice, a well known human rights advocate, in his opening remarks on the bill addressed the issue of charter compliance. He said:

Let me deal for a moment with some charter considerations. We know that the demands for alcohol breath tests on approved screening devices at roadside, without a right to contact counsel, have been found justifiable by the courts under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, pursuant to the section 1 demonstrable justification limitation on a right.

The right to counsel must be given following the demand for an alcohol breath test on an approved instrument back at the station and before the approved instrument testing is done.

I anticipate that the same practice would prevail for the DRE evaluations envisaged under Bill C-16. With Bill C-16, we have tried to closely parallel the grounds that our prerequisites for making alcohol breath test demand. I believe that Bill C-16 offers good and important solutions that will be found justifiable under the charter.

Later, in response to a question he went further:

No, I think the court would apply the generic approach with respect to whether a limit on a right is justifiable under the circumstances, and then they would go into the four-part proportionality test.

They would ask themselves, is there a pressing and substantial objective? They would come to the conclusion, in my view, that there is a substantial and pressing objective, which is of course, at the bottom line, the saving of lives.

They would then look to see whether the means chosen were appropriate for the purpose or objective sought to be secured, as the other part of the proportionality test. I think the court would conclude here that this is a proportional remedy for the objective sought to be secured.

I believe the House can be assured that the requirement that a driver perform standard field sobriety tests at the roadside which are relatively brief will be upheld in the same way the roadside screening for alcohol has been upheld.

Similarly, the tests back at the station which will be performed by a trained officer are analogous to the test on an approved instrument.

I know many, if not most, members of the House would like to have an instrument that would measure quickly the concentration of various drugs just like the approved instruments that measure blood alcohol concentration.

The technology simply does not exist and, until it does, we will have to rely on various tests such as the reaction of the eyes to light, blood pressure, pulse and muscle tone on which the trained officer bases his opinion of which drug or combination of drugs and alcohol has caused the impairment. That opinion has to be validated by finding the drug in the person when bodily fluid is sampled.

Another objection to the proposed legislation's constitutionality was made by the president of the Ottawa Defence Lawyers Association reported in the Globe and Mail. He objected to the proposed offence of refusing to provide a breath sample when a person has been involved in a crash which will be punished in the same way as impaired driving causing bodily harm or death. He said:

There is no connection between the fact that you refuse to provide bodily substances and the accident itself. If you refuse, you have no defence.

When a person is charged with impaired driving causing death or bodily harm, the Crown has to establish the impairment and that the driving caused the accident.

The new offence will require the Crown to prove the refusal and then prove that the driver knew or ought to have known that he or she had caused an accident that had caused death or bodily harm.

This offence is modelled on the offence of failure to stop at the scene of an accident. The mental element is the intention to frustrate the police investigation.

In the case of flight, the person simply tries to avoid the police. In the case of refusal, the person refuses to provide a breath sample, the breath sample evidence necessary to determine whether the person was over .08 or in the case of a drug the person refuses to perform the test or to provide the bodily sample to determine whether the drug is actually present in the body.

Of course, in most accident situations the person will be well aware that there has been an accident. The police will still have to have reason to suspect the person has alcohol or drug in their system before making the demand.

Finally, I note that some of the users of medical marijuana claim that this legislation is aimed at them and will prevent them from driving their cars.

Russell Barth, quoted in the Edmonton Sun and other newspapers and described as a medical marijuana user and member of the National Capital Reformers, said that, “Discriminating against us based on our medication is much like discriminating against us based on the colour of our skin”.

In fact, medical marijuana users will be treated like other persons who take prescribed and over the counter drugs. People take all kinds of drugs for legitimate medical reasons. The question is whether they are impaired by that drug. If they can take their medicine and still pass the standard field sobriety test, they can drive. If they cannot, then they had better find someone to drive them around.

The offence of driving while in possession of an illicit drug also specifically provides that the person must be doing so without legitimate excuse. Clearly, persons who have been admitted to the medical marijuana scheme have a legitimate excuse to transport a supply of marijuana with them and would not be caught by this new offence.

I believe the bill is a balanced response to a very serious problem. I believe it is in fact long overdue. The minister in his speech made it clear that the government was prepared to consider any amendments that will strengthen the bill that the standing committee may suggest after hearing from witnesses.

I urge the members to give the bill second reading. I also urge the standing committee, which has a heavy workload, to give this bill priority. It will undoubtedly save thousands of Canadians from being injured or killed by impaired drivers.

[Criminal Code, February 6th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening with great interest to the debate. Quite frankly, I am encouraged to hear the broad-based support that the bill seems to have across all parties.

I am a little concerned about some of what the hon. member from the NDP has indicated. It sounds as if in some ways he questions the capacity of our law enforcement officers to conduct this testing in a manner that would conclude there is impairment, or that he questions whether we could train people in a significant enough fashion that they would be competent to complete this task. I do not agree with that assessment. Certainly when officers have a good deal of experience in dealing with impairment, I think they can judge it fairly.

Perhaps the member could expand a little on why he does not feel that properly trained officers would be competent in addressing whether or not somebody is impaired.

[Income Tax Act, January 31st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to engage in debate today in the House on Bill C-207 sponsored by the hon. member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord.

Bill C-207 proposes an income tax credit for new graduates taking employment in certain regions. The credit would be equal to 40% of earnings from the first 52 weeks of qualifying employment to a maximum credit of $8,000. “Qualifying employment” would be employment in a “designated region” and employment duties would need to be related to the graduate's education. A “designated region”, for the purpose of the credit, is an area defined in section 3 of the Regional Development Incentives Act.

There are a number of very significant problems with this bill that should be of concern to the members of the House. The bill proposes to create a tax credit to address skill shortages in designated regions but no evidence is provided as to the existence of these shortages. The “designated regions” that the bill references are drawn from a list that has not been updated in more than two decades. It simply does not account for the economic changes that have taken place during that period of time.

The credit proposed in the bill would also introduce very serious inequities in the tax system: inequities between recent graduates and those who graduated early, and inequities between new graduates who work in different regions.

Finally, the credit would entail a very large fiscal cost for a tax measure that would ultimately not result in new jobs for new graduates anywhere in the country. This squanders public money and diverts fiscal resources away from measures that could actually help regional development that do create the type of economic environment within all regions of Canada to help them grow and prosper.

The bill tries to use the tax system to encourage new graduates to work in certain regions of Canada in order to address perceived skill shortages but attempts to do that in ways that, in the end, would make the tax measure ineffective. The bill, for example, would only provide tax relief with respect to a new graduate's first 52 weeks of qualified employment, but if the proposed credit were truly needed to encourage new graduates to work in designated regions, what would happen after the initial 52 weeks when the credit is no longer available?

Why would incentives not be provided to other skilled workers who are not new graduates if the concern is skill shortages in these regions? Clearly, this type of measure cannot yield long term benefits to regions and I am not even sure it would have an incremental impact in the short term beyond reducing taxes for a selected group of workers.

Another concern with the bill is that it does not make any attempt to target skill sets that are in short supply in a “designated region” or could benefit from its development. This makes me question what the economic rationale is behind the bill.

This brings me to a concern regarding the definition of “designated region”. The credit is only provided to new graduates who take up work in a “designated region”, a term taken from the Regional Development Incentives Act. The term refers to a region in which “existing opportunities for productive employment in the region are exceptionally inadequate”.

The list of regions from this act has not been updated in 20 years. This certainly does not reflect the current economic situation of Canada's regions. Let me give two examples to support my point.

On this list, the provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba are included in their entirety and yet, in October 2006, both provinces had unemployment rates two full percentage points below the national average, which is presently slightly above 6%. With facts like these, I find it hard to support the idea that these are regions with limited employment opportunities and that new graduates in these provinces should pay up to $8,000 less in federal income tax than those not working in designated regions.

This leads me to my next point, which concerns the significant inequities that would be created if Bill C-207 were adopted. The bill could create inequities in the tax system by discriminating between regions and groups of graduates. Graduates who finish their programs around the same time but live in different regions could face entirely different income tax burdens during their first year of employment. As well, two graduates working in the same job and region but whose graduation dates are a year apart would also face an $8,000 gap in their respective tax burdens. This is patently unfair.

Finally, Bill C-207 proposes a tax credit that is also incredibly expensive. Estimates suggest that the credit could cost up to $600 million each year to the federal government. These are funds that would be taken away from other priorities, such as measures to help make the tax system fairer, foster economic growth and benefit all Canadians, regardless of where they work or live.

I am aware that some provinces have credits or, in some cases, tuition rebates for new graduates who work in their home provinces or who relocate there. Saskatchewan, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and, most recently, Manitoba, have introduced these. Most of these measures are fairly recent and there is no evidence to date that they have had an impact on graduates' choices of where to work and yet Bill C-207 proposes to spend $600 million on a tax measure for which the outcome is completely uncertain.

The success of Canada's economy is well-known by the members of the House. We have the strongest growth on record of the G-7 since 1996 and we are currently enjoying the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years. Given the current economic climate, new graduates can generally find excellent opportunities to work in many parts of the country, including regions that the hon. member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord seeks to support with generous and unwarranted tax incentives.

An efficient and effective labour market is necessary for a country to succeed in a highly competitive global economy. Workers must be able to pursue the best employment opportunities across the country and practise their occupation wherever those opportunities exist. However, Bill C-207 strives for the opposite. It attempts to use the tax system to reduce labour mobility.

I am sure all members of the House would agree that it is important to support the creation of economic opportunities all across Canada, opportunities that help to keep our best and brightest in this country. I am sure all members of the House would also agree that it is important to provide a helping hand to those who need support in joining the workforce, to attract the immigrants Canada will need in the years ahead and to provide our young people with the training and education opportunities they need to compete in a knowledge-based economy.

[Prebudget Consultations, December 13th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the hon. member about a very specific recommendation. I did not hear him refer to it in his speech, but I believe it is something that he is also very passionate about. It is recommendation No. 35 which speaks to the elimination of tax havens in an effort to ensure that all corporations, businesses and individuals pay their fair share of taxes. Perhaps he might comment on why it was important that we put that in and why it was important for the finance minister to act on that recommendation.

[Prebudget Consultations, December 13th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, it is important that we recognize that corporations must make a profit in Canada. If overall they do not make a profit in Canada, they will not be in Canada and we will not have employment in Canada. We have to have a very balanced approach when we talk about corporate income.

The important thing to stress is that by reducing taxes we do not just increase household income. We increase the incentive to work. Quite frankly, I know a lot of people that are not wealthy. I am in fact related to a lot of people that are not that wealthy and they tell me that they are a couple of paycheques away from bankruptcy at any given time.

What they tell me is that the way the system works right now works against them. If they take on extra hours, they pay it all out in taxes. It does not come back to them. The government is saying that if people are going to work hard, then they should be rewarded for working hard.

At the same time, we have to look out for those that are less fortunate in our community. We are addressing that by completely removing 655,000 Canadians from the tax rolls, by pension splitting for seniors, increasing the age credit for seniors, and doubling the pension allowance for seniors.

These types of measures are specifically increasing the amount of money that all Canadians can keep in their pockets. Ultimately, that is how we are going to help low income Canadians.