Jinny Sims

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, June 19th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I have always been called an optimist. No matter how bleak things look I always have an absolute belief in the human spirit. I hope we will begin to see some light long before 2015. The Canadian public needs to see some hope, it needs to see some light. The Canadian public needs to see a government that does not use its majority like a hammer to shut down Parliament constantly and not address legislation in a fair and balanced way.

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, June 19th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the presence of my colleague in the House always brings some calmness. His thoughtful input is always appreciated.

One of the basic concepts that we have in the western world is the right to representation. When we see that someone may end up with a criminal record, that right to representation becomes critical.

Members of our military do not have access to lawyers to represent them in summary trials. They also have to appear before their commanding officer. That has a chilling effect when one is advocating for oneself. I would say that it does a great deal of injustice to our men and women who serve us tirelessly.

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, June 19th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, over the last five or six weeks I have spent more hours in committee than I care to count dealing with different pieces of legislation and with amendment after amendment that were defeated. I sat in this House looking at the Trojan Horse budget bill where over 800 amendments were accepted, but not one passed in this House. It is very difficult to think that when this bill gets to committee the amendments we bring to committee will pass.

However, I am an optimist. I am still hoping that my colleagues across the way will see the rising sun and light of day and do the right thing.

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, June 19th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I would laugh if I did not want to cry at this stage.

The bill has been through committee. It was amended. I read out some of the elements that were addressed. That work was done by all sides of the House. Yet the government, because it is not serious despite the rhetoric, has presented the House with a bill that is stripped of the amendments that were made.

Absolutely, we are serious. We moved those amendments and they passed. It is a shame that the government is playing games with such an important piece of legislation.

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, June 19th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak today against the second reading stage of Bill C-15. Before my colleagues across the way start saying that I do not like the military and all of those things, I will stress that it is because I so strongly support the men and women in our military who sacrifice so much to serve our country and put themselves on the line that I find it very difficult to support this legislation. Surely, our men and women who serve us at home and overseas in unimaginable circumstances deserve due process, and that is what this is all about. It is about transparency, accountability, t doing the right thing and natural justice.

When I look at Bill C-15, I do acknowledge that the government has taken a baby step in the right direction. However, it is only a baby step and does not go far enough.

As I look at the legislation, I experience déjà vu. Not too many days ago I stood in the House and talked about another bill, Bill C-11, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, which was legislation that the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism praised as being a miracle. It was legislation that all political parties worked on and together they included elements that would address human smuggling, put processes in place that would speed up processing times and short-term detention for people who did not have identification verification, all of those things. I want to acknowledge my colleague from Trinity—Spadina who did such an amazing job on that file. The government side and the other opposition party also praised that legislation.

Then, lo and behold, out of the blue we then had legislation that went backward and undid so much of the work that was done. Bill C-11 was the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and we ended up with Bill C-31 in its place, which undid all the work that was accomplished in Bill C-11. That is exactly the déjà vu I am experiencing now.

Once again we had legislation that was in Parliament, Bill C-11, which had been acclaimed but was still not fully implemented, and then it was undone. On the other hand, Bill C-15 undoes the amendments that were accepted in Bill C-41. Once again, we need to look at what the drive is behind this. The drive behind it seems to be the majority my colleagues are experiencing across the way. I was really hoping that after a year of being a majority government it would have gotten over that and gone on to do the work of Parliament in a way that respects the role of the opposition and, of course, the contributions the opposition has to make when it comes to legislation.

As I was saying, I was experiencing déjà vu. Here we are with this iteration of Bill C-15, and none of the compromises, amendments that were made in Bill C-41 are in it. Why? It is so tiring to hear about how the Conservatives are all about the military and how the opposition does not care about the military.

When I look at this legislation, I wonder how much my colleagues sitting across the aisle really care about the men and women who serve in our military and put their lives at risk and why the Conservatives have chosen to ignore key recommendations from a critical report written by Antonio Lamer, which was issued in 2003. There were 88 recommendations in that report. Out of those 88 recommendations, only 28 have been dealt with to date.

I am not fully blaming my colleagues across the aisle. The other opposition party also had an opportunity to implement the recommendations that were made in the Lamer report and it chose to sit on them. I do not know why, maybe it was dealing with a lot of other issues. Surely, no other issue can be as important as ensuring that the men and women who serve in our military get justice and get treated fairly.

We have all of these things going on. One good thing that I suppose we could say, as could my colleagues across the aisle, is that Bill C-41 was never acclaimed.

My colleague who spoke just before me is such an eloquent speaker. I just hope that one day in the future I can emulate even 10% of what he is able to express so clearly and so succinctly.

As my colleague said, the government had the opportunity, because the bill was at the report stage, to deal with it before Parliament was shut down for the last election. However, it chose not to.

Here we are a few days before Parliament closes and, again, through bullying tactics, we will sit until midnight every night this week. Why was the legislation not introduced earlier so we could have dealt with it? It could have gone through all the stages.

Here we are at 10:50 p.m. on the Tuesday night, before Parliament recesses on Friday, debating the treatment of our men and women who serve in the military to give them the kind of fairness that we expect as civilians. Where are the priorities of the government? Certainly not with the men and women in the military. The government seems to have other priorities.

When I looked at all of this, and I will go through this in detail, I was struck by a quote from the Minister of National Defence in February 2011, when he appeared before the Standing Committee on National Defence, the same defence minister who occupies the seat today. This is what he said when he endorsed the summary trial system:

—the summary trial system strikes the necessary balance between meeting the unique disciplinary needs of the Canadian Forces and the needs to respect the rights of individual members of our military....Canadians similarly need to know that their country's military system will treat those who serve fairly and in a way that corresponds to Canadian norms and values.

Does the minister still believe in those words? If he does believe them, why is the minister not accepting the fact that the summary trial system is tainted with undue harshness? Sentences are resulting in criminal records for minor offences. Why is the minister ignoring the need for greater reform than the baby step that is being proposed in this legislation?

When we look at all of this, we really begin to question the motives and what drives the government.

In the previous iteration last year, the NDP put forward some amendments. Quite a few were accepted. Other important amendments that were passed at committee stage at the end of the last parliamentary session are not in Bill C-15, although a couple are. The ones that are not there include the following.

First, the authority of the Chief of Defence Staff in the grievance process, responding directly to Justice Lamer's recommendation, is not included in the bill. Second, changes to the composition of the grievance committee to include a 60% civilian membership is once again not included in the bill. Third, a provision ensuring that a person who is convicted for an offence during a summary trial is not unfairly subjected to a criminal record. Once again, that is not included.

What would address some of our concerns with this legislation? We absolutely need further amendments and we need to ensure that the summary trial system is fixed. Summary trials are held without the ability of the accused to consult counsel. There are no appeals or transcripts of the trial. The bit that I find very hard, maybe because of the background I have had, where I have always believed that if people are accused of something, they have the right to representation. Then they have the right to go before a person who is fairly neutral. In this case, people end up having to go in front of one of their commanding officers. If they go before one of their commanding officers, I am not sure how independent that is and what kind of pressure that puts individuals who are there to advocate for themselves without legal counsel. This absolutely puts undue pressure on our armed forces when they can be convicted for very minor service offences.

I am sure that some members previously had employers somewhere, other than the Canadian people. Perhaps they had some kind of an accusation against them, or maybe they came to work late or whatever and before they knew it, there was a grievance. They then had to defend themselves, in other words, put their case forward. First, they could not get representation. Second, they had to go before their employers. Imagine the kind of depressing effect that has on people when they have to go in front of someone who has that much power and authority over them? That actually has a chilling effect on even the accused's desire for justice because they are afraid of the kind of impact that could have on their career and so on.

The kind of minor offences we are talking about, and I think I could often be accused of these, are: insubordination, and I think I was born with that one; normal quarrel and disturbances, almost everyone in the House would have to be charged at some time or other; absence without leave, imagine all those young people at school ending up with criminal records because they were away without leave; drunkenness and disobeying an officer's command.

This is a very serious business. I really do not want to make light of it because it actually affects our military. However, at the same time, when I am reading some of these trivial things, I am thinking that we are going to give our men and women who serve our country, without holding anything back, a criminal record for these. If they end up with a criminal record, once they are out of the army, crossing that border could become almost impossible.

I deal with cases of people who were stopped, had charges of drinking and driving even 10 years ago and were still finding it difficult to cross the border.

Is that the way we want to treat our men and women when they go looking for certain jobs? As members know, there are jobs where people deal with the public and there is a requirement for criminal record checks. If we did any of these things, as long as we were not too far out there, we would not end up with a criminal record. Military members are already held up to such high standards, so why are we, in the idea of criminality, stooping so low as to give them a criminal record? We really need to pay attention to this.

It is not easy living with a criminal record, but I will not get into that. The members know that anyway. If they have not experienced it themselves, I am sure they have had constituents who have come and talked to them about it.

Regarding reform of the grievance system, I absolutely understand grievances and I also understand accountability and transparency. Whenever we have professionals, whether the RCMP, teachers or any other profession that we hold to account, one of the key things is that civil society has engagement. Once again, this bill fails to address that. It is really critical when grievances are under review, there be a representation from civil society on the panel. This would give it that authenticity that we often talk about, and the accountability.

At this stage, I will read a quote from the Lamer report. It is quite amazing. I did not know this gentleman, but he is very learned obviously, because he gets to the heart of the matter. He writes:

Grievances involve matters such as benefits, personnel evaluation reports, postings, release from the Canadian Forces...all matters affecting the rights, privileges and other interests of CF members...unlike in other organizations, grievors do not have unions or employee associations through which to pursue their grievances...

I want to stress this. He says:

It is essential to the morale of CF members that their grievances be addressed in a fair, transparent and prompt manner.

That becomes really critical when we take a look at reforming the grievance system.

I will read a quote from Colonel Michel Drapeau, a retired colonel from the Canadian Forces and military law expert. In February 2011, before the committee, he said:

—I find it...odd that those who put their lives at risk to protect the rights of Canadians are themselves deprived of some of those charter rights when facing a summary trial. If Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland have seen fit to change the summary trial system, it begs the question: why is Canada lagging behind?

I plead with my colleagues across the way to see the light of day and please address and give fairness to our military men and women who serve us so unselfishly.

[Financial Literacy Leader Act, June 19th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, absolutely there are a number of concrete steps that we should be taking. This party has often advocated and will continue to advocate so that our seniors do not live in poverty and are not having to choose between medication and food on the table.

We have talked about ways to address the needs of the public, such as addressing the fees for university students and the cost of post-secondary education. We should also be looking at addressing health care in a very realistic way so that people have access to health care in a timely manner.

We could be doing so many things but once again the government, after last week's travesty with Bill C-38 and then it passing through the House this week, is in the process of shutting down debate. The government was not interested in the over 800 amendments that were put forward that would have made the bill better for Canadians. It did not accept one amendment.

I am just hoping, now that the government has passed that bill, that when this goes to committee stage it will pay heed to the amendments put forward by the opposition.

[Financial Literacy Leader Act, June 19th, 2012]

That it is the best way for us to ensure that Canadians have a secure retirement. That is what it is all about. It is not about creating another position of bureaucracy. It is not about telling people to save more money when they are finding it difficulty to make ends meet. We need to look at this in a very productive way so that we serve the needs of the public.

[Financial Literacy Leader Act, June 19th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I wish I could say that I was amused by my colleague's delivery but I will say that he has made his point. When we have a collective, a publicly funded, publicly managed, public pension fund, and it is managed by—

[Financial Literacy Leader Act, June 19th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, Canadians are struggling with an onslaught of attacks from the government across the way, an attack through the Trojan Horse budget bill, an attack on environmental assessment, an attack on pensions, just to mention a few things. This is at a time when the gap between the rich and poor is growing in Canada. Some people in my riding are working two or three jobs to make ends meet. Others are worried about being able to pay their bills from week to week.

Creating a financial literacy leader absolutely will not address the issues. This is what I find a bit hypocritical. This is at a time when government is cutting jobs that serve citizens across Canada, and we see heavy cutting in some areas. For example, people have to wait on the phone for longer and longer and have to go to the web to get essential services like EI. They cannot get a hold of a human being to ask questions. Yet the government wants to create a new leader, another layer of bureaucracy, without a clear mandate, without a clear accountability structure, without knowing what that person will do. It is time for the government to stop doing things like that.

There is a time for accountability and citizens look to us for that. However, the government has demonstrated over and over again that it is not about accountability. The Conservatives have shut down debate in the House over and over again, so the citizens of Canada do not get to find out what they are really up to. I do not know what their rush is. It is as if the Conservatives want to skate through and pass as much legislation as they can in as short a time as they can and interfere with parliamentary democracy. If anything, what would give the Canadian public confidence, and maybe more literacy about finance, is if the Minister of Finance would walk into the House and table reports and then let us debate them and take our time. At least the members could carry out the responsibility with which we have been entrusted.

We are not just about opposing. We have some solutions and really good solutions. We look forward to this bill going to the committee. When it does, we will try to mitigate the damage it will do. We will try to address key issues. We will add the fact that there should be a requirement for bilingualism. We are a bilingual nation and yet once again the government manages to produce legislation where the second official language is not given the due respect it deserves. We will add provisions to define what is meant by “financial literacy”. Right now, it is smoke and mirrors. It is “let's do something but not tell anybody what we are doing”, so much like many of the other things we have seen happen in the House.

We will also move amendments that will recognize that financial literacy means different things, depending on one's income, gender and age. We will also ensure that whoever or whatever system is put in place is more accountable.

Let us face it, the legislation will not create more jobs. It will not address the needs of citizens in Atlantic Canada, or in western Canada, or central or northern Canada who only want to have a decent paying job to support themselves. Nor will the legislation address what the government needs to address but has failed, and that is a better plan for retirement security by expanding the guaranteed Canada and Quebec pension plans. That is where we should be putting our energy. We should also be looking at affordable housing. We should be looking at the things that everyday citizens are struggling with.

Instead, once again, what is the Conservative solution to the everyday struggle of Canadians? It is that we should have a literacy leader. I wish just creating a leader would solve all our problems, but I can assure everyone it is not.

Let me read what Rob Carrick, personal finance columnist in the Globe and Mail, had to say. He stated, “it's disappointing to see banks, advice firms, investment dealers and mutual fund companies treated solely like part of the solution to the lack of financial literacy in Canada, and not part of the problem as well”.

Who were the key people the minister listened to, the ones who designed this legislation? It was the financiers, the bankers. The government certainly did not set up an advisory committee of citizens who would be impacted, those who experienced the high costs of credit cards and who suffered during the stock market meltdown. Once again, the very people who created some of the problems are the advisers.

The article went on to say that it did not matter how literate one was, the financial markets were increasingly irrational.

Barrie McKenna, who is a business columnist for the Globe and Mail, said:

The average credit-card agreement is as intuitive as quantum physics...

Canadians are constantly bombarded with pitches to take on more debt, whether it’s right for them or not. They’re often blindly steered toward high-fee products and complex financial instruments. The accompanying disclosure statements are written by, and for, lawyers...

There is a sounder and arguably less-costly path, but it doesn’t suit the financial services industry or many business groups. Ottawa could mandate plain-English disclosure.

What would that cost? Nada. The amount of time that is going to be spent debating this bill could be spent debating capping the credit card rates, simple disclosure laws and also trying to address the real concerns of Canadians.

He goes on to say:

Working with the provinces, it could enhance regulation of industry sales incentives and defined-contribution pensions.

And Ottawa could beef up the CPP, mandating that Canadians sock away more money for retirement, while benefiting from the CPP Investment Board’s low administrative costs.

I am not going to pretend to be an accountant or a lawyer, but I look at a very simple fact like this. In the last quarter, the CPP outperformed the markets by a margin of 10 to 1. What an example we could set for Canadians if we were to say that we as parliamentarians, who manage the taxes they pay, have seen the wisdom of this and that is what we will do for them. However, instead, what do we do? We are now going to have a new financial leader and we are going to tell people that instead of retiring at 65, they are going to have to keep working until age 67, that they can do it. We are going to be the cheering section edging them on along that path.

I would urge all members in the House to take a look at what is really impacting Canadians today and not create another level of bureaucracy that is going to add nothing to what Canadians need.

[Financial Literacy Leader Act, June 19th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the motion to create a financial literacy leader. I really struggled with it. What does this mean? As I read into it more and more, I came to the realization that it was not a new leader we needed in financial literacy. We need to address the dire condition in which our citizens live. We need to address unemployment. We need to address the fact that the cost of living is going way up. We need to address, and the government has failed to address, the rising costs of credit cards. It has failed to address the fact that the average Canadian right now has a debt load of 150% of their income. That is just unacceptable.

One thing I learned a long time ago is just creating a leader—