Judy Sgro

[Ethics, December 5th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I would expect that the minister would be well aware of what the rules are anyway.

Yesterday, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs said:

There is nothing preventing members of Parliament, backbench MPs, as he would have been classified at the time, or even today, from engaging in activities outside of their parliamentary responsibilities.

Will the justice minister remind that member and all other government members who do not seem to be clear on what the law is, that it is illegal for MPs to accept money to make interventions on a government file? Even a 10-year-old knows that.

[Ethics, December 5th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, section 41 of the Parliament of Canada Act states:

No member of the House of Commons shall receive or agree to receive any compensation, directly or indirectly, for services... to be rendered to any person... for the purpose of... attempting to influence any member of either House.

What steps is the government taking to determine whether Brian Mulroney should be prosecuted for the $100,000 cash he received while still a member of Parliament in 1993?

[Ethics, November 30th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, that is not what we heard yesterday. The Minister of National Defence got a job straight out of school working for the very company that Schreiber used to provide cash to Brian Mulroney that very same year. We also know that Elmer MacKay acted as a go-between for Mulroney and Schreiber. The minister's father drafted a letter for Schreiber that Brian Mulroney hand delivered to the Prime Minister.

Would the minister have us believe that at no time did he discuss any of this with his cabinet colleagues or the Prime Minister? Why did he fail to disclose his conflicts?

[Ethics, November 30th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, last November the Minister of National Defence made light of the fact that his father, Elmer MacKay, used the minister's fax machine to send a letter concerning his good friend, Karlheinz Schreiber.

What was the subject and content of that faxed letter? Will the minister table that letter and the fax transmission slips here in the House? Does the minister still think this matter is so funny?

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, November 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I recognize that the hon. member is from Nova Scotia but I would like to remind her, in case she forgot, that I was born in the Maritimes, in Moncton, New Brunswick. There is a piece of one's heart, I believe, that is always where one is born, so the issues in and around the Maritimes are always things I am pretty sensitive to and am always concerned about, as I am for all of Canada, but I think all of us carry that little special part in our hearts about where we were born.

I would like to remind the hon. member, referring to Tom Flanagan's book on our current Prime Minister, that on page 230 there is a quote in regard to our last election. It says, “No matter how well-designed our campaign had been, it would have been hard for us to win if the NDP had not held up its end.”

Therefore regrettably, when the accord was dismantled and put together again in what the Conservatives think is an acceptable way, which clearly is unacceptable to me or to the member, we would not be dealing with this issue had the NDP not supported the bringing down of the government.

However, in addition to dealing with the accord, there is the issue of $39 million being cut from the regional economic development agencies. That is just one of the many cuts that the Conservatives made in the last budget.

I am sure that $39 million would have been very helpful in the Maritimes in dealing with many of those challenges. They have to make sure that jobs are created, that money is reinvested in manufacturing and all of the other issues and the pressure areas that they deal with in the Maritimes, as they deal with other issues in the west and in central Canada.

There was an $18 million cut from the literacy skills program. Again, there are areas of our country that use these programs intensely and welcome them. That was cut again. We have also called for that to be reinstated. Those continue to be just a variety of some of the many cuts that have been the Conservatives' priorities, rather than reinvesting in Canadians.

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, November 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, when talking about budget bills, a ways and means motion is something I think all of us have a real interest in. When we have an opportunity, whether it is a last minute opportunity or not, to stand and speak in the House on things that matter to us, I am glad to have that opportunity.

Bill C-28, which we are talking about today, is not something with which we are 100% happy but, at the same time, do Canadians want an election? No. We have had plenty of them. The next election will be my fifth in eight years and I am not anxious to go on the hustings again. In fact, the $500 million that an election costs, which is the last number that I heard, I would much rather see it being invested in our children, our seniors or helping to lower the tax rates, a variety of things.

A far better idea for us is to keep the government going and move it forward for all of us.

As my colleague said, we are supportive of a variety of things in the bill but there are other issues that we are not. The economic policies of the current Conservative government are different in some ways from the policies of the Liberals. They are much more designed to be focused on the next election, which the Conservatives have been most anxious to have. I am not sure they are as anxious today to have it as they were previously, but they were quite anxious to have one. Our party and our leader were quite clear in not taking the bait and falling into that trap of going back into an election that, at this particular time, is unwarranted and could quite possibly bring us back into the same situation, except we could be on the other side of the House rather than on the opposition side.

However, I for one am not interested in going down that road at this particularly moment. I want to go down that road when we have clear, decisive issues on which the public can make a decision.

Even though we support some of the measures in Bill C-28, the idea of reinstating our Liberal personal income tax cuts was quite interesting. We had reduced it to 15% but in the Conservatives' very first budget, which, to me, indicates who they really care about, they increased the very lowest rate up to 15.5%. That rate is not one that the corporations or the rich worry about but it is certainly one that affects thousands of low income Canadians.

Again, that, as with many other issues, has indicated to me where the Conservatives' priorities lie and they do not lie with many people in Canada who need that helping hand up, which many of us support.

We also oppose the Conservatives' economic vision. I do not think they have one. I think they have a vision strictly on the next election and on how to get there and how to get a majority government, which is not why Canadians sent us here. They sent us here to effect a positive Parliament and to work on behalf of all Canadians, not to have an eye on how soon we can have an election campaign so we can get a majority. Our job is to come here every day and to work in the best interest of Canadians, period, for those who are rich and well off and for those who are not as wealthy as they might like to be.

The GST cut is ridiculous. I know it was a political move by the government but I look at all of the things in which we could be investing that $5 billion GST cut, whether we are talking about investing it in our seniors, in child care or in learning opportunities. We could be doing so much with that $5 billion.

I am sure the Canadian public could think of what we should do with the $5 billion rather than cutting the GST. We only need to look at our cities and the campaign in Toronto, which is the city I represent, for the 1¢ now out of the GST. We could take that $5 billion and reinvest it in our communities or even target it to our major cities.

This week, campaign 2000 released a huge report about how much poverty there is in Canada. A lot of people like to think that the poverty level is quite low. It has been a very difficult issue to deal with and as much as we try to move forward and reduce it, we are reducing it very slowly.

Far more investment needs to be made in education so we can ensure people get an education because, as far as I am concerned, education is the key to ending poverty. A good education reduces poverty because education opens the door to many opportunities. However, education for some people is way beyond their means. Refocusing some of the $5 billion on those opportunities would have been a good thing to do.

Early learning and child care would probably have been this century's newest and best social program. It would have provided help for a lot of struggling single parents. One area in my riding is quite affluent but I also have areas that are very high need areas. Many women in my riding who are single moms went back to school to get a job but now they cannot afford to put their children into child care where it is safe for their children or the waiting list for subsidies is huge.

As much as we say that we want to get people into a healthy economic stream, if we do not provide learning opportunities for them and safe environments for their children, then we are wasting our time. We can spin our wheels as much as we want talking about how we will end poverty, but if we are not providing the opportunities for those people who are at the minimal level, then we will never succeed.

The Liberal Party made a commitment to early learning and child care, although it did take us a while to get it because when we came into government in 1993 we had a $43 billion deficit. Canada was almost at the point of bankruptcy. It took six or seven years for us to deal with that issue and to get the country's finances in order. From that point, we were able to start reinvesting and working on achieving the goals that we all wanted to see go forward.

Unfortunately, that did not happen. We did not end up with the support of the NDP and the government was defeated. I expect that it will be a very long time before there will be a desire to have that new social program here in Canada again.

It took a long time to get the provinces on board and to do all of the work that is required for these kinds of agreements. They do not happen overnight. A lot of great work was done by my colleague and it is unfortunate that we were not able to see that program come to fruition. It was just one more casualty, but I do not think the people who voted thought that would happen.

Politics being what it is, governments come and governments go, as the Conservative government will. We will continue to ensure we move rapidly forward so that when an election does come, we will have plenty of opportunity to lay out our platform showing where we will go to ensure we have a richer, fairer, greener Canada.

If we want to have enough money to invest in our children, in low income seniors and so on and so forth, we need to ensure we also have a strong economy. Our manufacturing sector and our auto industry are suffering tremendously as a result of the rising loonie and we need to deal with that issue. We need to find a way to protect jobs.

When we talk about jobs we are not talking about $7 an hour jobs. For people to feed their family and pay the mortgage, they need to earn more than $7 an hour. The comment about how the number of jobs has increased is not a valid comment. As a result of various issues, we are losing the good quality jobs that Canadians had but we do not hear the Conservative government telling us how it will offset this problem.

An important issue for all of us is to ensure that Canadians are employed. We do not want our country to go into a recession. Many of us remember how difficult that was for many people. We want to have a strong Canada and we need to ensure we are moving forward in a positive way.

[Petitions, November 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to rise today to present a petition on behalf of my constituent, Mr. Lance Ryan, and many of his friends and neighbours in the riding of York West.

Mr. Ryan's petition calls on the government to formally include nicotine in the Hazardous Products Act. I am pleased to table it on his behalf.

[Tackling Violent Crime Act, November 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, let me say on that particular issue that it is our intention to support the things that are in the best interests of our country. We always have to make sure they are constitutionally sound.

However, I certainly share the comments he made in regard to legislation that was being put forward being written on the back of an envelope. Thank goodness we can send these bills off to committee where there can be some serious work done.

It is one thing to get a lot of great press because a party introduces tough on crime bills and all the rest of it. We did the process of being tough on crime and we did it in a way that still had a compassionate side to all of it.

As for suggesting that everything the Conservatives put forward was perfect, heaven help us if they had passed some of what they originally put forward. I am sure it would have been struck down by the courts at the very first opportunity.

[Tackling Violent Crime Act, November 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, let me tell the hon. minister that keeping our country and communities safe has always been a priority. It does not have to be something new. We do not have to bring it up as if we have never talked about it before.

Social justice, investing in our communities,and investing in our children and providing opportunities to ensure they get an education are the things that we ought to be focusing on. We have always focused on them so we are not going to have to make it a huge priority because it is an ongoing priority that we are going to continue to have.

It takes all of us in the House to work together. We tried. We made a legitimate offer to fast track this several times. The fact was that the government refused because it was playing games, nothing else. The Conservatives can stand there and accuse us of all kinds of things, but let me assure the House and any Canadians watching today that community safety is critically important to this party, as I would expect it to be for everybody in the House.

[Tackling Violent Crime Act, November 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-2, an Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, the so-called tackling violent crime bill, something which our party has been working on for some time. I am quite proud of the work that we have already done on this very issue. It is critically important that Canada have safe communities and that we do everything possible to ensure that.

Canada has long been and continues to be one of the safest countries in the world. Although firearm homicides decreased between 1975 and 2003, even one death, or one violent episode involving guns, is one too many. When our communities challenge that it is decreasing, I am sure the reason is that statistics do not matter if people feel unsafe in their communities. People in my riding are very concerned about this issue, as are people in other ridings. It is important that we do everything we possibly can to ensure the laws are there to protect Canadians.

The Liberal government implemented a wide variety of measures in order to make our streets safer. We had a very successful crime prevention strategy that involved more than imprisonment. There is much more required than just imprisonment, which is why the former Liberal government took a more proactive role with a wide range of measures to stem gun violence and crack down on organized crime.

Since 2002 our anti-gang legislation has meant new offences and tougher sentences, including life in prison for involvement with criminal organizations. It is currently being used in cities like mine, Toronto, where it has been used numerous times. It is a tool the police are very pleased to have and they use it to its maximum amount.

We also broadened powers to seize the proceeds and property of criminal organizations. As well, we increased funding for the national crime prevention strategy, which is something again, we cared very much about and it was very effective. The decrease in crime clearly is because the Liberal government's crime strategy was effective and it continues to be effective.

Since it was launched in 1998 the national crime prevention strategy has helped numerous communities across Canada by giving them the tools, the knowledge, and the support that they need to deal with the root causes of crime at the local level, which is where it has to start. It has supported more than 5,000 projects nation-wide dealing with serious issues like family violence, school problems, and drug abuse.

These are just some of the measures that my party, while in government, undertook. Our campaign was working, hence, the reason there has been a decrease in crime, especially in violent crime. Whether funding programs to prevent crime or ensuring that violent criminals are brought to justice, the Liberal Party while in government was and now continues to be committed to protecting our communities.

Even though we are now in opposition, we, the Liberals, have been dealing seriously with crime legislation for the past year and a half while the Conservatives have been playing partisan games and doing everything they can to prevent those bills from being passed. We actually put more effort into passing the government's crime bills in the last session than the Conservatives did. So, we will not take any lectures from them on how we should be proceeding. Had they not blocked it, the legislation would have been passed and enacted already.

People will remember that on October 26, 2006 the Liberals made the very first offer to fast track a package of justice bills through this House. In spite of the government saying something different, we made every effort to work with the Conservatives to ensure the passage of anything that would make our country safer. This included Bill C-9, as amended; Bill C-18, on DNA identification; Bill C-19, on street racing; Bill C-22, on the age of consent; Bill C-23, on criminal procedures; and Bill C-26, on payday loans. All were important legislation.

The Conservatives like to claim, as I said earlier, that the Liberals held up their justice bills, but anyone who has been paying any attention knows that simply is not true. We are doing our job as a responsible opposition party. We are certainly not going to play partisan politics with the Criminal Code. I would ask the government to keep that in mind so that we can work together in a positive way to ensure the safety of Canadians and our country.

The Liberal Party, while in government, made great progress on making our communities safer. As I mentioned earlier, we increased funding for the national crime prevention strategy. We took steps to prevent gun violence by cracking down on organized crime in a very concentrated effort across the country. We focused on attacking the root causes of why people get involved in organized crime. We worked together with all of the crime prevention people across the country and with all of the officials in the various policing jurisdictions, because it certainly takes a coordinated effort in order to tackle organized crime.

When we are back in government, and we look forward to and expect to be the government after the next election, we have our own plans.

A new Liberal government would immediately provide additional funds to the provinces so they could hire more police officers. We would give the RCMP money for 400 additional officers to help local police departments deal with guns and gang activity, organized crime and drug trafficking.

We would also ensure that more money was made available to the provinces to hire more crown attorneys, which continues to be a problem and clogs the courts. It is one thing to arrest people but it is another thing to get them through the system.

We would continue to support reverse onus bail hearings for those arrested for gun crimes. We would establish a fund that would help at-risk communities cover the cost of security in their places of worship, which was started by the previous Liberal government, but which unfortunately was abandoned by the Conservatives.

A new Liberal government would make sure that children in vulnerable neighbourhoods got the very best start in life. We hear that all the time. It costs approximately $120,000 a year for each person who is kept in prison. We would reverse that and invest right at the very beginning. We are talking about early learning programs and high risk communities.

I represent a high risk community and I talk to many of the kids and their parents. Those parents are struggling to keep their kids on the straight and narrow. They truly need a variety of programs and help at that point. I realize that the Conservatives understand that as well. It is important to be investing early so that we can keep kids out of the justice system and make sure they know they have options and alternatives in life so that they are not dragged into the drug and gang culture, which is clearly happening now.

Many of the parents I talk to, the single mothers, are frantic with worry. They are looking for other places to live where it will be safer, where their kids will not be drawn into the gang activity that is very prevalent in my own riding.

By ensuring that children get the best possible start in life, we will be encouraging them to become positive contributing members of society and do not fall victims to poverty and crime. From providing resources for young mothers to interact and to learn about nutrition, to supplying early learning opportunities for their precious children, our communities need our support and we must provide it.

We invested in many worthwhile crime prevention initiatives. A few of those programs are the gun violence and gang prevention fund, support for community based youth justice programs and partnerships to promote fair and effective processes, community investments through the youth employment strategy, and the justice department's programming and partnerships to provide hope and opportunities.

We also committed another $2 million to the city of Toronto in support of programming under the Liberal government's youth employment strategy. This was all part of the $122 million that was dedicated to the youth employment strategy programming to help youth across the country.

Conflict Mediation Services of Downsview was a not for profit organization that helped people and families, workplaces, schools and neighbourhoods. Unfortunately, its restorative justice program was not funded because priorities have changed of course with the new government, and that no longer fits into that grouping.

In closing, I would like to say that this legislation is important. We look forward to it getting through the House and being enacted as we all move forward in a joint effort to ensure safety. Our communities will appreciate it.