Lois Brown

[International Development, October 24th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, as I just said, we have signed agreements with the organizations with which we are working. These are organizations that are under the direction of the World Health Organization. We gave distributed $52 million as of today, and we will continue to work with all of our partners. We want to see this disease eradicated.

[International Development, October 24th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have that question today because I can now report that $52 million is being distributed to our trusted partners.

We continue to work with organizations like the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, the World Food Programme logistics team, UNICEF and International Red Cross. We have been at the forefront of the international response efforts, and we will continue to be a world leader in the global response.

[World Polio Day, October 24th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, today as we observe World Polio Day, Canadians should take pride that Canada has been and remains a staunch ally in the global effort to eradicate polio. In 1988, when the year of the global polio eradication initiative was launched, polio was paralyzing 350,000 children, in 125 countries, every year. Canada was at the forefront of polio eradication efforts, being the first country to donate to this global initiative. We are 99% of the way there and the finish line is in sight.

Last year, the Prime Minister reaffirmed Canada's support at the Global Vaccine Summit by pledging $250 million over six years. Canada's deep commitment to eradicating polio means that literally hundreds of thousands of children have been immunized, often in remote, impoverished, and very insecure regions of the world.

Nobody should have to suffer from a disease for which a simple cure exists. Canada will continue to support efforts that will finally put an end to polio.

[Foreign Affairs, October 10th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I want to assure the House that we are providing consular services in this situation. The Government of Canada cannot exempt Canadians from legal processes. The consular's role is to advocate for the well-being and fair treatment. We will continue to do so.

[Foreign Affairs, October 10th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, while the law does not allow me to comment on specific cases, I will take that up with the member after question period is over and ensure that the minister has all of the information for her.

[International Development, October 10th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, indeed the replenishment conference did take place last June, but there are ongoing calls for replenishment, and we are considering that.

I have met with Alice Albright on several occasions. I know that she has had conversation with our Minister of International Development.

As I said, education is of particular interest to our government. We particularly wish to see the success of young girls as we move forward in our development issues, and we will be considering our contribution.

[International Development, October 10th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, education, and particularly education of girls, has been one of the focus points for Canada's development dollars.

I look at what we were able to accomplish in Afghanistan, where millions of girls are now able to go to school.

We have a great reputation on that. We will be considering the Global Partnership for Education as its replenishment conference comes forward.

[Second World War National Tribute, October 10th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to recognize James Noddle, of Newmarket, Canada's first recipient of the 75th anniversary Second World War national tribute.

James answered the call of his country to serve as a driver and mechanic with the Ontario tank regiment. His job was to retrofit Sherman tanks into recovery vehicles, and find and repair major pieces of artillery damaged in battle.

He wrote in his memoirs:

Our skills were mightily tested as we kept the meager equipment operational on the battlefield, on the sides of mountains, through railway tunnels, across mine-infested roads, while under constant enemy fire, for the final push through Italy, into France and finally Germany.

It was my privilege to present this special tribute to James Noddle at his 100th birthday party last Sunday.

A grateful nation thanks James for his service. We will never forget.

[Criminal Code, October 8th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak today in support of Bill C-590, an act to amend the Criminal Code (blood alcohol content). This private member's bill was tabled by the member for Prince Albert on April 9 and it addresses minimum penalties for the crime of impaired driving.

As much as there has been improvement in this area of the law over the past 40 years, more has to be done. Impaired driving cases are familiar to all Canadians. Everyone knows a family member, a friend or someone in their community who has been touched by this crime.

Over the past decades, we have managed to lower the number of persons who are killed in collisions involving alcohol-impaired driving. Lives have been saved by the efforts of families, individuals, schools, service organizations, police and legislatures.

I would like to recognize the really great work of the people who volunteer for Operation Red Nose, in the month of December, who volunteer to drive until the wee hours of the morning to keep impaired drivers off the road.

However, even with the improvements, the sad reality is that impaired driving remains a pernicious and persisting crime. It is the single most committed crime at 12% of crimes, according to the Statistics Canada 2011 Juristat on impaired driving.

Impaired driving is said by prosecutors to take up about 40% of provincial court trial time. The great tragedy is that hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries every year from impaired driving are, each and every one, avoidable.

With the arrival of the motor car at the turn of the 20th century, it soon became clear that death and injury from crashes were part of the new motorized driving reality.

In 1921, Parliament enacted the offence of driving while intoxicated, in recognition of the reality that driving while intoxicated greatly increased the risk of a crash.

In 1951, Parliament added to the Criminal Code the offence of driving while impaired, in recognition that it was not only someone who was intoxicated who posed a higher risk of a crash.

In 1969, Parliament repealed the driving while intoxicated offence and followed some other western nations in setting a blood alcohol concentration above which it is an offence to drive.

The over 80 offence rested upon the development of technology to measure blood alcohol concentration, which is converted using a blood-to-breath ratio into a blood alcohol concentration.

Over the years, Parliament has acted many times to improve the impaired driving provisions in the Criminal Code, which brings me to Bill C-590.

The bill could be seen as taking the step in the right direction. The bill is also in the spirit of one of the recommendations of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights that was made in the committee's 2009 report, entitled “Ending Alcohol-impaired Driving: A Common Approach”.

The report was in favour of setting higher penalties for individuals who drove with a blood alcohol concentration which was over 160. Currently, a reading above 160 on an approved instrument is an aggravating factor for Criminal Code sentencing purposes.

Bill C-590 proposes two things.

First, it would create a new offence of driving while over 160 that would be a straight indictable offence. The mandatory minimum penalties would be even more severe than a case where someone drove while over 80. On a first over 160 conviction, there would be a mandatory minimum penalty, or MMP, of a fine of $2,000 and imprisonment for 60 days. On the second offence, there would be an MMP of 240 days imprisonment.

The second thing that Bill C-590 would do is to raise the MMP where an offender caused a crash involving a death or bodily harm while driving impaired or over 80 or when the driver refused to provide a breath sample knowing of the death or bodily harm.

Right now, in these cases, the MMP is a fine of $1,000 on a first offence, 30 days imprisonment on a second offence and 120 days imprisonment on a subsequent offence.

For a first offence that causes a death or bodily harm, Bill C-590 would set an MMP of $5,000 and 120 days imprisonment. For a second offence, it would be 240 days imprisonment.

It would be advisable to consider at committee whether there should be a higher MMP for causing death than for causing bodily harm. I understand that the current MMP was set for the purpose of avoiding situations where a person who drove impaired and/or over 80 and/or refused to provide a breath sample could be given a conditional sentence of imprisonment.

Where there is an MMP, no conditional sentence is available. However, the MMPs for the cause of death or bodily harm scenarios are the same as the MMPs for impaired and/or over 80 and/or the refusal where there is no death or bodily harm. In death cases, the courts are clearly giving sentences measured in years and are not giving the $1,000 MMP. It may be helpful to hear from witnesses, and to see whether there needs to be any adjustment to the MMPs.

I am pleased that Parliament is being given the opportunity to respond to one of the recommendations in the 2009 report of the standing committee. We can establish MMPs that will have a deterring effect and that will have an effect on public safety because they incapacitate the high blood alcohol concentration drivers and the drivers who kill or injure in offences of impaired driving, over 80 driving or refusal to provide a breath sample.

I ask all parliamentarians to join me in supporting Bill C-590.

I would like to put my notes down and just tell the House a bit of a story.

It is a story of a nurse from Newmarket who had spent 25 years of her nursing career at what was then York County Hospital, who at the end of her career had determined that there were other opportunities for her to provide service and had dedicated the end of her career to serving people who were AIDS patients. She was providing personal service as a private duty nurse to those people.

It was Friday, February 8, 1991, when that nurse left Newmarket to drive to Kleinburg to a special patient. Somewhere around the Ansnorveldt road, a driver who was driving over 85 miles per hour came across five lanes of traffic and hit that nurse head-on.

She did not survive. It was my mother's birthday. Things need to change.

[International Development, October 8th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, our commitment is to helping people, globally, be lifted out of poverty and to see a better life in the future.

Canada met all of its commitments for our global development . We want to ensure that those dollars are well spent. We want to know that Canadians are proud of the work we are doing, and we will continue to do that.