Murray Rankin

[Post-Secondary Education, June 14th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, student debt is a huge burden for so many young Canadians. Steacy from Victoria tells me there is so much interest accumulating on her student loans that she cannot pay the principal of the debt. She feels she just cannot get ahead.

People like Steacy have been working for years and still cannot pay their debt. Getting an education should not mean getting an unmanageable debt.

The NDP government in British Columbia has eliminated the interest on student loans. Will the government follow B.C.'s lead and eliminate the interest on Canada student loans?

[Federal Courts Act, June 13th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising to express my strong support for the enormous contribution made by the member for New Westminster—Burnaby. He has been championing this legislation for so many years, in so many parliaments, and here it is again. It is a bill that would work toward the international promotion and protection of human rights.

I live in the province of British Columbia, where so many of our mining companies are headquartered. Sometimes, when we travel abroad, it is quite embarrassing to learn about what some of those companies, not all, have done. Whether they like it or not, they carry the Canadian flag on their back.

Some of the abuses involving sexual violence, human rights abuses and environmental degradation are things that come back and haunt us in Canada. That is why Mr. Justice Ian Binnie, formerly of the Supreme Court, has been calling on us, as parliamentarians, to do something about this, as have so many others. In fact, as the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford reminded us, groups that speak for over three million people have asked us to get the bill through Parliament.

I would like to address what was said just now by the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board, who seems to be suggesting, if I understand his argument, that this is unconstitutional and cannot be done.

I have a legal opinion from a very well-known and highly respected constitutional law firm, Goldblatt Partners in the city of Toronto, which confirms, at great length, that the bill “is squarely within the jurisdiction of the federal Parliament.” I do not know who is giving legal advice to the minister or whether this is a smokescreen to, once again, avoid effective legislation, but I can assure the House, for reasons I will also describe in a moment, that is simply not the case.

Therefore, I would hope that the Canadians watching will beseech the Liberal members of Parliament to not be timid; to do what the Supreme Court justice has asked; to do what Canadians from coast to coast to coast have asked; to deal with those of us who are embarrassed sometimes when we go abroad to say we are from Canada, knowing what some of our mining companies have done abroad; to get with the program and do what has been done in so many other jurisdictions. Is it not ironic that we are here talking about doing in Canada what the Americans did in their alien foreign tort claims legislation so many generations ago? It just seems sad.

What would the bill do? It would amend the Federal Courts Act to provide that court with jurisdiction over civil claims brought by non-Canadians in respect of alleged violations outside of Canada of international law or a treaty violation to which Canada would be a party, particularly violations of human rights and recognized fundamental rights of indigenous peoples, labour and environmental groups.

As my friend from Cowichan—Malahat—Langford reminded us, Global Affairs said that over 50% of the world's listed publicly traded exploration and mining companies were headquartered in Vancouver. That gives us a particular responsibility to do something about this difficult problem.

Allegations have been made by NGOs and others of so many instances abroad, over so many years, where our mining companies were associated with human rights and environmental abuses. What is called for is that there be an effective independent mechanism to investigate complaints of abuses and for something to be done about it.

The government prides itself on the adviser position that was created, with absolutely none of the powers that would make a difference in the real world. Of course, that is what we are here to try to do.

I am pleased the hon. member for Scarborough—Guildwood, a Liberal member of Parliament, brought forth a bill not long ago that would have brought in some of the reforms we are talking about today. Unfortunately, that bill was defeated by his Liberal colleagues. Hopefully they will not do it this time and Canadians will successfully urge their Liberal members of Parliament to get with the program.

There is litigation, of course, that deals with the issue of what is called forum non conveniens. Normally, if one has a lawsuit in Canada but is told that the better forum to do such a lawsuit would be in Eritrea or Papua New Guinea or Guatemala where some of these cases have occurred, a Canadian court would dismiss the lawsuit on the basis that there is a better place for that to be heard.

I am happy to report that in British Columbia our Supreme Court rejected a claim involving a mining company called Nevsun that was listed in British Columbia but was doing business in Eritrea. The court concluded that there was a legitimate risk that the refugees would not get a fair trial in Eritrea. That was upheld on appeal.

It seems that there is a recognition in our courts that we might, in certain circumstances, allow for litigation in Canada. That was a good example of that. However, we cannot depend on that occurring. We need to get legislative change to confirm that. That is what this bill would do. That is what the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby has endeavoured to do with this legislation. I am so proud of the work that he has done.

Earlier someone quoted some of the many, many supporters of this legislation, one of whom is Ken Neumann of the United Steelworkers. He said this:

Stronger laws are urgently needed in Canada to address international violations of human and environmental rights and related corporate practices. Getting there requires leadership from our elected representatives.

Of course he is right. That is what Canadians are looking for on this. They are looking for a civil cause of action that our courts, the Federal Court of Canada, would be able to address when people from abroad come here and sue over outrageous transgressions of human rights or treaty rights to which Canada is a party. What is wrong with that? Why would that not be something we would all want to respect? Our country has had such a strong reputation for human rights and environmental good practices around the world. It gives us all a black eye when we hear of some of the horrible abuses that have taken place abroad, whether it be the genocide and suffering of people of Darfur or the murder of trade unionists at the hands of death squads in Colombia or the sexual violence that occurred in Papua New Guinea. I think it is critical that we fix it.

As I said earlier in my remarks, it is not like this is something terribly new. The Americans have the Alien Tort Claims Act that allows foreigners there to bring action in American courts for violations of the law of nations. They have had that since 1980. Here we are with this radical notion in Canada.

The Liberals seem to think it is unconstitutional and cannot be done. Of course it can be done. That is why the hon. member for Scarborough—Guildwood has also tried to get it done. I am sure he is feeling the same pressure that I have felt as a member of Parliament in Victoria when people come to me and beseech me to get this right. It is embarrassing to us to see what some of our companies are doing abroad. They are not going to be effectively sued in a court in Eritrea. They are not going to be effectively held to account in a court in Papua New Guinea. Canadians understand that. They want companies to be held accountable here where they are created and where their directors reside in many cases as well.

A civil claim will be easier to substantiate than a criminal matter, which requires foreign governments to be engaged in and the standard of proof, of course, of beyond a reasonable doubt makes it very hard to get criminal convictions where civil claims are available.

In conclusion, I want to thank the hon. member again for the excellent work that he has done in bringing this bill forward. It seems to me to be common sense legislation. In no way is it unconstitutional. If there is ever a doubt, let us let the courts test it, but let us not be so timid that we will not even give Parliament the opportunity to respond to the pressure that so many of us have heard from our constituents to take away that black eye that our companies are giving all of us abroad and let them be held accountable, where appropriate, here in courts in Canada.

[Access to Information Act, June 13th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, this is not unique to the current government. It is a fact of life and it applies to parties on all sides. Access to information sounds like a good idea when one is in opposition and can use it as a tool, but when in government, it is expensive and is a pain. The public servants do not like it and one certainly does not like seeing embarrassing information, to which the public has a right, nevertheless on the front pages of The Globe and Mail or Le Devoir. That is a reality facing every government from left to right to centre, and I understand that, but when our courts say it is a quasi-constitutional right to know and the government takes half measures, at least some measures that are considered regressive, then it is a question we have to ask.

The Liberals made so much in opposition about their commitment to transparency. Of all the topics the Prime Minister could have chosen to introduce as his private member's bill, it was, guess what, amendments to the Access to Information Act. When Pat Martin, a former member, came to the House, he simply reintroduced all of what the Prime Minister had in his private member's bill and that went nowhere.

I do not think this is unique to the Liberals. I just wish they had been better.

[Access to Information Act, June 13th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the hon. member for Hull—Aylmer on becoming a parliamentary secretary in this important field.

The amendments of which I spoke were the ones brought forward at the ethics committee by the NDP. I gave notice of 36 amendments and 20 were accepted as admissible, but none was put in the bill. I stand corrected if I gave misinformation on that.

As for the fact that the department can refuse a request but the commissioner can override it goes to an important point. There has been no suggestion that the commissioner's office, which has been strapped for resources for years—the complaint of that office every year is that it simply does not have the tools to do the job—will have the ability, in a practical way, to give meaning to that. It sounds good on paper, but whether, in practical terms, it will change anything, I do not know.

Second, there is no such approach in any of the provincial legislation. A simpler, cleaner way would be to limit the exceptions and allow order-making power in a much more robust fashion than this bill contains.

[Access to Information Act, June 13th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby for his very kind remarks.

He talked about the amendments. I was involved in bringing forth some 36 amendments to Bill C-58 at committee. Many of them were deemed inadmissible because they were beyond the scope of the bill we were amending, but they were part of the package that all of those academics and activists and journalists had asked us to bring forward. Twenty were ultimately accepted as admissible, but of course, the government disallowed every single one of them. Why the Liberals are opposed to this I do not know.

Journalist Jeremy Nuttall, who writes for the Tyee, talks about writing cheques for $5. People have to pay $5. It costs the government way more money to cash the cheque than to do otherwise. One cannot go online like can be done in British Columbia with a credit card and request the information.

The Liberals pride themselves on updating the bill but they are stuck with this horse and buggy bill. It is very hard to understand why they would not take the opportunity to improve it. It is not like all of the provinces have not done stuff that the government could learn from. The Liberals are so rigid and do not seem to accept that we can do it better for Canadians. I am not suggesting that the provinces' legislation is perfect by any stretch, but it is so much better than what we have here.

[Access to Information Act, June 13th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise and speak to someone so wise from the city of St. Catharines, a place I have come to love. I am delighted that he pointed that out.

For many years, Suzanne Legault served Canadians with distinction as our information commissioner. If one read her annual reports over the years, one would see there was an increasing skepticism and sadness that was easily found. She said that the measures failed to deliver on Liberal election promises and “if passed, the bill would result in a regression of existing rights.” With all of the years of experience that she has, I take her comments seriously.

As regards the comments of Ms. Maynard, the new commissioner, she said that the “current version of the act is definitely a better bill than what we have currently. The act right now is 35 years old, and what is being proposed in the amendments has made it better.”

I take her comments to include a reference to those amendments which the government, through its motion, has taken entirely off the floor.

[Access to Information Act, June 13th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to participate in this important debate. I want to say at the outset that what we are technically addressing is a motion by the government that would refuse the 19 or 20 amendments to Bill C-58 that were proposed by the Senate. The NDP opposes the motion. It cannot support a bill that does not include the amendments that were brought to this place by the Senate. I will explain why in my remarks.

It is a very disturbing situation we find ourselves in. During the election campaign, the government committed to transparency. Indeed, the Prime Minister, when in opposition, introduced Bill C-613, an act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act and the Access to Information Act. We could call it the transparency bill. Bill C-58, therefore, is not something the Liberals simply decided to propose on a whim. It was the result of a considered effort by the government to deliver on an election promise on transparency.

It was a total disappointment when it came forward. That is not me speaking. It is from the former information commissioner of Canada, Suzanne Legault. Members know, just as I do, how unusual it is for an independent officer of Parliament, such as the Information Commissioner, to give the kind of criticism I would like to read into the record today.

On September 28, 2017, when the bill first came forward, she said that bill would “take people’s right to know backwards rather than forward”, according to the National Post. The article went on:

In her first substantive comments on the legislation, [the former commissioner] said the measures fail to deliver on Liberal election promises. “If passed, it would result in a regression of existing rights.”

She put forward 28 recommendations to improve the legislation, and they are not found, in any significant degree, in Bill C-58. That is why, when I stood in this place during debate on the bill earlier, I reluctantly said, with sadness, that we had to oppose the bill. If the government is not even prepared to take the baby steps represented by the Senate amendments, clearly we cannot afford to pass what even the commissioner so eloquently said was a regressive bill. She is right, for reasons I will come to.

Like the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent, who is justly acclaimed for his awards in the world of journalism, I received an award as well for my work on freedom of information. It was from the hon. Ged Baldwin, who was once the member of Parliament for Peace River, for work I did at graduate school and then with the Canadian Bar Association, so many years ago, lobbying for an access to information act. It was modelled on legislation other countries have taken for granted. The United States has had it since the sixties, Sweden since the 18th century, and so on.

Finally, Canada got an access to information act. However, it is old. It was passed in the eighties. It is from horse-and-buggy days, yet some of those old features have not been corrected in the bill before us.

I care deeply about the issue. I think it is central to a democracy. The Supreme Court of Canada has called the right to know, freedom of information and access to information a “quasi-constitutional right” Canadians have. When the former commissioner says that the bill is regressive and is a step backwards, despite the bold promises of transparency the Prime Minister made when he was leader of the third party in the House, we can imagine the disappointment of Canadians.

Of course, it is not only this Canadian who has that disappointment. I should point out that Canadian Journalists for Free Expression and the Centre for Law and Democracy called the bill “inadequate” and asked that the government withdraw it.

The Senate has brought forward improvements, and for the government to say it cannot even go there is frankly shocking.

What is wrong with the bill? I do not quite know where to start. One thing it gets right, I concede, is that for the first time, there is an order-making power for the commissioner.

Just to step back, what should an access to information act contain? It should contain three things.

First, it should contain a general statement that the public has a right to government records.

Second, it should have obvious exceptions to that rule. We can all guess what they are. They are all included in this legislation, and then some. They include cabinet confidences, business information, policy advice, solicitor-client records and information that if disclosed would be injurious to national security or international relations. There are the rules, and there are exceptions.

Third, there should be an independent umpire in the game. Until this bill goes through, that umpire, the Information Commissioner, has only been able to make recommendations, which the government has frequently ignored. Now there would be something like an order that could be made and enforced in the Federal Court. That is something I believe is worth support. I also support that there would be a legislative review of these provisions within five years. I think that is good.

I talked about Liberal promises. One thing the Liberals talked about constantly in the last election was that the bill would be extended to the Prime Minister's Office and ministers' offices. Those records would be available. They are available in provincial laws. They are certainly available in my province of British Columbia. That was a black and white election promise that has now been broken by the current government. There is no way to sugar-coat that.

The Senate amendments would improve it and give it a bit more teeth, but that is simply not on in terms of this legislation. I am grateful to the Senate for the 20 amendments that would, if passed, allow us to begrudgingly accept the improvements in this bill. However, the government has now put us on notice that it does not want to go anywhere near them. It likes the bill the way it is, despite the fact that it was castigated by everyone who knows about access to information in Canada. The academics and journalists who studied it and the advocates out there who use it as a tool to hold their government to account all said that it is not going to work and that it is just not enough. That was sad to me.

In opposition, the Prime Minister said, “a country's access to information system is at the heart of open government.”

I talked about transparency. The Liberals seemed to like it in opposition. The Prime Minister said during the campaign, “transparent government is good government.” That was something he said during the campaign.

Let us get more specific. He said:

We will...ensure that Access to Information applies to the Prime Minister’s and Ministers’ Offices, as well as administrative institutions that support Parliament and the courts.

Unfortunately, that did not happen in this legislation.

What the government likes to talk about is what it calls proactive disclosure, which is a good thing. That is when a minister travels and puts his or her expenses on the website so Canadians can see whether there has been abuse. That is done proactively. If one goes to the website, there it is. Frankly, it is old hat in Canada. It has been around for decades in the provinces. However, as much as I like that, the fact is that it is not what people want. If they want to apply to that minister's office to understand about a particular contract or something for which the minister is responsible, they cannot get anywhere with it, because the ministers' offices are not subject to the law. It is a bizarre aberration.

I had the good fortune of being the unpaid adviser to the attorney general when B.C.'s freedom of information act was brought forward. I can say that we did a lot of consultation. I think there were 52 amendments made on the floor. The bill was passed unanimously and was praised as the best bill in the Commonwealth when it came forward. Unfortunately, it needs more work. I hope it is amended, like this bill. Nevertheless, it was the gold standard at the time. There was never any question about ministers' offices not being covered.

The government has what is called in the trade a “Mack truck clause”. It was not changed. It is the clause that was section 69 in the original bill, the cabinet confidences Mack truck clause. What does that mean? Rather than just being an exemption, an exception to the rule, of which I spoke earlier, the act does not even apply to it. What does that mean? It means that we cannot have the commissioner's office or anyone else deciding whether stuff has been stuffed into a cabinet record to evade the law on the right people have to access information. It is called a “Mack truck clause”, or often, “cabinet laundering”. That means that the government sticks a record in the cabinet. I am not saying that this happened. I am not suggesting bad faith, but it is certainly possible under the law. That is why it was so criticized during the day.

What else does the Senate do that the government will not go near? We have heard a lot about Mark Norman today. The Senate would add a clause that would create a new offence forbidding the use of any “code, moniker or contrived word or phrase in a record in place of the name of any person, corporation, entity, third party or organization” with a view to evading the duty to disclose and release records under the act.

We all know why that is there, because it is notorious that to evade the law on access to information, the Department of National Defence did not even use the name of Mark Norman or his rank. It used a phony word, contrary to the spirit of the act and certainly the letter of the act. This would make it clear that this could not be done in the future, which seems to be good public policy.

It seems to me obvious that if the government intends to evade the letter and spirit of the act, as this government has done, we would want to correct that misbehaviour. The Senate saw through that, proposed amendments and brought them here, and the government has not even allowed us to talk about them. We are going to just put them all aside. That is quite disturbing. It is not a theoretical problem, in other words. It is a real problem that the Senate wanted to address, because we got wind of it in the litigation involving Mark Norman. The government will not fix it. It does not even want to go there.

There are some other changes that are technical in nature, but the big principle is that the bill, after so many years of ossification, is rusting out. The bill came forward before we even had computers, and now the government is doing tinkering and patting itself on the back for doing what in other jurisdictions has been the law for a generation.

I am hard pressed to find things to say about the bill that are positive. I appreciate the fact that there would be a five-year review and that, as I said earlier, finally, in keeping with all the provinces' laws, the order-making power would be available to the commissioner. That is pretty thin gruel after all these years. Nevertheless, it has to be acknowledged as a positive change. However, on balance, the bill is very, very disturbing.

I wish I could be here saying that the bill has merit. I wish I could be saying that there were some of those things I talked about, like cabinet confidences being a regular exception for which courts and others would have the theoretical ability to review disclosure decisions, but there is nothing here that would do that.

There is another issue. That is the duty to document. One of the modern issues that has come forward is that to evade the public's right to know, there is a great oral tradition that seems to have emerged. Things are not written down in government documents. Either little yellow stickies are put on them, which are removed when disclosure applications are made, or, more frequently, a record is not made at all. We have seen that in British Columbia, the development of the so-called oral culture of government.

The notion of documenting and having a duty to record for future generations and others just exactly what decision was made and for what reasons is lacking. In administrative law, there has been a growing commitment, the courts have found, to provide reasons for decisions that are made. Sometimes access to information has been a tool to elucidate the reasons a particular decision was made, so people have been calling for a duty to document. There is no such thing in this law, I am sad to say.

In conclusion, the government has taken off the table all the work the Senate did that would have made it possible to support this bill. The Senate amendments made it better, said Caroline Maynard, the Information Commissioner of Canada. Had those amendments gone through, the New Democratic Party would have supported this bill.

To take all those amendments off the table and leave what has been soundly criticized, in all quarters, by academics, user groups and journalist groups, and say that we should be happy with what is remaining is simply an outrage. We cannot dignify this with our support.

[Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights, June 6th, 2019]

Madam Speaker, I want to start by saluting my colleague, the soon-to-be-retired member for Edmonton Strathcona, for her diligence and perseverance in bringing this bill forward over 11 years. This is perhaps the fourth time.

Of course, the Liberal government has had four years to study this bill, and here we are in the waning hours of this Parliament, which is very regrettable. If we are honest with each other, I think the chances of this bill being enacted are slim to none. However, that does not mean that it is not an essential, thoughtful piece of work. It is like a judgment that is in dissent in a court, and eventually, over time, that dissenting opinion becomes the law of the land, which is what I hope happens in this context.

This bill is not radical. The Province of Quebec has had section 46.1 of its Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms for years, which says, “Every person has a right to live in a healthful environment in which biodiversity is preserved, to the extent and according to the standards provided by law.” That is what Quebec did. For many years, Ontario had a bill as well, the Environmental Bill of Rights. Unfortunately, over the last few months, the new government of Premier Ford has gutted that bill, to the eternal shame of that government.

However, that does not mean we at the federal level cannot get it right at last. In fact, a number of people wrote in a book called International Law and the Environment as follows: “The emergence of individual environmental rights marks perhaps the most significant shift in the focus of international environmental law.” My colleague's bill would do just that.

I want Canadians to understand that this is not one of those feel-good bills with one sentence celebrating the heritage of one ethnic community that takes two sections to enact. This is a thoughtful bill, with 37 sections, 16 pages long. It was very thoughtfully changed in each Parliament to its status today, which is a fully thought-out bill that would do what other jurisdictions around the world have done.

Nor is this a new idea. I remember, back in the 1980s, writing a chapter in a book edited by the well-known environmental law scholar John Swaigen that talked about just this, and many of the principles in this bill were in fact discussed at great length in that book back in the 1980s. I salute my colleague for this excellent work.

The bill before us would create a number of specific rights, including my favourite, the right of access to environmental information in a reasonable, timely and affordable manner. As someone who has spent his career working on access to information, members can only imagine how happy I am to see that here.

However, I can tell members of the great disappointment of every single person who studied the Liberals' Bill C-58, that astounding reaction to the current Prime Minister's commitment to transparency. Every single commentator who has looked at that bill currently before Parliament has concluded that it is a travesty. It would take us backward, not forward. In fact, it is so ironic that the current Prime Minister, when in opposition, put forward a bill that would amend the Parliament of Canada Act and the Access to Information Act to provide greater transparency, but that bill goes in the exact opposite direction.

Other key things in Bill C-438 are things such as a public trust doctrine, which has been used so effectively in the United States of America to preserve lands, such as in a parks context and so forth. Another is an ability for individual Canadians to get an investigation of environmental offences. It is a thoughtful amendment to the Federal Courts Act that would allow standing for environmental groups, if there is a serious issue at stake and they have a genuine interest, to basically get rid of all the obstacles that have been put in the way of individual citizens wanting to judicially review decisions they think are wrong in the environmental context. There is also whistle-blower protection. These are just some of the key ideas that are put out in clause 4 of the bill.

However, there is so much more in this bill that needs to be saluted and praised. There are five paramount principles of environmental law that are listed. I do not have time to go over them all, but they are the precautionary principle, the polluter pays principle, the principle of sustainable development, the principle of intergenerational equity and the principle of environmental justice. These are not just words; these are principles that would apply in the implementation of the bill.

As I said earlier, Quebec has had a very vigorous commitment to environmental justice, codified in its human rights legislation and in its charter of rights and freedoms. That is how important environmentalism and sustainability Quebec talks of biodiversity are in that context.

Ontario, for many years, has had an environmental bill of rights, which has also been vigorous in its application. Unfortunately, it has met its fate. The environmental commissioner created under that statute is no longer funded by the Ford government, therefore bringing to an end a very positive experience that the jurisdiction has had with legislation not unlike what my colleague has brought forward today.

In the interests of time, I want to summarize. This initiative could have been acted on if the government were serious about environmental justice. Parliament has had this legislation before it for 11 years, four years with the current government. Here we are at the very last moment. It truly is tragic, certainly regrettable that we are unable to see this forward. The government says that it will send it to committee. That means absolutely nothing.

With two weeks left of Parliament, Canadians need to be reminded that it is a complicated bill, thoughtful bill. It would need to go through committee. It would have to go to the Senate and the like. Frankly, it is too little too late.

If the government were truly committed to environmental justice, to the of principles of which I talked, to the very specific things that would make it easier for individual Canadians to be empowered to achieve environmental justice, it would have done something with this. However, it has not and here we are.

[Members Not Seeking Re-Election to the 43rd Parliament, June 5th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I think I should sit down, because the hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona has said it all. All I am going to do is footnote what she has already so ably said in expressing her gratitude to so many people, on all sides of the House, the people who work here and make our lives easier every day.

Because this may be my last time to speak in the House, I want to say a few things. First, I have to thank a lot of people. Then I want to talk about some of the highs and some of the disappointments, before offering some general conclusions.

It has been almost seven years since I was elected, first in a by-election. It was not a particularly auspicious occasion. I just about lost, but I managed to squeak through, and then I happily did better the next time, in the 2015 election.

My list of people to thank must start, of course, with the people of Victoria who put their faith in me to represent them. The cliché, which has been said more than once this evening, is that it is an honour to have our fellow citizens go into a polling station and put an X beside our names, but I am so grateful to the people of Victoria and Saanich and Oak Bay, the nearby communities, who put their faith in me by doing just that. Every day I am mindful of the enormous responsibility that comes from that debt of gratitude.

In the very first speech I gave in this place, I used the Nuu-chah-nulth word eesok, or respect, because I think that has to be crucial in our role as parliamentarians every day.

The experience of being elected as a member of Parliament has really given me an enormous opportunity to know the amazing community of Victoria, where I live. I got to know people, Mr. Speaker, and I am sure it is the case for you, from all walks of life. I got to know people who make their living as so-called “binners”, people who get money from recycling bottles and cans, which is how they live, all the way to billionaires, because Victoria has both categories.

I am really proud of Victoria. I like to brag that it has the lowest unemployment rate in Canada but also has the people with the biggest hearts in Canada. It is a generous, compassionate community, and I am so proud to live there. It is quite a magic place, because it is both dynamic and gorgeous at the same time. Most people care deeply about their natural environment and about the well-being of their fellow citizens.

I promised I would thank a number of people, so bear with me.

First, I want to thank the people in my Victoria office who do the heavy lifting every day of navigating a sometimes cold and distant federal bureaucracy to help people. I want to start with Alisma Perry, Tony Sprackett and Lucy Mears.

Next I want to thank the front-line people in my Victoria and Ottawa offices over the years: Edward Pullman, Danielle Dalzell, Maura Parte, Andrew Johnson, Krystal Thomson, John Luton, Tyrone Lehmkuhl, Tabitha Bernard, Charlotte Smoley and Alana Cahill. It is quite a list.

Then I want to thank my Victoria political family: Erik Kaye, Ellen Godfrey, Samantha Montgomery, Sarah Bergen, Shannon Ash, Andrew Cuddy, Breanna Merrigan and especially the very talented Victoria councillor Laurel Collins, who I hope will succeed me as the member of Parliament for Victoria in the next election.

Finally, I want to thank my family, my two sons Ben and Mark, who I am so very proud of, my remarkably supportive spouse, Linda Hannah, who is here with me tonight, and my extended family, represented tonight by Leslie Hannah and Barry Lassiter, from Calgary, who have come all the way to be here.

I promised to say a few things I am proud of and then a few disappointments. Let me start with the good stuff.

One of the most important and meaningful things I had the pleasure to work on since coming here was to secure pensions for people who were the victims of thalidomide poisoning. It is serendipitous how this works in politics.

I got a call from a friend who was doing pro bono work for the Thalidomide Victims Association of Canada, the indomitable Mercedes Benegbi, who asked, “Can you help us?” I went to Libby Davies, which she talked about in her amazing book, and we went to Rona Ambrose, the then minister of health. We managed to get every single member of Parliament to vote in favour of long overdue pensions for people at the end of their lives suffering from the effects of thalidomide.

Then there was the debate on medical assistance in dying. I had the good fortune of having a law partner and a dear friend, Joe Arvay, who went to the Supreme Court of Canada on a case called Carter, reversed a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on a case called Rodriguez and established a constitutional right for Canadians who were suffering interminable pain to avail themselves of medical assistance in dying.

To me, that was the finest moment in this place, with people working across parties. I want to pay particular tribute to the then minister of health and the then attorney general, the member for Markham—Stouffville and the member for Vancouver Granville. However, I would be remiss if I did not pay tribute to the member for Don Valley West who ably chaired one of the committees. There was a Senate committee, a justice committee, and we worked with senators like Senator Cowan and Senator Joyal, and my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot who was very wise on that committee.

We ended up, despite our differences, despite profound philosophical ethical differences, coming up with something that I think serves Canadians well. I am very proud of the way Parliament worked. To me, that was its finest hour since I came here.

More recently, my work as vice-chair on the justice committee allowed Canadians to understand the revelations of the former attorney general in the SNC-Lavalin matter and remind Canadians of the crucial importance in our democracy of the rule of law.

I am also very proud of something that I cannot even talk about, which is the work I have been doing under the able leadership of the member for Ottawa South with the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, which looked at a special report on the Prime Minister's trip to India. However, much more importantly, it did the first in-depth review of our security and intelligence community, which is the work that Canadians do to counter espionage, terrorism and foreign interference, and of course, to safeguard our freedoms. We spent endless hours on that work, and I am very proud of that.

I am proud of the fact that I was given the honour of being elected by my peers as one of the hardest working MPs. I am proud of the public service of Canada with which I have had the opportunity to work over the years.

On the more frustrating side, I am frustrated by question period; I do not mind saying that. I think a lot of us are. We can do much better for Canadians. The tired lines and the bad theatre is wearing a little thin. I know that I do not look forward to it, and I know people on the other side feel the same way. Surely we can do better.

I am frustrated, as all of us are, when our private member's bills are not passed. On one I did, I worked with the late federal tax lawyer, Robert McMechan, on tax reform, which did not go through, nor did the one I worked on to expunge cannabis convictions, which I still think is the right way to go. However, the government has brought in a half measure and we will see if that works.

I am deeply disappointed with the progress Canadians have made toward reconciliation with indigenous peoples.

I am particularly disappointed in our collective failure to address the climate crisis. We have to do better. Today is World Environment Day. It has to be that we give our future generations a better planet to live on. It is going to take hard work on all sides of this House for Canada to do its job.

By way of conclusion, I am a proud social democrat. I have Tommy Douglas's picture on my wall. I think he was justly elected the greatest Canadian for his work in giving us something we now take for granted: medicare. I am hoping that the next Parliament will complete his work and bring in a comprehensive public pharmacare program for all of Canada.

Let us all recommit to a fairer Canada. Let us reduce the enormous and growing inequality between the rich and poor in our society. What J.S. Woodsworth said is still true today: “What we desire for ourselves, we wish for all”. However, Jack Layton still said it best: “My friends, love is better than anger.... So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic.”

[Protection of Freedom of Conscience Act, May 29th, 2019]

Madam Speaker, I wish to rise today to speak on behalf of the NDP in respect of Bill C-418, the initiative of the hon. member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands.

We must oppose this bill. We are concerned that it creates a loophole whereby health professionals could deny a referral to a patient seeking medical assistance in dying. I want to be very clear at the outset. I had the honour of representing our party, both on the special joint committee that dealt with medical assistance in dying and the justice committee.

At that time, I put an amendment before the justice committee to ensure that the rights of health care professionals would be respected, that no health care worker should ever be compelled to provide medical assistance in dying. I am proud of that contribution. I am proud that it became part of the law.

However, what is equally important is that there be the ability, always, for the patient to exercise his or her constitutional right to avail themself of medical assistance in dying. In a contest between a physician and that patient, the law is crystal clear. It is the patient's right that must prevail. I will come back to that in a moment.

Therefore, this no doubt well-intentioned bill before us uses very vague language that talks about directly or indirectly doing certain things. That, of course, is the problem with this bill. We in the NDP have always championed the rights of health care professionals, but we must address this critical balance.

Part of ensuring there is what is called an “effective referral” is that the doctors, the health care professionals, are able to find another route, but that, nonetheless, the patient always has, at the end of the day, the final ability to avail themself of that service. It is not enough to say they can self-refer themselves, that they can look in a phone book or go to a website. As I will illustrate in a moment, it just does not work that way.

In a recent Ontario Court of Appeal decision in 2019, a judge found that the rights of the patient must prevail over the rights of the physician. There must be what the Ontario court terms an “effective referral”. That term was defined as follows:

A referral made in good faith, to a non-objecting, available, and accessible physician, other health-care professional, or agency.

The quote that I find the most important in the entire decision is as follows:

The interests of patients come first, and physicians have a duty not to abandon their patients.

That is the Court of Appeal speaking.

It is an unimaginably difficult situation for a person who is by definition in severe pain and interminable suffering to be challenged to find a particular doctor in circumstances where they have less resources than would normally be available to them. They have a relationship with their physician. Let us say that physician does not accept the legitimacy of the law of Canada and has a conscientious reason for opposing it, which is, as I said at the outset, certainly their right. There are issues of confidentiality. Not everyone can simply go to their family and say, “Can you assist?” or has the wherewithal at the end of life to go to a website or to a telephone book to try to find that.

That is why the court of appeal, in its wisdom, made the statement that I just read. A doctor, in other words, cannot effectively cut their patient adrift.

It also must be said that this particular bill, and that case to which I referred, have significant implications for a woman's right to choose. That, as well, is something for which an effective referral is required at law. The Women's Legal Education and Action Fund intervened in that case, and after speaking about effective referral in the terms I just raised, said the following:

The Court agreed with LEAF that “due to historic inequalities in accessing the medical system, many women are dependent on physician approval to access reproductive services.” Since physicians act as gatekeepers to the system, an effective referral may be the only channel through which these women can access the care they need.

Therefore, there are implications of the bill that need to be understood as broader than the way it might be considered on its face.

We want to ensure what we did in those difficult debates about medical assistance in dying becomes a reality for people at end of life. No matter where they live in Canada, these services should be available.

Where I live on Vancouver Island, we have the highest uptake of this service in the country by a considerable amount, because the medical system has responded. Many physicians are providing this service. However, from talking to colleagues in places such as Atlantic Canada, I know it is an entirely different world elsewhere. As Canadians, we all have the same constitutional rights. The disparity is unacceptable, but that is the world in which we live. We have to do better.

Reasonable access, if that is what the law requires, is simply not a reality in many rural and remote parts of our country. It cannot be that a doctor can thwart the ability of patients ability to avail themselves of that service.

Some people may not want to talk to anyone other than their family doctor or a particular physician because of confidentiality issues. They may not even want their parents or children to know that they are considering this.

It is my belief that the bill, as it exists today, will disrupt the very careful balance that was achieved in this Parliament regarding physician assisted in dying.

I would like to share with the House an anecdote that was provided to me by a woman named Shanaaz Gokool, who is the chief executive officer of Dying With Dignity Canada. She tells a story about a gentleman who is only identified by his initials, R.A.

In 2018, R.A.'s mother was dying of terminal cancer. R.A. was her primary caregiver. He was an educated, loving son who was financially secure and able to take a leave of absence from work to provide daily care for his mother. The family was from another country and English was not their first language. His mother requested help with physician assisted dying, but her doctor did not think that was appropriate and declined to provide a referral.

R.A. did an Internet search and found somebody in a hospital nearby. The hospital sent him an email with more information about how to use the service, but he was overwhelmed in caring for his mother and missed the email. Some three weeks later, he finally got more information and called Dying With Dignity to witness his mother's MAID request. She was found eligible and a number of months after she first asked her primary care physician to help, the service was made available to her.

Unfortunately, days before she was to receive medical assistance in dying, she died a terrible death, essentially choking on and drowning in her own vomit, when her son looked away briefly.

When he was to testify to this before the Ontario Court of Appeal, he went back to check the email that was sent to him by the hospital care coordinator. It was a heart-breaking moment when he realized the email had the email address and phone number for the Ontario medical assistance in dying care coordination service. He had the information all along, but he was so busy caring for his mother he did not see the details in the original email.

The point of the story is that sometimes people need a physician or a health care professional to provide them with an effective service. This story is a tragic example of where that was not done. Sometimes a phone number or web address is simply not enough.

We believe that coercion and intimidation are always wrong. However, it is important we keep the balance that was carefully struck in this Parliament when we took the step of creating a regime for Canadians to avail themselves of their constitutional right to medical assistance in dying in certain circumstances. We should keep that balance and not destroy it.