Robert Sopuck

[Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act, May 25th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I want to quote the Leader of the NDP from early December 2014 to point out what the member said in terms of his party's view on registering firearms. He said:

A New Democrat government would ensure police are able to track every firearm in Canada.

He went on to say he:

....disputed the Conservative government's contention that gun registration is an unfair, onerous requirement....

Clearly, the NDP wants to bring the long gun registry back. I am somewhat offended by his use of the term gun lobby. Firearms owners in Canada represent a wide cross-section of society. Millions of Canadians own and use firearms safely and in a law-abiding way.

As the chair of the Conservative hunting and angling caucus, I asked for people's views on Bill C-42, and I received petitions from all across the country. Thousands of people from all walks of life urged us to pass Bill C-42.

It is quite clear that the NDP wants to bring the long gun registry back. Quite honestly, I think it is an NDP goal to eliminate the private ownership of firearms in this country.

Will the member come clean and admit the real goal is to eliminate firearms ownership?

[Economic Action Plan 2015 Act, No. 1, May 13th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, in my short period of time, I would like to cut to the chase very quickly and talk about two letters I received from two of my constituents who are directly affected by this budget. These are average, rural Manitobans who are not rich by any stretch.

First, I received a letter from Ms. Mackenzie Danard, a mother from Swan River, Manitoba. She wrote me to say, “This helps alot for single parents”, because she is one of them. She said, “Thank you for helping us raise our children”. So much for the idea that this a budget for the rich. It is not.

I also received a letter from Ms. Wendy McDonald from Newdale, Manitoba. Ms. Macdonald was in Ottawa just last week and she wrote me to say, “The reason we were able to afford our trip to Ottawa was due to our income tax refund which was largely unexpected due to income splitting. Our family chooses to put the child care benefit money we receive directly into an RRSP for our two children. I will be one of the Canadians that will benefit from the increased allowance on TFSAs because saving is important to me and allows me to be fiscally responsible in my own household”.

It was shameful for the leader of the Liberal Party to say yesterday, “benefiting every single family is not what is fair”. For these two families, this is fair.

I want to make a point about the NDP members especially. They dislike ambition, they dislike merit and they dislike hard work. We are the party truly representing working people and this budget is designed for people who work hard and play by the rules.

[Petitions, May 13th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the third petition from Canadians calls on Parliament to support the environment committee's current study on hunting and trapping, and asks that the Liberals and New Democrats stop playing their partisan games at that committee.

[Petitions, May 13th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is signed by hundreds of Canadians from coast to coast to coast who call on Parliament to enact common sense firearms laws by passing Bill C-42, the common sense firearms licensing act.

[Petitions, May 13th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present three petitions signed by thousands of Canadians. The first proposes to update Canada's impaired driving laws.

[Business of Supply, May 11th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the hypocrisy from the member opposite is almost too much to bear, but I steeled myself and listened to it.

The NDP has a very strong anti-military history, and this phony concern for veterans shines through and through. New Democrats have never supported any military action to defend democracy anywhere around the world, including the fight against ISIS. Shamefully, they are opposing Canada's participation in protecting and defending western democracies.

That anti-military legacy started with the founder of their party, J.S. Woodsworth, who actually opposed Canada's participation in the Second World War. Imagine what the world would have been like if his advice had been followed? Vladimir Lenin called the western left “useful idiots” for keeping him in power.

Why is the NDP so anti-military and not willing to protect and defend democracy?

[Taxation, May 6th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the leader of the Liberal Party admitted that his plan for higher taxes has a $2 billion hole in it. The Liberal leader admitted that he will have to raise taxes on people earning less than $60,000 a year by cancelling their expanded tax free savings accounts.

He admitted that he would replace the Conservative family tax cut with a Liberal family tax hike. He admitted that he would get rid of the universal child care benefit, yet he also admitted that after all those tax hikes, he would still have a $2 billion hole.

We know how the Liberal leader will fill this $2 billion hole. He will have to raise taxes. With the Liberal leader's opposition to income-splitting for families, we can be sure he will also cancel income-splitting for seniors.

Middle class Canadian families know they can trust the Prime Minister and our Conservative government to keep their taxes low and to protect the benefits they already receive.

[Anti-terrorism Act, 2015, May 4th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, first, we want to dispense with the point that there is massive opposition to Bill C-51 because there is simply not. My constituents in Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette are strongly supportive of the security measures.

Again, as a member of the governing party, and thankfully so, I see no lack of criticism, or commentary and demonstrations and opinions, on what this and any other government does. Therefore, to suggest that Canada is less free or would become less free is complete nonsense.

In terms of the oversight for the CSIS, I would again quote Justice John Major, who said, “I don't think Parliament is equipped as a body to act as an oversight...which is what is being proposed”.

Clare Lopez, from the Center for Security Policy, said, “the use of an intermediary review committee rather than direct parliamentary oversight has advantages..”.

[Anti-terrorism Act, 2015, May 4th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, it never ceases to amaze me. The NDP opposite claims to want to protect the security of Canadians, but each and every time that this and any other government moves actively against terrorism, it is automatically against it.

I would remind the member opposite of the history of her party. One of the founding fathers of the party, J.S. Woodsworth, actually voted against Canada's participation in the Second World War. Can members imagine that? Had Canada followed that advice, who knows what the consequences for the world would have been. The NDP's sorry track record on protecting Canada's security is there for all to see.

In terms of the opponents of our particular bill, I would quote Justice John Major regarding the letters from the lawyers on the bill. He said the criticism goes “way over the top. You’ve got to come back to what we’re dealing with – a serious problem of terrorism in Canada. You can’t have a halfhearted war against that”.

I agree.

[Anti-terrorism Act, 2015, May 4th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise and speak to Bill C-51, the anti-terrorism act, 2015. I will most certainly be supporting it.

First, I would like to digress and congratulate the Minister of Finance on economic action plan 2015. This is a balanced budget, but it also invests in one of the key priorities of my constituents, namely, national security. The budget set aside almost $300 million to counter terrorism in Canada, funds which our security and law enforcement agencies will use to keep all Canadians safe.

During my time today, I would like to speak about the threat environment in Canada and globally, how it has changed since the inception of CSIS and why we must respond accordingly, particularly by allowing CSIS to disrupt and prevent terrorist threats from developing further.

Let me be perfectly clear. The international jihadi movement has declared war on Canada and her allies. Jihadi terrorists have stated their intent to target Canadians because they hate our values, our freedom, and our prosperity.

In 1984, when the CSIS Act entered into force, the primary national security concerns were cold war era espionage. The actors were well known. The threat environment today is much more complex. Enhanced by technology, the threats are global and can develop very quickly. While this applies to the full range of threats, espionage, foreign interference and proliferation concerns, we know all too well that the twin spectres of violent extremism and international jihadi terrorism in particular require a robust, and very importantly, flexible response.

Our Conservative government is tackling this important issue. That is why we have tabled the legislation which is before us. It is why we have made significant investments in the budget to protect national security.

The legislation contains a critical new tool for the government to improve our capacity to act, to deter and to diminish threats at an early stage. It is a threat disruption mandate for CSIS.

Creating a new threat disruption mandate for the service to take authorized and focused action against threats would increase the range of response options that may be brought to bear against those who would do us harm. However, let us be clear. In no way does threat disruption amount to police powers. This is a complete falsehood spread by the opposition. Policing would rightly remain with the RCMP and local law enforcement. The amendment adopted by the public safety and national security committee provides even greater clarity on this point, which I strongly support.

For 30 years, CSIS has been singularly charged with investigating, assessing and advising on threats to Canada's national security. In doing so, it has proven itself to be a respected and highly professional Canadian institution. In fulfilling the new mandate to disrupt threats to the security of Canada, CSIS would build upon its existing capabilities and expertise. CSIS develops and maintains unique and unparalleled access to intelligence on threats to Canada, which provides it with unique insights and operational leads.

The director of CSIS has been quite clear in his appearances before parliamentary committees, stating that the jihadi terrorist threat to Canada has never been as direct and immediate as it is today. Unfortunately, this is no longer simply a threat. In recent months and years, Canada and most of our close allies have been directly impacted by the scourge of terrorism. Our citizens have been both perpetrators and victims of terrorist attacks here at home as well as in allied countries and in conflict zones.

Canada has a responsibility to the international community to prevent and deter our citizens from engaging in such activities both at home and abroad, and the anti-terrorism act, 2015 would accomplish these tasks. As we have seen, such activities can destabilize countries and whole regions and cause significant harm.

We must also be concerned about individuals who return to Canada after having spent time abroad engaging in terrorist activities. While their terrorist experience abroad may vary greatly, we must consider their radicalizing influence on others, their ability to facilitate other people's terrorist activities, or the potential for such individuals to engage in attacks here.

We should not be so naive to think that Canada is immune to such threats in this age of global travel and ubiquitous communications technologies. It is incumbent upon us in such an environment to reassess our approach and ensure appropriate authorities are in place so that we may take reasonable and necessary steps to protect the safety of Canadians.

Many of our closest allies already exercise similar authorities and view them as vital to their own investigations. We must ensure that the tools at our agencies' disposal keep pace so that Canada can work effectively to address threats and contribute to global efforts to combat terrorism. To do so, we are harnessing all relevant capacity and expertise to build a robust and agile system that allows us to bring the right tools to bear at the right time.

I think all members can agree that preventing terrorist acts proactively is certainly preferable to a reactive posture, and this bill would ensure that.

While I have focused my remarks on terrorism, I would remind members that authorizing CSIS to diminish threats would allow it to take measures to address all threats to national security identified in the CSIS Act. These threats include not just terrorism, but also proliferation, espionage, sabotage and foreign interference. This new mandate would allow CSIS to take authorized measures to disrupt the threat posed by sophisticated and determined cyberspies whose activities are contrary to the security of Canada.

These measures could also be used against proliferation networks active in Canada which seek to covertly and illicitly export our technologies and expertise to weapons programs.

When CSIS was created, the threats we faced as a country and as a global community were markedly different from those we must combat today, threats that are agile, diffuse and evolving rapidly. The terrorists' ability to use modern social media is becoming very well known, as we see on almost a daily basis around the world.

I think all my colleagues must agree that we cannot expect CSIS to fulfill its duties and functions with dated legislation crafted for another era, another environment, and indeed, a more innocent time.

I would also remind members opposite that CSIS is not the enemy. ISIS is the enemy. It is important that we focus on who the real enemies are in these threats to our country.

We must take the necessary steps now to ensure that we as a government and as a nation can protect the safety and security of our citizens at home and abroad. This new legislation creates a clear mandate for CSIS within a well-established and rigorous system of accountability and review by the Security Intelligence Review Committee, or SIRC, whose budget our government doubled through economic action plan 2015. Yet again, this is another measure from one of the finest budgets that a government in Canada has ever brought in, as is evidenced by the widespread support for economic action plan 2015. Such an increase in funding for SIRC will provide it with greater capacity in order to assure both Parliament and Canadians that CSIS will appropriately exercise its threat disruption mandate.

It never ceases to amaze me that members in the opposition view this as a zero-sum game. They automatically assume any measures that we take to protect Canadian security come at the expense of personal liberties. Clearly, this is nonsense. The measures we are taking under Bill C-51 would not only improve security, but they would also increase the freedom of Canadians.

Most important, the bill would provide the necessary tools for CSIS to play its part in protecting Canadians and in being a responsible international partner in the fight against global terrorism.

I am very proud to be part of a party that labels terrorism and terrorists for what they actually are, and we are not afraid to use those words.

In conclusion, I hope all members will rise in this House to support the bill.