Rosane Doré Lefebvre

[National Defence, May 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister can shoot the messenger all he wants, but the facts are the facts.

This disastrous breach in security could have been avoided. The loopholes that enabled Mr. Delisle to sell secrets to Russia for nearly five years had been identified by internal audits, but the Conservatives preferred to stand by and watch the disaster unfold.

One expert stated, and I quote, “National Defence, if it had tried, could not have done worse”.

Why were these security breaches not rectified?

[Public Safety, May 27th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, at the time, the Minister of National Defence downplayed the consequences, but these breaches had been going on for four years.

Now we find out that Mr. Delisle could have been arrested sooner had CSIS shared the information with the RCMP. The fact is that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service allowed Canadian intelligence to be stolen for months, and it was the FBI that tipped off the RCMP.

What is the minister going to do to prevent such an abysmal lack of communication in the future?

[Royal Canadian Mounted Police, May 22nd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, Caroline O'Farrell, the first female member of the RCMP's Musical Ride, was sexually assaulted and harassed by former colleagues. Now she is suing them because government after government failed to do its job. Canadians and RCMP members deserve better. They deserve better than a bill that does not even include the words “sexual harassment”. They deserve better than a Minister who will not let the RCMP speak freely to parliamentarians.

When will the Conservatives stamp out the endemic problems within the RCMP?

[Public Safety, March 25th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, their law and order agenda is “talk, talk and talk some more, and pass the bill on to the provinces.”

By abolishing the police officer recruitment fund, the Conservatives are telling Quebec to go it alone in its fight against street gangs and the drug trade. Even proven crime-fighting measures administered by the provinces are not being spared from austerity measures.

Why has the minister turned his back on the provinces rather than tried to find solutions for long-term funding for police officer recruitment?

[Correctional Service Canada, March 20th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, Ashley Smith lost her life for throwing an apple.

If the minister truly took Ashley Smith's tragic death seriously, he would follow through on the correctional investigator's recommendations. The investigator raised a number of red flags about detainees who have mental disorders and who self-harm.

The Conservatives have not taken action. The latest statistics are frightening. Under the Conservatives, the number of incidents of self-harm have nearly tripled.

What resources will they allocate to address this problem? What is their plan to avoid further tragedies?

[Public Safety, March 19th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians deserve real answers and not meaningless accusations.

While the Conservatives are making cuts to border services and we are only days away from the tabling of the federal budget, where we expect even more cuts to occur, people have the right to know how much of their tax dollars were used to film arrests for a reality television show. Obviously, image means everything for the Conservatives, and content means nothing.

I am offering the minister another opportunity to answer the question. How much did this dangerous publicity stunt cost Canadians?

[Public Safety, March 18th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it is one thing for the minister to be obsessed with people who have gone through traumatic experiences, but it is another thing altogether for him to decide to share that obsession with the entire country.

The minister is showing no consideration for these people, who, for reasons we may never know, decided to put their lives in danger and flee their country. He should reflect on that before sensationalizing their situation.

Our border services officers do important and dangerous work. Reducing it to simple entertainment is unacceptable.

How much is this charade costing our border services?

[Parliamentary Budget Officer, March 8th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, in response to this nonsense, I want to quote a document from 2006. “Governments cannot be held to account if Parliament does not know the accurate state of public finances.”

Who said that? The Conservatives did in their election platform. Was that just meaningless rhetoric? Instead of strengthening the Parliamentary Budget Officer's powers, they have attacked him and undermined him at every opportunity. Instead of being transparent, they forced him to go to court to obtain documents.

Why have they abandoned their promises of transparency?

[Parliamentary Budget Officer, March 8th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it has become increasingly clear that Conservatives prefer to keep Canadians in the dark on how public money is being spent.

The PBO analyzed the estimates and the cost of the war in Afghanistan and the F-35s. Instead of strengthening the PBO, Conservatives are making it weaker. Instead of welcoming oversight, Conservatives are hiding the numbers.

Instead of being more transparent, why are Conservatives breaking their promises?

[Correctional Service Canada, March 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the correctional investigator is scathing: our prison system is in crisis and aboriginal women are the primary victims.

Aboriginal people represent less than 4% of the Canadian population, yet one in three women in federal prisons is aboriginal. They are released later and are disproportionately involved in the use of force and in segregation. We are all responsible for this failure.

Instead of slashing Correctional Service Canada's budget, will the minister finally acknowledge this crisis and take action?