Bill C-49 (Historical)

Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act

An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and the Marine Transportation Security Act

This enactment amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to, among other things,
(a) authorize the Minister, in certain circumstances, to designate as an irregular arrival the arrival in Canada of a group of persons, the result of which is that some of the foreign nationals in the group become designated foreign nationals;
(b) authorize an officer or the Minister, as the case may be, to refuse to consider an application for permanent residence if the applicant has failed to comply with a condition of release or other requirement imposed on them;
(c) provide that a person may not become a permanent resident as long as an application by the Minister for cessation of that person’s refugee protection is pending;
(d) add, as grounds for the detention of a permanent resident or foreign national, the existence of reasonable grounds to suspect that the person concerned is inadmissible on grounds of serious criminality, criminality or organized criminality;
(e) provide that the Immigration Division must impose any prescribed conditions on the release of certain designated foreign nationals;
(f) provide for detention rules and a review procedure that are specific to the detention of certain designated foreign nationals;
(g) clarify the authority of the Governor in Council to make regulations in respect of conditions of release from detention;
(h) provide that certain designated foreign nationals may not apply to become permanent residents until the expiry of a certain period and that the processing of any pending applications for permanent residence is suspended for a certain period;
(i) require certain designated foreign nationals on whom refugee protection has been conferred to report to an officer;
(j) authorize the Governor in Council to make regulations respecting the reporting requirements imposed on certain designated foreign nationals;
(k) provide that the offence of human smuggling is committed when a person organizes the coming into Canada of another person and knows, or is reckless as to whether, the entry into Canada is or would be in contravention of the Act;
(l) provide for minimum punishments for the offence of human smuggling in certain circumstances;
(m) in respect of the determination of the penalty to be imposed for certain offences, add as an aggravating factor the endangerment of the life or safety of any person as a result of the commission of the offence;
(n) change the definition of “criminal organization” in Part 3 to give it the same meaning as in subsection 467.1(1) of the Criminal Code; and
(o) extend the time for instituting proceedings by way of summary conviction from six months to five years.
The enactment also amends the Balanced Refugee Reform Act to provide that a refugee protection claimant whose claim is rejected is not prevented from applying for protection earlier than 12 months after the day on which the claim is rejected, if it is rejected as a result of a vacation of the initial decision to allow the claim.
The enactment also amends the Marine Transportation Security Act to increase the penalties for persons who fail to provide information required to be reported before a vessel enters Canadian waters or to comply with ministerial directions and for persons who provide false or misleading information. It creates a new offence for vessels that fail to comply with ministerial directions. It also amends the Act to authorize regulations respecting the disclosure of certain information for the purpose of protecting the safety or security of Canada or Canadians.

Business of the House

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the government House leader if he might walk us through the balance of business in the House this week and, of course, what he is contemplating for next week.

In particular, many Canadians are asking where the government stands with two bills that it has been heralding now for months, Bill S-10, which we have yet to see debated in any sense in this House of Commons or at committee, and Bill C-49, which the government continues to talk about and the immigration minister and the Prime Minister keep referring to but we have yet to see.

We are anxious to improve the situation on both the law and order fronts for Canadians but also on immigration and refugee reform.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is right to say that we have a problem with human smuggling at the border between the United States and Quebec. It is one of the reasons we have to pass Bill C-49, in order to deal with the human smugglers who are taking Canada for granted and violating the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

Unfortunately, the leftist urban elite in Quebec are against a strong approach to this matter.

Disposition of Abolition of Early Parole Act

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to participate in the debate on the motion to prevent debate on the content and substance of Bill C-59. I find it rather odd that the Bloc has supported the government's attempt to stifle any attempt at debate on the substance of this bill.

No one in the House can accuse the Liberals of not supporting the idea of eliminating parole eligibility after one-sixth of the sentence is served for economic crimes. Two years ago, my colleague from Bourassa, our candidate in Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert and our member for Lac-Saint-Louis participated in a press conference with several of Earl Jones' victims to call on the government to quickly bring forward a bill to eliminate parole eligibility after one-sixth of the sentence is served, especially for criminals who commit major fraud and have multiple victims.

No one can accuse the Liberals of not supporting that idea. I think it is really dishonest of the government to make that kind of accusation when it knows very well what the Liberals' position is. This was pointed out by my colleague from Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine.

Now I would like to talk about the debate and the fact that the Conservatives and the Bloc members want to limit the scope of the debate. Just seven months ago the members of the Bloc rose in the House to criticize the government for doing the exact same thing it is doing now with Bill C-59. The government moved a motion to block debate.

Last June, the member for Saint-Maurice—Champlain rose in the House to criticize the government for moving a motion to block debate on the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act. The Bloc member for Hochelaga also rose to oppose a government motion to block debate on Bill C-9, the Jobs and Economic Growth Act, by imposing time allocation.

We are opposed to this time allocation motion because we believe that Bill C-59 addresses a very important issue. Furthermore, for two years now, the Liberals have been calling on the government to eliminate parole eligibility after one-sixth of the sentence is served for economic crimes like those committed by Earl Jones, Vincent Lacroix and others.

I think it is a shame that some would have people believe that the Liberals do not want to protect victims. That is simply not true. When the government introduced Bill C-21 on economic crimes and it was referred to committee, the Liberal justice critic proposed an amendment to the bill to eliminate eligibility for parole after one-sixth of the sentence in cases of economic crime. The Conservatives and the Bloc defeated the motion.

Every MP is entitled to his or her opinion on bills that we are called on to debate in the House. It is a fundamental aspect of the democratic process. The operative word here is “debate”, and the collusion between the Conservatives and the Bloc is preventing us from acting as responsible parliamentarians.

We would like to hear from experts. We want to know how this bill will truly address a gap in the law, how it will do justice to victims, how this bill will improve the chances of rehabilitation for those who once lost control of their lives.

Perhaps we should indeed eliminate parole after one-sixth of a sentence for offenders who have committed serious economic crimes and left a number of victims.

However, for non-violent criminal acts that are not fraud, we believe that evidence has shown that parole after one-sixth of a sentence has been very effective and that the rate of recidivism is much lower.

We will never know what the experts might have said since this closure motion eliminates any chance to consult experts. With this government so eager to control everything, it has become somewhat of a tradition to just pass a bill without any idea of the facts that might call it into question.

The Liberals are against this closure motion. It is not justified, and we regret that the Bloc has decided to join the Conservatives to limit the debate on this bill. As far as the substance of the bill is concerned, in the past and still today, no one could accuse the Liberals of not showing their support for eliminating parole after one-sixth of the sentence for economic crimes.

In order to illustrate the government's intellectual dishonesty, I would like to present a chronology of the Conservatives' failures in their so-called fight against crime.

I am referring here to the various bills that have died on the order paper for all sorts of reasons or that have remained in the House or at committee indefinitely.

Here they are. Bill C-15, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, died on the order paper when Parliament was prorogued; Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (investigative hearing and recognizance with conditions), died on the order paper before the House had a chance to vote on it; Bill C-26, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (auto theft and trafficking in property obtained by crime), also died on the order paper. It is certainly not the opposition that forced the government to prorogue Parliament.

Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act and the Identification of Criminals Act and to make a consequential amendment to another Act, died on the order paper, and Bill C-36, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, on the faint hope clause, died on the order paper before being brought back this session. One committee meeting was held on Bill C-46, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act, before it died on the order paper. Bill C-52, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sentencing for fraud), which is related to Bill C-59, the bill we are dealing with today, died on the order paper when Parliament was prorogued. Bill C-58, An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service, died on the order paper. The prorogation of Parliament killed many bills.

Among the bills introduced by the Minister of Public Safety was Bill C-34, the Protecting Victims From Sex Offenders Act, which also died on the order paper. The bill to deter terrorism and to amend the State Immunity Act died on the order paper. Bill C-43, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and the Criminal Code, died on the order paper. Bill C-47, An Act regulating telecommunications facilities to support investigations, died on the order paper. Bill C-53, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (accelerated parole review) and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, died on the order paper. Bill C-60, An Act to implement the Framework Agreement on Integrated Cross-Border Maritime Law Enforcement Operations between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America, died on the order paper.

To date, no meetings have been held to discuss Bill C-16, An Act to amend the Criminal Code. Bill C-17, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (investigative hearing and recognizance with conditions), was given first reading 51 days after Parliament was prorogued, and the committee still has not met to discuss that bill.

Bill C-21, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sentencing for fraud), was fast-tracked at committee in just one meeting and still has not reached second reading. Bill C-22, An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service, was given first reading 64 days after Parliament was prorogued, and the government delayed it for 26 days at report stage because of the debate on the short title.

Bill C-48, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to the National Defence Act, was given first reading 89 days after Parliament was prorogued, and we are still waiting for the next step. Bill C-50, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (interception of private communications and related warrants and orders), was given first reading after 94 days, and we are still waiting. First reading of An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act took place 243 days after Parliament was prorogued. Bill C-53, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (mega-trials), was given first reading and nothing more.

Bill C-54, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sexual offences against children) only made it to first reading. Bill C-5, An Act to amend the International Transfer of Offenders Act was introduced at first reading by the Minister of Public Safety 15 days after prorogation. Two committee meetings were held and nothing has happened since. As for Bill C-23B, An Act to amend the Criminal Records Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, we are still waiting. After a few meetings on the subject, the minister was supposed to come back with amendments that he felt were necessary in order to make the bill more comprehensive and definitely more respectful. Bill C-39, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts was introduced for first reading 104 days after prorogation and we still have not met in committee to discuss it. Bill C-49, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and the Marine Transportation Security Act was introduced for first reading 232 days after prorogation and there it remains. Bill C-52, An Act regulating telecommunications facilities to support investigations was also introduced for first reading 243 days after prorogation and we are waiting for the next step. The Senate introduced Bill S-7, An Act to deter terrorism and to amend the State Immunity Act for first reading 49 days after prorogation and we are still waiting for the next step. Bill S-10, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts was introduced for first reading in the Senate 60 days after prorogation. Bill S-13, An Act to implement the Framework Agreement on Integrated Cross-Border Maritime Law Enforcement Operations between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America was introduced for first reading 237 days after prorogation.

I am pointing this out to prove that it is not the opposition parties that are slowing the process down. For all sorts of unknown reasons, the government introduces these bill and then goes no further with them.

To conclude, I would like to question the justification for Bill C-59 and the fact that the Conservatives and the Bloc felt this was urgent enough to warrant this closure motion, which is an affront to parliamentary dialogue.

Business of the House

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the government House leader in anticipation of the business for the remainder of this week and, of course, next week.

I wonder if he might, in his response to the question, answer specifically where the government is with respect to two bills: Bill S-10, which my colleague, the justice critic for the official opposition, referred to earlier during question period as the “dumb on crime” bill; and Bill C-49, which the Prime Minister and his cabinet continue to herald as a solution for our refugee and immigration challenges, particularly on our borders. We have not seen that particular bill since it was discussed some months ago.

[John Baird, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, we are working hard to make Parliament work. I know that when it comes to Bill C-49, the Liberal House leader and his caucus want to kill Bill C-49. They do not want to send it to committee. We will call Bill C-49 for debate. We will call it for a vote and we look forward to members going on record to take their positions on that very clearly.

The government continues to make Parliament work and has been able to move our legislative agenda forward this week. I thank all members of the House for passing Bill S-6 Serious Time for the Most Serious Crime Act, which would get rid of the faint hope clause, and make its way through the House of Commons. I think that was a good day. There were a number of victims' representatives in the gallery and I was very proud of that, as I think all members should be. We also passed Bill C-48 Protecting Canadians by Ending Sentence Discounts for Multiple Murders Act, which will move to the other place.

Today we will continue the debate on the report stage of Bill C-46 Canada-Panama Free Trade Act, Following Bill C-46, we will call Bill S-10 Penalties for Organized Drug Crime Act, and Bill C-55 Enhanced New Veterans Charter Act.

Next week we will continue with the unfinished business from this week, plus Bill C-57 Improving Trade Within Canada Act; Bill C-50 Improving Access to Investigative Tools for Serious Crimes Act; Bill C-12 Democratic Representation Act; and Bill C-20 An Action Plan for the National Capital Commission, .

To respond to the Liberal House leader's question, we will have opposition days scheduled for Tuesday, February 8 and Thursday, February 10, which would be for the Bloc Québécois.

I also will be giving priority to any bill that is reported from committee so that we can continue to move the legislative agenda forward.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the government House leader what the business will be for the remainder of this week and, of course, next week. I also would like him to address, if he could, two specifics in anticipation of next week.

First, what are the allotted days for opposition day motions, particularly opposition day motions broken down by party, based on the agreement that we negotiated with all parties prior to Christmas?

Second, I would like to ask specifically, which will be the second or third time that I have asked the minister in the House and several times privately, when the government plans to bring Bill C-49, which was given first reading on October 21, 2010, some three and a half months ago, to the floor of the House. It is important, because the Prime Minister, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, the House leader and many ministers in that cabinet spend a lot of time talking to Canadians about what they consider to be the merits of this bill but they simply will not bring it to the floor of the House of Commons. The official opposition is ready to deal with that bill and to have it both in the House and in committee.

Perhaps the minister could explain to the House where Bill C-49 is.

Immigration

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on December 4, 2000, the General Assembly of the United Nations declared December 18 to be International Migrants Day. The UN also invited “[m]ember States, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations...to observe International Migrants Day through the dissemination of information on the human rights and fundamental freedoms of migrants”.

Let us hope that this day will be one of reflection for the Conservative government, which always demonstrates a hostile and discriminatory attitude toward those who come to Canada seeking refuge and protection. Bill C-49, which has been tabled in the House, is a striking example. The government is creating two categories of refugees by treating them in a discriminatory manner and presuming that they are acting in bad faith.

The Bloc Québécois will continue to push for a fair and equitable approach that will make it possible to control migration flow without reneging on our international commitment to offer protection to those fleeing persecution.

Opposition Motion--Charter of Rights and Freedoms

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, whenever I listen to a Conservative talk about going around in circles, I am always reminded that when one has two right wings, it is impossible to go in any other direction.

The member has equated two things that have nothing to do with one another. First, the hard fact about Bill C-49, which the member cannot get around, is that the government has for the first time in Canadian history decided that it is, by itself, going to designate what kind of refugees people are as soon as they land on the shore.

The member opposite has no idea who those people are. The member opposite has no idea whether they are economic refugees, political refugees or any other kinds of refugees, and neither do I. The determination process for that is independent of the government, independent of the minister and independent of me. The government is the one declaring who is an economic refugee and who is not, not me.

The question with respect to what are the rights or not on reserves is an important issue because it touches on the issue of the connection between equality rights and the aboriginal rights that are set out in the charter, which is a completely separate issue.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the debate for many reasons, but for one reason in particular. The last time I participated in a debate in the House on the subject of the charter was at the time of its adoption. I think I am right in saying I am the only member currently in the House who had an opportunity to not only participate in that debate, which I did on the question of the resolutions and motions before the House at that time. I also had an opportunity to see the charter adopted as part of our Constitution in 1982. Therefore, it is an interesting time for me to be able to respond to some of the comments made by my colleagues.

Some statements have been made over the last while about the charter and the importance of it and about the important opportunity for us, as Canadians, to reflect on our constitution, on our basic values, on our rights, on our freedoms and on our responsibilities as well. We would not be having this debate if it were not the case that both the Prime Minister and the newly elected member for Vaughan and others have made comments that attempt to cast a shadow on the charter, that challenge the validity of the charter, that put our laws and our understanding of our rights and freedoms into some kind of a political quagmire where they do not belong.

I particularly enjoyed listening to my colleague from Windsor—Tecumseh. He is sitting in the same seat from which I delivered my speech in 1981, if that gives him any comfort. I appreciated his comments today and the very balanced way in which he made a presentation. The only disagreement I have with him is on the question of whether we need this debate. I think Canada does need this debate and this discussion because there has been far too much talk with far too little response about the charter from the members of the Conservative Party. Over the last 15 to 20 years, they have launched a very significant broadside against the charter and against the interpretations of the charter that have gone forward.

Some will say that they are not actually challenging the charter, that they are only challenging the courts. However, for the government of the day to start attacking the courts on a systematic basis is almost as unhealthy as saying that it will not attack the courts, but rather it will simply attack the constitution. It is important for us to understand what this new ideology taking shape and form on the opposite side means and the threat it poses to our sense of balance and to our sense of the importance of the entrenchment of rights and freedoms.

The debate that took place in the late 1970s and early 1980s was not something which happened out of the blue. There was a very long discussion in the country, not only about the patriation of the Constitution, about which we can continue to discuss, but also about the question of whether we in fact needed a charter, why we needed one and what the Canadian experience was that lead us to think we needed a stronger entrenchment.

Many of those arguments have been set out by my colleague from Windsor—Tecumseh, and I do not feel a compelling need to repeat them, except to make two points.

First, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was not imposed on the House by the prime minister of the day. It was adopted by the House. It was adopted by members of many different parties. It was debated, discussed, reviewed and analysed by every conceivable legal group in the country that looked at what the document meant.

Second, it was not simply an imposition of a set of rights that had never existed before. Rather it was a codification of those rights. It took rights which already existed which, in many cases, had already been applied by the courts. We then said that those rights were so fundamental that they should be entrenched and should have priority over all other legislation.

We all know what happened with the notwithstanding clause and the compromise that was eventually reached, but I want to note that it is of great interest to me, apart from the Province of Quebec, which has its own political issues with respect to the charter, the extent to which other provinces and provincial governments and the federal government have not in fact invoked the notwithstanding clause because of the value that we see in the charter.

So what did the Charter of Rights and Freedoms do? It did not just come out of nowhere. It was the product of the Canadian experience of situations in the past in which we, as a country, did not always recognize the importance of fundamental rights. The House recognizes that there are some very sad examples of people being jailed because of their country of origin and their culture.

My colleague from Peterborough is well aware of what happened to Italians interned in prison camps when war broke out in 1939-40. He knows that the decision violated the fundamental principles of our Constitution. We now know it too.

We all know what happened to the Japanese. Madam Speaker, consider your riding in British Columbia. We all know what happened to the Japanese who were interned in prison camps over there for years for no reason. Their property was seized by the Canadian government and they were denied recognition of what happened. Eventually, Parliament itself was compelled to respond and, after decades of experiences, recognize that injustice.

We have other examples. We have the notorious Alberta press case of the 1930s where the Supreme Court of Canada said that actually a province cannot require newspapers to print stories that are simply favourable to the government in response to criticisms that may have been in a newspaper. The government of the day, which was a Social Credit government in Alberta, tried to impose rules and regulations on the newspapers of Alberta with respect to what they could do. Our Supreme Court said “No, you cannot do that”.

Our Supreme Court over the years in the 1940s and the 1950s began making decisions that said very clearly there are rights and freedoms, there are due processes, there are things that have to be observed. However, we came to the conclusion that it was not strong enough.

That is why we passed the charter, which gave protection to basic freedoms, gave protection to due process, rights of search and seizure as referred to by my colleague, the member for Vancouver Kingsway when he did his recitation and his question to the member for Windsor—Tecumseh. We saw the examples. We cannot simply go into somebody's house. We cannot simply knock on the door and pick someone up without having any cause. There are things that have to be done.

However, these are not invented by the courts, nor in fact were they invented by the charter. There is a problem I have with the comments made by the elected member for Vaughan, who is not yet the member for Vaughan, Julian Fantino, and I know Mr. Fantino very well. I have known him for over 25 years. When he says, for example, “Who has reaped the greatest benefits from the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? I would argue that if it isn't common criminals, then it must be the Hells Angels”. He made those comments in his book, Duty: The Life of a Cop.

I would say to Mr. Fantino, what exactly is it in the charter that he objects to? Is it that there has to be due process? Is it that there have to be rights, that the police have to follow processes in order to carry on their work? Is it the application of law, the due process of law, to what it is that has to be done? What exactly is it in the charter that people object to? What is it in the wording of the charter that people say, this is wrong? The police should not have to follow the law. The police should not have to do this or that. I find that hard to understand. That is why this question now becomes so important.

If we take our rights seriously we entrench them in the Constitution, which is what we did. We then say that once a right is entrenched the only body in our system that can actually interpret that are the courts. We have given this job to the courts. We have said it is part and parcel of the courts' responsibility to deal with this.

Therefore, the suggestion that somehow the courts are acting inappropriately or that the courts are doing something that Parliament did not ask them to do is nonsensical.

We are not alone in this regard. Most other countries are moving to an entrenched bill of rights, to an entrenched charter, a charter that looks at basic freedoms, due process, equality rights, the rights of minorities and multicultural groups, and in the Canadian context aboriginal rights. I want to touch briefly on each of these in my comments.

With respect to equality rights, the courts have done a remarkable job of pointing out that majorities are not always as sensitive to minorities as they should be. Minorities want sincerity, clarity and equality from their fellow citizens. Unfortunately, they have sometimes had to go to court to assert their right to equality. As Canadians, we have to recognize that our majorities have not always responded appropriately. Equality rights are still important to us.

Even today when we come to equality rights, I think of the enormous progress we have made as a country as a result of this dialogue and as a result of the fact that we now have the courts playing a more active role.

I look at the legislation that has just been brought to this House by the Conservative Party, Bill C-49, in which the law states, boldly and bluntly, that there are two kinds of refugees. There is no longer one class of refugees. There are now two classes of refugees. The second class consists of those people who come over somehow in a boat or come over in a group. They are now to be rounded up and thrown into a detention centre for as long as a year, without much of a heretofore, without a review, without anything at all. They are to be abandoned without rights, without recourse, and to be treated completely differently from a separate class of refugees, whom the government has now designated in a different way.

We do not think that it is only up to the courts to deal with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We think it is up to Parliament to deal with it, and that is why I am very proud that our party has said that we will not support Bill C-49, because we believe that it is fundamentally wrong in the way in which it treats people, and in particular because it does not pass any test with regard to this question of rights and freedoms as set out in the charter.

I would also say that were it not for the charter, were it not for the interpretation of that charter by the courts, the first nations people, the aboriginal people, the Inuit and Métis people of the country, would be far worse off than they are today. We tried, in Charlottetown, to move the political understanding forward that would allow us to recognize rights that had not previously been sufficiently recognized, but I have to say that that political effort was not successful.

What we also know is that the courts have in fact played the role that we would want them to play in any society, in saying to the majority, actually, you have to pay some attention to the treaties that you have signed. You have to recognize that once you say in your charter and your Constitution that you are going to recognize treaty rights and that you are going to recognize existing rights, then the courts have a responsibility to determine what those existing rights are. They have taken that responsibility and taken that role, and they have taken it seriously and well.

I am very happy to express my support for this important motion from the member for Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe. Canadians believe it is important to strengthen one of the basic tenets of our political life. We have a Constitution and a Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I do not think that this should be a partisan issue. Unfortunately, some people still say they do not accept the entire Constitution, the notion of a Charter of Rights and Freedoms or the courts' responsibility to protect citizens' rights. Protecting citizens' rights also means that the courts must sometimes make difficult decisions, but at the same time, that is one of the reasons we need these protections.

Of course, there are going to be difficult cases. Of course, there are going to be requirements sometimes whereby our institutions of justice and, indeed, even our institutions of law enforcement, have to conduct themselves in a certain way in order to get to a certain result, but these are the protections that we require.

These are not protections for any one group of people. These are protections for all Canadian citizens and they are necessary and fundamental to our sense of what the phrase “the rule of law” means. The rule of law means respect for the law as that law is interpreted by Parliament, the courts and the legislatures, and that is the debate and discussion that we need to have.

What we do not need is the continued fraying of the overall commitment to the importance of rights and freedoms. That is something that strikes at the heart of our national life and the very heart of our situation.

For example, when I hear the Prime Minister say he agrees that there are serious flaws in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and that there is no review or accountability mechanisms for Supreme Court justices, what exactly is he saying? It is a fundamental principle of our democracy that the courts are independent. There is no review or accountability of the courts because that is what takes place in a dictatorship.

Political review or political accountability of the courts is something that happens in countries that have no respect for the rule of law. The independence of the judiciary is a foundation of the British Constitution. It is a foundation of the common law Constitution. It is a foundation of what we need to believe in and return to our belief in as a country.

Therefore, when people in the position of prime minister say there are serious flaws in the charter, what are they? They should tell us what they are. Is it due process the Prime Minister does not like? Is it the freedom of the press he does not like? Is it the freedom of speech he does not like? Is it recognizing the treaty rights of aboriginals? What is it?

When he talks about a review or accountability mechanism for the courts, what exactly is he talking about? Is he talking about judges who have to kowtow to the wishes of the government because he is not happy with what they do or say? This is what strikes at the heart of our Constitution. This is what strikes at the heart of our freedoms. It is time for this kind of loose rhetoric and talk to come to an end and it is time for all of us to recommit ourselves to the Canadian Constitution, to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and to what that means for all of us.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, on April 17, 1982, after years of lengthy debate and strenuous negotiation, our country adopted a charter that would bring transcendent change to Canadian life.

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms enjoys a very high level of support in Canada today. Canadians do not only agree with their charter, they cherish the protections it offers, and for good reasons: they are morally sound, they are necessary and they are a reflection of who we are as a people.

The citizens of every country in the world hold their own constitution in high esteem. They are documents, traditions or customs embedded in history and tradition. Even every good Conservative Republican wraps himself or herself in the American constitution. It allowed William F. Buckley to express himself and for Sarah Palin to defend things like gun control or not.

Only in Canada do we hear politicians criticizing the constitutional documents that have founded a country and made it flourish.

Thirty years ago, we had an uneasy relationship with our constitutional past because Canada was in the process of superseding colonial links and affirming its own identity. It was time, more than ever, to part with some of our past links and bring the Constitution to our own country. We wanted to demonstrate to ourselves and to others that we had grown up and that we were a strong country. We wanted to assert our convictions, our principles, everything that distinguishes us as Canadians, and we wanted to declare those principles to the world.

We Canadians appreciate the charter because of its protections and the rights that it provides but Canadians also cherish the charter because it is a reflection of who we are as a people. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms embodies the character of the Canadian people. The charter inspires us and appeals to the best of us as Canadians.

Unfortunately, the government tends to discredit the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but this charter is so Canadian that one has to wonder whether the government is not too fond of Canada. The principles of democracy, equality, freedom and protection of minorities are not very important to the Conservatives. They perhaps want to find ways to avoid complying with this charter. During a trip to northern Canada, the Prime Minister said that he calls the shots, but I think it is time to remind him that he is not the king. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms had been around for 20 years before this government, and it will still be around 20 years after this government is gone.

In this country, there are rules that apply to everyone, even to those who disagree and even to the government.

When Pierre Elliott Trudeau spoke on the need to celebrate the renewal and repatriation of our Constitution in 1982, we were not witnessing the mere act of another government enacting another law; we were witnessing the birth of a document that was the product of broad political discussion across the country. The product is a reflection of ourselves as a country that we can be proud of. As Pierre Elliott Trudeau said:

I speak of a country where every person is free to fulfill himself or herself to the utmost, unhindered by the arbitrary actions of governments.

The Canadian ideal which we have tried to live, with varying degrees of success and failure for a hundred years, is really an act of defiance against the history of mankind. Had this country been founded upon a less noble vision, or had our forefathers surrendered to the difficulties of building this nation, Canada would have been torn apart long ago.

However, the Conservative Prime Minister has had a very hard time accepting a higher power for himself and sometimes seems to think he is king and not elected by the people of Canada and subject to our law, our Constitution, our founding principles. The Conservatives do not want to live in a world that was the vision of someone like Thomas Jefferson or Nelson Mandela. They want to live in a world without a charter to restrict their power and impose their every will on the public.

The world the government on the other side wants to live in is the world of Robert Bork, which is a world, to quote the late Senator Edward Kennedy:

...in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is often the only protector of the individual rights that are at the heart of our democracy.

Senator Kennedy concluded with a comment for President Reagan that applies to this government today as well in that it should not be able to impose its “reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and on the next generation of Americans. No justice would be better than this injustice”.

Let us remember the past, for in remembering the past we might prevent repeating it. In the early 1900s, women were not people in Canada. It took a decision by a court of law to declare that women are people in Canada and that they should have the right to vote. We only need to go back 50 years to the decision in Roncarelli v. Duplessis. We can be glad that Canadian courts had the power to overrule a premier who was using his powers on an arbitrary basis for a personal agenda against the rights of an individual.

Governments are sometimes wrong. Government has to follow a set of rules set out in a constitution and when it does not abide by those rules, modern democracies have given courts the law, the role to decide when the government crosses those lines of unconstitutional behaviour, that they should choose to protect the constitution as well as the citizens from abuse by the government. Every democracy is based on a desire to be, as any founding father or mother would say, a country of laws, not of men.

In our Constitution, we chose to include principles that represent the basis of the Canadian identity. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects the right to equality for all Canadians, the right to freedom, the linguistic duality of this country and the civil rights that protect us against mistreatment by police forces. These protections have enabled us to build schools for minorities across the country, provided services to persons with a disability who needed them, prevented Canadians from being unjustly detained and protected minorities against discrimination. These are the principles that Canadians decided to impose on this government.

Because it is the people's government, they choose the rules that the government should live by. This government, however, has a hard time understanding that the people choose the laws.

This government does not see a problem with the arbitrary detention procedures in Bill C-49, for example. The detaining of an individual by an agent of the government or at the minister's will for 12 months is against the charter. The Supreme Court said so only three years ago. The government does not understand that, but the Canadian people do. They said so in their charter.

The government never saw a reason to protect Omar Khadr from the abuse he suffered abroad, but the Canadian people did because it is in their charter.

The government has cut the budget of groups that have advocated for minority rights, but the Canadian people understand that is wrong. It is in their charter.

This is a government with many members who feel that criminals reap the greatest benefit from the charter. This has to be balanced with the myriad court decisions that say, on the contrary, the Canadian people have a charter.

The immense powers of government over an individual have to be balanced with principles. Where these principles can sometimes impede the effectiveness of police forces, the charter has the override provision in section 1 to provide a reasonable limit to rights and freedoms, but we will not hear the Conservatives talk about the section 1 override provisions of the charter. We will not hear it because they do not want people to know. But the people know that they have a charter. They know that there are protections. It is in the charter.

Tom Flanagan, a well-known Conservative, wrote that courts of law in Canada are often an innovating force ahead of public opinion. Even the Prime Minister has expressed concern that a recent decision of the Supreme Court enforcing the protection of minorities should have been, rather, taken by Parliament.

That is also the view, to bring it full circle, of Robert Bork today. When he was bounced from his nomination from the Supreme Court of the United States, he decided to get some print in Canada. In 2002, he said that courts throughout the world, including Canada, are enacting an agenda.

Robert Bork and the Prime Minister of Canada: very similar.

On the contrary, modern democracies have mechanisms to protect minorities from being abused by the majority. In Canada, this mechanism is the charter, and there is nothing more democratic than a court of law that forces a government to respect a charter of rights and freedoms that was the result of a democratic process.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a constitutional document that can only be amended by consent of Parliament and of every province. It could never have been the intention to set inflexible rules and principles in stone, fixed in time, that could only be changed by constitutional amendment. Instead, Canadians created a document that would be adaptable and therefore remain relevant to the needs of a rapidly changing society.

The late Supreme Court Justice Antonio Lamer wrote in 1985, when the charter was new and being decided upon that it was a living tree planted by the Canadian people. Supreme Court Justice Dickson wrote the same thing in the case of R. v. Big M Drug Mart Ltd., worrying that “the living tree”, which is the charter, “will wither if planted in sterilized soil”.

The comments by the Conservative government do not represent the Canada that we know. The comments by Tom Flanagan do not represent the Canada that we know. They defy the values that Canadians chose to define as their own in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

As two modern examples of how the charter lives, General Roméo Dallaire and General John de Chastelain were exporting democracy and the values of the charter to the world. Long before this debate here today, General de Chastelain in Ireland and General Dallaire in Rwanda, these military giants, walked among divided combatants, dressed as men of war but sounding like men of the charter. It is to Canada's credit that they did so. They exemplified charter values and gained respect around the world.

Today we are here to remind the government that it does not get to choose the world we live in. This is Canada, and Canadians have created a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that reflects their ideals. This charter binds every government to come with respect to these ideas, whether governments like it or not. The protections in this charter are cherished by Canadians for good reason. They are certainly morally sound, as I said at the beginning. They are a reflection of who we are as a people, and they are necessary.

Exercising the protection of a right for one person does not take away the right of another person. That is a very important comment to make. It seems that every distinction made by the government is that in the application of the charter for the protection of a right, someone else loses something. It is a fundamental principle that the protection of one right that is enshrined for one person does not take away the pile of rights that all of us have.

Every court decision grapples with the issue of the individual right and the collective right. This is never mentioned by the Conservative justice team or the Conservative government, ever, or any of their columnists who write daily on these issues. It is never mentioned that there is a collective right. The collective right is enforced by the fact that government does not invade the secure, the privileged and those in positions of power and comfort who do not need the charter to enforce their rights. That is the protection of the collective right. Within the charter is section 1, which provides for the collective right, the right of override. The protection of the single individual right might be overridden by the collective right for the protection of society.

The second point that is important to remember is that, in common sense terms, we could look at the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as insurance. Insurance is a great comfort to those who do not need to use it. It is illogical to say that we like to have insurance because we use it so often. We want to have insurance and never have to use it. Who wants to have a car accident? Who wants to have a fire? Who wants to lose his or her life or be dismembered and use insurance policies for protection?

Why is that not unlike having the charter as protection for everyone in this House and everyone outside this House who is a Canadian? We can have the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which protects us, but we hope we never have to use it. We hope that we are not one of those litigants who has to go to court to ensure that a right is being protected. Who wants to go to court and use the charter?

The Conservatives, on the other hand, should know that we are a far less litigious society than our neighbours to the south. They should know that the charter is being used by people who have to use it, people who have to apply for the protection of their rights. Of course, the great stopgap in this free and democratic society is that our courts have the discretion to determine whether in fact a right has been abridged.

The concept is very simple. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is for everyone, not just for the people trying to use the charter to gain benefits that are secured for them. We hope, as individuals, that we never have to use these provisions in the charter, but they are there for our protection.

The other thing that I would like to say about the comments made by various individuals in the public is that it is an attack on Canada when they attack our constitutional documents, and it should not be permitted by a political party, let alone a party that is ruling.

It is one thing to have a political point of view that does not believe that the Constitution, as contemplated, protects these rights. That is one thing. But when they say that the whole baby with the bathwater syndrome should be thrown out because the Conservatives do not like how it is applied, the inference to be drawn is that they do not trust judges. That inference has been veiled in the last few years but was not very covered up in the first few years of the government's regime.

The government does not trust judicial discretion. It does not trust the good common sense of Canadian people who wanted this charter and will see to its enforcement. The government does not trust judges to take a common sense approach on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which Canadians believe in, to interpret rights appropriately.

The Conservative government should be ashamed that it lets elected officials, some of whom serve in this House, and unelected officials, who have undue influence on the Prime Minister's cabal, to make statements that denigrate our Constitution, denigrate the opposition, denigrate the points of view of members of Parliament and denigrate columnists. That is what we believe in. We will defend its right to say whatever it wants to say, but the government should not attack the very root of our community, the very basis of our civilization, which is the Constitution of Canada and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as it exists today. Shame on the Conservative government.

We call on the government to ask for formal retractions from its spokespersons, because this is egregious. It is an awful day in Canadian history when the governing party says that the hall in which we govern, the land that we govern, partially, is governed by a document that it does not believe in. How close is that to anarchy? It is too close.

We in the opposition call on the government to look into the recesses of its soul and say it is wrong, say that it is sorry and admit that it believes in Canada, that it believes in the Constitution, that it believes in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Immigration and Refugee Protection Act

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to be speaking about Bill C-35, which we are debating today. We have talked a lot about immigration consultants, which are the focus of this bill.

I want to begin by speaking about the bill's title. Those following the debate since speeches started in the House this morning at about 10:20 a.m. would initially have seen it indicated on their screen that we are talking about the “Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants Act”, or the “Loi sévissant contre les consultants véreux” in French.

If they are watching now, they will probably see that we are talking about An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. This was changed because, likely, at the beginning of the debate the audiovisual team was using the former title of the bill.

In committee, it was decided that the title should be changed to make it more neutral and objective. There are a number of reasons for this decision. Even though we all agree that a bill title has no legal effect and is simply a secondary element in the debate about the substantive clauses and the actual provisions of the bill, the title is still important. On one hand, the title is important from a social point of view because it can affect how people perceive the bill. On the other hand, it is important from a political point of view because it is a tool used by the government to engage in political marketing and even to change the essence and intent of a bill for its own purposes. The government is using this technique more and more.

I will discuss both cases, beginning with the one before us, Bill C-35. It seems to me that the government was using the bill's original title for political purposes. They said they would attack crooked consultants. That sounds like an opinion to me. Opinions have no place in the law. The government should stick to a technical description of what the bill does, which in this case is amend the immigration act to require people who want to practise as immigration consultants and who are not already members of a provincial bar or the Chambre des notaires du Québec to be members of a body to be designated by the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. That is what this bill would do.

In practice, will this actually improve the situation and crack down on crooked consultants? That is a matter of opinion. Every member of the House is entitled to an opinion on the subject. I suppose that if the bill receives unanimous support, as it seems to have, that means people pretty much agree. Of course, the 308 members of the House can make mistakes. In the end, history may confirm that we have not. I do not think there should be anything subjective in the title.

If we want voters and the public to respect us, we should be humble enough to resist using bill titles to promote any messages, claims or opinions whatsoever. We must also take into account the potential social impact of an inappropriate title. In this case, they were calling it the cracking down on crooked consultants act.

Imagine consultants telling their clients to trust them because they have been accredited under the cracking down on crooked consultants act. As if. Picture the certificate hanging behind a consultant's desk, stating that the consultant has been accredited under the cracking down on crooked consultants act. That is not what the bill is about. This bill is about consultants who are not crooked. That is why the title of the bill was changed. Personally, I hope that the government will put an end to this practice, which has been observed in several House committees.

It is a ridiculous practice, one that wastes a great deal of parliamentarians' energy. In many cases, the bills do not even accomplish what is stated in the title, and that skews the democratic debate.

Since there is unanimity in the House on Bill C-35, I would like to provide a few other examples. In fact, most of the disagreement in committee was about the title.

There was Bill C-27, the Electronic Commerce Protection Act. Once again, the title was a claim. There was also the Protecting Victims from Sex Offenders Act. That is a matter of opinion; we may or may not agree that Bill C-34 will actually protect people from sex offenders. Then there is the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act. I gave examples from different Parliaments, and there are others from the current session. We have bills pertaining to security that are named in memory of a victim whose case has nothing to do with the bill in question.

Getting back to immigration, given that this is the subject of the bill before us today, there is Bill C-49, at second reading. The title, Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, is an opinion. In fact, most observers, including the opposition members in the House, find that the bill does not in any way deal with smugglers, but rather targets refugees. The title also refers to people who abuse the immigration system. The bill does not refer to the immigration system but to the refugee protection system. The title is completely at odds with the reality and serves as a political marketing tool.

The government has said that people support their bill. It conducted a poll and asked whether people agreed with the law to prevent human smugglers from abusing our immigration system. Everyone is evidently in agreement. The problem is that the bill does not do what the title says.

Clearly, this is a ploy on the government's part. Basically, the government is admitting that it knows very well that it will not be able to sell the contents of its bill to the public. So it is using smoke and mirrors. It is using the title as an intermediary to try and suggest that one of its bills cracks down on crooked consultants and therefore must be a good bill. It has a bill that cracks down on human smugglers, so it is a good bill.

The most pathetic title we have seen in this House was the title of a bill that was something like: an act to stop the trafficking of minors, even though the word “trafficking” was not mentioned once in the entire bill. The bill had a title that referred to the trafficking of minors, even though the bill was not about that.

Clearly, this is a recurring ploy that must stop. I am very pleased that the members of the committee agreed to stop playing the government's game. I hope the government will have the wisdom and good sense to stop playing these ridiculous little games. The parliamentary secretary talked about it and so did my Liberal colleague, the hon. member for Papineau, and I imagine my NDP colleague will also talk about it, since we tend to work very well together on that committee; we respect one another, despite our political differences. If the government wanted to demonstrate its desire to co-operate and its respect for the opposition members, it could start by giving its bills legitimate titles, instead of making these inane attempts to manipulate public opinion.

I realize that was a long digression, but I had to do it. All that being said, I will now talk about the substance of the bill.

Those who want to immigrate to Quebec and Canada, whether we are talking about refugees, economic immigrants, immigrants in the family reunification category, or people who come on humanitarian or other grounds, are often overwhelmed and not sure what to do next. They are unfamiliar with our laws and are a bit distressed by the red tape. We can relate because we cannot keep up with all the bureaucracy, requirements and regulations either. It is hard for us to keep track of our rights. Imagine what it is like for an immigrant.

There is a real and legitimate concern and many of these people seek advice on the immigration application process. The advice they are given is extremely important because it can have a significant impact on the ruling to be made and on the rest of their lives. During this process, many decide to deal with lawyers or notaries. That is what I always recommend when people knock on the door of my riding office.

However, others seek advice and representation from an immigration consultant. The problem is that, unlike notaries or lawyers, immigration consultants are not really regulated. The regulatory body for these consultants, the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, does not work at all; it is a colossal failure. This agency has serious governance problems and is run by people who commit flagrant abuses. They take liberties and do not administer the agency in the interest of its members or the general public. In my opinion, the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants has to be abolished. It is beyond repair because it is fundamentally tainted by personal interests to the detriment of its members and the general public. I hope the minister will see it that way when he designates an agency.

A new organization must therefore be created that will better regulate the occupation. Let us hope that, with the new act, this organization will not encounter the same type of internal management problems and that it will have a much broader sphere of activity. Rather than controlling the relationship between the consultant and the government only from the day the application is filed to the day the application is ultimately accepted or rejected, the new act will cover the entire relationship between the consultant and the client or in other words, from the moment a client contacts a consultant or a consultant offers a potential client his or her services. This is a real improvement. However, the organization designated by the minister must do its work correctly and separate the wheat from the chaff.

We have to admit that there are some good immigration consultants; however, there are others who do not do their work properly at all. When touring the country, we were told that some consultants were abusing their ethnic proximity a little or even a lot. Someone immigrates to a new country where they do not know the system and do not know whom to trust, and then they meet someone from the same ethnic group who has successfully immigrated to Canada. Human nature being what it is, they might have a tendency to trust that person more than someone else.

Many crooked consultants—that is how the minister referred to them at the beginning—will abuse this trust. Sometimes these people do not know French or English, nor do they know the laws. People may pay a consultant thousands of dollars and that consultant will not even bother to submit their applications. They wonder why they have not heard anything, so they call the constituency office or the department only to be told that their application was never received and no one has ever heard of it. It can take years before they figure this out. There was a similar story on the news yesterday morning: a lady paid thousands of dollars but her application was likely never submitted.

We have taken a step forward. The House can pass laws, but it does not create the regulations. It is not the House that ultimately does the selection. The minister's role in that regard is very important. He must make wise choices and not usurp the will of Parliament, as has happened in the past, particularly in terms of immigration. He must comply with legislation and ensure that there is finally a real regulator that lives up to that title. Competent people are needed in order to ensure that the immigration consultants in Quebec and Canada are competent.

I have one last aside. Throughout this process, I have insisted that we must ensure that immigration consultants in Quebec are familiar with the requirements of the Quebec immigration system, which has its particularities. There is an agreement between Canada and Quebec. This must be recognized. If there are two categories of immigration consultants in Quebec, people who are submitting an application will not know whether their consultant is able to advise them on all of the possible options or just those that fall under either federal or Quebec jurisdiction. I maintain that, in dealing with immigration issues, we must always remember that the situation in Quebec is different and requires special treatment.

I would like to repeat that there is a good deal of collaboration in this committee. If there are interesting bills, we will study them. I do want to share a little frustration that is not the fault of the committee members or our chair, but it is a result of parliamentary procedure, which seriously limits us with respect to amendment possibilities. We could have developed a better bill if we had had more latitude, as parliamentarians, to make amendments that would change the bill's scope and give it a better direction. That is a problem for all parliamentarians. I hope that we will be able to have a look at this issue in the near future.

In the meantime, overall, I think that the bill before us deserves the support of Parliament.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

Mr. Speaker, we all know that Canadians expect this Parliament to take tough and reasonable action to stop human smuggling syndicates from targeting this country and treating it like a doormat. That is why we brought forward Bill C-49, a strong but reasonable effort to stop the smuggling syndicates from targeting Canada.

The Liberals pretended they might be in favour of these measures prior to this week's byelections. However, as soon as those elections were behind them, they revealed their opposition to the crackdown on human smuggling and queue jumping. That is an irresponsible position.

We stand with the Canadian people and against the smugglers trying to—

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, certainly Bill C-49, our tough legislation to prevent human smugglers from abusing Canada's immigration system, gives us the tools we need to stop illegal smuggling boats. Longer detention will keep our streets safer. Preventing illegal immigrants from obtaining sponsoring relatives for five years reduces the incentive to queue jump. Finally, we will have the tools under our criminal law to pursue and punish the captain and crew.

We did it with Bill C-11, refugee reform legislation. We did it with Bill C-35, dealing with crooked immigration consultants. Let us work together to get this bill through the House.

Business of the House

[John Baird, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, before I respond to the hon. member's question, I want to say that at our House leaders meeting just two weeks ago, the government raised the issue of one of the Liberal members calling a minister of the Crown a “slime” five times.

The House leader for the Liberal Party is seeking to raise the decorum and the quality level of debate in this place. The member is a senior member of the Liberal shadow cabinet. Before I answer the normal Thursday question, I wonder if the member could update us on where we are on that.

The House leader of the official opposition has also been very passionate in wanting to reduce the amount of heckling in this place and yet we was rather egregiously heckling the Minister of Finance yesterday on Walkerton. I spoke with the member who represents that constituency and that community takes great offence at the continuing vilification of the name of their town. Maybe we will get that next week with the slime comment.

Today we will continue the opposition motion from the Bloc Québécois.

Friday we will debate Bill C-41, strengthening military justice, and Bill C-43, the RCMP labour modernization.

On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday of next week we will call Bill C-49, action on human smuggling; Bill C-47, sustaining Canada's economic recovery; Bill C-22, protecting children from online sexual exploitation; Bill C-29, safeguarding Canadians' personal information; Bill C-41, strengthening military justice; Bill C-43, the RCMP labour modernization; Bill C-54, child sexual offences; Bill C-33, safer railways act; Bill C-8, Canada-Jordan free trade agreement; and, Bill C-20, an action plan for the National Capital Commission.

Thursday will be an allotted day for our friends in the New Democratic Party.

Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs--20th Report

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order in response to a point of order raised earlier today by the hon. member for Joliette concerning the 20th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs presented to the House during this morning's routine proceedings.

The report contains a list of members for the legislative committee on Bill C-49. The hon. member pointed out that an internal proceeding of the committee had not been respected prior to the tabling of the report.

The routine motion of the committee has delegated to the four whips the authority to act as the striking committee pursuant to Standing Orders 104, 113 and 114 and authorizes them to present directly to the chair, in a report signed by all four whips and their representatives, their unanimous recommendations for the presentation to the House on behalf of the committee.

Prior to this morning's tabling, all four whips had signed off on their own individual list but had not signed off on the report as a whole.

I can confirm that all four whips agreed to and signed off on the content of the report that I presented earlier today. Consequently, I would seek the unanimous consent of the House to present a copy of the report signed by all four whips and to substitute this copy for the one presented earlier today.