Finance Committee on Nov. 26th, 2014

[Tamara Rudge]

Yes.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Okay, thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

I will then move to a vote on, first of all, on Green Party amendment, PV-8.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Shall Green Party amendment, PV-9, carry?

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Shall clause 231 carry?

(Clause 231 agreed to on division)

Okay, I want to thank our officials for being here this evening. We appreciate that very much.

(On clauses 232 to 249 inclusive)

Colleagues, we'll move now to division 17, DNA Identification Act, clauses 232 to 249. We'll have our officials come to the table.

We'll go to Mr. Cullen for discussion.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

In general of course, and we've said this before, the establishment of a DNA data bank is something that we've called for, for a long time, as the New Democrats had. The question was raised by the Privacy Commissioner while I was here. I'm not sure if our government officials were aware of that testimony? You're nodding, yes. I wonder if you could give the committee some comment to the concerns that were raised by the commissioner?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Jorgensen, please.

[Sean Jorgensen, Director, Strategic Policy and Integration, Specialized Policing Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

As my understanding goes, the Privacy Commissioner raised two issues. One was potentially around criminal jeopardy for comparing the missing persons index against the crime scene index. The second one was in the context of the additional powers given to the RCMP to share information in an international context.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you for that summary. He had suggested and I'm not sure if this is possible.... Is it your opinion that through the administration of these changes and the creation of the DNA data bank that those protections can be made? His concern on the first was that the collection of DNA for one specific purpose on missing persons could then, if not shielded as it is in other parts of the act, transfer over to some kind of criminal investigation later on. As the act is designed now, does that concern remain or can it be done through the way that this particular DNA data bank has been implemented in law?

[Sean Jorgensen]

A number of measures have been put into the legislation to ensure that the indices are being properly used. One thing we want to point out is that just because you have a hit against the CSI does not suggest that someone is a criminal. They could be a victim. They could have been at the crime scene or they could have been the perpetrator. In the event that an investigator has suspicion that the matching will allow them to do the third portion, that is, to pursue an investigation on a criminal matter, there is a portion of the act where they would have to have reasonable grounds to suspect. There are a number of reasonable grounds to suspect where that profile would be of use to them in their criminal investigation, so there are a number of safeguards that have been built in.

If I may just address the international component, I would only note that we already work with our international partners on a case-by-case basis to compare crime scene profiles. That would continue into the missing persons index and the human remains index but I would note that it is up to the RCMP in both cases to, first of all, decide to make that comparison, and second of all, report anything out. So it is case by case. It's quite limited.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Good.

I have one last question, Chair, if I may.

Just the “reasonable grounds to suspect” portion, who makes that determination? Is that done within the RCMP or do they have to seek a judge's...? I'm not a lawyer, so forgive me for not knowing how the process might work.

[Sean Jorgensen]

In the first instance, the RCMP would provide the information for the humanitarian purpose; that is, to try to identify the missing person or to identify found human remains. If it goes into a criminal purpose, investigators wanting to pursue their criminal investigation, they would then, themselves, have to have the reasonable grounds to suspect. That would become part of their evidentiary package that would likely go to court and would be tested in court at that time.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I see. So it's when it hits that second stage that it would likely.... It's jurisprudence, this is what generally happens; it's not designed in the law as such.

[Sean Jorgensen]

There is a specific—

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

There is a specific.

[Sean Jorgensen]

—in the law that you would have reasonable grounds to suspect.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

That's reassuring. Thank you very much for this. Congratulations on your work.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

Colleagues, can I group clauses 232 to 249?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

(Clauses 232 to 249 inclusive agreed to)

We want to thank our officials very much for being here and clarifying that. It's very helpful.

We will now go to division 18, Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act.

(On clauses 250 and 251)

We have two clauses there, clauses 250 and 251.

Is there discussion on this?

I'll just wait for officials to sit down.

Welcome.

Mr. Caron, you have the floor.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Chair, I just want to go back to a point that will never be repeated often enough.

The provisions in division 18, dealing with amendments to the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, only actually serve to amend and rectify an error that occurred when this act was amended previously. This is an act that itself came from an omnibus bill.

Once again, it clearly shows the lack of rigour that results when huge and wide-ranging bills are studied. The way in which we are proceeding at the moment makes it impossible for us as a committee to study them adequately. We are not able to adequately study 460 pages of provisions and legislative amendments in what is supposed to be a budget bill.

Once again, division 18 shows that this bill is a result of this kind of poor governance. I believe that the point deserves to be raised again.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Merci, Monsieur Caron.

Is there further discussion?

I will call the votes then, on clauses 250 and 251.

(Clauses 250 and 251 agreed to)

Thank you, Ms. Pezzack.

(On clause 252)

We have division 19, clause 252.

Are there any comments on that before the officials come forward? There are comments, so we'll ask the officials to come forward to the table.

Mr. Caron, you have the floor.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

What a surprise, Mr. Chair!

Here we are dealing with the Social Security Tribunal of Canada and the way the tribunal was set up. How? With a new omnibus bill. In this case, they want to add members to the tribunal, which clearly was not designed in a way that made it possible to do the work that all the appeal organizations did beforehand, including the boards of referees. Now the situation has deteriorated to the point that more than 14,000 Canadians are waiting to be heard by this tribunal.

These are vulnerable Canadians, because we are talking about employment insurance in particular and old age security. In cases like that, people have little or no income. They are the elderly, the unemployed, the disabled. Instead of getting rid of the delays, as they should, the Conservatives have decided to save a nickel here and a dime there, which explains why 40% of the cases settled so far by the Social Security Tribunal of Canada did not even get a hearing.

With these provisions, the government is finally eliminating an arbitrary limit on the number of members of the tribunal. But the fact remains that, for 18 months, the Conservative government has not even appointed all the members it could have appointed under the current act. Adding members under this provision will not solve the entire problem. What are needed are better rules for the tribunal and, above all, a better process.

Because of all the delays that have occurred because of the Social Security Tribunal of Canada's poor structure and the fact that adding members will help fill that gap, we are going to vote in favour of this clause. We still deplore the way in which the tribunal was established and the negative impact that the amendments have had on all the appeal processes.

We will vote for this clause, but we still point out all the problems that creating this tribunal brought with it.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Hsu.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

We will be supporting this clause, but I just want to say to my constituents in Kingston and the Islands that this is fixing a problem that has caused delays for them over the last couple of years and hopefully this will fix it.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Shall clause 252 carry?

(Clause 252 agreed to)

(On clause 253)

We will go to division 20, Public Health Agency of Canada Act, clauses 253 to 260. We have a number of amendments to deal with in this division.

We want to welcome our official to the table. Thank you so much for being with us today.

We have clause 253, for which I do not have amendments, and then we have a series of amendments for the rest.

Mr. Rankin.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Chair, we had the benefit of hearing from the chief public health officer, Dr. Taylor, a very impressive individual.

The concerns that we have with it are not about the individual but about the structure of this entire division 20. We will be voting against it. We will be supporting the amendments proposed by Ms. May as well.

I come from British Columbia and our chief medical officer, Dr. Perry Kendall told the Senate Committee, “We [meaning the other provincial health officers] are actually unanimous in advising you not to proceed with this amendment.”

We've also heard concerns from Professor Hoffman who is from the Harvard School of Public Health and currently at the University of Ottawa. He said that the agency could have a bureaucrat as a manager without placing that person over the chief public health officer.

The act makes clear that the president is a bureaucrat and CEO, and deputy minister, but the chief public health officer is merely an “officer” subordinate to that official. The current incumbent obviously favours this arrangement. We think that as a structural matter, it's very problematic and we agree with Dr. Kendall and Professor Hoffman.

We also heard from Mr. Culbert, the executive director of the Canadian Public Health Association, who said:

...the chief public health officer will no longer have the authority to direct the resources of the agency either in an emergency situation or just in regular times

Mr. Chair, we're very concerned about the independence of this officer. We're very concerned about his or her ability to speak publicly. We note the way in which other scientific officials have been muzzled by the Conservative government.

We're very concerned about this and we will be voting against it in its entirety.