Justice Committee on Nov. 17th, 2011

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

So this is what it comes to: we need ad hominem arguments, because the other ones, which are directed at the issue at hand, don't seem to find favour because they obviously reach a sore point.

When I talk about the evidence we heard, what I'm talking about is that if the government were so confident that its opinion and its proposals were the right ones, then you would think they would welcome an opportunity to respond to the suggestions of Professor Bala, for example.

Don't think, Mr. Chair, with all due respect—and I'm trying to keep on point, and I've been, as I say, trying to keep on point for some 20 years in parliaments, and I have a little experience in how the relevancy rule works, so forgive me if it might take a little time to get around to showing how it is relevant....

The relevance clearly is that when expert evidence such as we have heard is brought forward, surely the government would want to say why it is that they disagree with such an eminent person and show either who their expert is or say why, even though he has expertise, they disagree. That's the kind of debate that I think we expect to see happen. And that's why we're objecting to the government's apparent desire not to have debate beyond the confines of the clock of November 17, with no notice to anybody about this event.

We have a very difficult problem before us. We have a government that is arrogant about its role and doesn't seem to be able to get it: that having a majority means never having to worry about being tossed out by a surprise vote in the House of Commons.

You have a majority. You can relax; you can spend a couple of days debating matters that you seem very convinced of; you can listen to reasoned opposition and offer your own point of view. That's all we would expect from a government. We don't expect you to adopt every one of our amendments. We'd like you to, but we don't expect you to.

We expect you to listen to them with respect. We expect you to consider them seriously, and we would hope that you would adopt some of them that are either improvements to the bill because you haven't thought of those things or because you are willing to consider new ideas. That's not a bad thing. Oppositions have good ideas; they're not just the bailiwick of government. We would expect that some of them would be considered. Some of them might be modified. Some of the arguments might actually get you to change your mind.

That's what we would hope to have happen: that a mature, responsible, reasonable government would be willing to accept that type of debate. But this government doesn't even want to have it happen, let alone show a willingness to be flexible about possibly improving the legislation.

That's why we're debating this now and that's why we are forced to continue to do it.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

Mr. Jacob, you're signed in now.

But Mr. Cotler has returned, and he's the permanent member. He came in and asked that his name be added to the list.

You would be out, then, Mr. Lamoureux. And I think your staff had you sign back in.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

So am I not signed in currently?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

You're signed in now, but if you want to be put on the list, you go to the end, because Mr. Cotler, the permanent member, came in and sat down.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

On a point of order, then, Mr. Chair, unfortunately Mr. Cotler had hoped that he would have the opportunity to add some input on the issue. Once he realized that the former member was going to continue—we didn't expect him to go quite an hour—he had to leave.

I haven't left my seat. I realize the technicality, but I'm wondering whether there would be leave of the committee to allow—

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

I'm sorry. If he hadn't come in, sir, you would have been next on the list, but he came in. I think your staff member has rightly signed you back in.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Okay. So I'm at what place on the list now?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

There are three before you: Ms. Borg, Mr. Jacob, and Ms. Boivin.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Okay.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Actually, we are so democratic on this side that we have no problem with changing the order, so you can let--

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

You can't change the order, but if you want to take your names off the list, that's your choice.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

That's good. I will take my name off.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Okay.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Thank you.

I thank the New Democratic members for allowing me to address the committee at this point.

Mr. Chairperson, I've had the opportunity to observe for the last little while the proceedings that have taken place here. I've had the opportunity to be able to get a sense in terms of what is actually taking place, and it would be nice to see it resolved in some fashion or another.

I recognize at the beginning that filibuster is a tactic. I've seen it used by all political parties at different levels. It usually occurs when there is something happening that just isn't quite right. I would suggest to you, Mr. Chairperson, that there are some very serious issues before us today.

I was very disappointed in the sense that I believe Mr. Cotler, the Liberal Party critic, was quite eager to continue today in going on with the clause-by-clause. I know that from the discussions, as he keeps our caucus quite up to date on what's taking place on this very important bill, and it has been an important bill and has been talked about a great deal.

It is a bill that has had a lot of issues surrounding it, but we have talked a great deal about it within our caucus, and we feel there is a need to ensure that there would be a thorough discussion once it got to the clause-by-clause portion of committee. I would have expected that Mr. Cotler would have been afforded the opportunity, as the Liberal Party critic, to be able to go through each clause and to assess them for what they are.

Before I get into the actual motion that has been suggested, I know that there has been some sensitivity in terms of the issue of relevancy in debating the motion, Mr. Chair--

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

It is the motion we're debating and that's--

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

That's the reason I will go with what the motion actually says. The motion in essence is saying that the debate on clause-by-clause will end tonight. If this motion were to pass, the bill itself will have passed through the clause-by-clause debate. The government, in its wisdom, has made that decision. Mr. Chairperson, it's put very restrictive limitations on how long a person can actually talk on a clause or put forward questions or ideas, or even the potential of amendments.

It's interesting, the government is suggesting that no matter what the clause is, it all warrants the same amount of time. I would suggest to you that some clauses in the bill would likely pass relatively quickly. Other clauses would not.

I want to make reference to one witness who highlighted that particular point. I think it's worth reading what this witness said, Mr. Chairperson. This was by Ms. Kathy Vandergrift. It's noteworthy that she was the chair of the board of directors of the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children, a fairly significant stakeholder, I would suggest to you, Mr. Chairperson. No doubt you'll find that many stakeholders out there, prior to making presentations, may have had the opportunity to consult with a wide variety of people—other stakeholders, lay people, individuals they're in contact with on a day-in, day-out basis. In her presentation, there's one part that I want to read. It states that:

We would like to offer the following suggestions based on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Canada ratified in 1991. First of all, we express support for improved protection of children from sexual exploitation in part 2. Secondly, we suggest that you remove part 4 from the omnibus bill and take no further action on it until all members of Parliament are fully informed about the ways in which these changes fulfill or violate Canada's obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

I would suggest to you, Mr. Chairperson, that this particular presenter is saying that in this bill there are some clauses that deserve passage. If you follow her recommendation on part 4, some clauses are going to be a lot more controversial. So if you really think about it, to apply one rule would have an impact on both types of clauses—one that needs to have healthy debate, and I would suggest to you warrants healthy debate. We should not be taking actions to limit that debate. That's really what this motion actually does, Mr. Chairperson. It does limit debate. Contrast that to, as I said, some motions that require very little debate.

So I do have a problem with that, Mr. Chairperson. You always have to put things into perspective. Bill C-10 is indeed a unique bill. The process that has led us to this point has been most interesting. There have been many variations of this bill in the past. They have been brought into one bill, the bill we have before us now. This bill itself has in excess of over 100 clauses. If you take a look at the bill, it's very comprehensive and has an impact on a number of pieces of legislation. I cannot imagine how this bill could actually pass out of committee in a few hours, if in fact you go clause by clause.

We have a system wherein we like to think there's a sense of respect, where we try to accommodate.

Our critic would have been told, for example, that we're continuing with the clause-by-clause this morning, and at the beginning he had anticipated that it would be a two-hour type of meeting, that there would be a lot of dialogue, and then eventually the bill would pass, even though there wasn't that much notice. To be told that everything that you have done or any other appointments that you may have today have to be pushed to the side because the government has made the decision that it wants this bill to pass today...a couple of things come to my mind when I hear that, Mr. Chairperson.

First and foremost, where did that instruction come from? Where did it originate? That's one concern I would have. The other concern I would have is in regard to the whole idea of the sense of fairness to our critics. We have to respect that critics, members of Parliament, and ministers all have agendas and obligations they have to meet. You'll find quite often—more often than not—that they will bend, that they will try to fit their agenda to accommodate committees, because we recognize how important our committee hearings are; we recognize how important it is to continue to have dialogue and to be constructive wherever we can in terms of trying to make change.

So it would have been advisable for the government to have entered into some discussion as to what their intent was when we came into committee first thing this morning. I think it was a huge mistake for the government not to have done that. It's a simple courtesy that could have very easily been extended and would have allowed for, whether it's the Liberal critic or the NDP critic, the opportunity to be able to discuss it amongst their caucuses and see if in fact this is something that is doable. And if it's not, then allow the critics and the appropriate members, or possibly the House leaders, to sit down.

Filibusters often will happen because of the inability of ministers, critics, House leaders, even to a certain degree party whips, to reach an agreement. I've had, as I say, the opportunity, like my colleague from the New Democratic Party, to have come from a provincial legislature. I was there for over 18 years. It was always in opposition, unfortunately, but the point is that I do have some experience in terms of how a House operates. I've had the opportunity to be a House leader for many of those years. I understand why it's so important...if you want to have an effective, efficient system, a system that works, you have to have negotiations. There have to be discussions. If those negotiations are not taking place, you are setting yourself up for failure. And you will fail. Even with a majority government, you will fail.

I can recall when another majority government felt that they could do whatever they wanted, and attempted to walk over the opposition. At the end of the day, they were not able to pass a series of bills, Mr. Chairman, and it's because they did not work with the opposition in order to be able to try to get some things done.

So what happens now is that we have a committee, and inside the committee a motion that has been brought down. I don't think any member from the Conservative Party who has actually attended the committee so far today had anything to do with the creation of this particular idea to bring down this motion. I would suggest to you, Mr. Chairperson, that this particular motion came from either the minister or, I would suggest to you, from the PMO.

I believe this is something in which there's this new-found belief that they are the majority and the opposition had better respect it, and if they don't respect it, who cares, they're getting what they want.

They've made the decision that they're going to push Bill C-10 through the system as quickly as possible, and they have not respected the needs and the desires of members of Parliament on the opposition benches. Instead, they believe they have the mandate to do what they're actually doing, Mr. Chairperson.

I suspect it might be some pent-up resentment towards opposition parties from the years of being in a minority situation. If the office of the Prime Minister would seriously look at the consequences of what they're asking members of this committee to do.... I would suggest to you that it was a bad idea. If in fact there would have been any sort of gesture of good faith, or goodwill, to work with opposition critics, we wouldn't be going through what we're going through right now, Mr. Chairperson.

At the end of the day, I believe that it is important to do this. Because you see, Mr. Chairperson, if you don't do things of this nature and you allow the government, whether it's in committee or it's in the House, to walk over opposition members and their rights to be able to speak and address issues, it will get worse. That's the reason why...here we are, we're not even six months, seven months, into this majority government, and look at the types of actions we have seen. If the opposition does not say stop, let's look at what the government is attempting to do, and start to say that it's just not right and take a position, our rights will continue to be walked on. That's the way I see this issue.

I see this issue as the government having this new-found mentality that they're a majority government and they don't care what the opposition has to say on legislation or the budget, and they have a right to bring in motions of this nature. And they have majorities on every committee, so they'll instruct their members to move, in this case, this particular motion, which limits the ability for a clause-by-clause debate.

Mr. Chair, I think it's a fine line. I was inside the chamber and my colleague from the New Democrats made reference to Bill C-10 once it was in second reading. Remember Bill C-10 at second reading? There was a time allocation also moved on the bill. Well, I'm not a prophet, but I suspect that the government will likely move time allocation once it gets back, Mr. Chairperson.

Why? Well, because in their mind, they can do it. They have the majority. They don't really care. A good example, Mr. Chairperson, is a motion that was introduced just the other day in the House, where the government moved to adjourn debate and force the vote, and there wasn't even one other member of the opposition allowed to speak on the motion. That's in essence what we're getting into here.

We're talking about the ability for members of Parliament to be able to go through a process that's fair, that allows them to be able to ask the questions they want to ask, and that allows them to bring forward amendments that they believe are necessary, Mr. Chairperson. I think the government would do so much better if it would just acknowledge the need to withdraw their motion in hopes that we could get on to the clause-by-clause.

That's the best thing the government could do today. If it withdrew the motion right now, we would go right into the clause-by-clause discussions, and if it means we're here Tuesday and Thursday...I don't think there's any intention by anyone to see this bill go past Thursday. I don't think so. I don't know that 100%, but let's at least allow the clause-by-clause to go without restrictions.

This way, on those clauses of great substance, the opposition is afforded the opportunity to make the amendments it needs to make and it is afforded the opportunity to debate.

I get this feeling, Mr. Chairperson, that I'm going to get other opportunities to speak, so I'll just leave it at that for now, as I will listen to others. I have to go to another room, but I will listen to be able to contribute, if in fact it continues on this particular motion.

I would suggest that we not pass this motion. I look to other members of the committee to try to ensure that this motion does not pass. I hope to be able to continue on the debate on the motion as the evening goes on, or ideally, hopefully, the government will see the wisdom of withdrawing the motion so that we can get on to the debate and questions and answers on the clause-by-clause. And in due course—the government shouldn't fear—the bill will in fact pass, Mr. Chairman, out of committee. Hopefully calmer heads will prevail.

I will continue my remarks a little later in the evening. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Thank you, Mr. Lamoureux.

Madame Boivin.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I had started to talk a bit about that this morning. Since then, a lot has happened. I had to slip out, my apologies. So I had to miss some very interesting comments by my colleagues here in this room, since I had to take part in a meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

Since my election last May 2, the government has regularly said in the House that we elected a strong, stable, majority government. However, I have never seen a government act so much as though it were weak and on the verge of falling. We have a law that requires that elections be held every four years. So there's no immediate danger for the government. However, it acts as though it was terrified at the thought of hearing arguments from the opposition party because they're not like its own.

This morning, when I was attending the meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, I listened to members of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, who had come to express their views on the abolition of the Canadian Firearms Registry. They clearly said to parliamentarians in general, and the government in particular, that we cannot on the one hand listen to them when they appear before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights and, on the other, not listen to them when they appear before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. They have the feeling that what they're saying in one place is true for the government and what they say elsewhere suddenly doesn't make any sense in the eyes and ears of this same government.

We've heard so many things, so many witnesses, but I'd still like to hear more. Even though the process imposed by our Conservative colleagues has limited the number of witnesses and also the duration of the hearings, I was nevertheless a bit optimistic on Tuesday when I saw how the committee, including the Conservatives, was working extremely seriously on the clause-by-clause consideration. I also felt confident because the experts from the Department of Justice had come to help the clause-by-clause consideration, in case we had technical or other questions.

It has often been said, but I'm not sure that my Conservative colleagues quite get it: there are actually nine bills included in this single omnibus bill. Each of these bills is an area of specialization in itself. I don't know many people who do law pertaining to young offenders and who are also experts in law pertaining to international terrorism, for instance. These are different areas of expertise, each of which has a broad scope. The legal experts around the table -- there are some in all the parties -- know how much a word, or perhaps a poor translation, can change everything.

Furthermore, the Minister of Justice of Quebec presented, on November 15, a letter addressed to the Chairman of our committee to draw attention to three amendments. These amendments were not at all dramatic. In fact, the government party and the parties of the opposition may not agree on the concept of long-term protection of the public, but it would have been worth the trouble to have this debate during clause-by-clause consideration of this omnibus bill. For example, they wanted to replace the verb "encourage" with the verb "promote." Sometimes it's interesting to have the time to take advantage of the skills of our experts, who were here and who must listen to us with great interest and great enthusiasm.

So I was reasonably optimistic last Tuesday, even though I would have liked to hear more from the witnesses and have more time than I was given to ask them questions and sometimes even force them to get right to the bottom of their way of looking at things, regardless of their position. Everyone's ultimate aim should be to have the best bill possible. When the committee reports on it and sends it back to the House for its next reading, it should go beyond simply saying that we are, for example, seven conservatives and that, on behalf of those seven members, we accept, adopt or reject the amendments or clauses.

I get the impression that it's just plain and simple pure mathematics. Even though this is a bill that is so fundamental, that affects so many areas of expertise, that will have direct consequences on the lives of all Canadians, in terms of the judicial system, diplomacy, young offenders or even political relations between the Quebec nation and the federal Parliament, for example.

Before coming back here, I took part in a program. I was listening to representatives of the opposition in Quebec talk about urgency, in light of the forced decision towards which our committee is heading, that is, the acceleration of the process of the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill. However, on November 15, we received a letter from the Minister of Justice. It seems to me that decency, if we're talking about open federalism -- and I have always heard the Prime Minister talk about open federalism -- would have been at least to give some attention to these proposals. We could have taken some time, for instance, over the young offenders amendment, since it is designed to make sure that can rely on it before starting to publish the names of young offenders. These are only some examples, but all that is part of the process. We're creating something useless whereas the members of the committee were doing a serious job.

Regardless of the Conservative promise during the election campaign, no time limit was set for this committee. When our work began, no one said that the committee had to complete clause-by-clause consideration by a given date.

This was, however, announced to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security in the case of the Canadian Firearms Registry. It was announced that there was a target date, the number of witnesses was set and we knew when we were beginning clause-by-clause consideration. This enables the parties attending, the parliamentarians who want to do a serious job, to prepare themselves accordingly.

Here, the decision came out of the blue, brutally, this morning when we were preparing to continue this serious work, unless this decision was dictated somewhere else. Still, if my colleagues are honest for two seconds, they will admit, like me, that serious work has nevertheless taken place.

Of course, there were the clauses on terrorism, the law that deals with various aspects of terrorism and the victims of terrorist acts. We had in Mr. Cotler someone who has been studying this issue for a long time and who tried to share with the committee his great expertise on the issue to make the bill even better by demonstrating greater caution so as to avoid challenges.

Dear colleagues, you who are listening attentively to this speech, know that I had a labour law practice mainly concerned with the negotiation of collective agreements. I always told people that my dream, in each of the files, was to make sure that my clients, be it management, which I represented more often, or the union, would need me as infrequently as possible, once my work was done. Why? Because that meant that we had done our work as creators and designers of clauses in their collective agreements. If we did our work properly, achieving the goals set and drafting the whole thing in comprehensible language, we ran less risk of having to appear before tribunals for grievances and so on.

It's the same concept here. We end up having to swallow our frustration as the official opposition, which gets to spend so little time questioning witnesses. I admit that this is what I miss the most in this exercise. Time limits were imposed on us and we heard witnesses who were cut off right in mid-sentence, because their five minutes was up. This doesn't make it possible to seek the truth, the reality, and to question them so as to bring out their contradictions or their convictions.

This bill includes a lot of technical aspects and terms that are not necessarily familiar to the large majority of people around the table, because this is not a language they are accustomed to using.

I think that, in all decency, when we stand in the House to vote for or against the bill in its final stage, we should feel that this exercise has been completed as knowledgeably as possible. This was the objective I had in mind when we started. I'm going to vote knowing full well what I'm doing. I am comfortable voting as I will. However, I can't confirm to the people of Gatineau, who gave me 62% of the vote, that the committee will be able, with this exercise, to vote knowledgeably or that it is convinced it is offering the Canadian population a bill that will resolve problems. Rather I have the impression that, with this way of preventing us from hearing what the parties may have had to tell us, we are going to give the population a bill that is going to cause even more problems, by bypassing democracy.

I think this is a funny coincidence. It's even kind of special to note that the Minister of Justice of Quebec wrote to the chairman of our committee on November 15 and that, the morning of November 17, a motion was passed to ensure that our analysis would end, even though we'd only got to clause 6 or 7, and that, by following the order, there was a good chance we wouldn't get to any questions that the government might feel uncomfortable dealing with.

As I heard while I was being interviewed, this is the message Quebec got: even though we had the minister come here to appear before our committee, he didn't get the time he needed to express his views. He thought our approach was a bit strange -- I'm putting words in his mouth, but one thing is certain, he was a bit surprised by the process. Because at the National Assembly they have a bit more respect for the witnesses that come to appear before their parliamentary committees. They actually have a chance to express their views. Here, we pay to have a witness come -- expenses are approved to bring him here – but we only let him talk for five minutes. I'm really looking forward to seeing the next budgets submitted by some of the Conservative committee chairmen.

The Minister of Justice of Quebec comes here and takes the time, with his experts, to provide not 150, but three amendments, including one to replace the verb "encourage" by the verb "promote." In my opinion, we wouldn't have needed 200 hours of debate to determine whether that was useful or to find a way to enable at least some youth courts to protect the identity of youths who maybe don't deserve to have their criminal offences made known forever or to be branded as criminals for the rest of their days. This could be very injurious and very harmful, especially in view of the absolutely phenomenal success rate on this issue in Quebec.

I don't claim to be Quebec's spokesperson, but you should know that the word is that this is an insult. It is certainly an insult that is harmful to relations between the provinces and the federal government. If that's how people with whom we want to work on building an open federalism are treated, I wouldn't want to see how people we don't want to work with were treated.

The Minister of Public Security of Quebec said so this morning. He was asked, in committee, whether he thought there was still a chance to prevent the abolition of the firearms registry and its data. Being the great diplomat that he is, but not knowing perhaps what was going on here, at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, he said he was still hopeful. I found him to be very optimistic, considering the past and what we've been seeing now for some time within the various committees, and not just this one.

It was quite a surprise this morning. Not only that, it should have been our chance to get down to work and consider all the amendments proposed. From the documents conveyed by the clerk, I could see that, after clause 9, we could gone directly to a vote on clauses 10 to 33 since there have been no requests for amendments to them. Then, for clause 34, a few amendments were suggested. After that, we could have dealt with clauses 35 to 38, and so on for the entire bill.

Some will say that all this time we're taking today could be used to wind up work on this bill. But that's not the point. At 8:30 a.m., before we even felt there would be some attempt at obstruction, our Conservative colleagues presented the motion, probably saying to themselves, that the first two hours spent on this bill would be two hours of systematic obstruction. I protest if this is the message they wanted to send us this morning. We've been told today that Mr. Cotler, a member of the Canadian Parliament and a former Minister of Justice, a leader in human rights, submitted his amendments with a view to obstructing. We're accused of submitting our amendments with a view to being obstructionist. But these are amendments that we believe are good and on which we'll express our views, on which we'll vote for or against, and the majority will carry the vote. I would like to find a way to convince you of the merits of some of the amendments we've proposed for some clauses. To my mind, they would achieve the same ends you are seeking and they would be expressed a little better.

There's sometimes something to be gained from having two pairs of eyes look at a text. Sometimes it's good to have people look at it who haven't had their noses stuck on the pages. They can spot small mistakes, like when the Government of Quebec suggested changing one word: from "encourage" to "promote." As it is, it's obvious we're having the rug pulled out from under our feet and democracy is being hindered.

Of course, this is a majority government. Still, as I'll keep repeating, it is a majority government thanks to our first-past-the-post parliamentary system. In my case, I feel comfortable because I represent 62% of the population in my riding. If I were in the shoes of those Conservatives who won a majority with 39% of the votes, I'd sometimes be embarrassed to claim I'd been elected by such a large majority. Some, who pride themselves on statistics, which really are not all that flattering to them, may be less easily embarrassed than I am. In any case, the government should at least agree that democracy must be allowed to work freely.

This isn't the first time this has happened. According to figures I've received from the New Democratic Party research team, this exercise, which consists of proposing a closure motion, has already occurred nine times, Mr. Chairman, and seven times since our return in the fall. To anyone who's listening, I say shame on the majority Conservative government, which should not be afraid of the results of democratic votes on clauses.

Everyone's asking what the rush is. On Tuesday I'd started talking to you about an article. The Barreau du Québec as a whole is opposed to bill C-10. I want this to be clear: it's not the entire bill C-10 that is problematic, but some parts of it which, let it be said in passing, have never been examined by the committee before. It seems to me that this is yet another reason why we should consider it seriously. We are members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. This isn't some ramshackle committee that adopts any old thing, saying to itself that the judges... Furthermore, we know that the Conservatives don't think very much of them and want to strip them of certain powers regarding the imposition of punishments. Regardless, we should at least make sure that we won't have to appear in court all the time.

Bodies as serious as the Canadian Bar Association and the Barreau du Québec, legal experts on all sides, whether Crown prosecutors, defence counsel, university professors or anyone else taking an interest in justice in this fine country, are telling us to pay attention and are suggesting some amendments to us. Where do you think we get our amendments? Do you think we got up one morning and they fell to us from the sky? Our amendments are based on certain problems raised by certain experts and on the experience of certain provinces. You may find it amusing to describe my province as being soft on crime, but with all due respect, it's still the province with not only the lowest crime rate, but also the lowest rate of recidivism. We don't have any lessons to be learned from anyone in this regard. On the contrary, it might be worth listening to what these people have to say to us and listening to them for a bit more than exactly five minutes, including questions. This exercise is so short-circuited. It is not worthy of this arena.

I mentioned this at the meeting of the other committee and I'm going to say it again: I am privileged to have with me today a young lady, a young student from McGill University. I'm not talking about my colleague, the member, who does her university credit, but another young woman who may walk in her footsteps. Her name is Chloe Silvestreet and she has had the misfortune of visiting Canada's Parliament today.

Well, shame on us parliamentarians.

Actually, I am extremely embarrassed to see that she has come to spend her day in Parliament as part of the program Women in Parliament for one of the greatest moments of perversion of democracy I've ever had to witness. I thought I'd finished seeing the government forcing people back to work, withdrawing the right to strike and the right to lock-out by imposing collective agreements. I thought I'd seen it all in June, but no, far from it. This poor Chloe, who has come today to shadow me throughout my workday, finds out that she will be with me until 11:59 p.m. at least. Well done!

Still, that's not the issue, because the time doesn't matter. The content is what counts. This is not edifying. This is the side that this Parliament chooses to show its taxpayers, its electors and its citizens. We're showing that, when the government is tired of debating or that it doesn't want any debates, it simply takes off. What's next? Are we going to prorogue Parliament when we've had enough of defending ourselves, when we get tired? It's so tiring, isn't it, to have people who don't think like us? It's very tiresome.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, Delta—Richmond East, BC]

I have a point of order.

We're getting way off topic here. We've gone from everything--

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

I'm directly on the motion, colleague. I'm not even getting into deep content.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, Delta—Richmond East, BC]

We're hearing about students from McGill. I also had a student from McGill shadowing me today. This is the work of women in the House. It is the work we are here to do, whether we are men or women, and this is part of it.

We're hearing about collective agreements. Let's stick to the motion, please.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

I will address her point of order, because I think it's totally out of order for one reason and one reason only. When you talk about something and you are talking about a process that has been decided by the government

by means of the motion presented by Mr. Goguen this morning, we are certainly entitled to give some examples that apply to this same sort of situation. What I am not doing, and which would be so tempting and much more pleasant, is dealing with the content of the bill.

Still, I have so much to say about the process. Talking about people from McGill University who are here, who are shadowing us and seeing this process at work, is certainly entirely relevant. I want to talk to you about the people in Gatineau who have written me all day to say that this is horrible. My colleague cannot even object to that by invoking the Rules.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

On the motion, I listened to a good part of your debate. But the debate is on the motion, and I was a little concerned when you talked about all the other ancillary things. So let's keep to the motion.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

What is the motion, Mr. Chair? The motion is about finishing debate at 11:59. It's removing the right to discuss, amend, and debate. So anything that touches those concepts is about the motion we are discussing. I don't know if somebody talked about it today, because I had to step out to talk about another big file from the Conservatives that is also being rushed in, namely, the gun registry. But I remember a certain Prime Minister who went against all these types of motions. I will get out of this room at some time in the near future—before my death, I hope. I want to do something more pleasurable. But I will always wonder how the Prime Minister in 1996 could dismiss this same type of motion as undemocratic.

This is a weapon used by a government that was so afraid of listening to the opposition. I can't wait to hear the explanations they're going to give us, from the other side.

If Mr. Goguen had made this sort of motion two weeks from now, it might have been different. A little earlier today, my colleague Mr. Harris mentioned that there were five weeks left until the holiday recess. So there remained a certain number of days, Tuesdays and Thursdays, to discuss the amendments being considered. So, in the four weeks remaining to us, including today, it would surely have been possible for the committee to complete its clause-by-clause consideration of bill C-10.

But no, that's not what we did. What did we do at the first opportunity? We didn't even take the time to hold two, three or four sessions. If we'd held three or four sessions and seen that we were still only on clause 8, I might have understood. I can understand what Mr. Jean said Tuesday. I admit having been a little concerned at one point, given the way things were going. But sometimes we have to get to the bottom of these issues.

Afterwards, as I said earlier, long series of clauses could have been adopted without any proposals to amend them. You can see, like me, from the documents tabled by the clerk. They could have been quickly put to a vote. We might not have voted in favour of these clauses, but we could have quickly held votes on them.

But no, they didn't even wait until the official opposition and the third party were caught red-handed being obstructionist, by taking their time and exaggerating. Only two hours were spent studying a bill as complex as this one on the victims of terrorist acts.

The proposed amendments to this bill were, in large part, submitted by the second party of the opposition. I don't think that anyone on this committee will say that our colleague from Mount Royal is inclined to exaggerate or be obstructionist at every opportunity. I don't think at all that that was the raison d'être for Mr. Cotler's submissions. Nor was it the raison d'être of our amendment proposals. We wanted to make the bill on the victims of terrorist acts a surer thing so that it wouldn't be challenged in the courts and so that it would achieve the ends sought. In short, as one of my colleagues said so well on Tuesday, our amendments are designed to help the government have a better bill. It would have been interesting to hear what the experts then present around the table had to say on the matter.

At the earliest opportunity, what happened? We were faced with this motion, without the official opposition or another party in opposition even having voluntarily caused any delays. When I see that, I can't get over it. As a lawyer, I'm accustomed to establishing a conclusion based on the facts before me. My conclusion is the sole logical conclusion that comes to mind: the representatives of government, whether they're doing it of their own accord or are being urged to do so by their leader, do not want to hear any more arguments.

The meetings with the witnesses were rushed and then aborted so quickly that no one in the public could fully understand everything said in this connection. However that may be, if clause-by-clause consideration takes place as it did on Tuesday, we see some obvious weakness in some of the clauses. These weaknesses would have appeared quite clearly to intelligent people, which includes all the people around this table.

I doubt there is anyone on the Conservative side who worked on developing bill C-10 who is not familiar with the clauses in it. As I said earlier, it contains 208 clauses. There are clauses for which we could have found, all of us working together, what was wrong, in both French and English. Through discussion, we could have considerably improved this bill.

Obviously that would have been difficult, in view of the time allocated to us. No doubt these two sides of the House would certainly not have agreed on certain aspects of the bill, for example, regarding the Young Offenders Act, or young delinquents. That's fine, I accept that; that's democracy. It will allow us to ask voters in four years about which vision they prefer. It will be up to them to choose. When they've seen that it's possible to elect a majority government with only 39% of the vote, perhaps the 41% or so of the people who didn't turn out to vote will realize that their words and their votes count, as we liked telling them.

Parliamentarians are being deprived of their privileges. Perhaps it's not a question of privilege within the strict meaning of the term. Actually, I could complain that, in my riding, there are still placards on which the former MP is still displayed as such, but I don't. But it seems to me that this is even more frustrating. To tell the truth, it's not frustrating, but it hurts me a lot. I'm not the one affected. It's those who are brought to court who will be affected by this bill C-10, which won't have been thoroughly considered. If my colleagues demonstrated some intellectual honesty, they could not say that all the bills included in bill C-10 have been sufficiently considered so that, when the vote is taken, we could claim that we are voting knowledgeably and we could ensure Canadian citizens that we did our job as legislators.

The people from the Barreau du Québec said they were hesitant about some parts of bill C-10, be it the imposition of minimal punishments or other things. At the same time, they are in favour of other parts. In the end, what's important, as was written in the November issue of the Journal du Barreau du Québec, is that it isn't necessary to adopt this reform at this speed. Everyone says there's no rush. But we're being forced to rush. I think this is unfortunate, and I apologize to all Canadians, especially the people of Gatineau who elected me. I say to them that, unfortunately, it would seem they should remove the word "democracy" from their vocabulary for the next four years when they talk about the Canadian Parliament. This isn't the first time I've told my fellow citizens that MPs are being interrupted, and not allowed to express themselves and put forth their points of view.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That's all I have to say for now. I feel that I'm going to get warmed up again in no time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Thank you.