Public Safety Committee on Nov. 5th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

I'll just wait.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

It takes some of us longer than others, Mr. Chair. I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

The chair understands that, personally.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Now we have amendment PV-2.

Ms. May, you have a short while.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I want to apologize for missing the tabling of my first amendment. I had one of those awful moments of having to decide which thing is more important. I was on the floor of the House and had the opportunity to join other leaders in paying homage to our veterans and making Remembrance Day statements, or I could.... I was hoping to be in two places at once. Every now and then that works, Mr. Chair, but today my powers failed me, and I chose to give the statement on our veterans.

But this legislation—and again, we're on clause 5 on page 8—is also very important to the Green Party, and with this amendment, Mr. Chair, I'm attempting to replace quite a lot of language with more succinct language.

Let me just say by way of prefacing this that it appears to me the government is attempting to do indirectly what it could not do directly, which the Supreme Court of Canada has said violates section 7 of the charter by preventing harm reduction clinics such as InSite from operating.

These numerous conditions that begin on page 8 and run on and on and on until we get to page 12 are essentially creating a set of obstacles and hurdles designed to stop InSite centres from operating. So to replace all these things, which I believe are mischievous in their intent, I suggest language that will be familiar to people who have read the Supreme Court of Canada decision on the Vancouver area network of drug users and the Attorney General and Minister of Health and so on. In the Attorney General v. PHS Community Services Society, the Supreme Court of Canada said on page 74 of the decision that discretion must be—

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Ms. May, you'll have to keep your comments brief. I would just encourage you to not carry on too much longer.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

I understand that the edict passed to me from all committees allows me time to present my amendments. I won't be too long but I just wanted to—

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Actually you are wrong.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

I'm wrong?

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

You are wrong.

I will read the section here for you very briefly.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Of course, the entire purpose of the motion passed by this committee was to circumscribe my rights at report stage, which is offensive at that level.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

You do not have the floor. Wait one second, please.

To give you an indication, the chair will just read the orders of reference respecting bills:

During the clause-by-clause consideration of a bill, the Chair shall allow a Member who filed suggested amendments, pursuant to paragraph (a), an opportunity to make brief representations in support of them.

The members of the committee have been allocated up to 5 minutes per clause, but that is for full sitting members. The chair is obviously just trying to make a suggestion to fall within a reasonable parameter and reduce your time a bit, and the chair is flexible.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate your flexibility. I apologize if I have taken too long.

Let me just direct the committee to the fact that the language I've used and proposed for this amendment is exactly the language recommended to us by the Supreme Court of Canada, and it's found at page 74 of the Supreme Court of Canada decision, as follows:

The factors considered in making the decision on an exemption must include evidence, if any, on the impact of such a facility on crime rates, the local conditions indicating a need for such a supervised injection site, the regulatory structure in place to support facility, the resources available to support its maintenance, and expressions of community support or opposition.

That is now reduced in language to something that fits the bill, and it will allow this legislation to be compliant with the charter.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Ms. May.

Ms. Ablonczy.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

With the greatest respect to my colleague, Mr. Chair, it's not within the ambit of the court to write legislation. It's very clear that this section encompasses all of the areas that the court pointed out should be considered but in language that is more complete and that allows for the complexity of the issues that the minister must consider. So I don't agree with the argument that somehow we have to use the court's language. That would be entirely inappropriate, and any suggestion that doing so would be appropriate would embarrass the court.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much.

Yes, Mr. Garrison.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

We will be supporting this amendment, because of course nothing prevents us from adopting language used in a decision by the court.

I would also like to say—Ms. May might not be aware of it—that this committee is under very severe time constraints in dealing with this bill. Each party has been allocated 5 minutes for each clause. We are working to a very strict timeline here.

We will be supporting your amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Mr. Garrison.

Is there further comment?

Yes, Ms. Fry.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thank you.

I like the first part of this amendment, but I think the other components of the amendment dilute a whole lot of the strong language that we would like to see in the amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

We have another NDP motion, I do believe from off the floor.

Mr. Garrison, perhaps you would make arrangement to pass some copies around.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Chair, we did submit copies in advance of this motion.

The amendment suggests a change to lines 11 to 15 of clause 5 on page 8. In the interest of time, since it is being distributed, I won't read the entire paragraph to the committee at this time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much.

Any comments?

Ms. Davies.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I'll be super brief, as I'm very aware that we still have many amendments under clause 5 and the clock is ticking on our 5 minutes.

This particular amendment would ensure that the minister makes a decision within a reasonable time period. I think that's very important. It would also remove the barrier that the minister doesn't necessarily have to consider all of the 26 items. The way it's written now, they all have to be in. This gives the minister some discretion, and we think that's important to do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much.

Are there further comments?

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

I have a memo from the clerk with regard to the time remaining. As we only have up to 5 minutes on each one, the Conservative Party has one minute and 20 seconds left to speak; the NDP has one minute; and the Liberal Party has three minutes and 15 seconds. That's what is left of your five-minute time allotment to speak on this, as has been calculated by the chair.

We will now go to amendment PV-3, put forward by the Green Party.

Ms. May, you have the floor.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Chair, can I seek clarification? When I speak, do I take time away from all my other colleagues around the table?

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

No, you do not.