Public Safety Committee on Oct. 20th, 2016

[Rhoda Sollazzo, As an Individual]

Thank you.

My name is Rhoda Sollazzo, and I will be brief. Fortunately, a lot of the things I wanted to say have already been said.

The first thing I would like to talk about is actually the more meta issue of these consultations in general. I've been trying really hard to be engaged and to come to as many as I can. Even today while walking in, I learned from someone else about two that happened in Montreal that I didn't know about.

I did attend the electoral reform public consultation. I found out about that one because I asked my local MP to email me when it was happening. He did, but it was still very short notice. It was very hard to do.

I wonder why we couldn't maybe sign up for emails or something. I mean, this is the 21st century. That would be great.

I'm really curious to know how far in advance you know about the consultations, because I found out about this one, also quite luckily, a few days ago. I wonder if that's because they're hastily put together, which would be understandable, or if there's actually a possibility to get an email from the Government of Canada about it. That would be fantastic.

As for the actual topic at hand, I also am deeply troubled by Bill C-51, for a lot of the reasons that were given by William Ray and Mr. McSorley just now. I won't go into them again. Maybe I'll do my best to send a brief. When are those due?

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Right now on our website I think it says they're due October 28. However, I've been speaking to the clerk in the last couple of days about the thought that this needs to be extended. I have to take that to the committee, probably on Tuesday, to have the committee extend that deadline, but my intuition is that we need a little more time.

[Rhoda Sollazzo]

That's fantastic. Thank you.

I would like to go back to what I believe Mr. Miller brought up, using a specific example of an incident to say, if there are things in Bill C-51 that could have prevented that, should we not then retain some elements of Bill C-51? I think that's a dangerous way to make decisions. I think we need to start from principles and values like protecting people's rights and freedoms instead of looking at specific scenarios and then adding in elements to our legal code accordingly. We can always come up with a more disastrous scenario that requires even more limitations on our rights. I just don't think that's a valid way to think about things.

Finally, my question for you is why try to keep Bill C-51 at all instead of starting from scratch? The optics are not good. It looks like you're saying that once you've been granted extra powers, you don't really want to relinquish them, so let's try to kind of pacify people without fully backing off on something that was decried by so many institutions a year ago. I would just like to know what the reason for that is.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Matthew Dubé]

Thank you. As the chair pointed out, the challenge with taking questions in this format is that we have as many opinions on the answer to that as we are members on the committee.

[Rhoda Sollazzo]

Maybe my question could just be recorded then. That would be fine.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Matthew Dubé]

It's important that you raise the question for the benefit of all.

There is a question from Mr. Mendicino, please.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

No, actually, you stole my thunder.

I was just going to provide in essence what Monsieur Dubé just conveyed. We're in a difficult position. As you heard from Mr. Oliphant, we're not here necessarily to defend the legislation. We're here to hear you out.

[Rhoda Sollazzo]

That's fair enough.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Matthew Dubé]

Thank you.

There's a question from Mr. Miller. I would encourage my colleagues to be brief because we still have a number of speakers left and we want to maximize the time the public gets to speak.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

You asked a question. Why throw it out, or actually, why keep it rather than throw it out? Obviously, from comments from experts, some parts of it have worked, so why would you throw them out? That would be the thing.

We've heard from a lot of you here today saying to just get rid of Bill C-51, that you don't like it, but I have heard very few suggestions about what you want to see to fix it. We heard a few suggestions from the witnesses today.

[Rhoda Sollazzo]

As someone who is not an expert, but who is just a private citizen, I can say that, from an emotional standpoint, I would feel more comfortable if we threw it out and then the elements that you think are helpful and do not harm everyday citizens could be introduced in a new bill. When you take something like Bill C-51, which is a 60-page bill and say you're going to tweak it, I get scared about what's being left behind, what's getting slipped under the rug. That's how I feel about it.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Matthew Dubé]

Thank you very much.

Before moving on to Judith Denise Brisson, I would note that next it will be Sarah Evett's turn.

In fact, we will go straight to Ms. Evett.

You have the floor, Ms. Evett.

[Sarah Evett, As an Individual]

My name is Sarah Evett. I am a mother of four children and a gardener. I live a very humble existence and I don't really get too involved in politics, but I care a lot about people. I worked as a home health aide, so I'm used to one-to-one caring for people. In that context, I've worked in organizations and with agencies and I know how important it is to have oversight and accountability. I would just ask you all to really consider the ramifications of a quick assessment and judgment on how you will deal with your conversation when you all leave here. Maybe it would be helpful to consult with people who, from another angle, deal with organizational issues as complicated as what you are dealing with, which is the security of the country and our lives.

That's it.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Matthew Dubé]

Thank you very much.

The next two speakers will be Robert Cox and Joaquin Barbera.

I invite the people I name to stay close to the mic and be ready to speak. That way, we will be able to move faster and we can give everyone a chance to speak.

Mr. Cox, you have the floor.

[Robert Cox, As an Individual]

Good evening.

I'm Robert Cox. I'm a resident of NDG here in Montreal. My father was born in Montreal of Irish parents—

[Nicola Di Iorio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

I'm sorry, sir, you're president of...? I didn't hear you.

[Robert Cox]

I'm sorry, I'm a resident of NDG. That's Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, which is a suburb of Montreal and a very anglophone area of Montreal.

My father was born here in Montreal of Irish parents, and my mother was of German parentage, which was interesting during the wars when they found people throwing rocks at their house and calling them Krauts. There was a lot of discrimination that didn't result in being in a camp. Nonetheless, people had differences, but that's not why I'm here.

I have four items I wanted to mention. You were saying today during the meeting about having examples of what's going to be a problem, so I have four things.

First of all, in Montreal, we have a federal project to put a light show on the Jacques Cartier Bridge for $40 million to celebrate Montreal's anniversary. I'm quite opposed to that, but I'm worried about my opposition, because it doesn't seem to have an effect anywhere. I keep mentioning it and nothing happens. Anyway, that's just something that could become an issue. I might just lie in front of the bulldozers to stop the project. Then what happens? Am I a terrorist?

It moves on to more serious things. I would like that $40 million to go Chez Doris, which is the women's shelter that really needs support.

[Voices]

Hear, hear!

[Robert Cox]

Thank you.

Second, when it comes to trade with China, some people are tired of buying things from China, let's say. People have opposition to trade deals. Somehow, I think people should have a better voice in what's happening with the different trade deals.

Earlier a woman was saying she was accused of being a socialist and lost employment through the RCMP, apparently, possibly, and yet here we are 30 years after and we're suddenly great partners with this communist state of China, which has terrible human rights. It's okay, we'll trade anyway. I want to argue about that.

Woody Allen said that as a senior, he now has time to write all his political dissent and commentary—

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Matthew Dubé]

And that time would be 30 seconds—

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Matthew Dubé]

—if you could wrap up, please.

[Robert Cox]

—and that dissent and commentary merges and ends up becoming dysentery. Well, anyway.

Maybe I just have bad things to say, but what happens? When it's moderation on the CBC, I try to put comments on the CBC, and I get moderated off. Bill C-51 is hardly working, and yet here we are already being censored into obedience. I'm not very cool with that.

Those are the four points that I wanted to say.

As far as economics is concerned, they've just announced a new committee in Ottawa, and some guys are going to study growth in Canada. I'm an ecologist from the 1970s, too, and what happened to ecology? It turned into climate change, and then it's all denied, and they're making arrangements for it.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Matthew Dubé]

I'm going to have to ask you to wrap up. There's still a few folks who we want to give a chance to speak.

[Robert Cox]

Okay, sorry.

The ecology question needs to be approached, too. I'm saying that we really have to do something about that. We don't have to pay carbon taxes, but we have to argue ourselves into a better way of using the environment properly.

Thank you.