Debates of Nov. 27th, 2007

Tackling Violent Crime Act

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin to speak to Bill C-2, I have to address my hon. colleague's contradictory comments about the lack of mandatory minimums. On the one hand, he lambasted the Liberal Party for not wanting mandatory minimums. On the other hand, he said very clearly that we had them and we called for a strengthening of them.

When the member for Mount Royal was the justice minister, he introduced mandatory minimums for weapons offences. That was a good thing. That is why we support Bill C-2. We have been trying to drive forward much of what is in the legislation. Ironically, we have been obstructed by the government.

I will go through the facts. Unfortunately, in the House one could look at the old adage that “in war, truth is the first casualty”. What we have here is war by another name. Sometimes truth is the first casualty in the House of Commons, and that is sad for the public.

Let me talk about the facts for a minute and give viewers a bit of history on the bill.

Bill C-2 is an omnibus bill involving a combination of five bills, including mandatory minimum penalties. We support mandatory minimum penalties. I caution the government, however, to ensure that the mandatory minimum penalties for weapons offences, violent offences and sexual offences cannot be plea bargained away and that they run consecutively and not concurrently. Too many times people who have committed serious offences receive penalties that get plea bargained away, so there is no effective penalty.

We also support an increase in mandatory minimums for weapons trafficking. My colleague from Mount Royal introduced many mandatory minimums for these offences in the last Parliament.

The Liberal Party supports the provisions for dangerous offenders, impaired driving and reverse onus in firearms offences. Many years ago there really was no penalty for a person using a weapon in the commission of an offence. That was changed by the last government. The Liberal Party supports the changes in Bill C-2.

Let me talk for a few moments about a few facts around the passage of the bill.

On October 26, 2006, our Liberal leader made a first offer to fast track a package of justice bills in the House, including Bill C-9, as it had been amended, Bill C-18, the DNA identification legislation, Bill C-19, the street racing legislation, Bill C-22, the age of consent legislation, Bill C-23, the animal cruelty legislation and Bill C-26, respecting payday loans. We also added Bill C-35, on March 14 of this year, a bill for bail reform, and we support that.

On March 21, we attempted to use our opposition day to pass the government's four justice bills: Bill C-18, Bill C-22, Bill C-23 and Bill C-35. The Conservative House leader raised a procedural point of order to block the motion. Those four government bills would have been fast tracked through this place in the same day, yet the government House leader, for reasons unknown to us and the public, blocked this. Those are facts.

What has been the path of government justice bills through the Senate? Of the six justice bills that had been passed before the summer break, only four went to the Senate. How on earth could the Senate pass bills that it just received prior to the government proroguing Parliament? It could not do that. It is disingenuous for government members to stand and suggest that the Senate was trying to block their bills. By the time the Senate received the bills, the government closed Parliament. Those are the facts. Anybody can check them out if they wish.

We support Bill C-2. However, I want to bore down on a few dangerous issues that the government is pursuing. One deals with the issue of drug trafficking. The government has said that it will increase the penalties for those who traffic in drugs.

There are two populations of traffickers.

There are those parasites in society who are involved in commercial grow operations, frequently attached to organized crime. We should throw the book at them. Those people are a cancer in our society and they deserve to be in jail.

There is another population that will be swept up in the government's anti-trafficking bill. It is the low level dealers who sell small amounts of illegal drugs to people, but they themselves are addicts. In essence, they are selling drugs to pay for their addictions.

If we criminalize people who have addiction problems and throw them in jail, they come out being hardened criminals. We also do not deal with the underlying problem, which we will have at the end of the day when they come out. In effect, we increase public insecurity and costs to the taxpayer. We do not address the underlying problem and we make our streets less safe. That is stupid, not to put too fine a point on it.

If the government goes through with the bill to criminalize people who are addicts, the low level people buying and selling drugs, it will end up with the situation we see south of the border, which has used a war on drugs approach. It has proven to be an abysmal failure.

What we see south of the border is a view of the future for us if the government pursues its course of action. There have been increased rates of both soft and hard drugs use, increased numbers of people have been incarcerated, increased costs to the taxpayer and more violent crime. Society loses.

The government ought to work with the provinces to implement solutions that address some of the underlying problems.

I will get to the organized crime aspects in a moment.

For the drug problems, I cannot overemphasize what a disaster this will be. The government has been warned of this by people across the country.

Let us take two projects, in particular, that have been extremely effective in dealing with people who have intravenous drug use problems. Both of them are found in Vancouver and championed by Dr. Julio Montaner and Dr. Thomas Kerr, superb physicians and research scientists, who have underneath them the Insite supervised injection program and the NAOMI project.

The supervised injection program is a place where addicts can go to a supervised setting and take the drugs they are given. What has that done? It has reduced harm, put more people into treatment, reduced crime and saved the taxpayer money. Fewer people have gone to emergency and there has been less dependence on our health care system. It works.

The other project I would recommend we pursue is the NAOMI project. Before I get to it, I point out that in the eleventh hour the government extended Insite's ability to engage in its program up until June 2008.

All the evidence published from The Lancet to The New England Journal of Medicine shows, without a shadow of a doubt, that the Insite supervised injection program saves lives, reduces crime and gets people into treatment. It is good for public security and it saves the taxpayer money. Why extend it to only eight months?

If the government gets a majority, it will kill the program. That, in short, will be murder. The government knows full well the program saves lives. To remove that program, would result in, essentially, the killing of people.

A program that works better, which the government does not support but ought to expand, is the NAOMI project. The NAOMI project deals with hard-core narcotics abusers. These people are over the age of 26. They have had five years of drug addictions and two failed attempts at treatment. They are the hard nuts of intravenous drug use.

The NAOMI project took 243 addicts and randomized them into three populations. One population received intravenous heroine, the other one received intravenous dilaudid, which is a prescription narcotic that is legal, and the third was to take oral methadone, which is a weak narcotic.

What happened to those populations? Of the population on IV drugs, more than 85% of people were still taking those drugs, receiving treatment and counselling, getting their lives together, obtaining skills training and being able to live while not being on the street and not engaging in criminal behaviour to feed their addictions. Of the third population, the ones in the methadone program, 50% of people were still in treatment after a year. It works.

What the government should be doing for both Insite as well as NAOMI, is expanding those programs across our country. Our urban centres need it.

In Victoria there are 1,243 people living on the street, 60% of which have what we call dual diagnoses, which means some of them have both a drug problem and a psychiatric problem. I would also add that some people within that population have had brain injuries in the past and have fallen into the terrible spiral of drug use by being on the street. Those people could be you or I, Mr. Speaker, who one day fall off a ladder or get into a car accident, sustain a significant closed head injury, have major cerebral trauma and as a result their lives are affected forever.

Some of those people are on the street and take drugs. Do we throw those people in jail? Do we throw the psychiatric patient, who is dealing to pay for his or her addiction, in jail? That is what would happen with the bill that the government has introduced. Those people need medical treatment. They do not need to be in jail.

My plea to the government, to the Minister of Health, the Minister of Justice and the Prime Minister is to bury their ideology, follow the facts and implement the solutions that will help people with addictions, keep our streets safe, and reduce costs to the taxpayers. It is a win-win situation for all concerned.

The interesting thing about the NAOMI project is that because NAOMI actually gave the drug to an individual who was proven to be an addict, that person did not have to go on the street to get the drugs. If that were done in a broader sense, it would be horrific to organized crime that benefits from this situation because the NAOMI project severs the tie between the addict and organized crime. That is what we need to do.

Organized crime would be horrified if a forward thinking government one day were to enable drug addicts to receive their drugs. Doing that enables addicts to get into the treatment programs that they need. It enables them to detoxify, obtain addiction counselling, skills training and the psychiatric therapy they need. If we do not do that, we will not make a dent in what we see on the ground. There will not be any affect on addictions and it will actually increase the criminal population in our country.

The other side of this coin, of course, deals with organized crime gangs, as I mentioned, the parasites and cancer in our society. These parasites are essentially people in $3,000 suits who benefit from a substance that is nearly worthless but has a value well beyond what it ought to have because it is illegal.

I have a bill on the order paper that would decriminalize the simple possession of marijuana. No one condones anybody using marijuana, everybody wants to prevent people from using it, and everyone certainly encourages children not to use this or any other illegal drug. The fact of the matter is that people do use it and a significant percentage of Canadians have used it at one time in their lives, particularly when they were very young.

Do we throw those people in jail? Do we throw an 18-year-old who has a joint in his or her back pocket in jail? Do we throw an 18-year-old in jail who exchanges or sells or gives a couple of marijuana cigarettes to a friend? That would be trafficking under the government's bill. Do we throw that 18-year-old in jail? Do we give an 18-year-old a criminal record, which is what we have today, affecting his or her ability to work or gain employment and have access to professional facilities for the rest of his or her life? Is that a humane way to deal with our population? It is not.

The worst news for organized crime, in my personal view, would be that marijuana is legal and regulated. It is not to say that marijuana is safe. It is not. It is dangerous, but so are alcohol and cigarettes.

If we can imagine today that cigarettes were going to come onto the market and were proposed as being something that ought to be sold today, do we think for a moment that they would be allowed, with all the cancer, respiratory and cardiac problems that cigarettes cause? No, they would not be, and neither in fact would alcohol. Alcohol would not be allowed today either, for all of the damage it does, but the fact of the matter is that cigarettes and alcohol are legal today.

The groups that benefit the most from the status quo, from marijuana being illegal, and it is just a weed with its value elevated well beyond what it ought to be because it is illegal, are the organized crime gangs. They are making billions of dollars off the status quo, and those billions are used to do any number of things including: trafficking of weapons and people, prostitution, embezzlement, fraud and murder. That is what organized crime is involved with.

What the government should be doing is coming up with a more comprehensive plan to deal with the biker gangs and organized criminal gangs who are--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Selkirk--Interlake on a point of order.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, we are debating Bill C-2. This is third reading where we should be specifically discussing the points of the bill. The member has just proven that he is filibustering and helping out the opposition parties in trying to delay the passage of Bill C-2. I ask that he gets back on topic and discusses the bill that is before us right now.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Selkirk--Interlake brings up a good point. I just requested a copy of Bill C-2. The member's remarks are dealing specifically with issues around illegal narcotics. I believe that is a different government bill that has been introduced, so I will just remind the hon. member for Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca to keep his remarks confined to Bill C-2 which is before us.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For my friend's information, if I were going to be filibustering, I would be using more than 20 minutes, but I have 20 minutes and he can certainly ask questions after that.

However, these issues are extremely important because this bill has to do with tackling violent crime. The relevance to what I am saying is that organized crime is actually a purveyor of an awful lot of violent crime in our country. What the member should do, with his government, is to work with us in developing a comprehensive plan to deal with organized crime. It is the real parasite in our society that we have to address.

In dealing with this, I also want to talk about a drug policy that works because it is attached to organized crime and putting up posters, as the government wants to do, is not going to affect change.

I can tell members, from working in many clinics where violence and drug use is endemic, that simply putting up posters on clinic walls or in communities is not going to stop people from taking drugs.

What works? I have said probably 100 times in the House that if the government wanted to prevent drug use and reduce youth crime, as an example, it would support the headstart program for children.

The headstart program for children is something the police have asked for. It is essentially a program where children and parents come together in a classroom once every week for a couple of hours to talk about the harm of drugs, the harm of alcohol, and to talk about literacy, and about proper eating and proper parenting. All of that can be done and should be done. The headstart program for children would save the taxpayers $7 for every dollar invested and reduce youth crime by 60%.

I implore the government to adopt the headstart program, have a rational drug policy, listen to the scientists, follow the facts and bury its ideology, and we will have a safer country for all.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to clarify a question that I asked my colleague earlier. As I mentioned, when I was spending nine years at city council pushing for the age of protection legislation, our mayor and council wrote several letters to the previous government. The member had commented about us being disingenuous.

I am wondering as the member had said he supported and always wanted to get this legislation changed. He had 13 years to get it done. Could the hon. member answer why he did not change the legislation, if he was so passionate about this in his government?

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I was only in the previous government. I cannot answer for governments before that, but I can certainly speak about the evidence. The evidence shows that, in the bills that we have and I will go back to my previous comments, on the age of consent, on October 26, 2006, we pushed the existing government and offered to fast-track the age of consent legislation. At that time it was Bill C-22 but the government refused to do that. The government can answer that question as to why it did not push that forward over a year ago and allow it to go at that time.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to take part in this third reading stage of Bill C-2. I would like, perhaps, to correct a number of perceptions that the government has done nothing to discourage in recent days concerning the work of the opposition.

First, we know that the Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-2. In fact, if my information is correct, I believe that our support is unanimous. I do not imagine that any of our colleagues will be defecting. However, we know that friendship is a fragile thing that we must always work to preserve.

I said that the Bloc Québécois supported Bill C-2. Any kind of offence could make even a man over 40 wish for young offender status.

In a more serious vein, we were presented with a number of bills. Of 12 bills that the government introduced since coming into office, six received royal assent, four made their way to the Senate and the remaining two were to be examined in committee. Naturally we had reservations about the dangerous offenders’ bill, which is a serious bill and I will come back to it. We still have those reservations. There was also Bill C-32 on impaired driving.

When the government suggests that the opposition did not work diligently, some explanation is in order. When a party has been in government for two years—not quite two years even—and you have succeeded in obtaining royal assent for six bills, when half of your legislative agenda has been adopted, I think the government’s criticism is not well founded. The Bloc Québécois has worked very hard in the Committee on Justice and Human Rights and the Committee on Public Safety and National Security. We will continue to work hard in the future.

I know that the member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue will be speaking about this in a few minutes, but there is a problem of philosophy. For a democrat—let me put it the way René Lévesque did—the end cannot justify the means. Even if we know that judicial practice in our courts should be changed, my colleague for Abitibi—Témiscamingue will agree with me that when a person is held in detention before trial, for example, and they want to subtract two days from any sentence for each day in detention, there is perhaps something that we need to look at.

If the member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin were with us today, he would join with me in recognizing that the government should have made tackling the parole system a priority. This is an area where the support of the member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue is very firm, very strong, and not negotiable. You can be sure that I take comfort in this.

So I was talking about the question of sentencing, about release after one-sixth of the sentence. If a judge in a court of law, with defence counsel, Crown counsel and a jury as provided under the Criminal Code, has imposed a sentence, it seems that allowing the accused to be released after one-sixth of the sentence is very soon. There are philosophical questions that concern us, that cry out for answers. We are not prepared to accept everything in Bill C-2.

Generally speaking, I think we must remember that crime is dropping. There was an increase in crime in the 1960s and 1970s, both property crime and crimes against the person. This continued until the 1990s, with small variations. After that, crime has fallen. There have been peaks, for example in 1994, 1995 and 1996, when we had the whole phenomenon of organized crime. Some of my colleagues may recall this.

In fact, I owe this to history. To be truthful, I must point out that the Bloc Québécois was the first to call for anti-gang legislation. I recall very clearly having discussions with senior officials who wanted to dismantle the organized crime rings. At that point, there were 38 criminal biker gangs known to law enforcement agencies. The main one was the Hell’s Angels. The obvious face of organized crime in our communities was the Hell’s Angels.

Some senior officials wanted to dismantle the organized crime rings using the conspiracy provisions. The member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue will recall that this was section 476 of the Criminal Code, if memory serves me.

Obviously, in the Bloc Québécois, we were convinced that this was not possible. Why? Take the example of Maurice “Mom” Boucher. While he gave the orders, he was not the one who carried them out. There was a gap in the chain of command that meant that it was extremely difficult to lay charges against the organized crime kingpins, even though the people responsible for surveillance techniques, even though the law enforcement agencies, the Montreal police service, the Criminal Intelligence Service Canada and the RCMP, were able to identify who the kingpins of those criminal organizations were.

It was the Bloc Québécois, through the wisdom it has always had—wisdom that is perhaps not innate, because it took a lot of work to gain it—speaking in the voice you are listening to now, that took action to deal with this. The member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles also worked very hard on it, as did the member for Berthier—Montcalm. I think I can bring back fond memories in this House if I mention the name of Michel Bellehumeur. He was appointed to the bench because of his personal talent and his intellectual breadth. The member for Berthier—Montcalm had all the qualifications needed to be appointed to the bench, and today he is a judge of the Court of Québec, Criminal Division.

[An hon. member]

Youth Division.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Youth court. I should have remembered him because of his baby face.

When Justice Bellehumeur was a member of the Bloc Québécois, he was particularly enterprising with regard to the provisions of the anti-gang legislation. He had support in caucus and we convinced the government. We started this battle in 1995 following a very sad incident that I will not forget as long as I live—the car bomb attack that led to the death of young Daniel Desrochers in the Hochelaga—Maisonneuve area.

It was at that point that the public took notice that the existing legislation did not have the teeth to attack organized crime. We were presented with a bill that created the new offence of gangsterism. It was too general. In fact, at the time, it required five individuals who, in the previous five years, had committed an offence carrying a sentence of more than five years. It was the three fives rule. It was too general and the police asked us to review the anti-gang law.

The first Bill C-95 was introduced in 1997 as a result of the Bloc Québécois' hard work. The provisions of the anti-gang law were revisited by Bill C-24 and Bill C-36. It was also the Bloc Québécois that worked on taking $1,000 bills out of circulation, thanks to the efforts of my colleague for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, Richard Marceau. This man has been a great inspiration in justice matters. He stands out in other areas as well, but in justice he has been a true inspiration.

Once again, it was the Bloc Québécois that introduced and ensured the adoption, on the last day of the 2004 parliamentary session, of a bill on reverse onus. The member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue likes bills that address specific issues and distrusts those that are generic.

The bill was very specific because it reversed the onus of proof for proceeds of crime acquired by criminal organizations.

When I hear the Minister of Justice showing a lack of respect by saying that the Bloc Québécois used stalling tactics, I do not see how that applies to me, and I am sure the other Bloc members feel the same way. It is the role of the opposition to keep pushing the government to be better. Obviously, every member of the Bloc leaves Parliament at the end of the day feeling exhausted, since there is so much work to do.

That said, crime is not on the rise; in general, it is going down. I think it would be ill-advised to hold a debate that does not take that fact into account. The Bloc Québécois has always been very concerned about mandatory minimum penalties.

Sure, they have always existed in the Criminal Code. But when we passed the bill to establish the firearms registry, back when Allan Rock was minister, we also decided to add 40 or so mandatory minimum penalties for offences involving firearms.

The hon. member for Berthier—Montcalm, with his characteristic insight, already had very serious reservations at the time. He relied on studies by criminologists, particularly at the University of Toronto, who concluded that there is no link between the availability of mandatory minimum sentences in the Criminal Code and the crime rate in a society, any more than there is a link between the incarceration rate and the crime rate in a society.

Consider, for example, the United States. The incarceration rate there is three times higher than Canada's, but the crime rate is seven times higher. Thus, it is not through reliance on incarceration that we will have a safer society.

Of course, the Bloc Québécois recognizes that incarceration must be used in certain situations. This is why we do not question the need to have certain provisions in the Criminal Code, such as section 753, which talks about dangerous offenders. A very serious offence must be involved in order for an individual to be a dangerous offender. An offender must be convicted of personal injury offences. An offender must present such a high a risk of recidivism that the court must be convinced that the person cannot control himself or herself or has difficulty controlling his or her impulses.

Regarding dangerous offenders, the older people among us—including some members of my caucus—will recall that, in the 1950s, they were referred to as “habitual criminals”. Perhaps some members remember this? Even my mother used this expression, although never about her own children.

I think I am out of time, but I would like to be able to start over again after question period.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Hochelaga will have six minutes left at the end of oral question period to finish his speech.

We will now proceed to statements by members.

“Buy Local” Campaign

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Greater Peterborough Chamber of Commerce and its “Buy Local” campaign.

The Greater Peterborough Chamber of Commerce urges all Canadians to keep your town in business by keeping your business in town”, and I could not agree more.

Local Peterborough area businesses do more than simply provide places to work. They also contribute and sponsor the many worthy charitable causes that make our communities better places to live.

In Peterborough this means a new regional hospital can be built and that the local United Way can reach its goals. It also means that sports teams have sponsors to help keep kids sports affordable for parents.

By buying local, Canadians are being economically smart and environmentally green, and they do not need to worry about lineups at the border or paying duties on their purchases.

No matter how we look at it, everybody wins when “you keep your town in business by keeping your business in town”. I urge all Canadians from east to west and north to south to buy Canadian first and to buy local.

Antonio Lamer

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, last weekend we were saddened to hear of the passing of the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Antonio Lamer, at the age of 74.

Antonio Lamer was a pleasant man with a well-known sense of humour. Despite occupying one of the most prestigious positions in the country, he never looked askance at the lower courts, where he practised law for many years.

During his 10-year tenure as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Antonio Lamer had a remarkable impact on our country's justice system.

Thanks to Justice Lamer, who had tremendous respect for individual freedoms and was a staunch defender of human dignity, the fundamental rights and liberties set down in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms were enshrined in the Constitution.

He also played a role in many historic decisions that changed Canadian society.

My colleagues and I wish to offer our sincere condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of Antonio Lamer.

Quebec Nation

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, one year ago today, the House of Commons listened to the arguments put forward by the Bloc Québécois and finally recognized the existence of the Quebec nation. One year later, it must be said that this motion was meaningless to the Conservatives. In fact, by introducing Bill C-22, which seeks to change electoral representation, the Conservatives are trying to reduce the weight of Quebec and the Quebec nation in federal political institutions.

The government cannot recognize the Quebec nation one year and reduce its political weight in the House the next. If recognizing the Quebec nation means something, the government must ensure that any reform of electoral representation and the distribution of seats maintains the relative representation of the members from Quebec, so that this nation can be heard within federal institutions.

If the government sincerely wants to recognize the Quebec nation, it must grant the unanimous wish of the National Assembly of Quebec, which is calling on the government to withdraw its bill.

Poverty

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in my community of Hamilton, almost 100,000 people live in poverty. That is almost as many as the number of constituents in my riding of Hamilton East--Stoney Creek. That is shameful.

Successive Liberal and now Conservative governments have failed to make a dent in poverty and have failed to even define a marker for poverty, making it easier to push off the responsibility for tackling the root causes.

News this week has been full of reports calling Toronto the poverty capital of Canada and of our failure to eliminate child poverty right across Canada.

Poverty activists and agencies such as the United Way, as well as organizations like Campaign 2000 know what needs to be done. There are examples of strategies that focus on poverty reduction, like Hamilton's Roundtable on the Elimination of Poverty, and in the work of groups like Vibrant Communities that know what to do, and so does the NDP.

Fix employment insurance. Restore the minimum wage at $10 per hour. Set up national child care, home care and pharmacare programs. Confront homelessness. Make education affordable. Seek fairness for groups such as women and aboriginals who disproportionately face poverty.

It is time to fight poverty with real initiatives for real results.

Evan's Game

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, last Sunday I had the honour to participate in an event that converted the pain of a senseless tragedy into something positive.

Evan's Game was held in honour of Evan Grykuliak who was brutally murdered while celebrating his 17th birthday with family and friends, leaving the whole community in a state of shock.

A soccer game was held between the Edmonton Police Service and the under 18 team that Evan used to captain. The event commemorated Evan's short life, raised public awareness of youth violence and raised funds to support school based violence prevention programs.

EVAN is not just the young man's name. It also stands for End Violence Act Now.

We are acting now, with the new Youth Criminal Justice Act. This is the number one issue for a great many Edmontonians and other Canadians.

We owe it to Evan. We owe it to his family and friends. We owe it to our communities.

I want to pay tribute to a fine young man whom I will never meet, his family and all of his friends and members of a community with the fortitude to take positive action in the face of a tragedy. Their efforts raised over $25,000 and youth and exuberance triumphed over old age and cunning as the under 18s topped the police team by a score of 5 to 2. That one was for Evan.

Correctional Service Canada

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Ashley Smith was supposed to be released from prison today.

She was sentenced as a young offender at the age of 15 in New Brunswick. She took her own life on October 19 in an isolated jail cell at the Grand Valley federal institution in Kitchener following an extensive period of solitary confinement.

Four correctional staff at Grand Valley and one correctional staff member at the Saskatoon Regional Psychiatric Centre have been charged.

Ashley's tragic death raises a number of troubling questions that must be answered.

How did a young girl struggling with mental illness and incarcerated as a young offender end up, through excessive institutional charges, in federal correctional facilities thousands of kilometres from home?

What can be done to improve the way we deal with offenders so that we minimize the recurrence of such tragedies?

When will we learn as a society that it is more feasible to invest in community safety and crime prevention programs than to pursue draconian laws that incarcerate more and more people at the expense of public safety?

Tourism Day

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to recognize Tourism Day on Parliament Hill today, an event that will surely raise the awareness of important tourism issues across Canada.

We know tourism is important to all regions of the country, and our government is committed to this sector, investing over $400 million annually in tourism related initiatives. “What initiatives?”, one might ask.

We have just approved an additional $26 million for the Canadian Tourism Commission to maximize opportunities for the 2010 winter games.

We are providing $110 million for the 400th anniversary of Quebec City in 2008.

We have created the foreign convention and tour incentive program to better promote Canada for group travel.

We announced further reductions in the GST that will make travel in Canada more affordable for residents and visitors alike.

We look forward to working with tourism stakeholders because it is a great industry and, working together, it is only going to get better.

Quebec Nation

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the government has been trying to convince us for a year that it has recognized Quebec as a nation. Yet, it has done nothing to make this a reality.

This situation is strangely reminiscent of the late acknowledgement of the existence of global warming by the Prime Minister. This acknowledgement has not prevented him from sabotaging efforts by Quebec and the international community to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

He is all talk and no action on these two major issues.

Quebeckers are not fools. It will take more than mere words to convince them that the Conservatives are serious when they speak of the Quebec nation or of climate change. This Prime Minister must respect the decision of the Quebec nation, a nation that supports the Kyoto protocol, and implement a real plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Because, to date, this government has not proven that it can walk the talk.

The Environment

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

Mr. Speaker, the government has taken action on the environment to protect lands, clean up our lakes and keep our planet green, but governments alone cannot protect the environment. The protection of the environment is the responsibility of our entire society.

In my riding of Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, Fay Harshman, a progressive businesswoman, is leading the corporate charge to help protect the environment. Mrs. Harshman owns seven Tim Hortons stores in the area and just recently announced a four-stream sort, which sets a recycling standard second to none in Ontario.

Mrs. Harshman's decision came about as a result of her desire to fully comply with the city of Owen Sound's tough new mandatory recycling bylaw. Owen Sound environmental superintendent Chris Hughes said that this Tim Hortons “really made an effort to do it right”.

Mrs. Harshman has set what is to become the Tim Hortons recycling standard across the country.

Saskatchewan may have the Roughriders, but my riding has Fay Harshman. We are proud of her efforts to help keep our country green.

Manufacturing Industry

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in my riding of Brampton—Springdale, the manufacturing industry is in a state of crisis. The high dollar, border issues and one-way imports have made for a perfect storm of challenges, resulting in the recent elimination of the third shift at the Brampton Chrysler plant and a loss of over 1,100 jobs.

Many Bramptonians who depend on the manufacturing sector are now facing unemployment. They are hard-working Canadians whose families are left struggling to make ends meet, yet the Conservative government has done nothing.

There is no comprehensive strategy and there are no solutions to address the manufacturing crisis and stop the job losses. Nor is there an action plan to help those who have lost their jobs. The government is also ignoring calls to end the Canada-Korea trade talks, which will further devastate the industry.

I urge the government to stop wasting time and to help the struggling auto industry and those people who have lost their jobs.

Quebec Nation

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am extremely proud to commemorate the first anniversary of the adoption in the House of Commons of the motion introduced by the Prime Minister of Canada recognizing “that the Québécois form a nation within a united Canada”.

I would remind the House, however, that the Bloc Québécois took three different positions in three days. On Wednesday, it was against the motion, on Thursday, it proposed amendments, and on Friday, it finally saw the light.

Quebeckers have always played an historic role in Canada´s progress, through their public spirit, courage and vision, by building a confident, autonomous and proud Quebec showing its solidarity within a strong, united, independent and free Canada.

The Bloc can continue to criticize, to reflect and to pump ideas out of its lab, but it will never have anything to offer and will never be capable of implementing any of its proposals. Fortunately for the Quebec nation, our government's words are matched by our deeds: UNESCO, fiscal balance, open federalism, the child care benefit, cuts to the GST and other taxes, and federal funding for Quebec's green plan.

Northern Regulatory Improvement Initiative

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, the appointment of Neil McCrank, the former chair of the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board, as the minister's special representative for northern regulatory reform is causing concern across Canada's north.

During his time there, that agency moved from working for the public's interest to working for the interests of the big oil and gas companies. The agency ignored the concerns of Fort McMurray, approving one oil sands project after another. The result was homelessness, overstressed municipal services and increased crime.

The regulatory system in the north was created to ensure that northerners' concerns were addressed. Northerners do not want to see the small amount of control they have over development reduced in favour of the interests of big business.

If the minister wants to improve the regulatory process in the north, he can begin by completing the implementation of the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, especially parts 5 and 6, which deal with land use planning and cumulative environmental monitoring.

World Aids Day

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this Saturday is World AIDS Day. Last year, nearly 3 million people died from HIV-AIDS, with 2.1 million of those victims in sub-Saharan Africa.

This is a disease that is preventable and manageable and yet it ravages Africa. Its numbers are escalating in Eastern Europe, China and India also. Worldwide, 33 million people are infected and a shocking 5,700 people die every day from this disease, leaving a staggering 14 million orphans.

However, despite the sheer magnitude of this crisis, the government has shown no sense of urgency. The previous Liberal government committed $619 million in 2005-06 for health initiatives to combat HIV-AIDS in the developing world. Alas, yesterday's government announcement on international health would have been fine except that those moneys were earmarked at last year's G-8 summit.

Here at home, the government is putting people's lives at risk by undermining the life-saving Insite program in Vancouver and not allowing the NAOMI project and other Insite supervised injection projects to be more widely available.

I say to the government, bury that ideology--

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

The hon. member for Drummond.