Debates of Jan. 31st, 2008

Immigration and Refugee Protection Act

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it looks like that in the U.K., which has often been quoted as being a country from which we should learn. There was a special advocate with seven years of experience, Ian Macdonald. He quit over the failure of the government to address the problems of the system.

It seems to be that the advocate proposal that is part of the bill does not really address the whole issue. Does the hon. member have an opinion on whether the advocate system really addresses the whole question of the denial of human rights?

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, indeed, elsewhere in the world, people have access to a special advocate, for example, in England, where that is part of their code. It has been proven that this method is ineffective.

The Bloc Québécois believes that allowing a special advocate to visit the person being held under a security certificate, but not allowing the advocate to reveal all of the evidence, is not consistent with the law in this country. The advocate should be able to reveal all the evidence to the person being held under a security certificate.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in Canada we have the Canadian Charter of Rights, a charter that makes us very proud. We talk about it with our friends who visit us from other parts of the world. It is one of the reasons that a lot of immigrants come to our country. We are mighty proud of the Canadian Charter of Rights.

In the Charter of Rights we give every person in Canada the same rights: the right not to be tortured, the right to be treated equally, all rights under the law that are basic fundamental rights. The charter is supposed to protect every individual in Canada, which means that if Canada does not tolerate torture then we do not want to see torture in other countries.

Bill C-3, regarding security certificates, treats people as two kinds of human beings. One kind is Canadian. The other kind is everyone else who may be subjected to a security certificate. A person, for whatever reason, could be given a security certificate without the person having any idea what the Canadian government has against him or her. It is supposed to be a national security issue.

In Canada, one would think that people who commit a crime would be charged and, if convicted, they would go to jail and be punished. Actually, the security certificate in Bill C-3 sets up a second class of human being. They will not be charged nor convicted. They will not be jailed nor punished.

I keep hearing the Conservative government and the Liberals saying that they want to be tough on crime. If they want to be tough on crime, why are they not punishing people who are supposed to be criminals? What are we doing with them? We just deport them back to their own country.

If they are real criminals, why do we want them to be deported elsewhere? They may be terrorists and we are supposed to be having a war on terror. If they are terrorists, rather than charging and jailing them here in Canada and keeping them under lock and key in a place that is secure from the rest of the world and from Canadians, we deport them back to their home country.

If people are real terrorists and they are set free in their home country, they could wreak havoc in their home country. They may even come back to Canada and who knows what will happen. I thought we were supposed to be tough on criminals.

How does deporting a person from Canada make Canadians safe? I do not know. Why are we afraid of the truth? What does the Canadian government have to hide? Are we seeing a pattern? Why are we keeping the offence hidden from Canadians and from members of Parliament? We do not know, Canadians do not know and the lawyers do not know what kind of offence was committed. The person detained has no idea what kind of offence he or she is being charged with.

What is the minister afraid of? Why will the government not tell Canadians the truth: that it believes the person is a security risk and that is why the person will be jailed and punished.

This kind of thing is a real problem. I will give some examples of people disappearing and people not knowing exactly what happened to them.

A story recently came to light about a gentleman named Benamar Benatta whose timing was really unfortunate. He came from New York City to Canada to declare refugee status just before the September 11 attacks a few years ago. I believe he was born in Algeria but left because he did not want to do what his country wanted him to do.

He joined the military at the age of 18, had some basic training, went to university and became an engineer. After graduation, he went back to the military and started teaching. He was uncomfortable with the military crackdown in Algeria after the 1992 general election so he decided to move to the U.S. However, because he spoke French he thought that rather than stay in the U.S. he would move to Canada where he would feel comfortable being in a bilingual country. He said, “I had the impression that Canada had protection for human rights. Hell, it depends what kind of human beings. If you are not Canadian you may not get protected”.

What happened? He came across the border, declared refugee status but was put into the back of a car and driven to the U.S. He was then jailed in New York where he was held with 83 other people who were high interest suspects of FBI investigations. He could not get to a lawyer. He said that he repeatedly had his head slammed against the wall, et cetera, and interrogated.

However, by November 15, 2001, the FBI decided that it did not have a case against him and officially cleared him from any connections to terrorism but he remained in detention.

After almost four and a half years, he was able to be finally return to Canada. I will not bore members with all the details, but it went back and forth. It was because of the good work of the Canadian Council for Refugees that he was able to get back to Canada. This person was a refugee claimant and, by the way, his refugee claim has been dealt with and he is now formally a refugee in Canada, so obviously he has a good case. This poor innocent man was in jail for five years because Canada was so afraid of people who may cause terror that the man was denied the basic fundamental rights that we accord every human being in Canada. We did not give him fair treatment, in my mind, and as a result he lost five years of his life.

Under this security certificate in Bill C-3, we will be sending people back to their home country. If they face torture that is fine with us. As long as we and the Canadian public do not really know what the charges are, perhaps we can say that we will be blameless.

That is not my definition of accountability, of being tough on crime, of being tough on criminals and certainly not my definition of being a proud Canadian.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that over the last couple of years our country has been sliding away from being in the front to fight for human rights to kind of taking a back seat. We are not standing up for the young kid in Guantanamo Bay who has been there for three years. Some of us parliamentarians have had to sign petitions in the hope that someone does that work on our behalf.

Right now we are saying that if someone is a terrorist we will just send them back or round them up. I will use the example that is kind of humorous. If my in-laws were to come to Canada they could theoretically be rounded up and put in jail because of these security certificates.

What will happen to Canada if the bill does not go through? Will we be in danger from terrorists?

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if we do not use security certificates, it will mean that someone who is not a Canadian citizen, not a landed immigrant and is here either without status or trying to declare refugee status or landed immigrant status can be deemed to be a suspect of committing a crime. If we truly believe that his or her presence in Canada will jeopardize our security or our national security, let us get the proof and let us make it public so Canadians know what kind of people we have in Canada. We will then collectively, through the courts, which we have faith in, say to this person that we believe he or she is a problem and we will put the person in jail. However, if the person is innocent, we must let them go free and allow them to stay in Canada. If the person is not qualified under the refugee immigration process, then the person will be deported in any event.

However, I must say that refugee claimants should have a chance for an appeal. The House of Commons has said over and over again that we should implement the refugee appeal division of the Immigration and Refugee Board but we do not have such a body, which is not fair.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by making a statement, which is that suspicion is not guilt.

This past summer I had the occasion to travel to Edmonton to speak to some new Canadians and then some well-established Canadians from the Muslim community.

I was sitting with a gentleman who had been in Canada for 30 years. He had been a contributing member to the society in Edmonton for 30 years and was well respected in his community and in the broader community. He was telling me how, following 9/11, investigative officers from CSIS would drop by and speak to him about all the money that he was sending home, the money he had been sending home for 30 years to raise the standard of living for his family in his homeland, a commitment that we would all do.

In fact, I myself celebrated an anniversary recently of 40 years moving from New Brunswick to Ontario. In some people's minds that is like coming to a new world, at least it was in the sixties. Some of the good Canadians from the east coast would send some of their money back home in the same way. I was never questioned but perhaps I was fortunate that it was a different time or that I had different colour skin than the other gentleman.

What is happening to us as a country is a tragedy. It is an affront to our democratic processes that has occurred in the reaction that has followed 9/11. It has followed the Americans' approach to 9/11 and the Americans' fight on terrorism.

I rise to speak on security certificates, but I wish to heaven I would never have to do this again. I believe, along with the rest of the NDP caucus, that Bill C-3 continues to fail Canada and Canadians.

Canadians are not more free because of Bill C-3 and they certainly are not feeling any more secure. Furthermore, the NDP opposes Bill C-3 because, as we have heard repeatedly in this place, there are already measures in our Criminal Code to deal with the activities, to deal with crimes against Canada and crimes against Canadians. Security certificates themselves fail Canadians in a grand fashion.

A security certificate does not allow the presentation of evidence that would support the accusations against a person who is accused or suspected of terrorist activity. Instead, the security certificate simply removes the individual from Canada and in doing so, in my opinion and as expressed earlier by the member for Trinity—Spadina, it fails Canadians. If the individual is actually guilty, then a process should be enacted in this country to deal with that guilt.

A security certificate does not offer or support justice for either the accused or for Canadians. In fact, security certificates in themselves are an affront to Canada's national sense of what justice is. If the accused is guilty, the person should be charged and tried under our Criminal Code and the appropriate penalties applied and then the person should be deported, but not held in detention without the opportunity to face his or her accusers or see the evidence against him or her.

There is another side to this. The people in detention who proclaim their innocence and have not had a chance to speak to it in a court of law, the day comes when they are found to be innocent. If they had gone through our Criminal Code procedures, our courts, our justice system, they would have had a right to return to Canadian life, to pick up where they had left off, pick up the pieces. But they have spent years upon years in detention and again they have not been able to see the evidence against them, to refute the evidence, the most fundamental tenets of our justice system. That has put a chill through our country.

I alluded to the individual in Edmonton, Alberta, but there are more cases than that individual. Talk to Mr. Almalki who was detained in a cell which was more like a coffin for three months. We all know the case of Maher Arar. We all know when we fail, and we are setting ourselves up for failure again.

I am pausing because I tend sometimes to get a little emotional. I was raised to take great pride in our justice system, the fact that people can face their accusers and walk away. I am going to be speaking later today about a family incident and I will give a small piece of it here to make the point of what I understand is our justice system.

My sister was strangled to death as a 10-year-old child. My father was mistakenly accused of that crime. We were a poor family. A great fear went through us that we would not be able to save my father from those accusations. Later he was proved to be innocent and there was a mentally disturbed person in the family who was dealt with and spent time in an appropriate hospital following that. Let us consider for a moment the place we are putting people, where they cannot face their accusers and they cannot refute the evidence, and how terrible that is.

From time to time I will do my best to take a breath, but it is so crucially important to the sense of justice that all Canadians have that the people in this place pause, stop the rhetoric and think about the deterioration of our justice system if we gerrymander process, to put in place a process like this that is so ugly and disgusting. I cannot understand how anybody in this place could support it.

Our Criminal Code is among the best. Our justice system is among the best in the world. Canada will send people to other parts of the world to teach them our justice system. We should keep that pride. One of the few ways we can keep that pride is to ensure individual rights and the rights for people to face their accusers and the evidence against them.

For the NDP, the security certificate is an affront to civil liberties. There is a sense in my gut of how wrong this is that I just cannot put it aside.

We understand with Bill C-3 that the Conservative federal government is trying to address a flaw in the process that was pointed out by the Supreme Court. It is far more than a flaw. What it is trying to do today is move around something that was a violation of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

We should think about rights and freedoms for a moment. We should think about the fact that there are individuals detained in our country. Their freedom has been taken away and they have no rights. We have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Imagine the setting aside of well respected, fundamental terms of justice and how that was so cavalierly done. The detainees have not seen any of the critical evidence against them. Their legal representation has not seen the evidence against them.

Let us just say that tomorrow, for whatever reason, it is deemed acceptable that they return to Canadian society, that there had been an error. They will always be besmirched by the fact that they have been detained. They will always live beside neighbours who doubt them. If they returned to their country of origin, many of the countries those folks would return to are countries where we know torture is committed. It is time for our country to take a strong stand for the liberty, for the human rights of our citizens and guests in our country, as well.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the emotion the hon. member put into his remarks. One of the things that I think he got wrong is that security certificates have been around for about 30 years. In fact, they were brought in during the Trudeau era, the same prime minister who brought in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They are not a new vehicle. In fact, Bill C-3 and the work of our subcommittee and the decisions of the Supreme Court are actually going to lead to improvements in the process.

I will never forget a meeting we had of the Subcommittee on Public Safety and National Security when we were reviewing the anti-terrorism legislation. Someone from the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness brought forward a briefing document that was a dossier on someone who was being detained under a security certificate in Canada. The dossier had to be blanked out for the sources of information, but it was a chronicle of the charges that were made against an individual as to why the individual was being detained under a security certificate.

There was also someone from the B.C. Civil Liberties Association on the witness panel.

There is another misunderstanding people have. A person detained under a security certificate understands fully why he or she is being detained. What the person does not know are the sources of the information. It is the role of the judge to make sure that that information is corroborated and reliable and not the result of torture. That is why the special advocate process will improve that sort of process.

When this dossier was presented to the subcommittee, I recall asking the member of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association if he would like the person being detained under a security certificate to be his next door neighbour. This individual, who is someone from a civil rights organization, said no. I asked him what the problem was and he replied that the problem was the process.

That is why we are here today debating Bill C-3. This bill will improve the process. Will it be a perfect solution? Of course not. Our primary responsibility as parliamentarians is to protect the safety and security of Canadians. There is no perfect balance between dealing with those responsibilities and protecting the civil rights of Canadians.

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

Mr. Speaker, I certainly take the hon. member at his word for the process he was talking about and the information that was provided. I agree with him that the certificate has been around for 30 years, but its intent has been misdirected. That certificate was never intended to be used in cases of terrorist activity.

Our party is very clear. We still believe that within the Criminal Code of this country there are mechanisms and resources that we can turn to to deal with this.

Individuals are not being told what the evidence is against them. The question of facing their accusers and national security could be addressed in another manner. Very clearly, it is important that people and their legal representatives be allowed to see the evidence and that they be allowed the opportunity to access the most fundamental aspect of justice, and that is to face their accusers and to defend themselves against what may well be false allegations.

There are many times that people in the U.S. have been rendered to other countries. We know that in the justice system in the U.S., many times people are imprisoned because they are poor and they cannot afford proper representation. As I alluded to in my remarks earlier, my family faced such a thing. It leaves a mark.

I will not call into question the motivation of any member of the House. I am sure members are giving their best judgment. I just ask them to err on the side of caution and the side of justice.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have the opportunity to speak this afternoon in this debate on the report stage amendments to Bill C-3, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (certificate and special advocate) and to make a consequential amendment to another Act. I was pleased to second the amendments put forward by my colleague, the member for Surrey North, on behalf of the NDP caucus today.

It is a somewhat controversial process to suggest that all the clauses of this bill be deleted, but it is a way for us in this corner of the House to show our very serious concerns with the legislation, to show our fears that this is the wrong process to protect Canadians, and to ensure fundamental justice in Canada. In the traditions of this place, putting forward those kinds of amendments is one way of showing that kind of deep concern.

The security certificate legislation is a feature of our Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, but my fear is that we are now using it essentially to prosecute very serious criminal matters, and in fact some of the most serious criminal matters that could face our society, those being terrorism, espionage and threats against the national security of Canada.

What this is saying is that we are prepared to use this lesser immigration process, which is essentially an expedited deportation process, to ensure that dangerous people are kept off the streets in Canada. It seems to me that this is short-circuiting our criminal justice process, especially when it comes to very serious crimes such as terrorism, espionage and threats against national security.

If there is a time when those crimes should be prosecuted, and prosecuted vigorously, it is when we have information about people who are present in Canada and participating in any of those kinds of activities. We should be ensuring that they are charged, prosecuted, convicted and then punished for those activities, but we should be doing it according to the principles of our justice system.

We should not be trying to short-circuit those very basic principles. I think that is what we are doing by using what I believe is a lesser provision of law in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to indefinitely detain people who have not been charged or convicted of any crimes and to deny them access to the evidence that is presented against them. They do not have the ability to fully test what is being presented and is leading to their continued detention.

Currently, post-September 11, this is being applied to six people in Canada, five of whom are Muslim men. I am very concerned that these men have had very serious allegations and accusations levelled against them, accusations that will follow them for the rest of their lives and make it difficult for them wherever they live, here in Canada or in any other country. Once people are labelled as suspected or accused terrorists, especially in the current world climate, their lives become very difficult.

Given the consequences of those kinds of allegations, we owe it to people to subject them to the highest possible standards of our justice system, not some lesser process. That is why I am fundamentally opposed to this legislation.

I would like to see us repeal the provisions of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act relating to security certificates. If there is a problem with our criminal law such that we are unable to prosecute people accused of these very serious crimes, then we should fix those problems in our Criminal Code to ensure that this kind of prosecution can take place.

I am also concerned that if the security certificate process went through to its logical conclusion, these people could be deported to countries where their lives would be in danger or where they might be subjected to torture. Canada must never deport someone to torture. We should never deport people when we have reason to believe that they will be killed once they return to their countries. We have a responsibility in that matter. Ultimately, the security certificate process allows us to avoid those kinds of responsibilities. We must never deport someone to torture.

I have to reiterate that using the security certificate process as provided in our immigration law is a lesser process that does not meet the important and longstanding traditions and standards of our criminal justice system. The appropriate way to deal with these very serious crimes is under the Criminal Code.

Of the five Muslim men who are currently the subjects of the security certificates, Hassan Almrei is the only detainee now being held at the Kingston Immigration Holding Centre. “Holding centre” is a nice way of describing what it actually is. It is a maximum security prison within a maximum security prison.

It is a maximum security prison located within the walls and the fences of Millhaven maximum security penitentiary, so it is not exactly a picnic of a place to be. I have been there on several occasions. It is a very difficult place. To be detained there indefinitely is I think a very severe penalty for anyone, especially someone who has never been charged or convicted.

Mr. Almrei is the only prisoner there. I believe that raises serious issues of solitary confinement, which we have to struggle with in this place and in our justice system. I do not think it is ever appropriate to hold someone in solitary confinement for a long period of time. Now that Mr. Almrei is the only prisoner there, that is the situation he faces.

The other four men who have been released on very strict conditions, Mohammad Mahjoub, Mahmoud Jaballah, Adil Charkaoui and Mohamed Harkat, are living with very difficult requirements. There are very severe restrictions on their lives and the lives of their families.

The reality is that those four men have been released from detention because they have family members who have been willing, on behalf of Canadian society, to act as their jailers. I think that is a very difficult proposition to put to any family member: that on behalf of Canadian society they should have to be responsible for one of their loved ones 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to make sure they remain in custody and meet these very rigorous conditions.

The effect on the lives of those families is very severe, and again, when their loved one, their father, brother or spouse, has never been convicted of or charged with a crime in Canada. These are very severe restrictions and we see how difficult it is for these families. We have seen just recently how Mr. Harkat has been arrested for an alleged breach of his release conditions. We are waiting anxiously to hear the outcome of his hearing today.

In a sense, I believe that those conditions have been set so strictly so that they will fail. It is hard to imagine how anyone could live under those conditions. It is a testament to the strength of the relationships in those families that they have been able to hold those families and those relationships together given the conditions that they are required to live in.

I am very convinced that this legislation violates some of the fundamental tenets of our justice system and that it uses a lesser mechanism in immigration law to deal with one of the most serious criminal issues that could face our society, that being terrorism or threats against our security. That is why I strongly will be voting against this. I am glad that the New Democrat caucus in this Parliament will also be voting against it.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, for the member opposite, in this whole discussion the factor that seems to be missing is the whole question of sources of information that Canada relies on for national security purposes.

This information comes from a variety of sources. It comes from agencies all around the world. There is an exchange of information. If this information were to become public, then of course those agencies and foreign countries would no longer give information to Canada. That would be an unfortunate development because a lot of that information is useful for our national security purposes.

The way the process goes is that under the current regime the government goes to a Federal Court judge and makes the argument on the information of CSIS, the RCMP, the Department of National Defence or other agencies. I note that a Federal Court judge does not get there because he or she is a rookie or does not have any experience or is just out of Osgoode Hall Law School. These judges have been around for a while. They are charged with challenging the credibility of the evidence being put forward.

Is the evidence corroborated? Is it reliable? Has it been derived from torture? That is the job of the Federal Court judge. What this bill is doing is actually enhancing that process, because a special advocate will actually pursue those questions quite vigorously on behalf of Canadians and on behalf of those who might be detained under security certificates.

To say that people do not know why they are being detained is not right. They know why they are being detained. They do not know all the sources of the information.

I would like to know from the member how he would deal with the question of sources of intelligence that are important for our national security interests if they got onto the floor of a court or into the public domain.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the reality is that Canada's Criminal Code does deal with that. If a Canadian is charged with these kinds of crimes, there are mechanisms which accommodate exactly that. We do not need a special process like this. Those mechanisms already exist in the Criminal Code of Canada. We can see that right now, because there are Canadians charged with these kinds of crimes and those processes are in court. Those kinds of issues will be dealt with by the court as well.

To say that we need this lesser process to deal with people who are not Canadian citizens I think is a very flawed thing. To say that we need a separate system of justice or a lesser system of justice for someone who is a visitor in our country or is a permanent resident I think violates the charter at a very fundamental level. It certainly violates my hopes for what the charter might mean to someone who is present here in Canada.

I am someone who believes that the charter should apply to anyone who is here in Canada and that what is good for a Canadian citizen should be good for any of our brothers and sisters around the world, that we should respect that hope with all of those people. I do not accept that we need a separate process to deal with that.

I also do not accept that the special advocate in any way will address the problems of hearing secret evidence. We have seen that it has been a flawed process in Britain and in New Zealand. We have seen many recommendations made by experts in Canada about what a special advocate process might look like here. Unfortunately, the government chose not to implement any of them in the legislation it brought forward. It had that possibility and it had the studies for a long time, yet the bill that was presented here did not reflect any of that wisdom.

Some of the special advocates in other jurisdictions in Britain have said they have had to leave that work because all they were doing was adding a veneer of respectability to a very flawed process. I do not want to put a lawyer in Canada in that position. I think that is why the government has had to extend the deadline for applications for people who wish to be special advocates in Canada: because lawyers in Canada are unwilling to participate in that kind of flawed position. It is a flawed position that the Canadian Bar Association has said is likely to be held unconstitutional, so here we are debating a law that is going to end up back in court and which is likely to be rejected again according to many of the experts who appeared before the committee.

I do not think that is an acceptable process. We need to be clear about what our hopes are for our justice system. We need to be clear about protecting the principles of that justice system that has been established over hundreds of years and that we have fought hard and long for in this country. I believe this legislation flies in the face of that experience and that tradition. That is why I will not be supporting this legislation.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

The question is on Motion No. 1. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

The recorded division on Motion No. 1 stands deferred until Monday, February 4, at 6:30 p.m.

The House resumed from January 30 consideration of the motion that Bill C-33, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-33. It is important that we look at the provisions of the Environmental Protection Act dealing with fuels as part of a long range study on the impact of biofuels, not only in Canada but also throughout the world.

We support the bill in principle because of its potential benefits to farmers who finally, thanks to the surge in the biofuel industry, have at least a better chance to make a profit from going green.

My party and I also support increased funding and an expanded mandate for the Canadian Co-operative Association, specifically renewed funding for the cooperative development initiative, beginning as of April. Cooperatives, as we know, can be a very important part of this whole biofuel initiative.

When dealing with growing crops for fuel, however, we must look at it under the umbrella of food production. Does the cultivation of corn, for example, or wheat for fuel take away land which has been used to grow food. That is a fundamental question not only in our country, but throughout the world. This is an important question in light of the dwindling stocks of food supply in the world. I will try to come back to this later.

In Canada, Manitoba has attempted to reach what I call a healthy compromise in the food versus fuel debate. It has taken a three point approach to biofuels, which include agriculture, the greenhouse gas effect and the economy. It is using local grain and also some from Saskatchewan.

The federal program proposed by Bill C-33, however, opens the door to the import of sugar and palm oil, which are potential food stocks, and in many instances the cultivation of these commodities in the southern hemisphere has proven to be devastating for the environment as well as for local farmers. We have to be careful. We need a planned, balanced, moderate approach.

The province of Manitoba has determined that 10% of its grain and oilseed stock is not food grade and can thus be used for the value added industry. For example, wheat can be broken down to sugar for ethanol and protein for animal feed. We see in Manitoba a concrete result for farmers. There is now a market for B grade crops and winter wheat, and winter wheat is still being grown.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

Order, please. It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

When we return to the study of Bill C-33, there will be 17 minutes left for the hon. member for British Columbia Southern Interior.

Death Penalty

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

moved:

Motion No. 411

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should reaffirm that:

(a) there is no death penalty in Canada;

(b) it is the policy of the government to seek clemency, on humanitarian grounds, for Canadians sentenced to death in foreign countries; and

(c) Canada will continue its leadership role in promoting the abolition of the death penalty internationally.

Mr. Speaker, it is a honour to rise today to speak to an issue that is extremely important, I believe, to all Canadians and certainly one that is very important to all parliamentarians.

I want to repeat exactly what the motion says so we have it clear what we are talking about tonight. It states:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should reaffirm that: (a) there is no death penalty in Canada; (b) it is the policy of the government to seek clemency, on humanitarian grounds, for Canadians sentenced to death in foreign countries; and (c) Canada will continue its leadership role in promoting the abolition of the death penalty internationally.

It has been doing this for many years in the past.

The fact that the motion is even necessary and being discussed is frankly quite disturbing to many of us and to most Canadians.

The Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau abolished the death penalty in 1976, with a free vote in Parliament. In 1987 the Mulroney Conservative government held a free vote on the reinstatement of the death penalty.

The current Minister of Justice voted in favour of reinstating the death penalty at that time. Thankfully, with a full fledged debate, the House at that time voted against the reinstatement, and with good reason.

Let us take a moment to think about the miscarriages of justice that have occurred in recent memory, mistakes that have been made that could have cost the lives of wrongly convicted Canadians if we had the death penalty in Canada, wrongly convicted Canadians such as Steven Truscott, David Milgaard, Guy Paul Morin and others about whom we all have heard. Using the new scientific evidence to clear people is a real move of process in the new scientific way to identify whether a person is guilty or not.

Consider the incredible suffering these families would have endured had these innocent men been executed.

Let us think of the work of disgraced pathologist Dr. Smith, who we are currently dealing with in Toronto and the amount of people who were sent to jail for many years with flawed pathologist reports. What if some of these people had been executed based on totally incompetent work?

We do not have the death penalty in Canada for these and for many other reasons. However, secretively last year, very quietly the minority Conservative government admitted that it would no longer seek clemency for Canadians sentenced to death by foreign countries.

The Conservatives claim that the death penalty in the United States is legitimate because that country is a democracy. However, even American jurists are rejecting that view. The American Bar Association has found so many inequities and shortfalls in the death penalty systems in several American states that it has now called for a nation-wide moratorium on executions.

Canada's new position also undermines the efforts of the international partners with whom we have joined at the United Nations in a call for an international moratorium on the death penalty. We refuse to call on Montana for clemency, yet we ask the rest of the world for a moratorium.

Not only is it very hypocritical, but it is also clearly not the Canadian way and very un-Canadian. This announcement and this change in policy direction has given many Canadians reason to be very wary of what a majority Conservative government might actually do.

Quite frankly, it is disturbing this direction that it appears to want to take. The minority Conservative government is sending a clear message that we cannot count on the government to help us if we are sentenced to death in another country. The Liberal Party does not believe in turning our backs on its Canadian citizens.

By not standing up for a Canadian citizen facing the death penalty in the U.S., the Conservatives are reversing a long-standing Canadian practice and are appealing to a base of support that does not represent the views of most Canadians.

Do not misunderstand me. I believe in tough punishments for serious crimes. I want offenders severely punished and I do not have a lot of sympathy, if any, for any of them. However, I also do not support the death penalty for Canadians.

If the minority Conservative government really wants to further its socially conservative agenda, it should debate this issue in Parliament and tell Canadians exactly where it stands.

Despite their claims that they have no intention of reintroducing the death penalty in Canada, many of the current cabinet ministers have spoken publicly about their support for the death penalty. While the Prime Minister has tried to claim there has been no shift in official policy, a number of his prominent cabinet ministers have publicly stated their support for the death penalty in the past, including the current Minister of Justice, the Minister of National Defence and the Minister of Public Safety.

In fact, the current Minister of Justice said in the House, “One argument that I think has been made effectively is that capital punishment is necessary to restore public respect for the criminal justice system”.

It is not only the justice minister who is a closet fan of the death penalty. The public safety minister said, “I believe that when somebody has cold-bloodedly and in a premeditated way removed someone's right to live by murdering them, then, subject to the recommendation of a jury, I would concur with saying they should also forfeit their life”.

Those are very strong statements. However. what if that person had been wrongfully convicted?

As good as our criminal justice system is, we know clearly that it is not perfect and I do not think the criminal justice system in any country is.

While we are talking about interesting quotations, the Prime Minister was quoted as saying in 2004, in one of his speeches, “We can create a country built on solid Conservative values, not on expensive Liberal promises, a country the Liberals wouldn't even recognize, the kind of country I want to lead”.

I have read that statement many times and wonder just exactly what that means. Does that apply to the death penalty and the changes that he would make had the Conservatives had a majority government? We should ask those questions.

The minority Conservative government is desperate to appear moderate, to trick Canadians into believing that a Conservative government would not move Canada closer to the radical agenda of President Bush and the Republicans. The truth is the government is eager to implement a socially conservative agenda and it will start by sneaking what it can through the backdoor, since it knows it cannot pass any of it in the current Parliament. Just imagine what the Conservatives might do if they had a majority.

Until last month, Canada has been the leader on the global stage in the fight against the death penalty. As a co-sponsor of numerous resolutions before the United Nations Human Rights Commission, Canada has worked alongside countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia to push for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the death penalty.

The government continues to show a complete lack of respect for Parliament. If it wants to change the policy on the death penalty, then let us debate it in the House and let Canadians see the real face of the government, once and for all.

The Liberal Party opposes the death penalty at home and abroad. We will not stand by quietly and watch the minority government reverse years of Canadian leadership on this issue.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have one question for the member and I hope she will be able to clearly answer it for us in the House.

Would she support the government seeking clemency if it were contingent on murderers being brought back to Canada to either serve their sentences in Canada or to be released?