Debates of Oct. 20th, 2009

Infrastructure

[John Baird, Conservative, Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, we take our responsibilities very seriously. Our government is making major investments in all regions of the country to ensure that our bridges are safe. We transfer money to the crown corporations responsible for the bridges. These corporations are required to operate openly and transparently. If the member has any further information, she should make it public in the House right now.

Afghanistan

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, according to Global, General Hillier read the diplomat's reports describing the mistreatment that awaited detainees who were turned over to the Afghan authorities. According to the general, as early as the fall of 2007, CIDA, Foreign Affairs and the rest of the government were well aware that detainees risked being tortured.

The general insists that information about detainees circulated constantly within the government. How can the minister claim that Hillier knew and he did not?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Minister of National Defence and Minister for the Atlantic Gateway]

Mr. Speaker, as usual, the Bloc member is talking a great deal, but not saying anything. It is true that our government has cooperated. It has worked hard with all Afghans and also with the officers here in Canada.

We have seen dozens, if not hundreds, of reports of allegations, unsubstantiated and otherwise. We continue to co-operate.

Most important, we have improved the situation vis-à-vis transfers. We have improved the human rights situation in Afghanistan. We continue to work with officials there. I am very proud of the work of the Canadian Forces, CIDA and DFAIT on that file.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will say something else to the minister.

He is quite simply not credible when he says that he did not receive the information in the damning reports by Mr. Colvin, the diplomat. Either he is nothing but a pawn who has absolutely no idea what is going on in his department, or he was well aware that detainees turned over to the Afghan authorities risked being tortured and he is misleading this House.

Does the minister realize that in either case, he has no credibility?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Minister of National Defence and Minister for the Atlantic Gateway]

Mr. Speaker, as I have said before, there were many documents, many allegations at the time, but the important thing here is that two and a half years ago we improved upon the lacking arrangement of transfers left by the previous government. What is important is we worked with Afghan prison officials to ensure a better transfer. What is important is that we allowed Afghan police, corrections officials, police working with them to train them to do their job.

Canadians can be very proud of the work being done by officials on the ground. We have drastically improved the human rights situation. There is more to do. We will continue to do that.

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Mr. Speaker, what is important is that the government tells what it knew and when it knew it about the detainee abuse.

It is clear that General Rick Hillier knew about the reports. It is clear that he told CIDA, Foreign Affairs and the rest of the government about those reports. The fact is that on important matters the chief of the defence staff attends cabinet meetings in person.

How can the government continue to maintain its fiction that no one in government knew about Colvin's reports?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Minister of National Defence and Minister for the Atlantic Gateway]

What is fictional, Mr. Speaker, is half of that member's question. The reality is, as I have said a number of times, we have acted. We acted decisively two and a half years ago.

We improved an inadequate, incomplete transfer arrangement left by that member's government. We then went about investing in prisons. We went about training prison officials, training police to improve the human rights situation. That is work that is ongoing on the ground.

We can be very proud of the efforts of the Canadian Forces, CIDA, and Department of Foreign Affairs officials who are working very hard. That is the issue, not some conspiracy theory by the member opposite.

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will tell you how the government acted. It acted in the biggest obstruction of justice before the Military Police Complaints Commission in this country. That is how it acted.

We know Hillier knew. We know the government was aware. We know that Foreign Affairs ADM Colleen Swords was one of the recipients of Colvin's reports. The government continues to maintain its fiction.

Is the government now saying that General Hillier is lying?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Minister of National Defence and Minister for the Atlantic Gateway]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member can feign indignation. He can cast aspersions. He can make all kinds of allegations. The reality is his government left a failed arrangement with respect to transfer.

We improved upon that. We have invested in prisons. We have gone about training prison officials. We have improved the ability of police to do their job in Afghanistan. We continue to train security officials across the country. We acted on advice from officials. There were thousands of documents, allegations, reports that were circulating at the time. We acted two and a half years ago and will continue to do so.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence and concerns the same subject. It is now clear that the government does not have a process to find answers to very simple questions.

Who received Mr. Colvin's report? Who in government was aware of Mr. Colvin's reports? Why is the government continuing to prevent the House from knowing all the facts and the whole truth? Why is it still obstructing justice?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Minister of National Defence and Minister for the Atlantic Gateway]

Mr. Speaker, I will repeat my answer very slowly for the member opposite. We are co-operating with investigations that are ongoing about what Afghans did to Afghans. We are continuing to work with officials, most important, to improve the human rights--

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

You're despicable.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

This is too much.

[An hon. member]

Who, when, what?

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

Order. The hon. Minister of National Defence has the floor.

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, if they want answers, we will give them answers.

We will continue to work with officials to improve the human rights situation in Afghanistan. We have worked closely with the officials there to see that conditions in prisons are improved. We are going to continue to make efforts to mentor police and security officials in Afghanistan. That is what we are there to do, not to engage in this game of political pointing of the finger and allegation.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Colvin was a Canadian diplomat who had reason to know certain things about conditions in prisons and conditions with respect to Afghan detainees. He shared that information with the people with whom he had to share it.

We are asking in this House a very simple set of questions. Who in the government knew about this? If not in the government, who in the bureaucracy knew about this? Why did it take so long for the Government of Canada to act, to act in the name of decency and to act in the name of honour? Why did it delay for so long? That is the question.

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Minister of National Defence and Minister for the Atlantic Gateway]

Mr. Speaker, what I would ask the member opposite is what took him so long to ask questions about this? We acted two and a half years go. We moved immediately. As soon as we had credible allegations of abuse, we went about improving the transfer arrangement that was left in place by the government of the party opposite. We went about mentoring corrections officials. We went about making efforts to improve policing. We went about making efforts to ensure that these transfers were occurring within human rights guidelines. We have worked with the Afghan officials since that time.

This is a monumental effort of which Canadians can be very proud. The member is now engaged in just skullduggery and muckraking.

Justice

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

Mr. Speaker, our government, through the hon. Minister of Justice, has consistently taken action to get tough on all types of crime.

Many of my constituents have told me they believe that those who fall victim to fraud can be victimized just as much as a person who has been mugged in an alley. I agree with them.

I ask the Minister of Justice, what are our government's plans to address the issue of white-collar crime in this country?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the victims of white-collar crime, we are taking further action on their concerns.

Let me be clear. In the last Parliament, we introduced a bill that would get rid of house arrest for people convicted of serious white-collar crime and the opposition gutted that bill.

Despite this, we are introducing a bill that would crack down on white-collar criminals and provide appropriate penalties. I am calling on the opposition to set aside the way it acted in the past and to support us.

At that point, I have to say that I am proud to be part of the only party that is prepared to deliver on behalf of victims of crime.

Afghanistan

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

Mr. Speaker, the defence minister and the Prime Minister continue to deny knowledge of Richard Colvin's reports on Afghan prisoner torture abuse, or say that they were not credible. This is increasingly hard to believe. We know the reports were sent to 79 senior officials, including commanders at DND and the head of the Afghanistan task force. Now we are hearing that the chief of defence staff at the time, General Rick Hillier, is saying that the government was kept in the loop about prisoner torture.

If the minister really did not see any of these reports or really did not know what was going on, then he clearly was not doing his job. Will the minister admit his incompetence in this matter?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Minister of National Defence and Minister for the Atlantic Gateway]

Mr. Speaker, I will repeat, two and a half years ago, on allegations that were circulating at the time, on thousands of reports that were circulating at the time, we acted to improve the transfer agreement that was left in place by the previous government. We then went about mentoring prison officials, went about mentoring police and went about improving the overall security situation.

I do not know what the hon. member is talking about in terms of co-operation. We are co-operating with ongoing investigations. We are not pre-empting or prejudging those investigations. We are acting within the legislation, within the decisions that have been handed down by the Federal Court.

The hon. member can continue to make allegations, continue to make wild-eyed accusations, but they are simply not true.

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

Mr. Speaker, the minister and his government continue to deny that there were credible abuse reports a year after Mr. Colvin's report.

I understand the minister is doing his own investigation. Perhaps he could start by looking at his own inbox to see what is there.

If the Prime Minister and the minister are really serious about getting to the bottom of this, then surely they will support our effort to call Mr. Colvin and the relevant senior officials before the Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan.

Will the Prime Minister allow this to happen and let them fully discuss what they know, or will he continue this cover-up under the guise of national security?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Minister of National Defence and Minister for the Atlantic Gateway]

Mr. Speaker, we will let parliamentary committees do their work. Of course that is what the government will always do.

The member can torque up his language, can make more inflammatory remarks and speak louder, but that will not make his case any more convincing.

Obviously, we have taken important decisive action to improve the prison transfer agreement that was in place, to continue to work to support Afghan officials, to train police, to train prison officials to see that these humanitarian practices are followed.

We acted decisively two and a half years ago. I do not know where the member was at that time. We were getting the job done in Afghanistan.

The Environment

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when my colleague from Québec questioned the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of the Environment yesterday, the parliamentary secretary rattled off the same old platitudes about greenhouse gas reduction targets.

Since the parliamentary secretary did not answer us, I will put my question to the minister. Can he confirm that he does not plan on establishing two categories of targets—less stringent intensity targets for the oil and gas industry and absolute targets for everyone else?