Debates of Oct. 23rd, 2009

Question No. 413

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Regarding the Knowledge Infrastructure Program announced in January 2009: (a) how many proposals were received from Aboriginal educational institutions; (b) how many of those proposals were accepted; (c) how many were refused and why; and (d) of those accepted, how much funding was allocated?

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, in response to (a), the knowledge infrastructure program, KIP, is a federal initiative created to renew Canada’s college and university infrastructure. By making large-scale investments in infrastructure, the Government of Canada is providing significant short-term economic stimulus in local communities across the country.

The program design of the KIP targets all Canadian post-secondary educational institutions that grant degrees and post-secondary credentials. Just as there were no predetermined provincial allocations, there was no allocation specifically set aside for funding of aboriginal-controlled institutions.

The KIP received 912 proposals in total. Of these, 25 proposals were received from 21 aboriginal educational institutions across Canada.

In response to (b), as of June 18, 2009, two projects have been awarded funding through KIP: Nicola Valley Institute of Technology in Merritt, British Columbia and Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies, SIIT, in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

In response to (c), additional funding announcements continue to be made. All proposals received to date, including those received from aboriginal institutions, are being considered for the remaining funding.

In response to (d), to date, two proposals from aboriginal educational institutions have been awarded funding: Nicola Valley Institute of Technology in British Columbia, $739,000 from KIP, with matching funding from the Province of B.C. and the institute itself; and Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies, SIIT, in Saskatchewan, $1,072,000 from KIP, with matching funding from the Province of Saskatchewan.

Question No. 415

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

With respect to the privatization of the military supply chain process for the Canadian Forces, since 2006: (a) what is the government’s position on such privatization; (b) what is the business case for such privatization; (c) what products or services are anticipated to be supplied through a privatized supply chain; (d) what discussions have occurred with private consultants or contractors; and (e) have any contracts been signed and, if so, (i) with whom, (ii) on what date, (iii) in what amount, (iv) who approved the contracts on behalf of the government, (v) which contracts were not subject to a competitive bid process?

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

Mr. Speaker, military supply chains are among the most complex in the world. In order to adapt to an environment of constant change, continuous improvement is an integral part of military supply chain management. Discussions are held between stakeholders on an ongoing basis to review the performance of the supply chain and its ability to respond to change in a timely manner. At this point in time, however, there is no consideration being given to privatizing the operation of the supply chain.

The department has established various levels of contracted support for specific equipment, including such functions as the provision of spare parts, and will continue to do so on a case by case basis where it is judged appropriate. The department may also from time to time use contractors to augment its capacity to meet specific supply chain requirements, for example its support operations in Afghanistan.

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, if Question Nos. 400 and 408 could be made orders for returns, these returns would be tabled immediately.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Question No. 400

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

With regard to the renting of venues or properties for executive retreats or meetings outside of a government department, agency or a Crown Corporation’s own offices (i.e. where an expense for rental of rooms is made to an outside party) in the fiscal years 2007-2008 and 2008-2009, for all government departments, agencies and Crown corporations: (a) what was the total cost of the rental of these venues; (b) how many times were venues or properties contracted for or rented; and (c) in each case, (i) what was the name and location of the venue or property, (ii) what was the reason or purpose of the venue or property rental, (iii) how many people attended the retreat or meeting, (iv) what was the overall cost of the rental of the venue?

(Return tabled)

Question No. 408

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

With regards to the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal: (a) as an employee of either institutions, how much money did Mr. Warman receive in total; (b) how much money, in total, did Richard Warman receive from appearances as a witness before the Commision or Tribunal; and (c) how much money, in total, did M. Warman receive as awards or damages from complaints before the Commission or Tribunal?

(Return tabled)

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Madam Speaker, I ask that all remaining questions be allowed to stand.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-52, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sentencing for fraud), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Retribution on Behalf of Victims of White Collar Crime Act

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

There are four minutes left for questions and comments on the speech by the parliamentary secretary. The hon. member for Sherbrooke.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask a question of the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles.

He said earlier that we had to start somewhere. So we are starting with a two-year sentence for a $1 million fraud. However, the Conservatives do not want to commit immediately either to abolishing the right to parole after one-sixth of the sentence has been served or to eliminating tax havens. But the member mentioned on several occasions the two-year mandatory sentence for a $1 million fraud.

I would like the member to clarify one thing for me. The government is talking about a two-year mandatory sentence, but it is not abolishing the right to be released after one-sixth of the sentence has been served. Can he tell me where exactly in this bill it states clearly that anyone receiving this two-year mandatory sentence—and the word “mandatory” should also be defined in the legislation—will not be released after serving one-sixth of the sentence? Basically, a 24-month sentence for a $2 million fraud would be reduced to 4 months.

I would like the member to tell me where exactly I should look in the bill to be certain that this two-year mandatory minimum sentence will not shrink to a mere four months.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice]

Through you, Madam Speaker, I will answer my hon. colleague's question, which was a fair and appropriate one.

Here is how things work in the parliamentary system. First, the minister of Justice introduces legislation. That is how Bill C-52 was introduced. Then, another minister, namely the minister of Public Safety, has authority with respect to what is called detention. When a judge hands down a sentence, the minister of Public Safety is the one who steps in and has jurisdiction, at the parliamentary level, to introduce this kind of legislation.

The member raised the issue of parole after one sixth of the sentence. I will suggest to him that, for one thing, what the Bloc Québécois introduced was a really incomplete bill that cannot be implemented or would be difficult to implement. So, we have to take a more serious approach and introduce legislation that will deal with parole after one sixth of the sentence and, after both bills have received royal assent, will actually apply to the various individuals wo will be convicted. Then, after parole after one sixth of the sentence is repealed, they will serve a two-year sentence. This is a baseline, however, which means that the judge may go higher and sentence them to more than two years, for as long as four, five, six or seven years.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, basically, if I interpret the Conservative member's remarks correctly, he is telling us that the bill is flawed and that the person receiving a two-year sentence may serve only four months.

Why not start at the beginning and abolish immediately the right to release after one-sixth of the sentence has been served? This could cover all crimes and all sentences handed down by judges.

Such a flawed bill needs to be withdrawn.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Madam Speaker, through you, I will simply answer that the Criminal Code has to be taken as a whole. First we had to deal with the remand issue, otherwise abolishing the right to release after one-sixth of the sentence would be useless.

I thank my colleague for his interest in justice and for helping the federal government improve the Criminal Code through his comments. That is very commendable.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate on Bill C-52 introduced by the government.

I want to begin my speech by making a comment. When this bill was announced, we were surprised, or maybe not that much, since other ministers have behaved this way, to learn through various press conferences held across Canada, in Ottawa, Montreal and Edmonton, that the substance of this bill was being released before we as parliamentarians and legislators knew about it and had a chance to look at the bill and what it entails. This government once again is using a very important matter, that of economic crimes, to do some marketing.

This is not the first time I have seen this. I just want to give the government a friendly warning. They did the same thing during the last budget. Before the budget was tabled, a number of ministers made targeted announcements. Take for example the agriculture portfolio, for which I am the Bloc Québécois critic. The Minister of Agriculture made an announcement on measures that he wanted to implement before the budget was even tabled. When the budget was tabled, it was not at all what the farmers expected and it did not address their concerns. The government leaked information for the sake of publicity but we could not react because we did not have the exact wording of the budget in front of us.

That is how the story of this bill began.

Nevertheless, in order to be consistent with all the interventions it has made in the House, the Bloc Québécois is prepared to go over this bill in committee. It will need some minor and some major changes. Over the next few minutes I will explain what could be done to make this bill acceptable and effective.

The government's Bill C-52 is just not good enough. We will send it to committee, we will study it thoroughly, and we will recommend some much-needed changes.

The first problem is that this bill proposes minimum sentences.That is the Conservative government's pet project. It wants to put minimum sentences all over the place. We have to make sure that imposing minimum sentences for economic crimes will really make a difference. These offences are known as white-collar crimes, or maybe lace-collar crimes if the offender is a woman. Regardless, we are talking about people like Vincent Lacroix and Earl Jones, who are fraudsters. We are seeing more and more cases like this. It could be because people are speaking up about it more than they used to. Or maybe it really is happening more often than before. I do not know, but we have to get tougher and tougher on these people.

The first point I want to make is that minimum sentences are not a deterrent. During question periods and press conferences, the minister has been unable to think of one single major fraud case in which the sentence has been less than the two years proposed in Bill C-52. Under this bill, there will be a minimum two-year sentence for fraud cases over $1 million.

We asked the Conservatives to find one single ruling, one precedent, one case in which the judge sentenced someone convicted of fraud in excess of $1 million to less than two years, two years less a day, one year or six months in prison. The minister himself has been unable to provide a single example.

After researching the issue, we learned that typical prison sentences in fraud in excess of $1 million cases have been around six or seven years. The most recent example that comes to mind is Vincent Lacroix, who was sentenced to 13 years in prison but will be eligible for parole after serving one-sixth of that time, so will probably not serve all 13 years in jail. That is the problem. The problem is not what is in the bill, but what is not in it.

The bill talks about aggravating factors, among other things. The courts already take the aggravating factors into account. Most, if not all, of the aggravating factors in the current bill were addressed in the Vincent Lacroix ruling. This means that the judge who presided over this case had full flexibility to add aggravating factors. One need only read the ruling to see that the new Bill C-52 would not have changed much in Vincent Lacroix's case.

This is already the case with restitution orders, which are broader in scope in the bill, but experts have raised concerns about the feasibility of these measures in practice. That remains to be seen. I think it would be good for the committee to hear from these experts and from the government to see how we could make these restitution orders effective.

Orders that limit the activities of offenders are a little better and more useful. But this, as well, is at best an extension of a practice that already exists in the Criminal Code. That is one thing that could be acceptable in this bill. But we believe—and I am not the first Bloc Québécois member who has spoken in this House—that it is missing the obvious.

We believe that the problem with parole is not when they are going in, but when they are coming out. What happens is that criminals—and this is what people object to—receive prison sentences that are standard, appropriate, and accepted by the public, but they are released before their sentence is up.

A guy like Vincent Lacroix gets 13 years in prison for what he did. People in my riding are telling me that a 13-year sentence for what he did makes sense. What does not make sense is that he could be released sooner, thanks to the parole system and the one-sixth of a sentence option that this government refuses to eliminate. The Bloc Québécois has been calling for it to be eliminated.

As soon as the House resumed, we introduced a bill. The parliamentary secretary said it is really complicated. Yet the bill is very simple; it eliminates the one-sixth practice. With this measure, Vincent Lacroix could therefore not get out after two years and two months, which is what one-sixth of a 13-year sentence would work out to. People are upset. They are not happy, and with good reason.

The same thing goes for Earl Jones. Vincent Lacroix and Earl Jones could therefore benefit from this practice of parole after one-sixth of a sentence has been served. I would remind the House that Lacroix's crimes affected 9,200 victims. He stole over $130 million from people and not one cent of it was recovered. They will never see that money again. A sentence of 13 years is acceptable, but if he is granted parole after serving one-sixth of it, he will get out in two years and two months.

The figures I just gave regarding the victims are an indication of what a problem this is. In addition, we are not doing anything about tax havens. We think this presents a good opportunity, at committee, to try to add measures to this bill to eliminate tax havens, since we know that is where crooks stash their spoils.

What good will it do to order restitution of hidden money? Unfortunately, fraud artists are generally smart people who plan ahead. They defraud their victims over a number of months and years, and the smarter they are, the better their scheme will be. Unfortunately, they will manage to hide the money they steal from people. They will even tell themselves that, if worst comes to worst, they will spend some time in prison, but that when they are eventually released, they will be able to recover the stolen money from the tax havens where they hid it.

This is where we can take action to ensure that these people cannot hide the money they have stolen and that the victims can get their money back.

Amending the Income Tax Act to prohibit the use of tax havens would obviously be a big improvement. As we know, tax havens allow individuals and companies to hide money and avoid paying tax.

I will conclude on the issue of tax havens. I would like to make three points before I finish. We want to repeal the provisions that allow companies to use a strategy known as double deduction. The Bloc Québécois proposes to amend a section of the Income Tax Regulations that allows Canadian companies to set up what are known as international business corporations in Barbados. We also plan to oppose the ratification of any free trade agreement with countries that are on the OECD banking transparency greylist or blacklist.

In conclusion, I believe it would be a good idea to send this bill to committee and make the necessary changes to it, especially as regards parole after one-sixth of a sentence has been served and tax havens.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Before beginning questions and comments, I wish to inform the House that there are five minutes for questions and ten minutes for debate.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, I listened intently to the member from the Bloc, and I thought for a moment I was seeing the Bloc recognize that we do have crime in this country and that we have to bring in changes in legislation to address that. However, at the end of his presentation, I found that I was sadly mistaken.

The member talked about Mr. Lacroix who received a 13-year sentence, which the member of the Bloc said was appropriate. He then went on to say he would only serve one-sixth of his sentence and he would be out in two years and two months, and that is not appropriate.

I need to impress on the Bloc member that this is the very reason we are trying to bring in mandatory sentences, so that people who are convicted of white-collar crimes get a sentence that is a set sentence and so that they are going to serve that time, and it will be appropriate for the crime they have committed. It is going to do away with the escape clause that allows them to serve only one-sixth of their sentence, as was the case in the example that the member just gave. The Bloc member seems to be confused about what this is all about. We want to get these criminals to do their time.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Madam Speaker, I think the member is himself confused, because I really was very clear, even if in ten minutes, it is not possible to discuss all the ins and outs of a bill. One thing is sure, he has just shown how confused he is. He says that there is a problem with my remarks when I say we have to be critical of the fact that Vincent Lacroix will be able to get out after two years and two months. Why can he get out then? Because the law as it stands allows him to. Parole after one-sixth of a sentence is served is a fact. So, after serving one-sixth of his sentence of 13 years, as set by the judge, who, in my opinion did a good job, he will get out.

What we in the Bloc are saying is that parole after one-sixth of a sentence is served must be eliminated. I do not know if the member was present when Parliament resumed on September 14. Right off, on arrival, we introduced a bill to abolish parole after one-sixth of a sentence. Let us take the example of someone like Vincent Lacroix. That is his name. I do not know whether the hon. member has been following the news in Quebec recently with regard to economic crimes, but the man defrauded 9,200 people of $130 million. His name is Vincent Lacroix. If parole after serving one-sixth of a sentence were abolished, he would be in prison for 13 years, not just two years and two months.

That is what we are criticizing, and I do not see how minimum sentences would change anything. Bill C-52 would have told the judge who considered the case of Vincent Lacroix that he had to be given a minimum of two years for his fraud. A fat lot of good that does us. He gave him 13 years. He certainly would not give anyone like Vincent Lacroix two years, or he would have his head taken off in Quebec. This is why I would say the hon. member is confused and not me.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, the member is correct. The tax havens in the Cayman Islands, Panama and so on are really the important part that the government is forgetting about. It talks about restitution but there will be no restitution because fraudsters are going to get their money to the tax havens.

In addition to that, I would like to ask the member what he thinks about the idea of toughening up the banking rules to require the banks to be more vigilant about the activities of people like this. For example, currently the bank has to report anyone who comes in with a cash deposit of over $10,000. Why can the government not come up with some more stringent rules for the banks?