Debates of March 27th, 2009

The House resumed from March 26 consideration of the motion that Bill C-15, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Controlled Drugs and Substance Act

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be up first on this Friday morning to speak to Bill C-15, which deals with mandatory minimum sentencing for drug crimes and amends the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

This is a very important debate on the bill. It is one of the bills that the Conservative government, with the support of the Liberals, had wanted to rush through the House with no debate. We think the bill needs debate because it is really at a juncture where it is telling us what direction Canada will go in terms of its drug policy. From that point of view, it is a very significant bill and it deserves full public debate and input. I hope that will happen at committee as well. We need to hear from witnesses. It is very important that we be on the record in terms of our position around the bill.

I represent the riding of Vancouver East and, as many people know, it is a riding that has been hit very hard with the seriousness of drug issues. For a number of years, when I was first elected, the number of overdoses in the downtown eastside was the leading cause of death. It was horribly alarming. It was the number one public health issue where people were dying needlessly. These were preventable deaths from drug overdoses because of prohibition and because of the illegal drug market, the black market, where people were buying things on the street and they did not know what they were. The level of overdoses was just horrific, causing chaos, pain and suffering in the downtown eastside.

That still goes on today to some extent, but over the last 10 years, because of enormous efforts by the community and indeed right across Canada, particularly by drug users themselves who began to speak out about their own experience, the situation began to change.

It is very easy in our society to vilify and demonize drug users. It is very easy to label people as “criminals” and to label a drug user as a trafficker. In fact, under the law, even passing a joint to someone would be characterized as trafficking.

Not only were we trying to overcome the severe health and safety impacts in terms of drug use in the downtown eastside but also trying to deal with the terrible stigma and stereotyping that surrounds drug users.

The fact is that drug use exists at all levels of society. There are lawyers, professionals, engineers and all kinds of people who use drugs, whether medical or non-medical. If it is a prescription, that might be a substance use problem as well, whether a person gets it from a doctor or gets it on the street. It may be that a person is using drugs for recreational purposes, maybe marijuana.

It exists at all levels of society, but it is very much a class issue, because the enforcement regime that we have in this country, similar to the United States, is very much levelled at visible drug use on the street, basically people who are poor, people who are facing that stigma, and often people facing challenges of mental health.

In Vancouver, for example, with the deinstitutionalization of Riverview, people were literally sent out on the street with no support and ended up in the downtown eastside with very poor housing and no resources. People, in effect, started self-medicating and suddenly found themselves in this terrible environment of being “criminal”, and being harassed and chased by police and maybe arrested.

It is very much an issue that pertains to the poorest in our society who are involved in drug use and the enforcement, primarily in this country, as in the United States, has been levelled at those people.

About 73% of federal dollars on drug policy in Canada go toward enforcement. Only 2.6% goes to prevention, only 2.6% goes to harm reduction and about 14% to treatment. That is a very uneven balance.

For example, when the Auditor General audited drug policy in this country a few years ago, she remarked upon this and posed some questions: What was the impact? What was the value? What were we getting for such a high emphasis on an enforcement and interdiction regime when drug use was actually going up in Canada?

It might interest people to know that in 1994, 28% of Canadians reported having used illicit drugs, but by 2004 that number was at 45%. Certainly, the policies we have had that have been so focused on the criminal regime and the criminalization of drug users have been completely ineffective. We only have to look south of the border, where the so-called war on drugs has unleashed billions and billions of dollars. We see massive numbers of people incarcerated indicating what a failure it is.

I was very interested to read in the paper yesterday Hillary Clinton talking about how the war on drugs in Mexico has been a failure. It is first time the U.S. administration has talked about this. There was a headline saying that it failed. This has been the wrong approach. We are hoping very much that with the new administration in the U.S. things will begin to change. I wanted to give that backdrop.

Bill C-15 was brought in, in an earlier Parliament, as Bill C-26 and died on the order paper. It does raise the question of how urgent this was for the Conservatives when they brought it in so late and just let it go because they wanted to have an election. However, Bill C-15 is completely focused around the premise that mandatory minimum sentencing is going to work for drug crimes. That is what the bill is about. It is not a bill about broader enforcement regimes. It is about mandatory minimum sentencing. It does pose the question and I believe we have a responsibility to answer this question as to whether or not the evidence shows that mandatory minimum sentencing will actually be an effective tool.

I have done a fair amount of research on this as the drug policy critic for our party. Because of my involvement in Vancouver East and the downtown eastside, I have to say I have become very involved in this issue. I have worked very closely with drug users and I have learned a lot from what this experience is about, what happens to people under the current regime, and what it is that we need to change.

I am deeply concerned that the government is embarking on a very significant departure. Canada did have what was called the four-pillar approach, which was enforcement, harm reduction, prevention and treatment. That was adopted under a previous government. There was always an imbalance and an overemphasis on enforcement, but at least that four-pillar approach was there. I have to say that it actually began in Vancouver as a grassroots, bottom-up approach and then spread across the country.

This bill would take a radical departure from that four-pillar approach by emphasizing the enforcement regime even more, taking it to some greater lengths by bringing in a regime of mandatory minimum sentencing. I think this is a huge mistake. There is no question that it is the core of the Conservative government's agenda around crime. It is about the political optics. I have called it the politics of fear. People are concerned about drug use and crime in their communities. They are particularly concerned about young people being involved in using drugs. However, this bill will not deal with that. This bill will not change that situation. In fact, the evidence from both Canada and the United States shows us that the opposite will happen. It will only make the situation worse.

I want to note for the record that a Department of Justice study in 2002 concluded that mandatory minimum sentences were the least effective in relation to drug offences. The report said:

Mandatory minimum sentences do not appear to influence drug consumption or drug-related crime in any measurable way. A variety of research methods concludes that treatment-based approaches are more cost effective than lengthy prison terms. MMS are blunt instruments that fail to distinguish between low and high-level, as well as hardcore versus transient drug dealers.

When one looks at what is going on in the United States, where mandatory minimum sentencing began, there is now a whole movement away from mandatory minimum sentencing. We know that California, in 2000, repealed some of its mandatory minimum sentencing requirements for drug offences. In fact, California is now considering regulating marijuana. In 2004 Michigan repealed some of its MMSs. Delaware and Massachusetts are undergoing similar legislative reviews.

There is a whole history of reports in the U.S. in the American Bar Association and the U.S. sentencing committee. I will not go at length into those reports, but suffice it to say that there has been a huge amount of research done on this. I find it most ironic that the Conservative government, for the last couple of years, when it announced its so-called drug strategy in 2007, was launching on this course of following the United States, when what is actually happening in reality is that the war on drugs in the United States has now been shown to be a colossal failure.

I found it interesting that at the new President's town hall meeting online yesterday, and I am sure people have read today, most of the questions had to do with marijuana, saying to the President that it would be a good idea to regulate, legalize and actually provide a proper source of revenue, instead of allowing this to be so controlled by the black market. This is what happened during prohibition in the 1930s.

Obviously, even in the United States there has been a massive shift in public opinion, and what I find is that it is elected representatives who are the ones who are the most far behind on this. We are actually afraid to take this issue on. In many regards the public is way ahead of us. The public understands that the war on drugs has been a failure. It has been a colossal failure in terms of the human costs, in terms of economic costs, and in terms of public policy. We are the ones who are afraid to admit the reality of what the war on drugs and prohibition has done.

I find it just totally unacceptable that in that context we are now moving in this country to a regime that will bring in mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes, when everybody else is saying this does not work, that it is a failure, and we have to take an approach that is focused on public health, that is focused on regulation, that is focused on real and honest education, especially for young people, and is focused on providing treatment. None of those things are happening at an adequate level in this country.

I know what the line will be of the Conservatives who are debating the bill. They are going to get up and say, “This is about getting those terrible gangs, the big crime dealers, the big drug lords and all of that”. Again, the research shows us that is not what happens.

In fact, because in this bill they have included provisions around drug treatment courts, I think it is further evidence that what they will really be doing is focusing on what is called the low-level offenders. This is where mandatory minimums do not work. It is not a deterrence.

What it will do is completely create chaos in our judicial and court system. We know that for any mandatory minimums that are two years or less when people end up in the provincial court system, we are now going to be facing a huge overload in the provincial court system. Do the provinces know that? I kind of wonder if they realize what is coming down the pipe here.

We will also see situations where people are more likely to plead not guilty because they know that they will be facing a mandatory minimum.

This idea that we are going after the kingpins just does not play out because those are the individuals who are in the best position to negotiate with prosecution officials and so on. Again, history has shown us that with enforcement, the easy pickings are basically people who are low-level dealers. They are often users themselves. This bill will be so punitive in terms of individual people, but the worst thing is it will not change the outcome.

If the Conservatives are trying to peddle a line here that this bill is going to solve the problem, it will not. It is actually going to make it worse. I feel I have a responsibility, representing a riding like East Vancouver where I have worked very closely on this issue, to actually speak the truth about this issue.

I know others as well as my colleagues will rise and speak out loud and clear, and will do so today. I know that we put ourselves out there as targets for the propaganda and the machine that comes from the other side that we are soft on crime, that we are advocating for drug use, and that we are advocating for whatever. That is simply not true. I have never supported drug use. I am personally very anti-drug use. I have seen the harm it does. However, I understand that prohibition has driven people to becoming criminals.

We dealt with the marijuana decriminalization bill. There are members in the House who were on the committee. We heard there were 600,000 Canadians who had a record for possession of marijuana. Why are we not at least beginning there with decriminalizing and legalizing marijuana? We would begin at a place where there is strong public support. We should change the regime.

The public attitude is shifting also within the media. Since the crime bills have come in, following the debate in the media has been fascinating. There are lots of media commentators, people writing columns, experts being quoted.

Retired Justice John Gomery in speaking about former Bill C-26, but Bill C-15 is the same bill, said, “This legislation basically shows a mistrust of the judiciary to impose proper sentences when people come before them”.

Thomas Kerr from the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, said:

If Canada wants to fulfill its mission of reducing the most severe harms associated with illicit drug use, steps must now be taken to implement a truly evidence-based national drug strategy rather than shovelling millions of dollars towards these failed programs.

Jerry Paradis, a retired judge from B.C., is a spokesperson for an incredible organization, LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. I went to a conference in New Orleans last year. Members of LEAP include current police officers as well as retired police chiefs and officers, and members of the judiciary. They are working to alert us to how dangerous prohibition is and what its consequences have been. Retired judge Jerry Paradis said, “MMSs are a great motivator for trials, jamming up the courts. Unless a deal is struck, a charge carrying a minimum sentence will be fought tooth and nail”.

Barbara Yaffe from the Vancouver Sun is not seen as a left-wing commentator. She is very much her own person and often comes out with terrific stuff. What does she have to say about it? In February, in writing about gangs, she said:

Because at the root of the mayhem is the drug trade. And while the state can outlaw a substance, it cannot eliminate its use. Prohibition proved that nearly a century ago. As long as drugs are illegal, there will be underground activity of the sort that spawns drug gangsters.

There are many media stories along the same lines. There has been a significant shift.

In speaking to this bill, this is a critical point. Are we going to go down this path where we say that tougher laws and enforcement are going to solve drug issues in local communities? The Conservatives have clearly said that. I am very interested to see what the Liberal caucus does with this bill. I hope that we can defeat it. I hope we can say this is not the right way to go. The NDP does not think the bill should go through. It is not based on good public policy. It is going to be harmful and expensive.

It is time to embark on a common sense approach and accept the overwhelming evidence that the war on drugs has caused more death, pain, harm and crime than we can bear. It is time to stop it. I do not think that is going to happen overnight, but at least let us have the courage to see what has failed and see the alternatives. We could begin with marijuana and real education. We could look to decriminalization, or even legalization, or we could continue on the tragic course of playing on people's fears and trying to convince people that tougher laws will make it all go away. It will not.

Let us say no to this bill. Let us adopt a public health approach and do the right thing.

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

Mr. Speaker, let us be clear on what has failed. The member for Vancouver East talked about the Liberals' advocacy of the so-called four pillar approach of enforcement, harm reduction, prevention, treatment. That has failed. That is why the Conservative government is taking a much harder stance fighting the smuggling of drugs, the trafficking of drugs, because what the member for Vancouver East and what the previous Liberal government supported has failed miserably.

As a matter of fact, the former chief coroner and mayor of Vancouver back in the early 1990s publicly said that we should give up on the war on drugs, that we cannot win it, so let us walk away and let the drug peddlers and the gangsters have it because we cannot win it. The Conservative government will never give up on the war against drugs. The member for Vancouver East has seen all of that misery in the downtown area of her riding, those unfortunate souls who have been sucked into the day-to-day use of drugs by the drug lords and the gangsters who are bringing drugs in such huge amounts into this country and selling them through all of their agencies down to the street level.

I am surprised that the member for Vancouver East is telling us not to worry and not get tough on crime, let us not try to nail the big kingpin drug pushers and let us not try to stop the violence. There have been over 30 drug related and gang related murders in Vancouver, a new number that is threatening to escalate to unheard of proportions in violence and murder. The member and her colleagues are still standing every day and saying that the Conservative government is being much too hard on these criminals. Nonsense.

By the way, President Obama, last night in answer to callers, said that he did not think it was a good idea to legalize marijuana. The hon. member did not mention that.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as I said, I was waiting for the pointing fingers. I would like to invite the member to my riding.

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

I have been to your riding.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I bet you did not sit down with a group like VANDU, Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. You probably talked to the police, which is fine, but I bet you did not sit down and talk to drug users and find out why an organization like Insite is so--

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

I have spent time in your riding.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

Members must address their remarks through the Speaker.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, speaking to you, I will bet the member met with police, but I bet he did not sit down with a group like VANDU to find out what that experience is.

The member spoke of what is going on in Vancouver. I agree it is horrific. I have had lots of emails and phone calls from people. I spoke about this yesterday when I was debating Bill C-14. To me this is further evidence that the regime we have had, the so-called war on drugs the Conservatives are committed to so obsessively, with blinkers, despite the evidence, is failing.

In terms of the four pillar approach, in every society and every country around the world that has made progress dealing with drug use, it is because they have adopted policies under the four pillar approach. To say that it is a failure, I guess the member has not properly researched this or looked at what is going on. The four pillar approach based on treatment, harm reduction, prevention and enforcement, and enforcement is a part of it, is absolutely what is going on internationally. Even the UN is recognizing that harm reduction is a very important component of its drug policies. There was recently a conference at the UN.

I heard what President Obama said. He is obviously not ready to do that, but my point was that the American public overwhelmingly is saying to stop this madness. I think President Obama will eventually get that message and I am pretty sure he will begin to make changes.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not doubt for a moment the sincerity of the member for Vancouver East in the overview she has given with respect to coming to grips with the issues and whether it is a more liberal approach to the issue of illicit drugs, a higher regime in terms of what this bill suggests, or whether it is to be more lenient.

I was not going to ask a question but her statement that prohibition has driven people to become criminals has touched a sensitive nerve with respect to an issue that is evolving in Ontario and Quebec. Over 50% of cigarette sales are illicit in Quebec and Ontario and it is getting worse. Biker bangs are taking over the delivery system. They are going to a dial a smoke system, which is an open and flagrant violation of the existing legal regime. Children are being exposed to the health implications and cost implications. Even though we have a legal system for smokes in Ontario and Quebec, that is what is happening.

I would like the member to compare that to what she is putting forward as a resolution. I would like her to tell me if she thinks the premise she is operating from, given the experience with respect to what is happening in Ontario and Quebec, is the right approach to the availability and use of drugs.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of research done on organized crime and gangs. I have done some of that research and looked at material. I do not think there is any question that organized crime will always find some element, whether it is dealing with legal substances, tobacco, cigarettes or alcohol. That always exists. However, whenever something is completely prohibited, as we saw with alcohol in the 1930s, it creates a regime where organized crime is allowed to flourish because of the profits involved. That is what has happened here.

It is not that regulation or legalization of certain substances would close down all of organized crime overnight; that would always still be an issue. However, it would dramatically change the equilibrium in terms of where the resources are used. Maybe we would be able to focus more on organized crime instead of using the massive resources which right now are more focused on the low-level users and dealers.

I think it is a matter of a balance of public policy. Again, I come back to the point that after 100 years of prohibition, look at what we have. We have to accept the reality that drug use exists in our society. Let us educate people. Let us provide treatment where it is needed. Let us have effective enforcement. The idea of mandatory minimums is not going to improve it. It will only make it worse.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my hon. colleague from Vancouver East and I would like to congratulate her on her very eloquent, thorough speech outlining all the problems associated with drugs. She is quite right.

I wonder if my colleague can explain the inconsistency in the government's position. The government claims that it wants to protect Canadians, not only from people who sell drugs, but also from people who use drugs.

The government is cutting funding to places like Vancouver's InSite, creating committees to determine where people who are ill can smoke their medical marijuana and doing nothing for our young people, while at the same time, it wants to grant people the right to use unregistered long guns.

I think—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

Order, please. I am sorry to have to interrupt the hon. member for Laval, but her time has run out.

The hon. member for Vancouver East has time for a short reply.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague spoke very eloquently yesterday on the gang bill.

The government does not have a coherent policy. Even though programs and facilities have been incredibly effective, the government has done everything it can to try to shut them down. The member mentioned Insite, the safe injection facility in the downtown eastside. The amount of political capital the government has tried to put into closing down Insite is unbelievable when nationally and internationally it has been seen as a success.

The government has given lip service to the idea of treatment and prevention. We heard one of the ministers yesterday rattle on about a little project here or there. If we look at the numbers and the evidence, there is no question the government has put all of its resources into enforcement. It is now going to accelerate that through the mandatory minimums. The government has really done nothing to support treatment, prevention, education and harm reduction.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, today I will be speaking to an issue that is relevant to my riding of Etobicoke North and, indeed, to all Canadians, namely, substance abuse and crime.

I will be supporting this act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, part of a package of measures aimed at addressing gang violence as Canada has over 400 gangs with roughly 7,000 members and firearm related injuries annually costing $5.6 billion.

Moreover, gang violence threatens our Etobicoke North community. In 2005, Amon Beckles was shot while attending the Etobicoke funeral for his best friend, Jamal Hemmings. Shots were fired during the memorial service and some 300 mourners ran for cover. Nadia Beckles fled the church only to see the unthinkable; her son lying on the ground. Beckles cried, “I raised him for 18 years and someone just took him away”.

Beckles hopes and prays that the violence will stop and strong drug laws are part of what is needed to fight gang violence. However, so too are crime prevention initiatives which show for every dollar invested there is a four dollar return in reduced counselling and treatment costs, and proper funding of law enforcement agencies, areas where we are currently failing Canadians.

Strong drug laws are needed to fight elicit drugs which remain a significant problem in Toronto and, indeed, across Canada. Marijuana remains the most popular recreational drug among Toronto's students with some 23% of respondents indicating use in the past year. In contrast, only 15% of adults reported use.

At the national level, marijuana is also the most commonly used illegal drug with more than 10 million Canadians aged 15 or older having tried marijuana or hashish at least once.

In Ontario, 3% of grade 7 students try marijuana and, by the time they reach grade 12, nearly half have used the drug. In fact, about one in eight or 33,000 students use marijuana every day.

The consequences of illegal drugs are serious with health effects depending on the drug, the amount and method and frequency of use. Negative health effects range from digestive problems to potentially fatal diseases, such as HIV-AIDS and hepatitis C, and physiological dependence to brain damage.

Apart from the health impacts, illegal drugs generate direct costs to the health and criminal justice systems, as well as indirect costs through absenteeism, lost work productivity and lost human potential. These combined costs total about $1.4 billion annually.

Drug abuse also impacts users, their children, family members and sometimes entire neighbourhoods. Moreover, drug use is associated with crime, from simple possession to organized crime, to fighting for control of the drug trade, to serious addiction problems that may lead users to commit crimes for cash.

In 2000, Canadian police departments reported a total of almost 88,000 drug offences. Three-quarters of the offences involved marijuana, 68% of them possession. The number of police related incidents involving marijuana increased from roughly 47,000 in 1996 to 66,000 incidents in 2000.

Most governments make strong statements about the need to maintain and often increase police activity and penal sanctions for drug users. It is widely held that strong enforcement and widespread incarceration will deter potential users and dealers from becoming involved in the illegal drug market. In fact, very few countries actually follow through on these statements. Arrest and incarceration rates for drug users are relatively low in most countries in relation to the total number of users and maximum sentences are rarely used.

The one country that has used large scale incarceration as a drug prevention measure is the United States where approximately 500,000 drug law offenders are currently in prison.

Research shows that widespread confinement has failed to fundamentally alter the scale and nature of the illegal drug market, although some marginal impacts on drug prices and prevalence rates can be attributed to the policy. Moreover, there are significant financial health and social costs associated with high rates of incarceration.

I believe we need to carefully look at the evidence of what has and has not worked in the United States, as well as other jurisdictions. Perhaps important questions for the committee include whether we want mandatory minimums for drug related offences that would remove a judge's ability to apply discretion for mitigating circumstances, whether we want to want to turn Canadian correctional institutions and penitentiaries into U.S.-style inmate warehouses, whether we know that longer sentences will have the desired deterrent effect, or whether those given longer sentences are likely to go back to crime.

In order to reduce drugs, Canada has always implemented a national strategy that aims to strike a balance between reducing the black market supply of illegal drugs and reducing demand. The first component emphasizes the fight against drug crimes by the criminal justice system, while the second focuses on prevention and public awareness of the negative effects of drug use.

A strength of the bill is the drug treatment courts as part of the solution. These courts aim to stop drug abuse and related criminal activity through court-directed treatment and rehabilitation programs. Each court has a multi-disciplinary justice and health care systems team led by the judge who oversees each participant's progress. Compliance, which is objectively monitored by frequent substance abuse testing, is rewarded and non-compliance sanctioned.

Evaluations consistently show that drug treatment courts effectively reduce recidivism and underlying addiction problems of offenders. The courts provide closer comprehensive supervision and more frequent drug testing and monitoring during the program than other forms of community supervision.

It costs about $8,000 Canadian per year to provide substance abuse treatment to a Toronto drug treatment court participant and $45,000 to incarcerate the same individual for one year.

In the United States, only 16% of 17,000 drug court graduates nationwide had been re-arrested and charged with a felony offence. The U.S. reports a state taxpayer's return on the upfront investment on the drug courts is substantial. They are a more cost effective method of dealing with drug problems than either probation or prison.

In closing I want to draw attention to the fact that youth at risk of joining gangs tend to be from groups that suffer the greatest inequality, who are using drugs and who are already involved in serious crime. Our youth join gangs for belonging, prestige and protection and there is the correlation between gang presence in schools and the availability of both drugs and guns in institutions. Of a total of 900 male school drop-outs and young offenders, 15% report having brought a gun to school.

Bill C-15 addresses deterrence and punishment. When might we see legislation targeted at prevention? Public Safety Canada recommends targeted, integrated and evidence-based community solutions to reduce and prevent the proliferation of gangs, drugs and gun violence.

As we debate this bill, we need to remember Amon Beckles and all those who have been lost to violence, and honour Nadia Beckles' hopes and prayers.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I commend my colleague. She has certainly brought a lot of wisdom, life experience and elegance to this House. She is doing a wonderful job for her constituents. I want to talk a little bit about the last part of her speech where she talked about how important it is that we deal with this through sentencing through the criminal justice system.

My brother is a vice-principal at a school in my own community. Through community organizations in Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, kids who have a better opportunity in life, who have an opportunity for early learning and quality accessible child care and who have complete community social infrastructure supports, such as the Dartmouth East Boys and Girls Club, the Cole Harbour Boys and Girls Club and the Dartmouth North Boys and Girls Club, stay out of trouble. These kids are mentored. They have opportunities to provide leadership and to learn from others.

I wonder if the member would comment on how important it is that we not neglect the social infrastructure that provides opportunities for all young Canadians. It might save us a lot of money in the criminal justice system if we were to invest at the front end as opposed to just dealing with it at the back end.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for raising such important issues.

Poverty is a huge issue in our country. We have made it our goal to reduce childhood poverty but the reality is that one million children still live in poverty. In Toronto, 83,000 children go to school hungry, which means that one out of four children goes to school hungry, and that is unacceptable. We need to invest in our children, in reducing poverty, in increasing early childhood education and in giving our children the best start possible.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her very passionate speech. She talked quite a bit about the drug courts. My worry is that the drug courts are not the panacea they are perceived to be.

In Halifax, I know there are huge wait times to get into drug treatment programs. These programs are totally inadequate in my home province and they are very underfunded. The proposal to have a drug court would actually lengthen these already dangerously long wait times for drug treatment.

Would the member not agree that increased funding for treatment, one of the four pillars, would be absolutely essential if this bill were to succeed and even begin to address the problem of drug crime in this country?

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member raises a good point. Law enforcement is one part of the puzzle but we do need to invest in prevention and in treatment. Drug courts are one part of the treatment process and they do reduce recidivism. There are numerous studies to support this.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her thoughtful analysis. When I was young, my parents always used to say that prevention was better than cure.

Many civil society organizations have asked us to help in the infrastructure. For example, organizations, like ProAction Cops & Kids, get the kids together with the police in very at-risk communities. I remember having it brought to my attention that it was during the Harris era that the after-school programs were shut down.

The hon. member gave the analysis that it costs $45,000 to keep one criminal in jail. That $45,000 would be well used for after-school activities. Is jail a solution? The member gave an analysis that the United States, which incarcerates the largest number of people, still has not been able to keep it safe or prevent drug abuse. I would like to have her analysis of what sort of infrastructure funding the government should do instead of going into ideological jail building.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think prevention is important, as well as a public health policy. Regarding poverty and childhood education, the after-school programs are so important.

An excellent organization in my riding called Breaking the Cycle helps get youth out of gangs. It is strongly supported by the police. It has a six-month program consisting of daily programs of education, helping young people get into safe homes and giving them the start that many of them did not have. It is a terrific program.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-15, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts.

Some of the proposals in the bill are minimum penalties for the production, possession, trafficking, importing and exporting of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines and other drugs. It also moves amphetamines, all its 19 byproducts, and GHB and flunitrazepam, also known as the date rape drugs, from schedule 3 to schedule 1. Tougher penalties will be introduced for trafficking date rape drugs.

The maximum penalty for Canada's production would increase from seven years to fourteen years imprisonment. Mandatory sentences would be introduced for the production of even one marijuana plant, with a minimum sentence of six months. The legislation would impose six months imprisonment for any act of cultivation of cannabis, irrespective of issues of violence and gang involvement. These are some of the provisions in this bill.

Prior to my election, I worked at Dalhousie Legal Aid Service, a legal clinic in Halifax's north end. Dal Legal Aid is a teaching clinic where students, who are in their last year of law school, can come and spend four months with us, working on poverty law cases and developing their skills in a clinical law setting. The mandate of Dal Legal Aid is to provide legal assistance to low-income Nova Scotians, while also working with low-income Nova Scotians to help change the laws that oppress and penalize poor and marginalized Nova Scotians.

Our mandate was to deal with poverty. Inextricably enmeshed with poverty are the issues of race, gender, ability, sexual orientation and identity and age. My clients came to me for help with asserting their rights as tenants and asserting their rights under welfare and their entitlements. They came to me for assistance with their CPP disability applications and for help understanding the law generally.

To ensure that Halifax's most vulnerable people had access to their rights and an understanding of the law, the students and I would staff monthly clinics around the city, ensuring we had a presence at places like Direction 180, Halifax's low-threshold methadone clinic, Stepping Stone, an organization that supports workers in the sex trade, Metro Turning Point and Adsum House, Halifax's men's and women's shelters, as well as food banks and soup kitchens around the municipality.

Many of my clients used drugs and while I never counselled them legally or otherwise on their drug use, many of my clients would share with me the details of their lives as we built a relationship of trust. None of my clients used drugs because they got a thrill from breaking the law. None of them used drugs because they were bad people, criminals or people not worth caring about. All of them talked to me about stopping their drug use. None of them talked to me about getting off crack because the jail time for offences was on the rise. They talked to me about getting off crack because it was destroying their lives.

None of them talked to me about enrolling at Direction 180 because they had heard that Parliament may be rescheduling certain substances from schedule 3 to schedule 1. They wanted to enrol at Direction 180 to deal with their opiate addictions, rebuild their lives and re-establish contact with their children or families.

The Conservatives have manufactured a debate that tells Canadians that if we oppose this bill, then we oppose enforcement and think that drug users should run free, terrorizing children in their schoolyards and corrupting the very fabric of our society. The government has manufactured this debate to make itself look tough on crime and the opponents of this bill soft on crime.

The truth of the matter is that this bill would not do anything to solve the drug problem in Canada. The bill is not smart on crime. We need legislation that is based on best practices. We need legislation that will work.

A four-pillar approach has been developed and has been proven successful in cities in the U.S., the U.K. and Europe. It is based on the four pillars of prevention, treatment, harm reduction and enforcement. Each pillar is equally important and must be integrated and jointly implemented to be effective. This is what the best practices are telling us to do. This is the direction in which we must move. This is the approach that the NDP supports. The NDP is not soft on crime. We are smart on crime.

Mandatory minimums do not deter drug use. A 2002 Justice Department of Canada report concluded that mandatory minimum sentences, or MMS, were least effective in relation to drug offences. It stated:

MMS do not appear to influence drug consumption or drug-related crime in any measurable way. A variety of research methods concludes that treatment-based approaches are more cost effective than lengthy prison terms. MMS are blunt instruments that fail to distinguish between low and high-level, as well as hardcore versus transient drug dealers.

The supposed targets for these mandatory minimums, the kingpins, are in the best position to negotiate lighter sentences or no sentences at all. They have access to resources that enable them to challenge these sentences. Therefore, who gets scooped up by these provisions?

In June 2004, the American Bar Association's Justice Kennedy Commission called on Congress to repeal mandatory minimum sentences stating, “Mandatory minimum sentences tend to be tough on the wrong people”. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, MMS disproportionately targets visible minorities. According to the HIV/AIDS Legal Network, mandatory sentencing policies have produced record incarceration rates of non-violent drug users in the United States.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission also concluded that mandatory minimums failed to deter crime and reported that only 11% of federal drug defendants were high-level drug dealers, and 59% of crack defendants were street-level dealers, compared to 5% who were high-level crack dealers.

The bill is based on a deterrence theory of punishment for which there is no evidence. In their article called “Sentence Severity and Crime: Accepting the Null Hypothesis”, Anthony N. Doob and Cheryl Webster concluded that 25 years worth of research, sometimes in ideal conditions, had shown that there was no support for the idea that harsher sentences reduce crime. They also point out that:

Deterrence-based sentencing makes false promises to the community. As long as the public believes that crime can be deterred by legislatures or judges through harsh sentences, there is no need to consider other approaches to crime reduction.

In other words, adding a harsher sentence is pretending to do something instead of actually doing something. The bill makes a false promise, to use their words. This approach is not smart on crime.

While mandatory minimums do not work, we do know what does work, and that is the four pillars: prevention, treatment, harm reduction and enforcement. Each pillar is equally important and they must be integrated and jointly implemented to be effective.

Sadly, we are not following the four pillars approach in Canada. In fact, we are doing the opposite. Listen to these numbers. Canada spends 73% of its drug policy budget on enforcement, 14% on treatment, 2.6% on prevention and 2.6% on harm reduction. These pillars clearly are not integrated and jointly implemented. They are clearly not even being valued equally by the government. We have a government that is solely focused on enforcement, which is only one piece of the solution. As a result, drug use continues to rise.

In 1994, 28% of Canadians reported to have used illicit drugs, but by 2004, this number was 45%, almost double.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

I regret to interrupt the hon. member, but as she knows, at 11 o'clock we have to proceed with statements by members. There will be eleven and a half minutes remaining in the time allotted for her remarks when we resume the debate. In the meantime, we will move to statements by members.

Order of Canada

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pride that I rise to pay tribute to a true Canadian hero, my friend, Dr. Bob Stephens. Dr. Stephens, a fellow resident of Warkworth, has spent most of his life attending to the medical needs of thousands of men, women and children in Africa, China and Cuba.

During the 1950s, Dr. Bob spent 10 years with his young family in the Belgian Congo. He built a 100-bed hospital with outpatient services, nurse and midwife training and four satellite clinics, where he spent most of this time treating people with a myriad of diseases, including snake bites.

Upon his return to Canada, Dr. Bob set up practice and played a leading role in the Evangelical Medical Aid Society, the Christian Medical and Dental Society, including HPIC, Interserve, SIM and World Relief Canada.

For his service to the people of Canada and the less fortunate around the world, Dr. Bob Stephens was recognized by the Governor General and became a Member of the Order of Canada.

Dr. Bob Stephens is a true Canadian hero.

ProAction Cops & Kids

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in 1991, John Bitove Sr. established ProAction Cops & Kids, which brings together local police with kids at risk in the communities of Durham, Hamilton and Toronto.

ProAction Cops & Kids provides the opportunity for police to establish positive relations with kids and help create an environment of mutual understanding and respect. For example, TROOP is a week-long camping program for youth who may not have ever camped or taken a canoe trip in their lives, and to have fun with police volunteers from their own communities.

Crime prevention is the best way to protect society and youth at risk. I congratulate ProAction Cops & Kids and thank all police officers for their volunteer efforts.

Gaston Labrèche

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today I would like to pay tribute to a retired Quebec court judge, Gaston Labrèche, who was killed in a tragic bus accident in Argentina a week ago.

I knew Judge Labrèche as a great defender of human rights and a man devoted to justice and the rights of the oppressed. He practised law for 10 years and was a Quebec court judge from 1971 to 1996. He presided over both civil and criminal matters.

After retiring in 1996, Judge Labrèche took part in a number of international missions on behalf of Quebec organizations to observe show trials. He was very interested in individual liberties and he did it all of his own accord and at his own expense.

The funeral will take place on Saturday, March 28, at Saint-Albert-le-Grand church in Montreal. My Bloc Québécois colleagues and I would like to offer our sincere condolences to his family and friends.

We thank Judge Labrèche.

Forestry Industry

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the forestry industry continues to struggle under the weight of the economic crisis and the government's indifference to the industry, communities and families that have been suffering massive losses for a number of years. We learned in our community that AbitibiBowater prolonged the shutdowns in the Thunder Bay and Fort Frances mills.

Exactly three weeks ago, I sent the Minister of Natural Resources a letter asking her to convene a national forestry summit to help the industry, communities and families get through the current crisis and to come out of it in a strong and competitive position. Such a summit was called for by the finance committee, the natural resources committee, industry, labour and now the opposition. Everyone knows this must happen and the callous indifference of the government is becoming more apparent by the day.

I urge all members of the House to join me in calling for, indeed, demanding that a national summit be convened by the minister and the government.

Northern Ireland

[James Rajotte, Conservative, Edmonton—Leduc, AB]

Mr. Speaker, recently two British soldiers were killed in Northern Ireland. A breakaway group from the IRA claimed responsibility for these killings.

The death of these two soldiers was a tragedy for their families, friends and colleagues, but it was also a brutal reminder of the past in that region, of the history of hatred and sectarian violence, of violence that has claimed too many lives.

There were ominous declarations about a return to the troubles of the past and increasing divisions between political leaders. Fortunately the opposite has happened. These hateful acts have united the political leadership in Northern Ireland to condemn these acts and strengthen their resolve to continue their power-sharing political arrangement.

The modern story of Northern Ireland is an amazing story of past foes putting aside their differences and resolving together to work for peace and justice. Their courage and wisdom are examples for all of us.

As chair of the Canada-Ireland Interparliamentary Group, I ask all parliamentarians to join me in offering our condolences to the soldiers' families and our support for the political leadership for their continued success in working together for the well-being of the people of Northern Ireland.

Exemplary Canadian

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, today I wish to give praise to the Right Reverend Exarch Habib Kwaiter, who retired a few days ago after 60 years of priesthood with the Melkite Church.

Born in Damascus, Syria, Monsignor Kwaiter started his work in the Middle East and came to Canada in 1965. Four years later, he arrived in Ottawa and has been serving the Sts. Peter & Paul parish since.

Known for his moral strength, Monsignor Kwaiter is also an example of devotion to his community. Over the decades, he has been a true inspiration for many of his parishioners. In difficult circumstances his leadership is often and still sought after, something his community is very proud of. The church he built, Sts. Peter & Paul, is an architectural jewel in the constituency of Ottawa—Vanier and is known as a rallying force for its parishioners.

Bravo to Monsignor Kwaiter, an exemplary Canadian, for his dedication throughout the decades.

Thank you so much, Monsignor Kwaiter, for your dedication and all the work you have done for more than 60 years.

Child Care

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in these difficult times, Niagara families are facing unprecedented challenges as a result of the global economic downturn, but despite this uncertainty they can be assured that our government will deliver them the resources so the parents of Canada's two million preschoolers can choose how they care for their children.

Niagara families, like those around Canada, have varying priorities in their lives that require a more flexible child care plan that best suits their circumstances. The universal child care plan achieves this goal by annually providing $1,200 per child so that parents can choose how to raise their children. The plan also provides funding for the provinces and tax breaks to help create additional day care spaces.

Despite all of this, the opposition wishes to scrap the universal child care plan. Why? It is because the opposition refuses to accept that parents know better than it does about what is best for their children.

This government believes in Canadian families and will continue to give them choice in child care despite what the naysayers on the other side say.

Sickle-Cell Anemia

[Luc Malo, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

Mr. Speaker, sickle-cell anemia is the most prevalent genetic disease in the world, yet not many people know much about it. Today, I want to bring this disease to the attention of this House and tell members that one in 10 black individuals carries the gene and that 10,000 children in Canada reportedly suffer from sickle-cell anemia. I also want to applaud the work done by the Association d'anémie falciforme du Québec and its dedicated president, Wilson Sanon, and express my support for the people who have to live with the severe pain, frequent blood transfusions, restricted activity and constant fatigue.

Lastly, I want to congratulate Dr. Martin Champagne, whose was recognized with the Yvette Bonny award, named for that pioneer in treating this form of anemia, and Mélissa Maurice-Carrénard, a rare survivor who has also received a liver transplant. On the occasion of the association's third gala on March 21, this young woman gave us a wonderful, passionate lesson in living.

We thank all those who are making a difference for the people with this disease and their family members.

L'Acadien II Capsizing Anniversary

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to mark a sad occasion, that of the capsizing of the vessel L'Acadien II.

On behalf of the Government of Canada, I would like to offer once again our deepest sympathies to the families and the friends of Bruno Bourque, Gilles Leblanc, Marc-André Déraspe and Carl Aucoin, who lost their lives one year ago on the night of March 29, 2008.

This tragedy has been extremely difficult for the families, friends and all the residents of the close-knit communities in Îles-de-la-Madeleine. This tragedy has also deeply marked the men and women who proudly serve in the Canadian Coast Guard.

The Government of Canada is confident that it has a better understanding of what happened on March 29 last year, and the Coast Guard will be releasing its action plan in the near future.

I can assure the families and friends of those who were lost that we will take all steps necessary to reduce the chance of any repetition of this tragedy.

Spread the Net Student Challenge

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I ask the House to join me in congratulating John F. Ross Collegiate Vocational Institute in Guelph, winners of the national Spread the Net student challenge. Through the hard work and dedication of students and staff, John F. Ross high school raised $59,340 to purchase bed nets to protect children in Africa from malaria-spreading insects.

Malaria, which kills 3,000 African children a day, is the single leading cause of death for children under the age of five. One bed net can protect one or more children for up to five years. Founded by Belinda Stronach and Rick Mercer, Spread the Net is a campaign designed in partnership with UNICEF Canada as a simple and affordable solution to the devastating impacts of malaria.

Congratulations and thanks to John F. Ross for its success and commitment to this worthwhile effort.

The Bloc Québécois

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind my colleagues of certain facts.

Yesterday, our government delivered the goods with respect to funding for infrastructure that will bring hope and especially jobs to Quebec. Unfortunately, the Bloc voted against it.

Our government has taken action to protect the forestry sector by implementing many measures to safeguard Quebec jobs. The Bloc is unable to protect any job, any worker, any industry whatsoever in Quebec. So, what did it do? It voted against our measures.

It was our government that increased the CBC budget to unprecedented levels. The Bloc will never be able to protect the CBC. And furthermore, the Bloc voted against it.

While our government is working to put the economy back on the road to lasting recovery and our citizens on the path to employment, what is the Bloc doing? Once again it is voting against that.

Alzheimer's Awareness

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise all colleagues in the House of Commons and the Senate of an event on April 1, in the Parliamentary Restaurant. We will be inviting all MPs to come and meet individuals from the Alzheimer and Dementia Society of Canada.

Alzheimer's disease and dementia affects over half a million Canadians, and it is a growing health concern in Canada.

I also want to send special thanks to Mr. John O'Keefe of the Alzheimer Society of Nova Scotia for the great job he has done in making us all aware of this terrible condition that inflicts so many in this country.

With the right research, investments and funds, hopefully one day Canada can realize the dream of trying to eliminate or drastically reduce the effects of Alzheimer's disease and dementia in this country.

Again, I invite all MPs and senators to please join their colleagues on April 1 for a great awareness day and to promote the aspects of it, and to give support to those families that are dealing with this terrible disease.

Justice

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday the Minister of Justice announced he will introduce draft legislation that would cap the credit given to criminals for the time spent in custody before trial, a practice that developed under 13 years of Liberal soft-on-crime government.

Now the Liberals are using this serious issue to try to gain political points. The Liberal justice critic is even attempting to take credit for this initiative, saying:

[The Minister of Justice]...is catching up to a position we've been holding for a number of weeks.

I would like to remind the hon. member that this is not an issue that magically appeared during the last weeks. It has been an issue for many years, one that has been ignored by Liberals. In fact, we Conservatives have long campaigned to cap credit for time served. I guess newly converted Liberal crime fighters still have a lot to learn.

Given the overwhelming support the government is receiving for the initiative, I encourage the opposition to encourage speedy passage of this important measure when it is introduced in the House.

Fighting Poverty

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is the last national action week of the mobilization campaign launched over a year ago by the Collectif pour un Québec sans pauvreté, a coalition dedicated to building a poverty-free Quebec. This week's theme is “Poverty? We've had enough!”

The driving force behind the extraordinary public and social mobilization that led to the Government of Quebec passing framework legislation to eradicate poverty, this coalition is relentless in its efforts to make Quebec a world leader in that regard.

We know that the economic crisis is not affecting only Bay Street; thousands of Quebeckers who were already struggling before the crisis hit are very severely affected. The coalition is once again standing up for these people, and we must applaud their initiatives.

Today, I want to congratulate the coalition for its determination and unifying leadership which brings together people from all walks of life to take meaningful action for the collective good. May they be an inspiration to all of us.

Easter Seals Ontario

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, over 20,000 children in Ontario today live with a physical disability. That is why I take great pride in rising today to honour Easter Seals Ontario, a remarkable charity that has been operating for over 85 years.

The sole mission of Easter Seals Ontario is to create a better, more independent life for kids, youth and young adults living with a physical disability. Easter Seals outreach work also helps educate Ontarians and all levels of government.

The charity's principle purpose, however, is to help provide vital funding to the families of kids with physical disabilities for costly equipment such as wheelchairs, home and vehicle retrofits, and communication devices. Average families often face high costs of between $10,000 and $40,000 a year, particularly as a child grows. It also delivers one of North America's most highly regarded camping and recreational programs for the physically disabled.

I hope the House will join me today in wishing Easter Seals a very successful fundraising campaign during its “March is Easter Seals Month” campaign, and in recognizing the thousands of volunteers and donors who make the work of Easter Seals possible every day.

Carbon Tax Policy

[Rodney Weston, Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, while our Prime Minister is championing the economic action plan, a plan that cuts taxes, includes job-creating stimulus and protects those hardest hit by the recession, the leader of the Liberal Party is trying to back away from the job-killing carbon tax, a policy that he introduced and campaigned on.

The issue is experience. The issue is judgment. Imagine if we had gone the way of the carbon tax. Would we have more jobs or fewer jobs?

[Some hon. members]

Fewer.

[Rodney Weston, Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Had we gone the way of the carbon tax, would people be paying less or paying more?

[Some hon. members]

More.

[Rodney Weston, Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Had we gone the way of the carbon tax, would we have more trade or a trade war?

[Some hon. members]

Trade war.

[Rodney Weston, Conservative, Saint John, NB]

In these uncertain times there are two things we can be certain of, that the Conservative government's economic action plan is the right way to go and that the leader of the Liberal Party was 100% wrong on the carbon tax.

The Economy

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the economy is shrinking at twice the rate originally forecast by the Bank of Canada. Over 200,000 jobs have been lost so far this year and nearly 400,000 will vanish by June. The tax base is plunging. The deficit is soaring. The economy is not performing as the government pretended it was in its probation report.

That is the assessment provided by the Conservatives' very own Parliamentary Budget Officer, the officer they selected to be their watchdog. How can they just dismiss him now as some kind of hysterical rogue alarmist?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, we do not dismiss any good advice, but that is exactly what we did not get in our prebudget consultations from the Liberal Party. We did not get any advice at all.

Now all of a sudden the Liberals seem to be concerned about job losses. They came forward with no constructive suggestions and no way to help their constituents. They, as a party, did not relay any of their constituents' concerns to us.

We have an economic action plan that will help maintain jobs and provide new jobs for Canadians.

Employment Insurance

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives cannot build hope on fiction and fantasy. It is not just the Parliamentary Budget Officer. His warnings are consistent with the IMF, the OECD, Global Insight, Merrill Lynch, BMO Nesbitt Burns, the TD Bank, former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge, and every other credible forecaster.

With their budget projections swamped by worsening events and massive job losses, will the Conservatives at least make employment insurance available now to those who need it now? Fix eligibility.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development]

Mr. Speaker, we are making EI available to those who paid into it. We are also expanding it. We are expanding it to provide more benefit to Canadians who are unfortunate enough to lose their jobs by providing them with the training tools to give them the skills they need to get the jobs of the future so that they can look after their families going forward.

We are working on that to help Canadians grow and to keep our economy going.

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, one of the victims of Conservative vindictiveness is the CBC and its services to regions and minorities. In my province, northern programming designed specifically to include aboriginal people is being cancelled. The CBC's 30-year-old bureau in La Ronge is being closed. The noon show, Blue Sky, is being chopped in half. Living Saskatchewan is being cancelled. The award winning Little Mosque on the Prairie is being cut back. The axe has yet to fall on the news department.

Just exactly how will slashing the CBC help to stimulate the economy, fight the recession and save jobs?

[James Moore, Conservative, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians have no clearer example of Liberal math than this. We increased funding for the CBC and the Liberals call it slashing. They present themselves as defenders of the CBC and campaigned on it, but when they got into office, what did they do? They slashed the CBC by $414 million, and with the member for Wascana cheering away, they cut 4,000 CBC jobs. Shame on him for failing the CBC.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives' hostility toward the CBC is a threat to regional news. Quebec City's mayor understands that. Yesterday, he condemned the elimination of his region's noon news broadcast.

Why did the minister responsible for the Quebec City region do nothing to defend the rights of her citizens?

[James Moore, Conservative, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages]

Mr. Speaker, we kept the promise we made during the last campaign to maintain or increase the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's budget. That is what we did.

During the campaign, the Liberals said that a Liberal government would commit to stable funding over several years for the CBC. However, what they did was cut the CBC's budget by $414 million, which resulted in the loss of 4,000 jobs. That was the Liberal Party's agenda. We were the ones who stood up for the CBC's budget, and they were the ones who cut it.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Speaker, at the time, we were busy cleaning up the mess left by the previous Conservative government.

CBC employees in Quebec City are not the only ones worried about getting pink slips. People working for private broadcasters are worried too. A weaker CBC means that private broadcasters will also feel free to cut jobs in regional markets without fear of losing their competitive edge.

Why are the Conservatives chipping away at the diversity of media sources in all regions of Quebec?

[James Moore, Conservative, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages]

Of course, Mr. Speaker, it is completely false. We have increased funding for arts and culture. We have increased funding for the CBC. We have created the new Canada media fund of $310 million to support the creation of Canadian content. Not only that, not only is it important for us to underline what our government is doing, but also to juxtapose it with what the Liberals are doing. Here is what someone the member supported once said: “If the CBC were to close its doors tomorrow morning, nobody would be in the streets protesting. The Liberals do not care about the CBC”. Who said that? Former Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien.

Goods and Services Tax

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in 1991, acting in good faith, Quebec harmonized its sales tax with the GST. Despite repeated requests from Quebec, however, successive Liberal and Conservative governments have refused to compensate it. Yet today, in a blatant bid for votes, the Conservatives are agreeing to compensate Ontario, which will get $4.3 billion.

Is the Prime Minister aware of this slight against Quebec, which is being penalized for setting an example for the rest of Canada, while Ontario, which refused to harmonize its tax for 19 years, is being compensated? It is a disgrace.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, the only disgrace is the fact that the hon. member does not actually understand the process of a harmonized sales tax with Quebec. In fact Quebec did not fully adopt a harmonized sales tax as did Ontario and as did some of the other provinces. The important thing to note is that this government has increased transfer payments to Quebec. We continue to increase them. We continue to increase health transfers and social transfers to all provinces, especially Quebec.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on the contrary, we understand perfectly well what is going on. Ontario will get $4.3 billion in compensation for harmonizing its sales tax with the GST. I would note in passing that a quarter of that will come from Quebec taxpayers. The Atlantic provinces received $250 million in 1997. We expect the other provinces will harmonize their taxes in order to get the same deal as Ontario. In the end, only Quebec, which led the way, will be penalized.

What is the government waiting for to give Quebec back the $2.6 billion it is asking for?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, as a matter of fact, Quebec retains full control over the design and application of the Quebec sales tax. It administers the value added tax system as well as the GST. We think it was adequately compensated. Let me also remind the hon. member that federal support to Quebec has increased 37%. We continue to support the province of Quebec and the people of Quebec.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in addition to compensation for harmonizing with the GST, the fiscal imbalance remains a major issue for Quebec. We are still waiting for the federal government to come up with the $1.3 billion for post-secondary education and social programs. There is a shortfall of $1 billion for equalization and $250 million for the treatment of Hydro-Québec revenues.

Why is the Conservative government unable to correct the fiscal imbalance with Quebec, when it can pull $4.3 billion out of a hat for Ontario?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, the only shortfall appears to be the math of the hon. member because transfers have not been cut to Quebec. Quebec's equalization and transfers are in fact at an all-time high. Let me give some numbers. Federal support totalled $17.6 billion for 2009-10 alone.

I repeat that we respect Quebeckers and we continue to support all people in Quebec.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there is over $6 billion in outstanding issues between Quebec and Ottawa, which is also refusing to help the forestry industry. Meanwhile, the federal government has had no problem coming up with $4.3 billion to compensate Ontario and $2.7 billion to help its auto industry.

Will the government recognize that this injustice is due to the fact that the federal government is here to defend Canada's interests at the expense of Quebec's?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, we would suggest and in fact argue that we respect and support all Canadians irrespective of in which province they live.

Quebec will receive $8.3 billion in equalization. I think the hon. member just said that was reduced. In fact, that is a 70% increase over what the previous Liberal government gave.

Mortgage Lending Industry

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, during this economic crisis the Conservative government is failing the middle class. We learned today that tens of thousands of responsible Canadians who have played by the rules and paid their bills on time are facing foreclosure on their mortgages through no fault of their own. About 12 alternative mortgage lenders will not renew their mortgages because capital has dried up.

Why is it that under the Conservative government a family who pays every mortgage payment on time still gets a foreclosure notice? What is the government going to do to ensure that these hard-working Canadians are not thrown out on the streets?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, in fact this issue was in place during our prebudget consultations, but we must remind the hon. member that the NDP members obviously were not listening to their constituents or were not reflecting the concerns of their constituents.

We heard this in prebudget consultations. That is why we put into the budget and into our economic action plan the extraordinary financing framework of $200 billion that will provide capital to provide funds for CMHC to take over some of the loans that are in jeopardy now.

Taxation

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the indifference of the Conservative government to the crisis that is facing Ontario's middle class is absolutely staggering.

Some 150,000 people have been thrown out of work and they are not getting EI. People who paid their bills on their houses are losing them.

How did the government set out to help Ontario? It paid Dalton McGuinty to harmonize a tax squeeze that is going to hit every Ontario family.

Who exactly is going to benefit from this tax squeeze on the bottom lines of Ontario families?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps the hon. member should ask the finance minister of Ontario because that is an Ontario decision. That is not something that should be asked in this House.

Now that we are talking about budgets, let me remind all hon. members that in our 2009 budget we put forward an economic action plan that will in fact help Canadians.

We had to do it on our own. We did not get much help from the opposition, but we put in place a plan that will increase jobs for Canadians through providing extended EI and training for them so they can retrain for new jobs in the future.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure those kinds of one-liners might work at Reform Party barbecues, but the reality is the government paid $4.3 billion to Dalton McGuinty to harmonize the tax. It is involved.

What is the hit? Eight per cent more for gasoline, 8% more for home heating, 8% more for electricity.

This might not bother the Conservatives, but it is going to hit the bottom line of every working family during the worst economic downturn since the Depression.

How can the government justify aiding Dalton McGuinty's tax grab against Ontario's citizens?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Did I miss something, Mr. Speaker? Is this not the House of Commons of Canada and not the legislature of Ontario?

The member has raised an interesting point: supporting Canadians. What did the NDP members vote against? Any of the tax cuts that we put in place. The tax cuts for small and large businesses, the NDP members voted against them. The cut in the GST from 6% to 5%, the NDP members voted against that.

Then they stand in the House and suggest that they are representing Canadians. I think not.

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, not only will the government not take the easy steps to prevent the loss of jobs at the CBC, but it also appears intent on selling CBC assets; the CBC, a prized national institution so important to Canadians.

Will the minister please confirm or deny that CBC assets will soon be on the block?

[James Moore, Conservative, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages]

Mr. Speaker, of course, we will work with the CBC. However, one-third of CBC's income comes from ad revenue, and ad revenue is down across the board for all people in the media. We will work with the CBC with regard to any sale of assets and make sure that is in the best interests of Canadians and the best interests of the CBC.

About job losses, let us be clear. Richard Stursberg, the executive vice-president of CBC, said that if the government had given the CBC bridge financing, it still would have had to cut 800 jobs.

So, the bridge financing would not have solved the problems at the CBC. The hon. member should know that and know her facts before she asks these questions.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the problem is that this problem just did not arise. The government could have extended help to the CBC sooner than this. We know too well the animosity that the government feels toward the CBC. Maybe it feels it has scores to settle. This behaviour suggests an ideological vendetta against the CBC.

Why on earth does the CBC now have to choose between selling assets and selling out its people; worse, having to sell out both? In a recession, when we need stimulus to keep jobs, the government is refusing the funding to keep both at the CBC.

[James Moore, Conservative, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages]

Mr. Speaker, I will just take another run at it. Maybe this time she will put her earpiece in and listen.

Richard Stursberg, executive vice-president of CBC English Services, said that if the government had given the CBC bridge financing, it still would have had to cut 800 jobs. This is a decision by the management of the CBC.

Our government kept our campaign commitment. We said we would maintain or increase funding for the CBC. We have done that in every single budget. The Liberals said that they would maintain or increase funding for the CBC. They cut $414 million from the CBC and cut 4,000 jobs. We have no lessons to learn from the Liberals on the CBC.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, in Newfoundland and Labrador, the government's refusal to offer CBC bridge financing has resulted in job losses in Gander and Grand Falls-Windsor.

The minister knows that, as a crown corporation, the CBC cannot secure a bank loan. So, with further job losses hitting small towns, and certainly in the rural regions, why is the government refusing to offer the bridge financing to CBC when it appears so willing to help its commercial competitors in this economic crisis?

[James Moore, Conservative, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages]

Mr. Speaker, I will take a third run at it.

Richard Stursberg, executive vice-president of CBC, said that if the government had given the CBC bridge financing, it still would have had to cut 800 jobs. This is a decision by the CBC in order to make ends meet.

With regard to the CBC, we made a very specific campaign commitment. We kept our campaign commitment. We stand by the public broadcaster with record funding. When the Liberal government was in office, it cut 4,000 jobs at the CBC, and now the Liberals stand and claim to be defenders of the CBC. It is pathetic.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, since the minister likes to trade quotes, I would like to trade a quote with him. I hearken back to the year 1995, please note, when the Prime Minister called the CBC, and I quote “government sponsored loser” and argued it should be placed in a situation where subsidies are, and I quote “weaned away”. So, perhaps he would like to answer those issues.

Today, he is using the economy as a pretext to watch the CBC bleed. Will the Conservatives admit that this is what they really mean by an opportunity to slash in an economic crisis?

[James Moore, Conservative, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages]

Mr. Speaker, if my hon. colleague wants to trade quotes, we can go all day. Here is what a former Liberal cabinet minister said, not in 1995 but in 2004. Stan Keyes said, “CBC has become a monster, quite frankly”.

The Liberal MP for Pickering—Scarborough East, a current member of the Liberal caucus, said that it was his belief that the Canadian people have had enough and they did not want the CBC. So, again, the Liberals are trying to have it both ways. They say publicly they support the CBC. However, when it comes time to walk the talk, all they have done over the years is cut the CBC: $400 million, 4,000 jobs. Shame on them.

Official Languages

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, favouritism does not rear its head in economic matters alone. There is also the disregard for the common language of the Quebec nation and of francophones. The recent launch of the Canadian Tulip Festival was conducted entirely in English. The excuse for the complete absence of French was that the translation was not ready. To add insult to injury the French press conference will be held in two weeks.

Does the government think it is normal, in the capital of a nation that claims to be bilingual, for francophones to be subjected to such disrespectful treatment?

[James Moore, Conservative, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages]

Mr. Speaker, we take very seriously the responsibility to respect both of Canada's official languages. My colleague has pointed out an example and we will look into it.

I would like to point out that our government will invest $1.1 billion over five years in the Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality, which is an effective and responsible plan to protect the official languages of Canada. We have made this promise and we will keep it.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we witnessed the same disrespect at the launch of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver in February. The program did not include one francophone artist and, at the last minute, Luke Doucet had to scramble to translate two of his songs into French.

If the Chinese government was able to include French, how is it that a supposedly bilingual country like Canada cannot?

[James Moore, Conservative, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague should speak to those in charge at VANOC. Naturally the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games will be bilingual. Money has been invested to ensure that the torch relay and the opening ceremonies are bilingual. That investment has been made.

That member and his Bloc colleagues voted against providing money to ensure that the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games are bilingual. The Bloc Québécois should be ashamed.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism is playing Pontius Pilate by washing his hands and refusing to remind the Border Services Agency that it is required to serve citizens in both official languages. The minister cites the independence of the IRB as the reason for not taking action.

The Border Services Agency is not a judicial body. Therefore, the minister can and must intervene and ask its officials to have the documents translated. What is he waiting for?

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, the minister has in fact worked extremely hard to ensure that every department within the ministry follows the guidelines set forward, and quite frankly, the government expects all agencies, boards, including the Canada Border Services Agency, to operate in full compliance with the letter and spirit of the Official Languages Act and the charter in allowing individuals to be represented and heard in the language of their choice.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the same goes for partisan appointments of commissioners. The minister says it is not his fault and shifts all the blame to the selection committee. Yet it was the Conservatives who changed the composition of that committee, allowing individuals appointed by the minister himself to sit on that committee.

Should the minister not just come right out and admit that, like the Liberals, he is continuing the same practice of partisan appointments?

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I completely disagree with the premise of the question that the member asks.

In fact, it is this government that actually changed the process of appointments and ensured that we have a process that is dealt with outside of political appointments, and done through an agency that ensures that they are done correctly.

At the same time, the member also indicates that these are the minister's appointments. In fact, what happens through the process is that people who are qualified are appointed. In the most recent list of reappointments, eight members who were appointed by the former government were reappointed to their positions.

Employment Insurance

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, over a month ago, I asked the minister in the House about difficulties in accessing EI benefits. I was assured that extra staff would be brought in to handle the increase in applications. Yesterday I spoke to Julie, who was in tears because she had been unable to get information on her payments in order to pay rent next Wednesday.

People who have lost their jobs are at risk of eviction because they cannot access EI and pay their rent. What is the minister going to say to Julie next Wednesday?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development]

Mr. Speaker, there is no question that there are a lot of people who are going through some really tough times right now, thanks to this global recession. That is why, to help them out, our EI services have been expanded. We are offering an extra five weeks of benefits on top of the regular benefits by extending the pilot project right across the country. To help people like Julie, we have extended the hours of our EI call centres to include evenings and Saturdays.

For any assistance, I suggest that Julie calls Service Canada. It is easier to get through on a Saturday, and if the hon. member has continued problems--

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

The hon. member for Random—Burin—St. George's.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Mr. Speaker, in this time of economic crisis, Canadians are losing their jobs daily and facing financial hardships. Some have to choose between buying medications and feeding their families. In my riding, Kenneth from Burnt Islands waited 51 days to receive his claim. This is simply unacceptable.

Despite the minister's claim of having fixed the system, Kenneth will tell her differently. How can she continue to force people like Kenneth to choose between paying their bills and feeding their families?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development]

Mr. Speaker, we are trying to make sure and doing everything we can so that people do not have to make those choices. We do not want them to. We understand the difficult circumstances in which they find themselves. That is why we have brought on hundreds of people to help with EI processing. We just received authorization this week to hire hundreds more so that we can meet the challenges that are going on right now.

With the huge jump in the number of claims, we want to make sure that we are doing everything possible so that people who need EI get it just as quickly as possible.

Science and Technology

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Justin, a student from Prince Edward Island, is now looking for a PhD program, but he will not look here in Canada. His department has advised him that this is not a good time to be undertaking social science research as the government is now targeting certain disciplines for fellowship support. In this case, it is targeting SSHRC scholarships focused on business-related degrees.

Why is the government targeting Canada's best and brightest, and forcing them to leave Canada?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, the premise of that question is absolutely misguided and completely untrue. We are putting more money into research, the social sciences, and all of Canada's granting councils than ever before. We are investing $5.1 billion dollars in science and technology this year alone in budget 2009. That is more than the previous government ever did.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think I was very clear in saying that the funding was tied to business-related degrees.

The fastest-growing occupations are now for those who require the highest levels of education: 400,000 jobs for individuals with master's or doctoral degrees between 1990 and 2004. Over the next decade, labour market demands for workers with advanced degrees may only be met with sustained immigration and significant growth in the supply of graduate students, 63% of whom come from social sciences and humanities.

Why is the government compromising its future workforce?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, once again, the premise of the question is entirely false. There is increased funding for degrees in the social sciences. There are new investments in budget 2009 regarding science and technology, including $2 billion for a knowledge infrastructure program, $1 billion over five years for clean energy technologies, $750 million for the Canada Foundation for Innovation, $500 million for Canada Health Infoway, $250 million to modernize federal labs, and $200 million over two years for the industrial research assistance program.

This government is doing more for science and technology and more for the very people she is talking about than her government ever did.

Industry

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

Mr. Speaker, our government has always maintained that the last thing our economy needs is a job-killing carbon tax. Unfortunately, the Liberal Party continues to consider this irresponsible idea. The Liberal leader campaigned on it during his leadership race and vigorously defended it as a priority of a Liberal government just last fall.

Could the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry please tell the House how the Liberal leader's flawed policy ideas risk damaging Canadian industry?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal leader has attempted to distance himself from the Liberal carbon tax agenda, but his own record tells a very different story. In fact, during his leadership campaign in 2006, he invented the Liberal carbon tax agenda. Seven months ago, he actually convinced his former leader to make a job-killing carbon tax the centrepiece of the Liberal election campaign.

When B.C. introduced its own carbon tax, gas prices at the pump shot up 4¢ the very next day. That kind of Liberal tax increase on gas and oil prices would be—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

The hon. member for Halifax.

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, to top off a week where CBC was forced to cut 800 jobs across the country, the main current affairs program in the maritimes has now been gutted.

Maritime Noon is heard in kitchens, offices and cars from Bathurst to Bridgewater, from Sydney to Summerside. Now it has been cut in half. Its regional journalists have been laid off because the government ignores its responsibility to keep our public broadcaster stable.

Will the minister finally put aside his ideological agenda and work for the best interests of Canadians?

[James Moore, Conservative, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages]

I will take a fourth run at this, Mr. Speaker.

Executive vice-president Richard Stursberg said that if the government had given the CBC bridge financing, it still would have had to cut 800 people. This was a business decision of the CBC.

The reality is that budget 2005-06 increased funding for the CBC, budget 2006-07 increased funding for the CBC, budget 2007-08 increased funding for the CBC, budget 2008-09 increased funding for the CBC and budget 2009-10 increased funding for the CBC.

The other thing in common with the budget is that the NDP voted against every one of them.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians from coast to coast to coast do not buy this kind of rhetoric.

The government's ideological attack on the CBC and Canadian voices has hit us hard in Manitoba. A vital link that connects us in northern Manitoba will be broken as CBC is planning to cut our program and station, North Country.

Respected Canadians, such as Peter Mansbridge and the minister of culture and heritage in Manitoba, Eric Robinson, got their start through North Country.

Will the government own up to its responsibility to stabilize and support the CBC so it can reinstate CBC's North Country?

[James Moore, Conservative, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages]

Mr. Speaker, we have lived up to our obligations. We made a very specific campaign commitment to maintain or increase funding for the CBC and we did that.

We have passed four budgets in this Parliament and In every one of our budgets we increased funding for the CBC, including the budget of this year.

This year's budget, which the member voted against, increased funding for the CBC. She might have voted for the budget if she had read it before she decided to vote against it. As a matter of fact, had she voted for the budget, she would be walking her talk in supporting the CBC.

Mining Industry

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, a report drawing on the round tables held in 2007 concerning the mining industry recommended creating an ombudsman position and establishing mandatory social standards for the activities of companies operating abroad. Instead, the minister is creating a bogus agency that will not impose any rules or consequences on companies that pollute or infringe on human rights.

How can the government trust the offending companies to correct the situation when they do not face any consequences?

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, we have the position of counsellor for the extractive sector. We are expecting this position to do a lot to benefit corporate social responsibility in Canada.

It should be recognized that Canadian companies control around 43% of the world's mining sector. There are 8,000 Canadian companies in 100 countries around the world doing a great job in the mining and extractive sectors, and doing a great job on corporate social responsibilities.

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, despite the concerns and criticism expressed by many, the Conservative government has introduced a bill to ratify the free trade agreement with Peru. I would remind the House that Canada is the top investor in mining in that country.

What message is the minister sending by not imposing any rules on mining companies? Do trade and money trump human rights?

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, nothing is further from the truth. The free trade agreements with Peru and Colombia have some of the strongest provisions on human rights of any free trade agreement ever signed by Canada. Human rights are respected, the environment is respected and corporate social responsibility is adhered to. These are some of the best and strongest agreements we have ever signed.

Fisheries and Oceans

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Mr. Speaker, as some fish stocks continue to decline in Atlantic Canada, some fish are hard to find but not as hard to find as the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.

Everybody in the industry is aware of Tim Rhyno and they are aware of that $1 million crab licence/parting gift.

The industry is furious about this but the minister will not go down and meet with the fishermen and explain this abuse, this miscarriage of privilege that was undertaken by her predecessor, Loyola Hearn.

Will she come to Nova Scotia and explain it to the fishermen?

[Gail Shea, Conservative, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans]

Mr. Speaker, I have not denied any request for a meeting. However, as I have said before in the House, licensing issues are confidential between the licensee and the department and is not something I can discuss with a third party.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Mr. Speaker, discussion is not something the minister wants to engage in. She shows up for a cameo appearance at the MFU, reads from a prepared text, answers no questions from the fishermen or the press and slips out the back.

She stepped away from a 10-point conservation plan. The lobster fishermen in the gulf are just furious. They want answers. It was a plan that was developed by her department, supported and pushed by the industry. Conservation cannot be voluntary. We need leadership on conservation. Where is the minister--

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

The hon. Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.

[Gail Shea, Conservative, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans]

Mr. Speaker, I can assure the hon. member that since being appointed to this position back in October of last year, I have met with fisheries groups on a weekly basis and I will gladly answer anybody's questions.

I can tell the hon. member that on the 10-point management 10-year plan for lobster in Atlantic Canada, I have listened to the fishers. I have given the fishers more time to complete their plans because that is what they asked for.

Veterans Affairs

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

Mr. Speaker, two Fridays ago, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs gave a very cold and deliberately misleading statement to my question on agent orange.

I would now like for the parliamentary secretary to stand, look in the camera and tell Agnes Conrad of Nova Scotia, Rose Gravelle of New Brunswick, Chris Young of Ontario, Fredrick Weaver of British Columbia and thousands of others who have been denied agent orange assistance even though the Prime Minister and the Minister of Veterans Affairs promised that they would get it.

Would he please stand, face the camera and tell those people how happy they should be on what you did on agent orange compensation?

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

The hon. member maybe was intending to address his remarks to the Chair and may have addressed the parliamentary secretary instead.

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs.

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure, in the way the member phrased his question, that he was intent on getting a serious answer on what has been a most serious issue facing many Canadians who were around CFB Gagetown in the years 1966-67.

The fact is that was 40-some years ago and it has been looked at and studied. The previous Liberal government totally ignored dealing with the issue. I think even the member would acknowledge the fact that it was our government that stepped up. We provided ex gratia payments because it was so difficult to get the records all straight. We responded to the issue--

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

The hon. member for Sackville—Eastern Shore.

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

With great respect to my colleague from Nova Scotia, Mr. Speaker, it was not 40 years ago. The spraying in Gagetown happened from 1958 to 1984. He knows that very well. He also knows that the Minister of Veterans Affairs, when in opposition, promised on four separate occasions to call for a public judicial inquiry to get all those documents and call for the facts of this. He also knows that the Prime Minister was in Gagetown in 2006 and promised that everybody from 1958 to 1984 would be looked after. That is simply not what has happened.

Will the parliamentary secretary now rise in his place and do two things: first, extend the compensation deadline for agent orange--

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs.

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, it is most unfortunate that the member, who should have knowledge of the veterans as much as anybody should in the House, would deliberately point out something that is absolutely erroneous.

The program that was put in by this government was for people who were hit in 1966-67 by agent orange. The program has been very effective. Over 2,100 people have been recognized and have in fact been sent cheques.

I would also point out that, as emotional as the member gets, it is a shame that his leader and party have not supported any of the programs for veterans in Canada.

Public Safety

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are no more vulnerable members in our society than the children and youth of Canada. We as a government have the responsibility to protect these children from the myriad of perils and dangers that threaten them every day. The large number of arrests associated with Project Salvo only underscores some of the grave risks our children may face.

Could the parliamentary secretary please update the House on the important work being done by the RCMP and other police agencies to protect our children and keep them safe from those seeking to prey upon them?

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, nothing is more important to the government than the safety and well-being of our children. I am pleased to advise the House of the results of Canada's largest ever investigation into child sexual victimization on the Internet.

Led by the RCMP's National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre, Project Salvo has resulted in the arrest of more than 50 individuals. I would like to thank all of those officers and individuals for their tireless efforts to combat child victimization and track down online predators.

I want to reiterate the government's commitment to end the horrific abuse and to protect our nation's children.

Government Assistance

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as the Red River rises, the most immediate threat to Manitobans come from ice jams that cause devastating floods. Many homes have been evacuated and many more are under threat.

At a time when Manitobans desperately need strong federal assistance, the government's back seat approach is failing them.

Why is the government failing to take a leadership role in protecting the lives, homes and businesses that are under threat of being washed away? As an example, why has the government failed to deploy hovercraft, which are far more effective at breaking ice jams? They were used in Quebec. Why are they missing in action in Manitoba?

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, as a matter of fact, the Government of Canada is closely monitoring the situation in Manitoba and is working with provincial colleagues to determine if any assistance is required.

As a matter of fact, as we are sitting here today, the President of the Treasury Board and the hon. member for Selkirk—Interlake are in Manitoba monitoring and assisting.

Since the record flood of 1997, $139 million of mitigation measures have been put in place. We are continuing to work with the Province of Manitoba and we will continue in the future.

RCMP

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, a link between tasers and deaths is becoming increasingly clear, especially when an individual is shocked repeatedly with blasts lasting more than 15 seconds. The RCMP's written guidelines used to state, “Unless situational factors dictate otherwise, do not cycle the CEW repeatedly, no more than 15-20 seconds at a time, against a subject.” But just days before appearing before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, the commissioner has that sentence stricken from the guidelines.

Was an explanation provided to the minister to explain this odd move, and does this not affect his confidence in the commissioner?

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, taser use by the RCMP is an issue that is taken seriously by the government. At the government's request, the RCMP's review and complaints body has examined and made recommendations on the RCMP's use of tasers.

It is interesting that the analysis of the conducted energy weapon reports that the RCMP's usage of the taser in the year 2008 was down 30%.

Foreign Affairs

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, a Canadian citizen is stuck in our embassy in Khartoum waiting for a passport so he can come home to his family. He has suffered from imprisonment in Sudan, a country with an infamous record on torture.

The government's own documents state that if he had a plane ticket, a passport would be issued for him. Recently, 170 Canadians banded together and bought him a ticket home.

Will the government now issue a passport to Mr. Abdelrazik so he can come home to his family? According to the talking points of the parliamentary secretary, it is yes, but is it yes today?

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, we continue to provide Mr. Abdelrazik with consular assistance.

However, I would remind the hon. member that Mr. Abdelrazik has been listed by the United Nations Security Council on the 1267 list and is, therefore, subject to a travel ban and assets freeze.

As this matter is currently under litigation, we cannot comment further on the situation.

Forestry Industry

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we are all aware of the current economic situation and how it affects the demand on raw materials. We also understand that we need to work together to counteract the effects of the economic crisis.

As for the forest industry, the government has implemented several measures to help this industry, its workers and the communities, and we will continue to work with Canadians to come out stronger in the end.

Could the parliamentary secretary remind us of the hard work the government is doing to help the forest industry, despite the political games the Bloc has been playing?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services and to the Minister of National Revenue]

Mr. Speaker, I say shame on the Bloc Québécois.

I would like to remind them of a few facts. We have announced $1 billion to help communities, but the Bloc voted against that. We have earmarked more money and more resources for Export Development Canada, but the Bloc voted against that too. We are investing $8.3 billion in the Canada skills and transition strategy, but the Bloc voted against that. The next words coming out of Bloc members' mouths in this House ought to include an apology to all the Quebec workers they are letting down.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the 2007-08 annual report of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Pension Plan. Section 31 of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act requires an annual report of the administration of the force's pension plan, including a statement of the amounts paid into and out of the superannuation account, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police pension fund and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police superannuation investment fund.

Truth in Sentencing Act

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-25, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (limiting credit for time spent in pre-sentencing custody).

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Interparliamentary Delegations

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

Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34 I have the honour to present, in both official languages, two reports.

The first report is the Canadian branch of Commonwealth Parliamentary Association on the 54th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from August 1 to 10, 2008, and the bilateral visit to Singapore from August 10 to 14, 2008.

The second report is the Canadian Parliamentary Delegation to the International Parliamentary Conference on International Migration and Human Trafficking held in London, United Kingdom from February 2 to 6.

Excise Tax Act

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

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-350, An Act to amend the Excise Tax Act (no GST on reading materials).

Madam Speaker, in this time of concern within the country, the last thing any government should do is tax educational reading materials for people to get a decent education, especially for young people who are starting to read, or for seniors who enjoy reading or workplace manuals for people who are learning, et cetera. No government should make money on educational materials that benefit all society.

We are pleased to introduce the bill today, and I would encourage rapid transit of it, from the Senate to the Governor General, and impress upon the Canadian people what a fine piece of legislation this is.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Income Tax Act

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

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-351, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (herbal remedies).

Madam Speaker, thousands upon thousands of Canadians cannot take pharmaceutical sulpha-based drugs and their doctors recommend alternative remedies for their ailments. I for one, and many others, do not believe they should be taxed. These should be considered a medical expense and people should able to deduct that expense from their income tax. They should not be taxed because fair is fair. For those who cannot take the regular sulpha-based pharmaceuticals, if these alternative are available to help improve their lives, so be it.

We are very pleased to introduce the bill, which would remove the tax and make it a tax deduction for people.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

National Security Committee of Parliamentarians Act

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-352, An Act to establish the National Security Committee of Parliamentarians.

Madam Speaker, this bill is the same as the one introduced by me in the last Parliament and as government Bill C-81 introduced in 2005. The bill would create a committee of the House and Senate in the field of security and intelligence, capable of receiving and protecting classified information in the national security envelope. This is for the purpose of better assuring accountability effectiveness and civil liberties.

The components of the bill were composed and agreed to by an all party committee, a special committee which reported in 2004. The current government has told me it intends to proceed with such a bill, but so far, and it has been three years, it has not done the job.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Nuclear Weapons

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Madam Speaker, I have a petition signed by 116 of my constituents from Okanagan—Shuswap, calling upon Parliament to press publicly for an urgent review of NATO's nuclear weapons policies.

The petitioners request that all NATO states fulfill their international obligations under the NPT to negotiate and conclude an agreement for eliminating nuclear weapons and reliance on them within NATO's strategic concept.

Animal Welfare

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

Madam Speaker, I have two petitions to present this afternoon.

The first petition is signed by many residents of metro Vancouver, including some from my constituency of Burnaby—Douglas.

The petitioners call upon the government to support a universal declaration on animal welfare. They point out that there is a scientific consensus and public acknowledgment that animals feel pain and can suffer. They call upon the government to do all it can to prevent animal cruelty and reduce animal suffering. They note that one billion people around the world rely on animals for their livelihoods and companionship. They also note that often in times of natural disasters, little attention is paid to the needs of animals and their importance to humans in that context.

They call upon Canada to participate in discussions and to support a universal declaration on animal welfare.

Trade

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

Madam Speaker, the other petition is signed by approximately 165 residents of British Columbia, including people from metro Vancouver, from Victoria and from the interior.

The petitioners are very concerned about the Canada-Colombia trade deal. They note that violence against workers and members of civil society by paramilitaries in Colombia associated with government has been ongoing, that more than 2,200 trade unionists have been murdered since 1991, as well as other violence committed against indigenous people, Afro-Colombians, human rights activists, workers, farmers, labour leaders and journalists.

They believe that all trade agreements must be built upon a principle of fair trade, which includes fundamental respect for social justice, human rights, labour rights and environmental stewardship.

They call upon Parliament specifically to reject the Canada-Colombia trade deal until an independent human rights impact assessment is carried out, and that the agreement be renegotiated along the principles of fair trade, which would take environmental and social impacts fully into account, while genuinely respecting labour rights and the rights of all affected parties.

Housing

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to present a petition in support of private member's Bill C-304, An Act to ensure secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing for Canadians, due for debate in the House in the coming weeks.

The petitioners call for an increased federal role in housing through investments in not-for-profit housing, housing for the homeless, access to housing for those with different needs, including seniors and persons with disabilities, and sustainable and environmentally sound design standards for new housing.

I am pleased to point out that many of these petitioners come from Halifax as well as from Saskatoon, which shows that the support for this bill runs across the country. They ask that this support extend beyond the one-time stimulus investment contained in budget 2009.

Questions on the Order Paper

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

Madam Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 55 and 57.

Question No. 55

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

With respect to Health Canada’s Women’s Health Contribution Program and the Centres of Excellence for Children’s Well Being: (a) is the Minister of Health going to submit a new submission to Treasury Board that would extend the mandate for funding that is expected to expire on March 31, 2009; and (b) will the government show a renewed commitment to these centres by granting permanent funding?

[Leona Aglukkaq, Conservative, Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, Health Canada is committed to improving the lives of all of Canada’s people and to making this country’s population among the healthiest in the world as measured by longevity, lifestyle and effective use of the public health care system.

In regard to the Women’s Health Contribution Program, the Government of Canada will continue to provide core program funding for the Centres of Excellence for Women’s Health and the Canadian Women’s Health Network until March 31, 2010. Funding will remain unchanged from 2008-2009 levels.

In regard to the Centres of Excellence for Children’s Well Being, the Government of Canada will continue to provide core program funding for the Centres of Excellence for Children’s Well-being until March 31, 2010. Funding will remain unchanged from 2008-2009 levels.

Question No. 57

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

With respect to the Public Health Goals agreed to at the September 2004 First Ministers' Meeting and developed in 2005, has the government continued to work with provincial and territorial governments to develop the targets and indicators as part of the Public Health Goals process?

[Leona Aglukkaq, Conservative, Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, the public health goals were developed through close collaboration with the provinces and territories and broad consultation with stakeholders. The goals agreed upon by the first ministers in October 2005 articulate broad directional goals.

Ministers of Health committed to using the goals to inform and guide the development of their respective initiatives but have retained jurisdictional independence in setting of targets and indicators. While indicators and targets have not been set through the public health foals process, federal, provincial and territorial partners have continued to work together since 2005 to improve the health status of Canadians and have undertaken specific initiatives to begin to identify selected indicators and targets in specific areas. For example, in 2008, federal-provincial-territorial ministers responsible for sport, physical activity and recreation set targets for physical activity.

More broadly, through the pan-Canadian public health network, PHN, federal-provincial-territorial governments are undertaking collaborative efforts with stakeholders across the country to identify and develop common health indicators, and share best practices and information. Two of the PHN expert groups have identified this as a priority over the coming year.

Federal-provincial-territorial governments have also worked together to address the health needs of Canadians through the development of patient wait times guarantees, PWTGs, across the country, with all provinces and territories agreeing to establish a PWTG in a priority area by 2010. Guarantees will move the health care system further toward more responsive patient centred care, providing patients with greater certainty of timely access. More than $1 billion in federal funding is being provided to provinces and territories and Canada Health Infoway to support the development and establishment of PWTGs.

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 Questions Nos. 54 and 56 could be made orders for returns, these returns would be tabled immediately.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Question No. 54

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

With regard to government-owned buildings: (a) how many buildings does the government own by region and territory; (b) what are the annual utility costs including electricity, water, heating and cooling costs for these building by province or territory; (c) what are the overall energy costs for government-owned buildings by province or territory, including all energy uses; (d) what government initiatives exist for improving energy efficiency in government buildings; (e) how many government-owned buildings have been retrofitted in order to improve their energy efficiency in the last 25 years; (f) how many buildings have achieved Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design recognition for new construction and for existing buildings; (g) what studies and evaluations with respect to improving energy efficiency in government-owned buildings have been requested or commissioned by any department before January 27, 2009; (h) how much has the government spent on these studies, by study; and (i) what analysis has been done by the government or on its behalf regarding potential cost savings on energy costs if energy efficiency retrofits were conducted on some or all government-owned buildings?

(Return tabled)

Question No. 56

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

With respect to health human resources: (a) how will the government address the issues of doctor shortages, wait times, access and hospital closures; (b) is there a strategy to address the brain drain of doctors, nurses and researchers to the United States; and (c) what are the prospects of a health human resources fund to encourage partnerships between health faculties in the universities and colleges and the academic health science centres that would immediately create more training spaces?

(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-15, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Controlled Drugs and Substances Act

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Halifax has approximately 11 minutes left.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Madam Speaker, before oral questions I was presenting proof to this House that drug use continues to rise in Canada. In 1994, 28% of Canadians reported to have used illicit drugs, but by 2004, the number was 45%, almost double. This is what happens when a government is not smart on crime.

I had the pleasure of visiting the Salvation Army's Booth Centre in Halifax last week. The Booth Centre offers addiction and rehabilitation services in both Halifax, Nova Scotia and Saint John, New Brunswick. The centre's services include group therapy, individual counselling and classes in life skills and relapse prevention. The centre includes a homeless shelter for men that offers hot meals and personal supports to the men.

Robert Lundrigan, the assistant executive director, gave me a tour of the centre. During our tour, I saw quite a few familiar faces. One familiar face was a man with whom I had worked to help find housing back at Dalhousie Legal Aid when I was working there. He had been referred to me by the Booth Centre. Since he was in the drug counselling program, he was looking to move out of the shelter and into affordable safe housing of his own. I was so pleased to see him. He was at the Booth Centre, not because he had not gotten through the program, not because he had relapsed, not because he had fallen off the wagon, but in fact he was there as a volunteer. He was clean and he was giving back to his community.

I joined Mr. Lundrigan for lunch with some of his colleagues at the centre. Over lunch, I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Rick MacDonald. Rick had come through the rehabilitation program. He had been homeless and addicted. He was now clean and he was employed as an addictions counsellor himself, offering supports and strength to men who are currently in the situation that Rick had managed to get out of.

We talked about the work of the centre. I raised the fact that Bill C-15 would be debated in this hon. House. He was quite interested to hear about it. I started telling him about the changes to the minimum sentences and he cut me off and asked whether there was any money for treatment in this bill. I said no. He asked me whether there was money for supportive housing. I had to say no. He told me that it is not going to work, that they need treatment and housing, that they need supportive housing.

He told me about how he hits the streets as part of his job. He looks for men who are addicted and who are homeless hiding in the nooks and crannies of Halifax that we have forgotten about. He finds men living under bridges and in the bushes. He checks on them to see if they are okay and to see if they are ready to take the first step toward dealing with their addictions, which is getting housed and getting into treatment.

If the government were serious about its war on drugs, it would support us in our call for a national housing strategy.

My colleague from Vancouver East has introduced private member's Bill C-304, An Act to ensure secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing for Canadians. It is due for second reading on April 2. This bill would legislate the government to develop a national housing strategy, one that would consider investments in not-for-profit housing, housing for the homeless, housing that is sustainable and environmental, and access to housing for those with different needs, including seniors and persons with disabilities. That includes supportive housing, supportive housing that Rick knows is vital to getting the men he works with off drugs and out of the cycle of crime and violence, and the jail they find themselves in.

If passed, Bill C-304 would tie together Canada's current patchwork of homelessness and housing initiatives and it would mandate the government to create a plan that is effective and comprehensive.

I talked about this housing bill at the Booth Centre. People there asked for a copy. They asked me if there was a petition about the bill. These people are staff at an addictions and rehabilitation centre and they are getting excited about a bill about housing because they understand what a positive impact a national housing strategy would have on the work that they do fighting against the stranglehold that drugs have on their friends.

Since my election to this hon. House last October, less than six months ago, I have seen time and time again examples like this, where the community gets the problem, the community gets the solutions, but the government gets neither.

The government thinks that throwing people in jail is the solution, that prison is going to fix everything, that this is great federal leadership, that it is tough on crime. However, it will be the provincial police forces, courts and legal aid and treatment centres that will bear the greatest burden of the cost for the initiatives under this bill. Craig Jones from the John Howard Society has said, “The feds will crack down on crime, but the provinces will be punished”.

With 12 of the 24 proposed mandatory sentences under a two year duration, it will be the provincial prison populations that continue to grow. HIV and AIDS advocates worry about the growing rate of infection in overcrowded prisons already. The B.C. Government and Service Employees' Union has spoken out publicly about this issue, saying that Canada's prisons are overcrowded and “boiling over with violence”.

The costs of this approach are remarkable. The annual average cost of incarcerating an individual male in Canada is about $74,000 at the minimum security level and over $110,000 at the maximum security level. That is $110,000 a year for each person who is scooped up by these mandatory minimums, yet we do not see any money in this bill that would go toward ensuring that people do not end up in jail in the first place.

This is not being smart on crime. It is smoke and mirrors. I feel it necessary to point out that in 2005 the Conservatives promised 1,000 additional RCMP and 2,500 additional municipal police officers, which they have failed to deliver.

If this bill is not smart on crime, what would that bill look like? How about this: an overall coordinated strategy focused on gangs and organized crime; an improved witness protection program; more resources for prosecution and enforcement; toughened proceeds of crime legislation; more officers on the street, as promised by the Conservatives but not yet delivered; and better and more prevention programs to divert youth at risk.

This approach is smart on crime and this is the approach the NDP is calling for. In 2002 the House Special Committee on the Non-Medical Use of Drugs, the Officer of the Auditor General and the Senate committee made a call for how to deal with the drug situation in Canada. Their recommendations were strengthened leadership, coordination and accountability with dedicated resources, enhanced data collection to set measurable objectives, and increased emphasis on prevention, treatment and rehabilitation. They all seem to get it. All of us seem to get it, except for the government.

In conclusion, Bill C-15 increases the already imbalanced and over-funded enforcement approach to drug use in Canada without reducing crime rates or drug use. It is an oversimplification of drug use in Canada and targets street-level users and small-time traffickers. It does not address the problems of violent or organized crime.

The Conservatives are taking Canada in the wrong direction. It is a direction that is expensive, has no effect on drug use and will only increase the prison population, creating a whole new set of problems with overpopulation, and health, safety and crime problems within the prison system.

Canada must have a balanced approach to drug use. The four pillar approach of prevention, treatment, harm reduction and enforcement has been successful in Europe and it is being adopted by big city mayors right here in Canada. That is what we call being smart on crime.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Madam Speaker, I listened to my colleague's comments and thought they were very good. We may have some issues with the differences in how our parties are dealing with this bill, but I suspect that we share the same belief that we should be doing more to look at the causes of crime, addiction and what one might call the social ills of society.

She comes from an area that is very close to mine. Last week I had a meeting with poverty advocates in my constituency. I know that she has done some work in this area. I would think that if one really wanted to make a difference in the streets of Halifax, rather than invest in more prisons, one would invest in Phoenix Youth Programs, Lang House, the North End Community Health Centre, Boys and Girls Clubs Canada, and things that would help to provide a solid foundation.

This may not seem directly related to this bill, but I think it is. I would like to ask her specifically about the impact that early learning and child care could have in making sure that kids get off to a better start so that they do not find themselves in trouble with the law. There are people in Halifax, such as Sue Wolstenholme, who have been champions of early learning and child care for many years in our community.

I wonder if the member would comment on what kind of impact it would have if Canada had a real early learning and child care program that was based on quality, that was universally available, accessible to all and developmentally based. Canada is at the very bottom of the OECD nations in terms of how much we invest in early learning and child care. I wonder if she could comment on how much of a difference that might make as opposed to coming at the back end of the problem.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour for his questions. He made me a little bit homesick with all those references to some great organizations both in his riding and in my riding. We do work with a lot of the same people. Dartmouth and Halifax are right across the harbour from each other. We work with a lot of the same social problems as well.

I agree with the member absolutely about early learning and child care.

If we go back to the four pillars of prevention, treatment, harm reduction and enforcement, that is clearly prevention.

I would want to separate the two because I strongly believe that early learning is quite different than child care. There are such amazing things we can do with our kids from zero to five. Right now our school system starts at about age five and that is where they actually are taught and interact with other kids, but zero to five is a really critical time.

I have seen firsthand the impact of a parent's involvement with drugs or even a parent living in poverty, and the way that life in poverty affects children who are zero to five. They are not able to participate, they are not able to engage, they are socially excluded, and I agree with the member that this is where it starts.

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

Madam Speaker, I heard the hon. member for Halifax say before the break that whether or not we move certain drugs from schedule III to schedule I is not something most Canadians concern themselves with.

I disagree. One of the things that the bill will do is move GHB and other so-called date rape drugs from schedule III to schedule I, which would mean that those who traffic these kinds of drugs would be subject to higher maximum sentences.

In fact, I think this is one of the most important things about the bill. As the member should know, date rape is something that primarily affects women. I believe it is absolutely essential that we pass the bill so that those who deal in these kinds of drugs, and we are talking about sexual predators who victimize women, are given the appropriate sentences.

Does the member for Halifax honestly not agree with the importance of this step?

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Madam Speaker, I want to clarify what I said. I did not say that most people were not concerned about whether drugs were being moved from schedule III to I or vice versa. I said that people who are addicted to drugs do not really care about that. They are addicted.

However, concerning date rape drugs, this is a huge issue. It is very much a women's issue. Who knows? Perhaps we should look at taking date rape drugs out because that is not what the bill is about. The bill is not about date rape drugs. If that were the big pressing issue, then we would have a bill about date rape drugs. What we are doing is creating these mandatory minimums.

I would like to share with the member a conversation, an email exchange, that I have been having with a professor at Dalhousie Law School about these kinds of changes and mandatory minimums. That is what the bill is really about.

He pointed out that a huge problem with the Criminal Code is the practice of making ad hoc changes on a regular basis that are entirely inconsistent with each other. The last comprehensive review of the sentencing provisions by Parliament specifically aimed at reducing the use of jail. Section 718.2(e) states: “All available sanctions other than imprisonment that are reasonable in the circumstances should be considered for all offenders“.

This proposal flies in the face of that, preventing the use of anything but imprisonment.

Further, I would point out why a minimum sentence for having one marijuana plant when say manslaughter does not even have a minimum sentence. Aggravated sexual assault, section 273, has no minimum sentence. Abduction of a child under 14 has no minimum sentence. Abandoning a child under 10, so its life is likely to be endangered, section 218, has no minimum sentence.

However, if someone has a marijuana plant we are going to send them away to jail for six months. This is ad-hockery at its worse.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, right now the major drug problem in my region is OxyContin. OxyContin abuse has caused deaths across Ontario. Some 460 deaths have been directly ascribed, not counting many more that were probably indirectly related to OxyContin.

I am involved in the OxyContin task force in Timmins and Kirkland Lake. If one talks to police and community organizations, police are having to take on roles as social workers because there are no treatment programs in place. An enormous amount of police energy is spent dealing with many people who became addicted. Many people went in to get a doctor's prescription and were not told they were being given a form of morphine. A large number of addictions have occurred as a result of people who legitimately went to their doctor with a problem and ended up with a serious addiction.

I have spoken with those families. I know many Conservatives in the backbenches snicker, but I have talked to these people whose lives have been ruined. When they are stuck and end up on the street, they end up becoming a police problem. The police say to us that this is a medical problem and they need resources in dealing with drugs to help people. For them it is not an issue of crime, but of protecting these people.

It is not just in my region, but right across Ontario. Drugs like OxyContin are the main problem.

The government's response is that someone with a pot plant is going to get a minimum sentence. It seems to me that the government is completely missing the boat in terms of public safety and health, and providing resources to health workers and police who need them. I would like the hon. member to comment.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for the wonderful advocacy he does in his riding. My home town is Kirkland Lake, Ontario, which is in the hon. member's riding. I hear so many great stories from my family about the wonderful advocacy he does there.

The hon. member's story certainly rings true in Halifax, as well. OxyContin is not as big an issue in Halifax, but we certainly have an issue with it in Cape Breton, and there are a lot of other drugs in Halifax.

When the hon. member said in particular that police officers are forced to be social workers, that resonated so much with me as a legal aid worker.

I would have people come to me and say they needed to stay housed. They were having problems with their landlord and they asked me to help them. I would try. I would tell them they were late on rent and I would call their landlord to negotiate a settlement. We would go to residential tenancies and make up a payment plan.

Often, clients would not be able to keep that payment plan. They would come back and say, “I screwed up. I did not pay this. I do not know what to do. I am going to be evicted”. So we would redraft the plan: what are we going to do? There was a constant redrafting of the plan. Obviously, something was up.

When I would talk to the client, it would come out that they had addictions and were on a waiting list for treatment. While I was doing my best to work within the legal system to try to help them stay housed, the biggest enemy was not the landlord, and not even the client, it was the drugs, the addiction.

We are in a situation where a legal aid worker is forced to become a social worker. What do I know about helping people kick their habits? Not much. However, we need to do this. We need to look at prevention and treatment.

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

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in this debate this afternoon on Bill C-15, which is an act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

This is similar legislation to legislation that was introduced in the last Parliament, Bill C-26, and as we know, the early call of the election ended the life of that bill. It died on the order paper. If it were as crucial as Conservatives would have us believe, I wonder why we went to that early election. They had a mandate for four years, given their own legislation, but they chose to prorogue that Parliament and go to an election. We could have dealt with this already in Parliament.

This bill, and we have heard a lot about it today, really is about establishing mandatory minimum sentences for a whole range of drug crimes. That is one of the controversial aspects of this legislation. We have heard from many folks in the debate already about the problems associated with establishing mandatory minimum sentences.

We have heard the member for Halifax explain that having one marijuana plant could lead to a mandatory minimum sentence of six months in prison under this legislation. These are the kinds of things that this bill is establishing.

There has been some conversation this afternoon about the aspect of the bill that deals with date rape drugs, and I know that currently, under the Criminal Code, date rape drugs are already treated very seriously. Inducing or administering a stupefying substance to someone is a very serious criminal offence already under the Criminal Code of Canada.

That issue kind of misses the point about this legislation. This is really about establishing mandatory minimum sentences on a whole range of drug crimes.

We know very clearly, from the experiences primarily in the United States but even some of our own, that mandatory minimum sentences do not work. They do not work to reduce drug addiction. They do not work to make our communities safer.

We can look directly to Canadian government reports, to reports from our own justice department, that talk about the efficacy of mandatory minimum sentences. In 2002 the justice department concluded that mandatory minimum sentences were least effective when it comes to drug crimes. Despite that conclusion of the justice department, we have a bill here that is entirely concerned with mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes.

The report specifically said:

Mandatory minimum sentences do not appear to influence drug consumption or drug-related crime in any measurable way. A variety of research methods concludes that treatment-based approaches are more cost effective than lengthy prison terms. MMS are blunt instruments that fail to distinguish between low and high-level, as well as hardcore versus transient drug dealers.

That is from the 2002 report “Mandatory Minimum Penalties: Their Effects on Crime, Sentencing Disparities, and Justice System Expenditures”. That is advice from our own Department of Justice on the issue of mandatory minimum sentences, specifically when it comes to drug crimes. We need to pay attention to that advice.

We have seen what has been done in other jurisdictions, jurisdictions in the United States, some of which got very heavily into mandatory minimum sentences such as Michigan and California, and now they have backed away.

Michigan in particular had harsh anti-drug laws, most of them the harshest in the United States. They included quite a number of mandatory minimum sentences for almost all drug offences. In 2004 Michigan started to back away from that and repeal those provisions because it found it was not working. It was not solving the problems and it was creating other problems for that state. California has repealed mandatory minimum sentences for minor drug offences. In fact, it is also now considering regulating marijuana, moving in a completely different direction from mandatory minimum sentencing.

Delaware and Massachusetts are also reviewing legislation around mandatory minimum sentences because they too have noticed that these kinds of mandatory minimum sentence regimes have not helped those states deal with the social impacts of drug use and addictions. They have not helped with the criminal aspects of the problem either.

One thing contemplated in the legislation is drug courts, and we have concerns about them. One of the problems with drug courts is that coercive treatment or mandatory treatment is often ineffective. We cannot force somebody into treatment unless they have made that personal commitment to go through that process.

Sometimes in drug courts people will agree to a treatment program as a way of avoiding jail time. That is not exactly the most effective way of going into a treatment program. People have to be there because they want to get better. They want to deal with the health implications of their addiction. It is a very difficult issue with which to deal.

We want to be careful about drug courts. There is some value in courts that have particular expertise in dealing with drug and addiction issues and those kinds of things. We want to ensure that our courts have those specialized skills. However, we have to be careful when it comes to coercing or requiring treatment. We know that is not effective.

There is also concern for our court system, for the progress of issues through our court system, clogging our court system as we deal with more mandatory minimum sentences. I want to read a quote from retired British Columbia judge, Jerry Paradis, who is a spokesperson for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, which is a group of law enforcement officers, some current, some retired, and some judicial and court officials who oppose drug prohibition regimes. Former Judge Paradis said:

Mandatory minimums are also a great motivator for trials, jamming up the courts. Unless a deal is struck, it is a sure bet that a charge carrying...minimum sentence will be fought tooth and nail.

We know that when people who are charged with a crime face a minimum sentence, they often want to go to trial. It reduces the number of options available to the legal system because people are facing a mandatory minimum sentence if they are convicted of that crime.

Most of our courts are in crisis. The delays are long and there is a growing concern about the course of justice in that system. We need to consider very carefully anything that further jams up our courts. There are concerns the legislation will do that as well.

We also have to be concerned about the population of our prison system. If we are talking mandatory minimum sentences, we will be putting more people in jail for longer periods of time. We have heard how half of the new mandatory minimum sentences in the legislation are two years or less, which means those who are convicted will serve time in provincial prisons. We have to wonder if the provinces are prepared for the increase in prison population, which the legislation may mean for their jurisdictions.

Getting people into prison has not always been shown as the best way of dealing with reducing crime in our society. Sometimes we have said that prisons are a great place to develop one's criminal network. It is not a great place for rehabilitation. We have to examine very carefully any legislation that will increase the population of our prisons.

A lot of the provisions, mandatory minimum sentences being on of them, are provisions that came out of the U.S.-led war on drugs. The criminal approach to dealing with addiction and drug crime has been shown to be a huge failure. As I have noted already, many jurisdictions in the United States continue to re-examine that.

We need, instead, an approach that deals with drug and addiction issues as a health issue. We need to ensure that people have available to them the medical attention and the treatment they need to deal with their addictions. If we put as many resources into that as we do into enforcement, we would see some very positive results for our society and for people who are our neighbours, friends and family members. We need to pay more attention to that.

We have heard how 73% of federal funding and funding related to the drug issue goes into enforcement work and much lower levels go into treatment, prevention and harm reduction. There is a very clear indication of the bias of the government when it comes to how to deal with issues related to drug use. I agree with others who have said that we need to turn those statistics around and ensure that we value each of those four pillars related to how to more appropriately deal with drugs and drug addiction in our society.

We need to fund the other pillars equally, as we do enforcement. The federal government has chosen to put all of its eggs in the enforcement basket and we have not seen effective returns on that expenditure.

Many people are questioning the drug prohibition regime that we are under. I want to quote from a letter that I found as I was researching this. It was written by the directing attorney of Prisoner Legal Services in the City and County of San Francisco's sheriff's office, a woman named Carol Ruth Silver. It is taken from her letter of resignation, which she tendered back on January 30 of this year. She stated:

—I have found myself having to bite my tongue in talking to some prisoners about their charges -- at least half of them with nonviolent drug charges. I find it difficult to discuss the financial or child custody problems of a prisoner, when I cannot look them in the eye and justify their being in jail. His or her incarceration is as a result of their own actions, but much more so as a result of a mistaken, unfair, and unjust set of laws which criminalize drugs in our society, based on the failed model of Prohibition of alcohol which we enacted and then repealed.

Each of such prisoners is in our jail only because of our bad politics of drug regulation. It is this set of policies which is the most direct cause of the continued excessive incarceration rates in the US.

This is an attorney working in the sheriff's office in a major United States city who could not continue in that position because of the problems that she had recognized stemmed from the regime of drug prohibition. She had to leave that position because she could no longer deal with the contradictions and the difficulties that placed her in as she tried to work in that office.

It is important to remember the history of alcohol prohibition. The United States went very seriously into alcohol prohibition back in the 1920s and 1930s and made it illegal, prohibited it, in exactly the same way that drugs are prohibited today in Canada. If we look at the history of what happened with alcohol prohibition, we will see not a close parallel but an exact parallel to what is happening in our society today with regard to drugs.

I want to give some examples that are in a report called “We Can Do It Again: Repealing Today's Failed Prohibition”, which is presented by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, an organization of law enforcement and court officials who are working on ending drug prohibition, and the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation of the United States. They reviewed some of what happened under alcohol prohibition. If we go over these points, we will see the exact parallel to what is happening in our society today.

They note that sociologists who looked it in the United States noticed that alcohol became associated during the period of prohibition with a rebellious, adventurous lifestyle, which increased its desirability, especially among the young. A detrimental effect of prohibition was to increase alcohol's popularity.

They also note that alcohol, even though prohibition had been enacted, remained fully present in daily urban life and that in New York City before prohibition there were 15,000 saloons. Five years into prohibition, those saloons were replaced by as many as 32,000 underground speakeasies. There was a huge trend toward more alcohol consumption and a greater presence of alcohol in urban life after prohibition.

They further noted that when alcohol was prohibited, the alcohol that was available was in its most concentrated and potent form, a natural result of the costs involved in smuggling and concealing it.

They note that beer and wine were largely replaced by liquor in illegal speakeasies because of this trend. We have seen exactly that same trend with regard to drugs in our society. More potent drugs are more available now, directly as a result of these policies.

They note that under prohibition, providing liquor to meet the public demand required industrial scale production and distribution, and it was enormously profitable. The inevitable result was the creation of modern organized crime syndicates.

They also note that the Great Depression made things even worse as people looked for ways to replace lost income and lost jobs. They actually found employment with alcohol smugglers.

They note that under alcohol prohibition, the homicide rate reached unprecedented levels, as gangsters struggled for control of the very lucrative alcohol market by killing each other, police officers and any innocent citizen who stood in the way of their immense untaxed profits.

There could be no greater example or parallel than exactly what is happening in Vancouver today. I think 38 people have been shot as a result of the gang drug wars and approximately 17 people have been killed as a result of that.

The period of alcohol prohibition actually led to increased violence, increased organized crime activity and gang activity. We see exactly that same trend today.

They also note that public health suffered during the period of alcohol prohibition. In New York City, alone, there was a 525% increase in deaths related to alcoholism and alcohol poisonings during the first six years of prohibition because there was no oversight of the manufacture of alcohol. Bathtub gin, for instance, was often very dangerous and often blinded or killed people who imbibed. We have seen exactly the same thing with the bad drugs that are on our streets today during this period of drug prohibition.

They make the point that courts were clogged with alcohol prohibition related offences back during the period of alcohol prohibition in the United States. They also note that public respect for the rule of the law suffered greatly because the court process was slowed down and because there was such widespread disrespect for the law on alcohol prohibition. It had further ramifications about people's respect for the whole legal system. We have seen that in Canada as a result of our drug prohibition policies.

Finally, the report concludes that during the period of alcohol prohibition in the United States, vital services and programs had to be cut because, in addition to the expensive costs of prohibition enforcement, government budgets were deprived of tax revenue from alcohol sales, from alcohol industry workers' salaries, and the properties where alcohol was produced, stored and consumed.

Because the alcohol industry was underground, it was not taxed and it affected government revenues in a serious way, a way that would have assisted in dealing with some of the social problems that can normally be associated with alcohol. We see that today in our society with regard to drug prohibition issues.

Concerns about drug prohibition and ending drug prohibition are not way out there. The Fraser Institute, a fairly conservative think tank in Vancouver, back in 2001 called for an end to drug prohibition. It was said in very strong terms. It did not mince words about how inappropriate and costly this continued approach was to our society.

Also, the Health Officers' Council of British Columbia has called for a major social initiative around coming up with better drug regulation policies. We are not talking about removing all drug regulations. We know there still needs to be a regulatory regime in place, but an appropriate one. The health officers of British Columbia have also raised concerns about drug prohibition as a strict policy and have said that we need to face the health implications and get on with coming with a better regulatory regime in Canada. I do not believe the bill is a step in that direction, which is the way we should go.

I look forward to seeing our society fully engage in that kind of process in the very near future. The time when we should be working on these issues in a very serious way has passed.

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

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague is a long-time resident of British Columbia where there are a lot of concerns about this, and not just there but right across the country.

Could he elaborate more on a personal level? Could he tell us of any particular individuals or experiences he has faced, not just as an MP but also as a constituency representative for the previous member of Parliament, Svend Robinson, in some of his dealings with people who are going through the very issue that this bill is trying to address?

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

Madam Speaker, I think we have all had to deal with issues of addiction. I suspect that not many people in Canada have not had a family member, a friend or a colleague who has dealt with addiction. Most people struggling with addiction are not the people we see living on the streets in our cities' urban cores or getting into trouble with the police. Most addicts are people who look exactly like those of us who sit here in the House of Commons. Most of us know there are drug addicts who go to work every day, support their families and live with those addictions and those circumstances. When we talk about addiction as if it is a problem of a particular neighbourhood in our cities, we are missing the point about dealing with addictions.

I want to come back to a point the member for Halifax raised and it is one that has been drawn to my attention by a number of the people I know who struggle with addiction and who struggle with treatment for addiction. It is the whole issue of people trying to get treatment immediately when they are ready to go to it. The moment people who are struggling with addiction want to deal it by getting treatment, there should be a place for them. The moment we put that off for someone, we know we have lost. When people are put on a waiting list and then called in a couple of weeks, the moment has usually passed and getting them into a successful treatment program has gone. They will wait months, perhaps years or maybe never for that moment to return. Treatment is a very crucial issue and we need more of treatment places.

The member for Halifax alluded to the need for supportive housing for people who go through an addiction treatment process. When someone emerges from treatment, they need to be removed from where they were before, which was often with friends where addiction was the focal point of their life. These people need a home where they can find support to remain clean and sober and one that does not get them back into the circle of friends and acquaintances who were part of the problem they were experiencing before. We do not have that kind of supportive housing available in most of our communities. We need a much more extensive and broader national housing program that not only deals with the need for affordable housing, but with the need for supportive housing for people coming out of treatment programs for alcohol and drug addiction. That is a huge problem that is not being addressed in Canada now.

This is not a program that will be addressed by a one-time only injection of money into housing programs. We need a consistent, ongoing, regular national housing program with significant ongoing and multi-year participation by the federal government.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Madam Speaker, my colleague's intervention was very passionate and I know it comes from his many years of experience on this issue, especially working with constituents on this issue.

My question for the member concerns the effectiveness of this legislation. It seems to me that quite a few provisions in the bill are redundant. For example, Canada does have extensive organized crime legislation that says that participation in a criminal organization is an offence. In the provisions of Bill C-24, they can target anyone who knowingly becomes involved in activities that further an organization's criminal objectives.

We also have existing maximum penalties for serious drug offences that already include life sentences. We had a question earlier about the date rape drug. Section 245(a) of the Criminal Code states that administering a stupefying substance with the intent to cause harm is already a very serious offence under the Criminal Code and it carries a maximum sentence of 14 years.

Would the member agree that this bill is just a PR exercise and has nothing to do with actually finding a solution for drug crime in Canada?

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

Madam Speaker, I agree with that. Given the evidence that we have, mainly from the experience of the United States but also from our own evidence, we know that the primary focus of this legislation on mandatory minimum sentences does not work. It does not address the issues that surround drug use, drug abuse and drug crime in Canada or in any of the places where this kind of approach was attempted.

In my speech, I mentioned the Fraser Institute based in Vancouver with its usually fairly Conservative approach to social issues in our country. It has spoken very clearly on the issue of drug prohibition and the kinds of approaches that have been taken similar to mandatory minimum sentences. When it released its report on this in 2001, the first line of the press release stated, “The war on drugs is lost and prohibition has been a complete failure”.

This was the conclusion the Fraser Institute came to as a result of its study. The press release goes on to state:

Canadian governments—federal and provincial—have seldom given serious thought to drug policy, preferring instead to follow whatever variation on failure is being proposed during the latest 'crisis.'

This thinking has only served to enrich organized crime, corrupt governments and law enforcement officials, spread diseases such as HIV, hinder health care, and feed into an ever-growing law enforcement and penal industry.

This was said by Fred McMahon, director of the Fraser Institute's social affairs centre. This is an organization that the Conservatives often look to for ideas and support for some of their plans. However, it has been very critical of drug prohibition and governments that pursue old ideas that have proven to be ineffective. The Fraser Institute went on to say:

Drug prohibition reflects our failure to learn from history; drug prohibition causes crime; drug prohibition corrupts police officers; drug prohibition violates civil liberties and individual rights; drug prohibition throws good money after bad; and drug prohibition weakens at times, even destroys families, neighbourhoods, and communities

Those are incredibly strong words coming from the Fraser Institute about the kinds of solutions that are being proposed in Bill C-15 that is before us today. We really need to come together as a society and learn from our history, from our own experiences and from the experiences of the people we know, care about and love. We need to learn from the experiences of other jurisdictions that this is the wrong way to continue.

We need to ensure we are brave as a nation. Sometimes people say that we cannot do that because the Americans are so invested in this war on drugs. There are opportunities to take a different path from the United States. I think our American friends have often shown that they respect us for our ideas and the solutions that we try to put forward as a society. They do not try to make us back away from ideas that we have and they often admire us for those attempts and the policies we put in place that are different from their own approaches.

The reality is that many jurisdictions in the United States and many Americans know that the war on drugs and drug prohibition has been a failure. We also cannot ignore that our continued support for drug prohibition causes problems in other countries. Many people have talked about the links to the kinds of drug wars that go on in countries like Mexico and South America. They do have links to our own domestic policies here in Canada where this whole drug prohibition regime makes it more difficult for those countries to find solutions that restore peace and harmony in their communities and in their country. We need to examine our complicity in those drug wars that are happening in other countries as well.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. During question period, I believe I used the words “deliberately misleading” when I asked the parliamentary secretary a question. I wish to retract the word “deliberately” and apologize to the Chair for using that word.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Thank you. That has been noted.

The hon. member for Scarborough—Rouge River.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Madam Speaker, we are debating Bill C-15 and I want to assure colleagues that it is my intention to wrap up my remarks before the end of the period for debate today.

As one member of the House, I am personally very disappointed in the recent evolution of the criminal sentencing policy as put forward by the government. Some of the policy changes have been harmless. I do not think they will be effective. Much of it has to do with posturing, pretense and political stage play that I do not think will bring about many results at all.

However, in terms of dealing with crime across the country, I am absolutely and totally a firm believer in strong and improved enforcement. Regrettably, for most of us in the House, the costs of enforcement measures are usually borne by the provinces and the municipalities It is really easy for us in the House to talk about getting tough on crime and better enforcement but we do not have to authorize the tax dollars to do it. We should always keep that in mind.

I know how much good work is done at the provincial and municipal levels not only in crime enforcement but also in prosecution, almost all of which is done at the provincial level by provincial prosecutors not by federal prosecutors. Therefore, it is easy for us to talk the talk here and there has been a lot of talking the talk.

In my home constituency, it is mostly represented by a police division called 42 Division. A few years ago, I know for some reason that I never really understood, although I think I understood it at the time, the area I represent had a bit of a reputation for having some kind of crime problem. There were some high profile incidents but, as a result of looking at the thing in the cool light of day and of excellent police enforcement, which focused on a gang problem, this particular 42 Division in Toronto now has the lowest crime rates in the city .

In terms of the list of Canadian cities and their crime rates, Toronto is number 19. Therefore, while crime is ever present, and it has been since the beginning of time, not just in this country, I think a lot of communities are making progress. Some have challenges but there is no point in mentioning particular communities and maligning them because every one of those communities has or should have the tools available to deal with those challenges of crime.

I have become quite dismayed here at the shameless posturing and pretense of members who shout and talk about being tough on crime and point their fingers. I saw a member today on the Conservative side stand in the House and point his finger aggressively at a member of the New Democratic Party as if she had done anything wrong.

Not one member in the House does not have constituents who have been victimized by crime. All of us have been victimized by crime and that will go on. Our challenge is to minimize it.

I want to give the House a test in relation to Bill C-15. How many members of the House actually know the current sentencing for the offences listed in Bill C-15? How many members know how many years one can get for these particular crimes? I have a loonie or a toonie if anyone does know. The fact is that almost none of us even know what the current sentencing is.

I am going to give the answer. Even before I get to the question of what the new proposed sentencing is, I am going to say what the current sentencing is.

That said, nobody in the House knows now what the sentence would be for a crime outlined in this bill. These are already crimes, but this bill just changes the sentencing. Knowing that nobody knows, how does the government think the average criminal out there would know what the sentence would be when the legislators do not even know?

The point is that ratcheting sentencing up and down does not make a difference on the street. The perception of the would-be criminal out there is binary in logic, binary in the sense that he or she is either going to get caught or not. The would-be criminal does not take a lot of time to do the sentencing mathematics. Why would he or she take the time when members in the House who are passing a bill dealing with sentencing do not even know what the current sentence is?

Now I am going to give the answer. Clause 1 of the bill deals with crimes in relation to trafficking and distribution of illegal drugs. Do we know what the sentence is now for conviction in regard to those? Already in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act the sentence is life in prison. The current sentence envelope is life in prison.

Do we know what big, tough move the government proposes in this bill? The big, tough-on-crime move is to say there will be a minimum sentence of one year. That is the big, tough move.

We have taken a sentence of life in prison, available to a judge in sentencing, and added in a one-year minimum. This is really going to have an impact on the street. All those would-be drug pushers out there are going to be shaking in their boots. The fact is they do not care about these laws. They would not be breaking laws in the first place if they did.

What does clause 2 of the bill do? What is the existing sentence for a crime under the section that is being amended by clause 2? There it is, life in prison. We already have a life in prison sentence. What has the government added in? It wants to add a minimum of one year.

I think I have made my point on that. I could go further.

However, I want to direct members' attention to proposed section 8 of the bill. It is a new section. Here is what it says. If a person is charged and convicted of any of these crimes for which life in prison is a potential sentence—we cannot go beyond that because we do not hang people anymore—essentially proposed section 8 requires the Attorney General to ask permission.

This provision is being proposed by a government that is pretending to be really tough, in a vacuum. The proposed section reads:

The court is not required to impose a minimum punishment unless it is satisfied that the offender, before entering a plea, was notified of the possible imposition of a minimum punishment for the offence in question and of the Attorney General’s intention to prove any factors in relation to the offence that would lead to the imposition of a minimum punishment.

The minimum sentence is one year.

When there is a life sentence available, the whole spectrum of imprisonment available for a conviction, how many of them will take the time to give the required notice and generate all the evidence necessary to address the factors in sentencing that would be necessary to impose the minimum sentence? Very few.

I would agree that there might be a case in the context of enforcement and prosecution where there was a particular offender with a long record, an offender clearly operating within the infrastructure of organized crime, that such a notice could, would or should be given.

The reason this provision is there is that, for better or for worse, there are Charter of Rights and Freedoms constraints on how we apply the criminal law and how we follow through on our due process. I am happy the provision is there. I am really not mocking it, but what I am suggesting is that in the face of this staged drama by the government that somehow there is a great war against crime and it is leading it with stupid sentencing, that somehow no one else in the House cares about it and no one else has a plan, I would love to hear a government member talk about the importance of proposed section 8 of the bill. It is an important section dealing with the application of the sentencing provisions.

Again, I do not think there is a criminal in this country or in the universe who will take one second of his or her busy criminal life to read and study proposed section 8, or clauses 1 or 2 of the bill, or any part of the Criminal Code. Criminals do not get around to reading anything until the day they call their lawyer after they have been busted. That is when they begin to do the sentence math or allow the lawyer to do it for them.

I want my remarks to be clear. I stand with everyone else on both sides of the House who wants to be effective and smart in dealing with and helping our communities to deal with the crime challenges. We realize that they do the enforcement, they do the prosecution and we do not. The big, bold government here knows full well that it does not spend a nickel on enforcement, on policing; it is the provinces and municipalities. They know it is a great drama, a staged political drama.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Madam Speaker, in the nine years I have been here, each time my hon. colleague has an opportunity to speak on crime bills or proposed crime legislation, it is like a university lecture. He is so well read in this area and certainly holds the respect of all members. I know the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities is a big fan of his and has gestured that in the last presentation.

One of the major concerns that many communities are facing, and certainly my own community, is the problem with prescription drugs. There is nothing in the legislation about prescription drugs.

We talk about organized crime. We see that this is very much an organized effort on the part of very unscrupulous people within communities. It is the dealing of Oxycodone, Percodan, and these prescription drugs that is ruining lives, that is tearing families apart.

There is nothing on that in the legislation. The trafficking of prescription drugs is causing horrific outcomes in many communities. I would very much appreciate and respect a comment on this issue by my colleague.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Madam Speaker, the illegal drug threats to our communities are a real scourge; everyone in the House accepts that. We see it in tragic ways right across the country. I have actually been to Halifax and other parts of Nova Scotia where the drug problem existed. We have seen the problems with heroin abuse, methadone abuse. Even methadone which is supposed to be used for treatment is abused. We have seen the OxyContin abuse. We have seen the problems with double doctoring. The pharmacists in Nova Scotia told us they would be coming up with a system to avoid double doctoring for prescriptions.

The solutions lie in treatment. The bill has provisions called drug treatment courts, which are a major step forward, but they have to be properly funded. Federally we can help with this. Provincially they have to help fund the drug treatment courts. Municipally it has to be coordinated with policing. Progress can be made. We all have to take responsibility for the leakage of addictive drugs into our societies to those who are addicted.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Madam Speaker, I also listened carefully to what my colleague had to say. I appreciated his comments and his speech.

In light of what he said, does he believe that all the programs the Conservative government is proposing are just facsimiles of solutions and not measures that will really address the problems?

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Madam Speaker, as I mentioned in my remarks, I think that by now most of us have recognized among the Conservative government's policies a relentless pursuit of hot-button issues. If crime is a problem in a particular community, the Conservatives will focus on that and hold out that they have a solution. It probably goes beyond the field of crime. They are all politicians and we are, too. The point is that since they are politicians, we can see it. We understand it. I hope Canadians understand it. A simplistic response to a social problem just does not work.

It is not all bad things that are being proposed, but the bulk of it is focused on a hot-button response, which may end up costing the taxpayer more in the long run and does not really address the problem.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

On division.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

I declare the motion carried.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to a committee)

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am quite sure if you were to seek it, you would find unanimous consent in the House to see the clock at 1:30 p.m.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Is there agreement to see the clock at 1:30 p.m.?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

It being 1:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

Artists

[Luc Malo, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

moved:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should give direct assistance to artists by increasing the annual budget of the Canada Council for the Arts to $300 million and should roll back the cuts it announced in the cultural sector and restore funding for the following programs to their fiscal 2008-2009 levels: Arts Promotion Program, Trade Routes, National Training Program for the Film and Video Sector, New Media Research Networks Fund, Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund, Canada Feature Film Fund and Canadian Music Memories Program.

Madam Speaker, I want to start by saying that I have a hard time believing that, after artists and people across the country demonstrated, especially during the most recent election campaign, how important they considered the cultural programs the government had cut last summer without consultation, I should have to initiate a debate in this House today to get the government to understand the importance of funding for those programs. Motion M-297, which we are debating today, is very simply stated, but very important.

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should give direct assistance to artists by increasing the annual budget of the Canada Council for the Arts to $300 million and should roll back the cuts it announced in the cultural sector and restore funding for the following programs to their fiscal 2008-2009 levels: Arts Promotion Program, Trade Routes, National Training Program for the Film and Video Sector, New Media Research Networks Fund, Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund, Canada Feature Film Fund and Canadian Music Memories Program.

I have introduced this motion because this debate must be held even though the Conservatives would rather avoid it at all costs. These cuts were announced on the department's website in the middle of summer, when everyone was more interested in barbecues than in politics. Why in the middle of summer? Was the study on the relevance of these programs completed in the middle of July? I highly doubt it. Why did they decide to make the announcement at a time when everyone was on vacation at the cottage, busy with other things, and not paying much attention to the news? They did it because they wanted to bury it and move on to the next issue as quickly as possible.

I was outraged, so I got together with some other members and called an emergency meeting of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. I acted on my commitment to make sure that our artists, as the voice of our nation, get as many opportunities as possible to show and perform their work. The committee meeting took place on Tuesday, August 26, 2008, and the members of the governing party did everything in their power to prevent the committee from addressing the issue immediately because they knew that an election campaign was imminent.

In Canada, culture is an $84.6 billion industry that provides over a million jobs. In Quebec, the cultural sector accounts for 314,000 jobs, 171,000 of them direct. In Montreal alone, culture generates $1.4 billion in revenues. Does the government realize that it collects some $8 billion in taxes from cultural activities?

The Conservatives have never bothered to take those facts into account. They defend their cuts, saying that programs were evaluated and found to be inefficient or ineffective. But nobody has seen any documents pertaining to these so-called evaluations.

Why have neither the current Minister of Canadian Heritage nor his predecessor, the minister responsible for the Quebec City region, submitted the results of these evaluations? Are these evaluations just a sham or an alibi for the Prime Minister's Office?

We have been told that these so-called strategic evaluations are confidential. Why are they confidential? Anyone with half a brain can see that the government is trying to cover up studies that support programs it would rather cut in an attempt to silence people whose messages differ from its own. One begins to feel a bit cynical about this government, which was elected in 2006 on a transparency platform.

The government is using the excuse that the programs are not working. Why refuse to provide explanations then, especially in the case at hand, where the cultural community was left in a situation that is destabilizing the organizing of cultural events in Quebec, in Canada and abroad?

Hon. members probably know that a tour, be it for a dance troupe or any other group of artists, is not something that can be organized overnight and is part of a program of activities. Programs are generally negotiated one year or sometimes two ahead of time. In addition, it is easy to understand that, given its size, our population alone cannot support all that is produced. Capital raised by international tours is required for that. That is another reason why the assistance to programs like Trade Routes and PromArt are important in ensuring artistic innovation.

I expressed my outrage at the announcement cooked up in secret by the government. In fact, the entire artistic community was outraged at the same time. Let us simply think of the rally organized by the cultural community on August 27, 2008, in Montreal. This was a grassroots rally from which a coalition was born spontaneously.

This coalition has spread to Ontario, Atlantic Canada and western Canada. Essentially, people from Quebec and across Canada have expressed their concerns to the government, a government that would not listen. It is up to us, as representatives of the people, to take up our responsibilities, speak on their behalf in this chamber where democracy is upheld and pass Motion M-297.

These programs represented an investment of $23 million a year. This is truly an investment, because the economic benefits and cultural spinoffs from these programs far exceeded $23 million a year. I would like to give just a few examples to show that this was direct assistance given to artists, which allowed them to create and to showcase themselves in a way that would otherwise have been difficult to do.

Amy Belling from British Columbia received $1,300 to show her short film at a festival in Rotterdam. This is far from the billions of dollars in subsidies to the oil industry, is it not?

Also, $15,000 was allocated to attract foreign buyers to the 25th edition of the International Festival of Films on Art in Montreal. The Conservatives are saying that that money was probably poorly managed or invested. However, with that $15,000, art film directors had the opportunity to screen their films and sell their documentaries, which would then be seen around the world. There is also the Académie baroque de Montréal, an instrumental ensemble, which received $10,000 for six concerts in Germany and a concert of Mozart's music in Milan. It was a small price to pay for the prestige it brought to us all, and for the unique experience enjoyed by our musicians.

Instead of cuts, the Quebec artistic community was expecting an increase in the Canada Council for the Arts budget to $300 million. For the past five years, the Bloc Québécois, together with the Mouvement pour les arts et les lettres du Québec, has been asking the federal government to increase the Canada Council's annual budget significantly to $300 million, which would help improve funding for artists. With such a significant budget increase, the Canada Council could raise the number and the value of grants to individual artists, as well as subsidies to arts organizations.

It must be understood that such a measure will have a direct impact on artists' working conditions and revenues, even though artists already live below the poverty line, which is quite tragic.

Not only would the number of cultural productions have increased, but such an initiative would have helped bolster the revenues of artists, crafts people and cultural workers.

As an aside, I would like to talk briefly about our artists' revenues. For some time, the Bloc Québécois has been asking the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage to look closely at and conduct a real study of our artists' living conditions. It is very worrisome, knowing that many of our artists are living below the poverty line.

Let us get back to raising the Canada Council for the Arts budget to $300 million. Why did the Liberals wait until just a few days before the election was called in 2005 to announce increasing the budget to $300 million? Was it simply to embellish their election campaign? That is a completely legitimate question. As for the Conservatives, they have limited that increase to $30 million a year.

And yet, this government calls itself a strong supporter of culture, which is really a contradiction. One need only take a look at the Canadian Heritage website. On the Internet page of each program that was cut we can read the following: “Promoting Canadian culture to the world is important because it has a direct impact on foreign policy, tourism, immigration, business and investment.”

On the same page, in a small red box, we see: “IMPORTANT NOTICE / PLEASE NOTE Please note that the Cultural Sector Grant program mentioned below will be concluded as of March 31, 2009.” How ironic.

The government boasts about the impact of actively promoting culture and in the next breath announces that the programs will conclude on March 31, 2009.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

That is a disgrace.

[Luc Malo, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

As my colleague from Lavalsaid, that is a disgrace.

Let us take a look at one of the programs cut. The PromArt program opened doors for artists and cultural enterprises to a network of marketing experts in every Canadian embassy and consulate abroad. This program made it possible for Canadian artists or organizations working in the arts to obtain funding to promote Canadian culture abroad. It was aimed at the performing arts, the recording industry and literature and publishing. The spinoffs from the program exceeded by far the $4.7 million invested by the government. Creators, dance and theatre troupes and authors were able to make a living from their art because this program opened up more markets for them.

Since the federal government cut programs to help artists showcase their work abroad, Quebec artists have been turning to Quebec's ministry of cultural affairs. The growing number of applications is forcing the Quebec ministry to make tough choices because of budget constraints. Cuts to federal programs have had a direct impact on operating subsidies allocated to Quebec companies. The number of spectators attending a company's performances is one of the criteria for granting subsidies. Take, for example, the Carré des Lombes dance company. I would like all of my colleagues to listen carefully to what the company's director, Danièle Desnoyers, said:

We were cut because we did not perform enough. But how are we supposed to perform more when we no longer get federal subsidies to take our show to audiences abroad? Cutting our funding for that reason is counterintuitive.

“Counterintuitive” is putting it mildly.

The Bloc Québécois condemns cuts made without public debate on false grounds and will do everything in its power to make the government change its mind. That is why I moved Motion No. 297.

[Pierre Poilievre]

Wow!

[Luc Malo, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

I am glad my colleague said “Wow!” because this motion is very important and I am pleased to hear a Conservative member acknowledge that.

Given that the federal government poses a serious threat to artists, the Bloc Québécois believes that the entire culture portfolio should be handed over to Quebec as soon as possible. If the federal government does not care about culture, then let it say so and transfer the funds and the responsibilities to Quebec, as the Government of Quebec has requested, because Quebec will know what to do to support creativity and those who create.

Once again, the Conservatives are trying to silence those who disagree, just as it did with Bill C-10, the court challenges program and the women's program.

Artists are free thinkers. They have to be. As such, they must be given appropriate, fitting opportunities to continue enriching social debate with their unique take on things. We have to do everything in our power to support their development. I hope that elected members of the House will agree with me that Motion M-297 aims to do just that.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate the member for Verchères—Les Patriotes on his excellent presentation. It shows that he and the rest of the Bloc Québécois have been fighting hard for artists for many years now.

On a slightly more personal note, I would like to ask him a question. Before the election campaign, the Conservatives had made massive cuts to cultural programs, and my colleague explained that these cuts led many artists in Quebec to turn to the Government of Quebec for funding. That intrigues me, because, as our colleague from Verchères—Les Patriotes pointed out, the Conservatives could not care less about culture and are slashing cultural programs, but at the same time, they recognized the Quebec nation.

So would it not make sense for them to transfer all the money to Quebec so that we can thrive, instead of cutting programs and leaving us to die slowly, if that is the Conservatives' goal?

[Luc Malo, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Repentigny for his question.

He raised an issue that goes beyond cuts to culture, and that is the artificial recognition of the Quebec nation by the Conservatives. Since the government recognized the Quebec nation, all that has happened is that Quebec has lost ground in terms of what all Quebeckers want. The National Assembly of Quebec asked the government not to impose a Canada-wide securities regulator, because that amounted to interfering in the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces. The federal government decided to go ahead anyway. It is the same thing with culture.

Recognizing a nation means recognizing its distinctive and unique character and giving it the means to develop and take charge of that distinctive and unique character. That would have been a sign of openness. This government is constantly telling us that it is open to Quebec. It could have demonstrated that openness if it had agreed to the request from Quebec's culture minister, Christine St-Pierre, who asked the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages to transfer all the tools and responsibilities connected with cultural promotion by Quebec artists.

Since this request does not deal directly with the request made in Motion No. 297, I urge the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages to pay close attention to it. I also personally invite my colleague from Beauport—Limoilou to bring some pressure to bear on the heritage minister. Perhaps she could even ask her predecessor, from a neighbouring riding, to also exert some pressure, so that all Conservative members from Quebec might apply some pressure in that regard. All too often we have seen them roll over when it was time to defend Quebec's distinctive nature.

Like all members from Quebec, I urge her to bring some pressure to bear on the Minister of Canadian Heritage to recognize the uniqueness of Quebec culture and return full powers and responsibility in cultural matters to the National Assembly.

In the meantime, this does not release them from their duty to restore funding to the programs that were cut and significantly increase funding to the Canada Council for the Arts to provide direct assistance to our artists. It is important that money be put directly in the pockets of artists so they may express themselves and explore all the possibilities offered by their art, without having to experience the kind of objectionable situations we are currently seeing. Groups will have to lay off artists, cancel tours and stop creating, when that is what artists are asked to do.

I therefore thank my hon. colleague for this excellent question, which has allowed me to go beyond the strict framework of my motion.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary for Status of Women]

Madam Speaker, it is my great pleasure to share with the House this government's commitment to arts and culture in Canada. We believe in the intrinsic value of culture in nourishing and inspiring the people of Canada and Quebec.

In Budget 2009, we committed $540 million to arts, culture, heritage and related tourism initiatives, including $276 million in new funding. We are familiar with these impressive initiatives. Each of them creates jobs and strengthens the economy. Let me mention, for instance, the additional $60 million over two years for cultural infrastructure and $100 million for famous festivals.

These new investments are in addition to the money already invested in arts and culture in Canada, including the $600 million we are providing to the film and video industry through various programs and organizations such as Telefilm Canada and the National Film Board, or through tax credits for the production of films and television programming.

Just recently, the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages announced an investment of $5 million for the new national translation program for book publishing. Through this program, the number of literary translations that we finance as part of our Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality will double over the next four years.

Last fall, thePrime Minister announced that we would invest an additional $25 million over five years in TV5, the successful international television network which broadcasts French-language Canadian shows to more than 180 million households all over the Francophonie and the world. This government is injecting significant funding into arts and culture, knowing how close to the hearts of Canadians and Quebeckers culture is and how much they benefit from it financially.

We are also determined to ensure that each dollar invested produces tangible, relevant and significant results for the people of Canada. This includes looking for new ways of supporting culture where the old ones are no longer relevant or are not worth the time, money and effort. Not only do arts and culture inspire Canadians and Quebeckers when times are tough, but they are also key elements of Canada's economy.

I would like to remind the House that the Conference Board of Canada reported that, in 2007, the cultural sector's contribution to GDP was 3.8% or $46 billion. For that reason, in this global recession, we are making a generous investment in the arts and the cultural industries. We are supporting this sector today in order to build the future and the dreams of tomorrow. We must focus on the future as we move forward.

Motion No. 297 is not a good way to help the arts and culture communities in Canada. It focuses on the past and seeks to restore programs that are no longer pertinent and do not meet their objective efficiently. Motion No. 297 will not work.

However, my colleague did get one thing right: the Canada Council for the Arts is an integral part of our arts strategy. It supports exciting new initiatives by professional artists and helps new artists launch their careers. That is why we have already increased permanent annual funding for the Canada Council for the Arts by $30 million to $181 million.

I would like to point out to the House that this is the largest amount of funding ever provided to the Canada Council for the Arts by a government.

We are determined to ensure that the arts are viable. However, just like ordinary Canadians, we must make choices every day about the money we spend. We must ensure that every dollar counts.

That is why we are streamlining the considerable funding allocated to arts and culture so that it has the greatest impact possible here, in Canada, and internationally.

The current government has an integrated strategy to support the arts and culture in Canada. This strategy focuses on improving the arts infrastructure and developing markets for culture, and at the same time enhancing Canada's reputation abroad.

I am proud to say that the Department of Canadian Heritage is creating funding programs that dovetail with those of other departments. Take tourism, for example. Cultural tourism is a growing market for the arts and culture in Canada. We have allocated $40 million to the Canadian Tourism Commission in order to promote Canada as a destination for tourists who have money to spend in Canada.

Parks Canada will receive new funding of $75 million to improve national historic sites. We are also investing in the building Canada fund, which supports sport and recreation infrastructure as well as important projects in the areas of arts and heritage across the country.

Cultural tourism is not the only beneficiary of such investments. Heritage Canada makes strategic contributions to arts and culture. In our 2009 budget, we increased funding for the cultural spaces Canada program by $60 million over two years. That money will benefit community cultural establishments, such as local theatres, which will be able to improve performance venues for Canadian artists. We recognize that Canadian artists participate in their local communities and that Canada's cultural industries are a vital part of local, regional and national economies.

The government is proud to support arts and culture in Canada and is doing a good job. It is working strategically. Cultural programs do not exist in a void. Culture is part of the everyday lives of Canadians and Quebeckers.

Our review showed that most of our arts and culture programs are strategic, effective and avant-garde. That is why we renewed $264 million in cultural funding for various programs and sectors, such as the Canada media fund and the national arts training contribution program, as well as new media and community magazines and newspapers.

We understand that short-term investments in arts and culture are an excellent way to strengthen Canada's artistic and economic vitality in the long term. That is why we increased funding for the national arts training contribution program by $14 million over two years. With a $20 million budget, the program will train the next generation of young artists and talented, hard-working creators on whom Canada's future creativity depends.

We are making considerable investments to ensure that Canadian culture survives the worsening global economic crisis and continues to develop in the future. We are giving Canadians and Quebeckers the tools they need to succeed here at home and internationally.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Madam Speaker, the motion moved by my colleague from Verchères—Les Patriotes is basically asking the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages to listen to the people from the arts and culture community, who have been saying from the beginning that he made a very serious mistake by cutting arts and culture budgets.

The Minister of Canadian Heritage eliminated a number of programs, including international programs such as Trade Routes and PromArt, because, he says, they were ineffective. Quite the opposite is true. Not only were those programs effective, they were in fact profitable. The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage heard from nearly 20 people who came to testify that the programs cut by the minister were good programs and that this decision was a mistake.

For instance, on March 2, 2009, John Lambert, a prominent agent for artists, appeared before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage and explained that the elimination of the PromArt program will have a destabilizing effect on the performing arts industry, which is currently highly successful. According to Mr. Lambert, the artistic community has already had to cancel several tours abroad because international festivals do not pay transportation costs for artists or their cargo, such as sets and sound and light equipment. The PromArt program is what allowed artists to travel and perform abroad.

Because of the Conservative government, this is no longer possible.

On March 4, 2009, Pierre MacDuff, executive director of Les Deux Mondes theatre company, told the members of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage that he simply could not understand why the PromArt program was eliminated. He said, and I quote:

It took years of work for companies and artists in every province of Canada to develop networks and partnerships with these countries, and all of that is in jeopardy with the elimination of PromArt. Of course, it is our hope that the federal government will provide an immediate injection of additional funding to the Canada Council for the Arts—indeed, there is no one left to manage the PromArt program, since the officials in charge of it have been fired—so that it can pick up the slack and save the co-productions and tours that are now under discussion. The work of organizing an international tour is something that has to begin a long time in advance.

If I remember correctly, one of my colleagues said it well this morning: it takes about two years of organization before a group can perform on stage. Mr. MacDuff continued:

Our projects are now in jeopardy as a result of this program being cancelled. For companies like Les Deux Mondes and many others, this most certainly means cutting back our touring activities...

All the witnesses who appeared before the committee said basically the same thing.

The same day, Alain Dancyger, the executive director of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal—he is not just anybody—said this to the committee about PromArt being abolished, and I quote:

This situation threatens Les Grands Ballets in the short and medium terms as regards its financial viability, but it also creates a major image problem for our country outside our borders... [I have] a difficult time understanding the reasons why a country like Canada, a member of the G8, does not support its cultural actors even while they... inspire unprecedented interest from international audiences. If Les Grands Ballets were a dynamic and innovative SME producing electronic components, for example, whose products were in high demand on the international market, it would be logical, even strategic, to support that SME so that it could gain market share, especially in the current economic context. Why would a cultural product be treated any differently?

He said, in closing, that the “consequences of the federal government's decision to eliminate all of its support for export activities are disastrous”.

The government members had no clear answer to give to these 15 witnesses. They say that the government has injected more funding than ever in culture and that the arts sector players should be happy, not complaining.

Such an answer is an insult to the intelligence of those in the arts and culture industry. They always welcome increased government funding, regardless of the party in power. They wanted the government to know that investing is not enough, that it has to invest wisely. Cutting programs that work well and are useful without consulting those concerned or providing any explanation does not seem to be a very wise, let alone responsible, way of investing.

There was almost unanimous support, however, for one recommendation from these groups, and that was for the rollback of the $45 million in government cuts to the Canada Council for the Arts, so that it can manage its programs and restore funding for international tours. Naturally, the Liberal Party of Canada supports that proposal, as well as what is proposed in Motion No. 297. The motion proposes that the annual budget for the Canada Council for the Arts be raised to $300 million. The council is currently receiving $180 million from the federal government, but $300 million would allow the artists, who, for the most part, are living below the poverty line, to get the support they deserve from our Canadian government.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am very proud to rise in the House today on behalf of the New Democratic Party to support my colleague's Motion No. 297, to increase the annual budget of the Canada Council to $300 million and to call on the government to roll back the cuts that were announced this past summer to the arts promotion program, trade routes, the national training program for film and video sector, the new media research network fund, the Canadian independent film and video fund, the Canadian feature film fund and the Canadian music memories program.

I have had the great privilege in my life to tour from one end of this country to the other as an artist and to be involved in many wonderful festivals. I learned two really important lessons doing that. One is that Canada may seem like an immense country, but it is actually very small. Wherever one travels across this country, the audiences are surprisingly like one town spread across vast distances. The other element is how difficult it is to mount tours. In western Canada, one is travelling 12 hours between stops. That presents enormous challenges to a country like Canada and it is unmatched by almost any other country in the world.

I spent many years working with the Ontario Arts Council studying touring grants and working on them to get programs out there. I can say that for the very few seed dollars that come from the federal or provincial government to arts organizations, theatre, music and dance, those dollars create so much more in terms of in-kind and matching contributions and developing a creative economy. I say that because I think many in the arts community across this country were stunned last summer when about the only move the government made during a very quiet summer was to cut some key programs. The two that often come to mind are the cuts to the PromArt program and trade routes, which were programs specifically designed to build international audiences and an arts industry internationally.

When the government was asked about why these programs were cut, the response from the Prime Minister was absolutely staggering. With a level of personal vitriol against the arts which I think shocked even people who have known the government's opposition to culture, he accused the arts organizations in this country of being some kind of schmooze fest for rich people at the taxpayers' expense. That showed the deep anger his government has toward arts organizations. It also showed an incredible misunderstanding of how the creative economy actually works in this country. I would like to provide an example.

La La La Human Steps in Montreal began back in 1980 with a first show that had maybe 75 people in attendance. It was a very small seed organization. Twenty-nine years later it is a touring company that is travelling around the world. On its initial tour, the group went to New York City and returned to Montreal. Now it is touring up to two years at a time. On its tour the group plays before audiences of 140,000. It shows how much the small investment made in that theatre at that time has grown. This is a group that is dependent on international markets because the market in Canada is not enough.

If one is going to have successful arts organizations in this country, one builds a show that can tour for a while in Canada. However, that international organization is needed in order to develop. It is about building relationships and making investments and long-term planning. For one of its tours, La La La Human Steps will plan two or three years in advance. This is the kind of commitment that is made.

At the international level, Canada has developed this reputation because of the reciprocal nature of building these relations. However, it is also building an industry. It is taking what would have been a small theatre production and turning it into something that can actually create a sustainable industry. For example, one of the dancers in that company now earns 10 times the budget for that company back in 1980. That shows the results of the investment.

When the government arbitrarily cut the programs, we were faced with a disastrous situation where suddenly, years of tour planning were put in jeopardy. Mr. Martin Faucher, the president of the Conseil québécois du théâtre, said that these cuts will be “a disaster for the international development of Quebec theatre”.

Alain Paré of the International Exchange for the Performing Arts said that the results were, and he used the word “disastrous”. In particular, for 61 professional companies 327 tours have been compromised, 3,395 shows affected, and over $25 million lost.

That is the immense, long-tail loss from shortsighted, short-term ideological positions taken by the government. Contrary to the Prime Minister's claim that this was some kind of massive tax subsidy for galas, what these programs would do is pay the air fare. That is it. It would pay the air fare for the artist to get to Europe, pay for the equipment to get over there. From there on in everything that happens internationally in Europe or anywhere else in the world is carried out by the theatre through its relations. So for a little bit of investment at the federal level, we have an amazing response economically and we also have a development.

Now we are in a strange position where Canada is being looked at as some kind of cultural backwater because we are the only country in the western world that has pulled out the support for these tours. There is nothing to replace it.

The government, because it has taken hits recently and it knows that its colour is starting to show, is starting to say there is money in Canada Council, here, there, but if we look at the numbers carefully it does not add up. The numbers that are in the Canada Council do not come close to dealing with what was lost in terms of the government's attack on the export markets that they had through Promart and Trade Routes.

The government had an opportunity to explain to Canadians why these cuts were made if they were not just done for ideological reasons. There could have been a reason. Maybe these programs were inefficient, maybe they were wasteful.

We held hearings at the heritage committee and we gave the government full opportunity to come forward and explain why it was necessary to cut these programs. It was quite shocking and I think very disrespectful to the committee that the minister's staff refused to show us any documents that were anything less than six years old.

They had to dust off these old reviews of these programs, and when we looked at these old reviews they were all very positive, but surely to God there had to be some reviews in the last six years that might show some warning signs that maybe there was a problem with these programs. They refused.

When we asked them why they would not show us any documentation or any proof that these programs were inefficient, for a six year period, the minister's staff said that telling us anything about this would be a violation of cabinet secrecy, that these secrets were somehow, she used the word, “sacrosanct”.

I was actually astounded by that word because some of those reports were already available online. We could look at the 2007 review. They refused to show it to our committee but it could be seen online. The 2007 review of the Trade Routes program showed that it was an excellent program and it had very strong results. In fact, the various reports and studies that were done by the International Exchange for the Performing Arts found excellent responses for these programs.

At the end of the day we are left with a very clear picture of a government that attacked some key arts funding that was more based on developing arts as an industry and arts as an international export. These cuts came because of ideological reasons. That is the only reason we can seem to find.

The government always seems to find it very touchy when we use the word “ideological”, but these were two cuts happening in two different departments at the same time, both of them focused on international arts development.

I have to ask, can we imagine any government anywhere in the world that is not interested in actually creating a sustainable export business for its arts? How could a government think that is a waste of money? How could a government see that having a strong international development for arts organizations, for books, for movies, for music, for theatre would somehow be against a ruling party ideology? It is absolutely staggering.

If we look to our neighbours in the United States, their trade missions and trade departments promote Hollywood, promote their industries, almost with a brass knuckles furor. We see that Europe is more than willing to invest in arts to ensure that arts are funded. The development of any creative economy in any city in the western world is focused on the viability of its arts sector.

In Canada, for years, we have struggled with some of the most anemic funding imaginable and even with that, we have had such great success with our arts. However, the government made the decision to attack these programs without being able to provide any viable explanation for their loss, any possible replacement value for having taken this money out.

As I said earlier, we are seeing the loss of millions of dollars in investments, the damaging of thousands of shows and tours all across North America and the world that have been carefully planned out for the last number of years. They have had the rug pulled out from under them.

In conclusion, the New Democratic Party will be supporting this motion. We are calling the government to task for its failure to support the arts and for its attack on our international reputation in terms of artistic development.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased that, finally, the members of the Liberal Party and the NDP, like the Bloc members, see the light. I am pleased that we are and still remain the only ones to defend Quebec culture in all its forms.

Today, I am 59. When I was born in 1950, very little was known about Quebec culture. It was invisible and seldom seen. When we listened to French-language radio stations, we heard French singers like Maurice Chevalier, Yves Montand and Édith Piaf. When we listened to English-language radio stations, we heard big bands like Guy Lombardo's.

In the early 1950s, when television first appeared—it is funny, I was just talking this morning with two security guards about this—the first TV program I can remember watching is Pépinot et Capucine. It was certainly not a cultural program, but as my colleague from Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles would say, it was amusing.

In the early 1960s, when Quebec was coming into its own and being recognized, there was an explosion of Quebec culture in all its forms, from dance to singing, rock to theatre.

Someone that our colleague from Beauport—Limoilou knows quite well, Denise Boucher, wrote Les fées ont soif, a play that has been acclaimed but at the time was dismissed as offensive. Yet that play is still performed today by many theatre companies because it is still current.

Our culture has developed so much and so well because we have taken risks and have had the means to do so. We made sure we had the means. In contrast to my colleague from Beauport—Limoilou, I will say that money and grants are not good or bad, old-fashioned or outdated, but means we give our artists so that they can explore and work on their art to the best of their ability.

Unfortunately, we have seen that culture does not have the same importance for the Conservatives. It is almost as if, just as they tried to muzzle women, the Conservatives are trying to muzzle Quebec culture, because more artists in Quebec than anywhere else are likely to suffer from the Conservative government's brutal cuts.

Unfortunately, the artists who keep at it, work and perfect their art day after day are not all like Guy Laliberté, the chief executive officer of Cirque du Soleil. He started out with very little money but was fortunate to have people who believed in him, unlike this government who believes in no one but itself. He was fortunate to have people who believed that he could export his art. Now, he is on stage throughout the world, from Las Vegas to Beijing. Throughout the world, Cirque du Soleil has fans because this man is a visionary, unlike the Conservative government which makes cuts to culture rather than giving it more money.

Putting money into culture does not mean spending it on the Olympic torch relay route. That is not what I would call putting money into culture. That is not putting money into structures. Putting money into culture means putting money into people, investing in them. It means investing not spending money.

Until the Conservative government understands this we will need people like my colleague from Verchères—Les Patriotes to introduce such motions. We need to force the government to do something and to reconsider its decisions, which are poorly thought out, ill-conceived, ill-advised and unacceptable to all citizens, both in Quebec and in Canada.

Earlier my colleague mentioned La La La Human Steps. It is true, there are many companies, groups and individuals who work hard every day to promote their art, and those people have had the rug pulled out from under them.

I very much doubt that the people who have had the opportunity and the privilege to travel abroad to present their art, performances and concerts think that that money was poorly invested. I also doubt that the various programs that were assessed were given the recognition they deserve. If they had been, we would have seen the results of those assessments. Perhaps we are not being shown those assessments because the results were not what the government was hoping for. Otherwise, we would have seen them. We know this government—perhaps a little better today than we did yesterday, and perhaps a little less than we will tomorrow, but we will always be a little surprised.

I hope that all members of the House will vote in favour of my colleague's motion because the only way we can grow is through culture, the only way we can define who we are is through culture, and the only way we can cherish the hope of one day becoming our own country is through culture. Culture is how we define ourselves as men and women, strengthen our roots and develop a sense of pride. Our artists make us proud everywhere they go.

We have artists like Céline Dion and artists working in film. Allow me to indulge my mother hen side for a moment and say that I have a son who makes films and wins prizes. I sure do. From time to time, he needs money too. He sure does. Filmmakers are not wealthy; they have a wealth of talent, hope and desire, but they have a hard time doing three things at once.

People who work five days a week and want to do creative work as well have a very hard time. People who want to be fathers, have children and lead a normal life, while making a living from their art, often find it difficult.

True, not all artists need that kind of support, but all artists, whether they are well-known or not, have the right to pursue their dreams. Childhood dreams, anyone's dreams, it does not matter what the dream is so long as there is an opportunity to achieve it. This is not a lot of money at all. The $45 million they cut is a drop in the bucket. A tiny drop.

We know that this year's deficit will be unprecedented in recent memory. We have not had deficits like this in 30 or 40 years. Yet, for $45 million, the government will be preventing people from doing their best, preventing hundreds and thousands of people from doing their work as composers and artists. The government will be denying people the opportunity to showcase what Quebeckers and Canadians can do in venues around the world. That is pretty shoddy treatment and smacks of disrespect for our artists, it really does.

I would just comment that the person who said it does not make sense was the only person pointing fingers this morning. Point a finger at someone else, and four more are pointing back at you. I would urge that person to take a good look in the mirror before saying anything at all about others.

Business of the House

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been consultations among all parties, therefore I move:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, for the sole purpose of considering the motion to concur in the fourth report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, standing on the order paper in the name of the member for Davenport, immediately after the taking of the deferred recorded divisions scheduled at the expiry of the time provided for government orders on Monday, March 30, 2009, the House shall revert to the rubric “Motions” under Routine Proceedings, provided that during this debate no quorum calls, dilatory motions or requests for unanimous consent shall be received by the Speaker; and, after a member from each recognized party has spoken, provided that members be permitted to split their time as per the provisions of Standing Order 43, the motion shall be deemed adopted.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

(Motion agreed to)

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Artists

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member opposite for presenting the motion to the House.

We all welcome the opportunity to stand in the House and inform colleagues and all Canadians about the government's record level of support for arts and culture. We are proud to support Canada's artists, and the actions of the government proves exactly that.

The Canada Council for the Arts supports the work of individual artists and cultural organizations and the government is very supportive of the work it does. That is why the government has made the decision to increase to the CCA by $30 million, which is a record level of funding. We have clearly demonstrated our support for the arts community with the investment. We are proud of the results it is achieving and it has earned the investment.

Our support does not end there. In 2008-09 we invested a record $2.3 billion in arts and culture programs through the Department of Canadian Heritage. We heard the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages speak to that exact point time and again during question period today. The programs through the department and related crown corporations, agencies and boards have been very productive on behalf of Canadians.

We have announced a series of new investments that will directly support the arts, culture and heritage. We will continue to make wise investments and we will continue to do so in the fiscally responsible manner that Canadians expect from the government.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

I regret to interrupt the hon. member. I should have mentioned when he started that the House began at 1:25 p.m., so we must end this debate.

The time provided for the consideration of private members' business has now expired and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the order paper. The member will have time when this debate resumes.

It being 2:25 p.m., this House stands adjourned until next Monday at 11 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 2:25 p.m.)