Debates of Sept. 30th, 2009

Criminal Code

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order, please. The hon. member has no time left. His ten minutes have run out. The hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was prepared to give my Bloc colleague another minute, but I will go ahead now.

This issue that brings us before the House today is one that obviously gives all parties, all members of Parliament, and all Canadians for that matter, a great deal of concern.

I know from my own experiences, in dealing with people who are depressed or confronting great problems in their personal lives, just how vulnerable they are. I do not think it is possible for any of us, without actually having been to that depth of depression and levels of vulnerability, to really appreciate that, but it is very real. I suppose most scary in this regard is the fact that there are perpetrators out there who would prey upon that vulnerability. We have seen that in the case of the Ottawa student and in several other cases as well.

It is quite appropriate and very timely that this motion is before the House. I believe the government, the Department of Justice in particular, needs to be looking into this area and seeing if there are ways that we can tighten up either under the Criminal Code or in other areas to, as much as possible, prevent this type of predatory activity.

I do have a couple of suggestions in that regard. In particular, when we deal with the Ottawa case of Nadia Kajouji, that person has in fact not been charged. Like the member for Kitchener—Conestoga, I have been following the case very closely. The person has not been charged and it begs the question of why not.

If in fact we find that the U.S. federal government and the state of Minnesota in particular do not have mechanisms in place to charge him, then it is crucial that we put those mechanisms in place here in Canada. It would take a two-phase approach to this.

First, we would have to create a specific crime dealing with the issue of this type of counselling over a broad range of telecommunications and have wording broad enough to cover telecommunication developments that are still coming.

Once we have done that and made it a very specific crime in Canada to counsel suicide in this way, we then would have to be clear within our extradition treaties that that would be an offence for which we could extradite people from any place in the world, if in fact the crime had been committed either in Canada, that is, it was perpetrated here, or it was perpetrated in Canada on one of our citizens or residents.

We have some precedents for that, particularly in the sexual assault cases elsewhere in the world, that we will prosecute in this country under any circumstances. There are a couple of other precedents, so this is doable, but it is something that we would be pressing the justice department to look at once this motion gets to committee.

The other area in which we could be doing some work is simply looking at section 241 of the Criminal Code, which is the section that deals with counselling of suicide. We also could be looking at the criminal negligence sections. It may be more convenient perhaps, more in keeping with those sections, to create a new offence there of counselling suicide using telecommunication mechanisms that result in death. That may be a better tool, a better section of the Criminal Code to look at.

Those are two areas that we could be dealing with, specifically with the Criminal Code and our extradition treaties.

The other area that I believe we have to look at, and this is more along the lines of prevention as opposed to reacting to the crime having been committed, is the regulation of the Internet. My colleague from Timmins—James Bay was telling me today, and I was not aware of this, that one can actually go online to certain websites where people are actually demonstrating their attempts to commit suicide. He believes that on one or two occasions a suicide has actually been committed live, with people watching and not intervening. In addition, we know from any number of cases of the number of suicide chat rooms that are on the Internet.

There are some lessons to be learned from what we have done to combat child pornography on the Internet. We need to compel those who provide service to the Internet to monitor these chat rooms. Some of these chat rooms are actually beneficial because they are a form of counselling. They aid people in their depression and help them with their mental health problems.

However, if this counselling actually crosses the line into counselling the act of suicide, then those sites need to be shut down. The servers who provide that service need to be directed that it is their responsibility to monitor these sites and shut them down if actual counselling of suicide is identified. That has begun to be fairly effective in the child pornography area.

Canada is taking some lead in this in terms of tracing those sites and then shutting them down. There is some precedent for us to be able to follow.

The combined approach of both strengthening our provisions within the Criminal Code to deal with the crime within this country or even extra-territorially and working much more preventively with the Internet is absolutely imperative.

I have been following some of the debate on this issue in the United States. There has been an ongoing debate there about limiting freedom of speech within that context. But as we said with the child pornography issue, there is no issue with another freedom where that kind of abuse is going on.

The same arguments could be made both nationally and internationally to restrict those sites and shut them down if there is this kind of active counselling of suicide.

Those are the suggestions I have for my colleague from Kitchener—Conestoga. I congratulate him on moving as rapidly as he has on this issue. I urge the government to pick up on these suggestions and on his motion, and perhaps we will actually get some meaningful advancements in preventing these types of suicides.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I know my time is short this evening but I want to take a few moments, first and foremost, to congratulate and thank the hon. member for Kitchener—Conestoga for bringing forward this motion. This motion speaks to an issue that has, unfortunately, impacted too many people.

When the hon. member brought forward this motion in September of this year, I believe he said that suicide has caused the tragic deaths of far too many Canadians and tonight I have to concur and I think all members in the House would agree.

I would like to go through a number of things. As I said, my time is limited, but I felt it was necessary for us to contemplate the merits of this bill as well as its place in terms of the current Criminal Code provisions.

Section 241 of the Criminal Code makes it an indictable offence to counsel a person to commit suicide. It also provides that it is an offence to assist or encourage someone to commit suicide. It is important to note that it is so, regardless of the means chosen to counsel, encourage or provide assistance, and regardless of whether the person attempts to commit suicide. The maximum penalty provided for this specific offence is 14 years imprisonment.

It is interesting to note that the assisted suicide offence provision in our Criminal Code is very similar to the provisions in force today in England. On September 23 of this year, and it is interesting that this is so timely, the British director of public prosecutions issued an interim policy for prosecutors in respect of cases of assisted suicide.

I would like to mention a few of the relevant points that are in the public interest in Canada as we are contemplating what we need to do to ensure that provisions within our own section are keeping up with the current technologies. The director of public prosecutions outlined a number of points. The first point reads:

The suspect persuaded, pressured or maliciously encouraged the victim to commit suicide, or exercised improper influence in the victim's decision to do so; and did not take reasonable steps to ensure that any other person did not do so.

That, obviously, means suicide.

The second point reads:

The suspect was unknown to the victim and assisted by providing specific information via, for example, a website or publication, to the victim to assist him or her in committing suicide.

The third point in making clarification reads:

The suspect gave assistance to more than one victim who were not known to each other.

The fourth clarification made reads:

The suspect was a member of an organisation or group, the principal purpose of which is to provide a physical environment (whether for payment or not) in which to allow another to commit suicide.

I mention those specific factors that were found in favour of prosecution on the charge of assisted suicide under legislation that is very similar to ours. As my colleague from the NDP pointed out, there are many ways that we could bring clarification to our current legislation.

However, it is important that our laws be broad and that we not try to name all the different ways in which a person might assist or counsel someone to commit suicide but that we allow for the legislation to be broad enough that it encapsulates any changing technology. I am certain the government will take that into consideration when this bill, hopefully, passes.

Section 241 of our Criminal Code is currently very broad. If charges are laid under this section for actions to be carried out over the Internet, I imagine there will be a number of challenges that the investigators will find problematic, specifically as to how they will collect evidence and the evidentiary burdens of the investigation. However, let this not be a deterrent to pursuing this initiative. For example, we have heard it noted already this evening that in cases of child pornography, which is the same challenge, we are seeing some success on that front.

Let us continue to work together to ensure that the opportunities are limited for those people who counsel and maliciously attack others over the Internet and who use the Internet to perpetrate this crime. I am pleased that my colleague has introduced this motion and has sought to clarify that the assisted suicide offence in section 241 of the Criminal Code needs to include those people who would use the Internet to perpetrate this crime.

As I mentioned at the beginning, it is very important that we as Canadians ensure that our laws keep up with the advanced technologies to ensure that we are protecting the most vulnerable in our society.

As members of Parliament, our number one responsibility is to protect the most vulnerable in our society. Tonight, as I have listened to the different life stories of people who have been affected by perpetrators, I have come to believe that we have an obligation to act. We have a responsibility to do what we can to protect those most vulnerable in our society.

We must stand with the victims' families, those families that bear the pain of suicide, who have lost family members. We must stand with those families that have been victims of a perpetrator who came into their loved one's life and encouraged their loved one to commit suicide. We have to stand with those people who might be victimized by a perpetrator in the future.

This motion is the first step in moving forward on this issue. We must continue to work toward the preservation of life. We must continue to protect those who are most vulnerable in our society.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

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.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

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

Mr. Speaker, this evening, I want to talk about heritage, culture and artists. On May 11 I asked the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages a question. That was the day the papers reported that Robert Lepage, Stanley Péan and even Clémence DesRochers condemned this government's lack of consideration for artists. I commented that this government was so disconnected from reality that it had come to regard it as virtually the norm for recipients to criticize it when they accepted their prizes.

I wondered and I asked the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages whether he realized that his cultural policies were not helping artists, but in fact were hurting them. Obviously, I was referring to the programs he had cut in August 2008, including the PromArt and Trade Routes programs. He had cut $25 million from seven programs. PromArt and Trade Routes were just two of those seven programs.

I have to say that artists are struggling because of these cuts. This is no longer front-page news, it may not even be in the news anymore, but the fact is that artists are quietly stopping their activities. They have cancelled tours. Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, for one, went ahead with its tour, but incurred a deficit of $150,000.

The Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages confirmed to me in writing that there was no longer a grant program to help Les Grands Ballets Canadiens tour abroad. Artists are in the process of assessing the situation, and when it comes out, it will not be pretty.

More recently, this summer, the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, who learned absolutely nothing, did it again, and made cuts to the Canadian musical diversity component. It never ends. Many artists are falling through the cracks after the announcement of the elimination of the Canadian musical diversity fund. That is another $1.3 million that the department has taken away from artists.

In fact, 80% of artists who had access to this fund have no other form of funding. The government is shutting the door on yet another piece of cultural life, and is telling artists to go home. The department did not announce any new money for the Canada music fund. The music industry needs more money, in addition to the money managed by the Canada Council for the Arts for specialized music.

People who create jazz, world and contemporary music contribute to cultural diversity. People need to understand that. The Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages needs to understand that. Life is not just about entertainment. These creators are the driving force behind new music.

Consider La Bottine Souriante. Initially, La Bottine Souriante fell into a particular category because it played traditional music. Now their music is inspired by a broad range of genres and has become popular music.

Once again, my question for the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages and for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage is this: do they realize that instead of helping artists, these policies hurt them?

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be here this evening to talk about all the great things our government is doing in support of the arts.

I think that the Bloc critic is very confused on this file. We continually get questions that demonstrate she does not understand the file very well. For example, with respect to the Canada music fund, which she cited, this summer the minister announced, with great appreciation from the industry, a five year commitment. That is a $138 million commitment to the Canada music fund over five years.

I could give a pile of quotes from the industry that demonstrate exactly how appreciative the industry is.

However, the Bloc members voted against that. In fact they voted against a lot of things in the 40th Parliament, things that have really surprised me. They voted against record funding for the Canada Council. The member cited the Canada Council, and the Bloc was against that.

It is hard to say anything about the amount of money the Canada Council received because the Bloc voted against giving it anything. It was record funding for the arts in Canada, but as I said, the Bloc Québécois is voting against a lot of things these days in the 40th Parliament.

Tonight the Bloc members voted against minimum sentences for offences involving trafficking of persons under the age of 18 years: child trafficking. The Bloc voted against a bill that would bring tougher laws against child trafficking.

I cannot believe the audacity of the member to come to the House and complain about funding for the arts when the Bloc members have voted against funding for the arts. Every night it is the same thing: not enough money. They voted for no money for the arts. That was the Bloc's position when our government put record funding behind the arts. When we put record funding behind the arts in the economic action plan, the Bloc members were against it.

Artists in Quebec, if they are listening, should remember that the Bloc Québécois members had a choice. They had a choice to vote in support of artists or to vote against them and the Bloc members voted against them.

That is the record the Bloc members will have to defend. They will have to stand up and say they voted against it and then fill in the blank after that. It is a sad story, because we have stood behind Quebec artists.

When I rise in my supplemental response to the member, I will let the House know what some people in Quebec had to say about what our government is doing for the arts in Canada.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am truly surprised by the rhetoric in his arguments and by how many half-truths can be uttered in such a short time. I am truly dumbfounded by it all. It has been a long time since I heard as much in such a short time.

As for the parliamentary secretary's accusations that the Bloc Québécois votes against the government's budgets, I would just remind him that on May 10, 2006, and March 27, 2007, the Bloc Québécois voted in favour of this government's budgets. However, this year's budget contained poison pills and our artists would certainly not have wanted us to vote for that. And there was also the $27 million in cuts the previous year. I believe they would not have wanted us to support that either.

This government keeps saying that it is giving more to artists but we do not know where that increase is going. In fact, it continues to play hide-and-seek with the numbers. That is what it did this summer. Of course, it did give more to the industry and it is true that one part of the industry is pleased. Nevertheless, 80% of artists and musicians who need it—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I promised I would give you some third party quotes on what our government is doing for the arts and what the Bloc Québécois voted against. I do not know how that could be a half-truth, by the way.

The Bloc member knows very well that her party voted against the stimulus plan, which included record funding for the arts.

Let us look at what the director of the Just For Laughs Festival said. Maybe she has heard of it. It is in Montreal. He said:

By including the arts and culture in its policy for fighting the crisis, the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister recognizes the role and power of this sector for the national economy," says Gilbert Rozon, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Just For Laughs Group...

That is what people in Quebec are saying about what our government has done in its economic action plan. I wonder what they will say to the Bloc Québécois members in the next election when they stand up and say they voted against all those increases to the arts.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to participate in tonight's continued discussion that we are having on the question I raised in the House of Commons on May 12 related to Nortel and the takeover by Ericsson. Many Canadians know that this iconic company, Nortel, has struggled in the last couple of years, and the end result is that it went into bankruptcy and to auction. Sadly, we have witnessed the loss of Canadian technology, research and development. With this foreign takeover, I asked the minister that day to look at the foreign investment legislation.

There are a couple of thresholds that are important. There is the threshold of $312 million in terms of net value when the minister must intervene. Also, a new national security clause was introduced. The national security clause is something I have been after since 2002, with China Minmetals. There was a state government of China buying up Canadian oil sands projects, and I opposed that. A non-democratic government was buying Canadian companies.

We finally did get a change to the Investment Candada Act, but it was done in a budget bill. That meant it did not have the proper parliamentary review that would normally be done for a bill. It did not go through the committee. We did not hear witnesses. We did not debate it in the House of Commons, aside from the debate on the budget bill. It is quite an Americanization of our legislation. The Americans have a similar system, where they add riders to a government spending bill that has legislative changes. This is the way the government has done a couple of things, such as the immigration act and now the Investment Canada Act.

Unfortunately, it has now resulted in some weaknesses that we saw evident in this case. This case was interesting. Ericsson had purchased the assets from Nortel for $1.13 billion and then later said the net value was less than the $312 million. To make sure that viewers understand this correctly, it paid over $1 billion for something it later on argued was worth a lot less, including under the threshold of the $312 million. There is a significant difference between the purchase price and what it is saying the net value is. Later on the minister bought that and dismissed it outright.

Second, the minister has dismissed the national security clause. What is interesting is that we had testimony for one day. We, as New Democrats, would have had more testimony, but we were thwarted. I cannot say what happened at in camera meetings, but I can say that Liberals approached me through the leader's office about having more hearings. I cannot say whether I have that support at committee anymore, but unfortunately we only had one day of hearings, which left the pensioners out.

What is really important is that a Canadian company, Certicom, that was based in Canada and bought by RIM in Canada, staying in Canada, had the sale reviewed by the United States government. Meanwhile, in Canada, LTE technology, a fourth-generation tecnology, is going to move ahead of BlackBerry and other devices through the Internet and exchange of information has been dismissed outright. That was disappointing.

I would like to see the government reverse its position, examine the national security clause and make sure this review is going to take place, because we have so many workers at risk. Canadians have subsidized this research, development and technology, and it needs a thorough review before we give this Canadian technology away.

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

Mr. Speaker, it was interesting to note the hon. member talking about the budget bill and the lack of debate. We do debate budget bills in the House. It was during the debate of that budget bill that I believe the NDP member for Hamilton Mountain said, “Every single important piece the people in the community were looking for is mentioned”. She said this before she promptly voted against the bill. I am not sure I understand the rationale there, but we did debate it in the House.

I am pleased to rise to respond to the concerns expressed by the member for Windsor West about the ongoing court-supervised process being undergone by Nortel. In our economic action plan, “Advantage Canada” and in budget 2007, the federal government committed to undertake a review of Canada's competition policies and its framework for foreign investment policy.

To deliver on these commitments, in July 2007, the government created an expert panel, chaired by Mr. Lynton Ronald Wilson. The panel conducted extensive consultation and in June 2008 released its final report and recommendations aimed at raising Canada's overall economic performance, through greater competition, to provide Canadians with a higher standard of living.

One of the panel's key recommendations was that we narrow the scope for intervention on economic grounds under the Investment Canada Act. The panel also found that it would be in Canada's best interest in a post-9/11 world to incorporate a national security test into the act. Of course the hon. member referred to that. We moved very quickly to address these and other key recommendations in the report. Last winter, the Budget Implementation Act brought about reforms to the Investment Canada Act, including a national security review mechanism.

Before the passage of this legislation, Canada was the only major developed country in the world that did not have the legislative authority to review foreign investments on the basis of national security concerns, but now we do. With respect to the acquisition of Nortel's CDMA and LTE assets by Ericsson, the government did examine the national security implications of this transaction. The Minister of Industry consulted with the Minister of Public Safety and based on all of the information presented to the Minister of Industry, there are no grounds to believe that this transaction could be injurious to Canada's national security.

It is worth noting that Ericsson has had operations in Canada for over 56 years. It has invested over $2 billion in research and development in Canada over the past 10 years and it employs over 1,900 Canadians. Further, Ericsson has guaranteed that it will maintain employment levels in Canada. In point of fact, as of today, all but four of Ottawa-based Nortel employees have signed on with Ericsson. Further, Ericsson plans to hire 100 new employees for the Ottawa facility in the near future.

The member opposite wants the government to ignore the law and invoke arbitrary protectionism. If we did this, foreign investors would quickly lose confidence in Canadian law and leave Canada behind. Foreign investment is an important driver of economic success. It stimulates job creation, technological development and economic growth. We must therefore be cognizant of sending the strongest possible signal to investors around the world that Canada is a safe and stable place to do business.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the reality is we did have a Canadian champion in RIM. This is a testimony from Mr. Lazaridis from RIM. He talks about the national security element and the situation with LTE technology. He says:

Without question, it is important to understand how important security technology is. The technology that we use, of course, is public key elliptic curve technology. We've been using it for years, and it's been one of the core competitive advantages we've had in the BlackBerry and why it's so widespread in government use, military use, and law enforcement use.

That comes from experts that transform and encrypt information across this globe. It is information that is used by a number of different governments around the world and by military organizations and civil society groups as well. We have given out the breakthrough technology and patents that will come forward to another country.

What is really important is the home area of the company is often where the research and development of technology takes place. That is why RIM would have been a much better match and a lease on examination for our research and development.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member uses words in the past tense. RIM was the champion in terms of technology. I believe RIM is still a champion in terms of technology. It did have the opportunity to bid on these assets and for whatever reason decided not to do that.

However, in terms of competition, and I think that is the key issue when we talk about the Investment Canada Act and the changes that we have made, I note the World Economic Forum has said that because of the measures this government has taken Canada will be one of only two developed countries in the world to come out of this recession in a better competitive place than we were in before.

I think that is what is important to Canadians at this crucial global economic time.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 7:32 p.m.)