House of Commons Hansard #59 of the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was amendments.
Hoang Mai NDP Brossard—La Prairie, QC
Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fourth report of the Standing Committee on Finance in relation to Supplementary Estimates (B) 2011-12.
Glenn Thibeault NDP Sudbury, ON
moved for leave to introduce Bill C-375, An Act to amend the Telecommunications Act (universal charger).
Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise this afternoon to re-introduce this legislation designed to combat the growing problem of consumer electronic waste. This legislation is also designed to try to alleviate the strain on consumers' wallets when they purchase a new mobile phone, especially now that we are in the gift-giving season.
Specifically, the legislation would amend Canada's Telecommunications Act through the inclusion of specific language that would compel cellphone manufacturers to create a standardized charger for newly manufactured mobile phones.
In 2009, the European Union implemented a similar initiative. This resulted in the signing of a memorandum of understanding with 14 mobile phone manufacturers to make their devices compatible with a standardized charger.
As I mentioned earlier, with the holiday season in full swing, I know many people will be buying new cellphones for their family members and friends, and the benefits of this change would be obvious.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)
Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC
Mr. Speaker, I am presenting another petition on child care. I have had thousands of them from across the country. Child care is often not accessible or affordable for Canadian families and is often of uncertain quality for young children. Child care creates jobs, makes Canada more competitive, helps achieve women's equality and builds local economies. It is a recognized human right.
The petitioners are calling upon the House of Commons to legislate the right to universal access to child care and to provide multiyear funding to provincial and territorial governments to build a national system of affordable, high-quality, public, not-for-profit early childhood education and care accessible to all children.
The federal government must establish funding criteria and reporting mechanisms that would ensure accountability for how the provinces and territories use federal funding to ensure quality accessibility, universality and accountability, and that acknowledge Quebec's right to develop social programs with adequate compensation from the federal government.
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, it is an honour to rise in the House today to present a petition on behalf of many of my constituents in my riding of Ottawa South. I would like to recognize the efforts of members of the Holy Cross Parish and, particularly, Mr. John Dorner of the Archdiocese of Ottawa.
The petitioners wish to build support for positive Canadian action at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Durban.
It is a privilege to table this petition on behalf of my constituents.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I bring forward a petition signed by postal workers.
The petitioners are calling upon the House of Commons to review the role that the federal government played in denying the workers of Canada Post the ability to have a negotiated labour contract based on a free bargaining process. This comes at a time of year when our postal carriers and many other workers within the postal system are busy, ensuring that everyone gets their Christmas mail and parcels and so forth. I think it is an appropriate day to ensure that the government is aware that there still is quite a bit of discontent about what is happening between Canada Post and its workers, and the role that the government played.
Questions Passed as Orders for ReturnsRoutine Proceedings
Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre Saskatchewan
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
Mr. Speaker, if Questions No. 178, 181 and 186 could be made orders for returns, these returns would be tabled immediately.
Denise Savoie NDP Victoria, BC
What is the total amount of government funding for the fiscal year 2010-2011 and for the current fiscal year, allocated within the constituency of Victoria, specifying each department or agency, the initiative and the amount?
(Return tabled)
Ted Hsu Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
With regard to the Correctional Services Canada's (CSC) Prison Farm Program, which has been terminated and whose assets have been disposed of: (a) what if any studies, documentation, reports or advice did CSC rely on in their decision to terminate the prison farms program, when was it received and who provided it; (b) were financial audits undertaken to determine the profitability, financial status, and/or the financial viability; (c) if so, what information from these audits influenced, affected, impacted or played a role in making the decision to terminate the prison farm program broken down annually and by institution; (d) what were the monetary values of the agricultural products produced at each prison farm over the past 15 years, broken down annually and by institution; (e) what is the annual cost to CSC of outsourcing this food (including transportation costs), which companies have received these contracts, what is their location, what is the value of the contracts to each of the companies, broken down annually and by institution, and how does this compare to the cost of producing this food through the prison farm program; (f) what was the recidivism rate of prisoners who had participated in the prison farm program prior to being released compared to the general recidivism rate of prisoners; (g) was the land occupied by any of the prisons farms sold, if so, to whom and what was the value of each sale, broken down by institution; (h) if the lands occupied by prison farms were not sold, are they currently being leased out, and if so, to whom and at what annual cost, broken down by institution; (i) if the lands occupied by prison farms are neither being sold nor leased, what does the government intend to do with this land, broken down by institution; (j) what was the process by which the land was sold; (k) is the money obtained by the sale or lease of the prison farm land being reinvested in the operating budgets of the respective institutions or is it being used for other purposes?
(Return tabled)
Lawrence MacAulay Liberal Cardigan, PE
With regard to the Montague, Prince Edward Island, Claims Processing Centre: (a) what were and will be the total number of part-time, full-time and contract employees in (i) 2006, (ii) 2007, (iii) 2008, (iv) 2009, (v) 2010, (vi) 2011, (vii) 2012, (viii) 2013, (ix) 2014, (x) 2015; (b) will the employees who are losing their positions in Montague be offered other positions elsewhere and, if so, at what locations; (c) how will these job losses affect services offered to residents of Prince Edward Island; (d) since the construction of the Claims Processing Centre in Montague, what have been the economic benefits for the town of Montague and the eastern Prince Edward Island region on a (i) cumulative basis, (ii) annual basis; (e) will the employees losing work due to these cuts be offered severance and, if so, what will the nature of the severance package be; and (f) how many employment insurance claims have been processed at the Montague Centre in (i) 2006, (ii) 2007, (iii) 2008, (iv) 2009, (v) 2010, (vi) thus far in 2011?
(Return tabled)
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
Mr. Speaker, I ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.
The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-10, An Act to enact the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act and to amend the State Immunity Act, the Criminal Code, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the Youth Criminal Justice Act, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and other Acts, be read the third time and passed.
Irwin Cotler Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Mr. Speaker, as soon as Bill C-10 was introduced, and throughout the shortened debate on this legislation, the government tried to justify its safe streets and communities act as if the title alone of this legislation proved its relevance. Whenever we raise issues or criticize the bill, the government keeps repeating, as a sort of mantra, like it did this morning, that it has the mandate to pass this legislation.
All governments and all parties have a mandate and a duty to ensure that streets and communities are safe. The real issue that needs to be debated is the merits of the approach chosen by the government. Indeed, one can raise the constitutionality of the bill. For instance, we cannot enact legislation that is unconstitutional and say that these measures are necessary to ensure that our streets and communities are safe. We cannot justify bad policy by repeating a mantra about a mandate. The legislation must be reviewed based on its merits and constitutionality.
Unfortunately, the omnibus bill on crime proposed by the Conservatives will lead to more crime, weaker justice, increased costs, fewer rehabilitation opportunities for offenders, and lesser protection for victims who, and I regret it, will have a harder time being heard.
I want to deal briefly with some of the main flaws in this bill.
Indeed, when I speak of defects in Bill C-10, I have to mention yet again that we are not talking about one particular bill. We are talking about nine principal bills, each of which deserves, but did not receive, its own differentiated appreciation. A best case study is that which the parliamentary secretary began with this morning in repeating yet another mantra not only that the government has a mandate to put forward this legislation, but that this legislation is organized around the protection of victims, and we of course concur about the importance of that, although the Conservatives continue to speak as if they alone seek to protect victims.
There is one ironic case study to which reference has been made, but perhaps has not been fully appreciated. It is with respect to the first piece that the parliamentary secretary brought up this morning, justice for victims of terror. I proposed at the legislative committee a series of amendments to this piece of legislation. May I add parenthetically that I support the legislation in principle; in fact, I tabled my own private member's bill several years ago on this matter. When I proposed amendments that were intended to protect the victims of terror, the very thing the government says this legislation was organized around, those amendments were summarily rejected. Discussion was not even allowed on them. They were summarily rejected.
The government did not take the time initially and moved quickly to report stage, but at report stage the Conservatives suddenly had an appreciation of the amendments. They saw the light and tabled at report stage the very same amendments that they had rejected at committee stage. The Speaker, understandably, rejected them for that reason.
The parliamentary secretary stood today and said that this is historic legislation, and I agree. I referred to it as such at committee when I tabled those amendments. It is historic because we are protecting victims. However, we do not yet have any initiative by the government to implement those very amendments that we now agree upon: the ones that I tabled and which were summarily rejected; the ones the government then sought belatedly to table but were understandably rejected for procedural reasons. We do not yet have the measure and means by which the victims and in particular the victims of terror, can look forward to having those amendments enacted into law as part of the bill.
I will now summarize seriatim and as quickly as possible the main defects in the bill. I sought just by that case study to show how we did not have time for the sufficient appreciation that each of these pieces of legislation warranted in the name of the protection of the victims, in the name of the objective that the government purports to seek by this legislation, namely, safe streets and safe communities. I remind members that the title alone cannot validate the legislation. The fact that the government says it had a mandate from the people, which it did not specifically have for this legislation, cannot validate legislation which may be unconstitutional or which may be bad policy and the like. Let me summarize these lacuna.
First, even before this legislation was tabled, there was a serious problem of prison overcrowding with some provinces already reporting prisons at 200% capacity. We know that overcrowding at over 137.5% leads to more crime within prisons and more crime outside prisons. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court has found that the overcrowding at 135% can even constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
Regrettably, this legislation in its ill-considered fashion will only exacerbate the problem in Canada, both as a matter of policy and as a matter of the Constitution.
I would add that, with respect to corrections policy, the legislation dropped the term and the threshold principle that with respect to prison management and corrections we are to use “the least restrictive measures”. This constitutional principle was excised from the legislation to imbue a form of arbitrary discretion in the exercise of an authority that previously had a constitutional principle for its threshold exercise.
My second concern is a particularly important one.
I mentioned that prison overcrowding has an attendant concern respecting cruel and unusual punishment. In other words, it raises a constitutional concern. However, it is not the only constitutional concern raised by this legislation, if one looks at the expert testimony that we had before us and does not dismiss it summarily as the amendments were equally dismissed summarily. Speaking as a former minister of justice and attorney general of Canada, a minister of justice of whatever party has a constitutional responsibility to ensure that any legislation that is tabled comports with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
When we look at this legislation we see a series of constitutional concerns. We have the problem of excessive, severe, injurious, disproportionate and prejudicial mandatory minimums. We have the problem of vague and over-broadly worded offences. We have the problem of undue and arbitrary exercise of discretion. We have the problem with section 11 concerns and pretrial detention and the like.
When I asked the Minister of Justice about these concerns in debate in the House, and when I asked him to table the legislation by way of the advice in order to demonstrate how it had gone through a constitutional filter, his answer was to refer to the fact that the government tabled legislation to protect against the molestation of children and to protect against organized crime. Surely, we all agree about those specific objectives.
My point was whether the specific constitutional concerns that I reiterated in the question had been addressed. I asked the minister to address those. His response was, “We have been given a mandate by the Canadian people to proceed in this direction, and that is exactly what we are going to do”. By way of response, I say that mandate does not authorize the tabling of legislation that has unconstitutional provisions, but it mandates the Minister of Justice to ensure that legislation that is tabled will comport with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
When I asked the minister to table the constitutional opinions that the government received in that regard to demonstrate to us that the government had put it through that constitutional filter in order to determine that Bill C-10 comported with and adhered to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, I did not get, and still have not received, any response in that regard.
This leads me to a third concern that I wish to raise. It is with regard to the question of costs.
Not only have the costs of the nine bills not been adequately assessed and disclosed, but the Parliamentary Budget Officer has yet to receive, at his request, the specific costing. Members will recall that in the previous Parliament one of the bills which was adopted was costed at $5 billion over five years. Recently, with respect to the issue of corrections, it was determined that the budget with respect to corrections just at the federal level is half a billion dollars more than what was assumed just for the last year alone.
However, it goes beyond the mere question of undisclosed costs. This raises yet another constitutional and policy concern because we, as members of Parliament, have a constitutional responsibility for the oversight of legislation. In particular, we have a responsibility for the oversight of the spending power and the public purse. How can we exercise that responsibility when these costs are not disclosed to us as they must be?
I might add, in case we have forgotten, that the last election was triggered by a contempt of Parliament vote in this chamber. The contempt of Parliament was organized around the fact that the government had not then disclosed the costs with respect to criminal law legislation. Now that the Conservatives have a majority, they consider that they do not have to disclose the costs and can do so with impunity.
Therefore, this first import is not only a constitutional issue in terms of us having our responsibility to have a constitutional oversight addressed, it also raises a question of ongoing contempt for Parliament as an institution in not disclosing the costs.
That leads me to a fourth concern and one that we have seen throughout the evidence that has been disclosed. There has been insufficient consultation with the provinces and territories that will be assuming these costs at the expense of other government services that they need to dispense and would help ensure also that the focus would have been on crime prevention and not just on punishment. That is what the Quebec minister of justice, Jean-Marc Fournier, attempted again and again to convey to the Minister of Justice. He wrote a letter on September 30 to the minister in which he states:
... that, despite much correspondence and one meeting, the concerns I raised with you have not been addressed in Bill C-10.
That was written on September 30. We know that this pattern of inattention and absence of consultation, particularly with respect to the concerns as publicly and continuously expressed by the Quebec minister of justice, were simply not responded to.
When I tabled amendments to the Youth Criminal Justice Act, I tabled those amendments both as a Quebecker, as someone supporting the work of the Quebec minister of justice, Jean-Marc Fournier, and as somebody who, as minister of justice, worked with Quebec and other provinces on the Youth Criminal Justice Act. However, all those amendments, again, were summarily dismissed.
This brings me to the fifth concern, which is the bundling of bills together in one omnibus piece of legislation. This in itself showed a kind of contempt for the necessary deliberations of Parliament, which were augmented by time allocation in the chamber on the tabling of the bill, time allocation at the committee stage where all amendments were summarily rejected, and then time allocation at the report stage in the abbreviated debate that we have had here.
This brings me to a sixth concern that I have. Even in its approach to deterring crime, the government complicates the issues on both a constitutional and policy level in the matter of protecting victims and the rehabilitation of offenders with its approach to mandatory minimums.
In the course of the government's omnibus bill, it introduced both new mandatory minimums and enhanced existing ones even though Canadian studies, evidence from Department of Justice reports themselves, and evidence from international studies from South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and, most recently, from the United States in the comprehensive report of the United States sentencing commission, which was released just a month ago, show that these penalties do not deter crime but have an excessive, injurious and prejudicial impact on the criminal justice system, as well as a differential discriminatory impact on vulnerable groups, in particular, aboriginal peoples where, for example, of the women in prison, 34% of them are aboriginal.
The seventh concern is on the whole question of privacy. The Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, sent a letter to our committee to address the issue of privacy concerns. She did not say that she was opposed to Bill C-10. She simply said that there were privacy concerns that needed to be addressed and she outlined, in six detailed pages, what those privacy concerns were. We were never even able to address them. I raised them in debate, which the committee summarily dismissed.
With respect to evidence, as Jean-Marc Fornier put it, the subjectivity of the government but not actual objective evidence based consideration, as I showed with respect to mandatory minimum issues, was true with regard to other matters.
With regard to mental health, this is a particularly important concern. We had witness testimony from Mr. Trudell and others who came and pleaded for the bill to address the issue and concerns respecting mental illness. We had a debate in this House and adopted a national suicide prevention strategy because we knew that some 90% of the people who commit suicide, tragically, have problems with mental illness.
We also know that offenders have problems with mental illness. However, when we asked for an exemption with respect to those with mental illnesses that could be treated, which would be better for the offender, better for the criminal justice system, better protection for victims and so on, they were not even addressed in the committee because they were summarily dismissed.
I just want to add that the whole concern with regard to mental health does not appear at all in the bill. That is a scandal, given all the witness testimony that we heard on this. That is a scandal, given the witness testimony we heard from victims that the government itself spoke about.
In closing, I will just mention that even a recommendation with regard to a national crime--
The Acting Speaker Conservative Bruce Stanton
Order, please. Questions and comments. The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice.
Kerry-Lynne Findlay ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice
Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest when the hon. member talked about there being a lack of consultation with the provinces and then quoted from a letter from the Attorney General for Quebec.
What would the hon. member's response be to the Premier of British Columbia, who is four-square in favour of this legislation as it stands now? What would be his response to the Attorney General of Manitoba, who says the same? What would be his response to the Attorney General for New Brunswick, who is very concerned about crime in that province, particularly the sexual offences against children? What would be his response to the Attorney General of Saskatchewan, who says, “We were at the table with the federal government. We asked for these changes. We welcome them.”?
Irwin Cotler Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Mr. Speaker, I was referring with respect to the principle of consultation with the provinces and territories.
One can always cherry-pick and single out a particular attorney general. What was Jean-Marc Fournier, the Quebec minister of justice, basically doing? He was trying to propose amendments to improve the legislation. He was not seeking to reject it. He was trying to improve it. In fact, the Quebec model is one that is internationally respected and replicated by other provinces. He was putting forth a model, which has, in fact, been adopted, and saying, “Don't, at this point, jettison this model”.
The Quebec model is a prevention model, a model with respect to rehabilitation of the offender, a model with respect to the protection of the victim, and that is being replaced by the three Ds model. The three Ds being denunciation, which ends up being the denunciation of the victim through the lack of publication bans and the like, to deterrence, which will not exist because we have less recidivism in Quebec than in any other province, and with respect to the overall concern of this legislation, the third D, which is detention, when we could have had prevention and they would not have had to be in prison to begin with.
Françoise Boivin NDP Gatineau, QC
Mr. Speaker, I appreciated my colleague's speech. I have also appreciated working with him on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights over the past two weeks, trying to amend a bill that most experts say will not enable the Conservative government to achieve its desired objective, which is to make our streets safer.
The debate in committee was rather difficult, since we heard inappropriate comments from our colleagues on the other side, who ridiculed us if we did not speak in favour of the bill. I would like to hear what he has to say about that.
All the proposed amendments were cavalierly dismissed. What does my colleague think of the Minister of Public Safety's new idea to propose the amendments that have to do with the Terrorism Act, when it will be unelected members of the Senate discussing them?
Irwin Cotler Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Mr. Speaker, we worked together when we were allowed to do so. Most of the time the Conservatives rejected all of the amendments proposed by the opposition, whether they were from the NDP or the Liberals. The Conservatives even rejected amendments regarding the victims of terrorist acts. It is shocking to see that the Minister of Public Safety is now prepared to present these amendments in the Senate, when he had the opportunity to agree to them when we proposed them in committee. I must say that this is a disgusting policy.
Denis Coderre Liberal Bourassa, QC
Mr. Speaker, I want to pay tribute to my colleague from Mount Royal. He was probably one of our greatest ministers of justice. He has great depth and credibility, not only in Canada, but also on the world stage. It is probably because of this credibility and depth that the Conservatives have viciously attempted to use quite shameful techniques to try and make people believe that the minister would resign at a time when he is needed. His work is extraordinary.
I would like him to say more about the impact on the democratic institution. By playing this game, the Minister of Public Safety has just shown us how little respect he has for Parliament. Amendments cannot be tabled here when parliamentary committees are not even being respected. I would like my colleague to comment on this.
