House of Commons Hansard #208 of the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was witnesses.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, the member and the parliamentary secretary also referred to organized gangs as a major justification for why we need to expand the witness protection program. Could he provide some background in that regard from the province he represents? What can he tell us about the numbers of gangs, gang activities and increases in membership?
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Mr. Speaker, there are areas around the country that have serious problems with youth gangs and street gangs. They are most notable by their presence in the headlines, including some in downtown Toronto. That is the reason the member for Trinity—Spadina has taken such a high-profile role in trying to keep this issue before the House of Commons and to get these changes made. The activities of street gangs, by nature, often involve youth and people whose judgment is not the best, or they would not be involved in the gang. It ends up with a broader threat to the safety of innocent bystanders as a result of gang activities and conflicts between gangs.
In Montreal, my colleague, the member for Alfred-Pellan, has also done a lot of work in her community on the problems with street gangs there. Then of course in Surrey, British Columbia, where we probably have one of the largest problems with street and drug gangs, both the member for Surrey North and the member for Newton—North Delta have been very strong proponents of using this legislation to, as the police say, “crack” those gangs. They have trouble getting anyone to come forward to give evidence. If they can just get one person, they can probably get a conviction that will seriously disrupt street gang activities.
Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC
Mr. Speaker, the position described by my party and my colleague with regard to our support at second reading is a clear indication that we approach each bill with a clean slate and hope for the best for our constituents, the people we work for.
I have a quick question. Have we taken this bill as far as we possibly can without adding more money, which, I fear, is the direction the government plans to take?
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Mr.Speaker, I thank the member for Trois-Rivières for his question because that is the key point today. The point of view of our caucus is that we can make these important legislative changes. We can do the right thing here in the House. However, if the police do not have the funding to allow them to use the new tools we give them, then there will be no effect at all. That is why I was reminding the parliamentary secretary that, yes, we will be supporting the bill but we will be watching the federal budget very carefully to ensure that funds are included in the budget for the operation of the new aspects of this program and to ensure that the general cutbacks being applied in public safety do not end up impairing the ability to fight crime at the community level.
Ryan Leef Conservative Yukon, YT
Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague both for his work on committee and his comments today.
On committee, we were talking about the funding available. We have posed this question to people testifying and they have said it is not as much about the funding as it is the model and the structure provided. Can my hon. colleague comment on some of those aspects? We are getting the sense from the other side that if we pour money into it, that will solve the problem, but that is clearly not what we heard on committee. It was not the budget or the money issue; it was how the system was modelled.
On a budgetary note, some of the systems that my hon. colleague was talking about are developed by provincial and territorial governments. Our government has provided to the Yukon, for example, record levels of federal transfer payments. There was $809 million in last year's budget allocated for the kinds of things to support improved models with community groups and organizations working directly with the police. It is as much a provincial and a federal partnership that is required in policing, particularly when we move to organizations that run municipal and provincial police forces, to come up with a great model of Canadian policing.
Could my hon. colleague comment on some of those things that I know we both heard on committee?
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Mr. Speaker, it is tempting to say to the hon. member for Yukon that the question was asked and answered all at once.
However, what we have heard, particularly at the municipal level, is the perception that witness protection is really part of the justice system and not the policing system. For the cost to be passed back to municipal police forces is a large problem for them and they do not see the logic of that. We are actually protecting the witnesses giving evidence in court, and we are actually protecting the integrity of the justice system by protecting those witnesses. Yes, it is true that we are talking about getting co-operation with the local police forces, but they tend to see that as a federal or provincial responsibility and not a municipal responsibility.
Thus I am looking forward, along with the member, to trying to find in committee structures that make sure that the money gets to front-line policing. As he has been on committee with me, he knows that I am not a person who calls for a lot of excess spending. I think we have to make sure that we spend in the right areas. That is why I am concerned about asking police to do all kinds of things with highly trained police officers, things that might better be done by someone else in our community with more appropriate skills, and not put all of those burdens onto the police force.
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Mr. Speaker, the bill expands significantly the number of different areas of jurisdiction that can have witness protection programs. However, as I understand it, the government has said there will be no expansion of budgets to provide for this. How do we do one without the other?
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Mr. Speaker, we are back to the heart of the matter, from my point of view. Last year, as I said, only 30 out of 108 applications were approved for the program. Only 30 people in the country received witness protection. For the government to expand the numbers eligible, obviously those 108 applications are going to expand exponentially. If we cannot offer that protection to people, we will not get the benefit of this bill. We will not get them co-operating with the police on youth gangs or on national security issues. Without the funding in place, this is not going to work.
All members on this side will be looking very carefully at the federal budget to see if the resources are going to be made available to make this very positive law work on the ground.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, I would like to approach this from a different perspective.
I have had the opportunity to be the justice critic in the province of Manitoba for many years, and there are a wide variety of issues facing our justice system. To pick up on the point that was raised in terms of the budget responsibility and so forth, at the end of the day, Bill C-51, which is a positive bill that we want to see move forward, would have a fairly significant impact, even if it passes as it is currently being proposed today.
When the member said it is an issue of budget, he is correct. We need to factor in that at any given point we could have somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1,000 people within the program, 70% of whom would be under RCMP jurisdiction. As has already been referenced, the number of applications made last year versus the number that were accepted raises other issues.
However, to look at what we are ultimately wanting to pass, there is no doubt that by expanding the program we would see a higher demand for it. I believe the current budget is around $9 million to $10 million. I am not completely sure of those numbers, but it is a significant amount of money, and there would be a need to ensure the program is adequately resourced. When we talk about being adequately resourced, obviously the bill would have more. The last question to my colleague was related to the responsible province or municipality, and he made reference to the police or the department of justice.
In the last little while, I have been circulating a petition within my constituency. I will read the last paragraph of the petition, to which I must say I have had many of my constituents respond very favourably. It reads:
We, the undersigned residents of the Province of Manitoba call upon the House of Commons to provide for and support [effective crime prevention] programs that will prevent crimes from happening like programs that focus on steering young children away from associating with gangs or gang activities.
The petition is calling on the Government of Canada to work with other levels of government to develop effective programs that prevent youth from committing crimes.
When we talk about the financing, administration and so forth, we need to recognize that the different levels of government all have a role to play in this. That is the reason, when the parliamentary secretary introduced the bill, I asked how many other jurisdictions had a program that is currently running. I was pleased to hear some of the numbers that the parliamentary secretary referenced.
At the end of the day, this is a significant issue. I asked whether there was an increase in the number of gangs, as this has been a serious problem in Winnipeg. However, Winnipeg is not alone. There are other jurisdictions, as the member has pointed out, that have issues related to gang activity. Gang activity in the province of Manitoba has skyrocketed over the last 10 years. During the 1990s, gang-related issues were not debated much inside the Manitoba legislature. However, since 2000 or 2001, it has become a very serious issue.
One year we had over 14,000 vehicles stolen. For a province with roughly 550,000 drivers, that is a significant number of vehicles. When we look at the individuals who were stealing them, it was young people. I had acquired through a freedom of information request that it was somewhere in the neighbourhood of 200 youth. I might be off on the number, but they had stolen, on average, 30 vehicles.
Out of that relatively large grouping of youth, if we were to canvass them we would find that a good number were directly involved in gangs. It was part of a gang initiation whereby they had to go out and steal cars. At the end of the day we all pay for that at the different levels, whether it be municipal, provincial or national. We have to take more of a co-operative approach to dealing with crime in our communities.
Also, the federal government needs to play a leading role. It can ensure there are some national standards, from coast to coast to coast, in proactively preventing crimes from taking place. That is what we ultimately want to see happen.
In regard to Bill C-51, the Liberal Party is in favour of this bill and wants to see it go to committee. We do believe it would have a positive impact. It would help in terms of resolving crimes. Ultimately, I do believe if it is administered properly it would prevent some crimes from taking place.
In looking at the bill, it does several things. The parliamentary secretary made reference to how the provinces would be able to designate their own internal programs and get that designation from the federal program without necessarily having to transfer the individual into the program. As she made reference to its merit, I do believe there is great benefit to that, the biggest being time. Time is very important with things of this nature. Processing times, being able to change identity, and so forth are of critical importance. For the most part, I believe the government would receive a very favourable response in regard to those measures in Bill C-51.
We understand it would assist in changing identity, which is something one would think would have a wide diversity of support from the many different stakeholders following the debate on this bill. We appreciate the fact that it does broaden the information that can be protected and also supports people from within the program.
However, if we take a look at the history of the witness protection program, I think most Canadians would be surprised that it does not have a very long history in terms of legislation. Most people would believe there has always been some informal aspects to witness protection, and that was primarily done at the local policing level. We can go back 30 years, 40 years, where police officers, through discretion, were able to provide assurances to witnesses. There would have been all sorts of actions taken to try to provide assurances to witnesses that they would be safe if they were to come forward and state what they had observed or what they were aware of in terms of a criminal activity. We could go back to the eighties where that started to become a little more formalized because of different commissions and reports that were coming out. We started to see internal documents clearly demonstrating the need for a witness protection program.
It was not that long ago when Prime Minister Jean Chrétien introduced the Witness Protection Program Act, the first legislation of its kind brought to the House of Commons. As we continue to move forward, we today have another piece of legislation that has been drafted that would ultimately complement the original legislation. Why? Because in time things change.
There is a need for us to change the legislation and modernize it so that we can meet the needs of today. The power of the Internet, the influence that organized crime has, the potential of terrorism, these are all very real issues today to which legislation has to be able to respond.
The ability of police to protect witnesses is crucial in order to fight crime and acts of terrorism. If we cannot provide those assurances to witnesses, there is a very good chance they would be unable to testify. If they are unable to testify, we would be unable to get the types of convictions that our crowns are looking for across Canada in all provinces and territories. We have to somehow recognize the importance of witnesses and the roles that they play and the risk we take by not enabling those witnesses to feel safe in testifying. If we fail in doing that, then individuals who are committing some pretty terrible crimes are going to get away or be let off with a much lighter sentence than if a witness had been able to testify. It is of critical importance that police see this as a viable tool that would make a difference.
Public trust in the witness protection program is also vital to the success of the program. We can say that we have the program in place and ask Canadians to trust us because it is a great program, but there has to be a certain element of confidence in the program. If a potential witness does not feel the program is going to be strong enough and that their life is going to be threatened by making a disposition, chances are they will walk away from that opportunity. Therefore, building trust is critically important.
We support the ability of the federal departments, agencies, services and the national security, National Defence or Public Safety, mandate to recommend witnesses to the WPP. It seems to be a natural evolution that would be incorporated into the current legislation. It makes sense. That is why we support the government's proposed change.
We look to the government to be sensitive to our concerns, such as why there has not been a separate body created to oversee admissions to the witness protection program and what potential merits there could be if we were able to identify that. How we deal with disputes between protectees and the RCMP is another issue that has been raised and brought to my attention. The government would be best advised, between now and the time in which the bill gets to committee, to give some attention to that. In the hope that Conservatives will approach it with an open mind, I trust that there will be amendments brought forward. Through those amendments, we will ultimately see the legislation take better form and receive much stronger support.
The broadening of information that can be protected is very important. I believe it is a core base that is being suggested and we need to be able to expand that base. We support that aspect of the legislation. We need to recognize, as we look at ways in which we can improve upon the program, that the program may have to be expanded, which is, in part, a resource issue. There needs to be adequate resources to support the program.
I have always appreciated that through our federation, we have different ministerial conferences, justice being no different, and that there is a need for different levels of government, as they come together, to talk about this program and other programs. We should look at ways in which we could do more to prevent crimes from taking place. We do support the bill in principle because it is a good bill. It is a change from the original act of 1996. It makes a lot of sense and therefore we would like to see it sent to committee soon.
On a personal note, it would be wrong of me not to emphasize to the Prime Minister and the government just how important it is to have safe streets in our communities. During my first election to the House in the byelection, I had indicated that crime and safety was a high priority for me and that given the opportunity I would raise these issues in the House. I believe in fairness and in consequences to crimes. I also believe passionately that we need to do more to prevent crimes from taking place.
In debate from both sides of the House we heard members make mention of organized crime, which is a serious issue for many of my constituents. They want the government to take action. Most of my constituents recognize how important it is. I have the opportunity almost on a weekly basis to talk about this type of issue with my constituents. I put a lot of focus on preventing crimes from happening in the first place.
We talk about organized crime and gang activities, but many initiatives could be taken to prevent young people from entering into gangs in the first place. We need to look at our infrastructure, our resources from different levels of government, and have a higher sense of co-operation in terms of finding alternatives that would engage our young people and stop them from getting involved in gang activities. Young people get involved in gang activities for a multitude of different reasons. In the 1990s there were under a thousand young people involved in gang activities and now there are thousands. It is hurting a lot of communities, not only in Winnipeg North but in many communities across this country.
If the legislation ultimately passes, we hope to see a government that is more committed to resolving the gang-related problems that many of our communities are living with today. I have confidence that our police forces across the country would use this tool well and work with our courts and prosecutors. There are many other things we can do to prevent our young people from getting involved in gang activities.
Candice Bergen ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety
Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to hear that the Liberals will be supporting the bill being sent to committee. Hopefully at committee they will continue to work with us to get this passed quickly. It is an important piece of legislation.
My colleague talked a lot about prevention, and I am wondering if he is aware of several initiatives that our government has funded in regard to crime prevention. First, there is the police officer recruitment fund, a one-time injection of funds for provinces to use. It was $400 million, and they have used it very well. Police departments have added police officers. That is one of the initiatives.
Another one is our national crime prevention strategy, $40 million. I am not sure if the member is aware of this, but he might want to let his constituents know that we are funding $7 million annually to go directly to helping stop young people, who are maybe vulnerable, from getting involved in crime and gang activity. This is a specific fund that deals directly with anti-gang strategies for young people.
I am not sure if the member was aware of those initiatives. Also, today the Minister of Public Safety announced another call for applications to our security infrastructure funding, which is helping different organizations. If they are being threatened for a number of reasons, we are helping fund them so that they can be protected.
These initiatives are helping to stop crime, whether it relates to gangs, drugs or guns. Sadly many times the opposition does not support this. I am wondering if the member was not aware of this funding, and why he would not have supported it when we brought it forward? His constituents were actually signing petitions on this issue.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, the member for Portage—Lisgar makes reference to a program that was introduced by the federal government.
I would like to emphasize why I talked a lot about a sense of co-operation and working with other jurisdictions. When the federal government came up with the program to hire more police officers in communities, there was a substantial amount of money put aside to hire more police officers in Winnipeg. I do not know if Manitoba has acted on it since but maybe between the two of us we can find out whether or not they actually did. However, as of a couple of years ago, they had not accessed that money.
One could say that we need to get a better understanding of why that money was not accessed, whether more police were put on foot patrol or whatever it might be. It is interesting to note that at the same time we had community police offices closing in Winnipeg North, on McPhillips Street and on Main Street. Those are things that have happened in the last few years.
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Mr. Speaker, I share the sentiment that there is a lot more we can do to prevent crime.
My question for the member is not a personal question of where he was but where his party was. When the legislation was passed in 1996, it was a Liberal government. It was around the time I first joined the police board and the problems with the witness protection program have been known since at least 1996. During that very long period of time when the Liberals were in power, they took no action. I know from my own personal experience that local municipal police officers were pointing out that they did not have budgets for this and they could not make use of the program.
My question to the hon. member is, in the broad sense, where was he and where was his party? The government has been slow to bring this forward but it is certainly faster than the Liberals were.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Speaker, that is factually incorrect.
In 1993 Prime Minister Jean Chrétien took office and within three years we had the actual core legislation, the legislation that is now being amended. The Conservatives have been in government longer than the Chrétien government had been at that time. At the end of the day, the Liberal Party of Canada and Prime Minister Chrétien responded quite quickly.
What I will recognize is that in my comments I made reference to the closing of those two community police offices, something that had a real negative impact. The provincial NDP did absolutely nothing. The provincial NDP did not access the resources being provided by Ottawa to put more police on the streets. If the NDP, heaven forbid, ever form government, I suspect it would be a disaster.
Ryan Leef Conservative Yukon, YT
Mr. Speaker, we are having a wonderful history lesson here, so I thought I would chime in on this. I remember back in 1998, as a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police academy, under the leadership of the then Liberal government, we were told that the depot would be closed, that there would be no more recruiting of police officers. That is why into the future our government had to bring in the recruitment fund to deal with the major gap in policing numbers. The Liberals did that during a time when we knew that two-thirds of Canadian police officers were about to face retirement age, so there was absolutely no forethought or planning in that. Thank goodness we were able to recover that.
Let us skip ahead. In 2011, our government introduced crime prevention programs. The Liberal members voted against 138 grassroots projects, including in Winnipeg, in which 16,000 youth have participated.
I just thought I would add my two cents' worth into that wonderful history lesson we were having.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, part of history is reality. If we look at the actual numbers, if his programs were all so successful, one would ask why the gang-related issues of today are getting worse. They are not getting better. There are more gang members today than there were five or six years ago. If the initiatives the government has taken were actually worth the value it has assigned to them, one would think the numbers would be going down.
I want to leave it on a positive note. I suspect in 2015 a Liberal administration will make sure we get the numbers going in the right direction, and that is down. To make it relevant to the bill itself, I would suggest it was in fact the Liberal Party that initiated this whole process back in 1996, through former prime minister Jean Chrétien.
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Mr. Speaker, just to continue this history lesson the way I would see it, my point, which I think the member for Winnipeg North has missed, is that when the program was introduced in 1996, municipalities and front-line police said right away that there were problems with it. The Liberal government was in power for another 10 years and never fixed those problems.
I admit this is a bit of a strange debate. The Conservatives took seven years to fix it and the Liberals did not fix it within ten years, so both are a bit slow. That is all I am saying here. The member has skipped over the fact that the criticisms we are trying to fix today were well known while the Liberal government was still in power.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, I detect a bit of potential remorse, if we recognize the fact that with a couple more years it would have been amazing what the Liberal Party could have done. One could say we would have had a nice national child care program, a Kelowna accord and all sorts of wonderful things.
However, history will show that the New Democrats voted with the Conservatives, which killed those programs. Ultimately, maybe we would have had this bill a whole lot earlier had the NDP not supported the Conservatives back in 2005 or whenever that was.
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Mr. Speaker, I will come back to the central point here. There is a witness protection program, whether started by the Liberals or fixed by the Conservatives or finally repaired by us. It does not seem to matter, because it is underfunded. I wonder how, even between 1996 and 2006, there was not enough money to do all the witness protection that needed to be done. Nowhere is that more evident than the Air India disaster.
Could the member actually comment on that?
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, it would be important to substantiate a comment of that nature with some sort of empirical evidence to show where the demand was and when it did not meet the requirements financially.
What we do know for sure is that this legislation would be expanding the witness protection program. If we were going to be expanding the program to include other things, we could anticipate that there would be a need to properly resource it. If we did not properly resource the expansion of it, at the end of the day, we would be limiting the ability of our different agencies to ensure it was effective.
Yes, we passed the legislation. One would like to think that the government would work with other jurisdictions to make sure there are adequate resources on the ground, so that we can fully utilize the program, because if we fully utilized the program it would have a positive impact for all Canadians.
The Acting Speaker Conservative Barry Devolin
It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, Employment Insurance; the hon. member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, Foreign Investment; the hon. member for Scarborough—Guildwood, National Defence.
The hon. member for York South—Weston.
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to a piece of legislation that we actually support. We support the notion and the direction of this legislation, but we are concerned about whether or not this will be resourced. That is going to be the $30 million, $50 million or $100 million question. When it comes time for the Minister of Finance to bring forward a budget, will he bring forward a budget that will put money where the Conservatives' collective mouths are? It is all well and good to talk about witness protection, to talk about protecting victims and to talk about reducing crime in Canada, but unless money is provided to actually do those things, they are not going to happen. To this point, the Conservative government has not shown a willingness to put real money into real crime prevention and getting at the roots of crimes before they actually happen. I class witness protection as partly crime prevention.
Generally, we in the NDP support the direction this legislation is taking. We are pleased that the government listened to our request to expand the witness protection program. It would be expanded to include other items such as organized crime. National security agencies would have access to this program, including national defence, CSIS and so on, so there could be the possibility of witness protection for more than what is currently covered.
We are counting on the government to provide funding. We are going to be paying close attention to the budget, whatever day it happens, whether it is the beginning of March or the end of March, to see if it will put forward the funding required to do what the bill intends to do.
The member for Winnipeg North suggested earlier that I have to come up with figures. We do not have to go much further than last year, when there were 108 requests but only 30 were approved. Not a lot of money was spent last year. It was something like $9 million. That is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of money we spend on crime in this country. That is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of money we spend on jails and jets. A tenfold increase in that spending would be good for Canada, for Canadians, for solving crimes, for finding and punishing criminals. We hope and pray that the Conservatives come up with that money.
In Toronto, where I am from, several serious problems of gang violence have gone on for a number of years. While generally violent crime is down across the country, there are still gangs. The Toronto police force has a guns and gangs unit, and it has an organized crime unit that does reconnaissance, that actually hunts down criminals. I have spoken to Toronto police officers and to the superintendent of 12 Division, which is where my riding is. They told me they are looking for the ability to find witnesses. The problem they face is that witnesses will not come forward. Why will they not come forward? It is because they are afraid or in some cases it is because they have taken some oath. In most cases it is because they are terrified that there will be repercussions, that they cannot be protected, that they cannot be sheltered from harm. In the case of organized crime, this legislation would provide the police with the opportunity to offer protection to potential witnesses of violent crime in my city.
I go back to the Danzig shootings of last year where 24 people were shot, two of whom were killed, at a simple neighbourhood barbecue as a result of gang violence. The police have had extreme difficulty in finding people who will come forward and testify. The police know that many people know what happened, but there is a climate of fear and of intimidation and of it not being possible to be protected. The bill might go some way in allowing police forces to offer a sense of security to people, which they cannot offer now, particularly in the case of gang violence and gang-related crime. We suspect there is some measure of gang involvement when 24 people are shot at once and two of them are killed.
In addition, there is a significant-sized Somali population in my riding and in the riding of Etobicoke Centre immediately to the west. That Somali population came here over the course of the last 15 years from a country that was riddled with unrest, that had no effective government. Those people came here as undocumented refugees. They still cannot get documentation and so, in some cases, it is still not possible to completely finalize their status as immigrants to Canada.
That community is terrified of some of what the current Conservative government has done to it since the beginning of the majority government. I am referring of course to the immigration changes that have come from the immigration minister. The mothers of those children are terrified that those children, who have only ever known Canada, as a result of falling into a bad crowd, would not just go to jail but would be deported to a country they have no connection with whatsoever, to Somalia, where it is dangerous just to be, let alone to grow up. These mothers of these boys, and most of them are boys, have pled with me and with the member for Etobicoke Centre to change that law, to fix that law, to fix that big hole that is causing their children to be in such terrible jeopardy.
Yes, it is true they have fallen into some bad habits. “Bad habits” is probably too small a word for it. They have done some seriously bad things. The mothers believe that part of the reason is that they have been abandoned by the system over the course of the last few years.
There was, put in place by the current government when it was a minority, a series of measures aimed at tackling youth violence before they got to gangs, with intervention programs, mediation programs and mentorship programs funded in part by the Minister of Public Safety, to allow community agencies to get at these kids before they joined these gangs and went afoul of the law. There have been tremendous successes in some of those agencies and some of those programs, but they are being cut back. They are being ended.
The answer we get from the Conservative government is that was a three-year program, the three years is up and, therefore, we do not need to do this anymore.
The people running the program know that the program is successful, but they also know that if the government ends the program, the next generation of kids is going to fall off the wagon.Those kids are going to end up in crime, have a propensity to join a gang and are not going to succeed.
In addition, we have had, in my riding anyway, huge cutbacks to the immigrant settlement services that were being provided over the past 10 years, to the point where whole agencies have had to shut their doors. One agency was urged by the ministry, by CIC, to sign a five-year lease. Six months later, after it signed the five-year lease, it had all of its funding cut. Now it is sitting, holding a five-year lease for something it cannot afford to do.
That is the kind of event that is going on in the community now. That is the kind of reality that this community faces. What ends up happening is the kids end up in gangs. The kids do not see hope. They do not see jobs. There are not a heck of a lot of jobs in my riding. There is not a heck of a lot of choice.
One youth said to me, “I can either go work part time at something like McDonald's or some other small retailer for $10.25 an hour and maybe work 20 hours a week and maybe make 200 bucks. Or, in five minutes, I can go on a street corner and make $400 by selling drugs. What choice would you make?”
It was not because he was trying to give me a lesson in morality; he was trying to give me a lesson in economics. These kids cannot afford to live or eat, and they know they do not have access to the good jobs that remain in Canada. Those jobs are disappearing. The industrial heartland of Ontario has been under attack over the past few years. Hundreds of thousands of good-paying industrial jobs have disappeared and been replaced by service sector jobs, at $10 and $12 an hour. No one can feed a family on $10 and $12 an hour.
I am not condoning the selling of drugs. My point is that it becomes very easy and economical for these kids when they are faced with these dire choices to choose a life of crime. We are trying to prevent that. One of the ways we hope to prevent that is by making it more difficult for them to succeed in a life of crime by making it easier for witnesses to come forward. When it is easier for witnesses to come forward—
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
We are back to the bill. Exactly. We are making it easier for witnesses to come forward, but we have to provide the resources to make it easier for them to come forward. We have to provide the money.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has published a good practices document for protection of witnesses in criminal proceedings involving organized crimes. It consists of 124 pages and is well worth reading. That document talks about how best to set up one of these programs. One of the things it talks about is funding. I am going to read part of the document. This goes back to the period 2005-06 when the Liberals were in power. It states that “the Witness Protection Program of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police dealt with 53 new cases involving 66 persons”. The cost of the program was $1.9 million.
There are slightly more people in Italy than in Canada, but to give everyone an idea, there were 4,000 witnesses and family members in the year 2004 and the budget was close to $84 million U.S. That is an enormous difference. That is 40 times more money for a witness protection program in a country that clearly understands that in order to defeat the omertas and try to deal with organized crime in an organized way, the funding has to be provided to protect the witnesses who come forward. Until the government actually does that in its next budget, we are going to react with some skepticism to the intent behind this bill. It is not that we do not doubt the veracity of the words. The words are there and they are good words. It says the bill should cover more people, events and crimes and the system should work better. However, it cannot work better if we starve it.
A constituent of mine has run into the starving of the RCMP in his personal dealings. He has discovered that because the amount of money involved in the crime committed against him is less than some magic number that the RCMP deems appropriate, it will not investigate. He is going to be left dangling in the breeze because the RCMP does not have the resources to investigate the crime. In his case, it is $70,000 that was essentially stolen, and the RCMP does not have the resources to investigate a crime involving that amount. It said it has bigger fish to fry. That is the problem with the government's funding of the RCMP: it is not sufficient to do the job the government has given it to do.
New Democrats agree with the government giving it this job, but it has to be given the resources. We cannot starve it and tell it to exist on the budget it has. It does not work that way. People like the constituent in my riding who is now out $70,000, plus all kinds of legal bills over the years, is being told by the RCMP too bad, so sad; it is not going to do anything about it because it does not have the budget to deal with smaller crimes. This smaller crime involving $70,000 to this individual in my riding is two years' salary for many people in my riding. It is four years' salary for some people.
This is a situation where the RCMP is under-resourced in many ways, and threatened with even smaller budgets by the Minister of Public Safety, suggesting they are overpaid. However, at the same time with this bill, there is a bigger demand being placed on those resources. We agree there is nothing wrong with this bigger demand. We like it. However, please put the money in the budget to pay for an appropriate level of witness protection that will ensure Canadians can come forward to testify safely in good conscience, and protect other Canadians from crime by making sure the bad guys, not those people on EI, but the real bad guys, are the people being put in jail. That is the whole point of this legislation, and I agree with it.
The other part of the report from the United Nations is a good disclosure of what kinds of things it considers to be organized crime. Organized crime is not just drug running. Organized crime, which is part of what is covered by the bill, includes the smuggling of persons into the country. I would hope that the bill would help police forces stop the organized criminals from smuggling people into this country. It is not done by putting the victims in jail, which is what the Conservative immigration bill has done; we do it by ensuring we find ways to catch the criminals. If the bill includes in its mandate such crimes as human smuggling, I am all for it.
Terrorism is one of the crimes the United Nations defines as organized crime. The United Nations also considers corruption to be part of organized crime. As we have seen in Quebec in recent weeks, there is enough of that to go around for all of Canada, and it is spreading to other places. Since corruption is part of organized crime, does that mean the bill will allow witnesses to come forward in the corruption investigation in Montreal and be protected by the government and the RCMP from fear of retribution as a result of disclosing the corruption that may be happening in that province, and may be in other provinces as well.
There is a lot to say that is good about the bill. However, I will come back to our central point. Unless we put the money in the program, it is not going to have teeth. It is not going to have the ability to do the job. We can say all we want about protecting witnesses, but if we cannot afford to do it then witnesses are not going to come forward. We are going to be right back where we started from and we will not be any further ahead.
Members on this side are hopeful. There may be some minor issues that we need to deal with in terms of the language of the bill at committee, but we want to see it expeditiously passed. We want this measure to reach royal assent in a hurry, so we do not have any intentions of stalling it. However, we will be paying close attention to what the finance minister will be saying in his next budget about the funding of programs like this, and other programs that are designed to make Canada a safer place.
Dean Del Mastro ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs
Mr. Speaker, if there were a recurring theme in that intervention, it was spend, spend, spend. The NDP members stand often and speak about spending, and they have a big chequebook over there. I think they have found the magical mystical money tree because there is money for everything.
I am not aware of any budget suggestions that the NDP has sent to the Minister of Finance. We have expanded the amount of money we are spending on the RCMP and come forward with a number of very comprehensive measures aimed at safe streets and communities, but how much more money should we give to the RCMP? What is the dollar figure that the NDP feels the RCMP is being shortchanged? I am not aware that it is being shortchanged.
When we present a budget and ask the NDP members to seek efficiencies and work as efficiently as they can given their responsibilities, that is a responsible way to operate government. I would like to hear how much more money the member feels the RCMP should get.
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Mr. Speaker, that is a good question. I would ask the member if the Conservatives have costed the bill. Do they know exactly what the bill is worth in terms of dollars and in terms of the number of people who would be able to be witness protected as a result of the bill coming forward? I do not see a costing attached to it. However, when we are in power, we will be costing everything and will be making sure that we do not overspend or spend more than what Canadians expect a reasonable and responsible government to spend.
We want enough money in the budget for measures such as these. They are such good measures that they ought to be endorsed with a financial amount from the Minister of Finance. If it means that less subsidy goes to a big oil company, that is a decision the Minister of Finance is going to have to make.
When legislation is put forward that expands the purview of the witness protection plan, the government cannot then say that it is not going to spend another nickel on it. It just does not work.