Debates of March 19th, 2013

Response to the Supreme Court of Canada Decision in R. v. Tse Act

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order. Before I go to the member for Winnipeg North, the issue of relevance has been raised a couple of times this morning. The hon. parliamentary secretary has put a question. I will give the floor to the hon. member for Winnipeg North to respond to that comment. I remind all hon. members that the matter before the House is Bill C-55.

The hon. member for Winnipeg North.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to recognize that when Pierre Trudeau negotiated constitutional reform and brought in the charter for all Canadians, it guaranteed those individual rights. The Liberal Party does not have to take a back seat to any political entity in Canada regarding the protection of individual rights. We are in the front seat. We are the driving force in protecting individual rights.

Having said that, had the member, back in 1982, when I was but 20 years old, listened to that constitutional debate, as I did, he would have found that there were issues related to property tax. There was no consensus. I suspect that we might find some Conservative members or premiers who might have had some issues related to property rights. Again, I am digressing from the bill itself.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Once more, the hon. member for Winnipeg North had the opportunity to respond to that question. However, I would not only ask but would request that members make their questions and comments relevant to the matter before the House related to the member's presentation in order that we can stick to the matter before us.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Timmins—James Bay.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague. Since we are near the end of the Lenten season, I believe that there can be a road to Damascus and that a bright light can come down and throw one off one's horse, and one can wake up and realize that one's whole life has been wrong.

I am listening to the Liberal Party suddenly now interested in protecting privacy rights in terms of warrantless access. In fact, the Conservative government initially took the Liberal bill off the shelf and it became the lawful access bill that would have allowed all manner of wireless snooping on the rights of citizens. We know that the Liberal critics supported that.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague if, at this moment of conversion, he has realized that yes, the privacy rights of Canadians need to be protected, and we need to limit how it is done, unlike how it was defined under the Liberal legislation.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member is being somewhat unfair. Maybe wonderland is where most New Democrats are at times.

When in government, members bring forward legislation. Quite often, it is not necessarily perfect all the time. I know that the member has high expectations of the Liberal Party, as I do, but believe it or not, much like New Democratic governments at the provincial level, at times one needs to make changes and amend legislation. However, you will find that when there is a need, and it is fact-based and justified, the Liberal Party never fails Canadians.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

I want to remind all hon. members to direct their comments to the Chair rather than to their colleagues.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his speech. I want to stick to the specifics for a moment.

In the bill, section 184.4, the section that is most contentious, talks about allowing certain officers, police officers if we narrow it down, to be involved in intercepting communications for the public good and public safety. However, this could have been avoided, as the member pointed out. As a matter of fact, Bill C-30 was an overarching bill. When the Conservatives brought it into this House, there was a public backlash. They pulled it off the table faster than one can say “jurisprudence”, and here we find ourselves with this bill at the very last minute.

I wonder if the member could comment on the process and how this has become how to amend laws at the direction of the Supreme Court, Monty Python style.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated earlier, the government had plenty of notice. There is nothing new. We have known that there was a need for change prior to this issue going to the Supreme Court of Canada. Unfortunately, it has taken the Supreme Court of Canada to make a decision, and not only to make a decision, but as part of that decision to say that the Government of Canada has one year to get its act together or the law will not be valid. The government has put Canadians at risk because of its failure to bring in legislation in a more timely fashion.

At the end of the day, if it were not for the Supreme Court putting in that timeline of April 13 of this year, who knows whether we would still have the bill before us today. We might have had to wait until 2015 to get the legislation necessary to make the appropriate amendments.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member said in his speech that the Conservatives had set records for time allocation motions. To be fair to those on the other side, they are tied with the Liberals for the number of time allocation motions that have been brought before the House.

I am wondering if that is consistent with the member's argument that what the Liberals say in opposition is different from what they do in government.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Before I go to the hon. member for Winnipeg North, once again I want to remind all hon. members that questions and comments ought to be related to the matter before the House. That definition is stretched, but there are times when it is impossible to make it stretch.

The hon. member for Winnipeg North can make a brief response, but once more, in future, if members ask questions that are clearly not relevant, we will simply move along to the next question.

The hon. member for Winnipeg North.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, one could accuse me of listening to my colleagues a little too much when they say that something is not the case. However, even New Democrats, some of the member's own colleagues, have said that it is the Conservatives who have set records on time allocation. Maybe the member should meet with his own House leader, and if he confers with him--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order, please. There is time for one more question or comment. If the question is clearly not relevant to the matter before the House, I will interrupt the member immediately. The hon. member for Davenport.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this pertains to comments my hon. colleague made earlier, because what we are also talking about is the context in which the bill is being tabled. The context is Canadians' widespread disapproval of and anger over the government's proposed online spying legislation, Bill C-30.

The member in the corner, in defence of his own party's record when it was in government, said that people make mistakes. In fact, the Liberals introduced this kind of legislation in 1999, and then they tried it again in 2005, so they did not learn from their mistakes the first time or the second time. I am wondering if the member opposite could maybe answer this question: Is that why they are sitting in that corner over there?

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order, please. I appreciate that members are enjoying a rather spirited debate today. Having said that, I would like to remind all hon. members that the rules exist for a reason, and that is to make efficient use of the time in this place. It is also to show respect for their colleagues, both those who have spoken and those who are here listening to or participating in the debate.

The question period we have just gone through clearly strayed well beyond anything that had anything to do with Bill C-55, the bill before this House.

I will point out that on a couple of occasions when related pieces of legislation such as Bill C-30 were referred to, in the opinion of the Chair that was relevant in the context of Bill C-55, but many of the other matters have not been.

The time for questions and comments is complete. Resuming debate related to third reading of Bill C-55, the hon. member for Timmins—James Bay.

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

Mr. Speaker, as always, it is a great honour to rise in this House on behalf of the people of Timmins—James Bay, who have put their trust in me to work on the issues of legislation before the House.

I am going to speak today on why the New Democratic Party is supporting Bill C-55 and what works about this bill, but also on the issues we need to look at and the prism that needs to be applied in terms of how the legislation was crafted, what it was in response to and how it ties into two other key pieces of legislation that this House has been asked to deal with.

One is Bill C-30 and the other is Bill C-12. Within each of the bills are key issues that reflect on the ability of the government to move forward with legislation and on how legislation is actually brought forward.

What is striking already, off the top of Bill C-55, is that it is a very narrow bill. It is simply addressing a section of the Criminal Code, section 184.4, that the Supreme Court struck down.

What we find is that legislation that is limited is usually more effective than legislation that is broad. Legislation is a very a blunt tool. Unfortunately, we have seen that the government likes to throw in all manner of legislation, often without thinking of the consequences or with very little regard for the consequences. We have seen one omnibus bill after another brought before the House without proper review and without a proper understanding of how they related to basic issues like charter rights.

I would like to say that I think the government is doing the right thing with Bill C-55 by having very narrowly defined legislation that addresses a major problem. I would like to think that the government thought this approach up on its own and that this is how it is going to start dealing with criminal matters and the reform of the criminal justice system, but that is not really what has happened here.

The government is responding to the fact that the Supreme Court struck down section 184.4 of the Criminal Code and gave it a deadline of April 13, which is only two weeks away, to address the problem.

I am going to speak a little about Bill C-55 and then explain how the implications of the Supreme Court legislation tie in to Bill C-30 and Bill C-12.

Under section 184.4, the Supreme Court ruled in R. v. Tse that police use of a warrantless wiretap to secure the safety of an individual is a correct step to take. If a life is at stake, law officers have the ability within Canadian jurisprudence to go in, get the evidence and secure a life. That is a long-standing practice within the Canadian law system.

However, the problem with section 184.4 is that there are no accountability mechanisms. What I find very interesting about the Supreme Court decision is that it says that even in the case of criminal activities—and what we were dealing with in this case was a kidnapping, a very horrendous attack against a citizen—basic charter rights still remain and have to be balanced.

The Supreme Court took the larger view and recognized that the spectre of criminality cannot be used to undermine the basic rights of citizens in this country. This is a concept that seems absolutely foreign to the Conservative Party, whose backbenchers jump up whistling and dancing every time they can come up with some extreme case of a criminal activity as a cover to allow them to undermine all manner of privacy rights, all manner of basic citizen rights. They have done it time and time again.

The Supreme Court has said no. The test of law in this country is what is reasonable versus unreasonable. What is reasonable is that if law officers know someone is at risk and need to get that information immediately, it is reasonable to go for the warrantless wiretap to gather that information without the judge's warrant, which can then be obtained later. What is unreasonable is to do that without any oversight mechanism.

Section 184.4 will clarify this, because it defines—and this is a very important thing again in dealing with Bill C-12 and Bill C-30—who is eligible, the police; how it is to be used, under specific circumstances; and why it is to be used, to protect the rights of citizens balanced against the right to bring safety to people who are perhaps under threat of criminal activity. The definition of how this breach of law would be allowed is crucial to Bill C-55.

When we look at Bill C-30, which was the bill that this was supposed to be a part of, we see that none of these definitions of the who, the how and the why are there. In fact, it is so broad that the privacy commissioners from across Canada, in an unprecedented response to the government, wrote against the government's attempt to undermine the basic civil rights of Canadian citizens.

Whenever the Conservative government attempts to do something that it knows will not pass a charter challenge or attempts to pull something that it knows the Canadian public will not stand for, it uses a bogeyman. The minister used perhaps the most baseless attack that has ever been uttered in the House of Commons when he said that anybody who was concerned about privacy rights or the individual rights of citizens in this country or who dared raise a question to him was on the side of child pornographers.

That was about as ugly as it can get. Of course, now we see who is on the side of child pornographers: Mr. Tom Flanagan, who said that it is a victimless crime. We see the right-wing media is concerned about Mr. Tom Flanagan, a very famous and very rich right-wing white man. It was his rights, we are now being told, that were somehow trampled upon. One reporter said that he thought it showed the fundamental shallowness of Canadians that they were outraged that Mr. Flanagan was defending the rights of child pornographers.

However, that was the kind of language being used by this minister to cover up the fact that there were major flaws in Bill C-30. If we tie it back to Bill C-55 in terms of the Supreme Court, the government must have known that none of its provisions would have passed the charter challenge because they did not meet the basic standards of jurisprudence.

Let us look at the lack of the who, the how and the why in terms of Bill C-30 as compared to Bill C-55. Bill C-30 may be brought back by the government; we are not yet sure. Under clause 33, the government would be allowed to designate an inspector to go into a telecom to demand information for being in compliance with Bill C-30.

The minister may designate inspectors, that is his choice, but there is no definition of what those inspectors are. Are they police? Are they private security? Are they political staffers? We do not know. Bill C-30 would allow the extraordinary ability of the minister to appoint inspectors. Under clause 34, these inspectors would be allowed to go into public telecoms to gather information on private citizens. That is clearly something that would never pass the charter challenge.

In contrast, in Bill C-55 we see that they have defined the right to ask for warrantless information to just the police, which is the proper place it should be. We should know who is able to gather that information on us.

What they wanted to do under Bill C-30 was allow warrantless access to subscriber information on the data use of anybody with a cellphone or an ISP address, which would pretty much mean 95% or 96% of the Canadian public. Unspecified persons could gather that information.

The privacy commissioners of Canada spoke out against this. They said that contrary to the Conservative Party's claims, it had nothing to do with being just like a phone book. Ann Cavoukian said that this was “one of the most invasive threats to our privacy and freedom that I have ever encountered”. About being able to demand and being forced to turn over this information, she said:

...customer name and address information ties us to our entire digital life, unlike a stationary street address. Therefore, “subscriber information” is far from the modern day equivalent of a publicly available “phone book”. Rather, it is the key to a much wider, sensitive subset of information.

That is what the Conservatives wanted to be able to gather.

The abuse of privacy rights did not end there. Under Bill C-30, they also wanted to force telecoms to basically build in back-channel spy communication, so that as they expanded their networks, they would have to build in the monitoring system to keep track of any citizen the government felt it should be able to look at at any time, again without any oversight and without citizens knowing they would be spied upon.

Ann Cavoukian, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, said that what they were in fact doing, although they perhaps did not realize it, was creating a hacker's paradise. If we allow wormholes throughout the telecom system to allow police to spy on it, then certainly the hackers, who are usually about three steps ahead of everybody else on this—and we see massive international gangs using sophisticated cyberhacking—would be able to benefit much more than the police or security services.

In terms of the how, Bill C-55 limits the ability to get a warrantless wiretap based on the possibility of a threat to a person. Afterwards there would have to be oversight mechanisms and reports would have to be published and reported to Parliament so that we would know how these warrantless wiretaps are being used. Bill C-55 defines and protects this breach of the private rights of citizens, whereas under Bill C-30, the door was kicked down and all the basic rights of citizens were thrown out.

Of course we know that Bill C-30 was responded to in a massive and very exciting and positive response from the public, a backlash that said that we demand that our privacy rights be protected and defined under the rule of law in this country. It was an unprecedented backlash against the government. The Minister of Justice has been pretty much hiding under his desk publicly ever since. It is a good sign that we have a engaged citizenry here that knows the difference between what is reasonable and unreasonable.

In Bill C-55, the government is limited to gathering information under the reasonableness of protecting an individual who is facing threat compared to the unreasonableness of doing away with all manner of privacy rights whatsoever. In this manner, I would say that the Canadian public are foremost across the world in standing up for their rights, much more than the government, which has very little respect for the privacy rights of Canadians. In other democracies with privacy rights in the digital age and the age of big data and CCTV cameras, other citizens are steadily having those rights eroded, whereas in Canada we want to maintain those rights.

In Bill C-12, which is the other piece of legislation to compare Bill C-55 to, again we see the government showing no respect for the privacy rights of Canadians. There is no understanding of the importance of privacy rights. We certainly saw that with the massive data losses of private financial information on over 500,000 Canadians at HRSDC. We have seen other data breaches. We saw the government's cavalier attitude when, rather than warning citizens that their personal financial data may have been breached, its only desire was to protect the minister, and it kept the breach quiet for two months. Any manner of international gangs could have had that data, gone after people's credit and created massive widespread fraud, because that is what can happen if the public is not alerted.

Under Bill C-12, the government wants to change the reporting threshold for private business when these privacy breaches happen. This is very important in terms of defining how we protect the rights of citizens. Under the changes the government is bringing in Bill C-12, private companies that have our data, whether a bank, a Sony PlayStation, or all manner of online transactions, would only have to report the breach to the Privacy Commissioner if they thought there was a significant risk of harm. “Significant” is an extremely high bar to set. Meanwhile, all manner of abuse could happen underneath it.

Also, private businesses would be very wary about the idea of going public with the fact that they may have lost Visa card information or personal data information for 100,000 or 200,000 or 500,000 people, because it affects their basic online business model. Everything is now done online. However, we see the government telling private businesses that they only have to report a privacy breach if it might cause significant harm. That completely fails the basic test and the understanding of the importance of privacy rights in this country.

We believe that there has to be a very clear rule that if companies fear they have been hacked and that privacy data has been breached, it has to be reported to the Privacy Commissioner, who has such an extraordinary role to play in protecting and reviewing the evidence and deciding whether action must be taken.

However, we see that again the government is undermining the role of the Privacy Commissioner and we have to ask why. As more and more Canadians operate their businesses online and as our financial transactions occur online, the last thing we want to do is create a hackers' paradise in Canada, while the rest of the world moves further ahead of us. Ann Cavoukian has spoken about this.

It is extraordinary that Canada was once seen as the world leader in privacy data. Our Privacy Commissioner is definitely seen as a world leader, but our legislation is falling further and further behind where the Europeans and the Americans are going. As our Privacy Commissioner is asking for the tools to update, to deal with the cyberthreats and to deal with the protection of personal information in the age of big data, the current government is undermining the legislation.

How does that relate to Bill C-55? There are direct connections in the language among Bill C-12, Bill C-30 and what we have seen in Bill C-55. Bill C-12 would allow organizations and companies, including telecommunications companies, to disclose personal information to government institutions, perhaps the police or perhaps not, without the knowledge and consent of the individual when performing policing services. This is under subclause 6(6), but there is no definition of what “policing services” are.

Again, it is the language of Bill C-30, the lawful access and online snooping language, that would allow some undefined security person or force to obtain information on private individuals from telecommunications without defining who would be eligible to gather that information, whereas Bill C-55 would limit it to the police so that is very clear.

I agree with my colleague on the Conservative side and I am telling him that they are going to need to bring Bill C-12 to the same standard, where we define who is eligible to ask for that information. Without doing that, we will end up going before the courts again. If we define that it is the right of the police to ask for that information, then that would meet the test that would be laid out in Bill C-55, but Bill C-12 would not meet that test right now. The issue is that there is no oversight mechanism in Bill C-12. If they did ask for this ISP information on individual users, there are no mechanisms under Bill C-12 for reporting what was happening, and that would fail the test of Bill C-55.

It is clear that what the Conservatives had been attempting to do was to take Bill C-30, which was their desire to be able to snoop on as many people as they wanted as often as they wanted and however they wanted, and build in a number of other subsets in other legislation to make that operable. Bill C-12, which includes changes to the Privacy Protection Act, would certainly allow them to do that. However, being that we have had the public backlash on Bill C-30 and being that we now have defined Bill C-55 very clearly regarding the who, the how and the why of this being allowed, we would need to clarify the same mechanisms under Bill C-12.

We see that the Conservatives are on the straight and narrow right now. They did not want to come. They were dragged, kicking and screaming, and it is our job to ensure they stay on the straight and narrow. We want to work with them. It is hard for them and we will do our part to keep them on the straight and narrow. We will do that 12-step program of accountability and I want to work with my colleagues on that, but they just keep sliding off that wagon. They want to go after personal freedoms. They want to go after individuals. They want to do that spying thing. However, they cannot do it because we have the rule of law in this country.

We are asking them to come work with us and learn from some of their colleagues who might have a little more experience in some of these matters. Certainly the Supreme Court has laid down the test that has to be met. Now that Bill C-55 is in place, the problems with Bill C-12 are too clear to ignore. Then, what we need to do with Bill C-12 is to ensure that Bill C-30 will never come back and that the online snooping provisions of the current government will not come back.

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

Mr. Speaker, just on a quick point of clarification, I appreciate the parallels the member drew with Bill C-12 and ensuring that the “officer” is defined as a “police officer” and not just a “peace officer”, but my understanding from the decision from R. v. Tse is that it has more to do with the notification of the person whose communications were intercepted. That was the breach. There was an add-on after that about defining the police officer and such. However, I would like the member to comment on this further, because he is onto a good point.

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

Mr. Speaker, section 184.4 of the Criminal Code was struck down by the Supreme Court because the lack of definitions was seriously problematic. To put it in context, we were dealing with a criminal activity that was brought to the court. This was not about spying on ordinary Canadian citizens, which some of my colleagues on the other side would like to be able to do. This was about a criminal act and still the Supreme Court said that even in the case of a criminal act, the rule of law must apply. Therefore, the government had to define who was eligible to get that information.

In order for Bill C-55 to be charter compliant and compliant with the Supreme Court, the government has to define who is eligible and under what circumstances this breach of personal information is going to be allowed. We do not have that same standard on Bill C-12 yet. The government wants to be able to force telecommunications companies and other private businesses to turn over data and subscriber information, but it does not define who is eligible to gather it. That is very disturbing because under Bill C-30, which was the other piece of this triad of puzzles we had before us, a minister was able to designate inspectors. Who were the inspectors that he was designating? That was a very bizarre and wide loophole the government was creating for itself.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech and would like to ask him a very simple question.

Does he feel that it is important to strike a balance between police access to information to solve crimes or conduct investigations, and the privacy of Canadian citizens? Why is this balance important? Does the bill allow for a mechanism like this that would enable the authorities to conduct investigations while respecting the rights of Canadian citizens?

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his excellent work as chair on the ethics committee, which has been dealing with some of these issues. These issues are very timely for the Canadian Parliament and for members from all parties to actually begin an open debate on them.

We have a situation now where more and more of our lives are spent online. We do everything online. The economic, social and democratic potential of living online is an unprecedented opportunity in the history of our civilization. However, at the same time, the unprecedented threats and international cybergangs that are beyond the rule of law are able to hack and steal information.

We need to ensure that police have the tools, but the balance goes to this test in Bill C-55 of what is reasonable and unreasonable. It is reasonable to ensure that we craft legislation that provides police with the tools needed to go after criminals and stop these kinds of activities. However, it is unreasonable to say that because people now live in the age of Facebook and Google their right to privacy and to maintain who they are is wide open and the government should be able to spy on them at any given time, whenever and however it wants. That is the unreasonable test. The reasonable test is crafting narrowly defined legislation to provide the tools necessary to address the changes in the cyberworld.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have seen time and time again that the government has to be led kicking and screaming into the arena of accountability and transparency. This was one of the many reasons that Canadians had such profound disagreements with the government over Bill C-30.

With regard to the piece of legislation we have before us, Bill C-55, in light of the fact that the Parliamentary Budget Officer has had to take the government to court to get documents, in light of the fact that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has complained that the government has been slow to release documents and in light of the fact that in the 40th Parliament the government was found in contempt of Parliament, I am wondering if the member for Timmins—James Bay has concerns about the reporting mechanism in the bill. Does he feel confident that the government is going to be forthcoming with the reports the legislation requires?

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

Mr. Speaker, what is at the heart of this issue is the fact that regardless of our political stripes, we are in the House of Commons to create legislation. We are legislators who must represent the best of Canadians. The legislation must stand the test of time. For what we create as laws now, certainly in 30, 40 or 50 years we expect that legislation should be able to hold its own.

Unfortunately, at committees of the House of Commons the basic rule of law has been continually undermined by a government that is starving MPs of the basic data they require in order to review legislation. The fact that we have forced closure again and again on debate means that legislation that has problems, that could become seriously problematic, that may not withstand a charter challenge, is not being reviewed adequately.

Therefore, we will support the bill going forward because the Supreme Court has forced the government to address this issue. Conservatives would not have addressed it otherwise. However, we are very concerned about the reporting mechanisms because we see that it is a government that seems to be the exact opposite of what we would want in western society, which is an open, transparent government and maximum privacy for citizens. The government has flipped it upside down to have absolute transparency on the rights of citizens and NGOs and on groups that oppose it, while demanding absolute secrecy for its ministers and party officials.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that protecting citizens' privacy is one of the foundations of liberal democracy. It is, again, one of the reasons that so many Canadians were up in arms over the legislation proposed in Bill C-30.

In reference to a comment that my hon. colleague just made, it seems to be the tendency and reflex of the government to not listen to parliamentarians, to shut down debate at committee and to introduce time allocation in the House. It seems to us that if it were not for the Supreme Court essentially holding the government's feet to the fire, it might not have come forward with this piece of legislation.

I am wondering if my hon. colleague might want to comment on this tendency toward not listening and not engaging with elected representatives in the House, who are here to bring their constituents' concerns before Parliament.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my hon. colleague's question because one of the reasons Canadians are so fundamentally frustrated with the political life today is that they see the nasty, dumbed-down atmosphere of it. Even reasonable amendments are generally rejected. Reasonable grounds for debate are continually shut down, yet we are told about all the party hacks who flip pancakes for the Liberals and Conservatives and were elected to the Senate. We are told not to worry, because they are there doing sober second thought.

I have not seen much sobriety in that House in a long time. In fact, senators basically act as sock puppets for the regime at hand. We never see them doing any real review of the issues. Therefore, Canadians are asking what gives. We are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on these guys who are not doing their jobs. Thank God for the Supreme Court.

Lobster Fishing

[Jean-François Fortin, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, people in the Gaspé and the Magdalen Islands are worried. They are wondering if the right to live in the regions is becoming a privilege. They are worried about the federal government, which is imposing an unfair employment insurance reform, slashing regional economic development and, now, weakening one of our flagship industries by cutting next year's funding for the lobster fishery while offloading more of the costs associated with at-sea observation and trap tagging because the federal government pulled out.

Thousands of people work in hundreds of businesses that still need the sustainability measures for the Atlantic lobster fishery. These measures, reduced to $4.8 million for 2013, must be enhanced and extended beyond the coming fiscal year because markets have not yet stabilized and many challenges lie ahead.

With just days before the budget, the government needs to pay attention to the reality faced by lobster fishers.

St. Joseph's Day

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

Mr. Speaker, now that we have just wrapped up the celebrations for St. Patrick's Day, today we celebrate an even more important saint.

He was a simple labourer who, since March 19, 1624, has been the patron saint of the best country in the world.

In fact, today we celebrate St. Joseph, the patron saint of Canada and, since March 19, 1860, the patron saint of Orléans. He is the chaste husband of St. Mary the virgin, adoptive father of the divine infant, patron saint of cabinetmakers, carpenters, confectioners, craftsmen, families, fathers, of course, pioneers, professional engineers, real estate agents, social justice, travellers and all working people.

Récollet missionary Joseph Le Caron chose St. Joseph as the patron saint of New France, which would later become Canada.

I am very pleased to wish all Canadians, and all residents of Orléans in particular, a happy St. Joseph's Day.