Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member of Parliament for Davenport.
I have the utmost respect for the former attorney general and member of Parliament for Vancouver Granville, my colleague. I think this issue is about a difference of opinion and a difference in what one sees as appropriate.
I will begin with one of the most pointed questions the member of Parliament for Saanich—Gulf Islands asked the member for Vancouver Granville. Did the Prime Minister or others in the PMO break the law? The answer was unequivocally “no” by the former attorney general, the member for Vancouver Granville.
What is pressure? We are elected as parliamentarians, and some of us are privileged and tasked with also being part of cabinet. Dealing with pressure is subjective and not objective. As MPs, we are constantly pressured by constituents, stakeholders and departments. Our job is to take all things into account. Our job is to discuss them and sometimes repeat these actions again and again. We do things in balance. We take into account all the facts and then make the tough decisions.
Many members of Parliament will face tough challenges when a permanent resident is facing deportation, but has children born and raised in this country. They have to make the choice of letting these kids be orphaned, be without parents or be forced to go to a country where they have no home or of intervening. These are tough choices and with those choices, we will have their parents, grandparents, neighbours, family members, soccer coaches and employers pleading with us. What constitutes pressure? We as parliamentarians have to decide at the time that even though the act was bad, the person served his or her time and probably should be deported, what about those children? We have to balance that. Those are tough decisions as parliamentarians we make.
This is no different for prosecutors and judges who take all the facts into consideration when they prosecute, when they judge and when they sentence. They take consequences already borne, they take consequences that may happen as a result of a sentence and they take mitigating factors.
Canadians want a transparent government and this government has shown that it will always be transparent, even when it is difficult, even when it may not be flattering for us.
Those members said that the justice committee would not invite the former justice minister, but the justice committee did. They said that the Prime Minister would not waive solicitor-client privilege. The Prime Minister waived solicitor-client. They said that the Prime Minister would not remove or waive cabinet confidentiality. The Prime Minister waived cabinet confidentiality. They said that there would not be enough time in committee for the former attorney general to speak or give her the time. The chair gave so much time and gave more rounds than I have ever seen on any committee. In fact, at the end, the member of Parliament for Vancouver Granville finally had to say that she thought committee members had asked all their questions and were being repetitive.
Then the members asked for the former principal secretary to the Prime Minister, Gerry Butts, to appear, and he is appearing.
Above all this, it shows a Prime Minister who is fearless, transparent, open, balanced and takes the lives of all Canadians into account.
I will remind Canadians what the Harper Conservatives did when committees requested people to appear, “men and women who did not sign up to be tried by a committee, to be humiliated and intimidated by members of Parliament.” Former Minister Paradis refused to appear about illegal lobbying by former Tory MP Rahim Jaffer. When Harper PMO director of communications, Dimitri Soudas, was asked to come before committee, the then Conservative Harper minister, John Baird, said, “The days when you call staffers into committee to beat up staff who can't defend themselves are over.“ The Conservative House leader confirmed that he insisted on political staffers not to appear.
Therefore, we will not let them decide if we are transparent. We will let Canadians decide which government is transparent and which is not.
Let me talk about my dad. My dad was an immigrant. He is a sawmill worker. He started in the chain and worked his way up to being a lumber grader. He worked for a very large multinational B.C.-based company called MacMillan Bloedel, which was very similar to SNC-Lavalin. It was an iconic B.C. company employing thousands of employees, tens of thousands at its peak. He had a good job. He worked as a lumber grader before retiring.
If the executives of that company had breached laws and bribed and violated criminal codes, I would expect them to be prosecuted. I would want jail time, if necessary—period, full stop. Then if I found out that the entire company might be barred from working in Canada for 10 years, which would de facto shut it down and would even potentially have an impact on my father's pension or job, depending on the time, I would be terrified. Would I be able to go to university? Would my father be able to pay the mortgage? What would I do?
Those would be the thoughts coming to my mind.
I would also be hoping—in fact, praying to God—that my prime minister would be looking into this situation. I would want to know that the government was making sure my father's job and pension were secure.
I would also not want criminal acts to occur, and I would not want those responsible to be allowed to go on. I would want them removed, fined and put behind bars. However, I would also put pressure on my elected officials. I would put a lot of pressure through letter campaigns, email campaigns. I would have meetings with elected officials, the mayor and councillors of the town the mill was in. If I found out any MP was available, I would go to them. I would go to the prime minister if I could.
However, if I found out that the government would not listen, did not care or did not like pressure, I would be livid and disheartened. In fact, in the early 2000s, South Asian youth were being killed every week by gang violence. They were predominantly in south Vancouver, half of which is in the member for Vancouver Granville's riding. I pleaded to my community leaders, senior police inspectors, sergeants and elected officials and asked them how we could stop this violence.
We went to the solicitor general of British Columbia, who was Rich Coleman at the time, and we lobbied him. We annoyed him. We called him to meetings and we used the press. We did everything we could, because young kids' lives were at stake. Initially he said that his hands were tied and that the law would take its course, but the community persisted. It took more than 11 meetings and it took more than four months, but eventually the solicitor general agreed. He constituted the British Columbia Integrated Gang Task Force, which arrested and convicted dozens of people and made a major dent in the violence in south Vancouver among South Asian youth, but one thing I will tell the House is that the solicitor general never said that he felt too much pressure.
Currently, this problem has increased in my riding of Surrey Centre. Do members want to hear about pressure? We had 5,000 people gather in a public square. We held 80-plus meetings with mayors, councillors, principals and ministers. I went to the public safety minister numerous times to tell him how imperative it was. He answered every time, and in fact announced $326 million to fight gun and gang violence, with $7.5 million for Surrey under the national crime prevention strategy. One thing he never said was that I put too much pressure.
To the NDP members, those are 10,000 union jobs. Those are people who work in British Columbia, Quebec and around the world, with over 1,000 in Ontario. There are even more pensioners. If they knew their leader, Jagmeet Singh, would never go to the Attorney General and go up to bat for them, I wonder how they would feel.
The justice committee is doing its great work, as is the Ethics Commissioner. Canadian citizens and constituents of my riding will decide whether this government is transparent, and there is no need for a public inquiry.
