Give us an answer.
Lost his last election, in 2006, with 38% of the vote.
Option Canada March 27th, 1998
Give us an answer.
Option Canada March 27th, 1998
Troublemaker.
Option Canada March 27th, 1998
Answer the question.
Student Debt March 25th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, the minister can give all the explanations he likes, his legislation puts students in the same category as defrauders, criminals and those who fail to pay child support in the Bankruptcy Act.
How can the minister claim to be helping students when he is discrediting them by treating them as defrauders under the Bankruptcy Act?
Student Debt March 25th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development.
Bill C-36 indicates that the government intends to increase the period a student cannot include student loans in a bankruptcy from two to ten years.
By increasing to ten years, the usual repayment period, the time that must elapse before a student loan may be included in a bankruptcy, is the minister aware that he is abandoning students to the banks and ignoring even the most elementary responsibility for them?
Airport Security February 13th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport.
There is a double standard in Canada. While the airports in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and Ottawa are served by the municipal police, in Quebec it is the RCMP.
Since renovations at the Dorval terminal are now complete, when will the minister permit the ADM to put out tenders so security will be provided by local police forces?
Reference To Supreme Court February 6th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, speaking of confusion, we have just had a good example.
Yesterday, the minister said, and I quote: “Sometimes governments do things that are challenged in law by other governments, and that generally leads to difficulties. Things are obviously much easier when the people concerned are separated by an ocean”.
Can the minister tell us since when oceans have become a determining factor in international law, and will the Attorney General of Canada be using this argument before the Supreme Court?
Reference To Supreme Court February 6th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, this week we were treated to a series of contradictions by the federal government and its top guns on the topic of the Supreme Court reference.
It is clear that the government is becoming increasingly isolated in its attacks on Quebec's democratic institutions.
After this hard week, in which its main allies abandoned it, why is the intergovernmental affairs minister still stubbornly continuing with a reference which quite obviously will no longer have any credibility in the face of the broad consensus forming in Quebec?
Criminal Code February 3rd, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today in the debate on Bill C-211, presented by one of my Reform Party colleagues.
What does this bill contain? First, as presented, it amends the Criminal Code by making a breach of a condition of parole or statutory or temporary release a criminal offence.
Subsection 495(1)(a) of the Criminal Code already states that a peace officer may arrest without warrant a person who has committed a criminal offence or whom he finds committing a criminal offence. The bill proposes that a peace officer may arrest without warrant a person who is in breach of a condition of parole or release.
Second, the bill would amend the Criminal Code by giving a parole board the power to release the person or to apply to a judge to keep that person under supervision, once that person has been arrested.
Thus clause 1 of the bill amends section 497 of the Criminal Code. This section, which is already in the Code, stipulates that a person may be detained in order to allow the board which granted parole the possibility of requesting that he be detained until a warrant is issued.
This same clause 1 would amend section 497 of the Criminal Code by adding an exception to the release of a person who has been arrested without warrant.
According to the Code as it now stands, a peace officer may override the release provision if he has reasonable grounds to believe it is in the public interest to do so to prevent “the continuation or repetition of the offence or the commission of another offence”. The bill proposes to add an exception to the release provision at the end of paragraph ( g ) of section 497.
Third, clause 2 of the bill proposes to amend subsection 733.1(1) of the Criminal Code. It proposes to include failure to comply with a condition of parole, statutory release or temporary release. In addition, the sentences imposed for such failure remain the same.
Why then do we oppose this bill? For the following reasons. First of all, some would say that this bill would prevent the release of dangerous offenders and could resolve part of the problem of recidivism. This could be true, but only partially so. Why should we permit a peace officer to supervise an offender who has failed to comply with the conditions of his parole? Not all offenders fail to comply with their parole conditions and constitute a threat to society.
Next we must look at the interests involved in this bill. A balance must be maintained between the protection of individual rights and the protection of the community's interests. We have to raise the issue, which is what I am doing here, of everyone's right to protection against arbitrary detention or imprisonment as in section 9 of the charter of rights and freedoms and the government's need to protect society against repeat offenders. This balance is unfortunately disturbed in the Reform Party's bill.
The three kinds of parole, that is parole, and statutory and temporary release, are not the result of a court order and are not granted by the parole board or Correctional Services Canada. These three types of parole are much more concerned with helping offenders reintegrate society. Unfortunately, there is no indication in the bill before us of any interest in reintegration or eventual rehabilitation.
I will conclude very simply by saying that, in this bill introduced by a Reform Party member, there is no mention of an opportunity for the eventual rehabilitation or reintegration of offenders, and the Bloc Quebecois deplores this. It is essential that any amendment to the Criminal Code reflect this principle of rehabilitation. That is how we will build a more just society.
For all these reasons, the Bloc Quebecois opposes this bill.
Bloc Quebecois November 28th, 1997
Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary wing of the Bloc Quebecois recently published a booklet entitled “Quebec—on the road to nationhood”.
This booklet is designed to be a credible and intelligent response to the world-wide disinformation campaign led by the federal government and its henchmen around the world.
It sets out in factual, non partisan terms the real political situation of Quebec and Canada, thereby giving its full meaning to the unaltered commitment of many Quebeckers to taking their destiny into their own hands.
On behalf of Quebec's sovereignists, I wish to congratulate my colleagues from the Bloc Quebecois who sit on the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade on a job well done. They have advanced Quebec's project to build a country of its own by the year 2000.