Chuck Cadman

[Criminal Code, May 22nd, 2002]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-464, an act to amend the Criminal Code (blood alcohol content).

Mr. Speaker, first I would like to thank my colleague from Prince George--Bulkley Valley for seconding this private member's bill because I know the amount of work that he has done over the last number of years on this issue.

The bill is an act to amend the criminal code to include a new .05 blood alcohol content offence. Drinking and driving is the leading cause of criminal death in Canada. For years both the federal and provincial governments have been grappling with the issue trying to develop methods to combat this serious problem.

This private member's bill, if given the opportunity, will be a good tool for police to keep drunks off our roads. This legislation represents a fresh approach to making our roads a safer place to be. It would go a long way to preventing the serious crime of impaired operation of a motor vehicle.

I would ask the Minister of Justice to pay special attention to this legislation and perhaps consider adopting it. I would hate to see this innovative idea sit on the shelf waiting for the luck of the private members' draw when it could become the new law of the land and save lives.

Short of the Minister of Justice adopting the bill, I sincerely hope that my colleagues and I have the opportunity to debate and to vote on the bill to make it law.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Police Officer of the Year Award, May 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, on May 8 the Surrey Chamber of Commerce hosted the sixth annual Police Officer of the Year awards ceremony. Awards were presented in six categories after being chosen from 40 nominations.

This year's recipients were: Staff Sergeant Rick Deets for the Arnold Silzer Community Policing Initiative Award; Langley Chrysler for the Police and Business Partnership Award; Margaret Pattyson for Policing Volunteer of the Year; Janice Spraggs for Police Municipal Employee of the Year; Constable Mike Petrilli for Police Officer of the Year, as nominated by members, employees and volunteers of the Surrey detachment; and Constable Mike Wilson for Police Officer of the Year, as nominated by the community at large.

I wish to offer our congratulations to this year's awards recipients, as well as all those nominated. I also wish to extend our deepest gratitude to all those involved in the policing of our community for their dedication and commitment.

[Age of Consent, April 26th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, we have all heard of child pornographers citing the consent laws to defend their deviant activities.

Between March 1998 and March 2000, I tabled petitions totalling over 12,000 names demanding the raising of the age for sexual consent. That petition was driven by Diane Sowden, a dedicated activist whose young daughter fell prey to pimps and drugs on the streets of Vancouver.

The government has been consulting on the issue for nearly a decade now. Canadians have spoken loud and clear. Will the minister change the law now?

[Age of Consent, April 26th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Justice wants to consult more on raising the age for sexual consent. In this place in 1999 I spoke of a 51 year old sex offender who was acquitted of sexually assaulting a 14 year old girl because the judge believed she had consented. I think that power, control and coercion likely had something to do with that.

This law subjects young people to abuse by predatory adults. The need for more consultation implies some opposition, so just who is opposing the raising of the age to 16 years, and why?

[Child Pornography, April 17th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, last night some 30 members of parliament from across party lines met with representatives of law enforcement. The reason was to discuss the fallout from the recent B.C. Supreme Court decision which acquitted John Robin Sharpe of possession of child pornography. The court found that Sharpe's writings of violent sexual fantasies involving children, although repugnant, did not counsel offences against children and had some artistic merit.

Participants in the roundtable discussion were shown a very short but extremely graphic slide show of young children including infants being subjected to the most degrading acts of perversion imaginable. Experts in the field maintained that writings such as Sharpe's, far from being artistic, actually contribute to the sexual abuse of children.

Many of us in this place anticipated this decision immediately following the initial ruling in January, 1999 and have fought since then for change. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice attended last night. Perhaps he can convince his boss that Canada's children need our protection now.

[Species at Risk Act, April 16th, 2002]

And that is mandatory, as my colleague says, but I guess it is better late than never.

With the deletion of the standing committee's amendment, I doubt that the legislation will be reviewed by parliament until there is a more responsible party at its helm.

I could go on citing examples of how the Liberal government, or should I say certain cabinet ministers, because the members of the standing committee have not been listened to, has contemptibly changed the committee's report but I think the point has been made.

In conclusion I would simply like to point out to Canadians the utter lack of respect the government has for individuals in this country, including its own backbenchers and the legions of expert witnesses who were heard on these issues at the standing committee.

The rest of Group No. 4 deals with public consultation on issues surrounding Bill C-5 and I dare say that these consultations will simply be a farce, just like the hearings of the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development were on Bill C-5.

[Species at Risk Act, April 16th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to debate the Group No. 4 amendments to Bill C-5. In this grouping there is a common theme and it is an especially disturbing theme. That theme is one of outright interference in the work of a parliamentary committee. Canadians should be very concerned with the government's actions.

As many of my colleagues have already noted, it cannot be stressed enough that when a committee of the House of Commons is charged with examining a piece of legislation, that work must be taken seriously. Enormous time and resources are spent hearing from expert witnesses and making subsequent recommendations for changes to that legislation. The contempt that the government has shown for the work of the environment committee is astounding.

Group No. 4 highlights that contempt in many ways. First, Motions Nos. 6, 16, 17 and 20 deal with aspects of the creation of a national aboriginal committee. The environment committee called for the creation of this body clearly because natives have a close relationship with the land, especially in the north, and so consultation over habitat and species at risk with them is vital.

The committee's report called for this new body to be called the national aboriginal council. In this instance, the government changed the word council to committee apparently simply for the sake of making the change. There is no good reason to make such a change. This is perhaps the most blatant of the changes that show the contempt this government has for the work of its committee which, I might add, is dominated by government backbenchers.

I will present to the Chair several more examples of tampering with the work of the committee before I am finished today, but before I do so I would like to say a few more words about the national aboriginal committee. As I mentioned earlier, the creation of the committee itself is acceptable given the relationship that natives have with the land. Therefore, consultation with them is very appropriate. It is also important to mention in the same breath that it will be equally as important to consult with other stakeholders such as property owners and resource users. The existence of the national aboriginal committee should not preclude wider consultation with others, and special care must be taken to ensure that it does not become a special conduit for race related political concerns.

The administration of the act must concern itself with the protection of endangered species in a sustainable socioeconomic manner. Special privileges and exemptions from the act's application should not be based on race. I am very skeptical, however, that the government will ever be able to live up to this standard as it is clear that the government already discriminates based on race. This is exemplified in the current sentencing provisions of criminal code section 718, where aboriginal Canadians are already given special consideration based on their race alone. My concern of course is that they will be given different treatment for contravening this act than will any other landowner or corporation.

Next I would like to discuss the creation of stewardship action plans. Once again, Motion No. 25 is one that the government is introducing and that completely overrides the committee's work. I cannot even begin to imagine the frustration of government members of the environment committee who, with the co-operation of the opposition, created a report for parliament only to have it totally ignored by their colleagues in cabinet.

The standing committee had required that stewardship action plans must include a commitment to regularly examine “tax treatment and subsidies” and “to eliminate disincentives”. The government wants to delete this vital language. It shows that compensation is not just a cash payment. It could involve other things like tax treatment, things that are so vital to farmers and other property owners. In addition, the government always wants to create incentives and programs, but it must be forced to confront the realities of disincentives. There are usually good reasons why people do not respond the way bureaucrats think they should.

The government also wants to delete the standing committee's requirement that stewardship action plans provide technical and scientific support to persons engaged in stewardship activities. Instead, it will:

provide information relating to the technical and scientific support to persons engaged in stewardship activities.

This is a small but significant difference. Now, instead of giving property owners real assistance by sharing data on the presence of endangered species or assistance in configuring their property to protect sensitive habitat, the government can, for example, mail them a pamphlet. Gee whiz and thanks, especially when one considers the very serious criminal penalties for knowingly or unknowingly contravening the act.

Continuing with the theme of tampering with standing committee work, I would like to point out Motion No. 130, which will remove yet another of the standing committee's amendments to the bill. Initially the bill had provided for a parliamentary review of the species at risk act five years after it came into force. The standing committee added the additional requirement that it be subsequently reviewed at five year intervals. Motion No. 130 from the government would remove the standing committee amendment. It does not think that automatic five year reviews are needed and instead would put the onus on parliament to put a review on the agenda should it deem a review necessary.

I would like to point out that I currently sit on the Standing Committee for Justice and Human Rights and we are now in the process of reviewing the mental disorder provisions of the criminal code, which actually have a mandatory five year review clause. The legislation was passed and implemented in 1991. The review should have been undertaken over five years ago, but we are just getting to it now, today.

[Royal Canadian Mounted Police, April 12th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the residents of Surrey, I want to recognize the recipients of the Surrey RCMP Detachment Commendation Awards for their contributions to public safety in our community.

Unfortunately time does not permit me to relate the individual acts of heroism or outstanding public service, but their names are: Citizens, Pakkin Lee, Yu Feng, Benson Ma, Gary Hedberg, Linda Rust, Lance Fraser, Daniel Page, Matthew Troughton Shannon Gilroy, Ursula Nowosad, Len Reich, Mark Meditz, Tae-Young Gwag, Alex Jae-Shik Yun and Mark Sanders; Citizenship and Immigration Canada's, Dave Chand; Customs inspectors Nick Vatic and Jasbir Randhawa; Delta Police Constable Warren Brown; Surrey RCMP Constables, Ed Roberge, Wendy Mehat, Doug Johnston, Scott Marleau, Steve Lovelace, Margo Halliday, Alan Ling, John Kassam, Derek Evenson, Mike Spencer, Mike Greenway and Kevin Krygier.

Congratulations to all. Their community thanks them.

[Species at Risk Act, March 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, once again I am here in the House to talk about Bill C-5, the species at risk act. It is troubling to me that as usual the government is content to forge blindly ahead with legislation without any real idea of what the financial impact of the law would be on the country and the taxpayers.

I would like to spend some time discussing the socioeconomic implications of this proposed legislation. The protection of the environment is a very important priority to most if not all Canadians.

I come from British Columbia, arguably some of the most beautiful territory in the country. Last summer I spent two weeks driving around British Columbia. I put on about 4,300 kilometres just driving to different parts of the province to get a feel, as I often do, for what that province is really all about.

I recall driving up through Cariboo-Chilcotin, in semi-arid desert, Prince George, Prince Rupert, over to Terrace then to the Skeena River, a huge salmon river. I took a ferry across to the Queen Charlotte Islands and spent four or five days there. I recommend that anyone who wants to see what Haida Gwaii is all about should take a trip to the Queen Charlottes and spend some time there. I spent some time at Rennell Sound, at Bonanza Beach, where there are huge expanses of beach two miles long with no one around for miles, with eagles, bear and deer. This is what British Columbia is all about.

British Columbians, maybe more so than anywhere else in the country, understand what the environment is about and how important it is to protect these species. I went into the Kootenays, to the western slopes of the Rockies, to Blue River, and down into the Okanagan, beautiful territory and environmentally sensitive. We understand what that is all about.

However I believe that it is equally important to Canadians that our environment be protected in a way that is economically sustainable. To this end the Canadian Alliance has put forward Motion No. 3 which has been grouped in the third bundle of amendments to Bill C-5. It would require that the socioeconomic interests be considered in the legal listing of species.

The bill would already provide that economic considerations be considered when developing recovery measures. COSEWIC, the committee on the status of endangered wildlife in Canada, is charged with developing the list of endangered species and habitats from a purely scientific perspective. It is the cabinet which has the final say. This unfortunately opens the door for political considerations to dominate the process. We are saying the economic considerations should be part of the considerations as the list would have a definite impact on the Canadian taxpayer.

The Canadian Alliance has also proposed Motion No. 15. It says that:

The purposes of this Act, outlined in subsection (1), shall be pursued and accomplished in a manner consistent with the goals of sustainable development.

This is closely related to socioeconomic interests because it requires that a balance be struck between the environmental goals and the impact on taxpayers. Without considering sustainable development environmental laws could quickly kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

Consideration for endangered species is something that only prosperous economies can afford because someone must pay for it. As the previous speaker suggested, economic desperation will be no friend to species at risk. Someone must pay for this stuff and if we do not have an economy to support it, it will not be very friendly to the species at risk which it is trying to help in the first place.

Is it not essential that the cost to industry and property owners, not to mention the cost to governments in terms of enforcement resources, be known before the government introduces legislation with such vast implications? In particular, we must know what the bill would cost farmers, fisherman, loggers, ranchers, et cetera, and what the government's compensation provisions would be. Without this information, individuals cannot plan and governments cannot know what costs are being passed along.

One of my staff members in the constituency office of Surrey North is a member of a family that owns one of the oldest ranches in the Nicola Valley outside of Merritt. I had the pleasure to spend about a week on that ranch a couple of years ago. It was during calving season, but that is a whole other issue. It was quite an experience for someone who lives in the city to be on a cattle ranch during calving season.

I talked to my staff member's brother about the co-operation he shows with Ducks Unlimited to preserve habitat on his ranch, as do all ranchers. These folks understand what the environment means to their livelihood.

The government apparently has no idea of the socio-economic implications of the legislation. They could not be made any clearer than in the following statements from the ministry and the minister. The minister's information supplement from October 2001 says:

Environment Canada is aware that compensation for restrictions on the use of land is a complex issue that requires careful consideration and innovative thinking. We will need several years of practical experience in implementing the stewardship and recovery provisions of the Species at Risk Act (SARA) before we can be precise in prescribing eligibility and thresholds for compensation.

In explaining why he could not guarantee compensation under Bill C-5 the minister said at the standing committee on October 3, 2001:

We then got deeper and deeper into this and it became more and more of the proverbial swamp, more and more difficult to do partly because, of course, governments should not pass legislation which is open-ended in terms of funding. We have fiscal responsibilities which, as you can well imagine, are fairly strict on us. Forty-five million a year is what we've been given to run the process and that's what we can expect and that's it.

The environment minister was admitting he did not know the costs or the implications. He said he was pretty sure they would be more than $45 million a year. How much more? Has he produced studies? Can he give any idea? He says he does not want to undertake open ended spending commitments. That is fine for the government but Bill C-5 is open ended in terms of what it would cost Canadian property owners. The minister and the government would not pay for it but they would have no problem forcing others to absorb the costs.

The Species at Risk Working Group represents a broad range of environmental and industry groups including the Canadian Wildlife Federation, the Sierra Club of Canada, the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association and the Mining Association of Canada. In its presentation to the standing committee in September 2000 it recommended as an amendment that:

The purposes of this Act shall be pursued to the extent possible while taking into account the social and economic interests of Canadians.

With these facts in mind I hope the government and the opposition parties see the sense in the Canadian Alliance amendments and vote in favour of them. Otherwise we cannot support the legislation. As I said, we understand the implications of species at risk and the need to protect them, as do all Canadians. However we must consider the implications before we do so.

[Justice, March 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the solicitor general has led victims of crime to believe that their experiences and their input is relevant but this report suggests otherwise. To him a victim's impact statement appears to be nothing more than just another piece of paper, not even important enough to ensure its inclusion in a file.

I know what it is to pour one's heart and soul into a victim's impact statement. The fact that it will likely be ignored by corrections staff disgusts me.

What specific measures will the solicitor general put into place to make sure this does not happen again?