Jack Ramsay

[Questions On The Order Paper, November 27th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I will be quick. I do not understand. If the question is simply to institutions of this country such as police forces and the military, why is this information not available after almost a year? The question obviously to the government member is has the request gone forward to these institutions. If it has and there is some problem, that is a

justification. However, if they have not made that request then there is no justification for the delay and there is a dereliction of duty here.

[Gun Control, November 27th, 1996]

Including the justice minister, of course. It is a bad bill and regardless of the regulations that are passed it cannot make a bad bill a good bill.

[Gun Control, November 27th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, we finally have the regulations. They were tabled once, they were withdrawn and now they are back.

I will pick up on the comments the justice minister made with regard to his shock and alarm over the provinces that are opposing the bill and refusing to administer various aspects of the bill. What I find shocking and alarming is the fact that the minister would bring forward a bill that he expects the provinces to administer without first gaining their approval for the bill's contents, approval

for their duties and responsibilities. Why did the minister not first gain their approval?

The minister told this House that he was in continuous consultation with the attorneys general of the provinces. Yet when three of them appeared before the standing committee, they told us there was minimal consultation. That is an explanation as to why he is now in this position.

The aboriginal justice minister from the Northwest Territories appeared before the committee. He told us very clearly that it was impractical to enforce the FAC requirements because there is no access to facilities to get things, such as passport photos, which are required to obtain an FAC. Therefore that regulation was not being abided by.

The minister speaks about gun control. This is not gun control. This is the registration of firearms. There is no one in this country who is not in support of reasonable, common sense control of firearms. In fact, we hear this expressed all across the country. The fact of the matter is the bill does not do that. There are portions of Kim Campbell's Bill C-17 that are not being enforced or at least if they are, they are not protecting people's lives.

The examples the justice minister gave of the incident in B.C. and the incident in Winnipeg have nothing whatever to do with this bill. They have to do with safe storage which was contained in Bill C-17.

Neither the justice minister nor the member from the Bloc nor anyone from the government has explained how the registration of a rifle or a shotgun is going to reduce the criminal use of firearms. We asked the police chiefs and the representatives of the Canadian Police Association how this is to be done. None of them could tell us how this was going to be done. In fact, one of the criminologists who appeared before the committee said that we would not see any results from this bill in terms of safety for 15 years. Is that not wonderful. And this is being touted as a safe tool by the justice minister.

The minister is in the grip of the coalition for gun control. He is in the grip of those who would support a lack of common sense in the expression of legislation.

The justice minister claims the majority of Canadians support this bill. If that is the case, then why is that in the last three provincial elections, those in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario, all three parties which made this the central issue in their campaigns and opposed the registration and licensing portion of the bill returned to power? In fact in Ontario it was the third place party that formed the government.

Do not give us this nonsense that the bill has a high percentage of support. The best poll we can have is an open election wherein the matter is an issue and the people have an opportunity to vote on it.

We have what may be a constitutional crisis. It is certainly a crisis in federal-provincial relations because the minister failed in his duty and responsibility to consult with the elected representatives of all the provinces and the territories in order to gain their support. He did not gain their support. He ploughed on with a piece of legislation that they are not prepared to support. The people of those provinces are not prepared to support it as well.

Politicians are not foolish. They are not going to oppose something that has 75 per cent or 80 per cent support of the people. They are not going to oppose it as the justice minister would suggest. This is nonsense. There is not a single individual I know who will buck the safe, proper and wise control of firearms. This is not control of firearms. This bill is simply an imposition upon the law-abiding people of society who happen to own, collect or use firearms in recreational activities. This bill is directed at them.

There are other matters. What about the smuggling problem? The MacKenzie Institute submitted a report indicating that if the bill went through there would be an explosion of smuggling into this country. What has the justice minister done about the smuggling problem? What actions has he taken and what are the results of those actions? We have heard nothing from the justice minister on that issue.

The government talks about making society safer yet it introduces bills like Bill C-41 which allows violent offenders access to alternative measures. It invites the courts to use matters such as conditional sentences where violent offenders do not see the inside of a prison after committing rapes and other serious personal attacks upon individuals.

We saw where the minister stood in relation to section 745 of the Criminal Code. We saw whom he voted for. Did he vote for the safety of society or the safety of individuals? Did he vote against putting people like Debbie Mahaffy and other victims of crime through hell one more time? No, he did not. No, he did not. He voted in favour of the criminal. Certainly he did.

When we look at what the minister has done with what he calls gun control legislation, I am concerned about certain aspects of his exemption. He says now that sustenance hunters will be exempted. What does that mean? Does it mean only aboriginal people can hunt all year round, or does it mean anybody? If that is the case, then how do we interpret Assistant Deputy Minister Mosley's comments to the Senate committee when he said that the regulations cannot exempt anyone from the bill? How do we explain that? He said that the regulations cannot override the contents of the bill which requires all Canadians to register their firearms.

I wonder if the justice minister is now taking on the additional responsibility of administering these regulations and the act in the three provinces and two territories. What is the additional cost going to be? That was not contained in the proclamation that attended as he tabled the bill. How much is the cost going to be? How much is it going to cost the federal government to fill the role of administering this bill in the three provinces and the two territories as he said today he would do? What is the cost going to be?

Would that money not be better used in other areas? There is no question in the minds of thousands of Canadians that it would be. We need to strengthen our police forces. We need to strengthen the law enforcement agencies and place more of their members on the street to protect our society from the kinds of people that the minister's Bill C-41 allows to walk free after committing very personal and serious crimes against individuals.

I listened to my Bloc colleague talk about a bill which he does not seem to know very much about. Under section 103 or 104 at least there is the appearance of an imposition or encroachment upon the provincial jurisdiction to enforce the Criminal Code or at least enforce this bill. The onus is still on the justice minister and the government to tell all Canadians, gun owners and non-gun owners, how the registration of a rifle and shotgun is going to reduce the criminal use of those firearms.

The government has not told us. We have asked them repeatedly. The gun coalition could not do it, the chiefs of police could not do it. When talking to frontline police officers they will tell you they are the ones who have to knock on the doors and answer complaints. They are the ones who will tell you whether this bill is going to be of benefit to them. We have talked to them and they have told us why in their opinion this is a bunch of nonsense. That is different from their chiefs. We got their answers, we heard what they had to say.

My time is up. We will examine these regulations in depth. Again we wonder why the justice minister had to pull the regulations back in June. The stories we have heard is the minister pulled them back because he got trampled in a stampede by his own backbenchers when they had a look at them. We will see whether there is another stampede coming from his backbenchers.

I do know this, in the next election there will be a stampede and it is going to be over some of the Liberal backbenchers who have fought hard to have common sense entered into this bill. I hope all hon. members and the people of this country will take a serious look at these regulations.

[Judges Act, November 19th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, I acknowledge the question from my hon. friend from the Bloc.

The fact is that this bill has not been thoroughly examined by this House. We know the history of the bill as far as this House is concerned. The examination of the bill has occurred by individuals outside this House, particularly members of the other place who called witnesses.

[Judges Act, November 19th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, to carry on with the testimony of Professor Morton:

It would appear that Justice Arbour agreed to the appointment before it had been approved by the Minister of Justice (or any other officials), thereby forcing the minister to react to a fait accompli. Furthermore it then appears that the minister, rather than recommending to Justice Arbour that she postpone her new activities pending necessary amendments to the Judges Act, sought to temporarily legitimate her actions by an order in council; and then (because the order in council is conceded to be insufficient) sought to retroactively legitimate J. Arbour's new employment with general amendments to the Judges Act, Bill C-42, thereby forcing the hand of Parliament.

I will conclude my quoting from the testimony of Professor Morton with this passage:

No doubt some will say that this is nit-picking. My response is simple. If the justice minister and appeal court judges cannot be expected to comply with the letter of the law, then who can? Indeed within the last month the justice minister himself pronounced on the meaning and importance of the rule of law. When Mr. Rock referred the issue of Quebec's so-called "right of secession" from Canada to the Supreme Court he declared that:

The rule of law "is a living principle that is fundamental to our democratic way of life. In substance it means that everyone in our society, including ministers of government, premiers, the rich and powerful and the ordinary citizen alike, is governed

by the same law of the land. We are all bound by the Constitution, by the Criminal Code, by acts of Parliament and the legislatures".

These are some observations. I only have time to refer to Professor Morton's concerns about Bill C-42 but there are others, including former Professor Peter Russell, who have expressed concerns about aspects of the bill. I feel that it is the duty of members of this House to closely examine these concerns.

I conclude by referring to the amendment the hon. member for St. Albert made and which I seconded. I am not completely satisfied with that and I offer an amendment to the amendment which reads: "That the amendment be amended by adding "and that this House respectfully request that Their Honours respond to this message no later than June 19, 1997".

[Translation]

[Judges Act, November 19th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, I have a few comments to make about Bill C-42 which has come back from the other House.

I would like to make a few initial comments about the justice critic for the Bloc. Obviously he does not remember the path which this bill followed. The bill did not go before the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs. Witnesses were not called. We were assured by the government that this was a housekeeping bill. The government said it was a rather innocuous bill which deserved rapid passage through the House and that is exactly what happened.

If we are to criticize those who have looked at it in a more exhaustive manner, then we should really look at what they are saying about the bill.

The hon. member for Prince Albert-Churchill River, who was the one who indicated to our caucus that this was just a housekeeping bill and a rather innocuous one, now says it is a very important bill.

When this motion on Bill C-42 came back, I examined the reasons for it. Why would it come back? It is a housekeeping bill. It is an innocuous bill. It was not an important bill.

I read what witnesses who appeared before the committee of the other House had to say about the bill, as well as some of the senators' comments. In the short time I have I will quote some of the expressions made by one of the witnesses who appeared before the committee in the other House with respect to Bill C-42.

I will quote from the testimony of Professor F. L. Morton. I do not have time to touch on all of his testimony but I would like to quote a portion of it: "The government is concerned, as well it should be, with the current status of Justice Arbour and the implications of her status for those responsible at justice. The government seems to hope that by passing Bill C-42 as quickly as possible it can retroactively legitimate apparent indiscretions by Justice Arbour and possibly others". That is a pretty serious statement. It was not made by someone from the other House, who may be detached from reality, as was suggested by the hon. member from the Bloc a few minutes ago; it was made by a professor of law.

Professor Morton went on to say: "For the past week I have tried to ascertain whether or not Justice Arbour is currently acting within the letter of Canadian law. On balance it seems that there is considerably more evidence to suggest that she is not".

Again, this is certainly something we were not aware of at the time that we examined the bill and the bill passed through this House. We were not aware of those opinions and the ramifications of this bill.

To go on to quote Professor Morton's discourse:

My understanding is that Justice Arbour left for The Hague on August 1 to undertake new duties as "Special Advisor" to the UN Commission on War Crimes; and that as of October 1-that is, more than two weeks ago-she officially took up her new responsibilities as Chief Prosecutor. Apparently the government has attempted to "authorize" Justice Arbour's actions through two orders in council as authorized by section 54 of the Judges Act. Does section 54 authorize leaves for the type of activity that Justice Arbour has already undertaken? Not according to the testimony of Mr. Rock before this committee on October 7.

Professor Morton quoted the justice minister, stating this:

There is no provision in the Judges Act for a federally appointed judge such as Madam Justice Arbour to be granted a leave of absence without pay to work for an international organization such as the UN, nor does the act permit the salary and expenses of a judge during a period of leave to be paid by an organization or entity other than the Government of Canada or, in the case of expenses, by the government of a province.

[Young Offenders Act, November 8th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for bringing this motion forward at this time. As the member who just spoke indicated, some members of the standing committee have just finished a cross-country tour to examine various aspects of the Young Offenders Act under the direction of the justice minister. He asked us to look at lowering the age from 12 to 10, and from 17 to 15. He asked us to look at the whole business of disclosure.

This motion is not a votable motion because my colleagues from the Liberal Party voted against that. It gives us an opportunity, at least those of us who have spent the last month or so travelling across this country listening to experts and others expressing their views on these issues that the justice minister asked us to examine, to examine what we have heard in light of the possibility of some of these amendments. The people who are going to finally decide on these issues of course will be the electorate in the next election. If we are going to make recommendations for changes, I have always looked for balance in the presentations that appeared before the committee, and sometimes they were balanced and sometimes they were not. Some members or witnesses were totally concerned with the rehabilitation of the members and they did not believe that the disclosure of names would aid and abet the rehabilitation of those individuals.

They would not take into consideration the other side of the equation which was of course the safety of the public in the case of a sexual offender or on those rare occasions when it might be necessary and in the best interest of the public to disclose the name of the repeat violent offender or the sexual offender so that not only would groups in society have that information to defend themselves and their children from the actions or potential actions of those individuals but also there are groups and individuals in society who may want to come forward and offer assistance and help to those individuals. Without that knowledge they would not be able to do so.

There is one point I would like to touch on in my examination of this motion, the area of reducing the age from 12 to 10.

The Canadian Police Association supports lowering the age of criminal responsibility in recognition of the fact based on experience that there are offenders under 12 years of age who currently slip through the system and go on to be full fledged youth criminals because the justice system cannot deal with them.

As mentioned by my colleague, in the spring of this year an 11-year old Toronto boy with accomplices aged 10, 13 and 15 abducted and raped a 13-year old girl. This young offender was well known to the police because they had picked him up on more

than one occasion in the past. This juvenile individual taunted police with the fact that they could not charge him.

If the Liberal justice minister and his government believe that 10 and 11-year olds should be held accountable for their criminal actions and if they had heeded our well founded advice and amended the YOA under Bill C-37 to include 10 and 11-year olds, there may have been one less rape victim in the city of Toronto. One less person may not have been so brutally traumatised as this 13-year old girl.

The Liberals may have ignored us and our recommendation to lower the age to 10 and 11-year olds but they cannot ignore the experts. They cannot ignore the Canadian Police Association and they cannot ignore Professor Nicholas Bala, associate dean of the faculty of law at Queen's University. On May 9 Professor Bala testified before the justice committee. Contained in his comments were a number of statistics which I would like to reiterate.

He stated: "I summarized the work of a 1992 StatsCanada survey of 27 police forces in Canada. The data indicated that offending behaviour by children under 12 is a significant problem, although it is a relatively small part of Canada's total crime picture. The study indicates that children under 12 committed about 1.2 per cent of all crimes compared to 20.8 per cent by young persons and 78 per cent by adults".

During his deliberations Professor Bala referred the justice committee to a paper he wrote on behalf of the Department of Justice. This Queen's law professor's paper was not circulated to members of the committee and I have yet to ask the committee why the paper was not made available. I question whether or not this paper was to meet the same fate as Terrance Wade's report which was also commissioned by the Department of Justice. Wade's incriminating paper regarding the handgun registration system was not made public, nor was it easily attainable until some members including myself inadvertently received a copy.

Fortunately I have obtained a copy of Professor Bala's paper entitled "Responding to Criminal Behaviour of Children Under Twelve: An Analysis of Canadian Law in Practice". This report provides some additional statistics which Professor Bala did not reveal to the committee during his appearance before the committee.

The report states: "While some of the reports of the offender behaviour involved children as young as four or five, the police reports indicate that almost two-thirds of the offences by children under twelve involve 10 and 11-year olds. Males accounted for 89 per cent of the children involved. While most of the crimes were property related, one major offence of concern is arson. About 13 per cent of all arson cases involve children aged 12. About 6 per cent of the offences by children under 12 involve violence, for a total of 275 victims. Only 4 per cent of the victims of these assaults were family members of the offender; 2 per cent were close friends; 12 per cent were strangers and 82 per cent were acquaintances; 74 per cent of the assaults involved physical force; 8 per cent involved knives; 7 per cent involved clubs; 10 per cent other instruments and 1 per cent guns".

Referring to a paper released by the Department of Justice in 1994, Professor Bala said the paper raised: "Some disturbing questions about sexual offending by children under the age of 12. Based on police records, about 20 per cent of all sex offences were committed by youth under 18. Of these, about 10 per cent were committed by children under the age of 12. Many of the acts committed by this youngest age group were such highly intrusive acts as oral sex and vaginal penetration".

This is information provided in the study commission by the justice department and paid for by the taxpayer, a report that was not circulated to members of the committee.

On page 5 of the report Bala concludes: "Present legal responses are not totally adequate and serious consideration should be given to lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 10, with restrictions to ensure that a criminal response is used in an appropriate and restrained fashion".

Professor Bala told the committee that his paper is: "Probably one of the most exhaustive, recent treatments of the issues by an academic in this country. It traces the history, the variation in provincial offence rates and responses and some of the problems that are there and comes up with the ultimate conclusion".

Professor Bala cited the findings of Dr. Peterson-Badaili and Dr. Rona Abramovitch. Dr. Peterson-Badaili gave 144 students in grades 5 to 8, roughly ages 10 to 14 a series of questions about hypothetical criminal offences committed by children and adolescents. She found that all of the children were: "Reasonably accurate at identifying specifically what the transgression was. These results suggest that at least when the offence is relatively straightforward, children are capable of understanding what constitutes a criminal action. This is an important point since comprehension of wrongdoing is a prerequisite to criminal responsibility. It is already acknowledged in our juvenile laws that it does not make sense to hold a child responsible for an action that he or she did not know was wrong".

The work of the Canadian psychologist, Thomas Dalby, Alan Leschied and Susan Wilson was also referred to by Bala.

I see that I am running out of time. The report is there for all members of the House to read. It recommends, based on findings and exhaustive investigation into this particular area, that the age of criminality should be reduced from 12 to 10. I hope that when the committee looks at its final report and considers this particular

area that the justice minister asked us to examine, it will consider Professor Bala's testimony and his report together.

[Committees Of The House, November 8th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I agree that we should have ethical standards to mark our own conduct to see whether we are at times meeting those standards. There is no question.

Not only cabinet ministers but all members of this House should be functioning according to a high ethical standard in our dialogue and our interchanges with one another. Most Canadians would expect such a standard from members of Parliament. I want to bring to the attention of the House that this has not happened during the time of my service in this House.

Just yesterday the chair of the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs indicated that she wanted to speak to me outside the room. When I obliged and attended I was accosted with inaccurate accusations. Filthy language was directed at me in a manner that was far below the ethical standards of members of this House. What course do we have to deal with that? What course do we have to respond to that kind of interchange when that kind of thing occurs?

We need standards of ethics by which all members can conduct themselves so that we will never be accused of functioning in a manner that is below the standard that is expected by the people who have elected us and sent us to this House to do their business, so we can conduct the affairs as elected representatives of the people.

I believe that if we do establish a clear standard of ethics for cabinet ministers we can look on those standards as a guide for us all. Would the member for Elk Island agree that it might benefit all members of this House to create a standard we could all measure ourselves against and, if necessary, measure the actions of other hon. members from time to time, when need be?

[Gun Control, November 6th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly will do that. I will make sure that he gets these certificates so that the rightful owners can eventually get them.

However, it is clear that Reform members were right. The firearms registration system is not secure and serious breaches have occurred.

Will the solicitor general admit this and agree that this presents a serious problem for the Liberal's proposed registration system for rifles and shotguns?

[Gun Control, November 6th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I have a prop on my desk but I will not use it.

Yesterday the Minister of Justice accused me and my colleagues of failing to support some of the bills that he has rammed through this House, including Bill C-68.

I have today with me 24 reasons why we could not support Bill C-68. Canadians were told repeatedly that the security of the firearms registration system could not be breached. Today I have 24 individual restricted firearms registration certificates containing the name and address of each owner together with the full description of each firearm. These were all sent to the wrong individuals in the mail.

I ask the solicitor general how this enormous breach of security could occur.