Steve Mahoney

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, May 29th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, when the opposition benches empty the moment after the bells stop there will be difficulty in keeping quorum. I suppose the attempt is to throw off anyone speaking on this side of the House. However, it will not work because, fundamentally, we believe in the principles that are in the bill. If members want to talk about the difference between punishment, revenge, deterrence, rehabilitation and long term prevention, then that is what the bill would achieve.

I will tell members about something I saw this morning on Canada AM that interested me. A man by the name of Jim Gollert, who is the CEO of the Centre for Education and Training in Mississauga, has been appointed by the provincial government. I am hopeful that what I saw is a positive sign from the province of Ontario that it wants to deal with long term prevention. Where do criminals come from? Jim has been asked to deal with young people expelled from our educational system.

We all know, at least in the province of Ontario, that if young people are expelled from classes it is a very serious matter. If they are expelled for violent activities it means they are not only expelled from their board or school but from the entire education system in the province. I cannot think of a better breeding ground for young criminals than having young people kicked out of school and sent home or out onto the streets with no opportunity to continue their education.

I want to give credit where I hope credit will be due. The provincial government has announced not a boot camp, which some members opposite might prefer, but rather an opportunity for kids who are in trouble at school or who have been expelled on a permanent basis from the education system and sent home or out onto the streets.

The province of Ontario has asked Jim Gollert to head up a project that would look into ways these young people can continue their education and be rehabilitated before they wind up before a judge or in jail. I am hopeful this is a sign from our provincial government that it will do something about these kids who are the precursors of the young people who wind up being charged under whatever act is put in place.

There has never been so much misconception foisted upon people both in this place and across the land about the purpose of the Young Offenders Act and its replacement, this new act. The intention here is to take a young person who has been charged and who, under the Young Offenders Act, can be put into adult court prior to any conviction. Does that make any sense? We do not know. One would think that all of us in this place would live by the premise that one is innocent until proven guilty.

If a 14 or 15 year old is charged under the current act there are mechanisms in place that would allow the young person to be tried in adult court. At that time the offender's name would be published and it would be open to the discretion of the judge to impose an adult sentence. Under the new act that would only occur if a conviction is registered in a youth court system. That seems makes a lot of sense to me. If young persons are acquitted or they turn out to be not guilty, why would we want to put them into the stressful situation of having their lives tarnished perhaps forever because of a charge that was not proven to be true? We would not want that.

Under the new bill there would be the ability for the court system to deal with it in a youth system. It then would have the ability to impose an adult sentence upon conviction. That seems very reasonable. I do not hear anyone on the other side telling people about that or speaking about it in committee or in this place.

One of the goals must be to rehabilitate. I hear members from the Bloc chirping and heckling and I would say that is the other extreme. The other extreme is people who are only concerned, frankly, about provincial jurisdiction. They do not want any kind of federal jurisdictional interference in the justice system.

I do not understand why the Bloc would object to this bill. If Quebec accepts the new five year youth justice funding agreement that has been offered, the federal government will contribute more than $191 million over the period 2000-01 to 2004-05 to support youth justice services in the province. The increase in the base funding component of that agreement alone would represent an increase of 39% when compared to the level of federal support available to Quebec in the 1998-99 agreement. Quebec has the opportunity to receive stable funding from the federal government to support the youth justice system in the province of Quebec.

What is driving the Bloc members? Is it the overriding dogma they have about not buying into anything with any kind of federal direction, federal mandate or, what it would call, federal interference?

Members might find this hard to believe coming from me, but I think we should look at the benefit of the youth as opposed to the partisan interests being espoused opposite. It will not help young people if the bill is opposed because of partisan purposes on behalf of people from Quebec or western Canada.

I will tell a story about something that happened in Nova Scotia. I had an opportunity to work as the advocate for youth entrepreneurship. We had hearings. In those hearings young people appeared before us. One of them was a young woman. When we asked her how she had found out about the opportunity for youth entrepreneurism, she said that her parole officer had told her about it. It almost knocked us over.

The province of Nova Scotia has implemented a program called second chance. Is that not exactly what we should be trying to do: to provide a second chance when we see young people who have the opportunity to grow? It helped that young lady start her own business. She has a young child and she has turned her life around.

That is what the bill is about. That is what the government believes in. We will be tough where we need to be, but we must be fair; we must be balanced; we must focus on rehabilitating young people to build a better country.

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, May 29th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, the member opposite says that I am right in the middle. Yes, the extreme middle is generally where members will find us. We in this party believe in a balance that strives to deal with the root problem of youth violence. Is it a serious problem? There is no doubt about it. As I have pointed out, the one position on the right of the political spectrum is to deal with it with a supposedly firm hand with boot camps.

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, May 29th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I know it has been a while. I am delighted to see that I have been missed. I have been busy on committee and dealing with other issues.

I do not know if there is an issue that is more of a watershed, that is more of a defining matter of philosophy versus pragmatism than the changes being made to deal with youth criminals in the youth criminal justice system.

We have heard the debates from friends opposite, and maybe not so friends opposite. They have talked about some of the solutions that are envisioned based on their philosophies and their experiences.

There are some very fundamental differences between the views of members on that side of the House and members here. Some members of the official opposition would simply say that three strikes and the person is out and we should throw away the key. Then we have other members of the official opposition who believe that punishment is the goal, which is what it thinks the bill should be rooted in. These are two of the extremes. We then have the other extreme—

[Danuta Bartoszek, May 28th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate a constituent of mine, Ms. Danuta Bartoszek, who won the women's National Capital Marathon in Ottawa on May 13.

Danuta won the women's division of the 42 kilometre race in 2 hours, 37.58 minutes. It is her first national marathon title and it places her second in the national marathon qualifying standings for the world championships.

Danuta, born in Poland, immigrated to Canada in 1989 and became a Canadian citizen in 1992. She has participated in many prestigious marathons since 1991, including Canadian and world championships and the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.

On behalf of my constituents in Mississauga West, I commend and congratulate Danuta and wish her many more first place finishes.

[Volunteers, May 10th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the United Nations has declared 2001 as International Year of Volunteers. Today in Mississauga the Peel District School Board will honour the long term commitment of over 100 parent volunteers and community representatives for their contributions to building a stronger link between school and community.

Eight of those one hundred individuals are parent volunteers from two schools in my riding: Mila Jack and Judy Robertson are 20 year volunteers; Sharlaine Howes and Marg Snider are 15 year volunteers; Karen Bateson, Carolyn Christou and Jane Inglis are 10 year volunteers, all of Pheasant Run Public School; and Joanne Bain is a 10 year volunteer at Settler's Green Public School.

I thank the Peel District School Board for honouring the efforts of these individuals and those eight volunteers and all others for their tireless, dedicated and continuous contributions to our community.

[Supply, May 8th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I guess we could all ask each other questions like that. Why did members opposite not put a similar motion when Walkerton occurred? Were the deaths in Ontario somehow not of as great concern to members opposite?

Certainly there has been a responsibility with the provincial and the municipal governments to resolve these problems. We have had charges of interference. We have been told to stay out of the jurisdictions that belong to the provincial governments by members opposite, although not necessarily the NDP. The NDP would have us go after everything we could. We would have national standards for everything we could possibly conceive and probably eliminate provincial jurisdiction.

The other side of the extreme is these people say that the government should cut back, should slash, should burn, should reduce, should do nothing to provide good quality health, safety and quality of life for Canadians. We will not allow that to happen. We will make sure we provide those items.

[Supply, May 8th, 2001]

It does not say immediately. It states:

—to establish enforceable national drinking water standards—

When I see members of the Tory caucus and members of the Canadian Alliance caucus parading around on the nightly news in a joint fundraiser, trying to somehow come together to resolve their problems, what concerns me is the party that put this motion before the House is being sucked into the vortex of the extreme right wing of the Canadian Alliance. The Canadian Alliance was opposed to it. It was opposed to a committee. I suspect it will continue to be opposed to it in some form of trickery that it may use.

We think it should occur but it must occur with quality negotiations with our territories and our provinces. This member knows it. Any time the government tried to be heavy handed in dealing with the provinces, there were screams and howls of outrage from the opposition benches.

[Supply, May 8th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to play games, but I am looking for the word immediately. Maybe the member has a different copy of the motion than I have. Regardless, the point is what the motion calls for is that we should act with the provinces and territories to establish—

[Supply, May 8th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, we are having an interesting debate this afternoon. In addition to the minister, I suspect there will be substantial support on this side of the House for the motion. I certainly intend to support the principle of the motion.

However, some things need to be put on the record as a result of this kind of reaction where perhaps the NDP will use fearmongering by asking if we are going to wait until more people die. We also have a reversal by the official opposition, an opposition that was opposed to government interference and involvement in provincial jurisdictions and which is now changing its mind as a result of its constituency undergoing some pressure in the area of clean water.

We are seeing some rather substantial flip-flops in positions in party policy. Given the difficulty that the opposition is going through on that side of the House, I am surprised it can even spell the word policy these days.

What we are seeing here is a move that I would call constitutional reform by attrition. I will explain what I mean by that. Provincial governments across the land, most notably in Ontario, have been bailing out of areas that have for a long time been considered to be areas of provincial jurisdiction and responsibility. I will cite the example of Ontario. Premier Harris has succeeded in turning the entire relationship between governments upside down.

I served for almost 10 years as a municipal councillor. In those days, 1978 to 1987 and a bit, municipalities always went after the provinces to support them in certain areas, such as the provision of funds and transfer payments, because the municipalities were creatures of the province.

What the government of Ontario has done now is it has passed a law entitled the fewer municipal politicians act. All of a sudden it has managed to make municipal politicians look like the bad guys. Through amalgamations it has reduced the number of municipalities in Ontario from approximately 850 to 450. On the surface that seems like a good thing.

If we were to talk to people on the street I think they would say that if the overhead of carrying government bureaucracy was reduced and consolidated, that would be a good thing. In the city of Toronto, for example, if we were to amalgamate six fire departments into one I think the people would say that also sounds good. However the results can be summed up in the words cause and effect. For every action there is a reaction.

Provinces have been saying that they are not in the business of providing social housing. It should fall to the municipalities and they downloaded it.

All we have to do to experience firsthand the impact on infrastructure is to drive along Highway 401 in the greater Toronto area. People would think they would lose their vehicles at any moment. The roads are deteriorating on a daily basis. Why? It is because the provincial government has decided to get out of that area. It has passed the entire cost of the public GO Transit in the southwestern sector of Ontario on to the municipal sector. How does that relate here?

I do not hear my friends from the Tory Party, who moved the motion, talking about the provincial Conservative government. Many people think they are more a reform style government. Did a cause and effect occur when the provincial Conservative government slashed the environment ministry, when staff was dramatically reduced in Ontario, when municipalities were told that it was now their responsibility to send their water out to private laboratories, in many cases 100 kilometres or 200 kilometres away, and wait for some technician in the facility to test the water and get back to them on whether or not there was an E. coli problem or any other kind of problem?

Somehow the Ontario provincial government seems to have washed its hands of responsibility. Walkerton happened in my personal opinion as a direct result of the provincial Conservative government deciding that less government was better, that a smaller ministry of the environment would be more efficient, that fewer staff to inspect would be beneficial. It could then send out $200 tax rebate cheques to everybody in the province saying “Look at me, am I not wonderful?”

It is cause and effect. There is no question there was some personal culpability in the reports that came out, but one was dealing with people who were not trained properly on the job. Why were they not trained? It was because it was left up to a small rural municipality that did not have the sophistication or technology to deal with it and as a result people died. Now we see it spreading.

I personally believe it is a problem. One of the reasons I support the hon. member's motion is that it could be the tip of the iceberg. I agree that the federal government has to get involved. It must put in standards and ensure that provincial governments are not simply passing on tax cuts in the name of some form of fiscal responsibility while they put the safety of their residents in jeopardy.

This is an example of utmost irresponsibility. Members know full well that the ministry of the environment at the provincial level works with local municipalities to provide safe water. It has not been a responsibility of the federal government because we have had trust and faith under the terms of the constitution. Under the terms of our relationship we would never question something as basic and simple as clean water being put at jeopardy because of a political right wing agenda that simply wanted to find ways to get re-elected.

In reality that is a trend that has occurred. It may be somewhat different in North Battleford, but the result is a sense that someone else will take care of it, a malaise, a sense of complacency. It is most unfortunate.

We have heard members opposite say that the government should stop doing this or the government should stop doing that. As a result of cause and effect people are now saying that there is actually a role for government.

What is the number one responsibility of any government? I submit it is to provide good health, safety and quality of life. Everything else falls from that.

The jurisdictional battles will occur. The provinces want to do this and that. Who should regulate this or who should regulate that? The bottom line is that if collectively as governments we are unable to provide something as basic and fundamental as safe, clean water and safe sewage disposal in Canada in 2001, then shame on all of us at every level of government.

We must do it. Our government is committed to it. If it means entering into new agreements, whether it is through the infrastructure programs we have talked about or a new kind of national standard, that is what we will do. The government believes it is our responsibility to provide health, safety and a good quality of life for all Canadians.

[Xavier Gordon, May 8th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to extend congratulations to an outstanding young constituent of mine, Mr. Xavier Gordon, who is here today to accept the Toronto Dominion Canada Trust scholarship.

Received by only 20 students nationwide, this is one of Canada's most prestigious scholarships, awarded for outstanding community leadership. The award is worth up to $50,000 for him to attend a Canadian university of his choice.

Xavier's long list of achievements, through persistence and determination, include the founding of a multicultural council at Meadowvale Secondary School. Through his hard work, the interest and participation of both students and teachers has increased dramatically in a wide range of multicultural activities.

Xavier plans a career in aeronautical engineering. I am certain he will achieve any goal he chooses and will reach the very top of his field.