Gordon Kirkby

[Western Grain Transportation Act, February 13th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the minister of agriculture and the government have been aware of this problem and have acted with all the haste possible in order to fix the problem.

Hon. members opposite only learned about this problem from a television program. The people on this side of the House were aware of it before it was televised and publicized.

This government believes that in order to get an effective settlement and an effective solution we need to discuss these types of issues with all of the stakeholders involved. There are many people who will be affected by the changes which are being brought forward. The government and the minister of agriculture needed to have full discussion with these people to devise the best solution possible for the people of Canada.

People on this side of the House believe in consultation and long term effective solutions, not solutions which will come unravelled overnight because of lack of preparation and lack of thought, which is what the Reform Party would like to see happen.

[Western Grain Transportation Act, February 13th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, if I might, this is a preamble very much fitting in and leading up to the bulk of my statement. Further, with respect to other speeches I have heard today I would submit this line of discussion is perhaps far more relevant than others that have existed. I wish to continue this line.

The minister also found a solution to the troubling durum wheat dispute with the United States, retaining for Canada an upper limit of shipments of wheat well above historic levels, thereby allowing Canadians farmers to continue shipping our high quality product to the United States.

Our minister of agriculture has developed a very predictable pattern to resolve problems in agriculture. He identifies the issue, he consults broadly with all stakeholders and in consultation with these stakeholders he puts forward concrete solutions to help our farmers.

Bill C-66, an act to amend the Western Grain Transportation Act, follows that successful approach. The purpose of these amendments is to eliminate the WGTA subsidy on movements to Thunder Bay of grain subsequently moved westward by rail to destinations in the United States.

Second, these amendments will provide the railways with the authority to implement demurrage and storage charges and dispatch rail cars carrying grains, crops and products under the WGTA.

Third, these amendments will eliminate the WGTA subsidy on wheat shipments to Mexico. In respect of the Thunder Bay backtracking, the way the present WGTA subsidy operates is to encourage the rail companies to ship grain to Thunder Bay from the prairies. When they wish to ship it to the United States, they ship it all the way back to either Fort Frances or Winnipeg before it is shipped to the United States.

The problems with this approach are many. It increases the time grain cars are in use, therefore reducing the speed at which grain can be shipped to market. It costs the government money to send the grain the extra miles. I do not think the grain really appreciates the extra scenery the taxpayers are paying for.

This amendment will reduce the cost to the Canadian taxpayer and will enhance the reliability of Canada as a shipper and seller of high quality grains. An improved reputation as a supplier will increase the demand for our product. No doubt because of its very high quality, when we have this very stable and enhanced reputation as a dependable supplier the buyers are going to come. All of this will be good for the Canadians farmer. Certainly that is very good news.

Presently under the WGTA storage and demurrage costs cannot be charged against cars hauling grain qualifying for the subsidy rates. This has resulted in grain cars being used for storage of grain, sitting there holding the grain, but not moving it.

Grain cars were built to move grain. With this type of amendment that is what they are going to be doing. Allowing for storage to merge and dispatch will ensure quick transfer of grain to market and will further enhance Canada's reputation as a prompt supplier of high quality grains.

This bill will alleviate the countervail duty investigation currently lodged against Canadian wheat exports by Mexico. The removal of the subsidy will be beneficial in meeting the volume limits of the export subsidy provisions of the GATT for wheat and wheat flour categories. Canada, therefore, will maintain access to the growing Mexican market.

I wish to once again thank our minister for acting, after consultation, in a very prompt fashion to get the grain moving in western Canada. He is doing a great job. One problem at a time, our system is improving.

[Western Grain Transportation Act, February 13th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise again today to speak in support of Bill C-66, an act to amend the Western Grain Transportation Act.

I wish to sincerely thank and congratulate the minister of agriculture for bringing forward more legislation to assist the prairie farmer in a very positive way.

This legislation is the result of identifying a longstanding problem that has existed within our nation for many years, bringing together all of the stakeholders who were affected by the existing circumstances or will be affected by the proposed changes and by working together with them to find an appropriate and fair solution.

Our minister is a problem solver and has already contributed much to assist the economic well-being of our prairie farmers. The successful completion of the Uruguay round of the GATT was good for Canada. By agreement the Americans and the Europeans will be forced to reduce unfair subsidization of agricultural products, thereby making Canadian agricultural products more saleable and competitive on the world market.

The minister-

[Agriculture And Agri-Food Administrative Monetary Penalties Act, February 13th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak today in support of Bill C-61, a bill to introduce an administrative monetary penalty system, or AMPS as it is more commonly know. This bill will provide a broader range of enforcement options to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's inspection officials by allowing them to levy monetary policies for non-compliance with the regulations.

As it now stands a criminal prosecution is relied on too heavily. It is often the only option available to inspectors with the department's food production and inspection branch when they are faced with a violation of this country's statutes regarding food and animal health and safety.

By introducing AMPS, inspectors will have at their disposal a range of monetary policies. They will not have to rely on seizure and detention of a product and prosecution through the courts with the attendant delays and costs to the taxpayers that involves.

Technically, administrative monetary penalties are not fines but I will use that word for simplicity. Initially, fines will range from $50 to $6,000 depending on the seriousness of the violation. This legislation will however give the department the ability to impose fines of up to $15,000 for very serious non-compliance to our regulations.

These fines or monetary penalties are not levied without any recourse. Anyone who believes the fine is unjustified will be able to make use of an appeal process. This process will include a departmental review, a review by an independent tribunal and if necessary will proceed to the Federal Court of Canada.

It should be noted that this initiative emphasizes obtaining compliance by offenders and not simply punishment. AMPS will allow the department to negotiate solutions to non-compliance with the offending parties. Fines can be reduced or waived if corrections, for example, processing modifications, are made by the industry.

Immediate corrective action results in a better product, improved health and safety, more effective enforcement and the protection of Canada's reputation for high quality control standards in relation to agri-food products. In today's highly competitive market, there is no doubt we must do all we can to enhance our reputation for quality and in fact deliver high quality food to the world's consumers.

In order to ensure that the system operates as effectively as possible and to avoid frivolous appeals, the government is making available a fine reduction option. Offenders who pay their fines without asking for a review will receive a 50 per cent reduction in their penalty.

Reviews cost money and this option is used by other departments in other jurisdictions quite successfully. While this may seem counterproductive to some, let me remind everyone that the administrative monetary penalty system stresses compliance and not punishment. The department does not see this initiative as a money making venture. It will gladly reduce or even waive a fine if the offender is willing to show compliance with Canada's regulations.

While criminal prosecution will still be an option, AMPS will lead to better compliance rates and more effective enforcement action taken by the branch. The administrative monetary penalties will enable greater enforcement of compliance among importers, thereby helping to create a level playing field for the domestic industry.

This move by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada is consistent with the initiatives being taken by other departments and with the entire regulatory framework in Canada. Transport Canada currently has an administrative monetary penalty system. The one being proposed for this department builds significantly on the transport model, and other departments are considering the adoption of this system.

This system has been developed in conjunction with the Department of Justice through the regulatory compliance project. One of the goals of this project is to look at alternatives to criminal prosecution of regulatory violations. In many cases criminal prosecution is considered too severe as this course of action can lead to a criminal record and even the possibility of imprisonment. This is another step in our goal of decriminalizing regulatory infractions.

Federal regulatory policies encourage the use of the least coercive alternative models. AMPS will provide the department and the food production and inspection branch with a less coercive alternative.

It pleases me to note that this administrative monetary penalty system not only has the support of a number of federal departments, but it has the solid support of industry associations as well. This latter support is, in my mind, the most important since it is the industry and our farmers who have not only asked for this but it is the industry that will have to work with it as well.

During recent consultations industry associations recommended the active enforcement of domestic standards to imported products. This is because Canadian industry needs to be able to compete on a level playing field if it is to remain competitive in the global market.

It is important also for Canada to protect its international reputation for high quality health and safety standards when it comes to agriculture and agri-food products. The introduction of AMPS was also one of the recommendations of the department's regulatory review undertaken in 1992.

The goal of the federal approach to the regulatory system is to create a regime that is not just cost effective but is flexible and addresses the realities of doing business in a new way. The government and the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food require a system that is more cost effective and more appropriate.

To my mind, the administrative monetary penalty system meets all of these criteria. I must point out that the AMPS is also used by the United States department of agriculture where it has been shown to be very successful in increasing compliance. Our system will allow us to harmonize our regulatory enforcement with the United States and also with some of our trading partners in Europe who also use this type of system.

Better regulatory compliance will help industry not just at home but it will improve its global competitiveness as well. Increased compliance will help ensure that Canadian export products maintain their high reputation internationally. It will do so by enabling the department to take effective action against importers or domestic companies marketing products that do not meet Canadian health, safety or quality standards.

Business will welcome clear rules that will help to increase compliance and remove unfairness from the system. The agricultural community will welcome any activity that strengthens our enforcement at border points, increases equity of enforcement between commodities and promotes the marketability of Canadian products.

The system highlights the joint responsibility that governments and industry share for ensuring compliance. By consulting with industry the government has devised a system that will benefit everyone. It will give government inspectors a wider range of enforcement options when they are faced with regulatory violation. It emphasises compliance, not punishment, by permitting monetary penalties to be waived or mitigated if the violator takes corrective actions to ensure future compliance.

It will improve the competitiveness of industry at home by applying consistent standards to both imported and domestic products and abroad by helping to ensure Canada's protects its high reputation internationally.

I commend our minister of agriculture who has done a terrific job in identifying problems and going through extensive consultation on this issue and many other issues. As is typical, once this process is completed a very sensible, workable solution comes out the other end. I thank and congratulate the minister.

[Agriculture And Agri-Food Administrative Monetary Penalties Act, February 13th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, it has only been 15 months; I will be getting the hang of it shortly.

The hon. member wants a streamlined system. Right now the only way to enforce these types of regulations is through the courts. Now the hon. member wishes to set up a tribunal system which is just another court. This is in fact increasing the regulation and the steps people have to take to solve the problem.

What is being suggested here is that you cannot have it both ways. Either the system is simplified by delegating the authority to the department or it goes through the courts.

I might add that this type of process is ultimately subject to an appeal to the Federal Court which will deal with any of the concerns the hon. member has. If he still has concerns, I would like to hear them.

[Agriculture And Agri-Food Administrative Monetary Penalties Act, February 13th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, when the act makes reference to the minister, it does not mean the minister, it means the department. Therefore the idea that there would be some interference by the minister is completely inappropriate.

With these types of regulations the minister does not even see or become aware of their enforcement. They are handled at the departmental or administrative level. That is the first clarification we need to make.

First you indicate that there needs to be-

[Committees Of The House, February 10th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present in both official languages the ninth report of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development regarding Bill C-60, an act respecting the agreement between Her Majesty in right of Canada and the Pictou Landing Indian Band, without amendments.

[Violence Against Women, December 6th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member made mention of the fact that there is a greater involvement of women in crime. He cited errors in the study done with respect to the incidence of violence against women. He stated that more women commit child abuse than men. I find that all of these statements are made to minimize and trivialize violent acts against women.

When we think about what happened a number of years ago on this day, we must remember today what damage violence against women in our society does and we ought not to speak in such a manner as to trivialize and minimize it and make it an excusable type of behaviour.

I want to ask the hon. member if he still feels that these types of remarks under these circumstances are justified.

[Corrections And Conditional Release Act, December 1st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member from the Reform Party has made a proposal concerning the safety of the Canadian public.

We as the legislative body of this great nation must take a lead role in ensuring that our citizens live in safe communities. That responsibility extends even with greater seriousness to those who are simultaneously most vulnerable and most vital, those who carry our future in their hands, our children.

Let me take a moment to tell of some of the things we in Parliament have done to date to try to give both immediate and long term protection to our citizens from people who have shown little regard for the welfare of others.

In Canada's early history, clemency was unconditional and only granted through the royal prerogative. In 1899 Parliament passed the ticket of leave act which established conditional release and a system of supervised freedom. The Governor General could grant conditional release to anyone as a method to bridge the gap between the controls and restraints of institutional life and the freedoms and responsibilities of community life, as one historian has noted. The Department of Justice provided supervision and eventually established the remission branch in 1913.

In 1938 the Archambault commission recommended that rehabilitation become the purpose of incarceration. The Fauteux report recommended the creation of the National Parole Board which came into existence with the passage of the Parole Act in 1959.

It is important to note that in 1969, 31 years after the Archambault report, the Ouimet report reaffirmed that rehabilitation was the major purpose of conditional release. More recent developments suggest that the protection of the public is the primary goal of conditional release.

In 1978 Parliament amended the Penitentiary Act to permit offenders to earn time off for good behaviour. Good conduct in a penitentiary, it was hoped, was some indication that an offender had changed the type of behaviour that led to incarceration in the first place. In 1978 this period of remission when offenders were in the community was called mandatory supervision.

By 1981, the Law Reform Commission expressed concern about the small group of offenders who constituted an imminent danger to public safety but had to be released under the provisions of that law.

In 1982 the National Parole Board began suspending the release of a small number of offenders who it believed presented a danger to public safety.

The Supreme Court of Canada struck down this practice in 1983, saying that the board could only suspend in reaction to an offender's behaviour on release, not in anticipation of problematic behaviour.

In 1986 Bill C-67 amended the Parole Act to permit the National Parole Board, after a referral from Correctional Service Canada, to detain in custody until the end of their sentence those offenders it deemed likely to commit an offence causing serious harm before the expiration of their sentence. The legislation introduced a schedule of offences which were considered to have caused serious harm and required CSC to review the cases of all offenders convicted of one of these scheduled offences to determine whether they should be referred to the board for a detention hearing.

On November 1, 1992 the Corrections and Conditional Release Act replaced both the Parole Act and the Penitentiary Act. This new act, known as the CCRA, eliminated the previous system of earned remission and provided that statutory release take effect at the two-thirds point of the sentence for offenders who had not been granted parole earlier. In addition, it included and amended the provisions for detention that had been added to the Parole Act through Bill C-67.

The CCRA expanded the schedule of offences to include a greater number of specific sexual offences. As well, the CCRA calls for notifying victims upon their request of when detention and other hearings are to take place and permits them to observe such hearings.

Other measures in the CCRA include requiring an annual review of offenders ordered to either remain in prison or to reside in community facilities and one chance provision for statutory release which means that certain offenders felt to represent a certain level of risk but probably manageable in a residential facility are given this one chance to prove themselves.

Any breach of condition or increase in risk requires that they return to prison until the end of the sentence with no further opportunities to complete the sentence in the community.

These steps have all been designed to give immediate, short term protection to society by removing dangerous offenders from the streets and, more important, to give long term protection by effecting change in the behaviour of offenders so that they will never commit another crime. The bottom line, however, remains the same. We must do more to protect our children.

We said in the red book that we share Canadians' concerns that more must be done to better protect society from repeat sex offenders. These measures are part of ongoing reforms to improve our handling and management of these offenders in federal correctional systems, especially those who victimize our children.

We are all outraged by crimes perpetrated against our children. We are angry and we demand measures that will protect them.

At present, the CCRA permits the National Parole Board to detain sex offenders and certain other high risk offenders until the end of their sentence if they cause serious harm and if they are likely to commit an offence causing death or serious harm if released.

What about when the victim is a child, a person who cannot articulate the problem or even realize that there is a problem until many years later? We now know that when the victim is a child, the serious harm caused by a particular offence may not become evident for a number of years.

In addition, the victim may be too young to communicate adequately the trauma inflicted by the offence. We must protect and support our vulnerable children. It has been difficult for the National Parole Board and CSC to determine that a child was seriously harmed using the legal meaning of the term serious harm.

Without this determination, the National Parole Board could not legally detain the offender until the end of the sentence. The Solicitor General has already introduced amendments that make it easier for the National Parole Board to keep sex offenders who victimize children in a penitentiary until the end of their sentence.

This amendment removes the requirement to establish serious harm as a criterion for detention in these cases. This gives the board the authority to detain a sex offender if a further sex offence against a child is likely. I would like to add that the government has proposed to expand the list of offences for which an offender could be referred for detention until the end of the sentence.

This list includes criminal harassment, commonly known as stalking, conspiracy to commit serious drug offences and serious drinking and driving and criminal negligence offences which result in bodily harm or death.

These behaviours also put our citizens at risk, including our children. We all have a responsibility to protect our most vulnerable citizens, our children, from predators like paedophiles.

The National Parole Board must now detain offenders who it feels may cause death or serious harm before the end of their sentence. With the proposed amendments, if the victims are children, the board will not have to determine serious harm. It is assumed. This means that whenever the board finds that an offender might reoffend against a child, it must detain that offender.

The hon. member from the Reform Party oversteps the bounds of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. No administrative tribunal such as the National Parole Board would be granted such broad powers of post-sentence detention without due process nor would the courts countenance this.

No government would put into place a system it knows would be struck down by the courts, a system that is presently being proposed by the hon. member from the Reform Party who is promoting this private members' bill.

This government is certainly committed to strengthening Canada's criminal justice system to protect the public and most especially our children from dangerous offenders. Our government has acted in an increasing number of ways to bring about public safety, whether it be revisions to the Young Offenders' Act, whether it be much tougher action against criminals who utilize guns during the commission of a criminal offence and other progressive change which will greater ensure the protection of all our citizens.

[World Trade Organization Agreement Implementation Act, November 29th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, certainly the existence of interprovincial trade barriers is a very important issue that must be dealt with. As the hon. member will be aware, the Minister of Industry in conjunction with his provincial counterparts has already taken steps to reduce interprovincial trade barriers. This culminated in an agreement which was signed and agreed to some time last summer.

This is also something that has been very important to many other ministers in government, particularly the Minister of Human Resources Development who for many years has advocated much closer economic links among western provinces to reduce interprovincial barriers.

This will take a continued effort to ensure these barriers are removed in a sensible fashion. We have accomplished a lot already; it is a start. We must continue to ensure that the types of barriers which impede economic growth and negatively impact our international competitiveness are reduced to make companies all across this great country more competitive and more able to fight it out on the world scale. This will in turn have a great and positive economic impact all across the country.