Adam Vaughan

[Criminal Code, December 11th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I have been sitting here listening to the description of omnibus bills and I must say that when I was on city council and we heard that the Conservative government of Stephen Harper was passing an omnibus bill, we were thrilled. We thought it was a transit plan. We were wrong. It was not a transit plan.

The comparison of that particular bill to this one is remarkable. This legislation would amend the Criminal Code. It is all contained within one single ministry. I will talk about the changes a bit later.

By comparison, Bill C-43, was close to 600 pages long. This will perhaps help some members of the New Democratic Party to remember what a real omnibus bill looks like, especially if they are new to the legislature.

Let me read some of the acts that were changed by Bill C-43: the Income Tax Act, the child fitness tax credit, the Income Tax Regulations, and the Excise Tax Act. A selected list of financial institutions was impacted as was the Excise Act, 2001.

There was intellectual property, the Industrial Design Act, and the amendments to the act and exclusive right. There was also the Patent Act and the biological materials. There was also the Aeronautics Act, the Canadian High Arctic Research Station Act and the enactment of act for that. As well, there were transitional provisions, consequential amendments, and the Access to Information Act.

To continue, there was the Financial Administration Act; the Privacy Act; the Public Service Superannuation Act; the Criminal Code, which is what we are dealing with here today, one single act. As well, there was the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act; the Radiocommunication Act; administrative monetary penalties; the Revolving Funds Act, with an amendment to that as well.

Under the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration there was another set of acts and that is when the government went to court and pulled this out because the Supreme Court overruled some of the government's changes to the Criminal Code nine times. The government pulled medical assistance and health care for refugees, one of the cruellest acts of Parliament in the history of this country. That was buried in the middle of Bill C-43.

I am not even halfway through the list of acts that were amended by Bill C-43.

The Royal Canadian Mint Act was impacted by the omnibus bill. There was the Investment Canada Act with amendments as well. There were also related amendments to the economic action plan. The Broadcasting Act was hit, as was the Telecommunications Act. There was the amendment to the general administrative monetary penalties. There were also provisions for both administrative monetary penalties schemes and coordinating amendments. The list goes on.

The Northwest Territories Act was impacted. The Employment Insurance Act was touched. The government even opened up the Canada-Chile free trade agreement. There was the Canada Marine Act, where marine ports were given legislative powers and planning powers that superceded municipalities. Nobody was consulted on that. Members were not even consulted on the Canada Marine Act. That was one of the most egregious things that the Conservative government did.

That government gave power to the port authorities to basically override and ignore local planning authorities, local decisions, and local plans made on any property that it acquired. In other words, the government could rezone property retroactively after it purchased it, which meant it could buy low-income property, property with low purchase prices, and then suddenly turn it into something much more valuable, like residential property, in order to turn a profit so it could then fund its programs. The government could not actually fund its programs based on the way the Canada Marine Act was configured. This drove cities across the country insane because it was so ill-conceived. It ran so roughshod over local planning and local real estate laws. It was amazing. At the end, the government had to pull many of those provisions off the table because it was such an egregious piece of legislation.

There were also changes to the DNA Identification Act. There were amendments to the act and establishment and contents. There was the comparison of profiles and communication. There was also the removal of access to information that was changed. The list goes on.

There was the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act. There was also the Public Health Agency. The Conservative government split the position of the chief of the Public Health Agency of this country into two, one who reported to cabinet and one who reported directly to the government.

Bill C-43 was a budget bill by the way. All of the acts they changed were administrative changes made to important parts of the department. The Conservatives also reduced the fees for bee breeding, one of my favourites.

They also increased tax on hospital parking. They thought if someone was going to visit his or her mother in hospital and they could find a way to tax that visit, they would do that. That was part of the omnibus bill.

What we said in our campaign promise was explicit. We said that budget bills would remain budget bills. Much of what the NDP complains about when they talk about omnibus bills is our budget enactment bills, which are omnibus bills by their very nature. They are exactly the kind we promised to sustain.

Budgets are not done one clause at a time. When fundamental policies across the breadth of government are changed, it is a coordinated budget, a coordinated piece of legislation, and we exempted that from our prohibition on omnibus acts. The legislation we introduced to prevent omnibus acts, which the opposition has used effectively in this term of Parliament, excludes budget acts for the very reason that a budget has to be passed all at once, otherwise we end up with a thousand votes and a thousand clauses.

I wait to see an NDP government in B.C. pass the budget clause-by-clause. It will take it six years to do that, and my sense after today's decision on the dam is that it may not have six years.

The issue we are talking about here today is reforms to the Criminal Code. The reforms are extraordinarily important. There are some elements of the code that are nuisance laws. There is a law prohibiting crime comics in our country. That would be taken away. There are rules and regulations that have existed and been on the books for a number of years that just do not make sense anymore. Those would be cleaned up as part of this process.

However, we are also bringing forth some critically important changes to the way sexual assault is prosecuted in the courts. We are taking steps to protect women and other vulnerable individuals who are sexually assaulted. Those deal with a comprehensive set of rules and regulations that tie together evidence laws and some of the practices and procedures in the court system. They need to be brought together in a bill because that is the way it is done. If we are going to make comprehensive change, we have to unite the issues and items that are related under a single ministry, or statute, or a single set of laws, like the Criminal Code, and make those changes as part of a comprehensive process. That is what is happening. This is not an omnibus bill. These are amendments to the Criminal Code. This is a legal bill coming from the Minister of Justice, and it is an appropriate set of bills.

The last thing I want to talk about is the changes to be made. I was a member of Parliament in the last session and watched as committees refused to entertain any conversation with anyone. That included not only the opposition but the witnesses. There were a number of times when Conservative members would come and tell me there was a mistake made in the drafting of legislation. I remember one instance dealing pharmacare and pharmacy regulations. Every single witness, the doctors, the hospitals, the patients' rights groups, the medical officials, and the science community, came forward and said “You made a small mistake here”. One of the opposition members said, “I know we've made that mistake, but we're not allowed to fix it. The Senate has said it will entertain no motions of change, at all, ever”. In fact, we would be hard pressed to find an amendment that was made to any bill that was printed for any committee over the last four years.

What we have in this process is a piece of legislation that was drafted. Through the committee process, with good evidence from Canadians coming forward, and our listening to that evidence, and members of the opposition and members of the government talking about how to make a bill better, which is in fact the committee process, rules were changed and the law was changed. That is as it should be. The notion that we can land a piece of legislation perfectly and never make a change to it ever again is absurd. It is the wrong way to approach Parliament. It is the wrong way to approach committees.

It does not mean that every opposition motion or amendment will be passed. That is wishful thinking, quite frankly. What it does mean is that when a good suggestion comes forward, the committee should seize that issue and the points raised and modify laws. That is the way a good committee process works. That is the way a good Parliament works, and we are being told we are weak or made a mistake because we did that.

The previous government was arrogant. We saw time and again the Harper government land legislation that it deemed to be perfect and not to be debated in the House, let alone changed at committee level and listened to by Canadians. Even the Senate, where they had a majority, would not entertain motions of change. The legislation was paralyzed from point of introduction to point of enactment. That is not good democracy. That is not good government, and that certainly is not a good parliamentary process.

Yes, a motion was changed. I expect good debate to change motions and to make them better, because as the Prime Minister often says, “better is always possible”. The opposite side often has good ideas. I have sat with them in conversation about a number of different projects and proposals, and asked them to get us to a better spot, because as I said, that is the way good legislation emerges.

We are here to listen and to talk. We are here to debate. We are also here to have conversations, and when those conversations result in reasonable propositions coming forward that fix legislation and make it better, our government, as a good government, is always going to be there to listen to Canadians, parliamentarians, and caucus. It will listen to differing views on all sides of the issues. I am proud to be part of a government that does that.

I am also proud to be part of a government that has put procedural mechanisms in place for House so that when a complex bill moves forward and the Speaker is asked to rule on whether or not it is an omnibus bill, there is a methodology, a process, that will allow that bill to be split so that members can vote differently on different parts of the legislation. That is not a bad thing, but a good thing. It does not mean that every one of the bills we present will be perfect. We are not expecting perfection on any side of the House. What we are looking for is honest effort, good contributions, solid thinking, wise Canadians being brought to Parliament to participate in the committee process so that all Canadians when they see legislation passed can see their voice reflected.

I want to remind the House about the omnibus legislation the opposition talks about. It is ludicrous to suggest that a budget cannot be passed unless there is clause by clause. Budgets are complete sets of expenditures, programs, and development. That is how they will be presented. The opposition can hue and cry about it all it wants, but it is wrong.

It is wrong on this legislation. It is wrong to characterize the other complex bills as omnibus simply because several ideas under a single ministry are brought together as a comprehensive set of reforms. That kind of complaint is really just wrong. A former New Democrat in Toronto used to talk about it and said that when the opposition complained about the process, it had conceded the argument. All it is trying to do now is just dumb us up with a conversation about process. We have seen that happen a couple of times in the House this session.

When legislation is brought forward that gives the opposition the right to challenge it as omnibus, it can avail itself of that process. Why is the opposition not doing it on this bill? It is because on this bill the opposition happens to understand why the bill is being brought into concert. It understands the process it went through as it went through the committee. We can actually hear the opposition members say that they effectively support the bill.

What are the opposition members talking about when they complain about the bill. They are complaining about something that was taken out already. In other words, they are complaining about being listened to. If the opposition members are going to be complaining about being listened to, how else are we going to engage with them, if they are not going to talk to us anymore? How else can we engage with them? When we listen to them, it is a good thing. They should be thanking us for it. Instead what the opposition members are trying to do is knock us down because of it. That is absurd.

This legislation, which is on its last few hours of debate, is an incredibly important for the reform of the way sexual assault is treated in the legal system. It also gets rid of a bunch of laws that really should not be on the books anymore. Every now and then governments need to do that as part of the Criminal Code reform.

At the end of the day, the legislation will be supported by the bulk of the members in the House, based on the speeches I have heard today, because government in fact did work with consensus, did work with the committee, and did work with the committee chair to make the changes that needed to made. For that, I am happy.

However, if the opposition members would like to go back to debating omnibus bill, I have Bill C-43 in front of me. I also have the other omnibus bills the Conservatives passed. If the members want disconnected pieces of legislation that go off in all directions at once, with sound and fury signifying, unfortunately, too much and too little, members can refer back to the previous Parliament. Then we can talk about real omnibus legislation. Real changes to fundamental policies that affected Canadians were slipped in, not mentioned in the budget speech, not printed in the budget book, not brought together as a cohesive or coherent economic argument, but simply added to a budget bill, and then made into a mandatory vote with no changes being proposed at committee.

That is what an omnibus bill is. This is not an omnibus bill under any definition of the word.

[Criminal Code, December 11th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member describe this as an omnibus bill. I am curious as to how he comes to the definition. Every measure in the bill relates to one specific ministry. It is not like Bill C-43, that sort of scattershot legislation across every ministry, things as unrelated as land rights issues connected to ports, the cost of certain taxes going up, as well as a whole series of measures that had nothing to do with it. In fact, they were not even announced in the budget. They were slipped in the back door through what everybody called an omnibus bill.

When we look up the legal definition and the parliamentary tradition of what gets constituted as an omnibus bill, and the member is free to challenge it to Chair to get it split, the reality is that this bill is completely unified insofar as it reforms the Criminal Code around evidence, sentencing, and obsolete laws that do not need to be on the book. I am sure the member opposite does not worry about crime comics causing a problem in his riding.

Under what definition does this constitute an omnibus bill when every measure is introduced by a single minister, has to do with the Criminal Code, and is related to the reform and updating of the Criminal Code system, in particular for the protection of individuals who are sexually assaulted? This is good progressive legislation. Further, the committee that passed it did not worry about it being an omnibus bill. In fact, the committee passed it unanimously, and the member's party is supporting it.

[Child Poverty, December 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the child poverty rate in Toronto is among the highest in the country. To put this in perspective, there are more poor kids living in my city than constituents in any MP's riding. Tonight, half the people who will go to sleep in a Toronto emergency shelter will be children. This number does not include youth in care or young offenders in custody because, effectively, those people are also homeless.

We have delivered our country's first-ever national housing strategy. It will be the largest and longest investment in housing in this country's history. However, we cannot end homelessness if we do not focus on young people and tackle youth homelessness. We must and we will.

Indigenous youth, racialized youngsters, queer kids, foster kids, and young adults with disabilities are strong and resilient. However, our systems are breaking these children and projecting them into homelessness and onto the streets.

I ask all of Parliament, and Canadians everywhere, to build a better future for these children by building housing now. Let us give them a safe and secure place to call home. It starts with housing. It has to happen sooner than later.

[Poverty, December 7th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the strategy is emerging even before it has a formal title or has been introduced as a formal policy. That is because our commitment on housing, on seniors, on children, and on indigenous transformation of social circumstance is already invested. In fact, we doubled the housing budget in the very first year we were in office. Now we are adding $40 billion over the next 10 years.

We have rejected some of the simplistic slogans that have been presented by other parties. A right to housing means nothing without a housing system to access. Getting a house in Chicoutimi means nothing if someone is trying to work and live in Victoriaville. We have ensured we frame our policies with any human rights framework and we ensure we can deliver real housing to real people in real time. That is the goal of many of our programs.

As I said, we have been criss-crossing the country, sitting down with front-line workers, people with lived experiences, organizations, municipalities, and provincial services. We have been talking to those people who we need to talk to in order to deliver this policy.

One of the things we missed was because of the previous government's refusal to do an in-depth census. The real data we needed to transform the definition and action and motivate real accomplishment just has not been there. The previous government did not even care about the poor. It did not count them. We have had to go back and do that work. We are doing that work.

In the interim, billions of dollars have been invested in alleviating poverty. I am proud of this government's achievement on that. I am proud to say that the poverty strategy will be on its way shortly.

[Poverty, December 7th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her question.

This issue is a priority for our government, and it is very important for the country. The NDP's anti-poverty policies are very important. I thank the member for asking this question this evening.

More than three million Canadians live in poverty, and this is completely and totally unacceptable. That is why our government is focused on eliminating poverty in all its forms.

However, poverty is very complex. It impacts people differently depending on which region of the country they live in and based on their gender. Racialized people and, in particular, the racism faced by the black community is a fundamental problem and challenge the country has to face. The issues are not just economic; they are human rights issues that must be challenged. We have put programs in place to do just that.

Let me talk about some of the ways we are working toward a national poverty reduction strategy.

One is by talking about the programs we have put in place now, not waiting for them to be introduced formally. First and foremost, I will talk about the issue closest to my heart.

That issue is the national housing strategy. It is important for ending poverty, particularly for the homeless people living on the streets of Canada.

The national housing strategy is perhaps one of the most important things we are doing. It is a new program. It is $40 billion over 10 years, the longest and largest investment in supportive housing, public housing, social housing, and affordable housing for those in the private market. This program alone will have a dramatic impact. Close to half a million Canadians will be lifted out of core housing needs and that will put them on a path to solving some of the challenges poverty brings to their lives. However, we have not stopped there.

We have consulted straight across the country.

We travelled all over Canada, talking to academics, researchers, stakeholders, service providers, indigenous partners, and people who have lived in poverty.

This government has been consulting, talking, listening, and supporting round tables across the country to get the best advice it can from people on the front lines, the researchers, the universities, and listening to indigenous peoples and organizations as we formulate a policy.

In the interim, it was not just the national housing strategy that saw us take action. We have also taken deliberate action around child poverty. I would argue, and I think the facts present themselves, that the Canada child benefit, which has lifted 300,000 children out of poverty in the first two years of this government and has recently been indexed by this government, is a commitment we have made to solve and resolve poverty as it impacts some of the most vulnerable people in our country, children.

We have also addressed the issue of seniors. There are 900,000 vulnerable seniors living this experience across the country and our improvements to GIS has lifted 13,000 seniors out of poverty, the bulk of them, 90%, women. This is part of our gender-based approach to modelling our programs so we do not just talk about poverty in general but target specific individuals, demographics, and sub-populations that require our help.

Additionally, we have invested $7.5 billion in day care and early learning child care. These, again, are investments, partnering with the provinces, that will deliver significant change to people's lives that are defined by poverty. Sometimes the lack of child care is equivalent to not getting a job. Again, building stronger capacity in people's lives is part of the way we do this.

When we add this all up, when we add the new housing with the new child care support, with the new child benefit, with the new guaranteed income supplement, the measures we have made to cut taxes, and the additional steps we will see in the budget in the year ahead, we do not see a government that is waiting for a national strategy to address poverty. We are seeing a government that is acting now to alleviate the pressure and dynamics in far too many people's lives.

This government is committed to eliminating poverty and coordinating it through a national poverty reduction strategy. This government is already taking action of which we are very proud. This has helped Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

[Committees of the House, November 30th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member opposite. That was informative, it was precise, and it highlighted the challenges we face in our country with an immigration system that has been fixed with layer upon layer of revisions, as opposed to a comprehensive reset.

I think all of us as MPs know that when one single department generates 75% to 80% of our work, depending on our ridings, there is something wrong. The front-line workers in this department, quite frankly, are the constituency assistants who staff our constituency offices. There is a challenge here.

I would like to thank the member opposite for, in particular, highlighting the way in which some arrivals in our country are exploited by a private sector group of individuals who, quite frankly, do not have at heart the best interests of our country, let alone their clients, let alone the reputation of the immigration system.

I would like to get some direction. Beyond the recommendations from the parliamentary committee she highlighted, there are other components of the immigration process that also see this insertion of the private sector into what should be a totally public sector process to enrol new arrivals to Canada into citizenship and into working in our country. In terms of the temporary foreign worker program and the way we bring people in, I would like to hear her thoughts on not only how we make that system fairer, more efficient, and more transparent but also on what her recommendations might be around the path to citizenship and what that should look like as we move forward. It is not just landing people in the country that matters; it is also making sure that their future in the country is a positive one.

[Ethics, November 27th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the targets are moving because they are growing and because our impact is getting stronger. As the economy grows, we can invest more.

I will ask a question related to the comment the NDP made. New Democrats seem to suggest that a $40-billion investment was not as significant as the $2 billion they promised. From this perspective, when we measure the emphasis we put on Canadian infrastructure, it is $180 billion, as opposed to the paltry sums offered by the Tories and the meek approach to housing. As I said on Friday, the meek did not inherit the world in this case; they got third-party status as a booby prize.

The issue is this. The Asian infrastructure bank does not just build pipelines that take oil from Asia to other markets; it also takes Canadian oil to Asian markets. Pipelines flow in two different directions.

[Ethics, November 27th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the concerns. Any time investments are made, there are concerns about the rate of return. The infrastructure bank investment into Asia talks about a return to Canadian taxpayers. However, the real opportunity, as it has been understood by folks on this side of the House, is that a lot of Canadian companies have expertise in the delivery of large infrastructure programs, especially in the construction management field, as well as with architects and engineering firms.

One of the things that is presented as an opportunity already within the riding I represent is that people with foreign credentials, people who were perhaps born overseas, or have studied overseas, have come back to Canada, and whose credentials are not recognized, can find employment with engineering, construction, and architectural firms. As these firms gear up for the infrastructure investments on the table in that part of world, people with foreign credentials are now seen as an advantage to have inside their firms because of the work they can do overseas.

If local Canadians, who have been hard to employ in their professions, would get work out of this, would the NDP have an eye to support it? There is an extraordinary opportunity now present to immigrants and refugees who arrive here with credentials that quite often are not recognized. They would now have an opportunity to participate in a very high level way and do so in a way that actually would return an investment to Canadian taxpayers.

[Employment Insurance, November 24th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

I know that things can be difficult for seasonal workers.

Our government is committed to addressing this issue. We are in consultation right now with employers, with workers, with municipalities, and with jurisdictions that have coverage of the issue. We are consulting to make sure that a comprehensive response is possible.

Seasonal workers, and those who face difficulties, even as we create 500,000 jobs and face regional challenges, are front of mind of the government, and in particular the minister, who is addressing the issue with his counterparts in the province.

[Housing, November 24th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I can attest to witnessing first-hand the actions of the member from Mississauga—Lakeshore and his commitment to seniors and seniors housing. I attended a massive town hall with him as part of the consultations that led to the rollout of the national housing strategy.

Part of the strategy that spoke most strongly to the issue he has raised around seniors is the new Canada housing benefit. It will allow us to help seniors age in place, target them in particular for support, and make sure that their lives are conducted with dignity. It also builds on the CPP and GIS reforms that we have put in place. Seniors matter, housing matters, and that member's work on this has been absolutely fantastic.