Bill Siksay

[Tax Harmonization, December 7th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the HST is hugely unpopular in B.C., but that political problem should not be an excuse for the Conservatives to ram the HST through the House at all costs. They are denying British Columbians a chance to be heard. There will be no committee hearings, no public consultation, no debate, none in B.C. The Conservatives have become the distant, uncaring, tax-hiking government they used to rail against.

What is the hurry? Why are the Conservatives in such a mad rush to deny British Columbians a say on the HST?

[Points of Order, December 3rd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to raise a point of order with regard to the receivability of government Motion No. 8.

I believe the introduction of this motion at this time defies logic and challenges the ability of members to represent their constituents. Members are being asked to consider time allocation on a bill that has not yet been tabled in the House, a bill for which a ways and means motion has just been passed. This, in itself, puts members in a difficult position. We are asked to make a judgment on the requirement to limit time for debate when we have not even had the opportunity to review the bill, because it has not been tabled in the House.

I believe time allocation or closure must be considered in context. I would suggest there is no way of determining at this point that the government's ability to advance its program, which is the operative phrase, the key phrase in O'Brien and Bosc, has suffered any difficulty whatsoever.

There is no indication at this point that there is any reason to believe time allocation is required or necessary. Given that the bill has not been tabled, the ability of the government to move it through various stages has never even been tested. Perhaps an argument for time allocation could be justified if the bill had been tabled, if it had come up for debate and if it had somehow become bogged down in the process, but we are in no position to judge that at this point.

There is no evidence to show that such a bill would not proceed through the House within the usual parameters. There is no evidence therefore that the government's ability to advance its program has been impeded.

It is also difficult to justify to my constituents that such a massive suspension of the usual process for consideration of legislation is necessary. Without the bill being tabled in the House, it is impossible to know why this legislation will require such a significant change.

This is particularly important given that this is a tax measure. The government has told us in the motion that the bill it wants to limit debate on has to do with an amendment to the Excise Tax Act. Tax changes, increases to taxation are surely an issue, a subject which requires careful consideration. Surely our constituents deserve the due diligence of members on a new tax measure, perhaps especially on a new tax measure. Surely that due diligence requires the engagement of the usual process for the consideration of legislation in the House.

These time limitations will severely curtail the ability of Canadians to make their views on legislation known, through their MPs during the debate at various stages of the bill in the House and through their ability to participate in hearings on the bill during committee consideration.

In the development of our democratic traditions, we have often heard the rallying cry of “No taxation without representation”. Short-circuiting the usual process challenges the idea that citizens will have an opportunity to participate in the decision about an increase to the taxes they pay. It will also deny the usual opportunities to improvement of the legislation that regularly results from engaging in the legislative process.

I suspect my constituents would appreciate that such a suspension of the usual process might be justified in the case of an emergency, where speed was essential. I would suggest this is not the case today. The fact that the HST is hugely unpopular in British Columbia and Ontario might be a serious political consideration for the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party, but is not in any an emergency situation that merits abandoning the established and usual legislative process.

We should note that the government's own estimation is this measure would not come into effect until July, mid-2010, which gives ample time for engaging the usual process.

A motion such as this should only be in order if it can be demonstrated that the government has suffered some kind of setback in advancing its program or that there is some kind of emergency that requires such a suspension of the usual legislative process. There has been no setback to the government program because the bill has yet to be tabled. There is no emergency because even by the government's own timetable there is lots of time to engage the usual process.

I would urge you, Mr. Speaker, to find this motion out of order.

[Petitions, December 3rd, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to table a petition on behalf of Canadian Grandmothers for Africa, a national organization that has done great advocacy work regarding the situation of HIV-AIDS in Africa.

They are calling upon Parliament to immediately meet the long-term promise to contribute 0.7% of our gross national income for development assistance. They are also calling for strong Canadian support for the global fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. We know that Canada needs to strengthen its commitment there.

They are also calling for support for the kind of measure that this House passed last night to ensure that Canada's access to medicines regime facilitates a sustainable flow of lower cost generic drugs to developing countries.

[Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, December 2nd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to join the debate on Bill C-291, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (coming into force of sections 110, 111 and 171).

I want to thank the member for Jeanne-Le Ber for bringing forward this piece of legislation. It is similar to legislation that was brought forward in the last Parliament by the member for Laval, with the support of the member for Vaudreuil-Soulanges. It is something that I and the member for Trinity—Spadina, the NDP's citizenship and immigration critic, have strongly supported over many years.

The irony is that this is a bill that calls on Parliament and the government to implement legislation that is already in place. It is a bill to implement an act. Could anything be more ridiculous? Why should that be necessary in our system? It is absolutely ridiculous. It is absolutely unfortunate.

It is absolutely disrespectful of the current Conservative government and the previous Liberal government which refused to enact provisions of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, legislation that was fully debated in this chamber and in the other place back in 2001. It was passed by this chamber and the other place back in 2001. It has been largely implemented by governments in the meantime, except for the provisions in the sections I mentioned earlier. Those sections are the ones that pertain to the refugee appeal division.

There is a history behind the bill we are debating today and the failure by governments to implement the refugee appeal division. I want to go back to that debate that happened before the adoption of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, IRPA, back in 2001.

There was an extensive debate. a long debate about that legislation, because it is very important legislation to Canadians, to our place in the world, to what happens on the issues of immigration and refugee policy in Canada. That new legislation was very thoroughly debated.

Over the course of that debate, the government put forward a recommendation to reduce the IRB panels that hear refugee determination claims from two people to one person, and there was a lot of concern about that proposal. There was concern that a one-person panel that sits in judgment of these very important refugee claims could make mistakes. There was no one else to counter the decision and the process of decision that the one-person board would go through, and there was no appeal in the process as it was standing.

Over the course of the development and the debate on that legislation, a compromise was reached. Opposition members and government members agreed to go forward with the proposal that there be a one-person board if there was an appeal process implemented, and that was the refugee appeal division.

This compromise meant that a one-person board could go ahead. Hopefully that would make the process more efficient, but there would be a backup appeal, an appeal on the merits of the case where any errors that were made by that one-person board could be corrected. That was made part of the legislation in the sections that we are talking about in the bill today.

It is perfectly reasonable work, good work by parliamentarians to discuss the process thoroughly, and the benefits and the problems of that process, to reach a compromise and to suggest a new process that would be workable and that would protect people in that system. It would protect refugees from an arbitrary decision by a one-person board and give them a significant opportunity for an appeal on the merits of their case. That passed the House of Commons and the other place and it became law.

However, the Liberal government of the day and the current Conservative government have always refused to implement the sections regarding the refugee appeal division, so in fact we do not have that appeal. We have the one-person board, but we do not have the effective appeal of that decision.

If we ask anyone who has an association with the refugee determination process in Canada, he or she will tell us that it is very important. If we ask international observers of Canada's refugee process, they will tell us that appeal is an absolute necessity. Yet we still have not implemented it. It is in the law, but it has not been implemented. That is an absolutely despicable situation. It means that we have a bill, like the one we have today, which is legislation to call on the government to implement legislation that is already in place. It is an absolutely ridiculous situation.

Lest one thinks that the refugee appeal division is some cumbersome mechanism that will further delay the immigration process, which is what we often hear, it is not. It is a paper appeal. It is not one that would involve a lengthy court proceeding. It is a paper appeal of the merits of the case, an essential paper appeal, but a paper appeal.

Other people have said that it is too expensive and that the immigration and refugee system already takes up too much money. That is not the case either. I remember when I was on the standing committee in the 37th Parliament. The government at the time estimated that it would cost $8 million to set it up and $2 million a year to run the system. That is not a significant amount of money by any stretch of the imagination when one considers the importance of having a just and fair immigration and refugee system in Canada.

This was a very concise and precise appeal. It was not a costly appeal and yet governments have refused to move on it. As I say, it is a very simple and necessary step that could be taken tomorrow if there was the political will to ensure fairness in our system.

As I mentioned earlier, there are many organizations in Canada. The Canadian Council for Refugees, which is the coalition of almost every refugee and immigrant serving group in Canada, has strongly supported the implementation of the refugee appeal division, the RAD, and they have been strong supporters of Bill C-291. They know and appreciate the value of this kind of appeal to people who have made refugee claims in Canada. They know it is a measure of fairness to the system, where there is only one person sitting in judgment of the life and death situation of a refugee claimant in Canada. They also point out that international organizations have criticized Canada for not having this kind of appeal in our refugee system.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has said:

Given that even the best decision-makers may err in passing judgment, and given the potential risk to life which may result from such an error, an appeal on the merits of a negative determination constitutes a necessary element of international protection.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees wrote to the Canadian government to express its concern about non-implementation of the refugee appeal division. It considers an appeal procedure to be a fundamental, necessary part of any refugee status determination process.

The UN Committee Against Torture, hearing a complaint from a rejected refugee claimant, found that the Canadian refugee determination system had been unable to correct a wrong decision in his case. What an outrageous condemnation of our system, that a refugee claimant could not correct an error in his case that went against him and the United Nations Committee Against Torture had to point that out to the Canadian government.

In fact, despite our incredible record on refugee matters and despite the fact that we won the Nansen medal from the United Nations in the 1980s for our refugee policies, there is this huge gap in our refugee process. It is a gap that our law anticipates but that our governments refuse to correct. That is an absolutely outrageous situation. In fact, Canada is one of the few countries in the world that fails to give refugee claimants an appeal on the merits of their case. We need to change that immediately.

This is not rocket science. This is not a huge process. This is the result of good work and political compromise here in the House of Commons. All the parties who were looking at the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act came together and decided on a direction we could take that accomplishes the goals of everybody in this place.

What has happened? The previous Liberal government and the current Conservative government have turned their backs on that process. They have shown disrespect to Parliament and to the many committees that debated this legislation at other times by not moving to implement these provisions which already exist in the immigration and refugee protection law.

It is about time we got on with this. Needless to say, New Democrats will strongly be supporting this legislation. We believe it is high time that this measure of fairness was implemented in Canada. Refugees who make a claim here in Canada deserve an appeal on a negative decision on the merits of their case.

The refugee appeal division provides that appeal. It should be implemented tomorrow. We should not have to wait for this bill to proceed all the way through the House and the other place to have that measure of fairness in our immigration and refugee determination law.

[Business of Supply, December 1st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, it seems like a clear case of shooting the messenger, the only person who was trying to do the appropriate thing and trying to do his job appropriately in these very difficult circumstances.

It always seems to me like the full implications of being in a combat role and being in war in a combat role have eluded our governments. One of the clear examples of that has been the fact that there has not been clear policy from the very beginning about what to do with prisoners taken by the Canadian Forces.

It seems very clear that from the very beginning there has been nothing but confusion on that point. I would say that this is one place where our government has failed us. It has failed to make sure that the appropriate policies were in place. We need the inquiry.

[Business of Supply, December 1st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, it is very disconcerting to hear that there was no process in place for following up on those complaints. We heard that from the generals in their statements that nobody was doing that work and that nobody had the mandate to do that work. The one person who has come forward to say that he was trying to do that work was ignored and, worse than that, is slagged by government members every time he tries to bring this to our attention. I think it is really inappropriate.

Beyond that, it is very important to listen to what other human rights workers, the people who do that kind of work, have said. One of them is Joanne Mariner from Human Rights Watch who puts into question the whole value of the paper agreements that are in place. She stated:

We have seen in other contexts, like Maher Arar's rendition to Syria, that these paper guarantees do nothing to protect prisoners against torture and ill-treatment. Too often they just serve as a fig leaf, to give the appearance of trying to prevent abuse.

There is somebody who follows this issue, who is well-respected, who is known around the world for this work and talks about the agreements only giving a fig leaf of respectability to the abuse and the torture that goes on in Afghan prisons.

I think we absolutely need a public inquiry.

[Business of Supply, December 1st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in the debate this afternoon. I want you to know that I am sharing my time with the member for Hamilton Mountain.

This afternoon we are debating an NDP opposition day motion and I going to read it again because it has been a while probably since we have heard it. The motion was moved by the member for Ottawa Centre and it states:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should, in accordance with Part I of the Inquiries Act, call a Public Inquiry into the transfer of detainees in Canadian custody to Afghan authorities from 2001 to 2009.

It is a very important motion and I am glad we have the opportunity to focus on it this afternoon, given not only the concerns that have been raised in recent weeks, but over many years, on the issue of the transfer of detainees during the war in Afghanistan.

As my starting point, I want to be very clear that I oppose Canada's participation in the war in Afghanistan. I firmly believe and am firmly convinced that this is the wrong mission for Canada. If there were some way of bringing the troops home immediately, I would support that endeavour. I look forward to when Canada's troops do come home from Afghanistan in February 2011.

The conduct of war is a very serious issue, and everyone in the House would agree with that. It is essentially what we are discussing today, one aspect of the conduct of the war in Afghanistan. I am very disappointed and often angered by the approach of the Conservative government, that its members would slag honourable public servants who are doing their jobs, like Mr. Colvin, who remain dedicated public servants in senior positions, in intelligence positions in the Canadian Embassy in Washington. I am disappointed that they would slag someone like him who has served our country admirably and that they would insult opposition MPs who ask serious and important questions.

The record of the Minister of National Defence is particular abysmal in that regard. It seems he cannot respond to a question without somehow insulting the person who has put the question in the House. The other is to suggest that Canadian public servants and opposition MPs who raise questions about the matter of the transfer of detainees in Afghanistan are somehow dupes of the Taliban. That is particularly objectionable.

I believe the government is hiding behind the false notion that to raise questions about the conduct of the war in Afghanistan is to somehow not support the men and women of the Canadian armed forces. It is exactly the opposite. It is our job to ensure that they are in this war in exactly the appropriate circumstances. We hold their political masters, the government, accountable for its actions in sending the Canadian armed forces into that theatre of battle, into that war. The motion is about that. The attempts of the standing committee in recent weeks have been about that.

It is hugely disrespectful to parliamentarians and to the Canadian public to characterize the questioning and the attempt to hold the government accountable for its decisions on the war in Afghanistan in the light. I would hope Conservatives change course on that immediately.

The fact we have been unable to use the mechanisms of Parliament so far to hold the government accountable on the question of the transfer of detainees is exactly why we need a public inquiry. We have to ask this question. How does the House and how do MPs do the job of accountability, particularly when the government refuses to release the appropriate documents that would allow people to have the information they need to make appropriate decisions on these issues? If those documents are not provided, it is impossible for members of Parliament to do the job. Again, that is why we need to go to a full public inquiry.

The issue of the detention of detainees and the transfer of them has been raised by New Democrat members of the House for many years. I participated in a take note debate in the House in November 2005 in which we discussed Canada's participation in the war in Afghanistan. The matter of the transfer of detainees was raised at that time. In other circumstances I have also tried to get information about the transfer of detainees. I even put a question on the order paper in the House in June 2006. I tried to get information on exactly what was being done in terms of transfers.

I want to read the question I asked and the answer that was given on June 7:

With regard to the Canadian armed forces presence in Afghanistan: (a) how many persons taken prisoner or detained by the Canadian armed forces in Afghanistan have been turned over to (i) Afghani officials, (ii) American officials, (iii) officials of other countries or organizations; and (b) how many of these persons remain in custody?

The answer I received from the minister of national defence at that time was:

Mr. Speaker, due to operational requirements and taking into account section 15(1) of the Access to Information Act, information regarding the current status of detainees apprehended by Canadian Forces elements in Afghanistan, as well as to which authorities these individuals were transferred, is not releasable to the public.

I was stonewalled back at that time in getting any information about the transfer of prisoners.

I note that just last week the Globe and Mail seemed to get information about prisoner detainees and reported that in the first 14 months of combat operations in Kandahar province, 130 prisoners were turned over to Afghan authorities. That was according to a government source. There is again an inconsistent policy about what information can be provided to parliamentarians who are trying to make appropriate decisions about this issue with regard to the war in Afghanistan.

Back in that debate in November 2005, which I mentioned earlier, the NDP defence critic at that time, the hon. Bill Blaikie, also raised the issue of the transfer of detainees. Members may remember that the context was slightly different at that time. The context was a concern that Canada's JTF2 was turning over prisoners taken to the United States. At that time there were very serious questions about the United States' record on prisoner detention coming out of its operations in Iraq but also in Afghanistan.

Mr. Blaikie raised those issues with the minister of defence at the time. He also raised the issue of Canada abiding by the convention on torture, particularly article 3 of that convention, which states:

No State Party shall expel, return...or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.

Mr. Blaikie raised that in connection with the concerns that we had back in 2005 with regard to the transfer of Afghan prisoners taken by the Canadian armed forces. Mr. Blaikie also then quoted Professor Michael Byers of the University of British Columbia on the issue of turning over detained prisoners to the Americans and the American involvement in torture.

Dialogue was happening in Canada and in our Parliament at that time about the transfer of detainees to American and Afghan authorities.

We have raised over a long period of time our concerns about the limitations of the transfer agreements that Canada had in place and the fact that they did not seem to meet Canadian values or the standards of similar agreements negotiated by other countries.

In that regard, the work of the most recent NDP critic for defence, Dawn Black, was also very important. On her first day in the House as NDP defence critic, after she was elected to the House in the 2006 election, her first question in question period was about Canadian values and how they were exhibited in Canada's policy of turning over detained prisoners to the Afghans.

We need to remember that in that period Ms. Black was often up in the House asking questions about Canadian prisoners, including what measures were in place to ensure they were not being tortured. The minister of defence of the day, time and time again, said that the Red Cross was in charge of doing that and, eventually, after the Red Cross reported that it was not mandated to report on that, he had to withdraw that statement.

We know from sources, like the U.S. state department and the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, that torture is practised in Afghan prisons. The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has said that 98.5% of prisoners held in Afghanistan are subject to torture. We cannot believe that the 1.5% who have not experienced that are the ones that Canada has turned over to Afghan authorities.

We know that groups, like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have made very strong statements about the need for a public inquiry given the unanswered questions and given the impossibility of getting the correct information that has not been completely redacted and has been rendered almost useless as a result.

We know the importance of having this public inquiry. It is so Canadians can have the details and parliamentarians can have the details to make appropriate decisions about the war in Afghanistan.

[Electronic Commerce Protection Act, November 30th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-27 is the spam bill. We are thankful that it is finally back in the House because the NDP industry critic, the member for Windsor West, indicated that he despaired that it was ever coming back here. We know how important it is.

Should the bill pass here in the House, which it seems likely to soon, get through the Senate and become law, what is then required? I know my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona asked another member earlier about the kind of advertising program that is necessary to ensure that the public are aware of this legislation and how it would affect them, but also how businesses would be aware of the legislation and the effect that it would have on their business and the way they did business.

I know he was just asking a question about how this would affect real estate agents, for instance, who go back to their former client list and try to use it again as they pursue business. I wonder if he can comment on that aspect of what is necessary concerning this legislation.

[Electronic Commerce Protection Act, November 30th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, toward the end of my colleague's speech in this debate on Bill C-27 he was getting to the whole discussion of how spam is used in crime. That is a very important piece of what we need to be addressing with legislation.

We have all experienced the concerns and panics about computer viruses. We have heard the words Trojan horses and other malicious attempts to interfere with people's computers and corporate computers. We know it is sometimes directed toward identify theft and other types of fraud. There are other issues that come up. The member was talking about zombie computers, where off-site computers can try to take over other people's computers, and the whole question of phishing.

I wonder if the member might address a little more about how the bill tries to take on the whole issue of how spam connects with criminal activity.

[Petitions, November 30th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table a petition signed by many people from British Columbia, particularly coastal British Columbia. These folks call upon the government to establish an independent judicial inquiry into the collapse of the sockeye salmon run on the Fraser River. They call for a report and binding recommendations within six months, recognizing the seriousness of this issue. I am sure that while they are relieved the government has announced an inquiry, they remain concerned about the lengthy timeline for that inquiry to report and for action on the recommendations.