Bill Siksay

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, September 14th, 2009]

With respect to the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) for the last five years: (a) how many security incidents, by airport, were reported on a monthly basis; (b) what kind of security incidents were so reported; (c) how many incidents were serious enough to involve the police; (d) how many involved arrests; (e) how many weapons were confiscated by airport screeners, by airport, on a monthly basis; (f) what weapons were confiscated; (g) how many breaches of security perimeters under CATSA’s jurisdiction occurred, by airport, on a monthly basis; (h) which private security firms has CATSA engaged to provide screening services at airports; (i) what is the value and duration of each contract; (j) which contracts were awarded without a competitive tender, and why; (k) how many employees of private security firms have been charged in relation to security incidents; and (l) on what day and in what location did the incidents occur?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, September 14th, 2009]

What is the total amount of government funding, since fiscal year 2004-2005 up to and including the current fiscal year, allocated within the constituency of Burnaby—Douglas, listing each department or agency, initiative, and amount?

[June 18th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, the folks in the neighbourhood want to express their appreciation to the emergency responders who responded on July 24, 2007. There was an emergency plan and it did seem to work well.

I also want to thank the current Minister of Transport, then minister of the environment, for his personal intervention and availability to deal with this crisis. He also visited the site of the accident, which was greatly appreciated by people in the neighbourhood.

However, continuing concerns exist about the functioning of KMC and its ability to safely operate its pipeline. This is the third incident faced by people in my riding related to Kinder Morgan.

There was a clear cutting of a pipeline right-of-way through the Forest Grove neighbourhood, where it became clear that Kinder Morgan did not know the location of the pipeline. There was the pipeline incident on July 24, 2007, which we have been discussing. More recent, on May 7, there was a major oil leak at the Kinder Morgan tank farm on Burnaby Mountain, where over 200 cubic metres of oil escaped and was contained by the berms.

There are ongoing concerns. We want to ensure that the regulations meet the expectations of public safety, especially when pipelines cross residential areas.

[June 18th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to follow up on a question I posed in the House on March 30 regarding the report of the Transportation Safety Board into a crude oil pipeline accident that occurred in North Burnaby in July 2007.

On July 24, 2007, an excavator being used in a construction project excavating a trench for a new storm sewer line along Inlet Drive punctured the Kinder Morgan Canada TransMountain pipeline. This puncture sent a geyser of oil spraying over many homes, yards and streets, severely damaging 11 houses. Oil eventually drained into Burrard Inlet, fouling the shorelines. Kinder Morgan reported that 234 cubic metres of crude oil was released.

The Transportation Safety Board, TSB, released its report into this incident in March of this year. It is clear from the TSB report that confusion existed about the exact location of the pipeline in the area of the construction project. Design drawings and maps of the pipeline in the area date from the 1950s when the pipeline was originally constructed, and no longer accurately indicate the exact location of the pipeline.

This is a serious problem. Up-to-date and accurate design drawings must be held by pipeline companies, and resurveys of the exact pipeline location must be required on a regular schedule. This is particularly important in urban areas like North Burnaby and in environmentally sensitive areas. A full resurvey of the pipeline in our community must be required.

The Transportation Safety Board also indicated that the pipeline was scraped by the excavator bucket five times before it was actually punctured. It is hard to imagine how contact between the construction equipment and the pipeline could have occurred even once without work on the project immediately stopping.

In light of this, stricter regulations are required to ensure direct and full-time supervision by the pipeline company of any work near a pipeline. As well, better training for construction workers and contractors, and clear and unequivocal guidelines for contractors doing work in the vicinity of a pipeline must be developed. There must be an explicit requirement to stop work immediately when contact is made with a pipeline.

The TSB also noted that communication within the pipeline company, and between the company and the construction contractor was inadequate. Given this, the regulations must address this failure with explicit requirements to develop a project work plan, determine and maintain an accurate construction schedule, and name full-time supervisors to the project responsible for ensuring pipeline safety and integrity. This supervision should not be left to the pipeline and construction companies alone. There must be government safety inspectors from an appropriate department or agency.

As well, standard emergency shutdown procedures must be fully integrated into the operations of pipeline companies, perhaps with requirements for better training and regular accident simulation drills and exercises.

The city of Burnaby has also called for improvements to the National Energy Board pipeline crossing regulations and the proposed NEB damage prevention regulations in light of our community's experience with this pipeline accident.

The city has stressed that companies must be required to maintain accurate pipeline records, implement high standards to assess pipeline conditions, conduct public safety awareness campaigns, report publicly and annually on pipeline inspection and maintenance, undertake regular emergency readiness exercises, and develop local public information programs.

No family, no neighbourhood, and no community should have to deal with an oil pipeline accident of the magnitude experienced in North Burnaby in July 2007. The government, the National Energy Board, and other agencies must take action to ensure that every possible step is taken to ensure safety and to prevent this kind of accident.

Is the government prepared to act on the TSB report, and the concerns of residents and the city of Burnaby?

[Serious Time for the Most Serious Crime Act, June 18th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I wonder if the member for Elmwood—Transcona might comment on whether or not he has seen any evidence that public safety has been endangered by the faint hope clause in the Criminal Code of Canada. Has he seen any evidence that folks who do become eligible for early parole have reoffended and committed murder again, or does he believe, like me, that this is an indication of the success of our rehabilitation process in prison?

The folks who are successful in this process are the people who have done best and are most successful in terms of the goals of rehabilitation. They are no longer a burden on society by being incarcerated, but are integrated back into society and become contributing members of the community again. Does he agree with that statement?

[Serious Time for the Most Serious Crime Act, June 18th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think we have to go farther than our own back yard to find the success of this program.

As I was saying, the program has checks and balances. There is involvement by the judiciary, citizen jurors and the National Parole Board. It ensures people who are released on parole stay on parole and have the supervision, control and support for the rest of their lives. The program has been successful. The fact that none of the folks who have been released on parole under this program have committed the same offence for which they were originally incarcerated shows the incredible success of this program. Incredible checks and balances have been built into it.

Any system of incarceration and punishment has to have a compassionate side. It has to have a side where people who demonstrate that they can rehabilitate themselves have access to other options. The whole system should not be based solely on punishment.

Our experience in Canada demonstrates that clearly. We should be a model for the world. I know other countries have adopted the same kind of model and it is functioning successfully for them as well.

[Serious Time for the Most Serious Crime Act, June 18th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in the debate on Bill C-36, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, on the right of persons convicted of murder or high treason to be eligible for early parole. The short title of the legislation, creatively crafted by the Conservative government, is the “serious time for the most serious crime act”, which is a bit of a strong misnomer for the legislation.

From outset, the principle of the legislation, which is to eliminate the possibility of revision to parole for people who have committed murder or who are sentenced to life for high treason, is completely wrong. I am strongly opposed to the principle of the legislation. We are not well served by this process of a judicial review, of citizen review in fact, and the faint hope clause should not be part of our criminal justice system.

We have been well served by this. It has encouraged rehabilitation in our prison system. It has allowed for a measure of discretion to review the parole eligibility of people who have been sentenced to a life in prison. It has also encouraged a strong measure of citizen involvement in making the decisions on that very important process.

The legislation takes us absolutely down the wrong road, with no evidence that could support it. I do not think we have any evidence that this will make Canadians safer and that this will improve any of the outcomes we hope for from our criminal justice system or from our corrections system.

The current Section 745.6 of the Criminal Code, dealing with judicial review, enables offenders serving life in prison, with parole ineligibility periods of more than 15 years, to apply for a reduction of that period. The review is not intended as a forum for retrial of the original offence. The focus is instead on the progress of the offender after having served at least 15 years of his or her sentence. That is the description from the Department of Justice of the intent of the legislation.

It is important to review the process that is involved when the faint hope clause is engaged by someone serving a life sentence in prison. The process people have to go through is a very rigorous one that involves several stages.

The first stage is an application to the chief justice of the province in which the person was convicted. The chief justice, or a designated Superior Court judge, reviews the written materials from the crown and the applicant. Then that judge determines, on the basis of the written materials, whether the applicant has shown, on a balance of probabilities, that there is a reasonable prospect that the application will succeed. If the judge decides that, the next step is a jury is empaneled to hear the case. If the judge decides there is no reason to proceed further, the appeal process stops at that point and there is no further follow-up.

The jury, when it is constituted and empaneled, then considers a number of issues when it looks at the application from the person who is imprisoned. It considers, when it is determining whether there should be a reduction of parole ineligibility, the character of the applicant, his or her conduct while serving the sentence, the nature of the offence, information provided by the victim's family members about how the crime has affected them, and any other matters the judge has considered relevant in the circumstances.

A panel of 12 citizens considers those factors and makes the decision about the reduction of the period of ineligibility. The decision of that jury, to reduce the ineligibility period, must be unanimous. We are not talking about a simple majority or anything like that. The jury can reduce the parole ineligibility period immediately or at a later date, or deny any reduction.

When the jury unanimously decides that the number of years to be served should be reduced, it then decides by a two-thirds majority the number of years that must be served before the inmate can apply to the National Parole Board. If the jury decides the period of parole ineligibility is not to be reduced, it can set another time at which the prisoner can again apply for judicial review. If no date is set, then the prisoner can reapply after two years for this process to be engaged again.

It is a very complex process. The process initially involves a judge and then a jury of 12 citizens, two of the important features of our system. There is judicial discretion involved and there is a strong citizen involvement component. The community is absolutely represented in the decision that someone's parole should be reduced. However, that is not the end of the story, because then the parole board has to do its work. The decision about whether the person gets out on parole is made by the parole board in its usual fashion.

I think it is an outstanding process, frankly. The reality is that such offenders are on parole for life. Even if they are ultimately granted parole through this process, they remain on parole for life.

It might be important at some stage to review the functioning of this faint hope clause and the process of judicial review. I think that is far different from the context of a bill that starts from a point that says this process should not continue, that it should be eliminated and repealed. I cannot support that kind of approach.

It is important to look at the statistics in how this process has unfolded. We have statistics from 1987 to 2009. In that period, 991 prisoners were in the category of having committed murder or high treason and were sentenced to life in prison. That is the group of people who are eligible to apply for consideration in this process.

One hundred and seventy-four decisions were made by the court to engage this process. It is a very small number. It is certainly not a majority. In fact, the vast majority of prisoners do not even apply to engage this process, because they realize there is no reason for it to succeed.

In the 174 cases where the judge decided that the process could continue, only 144 of them were ultimately granted reductions. Even then the jury further reduced the number of people who could be considered. Furthermore, the National Parole Board only granted parole in 131 of those cases. One can see that at every stage of this process it is fully engaged and decisions are carefully made.

Of the 131 folks who did get early parole as a result of this process, 83 are on full parole and 18 are on day parole, meaning that they return to an institution at some point during the day. Three were deported. One was temporarily detained. Twenty-six are currently incarcerated. Twelve are deceased. One is on bail.

It is very important to look at those 26 who are still incarcerated and to point out that only four of those incarcerations, as far as I can determine, are the result of reoffences and further criminal activity. None of them is the result of murder. It is very important to realize that none of these people have reoffended in the same way that they did when they were originally convicted. That shows the great success of this program.

Of the four who reoffended, three were related to drug crimes. One was a very serious drug crime. One of the four who reoffended was related to armed robbery, which again is a very serious issue.

This shows the success of this program. It shows that compassion has a place in this process. It shows that we have to honour the rehabilitation process and say that when it is working, there should be positive consequences for that. People who demonstrate they can change their lives while incarcerated in Canada should have this option.

We also want to make sure that this process is fair to the victims of those crimes. As someone who had a close friend who was murdered, I want to make sure that victims are treated fairly and supported through this kind of process. However, I do not believe that means eliminating the possibility of engaging this process. It has served us very well. It has benefited the community, because people who are in prison are a burden to society. If someone can be a contributing and successful member of society, that is an important factor to consider. It is something we should be engaging every time that is possible.

This process has the necessary checks and balances to make it a very successful program. This is very ill-advised legislation and I will make arguments very strenuously against it.

[Renewable Energy, June 11th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak to the motion of the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville. It reads:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should increase its support of Canada's renewable energy sector, allow our country to participate in the worldwide effort to develop renewable energy sources and enlist Canada as a full member of the International Renewable Energy Agency.

I am pleased that in this corner of the House we are supporting the motion, but I am doubly pleased, I suppose, because I had also tabled a motion on the order paper, dealing with the establishment of the International Renewable Energy Agency, IRENA. I know that the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville is very interested in that particular organization and its establishment.

My motion is a little bit different. It focuses more on IRENA itself. I will just read it into the record. The motion I had proposed says:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should: (a) consider that the promotion of renewable energy sources requires new institutional measures in the field of international cooperation; (b) welcome the initiative by the International Parliamentary Forum on Renewable Energy and the German, Danish, and Spanish governments for the establishment and work of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA); and (c) support the establishment and work of the IRENA by becoming a member of that Agency.

In my motion I chose to focus specifically on the development of this new renewable energy agency, which would work to ensure that renewable energy was at the forefront of international co-operation and international work around energy issues.

The International Renewable Energy Agency was officially established in Bonn, Germany, on January 26 of this year. The mandate of IRENA is that it aspires to become the main driving force for promoting a rapid transition towards the widespread and sustainable use of renewable energy on a global scale. So there is a sense of urgency and speed in the mandate of this new agency.

It looks to provide practical advice and support for both industrialized and developing countries, thereby helping to improve frameworks and build capacity. It also intends to facilitate access to all relevant information on renewable energy issues.

When looking at the establishment of IRENA, the background issues that the organizers and the promoters of this agency elucidate in their materials are that they note we face monumental challenges, challenges of global warming, of the waning of natural resources, of explosions in population growth, of increasing energy demand, rising energy prices and unequal distribution of energy sources. All those factors, they note, contribute to the urgent need to transform the energy sector, which primarily relies on fossil fuels, to one that uses renewable energy and energy-efficient measures.

That is where they see the need for this new international agency, the International Renewable Energy Agency, and they would see that a major task of the agency is to develop comprehensive solutions to the challenges that I just noted, such as fostering all types of renewable energy and considering various renewable energy policies at the local, regional and national levels. They believe that IRENA, in fulfilling its work, should consider specific environmental, economic and socio-cultural conditions of its members.

The active involvement of stakeholders from the energy industry, academia, civil society and other institutions is very important to the success of this new agency to make sure that it is able to implement policies, and policies that are enduring and provide solutions.

The agency would intend to regularly consult and co-operate with organizations and networks already engaged in the field of renewable energy, in order to complement and pool their work resources, creating added value in that way.

So it is an ambitious agenda, but one that is certainly timely. I think in most corners of the House we appreciate the need to move away from fossil fuels, the fact that we have to and that needs to be done in an urgent way, and that looking more carefully at and implementing renewable energy alternatives is very important.

I heard about IRENA and the move to establish IRENA through the Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, or PNND. An active member of PNND is a German member of Parliament, and he has taken a very serious interest in promoting this alternative.

His name is Dr. Hermann Scheer. He is a member of the German parliament. He came to his concern about renewable energy through concerns that he had about the nuclear energy industry. Not all members of PNND are concerned about nuclear energy. Some members of that organization believe that nuclear energy has a place as one of our energy sources.

However, Dr. Scheer is someone who believed that promoting a renewable energy agency would have a positive effect in the world and have an effect that is related to the use of nuclear energy and the commitments to nuclear non-proliferation. So he became one of the key promoters of this idea.

The Parliamentary Network for Nuclear Disarmament was also involved in promoting and at least advertising his efforts in that regard. So that is where my interest in this as a member of the Canadian section of PNND began.

As I said, this organization had its founding meeting in January 2009, and a number of nations signed on at that time. If we look at its website today, we will see that 96 nations have signed on to IRENA, this International Renewable Energy Agency. I think when we first began debate on this motion, there were 78 nations. So that number has gone up since then.

Unfortunately, Canada is not one of the nations that has been involved. Canada did not become involved in any of the preparatory meetings. Canada was not at the founding meeting, and Canada has not become a signatory to the development of this new agency. I think that is rather tragic when we see the importance of promoting renewable energy and when we see the continuing failure of the government to appreciate the need for renewable energy and the need to ensure that renewable energy is developed here in Canada and around the world.

Canada should be part of this international effort. Canadians have something to contribute to this agency and to the goal of ensuring that renewable energy replaces fossil fuel as the source of our energy here in Canada and around the world. We do need to be part of that organization. It would be good for Canada to be in at the ground, at the beginnings of that organization, although that opportunity is quickly disappearing.

I think it is very important that Canada reconsider its position. I hope the government will do that and ensure that Canada signs on soon to this proposal and becomes one of the countries that helps chart the course of this new agency.

We have seen other international energy agencies. We know there is the International Atomic Energy Agency. We know there is the International Energy Agency, composed mainly of OECD countries, that has had a major interest in fossil fuels. But even there, the International Energy Agency is moving to consider renewable energy as an important feature of the current discussion.

Those agencies have been set up and functioning for many years, but there is, I think, an important space in that discussion in international co-operation to have an agency that looks to renewable energy specifically and has that as its particular mandate, and it certainly is a very timely issue.

We know the renewable energy sources of wind energy, solar energy, and geothermal energy have great potential here in Canada and around the world. We know retrofit programs have great potential here in Canada and around the world. We know renewable energy and retrofitting have immediate effects. We know they have been tested, they are effective and proven, and they have known results. This direction is certainly one that would be important for us to undertake and for our government to undertake.

We are concerned when we see the redirection of moneys away from wind energy and towards tar sands and old fossil fuel solutions and believe this is exactly the wrong direction to be taking.

Again, I am glad to be part of this discussion. I am glad to be able to support the motion before us and to say very clearly that support for renewable energy and for this new International Renewable Energy Agency is something that Canada should be involved in, and I look forward to voting in favour of this motion.

[Business of Supply, June 11th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I think if you were to seek it, you would find unanimous consent to see the clock as 5:30 p.m.

[Business of Supply, June 11th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, one of the important features of the motion talks about ensuring that workers' pension funds go to the front of the line of creditors in the event of bankruptcy proceedings.

We have seen examples in the past where workers have lost wages at the time of a bankruptcy, but they have also had great concerns about what would happen to their pensions when the company they worked for went into bankruptcy. I wonder if the member could talk about some of the solutions to that kind of situation.