Bill Siksay

[Marine Liability Act, March 30th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in the debate on Bill C-7, An Act to amend the Marine Liability Act and the Federal Courts Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

As we have heard, this is a fairly extensive bill and some would say it is complicated. I am not sure it is completely complicated, but it is a rather extensive bill and it deals with issues of marine liability. I want to read from the summary in the bill to talk about some of the key things that are part of it. There is a section dealing with adventure tourism activities which is an important piece of this legislation, but it is not the part that I wanted to talk about specifically this afternoon.

The bill also amends part 6 of the act to implement the protocol of 2003 to the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage, 1992, as well as the International Convention on Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage, 2001. It also deals with the ship source oil pollution fund and modernizes the governance of that fund. It also includes general provisions relating to the administration and enforcement of offences under that act and creates a maritime lien for Canadian ship suppliers against foreign vessels and establishes a general limitation period for proceedings not covered by other limitation periods.

I do not purport to be an expert on marine law or marine liability law, but I know that this is an area that is very crucial to Canadians and very crucial to how we protect our environment, how we protect our coastlines, how we protect animals and people who live near those coastlines who might be subjected to the ravages of an oil spill. Some say that this is a housekeeping bill, that it maintains currency with our international obligations and brings Canada's laws up to speed with the international treaties that we have signed and that it makes the language of our Marine Liability Act more up to date. These are important things that we do to keep on top of that, especially given the huge costs involved when there is an oil spill.

The ship source oil pollution fund is also something that is very important. It often applies when there is a mystery spill, when we do not know the source of an oil spill on our coastline or in our harbours in the waters of Canada. It is important that we have that fund, that it operate appropriately, that it meet the needs of our communities, of our coastlines, of our industries when there is that kind of oil spill.

This legislation increases the liability from an amount of $500 million to $1.5 million and that is a very important step. We have to make sure that the companies that cause pollution, that are responsible parties for oil spills and for bunker oil spills are held liable for their actions and that the principle of polluter pay is enforced in these important instances.

We know of the horrific damage that a significant spill can engender. We saw that with the Exxon Valdez, and on the east coast of Canada with the Arrow. We are lucky that we have not seen on significant tanker accidents on our shores as those were in recent years. We have seen many other spills along our coast and they do require our attention and laws to ensure that liability is properly assessed and that the responsible parties are made to pay the cost of cleanup. We must ensure that the responsible parties are made to face appropriate fines for activities where they are found to be liable for those accidents.

We know about the big oil spills, but a few years back after a smaller spill in Vancouver harbour, in Burrard Inlet, I asked for information about spills that happen on the coast of British Columbia. I received a document that indicated that through all of 2002 to mid-2007 there had been 4,130 oil spills on the coast of British Columbia. Some of them were very small, only a litre or so of oil, but some of them were much larger than that; in fact, 151 of them involved spills of greater than 1,000 litres.

Those are significant spills. Any spill of hundreds of litres at least is a significant activity. These kinds of spills happen all the time on the British Columbia coast. They are significant incidents, each and every one of them. They can affect industry on the coast. They can affect recreation. They can affect birds and mammals and other animals on the coastline of British Columbia. They can affect our enjoyment of the coastline and the environment. I am very concerned about the number of those spills.

It says something good about our reporting system that we know how many happened, where they happened and now much oil was involved in those incidents, but we have to work to ensure that they do not take place. However, if and when they do take place, we have to ensure that the system that is in place for dealing with them, the system for dealing with the liability caused in them, is the best it can possibly be. Proper consideration of this legislation will go some way to improving that system and improving the mechanisms that are in place.

Specifically, I want to talk about what happened off the coast of my riding of Burnaby--Douglas in July 2006. There was a significant spill into Burrard Inlet from a ship that was in Vancouver harbour. I got involved in this incident mainly because of concerns around some of the effects of what had happened.

I want to read a description of the actual occurrence that is taken from notes prepared from a meeting of the Pacific States/British Columbia Oil Spills Task Force in October 2006. A representative of the British Columbia ministry of the environment, Graham Knox, reported on this July 4, 2006 spill in Burrard Inlet in Vancouver harbour off the coast of Burnaby--Douglas.

Mr. Knox reported:

The MV André had spilled bunker fuel in Burrard Inlet on July 4, 2006. The spill volume turned out to be larger than first reported, and the [B.C.] Ministry [of the environment] was not notified promptly by the Canadian Coast Guard. Some birds were oiled, which raised an issue of Provincial vis-à-vis federal authorities. In addition, the wildlife organization hired to rehabilitate the birds was not paid for their efforts because the Responsible Party (RP) refused to cover all of the costs.

This report of the oil spill in Burrard Inlet on July 4, 2006 notes that there were some problems in the response to that oil spill, around establishing liability and around establishing the role of the responsible party in the cleanup. It is very important that we examine that and make sure that when these kinds of oil spills happen, the response is thorough and complete. This legislation we are debating today has a piece of that puzzle.

I want to talk about what the outcome of that was with regard to liability and the responsibility of the company that owned the ship. I am going to quote from a report on the InterShip Navigation Training Center website. It reports on marine incidents. It is used for training people in the shipping industry on how to appropriately respond to various kinds of incidents that shipping companies and their employees face.

This site's report on the incident in July 2006 states:

M/V ANDRE (Hong Kong, 17000gt)'s company pleaded guilty and was ordered to pay $80,000 for spilling 7.5 tons of fuel oil in the harbor while bunkering in Vancouver BC in July 2006. Of the fine, $5,000 will go to the Canadian Wildlife Service for research and conservation at a migratory bird habitat. The HK owner is also responsible for cleanup costs estimated at $700,000. The reason for the spill is an open valve that should have been closed, -- a mistake by a crewmember.

This report is dated the 30th of November, 2007.

We can see the result of this oil spill in Vancouver harbour. First, the extent of the spill was not properly assessed by the Coast Guard and reported to the B.C. Ministry of the Environment. There were problems in establishing jurisdiction over some of the bird and wildlife victims of the oil spill. A court case resulted from this. A fine was paid and some of that money went to wildlife, migratory bird habitat conservation. There were also significant cleanup costs of $700,000 for what was a relatively small spill, but not an insignificant spill. It is good that the bill would raise the liability limits from $500,000 to $1.5 billion, particularly when we see the cost of this relatively small spill.

I want to talk about what happened with the wildlife in the case of the spill in Burrard Inlet. The problem arose when local Wildlife Rescue Association and Burrard Clean, the organization that comes into play immediately when there is an oil spill in Vancouver Harbour, came in. Burrard Clean would also contact organizations to take care of any birds or animals affected by the spill. It contacted an organization called Focus Wildlife, which began the rescue and rehabilitation of the birds and animals affected. The local Burnaby based Wildlife Rescue Association was involved in assisting Focus Wildlife in this operation.

The concern was that the responsible party, the shipping company, was unwilling to pay for the full extent of the cleanup related to the animals and birds affected. There was confusion and a lot of bickering back and forth about how much would be paid for, how extensive and when the responsibility for the rehabilitation of the animals and birds affected would end. It took a lot of pressure from the community, the local member of Parliament, myself, and from others to ensure that this cleanup and the animals affected were not abandoned completely.

It put Focus Wildlife in a very difficult position. The responsible party, the shipping company, was refusing to continue payment for the rehabilitation of the birds and animals affected to the point that international standards would require. It wanted out long before that stage was reached and before it was ensured that the animals had been fully rehabilitated and were ready for release back into the environment.

It was a serious issue and there was not a good resolution to it. It took a lot of energy of local people, the folks who were concerned about that, to continue the rehabilitation and rescue efforts for the birds and wildlife affected.

The fact that Focus Wildlife was not paid fully for its efforts was very significant. However, we appreciate the fact that it continued its efforts despite the confusion about how payment would be made,

At the time, I wrote to the minister of the environment to say that I thought the Canadian Wildlife Service and Environment Canada should cover the costs of Focus Wildlife, including any shortfall between the cost of its services and what the responsible party was willing to pay, including any charges after July 14, which was when the company wanted to pull out. That was ten days after the spill occurred. I said it was necessary that they cover those costs until the conclusion of treatment and rehabilitation of all the affected birds. International standards should be governed by that. We have to ensure that international standard is the full policy of the Canadian Wildlife Service with regard to such oil spills. The birds and other wildlife affected by this kind of environmental accident, environmental disaster, must be treated as the innocent victims.

The other thing is, in this kind of spill, it became a curious federal-provincial jurisdictional dispute where the province was responsible for non-migratory birds and the federal government was responsible for migratory birds.

In this circumstance Canada geese and cormorants were largely affected. However, the Canada geese in Vancouver harbour really do not migrate anywhere any more, yet somehow they were the responsibility of the federal government. Cormorants tend to get around a bit more even though they are considered non-migratory. They were considered the provincial birds. Therefore, there was confusion on that angle.

There was also confusion about what to do with the Canada geese. Some folks believed they were a nuisance in B.C. and it would be alright to let a few of them die off as a result of this accident, which I found to be a completely unacceptable approach. I would urge, and have urged, that all animals affected by such oil spills be treated as the victims and rehabilitated to the best of our ability.

We also need to have a clear policy on the euthanization of affected birds and mammals, as well, to ensure that every effort is put into their rescue and rehabilitation and that euthanization is used only when it is shown by veterinarians to be impossible to rehabilitate. It should not used for other reasons in this kind of disaster.

That whole incident led me to propose a motion in the House, and it is still on the order. It states:

That...the government should immediately strengthen the National Policy on Oiled Birds and Oiled Species at Risk, and all Oil Spill Response Plans by ensuring that: (a) the Canadian Wildlife Service has the mandate and authority to ensure that all migratory birds, species at risk and other wildlife affected by an oil spill are captured, cleaned and rehabilitated; (b) euthanasia be used only when medically necessary; and (c) the responsible party for an oil spill be assessed the full cost of the capture, cleaning and rehabilitation process.

This is an important aspect of marine liability and we need to be very clear about it in our policies and legislation. I hope, when this important bill, Bill C-7, gets to committee, these implications of marine liability will also be part of the discussion there.

We need the most up-to-date, modern and comprehensive marine liability laws that we can possibly have. I believe, and many people in my constituency would also agree, that birds and animals must also be part of the provisions of our marine liability legislation and any of the legislation or policies that flows from it. That is why it is important to also consider the question of the policies of the Canadian Wildlife Service and Environment Canada surrounding oiled birds and mammals.

While this is complex legislation, I do not think that complexity should be debilitating to members of the House or members of the committee. It is important that we understand the implications of the legislation. We need to update the legislation in light of our international obligations, and that is clearly something we should be obligated to do.

The increase of liability amounts is also very important when we consider the costs of oil spill cleanups, both major incidents and minor incidents. The example of the Burnaby oil spill and the Burrard Inlet oil spill in July 2006, being a relatively small one, also shows the huge expense involved even with a spill of that size.

We also need to ensure we enforce the whole notion of polluter pay, that responsible parties must be required to take responsibility for their actions and accidents they cause, that there be no way out of it and that they be required to follow through on this responsibility.

The universal declaration on animal welfare, in which Canada is not yet participating in its development, would be another place where Canada could follow through on some of the implications of this kind of policy.

As I said, it is important to get this legislation to the committee where it can be thoroughly discussed and reviewed. I hope the situation of the oil spills in Burrard Inlet is instructive for our folks on the committee. I hope we can ensure the legislation addresses all oil spills, large and small, that occur on our coastlines and ensure we have the best possible liability provisions in place should those kinds of accidents happen.

[Canada-EFTA Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, March 30th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for adding to the speeches we have made in this corner of the House on this important international agreement. As he pointed out at the beginning of his speech, it is hard to imagine that we would not want to have a treaty with countries like Norway, Switzerland and Iceland and that there are many reasons why we share things in common. I think many Canadians celebrated the rise to power recently of the first openly lesbian prime minister in the world, the head of Iceland. This is an indication of the kinds of values we share with the people of Iceland when it comes to the full equality of gay and lesbian citizens.

These are the kinds of countries we want to do business. However, the carve-out for our shipbuilding industry is not part of this agreement. Other countries that have negotiated with these countries have managed to negotiate a carve-out. In my riding of Burnaby—Douglas, British Columbia, many people at one time made their living in the shipbuilding industry, which was largely based in North Vancouver. We have seen it dwindle away as Canadian ships and Canadian ferries are built overseas. This agreement will only lead to a further decline in the shipbuilding industry in British Columbia.

Could the member comment further about the kinds of countries that we want to have agreements with and why, when there is a concern about a particular industry, Canada would not have sought a carve-out of the industry from this kind of agreement?

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, March 27th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I agree with that. Given the evidence that we have, mainly from the experience of the United States but also from our own evidence, we know that the primary focus of this legislation on mandatory minimum sentences does not work. It does not address the issues that surround drug use, drug abuse and drug crime in Canada or in any of the places where this kind of approach was attempted.

In my speech, I mentioned the Fraser Institute based in Vancouver with its usually fairly Conservative approach to social issues in our country. It has spoken very clearly on the issue of drug prohibition and the kinds of approaches that have been taken similar to mandatory minimum sentences. When it released its report on this in 2001, the first line of the press release stated, “The war on drugs is lost and prohibition has been a complete failure”.

This was the conclusion the Fraser Institute came to as a result of its study. The press release goes on to state:

Canadian governments—federal and provincial—have seldom given serious thought to drug policy, preferring instead to follow whatever variation on failure is being proposed during the latest 'crisis.'

This thinking has only served to enrich organized crime, corrupt governments and law enforcement officials, spread diseases such as HIV, hinder health care, and feed into an ever-growing law enforcement and penal industry.

This was said by Fred McMahon, director of the Fraser Institute's social affairs centre. This is an organization that the Conservatives often look to for ideas and support for some of their plans. However, it has been very critical of drug prohibition and governments that pursue old ideas that have proven to be ineffective. The Fraser Institute went on to say:

Drug prohibition reflects our failure to learn from history; drug prohibition causes crime; drug prohibition corrupts police officers; drug prohibition violates civil liberties and individual rights; drug prohibition throws good money after bad; and drug prohibition weakens at times, even destroys families, neighbourhoods, and communities

Those are incredibly strong words coming from the Fraser Institute about the kinds of solutions that are being proposed in Bill C-15 that is before us today. We really need to come together as a society and learn from our history, from our own experiences and from the experiences of the people we know, care about and love. We need to learn from the experiences of other jurisdictions that this is the wrong way to continue.

We need to ensure we are brave as a nation. Sometimes people say that we cannot do that because the Americans are so invested in this war on drugs. There are opportunities to take a different path from the United States. I think our American friends have often shown that they respect us for our ideas and the solutions that we try to put forward as a society. They do not try to make us back away from ideas that we have and they often admire us for those attempts and the policies we put in place that are different from their own approaches.

The reality is that many jurisdictions in the United States and many Americans know that the war on drugs and drug prohibition has been a failure. We also cannot ignore that our continued support for drug prohibition causes problems in other countries. Many people have talked about the links to the kinds of drug wars that go on in countries like Mexico and South America. They do have links to our own domestic policies here in Canada where this whole drug prohibition regime makes it more difficult for those countries to find solutions that restore peace and harmony in their communities and in their country. We need to examine our complicity in those drug wars that are happening in other countries as well.

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, March 27th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I think we have all had to deal with issues of addiction. I suspect that not many people in Canada have not had a family member, a friend or a colleague who has dealt with addiction. Most people struggling with addiction are not the people we see living on the streets in our cities' urban cores or getting into trouble with the police. Most addicts are people who look exactly like those of us who sit here in the House of Commons. Most of us know there are drug addicts who go to work every day, support their families and live with those addictions and those circumstances. When we talk about addiction as if it is a problem of a particular neighbourhood in our cities, we are missing the point about dealing with addictions.

I want to come back to a point the member for Halifax raised and it is one that has been drawn to my attention by a number of the people I know who struggle with addiction and who struggle with treatment for addiction. It is the whole issue of people trying to get treatment immediately when they are ready to go to it. The moment people who are struggling with addiction want to deal it by getting treatment, there should be a place for them. The moment we put that off for someone, we know we have lost. When people are put on a waiting list and then called in a couple of weeks, the moment has usually passed and getting them into a successful treatment program has gone. They will wait months, perhaps years or maybe never for that moment to return. Treatment is a very crucial issue and we need more of treatment places.

The member for Halifax alluded to the need for supportive housing for people who go through an addiction treatment process. When someone emerges from treatment, they need to be removed from where they were before, which was often with friends where addiction was the focal point of their life. These people need a home where they can find support to remain clean and sober and one that does not get them back into the circle of friends and acquaintances who were part of the problem they were experiencing before. We do not have that kind of supportive housing available in most of our communities. We need a much more extensive and broader national housing program that not only deals with the need for affordable housing, but with the need for supportive housing for people coming out of treatment programs for alcohol and drug addiction. That is a huge problem that is not being addressed in Canada now.

This is not a program that will be addressed by a one-time only injection of money into housing programs. We need a consistent, ongoing, regular national housing program with significant ongoing and multi-year participation by the federal government.

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, March 27th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in this debate this afternoon on Bill C-15, which is an act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

This is similar legislation to legislation that was introduced in the last Parliament, Bill C-26, and as we know, the early call of the election ended the life of that bill. It died on the order paper. If it were as crucial as Conservatives would have us believe, I wonder why we went to that early election. They had a mandate for four years, given their own legislation, but they chose to prorogue that Parliament and go to an election. We could have dealt with this already in Parliament.

This bill, and we have heard a lot about it today, really is about establishing mandatory minimum sentences for a whole range of drug crimes. That is one of the controversial aspects of this legislation. We have heard from many folks in the debate already about the problems associated with establishing mandatory minimum sentences.

We have heard the member for Halifax explain that having one marijuana plant could lead to a mandatory minimum sentence of six months in prison under this legislation. These are the kinds of things that this bill is establishing.

There has been some conversation this afternoon about the aspect of the bill that deals with date rape drugs, and I know that currently, under the Criminal Code, date rape drugs are already treated very seriously. Inducing or administering a stupefying substance to someone is a very serious criminal offence already under the Criminal Code of Canada.

That issue kind of misses the point about this legislation. This is really about establishing mandatory minimum sentences on a whole range of drug crimes.

We know very clearly, from the experiences primarily in the United States but even some of our own, that mandatory minimum sentences do not work. They do not work to reduce drug addiction. They do not work to make our communities safer.

We can look directly to Canadian government reports, to reports from our own justice department, that talk about the efficacy of mandatory minimum sentences. In 2002 the justice department concluded that mandatory minimum sentences were least effective when it comes to drug crimes. Despite that conclusion of the justice department, we have a bill here that is entirely concerned with mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes.

The report specifically said:

Mandatory minimum sentences do not appear to influence drug consumption or drug-related crime in any measurable way. A variety of research methods concludes that treatment-based approaches are more cost effective than lengthy prison terms. MMS are blunt instruments that fail to distinguish between low and high-level, as well as hardcore versus transient drug dealers.

That is from the 2002 report “Mandatory Minimum Penalties: Their Effects on Crime, Sentencing Disparities, and Justice System Expenditures”. That is advice from our own Department of Justice on the issue of mandatory minimum sentences, specifically when it comes to drug crimes. We need to pay attention to that advice.

We have seen what has been done in other jurisdictions, jurisdictions in the United States, some of which got very heavily into mandatory minimum sentences such as Michigan and California, and now they have backed away.

Michigan in particular had harsh anti-drug laws, most of them the harshest in the United States. They included quite a number of mandatory minimum sentences for almost all drug offences. In 2004 Michigan started to back away from that and repeal those provisions because it found it was not working. It was not solving the problems and it was creating other problems for that state. California has repealed mandatory minimum sentences for minor drug offences. In fact, it is also now considering regulating marijuana, moving in a completely different direction from mandatory minimum sentencing.

Delaware and Massachusetts are also reviewing legislation around mandatory minimum sentences because they too have noticed that these kinds of mandatory minimum sentence regimes have not helped those states deal with the social impacts of drug use and addictions. They have not helped with the criminal aspects of the problem either.

One thing contemplated in the legislation is drug courts, and we have concerns about them. One of the problems with drug courts is that coercive treatment or mandatory treatment is often ineffective. We cannot force somebody into treatment unless they have made that personal commitment to go through that process.

Sometimes in drug courts people will agree to a treatment program as a way of avoiding jail time. That is not exactly the most effective way of going into a treatment program. People have to be there because they want to get better. They want to deal with the health implications of their addiction. It is a very difficult issue with which to deal.

We want to be careful about drug courts. There is some value in courts that have particular expertise in dealing with drug and addiction issues and those kinds of things. We want to ensure that our courts have those specialized skills. However, we have to be careful when it comes to coercing or requiring treatment. We know that is not effective.

There is also concern for our court system, for the progress of issues through our court system, clogging our court system as we deal with more mandatory minimum sentences. I want to read a quote from retired British Columbia judge, Jerry Paradis, who is a spokesperson for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, which is a group of law enforcement officers, some current, some retired, and some judicial and court officials who oppose drug prohibition regimes. Former Judge Paradis said:

Mandatory minimums are also a great motivator for trials, jamming up the courts. Unless a deal is struck, it is a sure bet that a charge carrying...minimum sentence will be fought tooth and nail.

We know that when people who are charged with a crime face a minimum sentence, they often want to go to trial. It reduces the number of options available to the legal system because people are facing a mandatory minimum sentence if they are convicted of that crime.

Most of our courts are in crisis. The delays are long and there is a growing concern about the course of justice in that system. We need to consider very carefully anything that further jams up our courts. There are concerns the legislation will do that as well.

We also have to be concerned about the population of our prison system. If we are talking mandatory minimum sentences, we will be putting more people in jail for longer periods of time. We have heard how half of the new mandatory minimum sentences in the legislation are two years or less, which means those who are convicted will serve time in provincial prisons. We have to wonder if the provinces are prepared for the increase in prison population, which the legislation may mean for their jurisdictions.

Getting people into prison has not always been shown as the best way of dealing with reducing crime in our society. Sometimes we have said that prisons are a great place to develop one's criminal network. It is not a great place for rehabilitation. We have to examine very carefully any legislation that will increase the population of our prisons.

A lot of the provisions, mandatory minimum sentences being on of them, are provisions that came out of the U.S.-led war on drugs. The criminal approach to dealing with addiction and drug crime has been shown to be a huge failure. As I have noted already, many jurisdictions in the United States continue to re-examine that.

We need, instead, an approach that deals with drug and addiction issues as a health issue. We need to ensure that people have available to them the medical attention and the treatment they need to deal with their addictions. If we put as many resources into that as we do into enforcement, we would see some very positive results for our society and for people who are our neighbours, friends and family members. We need to pay more attention to that.

We have heard how 73% of federal funding and funding related to the drug issue goes into enforcement work and much lower levels go into treatment, prevention and harm reduction. There is a very clear indication of the bias of the government when it comes to how to deal with issues related to drug use. I agree with others who have said that we need to turn those statistics around and ensure that we value each of those four pillars related to how to more appropriately deal with drugs and drug addiction in our society.

We need to fund the other pillars equally, as we do enforcement. The federal government has chosen to put all of its eggs in the enforcement basket and we have not seen effective returns on that expenditure.

Many people are questioning the drug prohibition regime that we are under. I want to quote from a letter that I found as I was researching this. It was written by the directing attorney of Prisoner Legal Services in the City and County of San Francisco's sheriff's office, a woman named Carol Ruth Silver. It is taken from her letter of resignation, which she tendered back on January 30 of this year. She stated:

—I have found myself having to bite my tongue in talking to some prisoners about their charges -- at least half of them with nonviolent drug charges. I find it difficult to discuss the financial or child custody problems of a prisoner, when I cannot look them in the eye and justify their being in jail. His or her incarceration is as a result of their own actions, but much more so as a result of a mistaken, unfair, and unjust set of laws which criminalize drugs in our society, based on the failed model of Prohibition of alcohol which we enacted and then repealed.

Each of such prisoners is in our jail only because of our bad politics of drug regulation. It is this set of policies which is the most direct cause of the continued excessive incarceration rates in the US.

This is an attorney working in the sheriff's office in a major United States city who could not continue in that position because of the problems that she had recognized stemmed from the regime of drug prohibition. She had to leave that position because she could no longer deal with the contradictions and the difficulties that placed her in as she tried to work in that office.

It is important to remember the history of alcohol prohibition. The United States went very seriously into alcohol prohibition back in the 1920s and 1930s and made it illegal, prohibited it, in exactly the same way that drugs are prohibited today in Canada. If we look at the history of what happened with alcohol prohibition, we will see not a close parallel but an exact parallel to what is happening in our society today with regard to drugs.

I want to give some examples that are in a report called “We Can Do It Again: Repealing Today's Failed Prohibition”, which is presented by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, an organization of law enforcement and court officials who are working on ending drug prohibition, and the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation of the United States. They reviewed some of what happened under alcohol prohibition. If we go over these points, we will see the exact parallel to what is happening in our society today.

They note that sociologists who looked it in the United States noticed that alcohol became associated during the period of prohibition with a rebellious, adventurous lifestyle, which increased its desirability, especially among the young. A detrimental effect of prohibition was to increase alcohol's popularity.

They also note that alcohol, even though prohibition had been enacted, remained fully present in daily urban life and that in New York City before prohibition there were 15,000 saloons. Five years into prohibition, those saloons were replaced by as many as 32,000 underground speakeasies. There was a huge trend toward more alcohol consumption and a greater presence of alcohol in urban life after prohibition.

They further noted that when alcohol was prohibited, the alcohol that was available was in its most concentrated and potent form, a natural result of the costs involved in smuggling and concealing it.

They note that beer and wine were largely replaced by liquor in illegal speakeasies because of this trend. We have seen exactly that same trend with regard to drugs in our society. More potent drugs are more available now, directly as a result of these policies.

They note that under prohibition, providing liquor to meet the public demand required industrial scale production and distribution, and it was enormously profitable. The inevitable result was the creation of modern organized crime syndicates.

They also note that the Great Depression made things even worse as people looked for ways to replace lost income and lost jobs. They actually found employment with alcohol smugglers.

They note that under alcohol prohibition, the homicide rate reached unprecedented levels, as gangsters struggled for control of the very lucrative alcohol market by killing each other, police officers and any innocent citizen who stood in the way of their immense untaxed profits.

There could be no greater example or parallel than exactly what is happening in Vancouver today. I think 38 people have been shot as a result of the gang drug wars and approximately 17 people have been killed as a result of that.

The period of alcohol prohibition actually led to increased violence, increased organized crime activity and gang activity. We see exactly that same trend today.

They also note that public health suffered during the period of alcohol prohibition. In New York City, alone, there was a 525% increase in deaths related to alcoholism and alcohol poisonings during the first six years of prohibition because there was no oversight of the manufacture of alcohol. Bathtub gin, for instance, was often very dangerous and often blinded or killed people who imbibed. We have seen exactly the same thing with the bad drugs that are on our streets today during this period of drug prohibition.

They make the point that courts were clogged with alcohol prohibition related offences back during the period of alcohol prohibition in the United States. They also note that public respect for the rule of the law suffered greatly because the court process was slowed down and because there was such widespread disrespect for the law on alcohol prohibition. It had further ramifications about people's respect for the whole legal system. We have seen that in Canada as a result of our drug prohibition policies.

Finally, the report concludes that during the period of alcohol prohibition in the United States, vital services and programs had to be cut because, in addition to the expensive costs of prohibition enforcement, government budgets were deprived of tax revenue from alcohol sales, from alcohol industry workers' salaries, and the properties where alcohol was produced, stored and consumed.

Because the alcohol industry was underground, it was not taxed and it affected government revenues in a serious way, a way that would have assisted in dealing with some of the social problems that can normally be associated with alcohol. We see that today in our society with regard to drug prohibition issues.

Concerns about drug prohibition and ending drug prohibition are not way out there. The Fraser Institute, a fairly conservative think tank in Vancouver, back in 2001 called for an end to drug prohibition. It was said in very strong terms. It did not mince words about how inappropriate and costly this continued approach was to our society.

Also, the Health Officers' Council of British Columbia has called for a major social initiative around coming up with better drug regulation policies. We are not talking about removing all drug regulations. We know there still needs to be a regulatory regime in place, but an appropriate one. The health officers of British Columbia have also raised concerns about drug prohibition as a strict policy and have said that we need to face the health implications and get on with coming with a better regulatory regime in Canada. I do not believe the bill is a step in that direction, which is the way we should go.

I look forward to seeing our society fully engage in that kind of process in the very near future. The time when we should be working on these issues in a very serious way has passed.

[Petitions, March 27th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, the other petition is signed by approximately 165 residents of British Columbia, including people from metro Vancouver, from Victoria and from the interior.

The petitioners are very concerned about the Canada-Colombia trade deal. They note that violence against workers and members of civil society by paramilitaries in Colombia associated with government has been ongoing, that more than 2,200 trade unionists have been murdered since 1991, as well as other violence committed against indigenous people, Afro-Colombians, human rights activists, workers, farmers, labour leaders and journalists.

They believe that all trade agreements must be built upon a principle of fair trade, which includes fundamental respect for social justice, human rights, labour rights and environmental stewardship.

They call upon Parliament specifically to reject the Canada-Colombia trade deal until an independent human rights impact assessment is carried out, and that the agreement be renegotiated along the principles of fair trade, which would take environmental and social impacts fully into account, while genuinely respecting labour rights and the rights of all affected parties.

[Petitions, March 27th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I have two petitions to present this afternoon.

The first petition is signed by many residents of metro Vancouver, including some from my constituency of Burnaby—Douglas.

The petitioners call upon the government to support a universal declaration on animal welfare. They point out that there is a scientific consensus and public acknowledgment that animals feel pain and can suffer. They call upon the government to do all it can to prevent animal cruelty and reduce animal suffering. They note that one billion people around the world rely on animals for their livelihoods and companionship. They also note that often in times of natural disasters, little attention is paid to the needs of animals and their importance to humans in that context.

They call upon Canada to participate in discussions and to support a universal declaration on animal welfare.

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, March 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the participation of the hon. member in the important debate this afternoon.

I want to ask the hon. member about the observation of a retired judge from British Columbia, Jerry Paradis, a spokesperson now for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, when he reflected on mandatory minimum sentences, said that they were “a great motivator for trials” and “jamming up the courts. Unless a deal is struck...a charge carrying a...minimum sentence will be fought tooth and nail”.

Could the hon. member reflect on the way that mandatory minimum sentences clog the courts and if there has been any experience of that in Quebec?

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, March 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question similar to the one asked by the member for Laval. In 2002 the Department of Justice issued a report stating that mandatory minimum sentences were least effective when it came to drug offences. I want to quote from that report. It said:

Mandatory minimum sentences do not appear to influence drug consumption or drug-related crime in any measurable way. A variety of research methods concludes that treatment-based approaches are more cost effective than lengthy prison terms. MMS are blunt instruments that fail to distinguish between low and high-level, as well as hardcore versus transient drug dealers.

I wonder if the member could comment on that report from the Department of Justice, which calls into question the approach that the government is taking.

[Criminal Code, March 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, often in Canadian society we have assumed that our European ways and traditions were the way to go.

In many ways, we are justly proud of our criminal justice system and the way it has been established and deals with issues of crime and justice in our communities. I think that is a tradition we can be proud of.

However, I am glad we are finally looking to first nations for their lessons, learning and traditions in this area. They have shown us as well that there is much of great value.

Being part of the restorative justice program in the aboriginal community in Vancouver was a very foundational experience for me. It showed me the value of listening to the aboriginal members of my community and learning about their appreciation and understanding of criminal activity, community, and how one maintains and builds relationships when relationships have been broken.

That is a major turning point for our society. I am glad we have had the opportunity now to learn in that way and I am glad it is happening in other communities across the country.