Blaine Calkins

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, April 26th, 2021]

With regard to government contracts, since January 1, 2020, and broken down by department or agency: (a) how many tendered contracts were not awarded to the lowest bidder; and (b) what are the details of all such contracts, including the (i) vendor, (ii) value of the contract, (iii) date and duration of the contract, (iv) description of goods or services, (v) reason the contract was awarded to the vendor as opposed to the lowest bidder?

[The Budget, April 20th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, my colleague brought up tourism, and I want to talk to him about air travel.

On page 74 of the budget, there is an announcement of $105 million over five years for something known as the “known traveller digital identity pilot project”. A Google search of known traveller digital identity takes us to a World Economic Forum document, where it is called the “known traveller digital identity (KTDI) concept”. It talks about things like attestations of citizenship, educational degrees and so on, including vaccination for viral disease.

I am wondering if my colleague could expand on just what the government is investing tax dollars for on this front?

[Public Safety, April 20th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, that is an answer to a question, but it was not an answer to my question.

Many experts anticipate that this buyback is going to be a multi-billion dollar boondoggle that does not have any meaningful impact on public safety. We have seen this before from the Liberals. Unfortunately, for law-abiding firearms owners, the government cares about pushing its ideology and not about taking concrete steps to actually address public safety.

What data did the Liberal government rely on when determining how many individuals would likely participate in their buyback program?

[Public Safety, April 20th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness has suggested that his ill-conceived firearms buyback program will cost between $300 million and $400 million. He has suggested that they are expecting to buy back roughly 150,000 to 200,000 firearms. Many of the firearms that the Liberals arbitrarily selected for their ban were non-restricted, such as firearms typically used for hunting or around the farm.

What data was used by the minister to determine the cost and scope of his buyback?

[Criminal Code, April 20th, 2021]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-289, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sentencing).

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to table this important piece of legislation. For many rural communities across Canada, crime has reached a crisis point. Rural Canadians too often do not feel safe in their own homes, many are victimized, often they have given up reporting property crime altogether and they cannot get affordable insurance, if they can get any insurance at all. My constituents are tired of being victims. They are tired of the revolving door of the justice system and of crime not being taken seriously. They are losing faith in the justice system because too often it works in favour of the criminals, to the detriment of the community and the victim.

My bill is taking a step toward protecting these vulnerable Canadians and putting the needs of lawful citizens ahead of criminals. It would create a new aggravating factor at sentencing for crimes committed where there is evidence that the offence was directed at a person or a person's property that is experiencing increased vulnerability due to remoteness from emergency, medical or police services. It would make the aggravating factor associated with home invasion more inclusive of rural properties by ensuring outlying structures are included. It would ensure that the use or possession of a weapon in home invasions can trigger the aggravating factor and ensure that if offenders do something so egregious that they do not receive bail, the judge considers that rationale for why they remain in custody when giving credit for time served.

I want to thank all of my colleagues for helping me with this bill, my colleague from Lakeland and all of the citizens in Alberta, who helped me come up with this idea.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Criminal Code, April 13th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, we have vast experience as legislators in the House of Commons, and we know full well what our roles and responsibilities are. As the member of Parliament for Red Deer—Lacombe, I would be remiss in my duties if I did not take the government to task for its misleading ideas and information in its attempt to basically decriminalize all criminal activity in this country.

[Criminal Code, April 13th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I would encourage my colleague to look at the changes being offered in Bill C-22. The mandatory minimum penalties are being reduced for trafficking or possession for the purpose of trafficking controlled drugs or substances, importing and exporting or possession for the purpose of exporting controlled drugs and substances, and production of a substance in schedule I or schedule II. These are not simple possessions. These are people who are using controlled drugs and substances in organized crime by smuggling it into our country and dispersing it among our population. We now have more people dying, I believe, in western Canada from fentanyl overdoses than we have from COVID.

If we are going to talk about the substance of the bill, let us actually talk about what the government is proposing, which is possession for the purpose of trafficking and smuggling or the manufacturing for the purpose of trafficking. That is what the government is doing. It is a misnomer and it misleading the House to suggest that this bill is talking about simple possession. It is simply not true.

[Criminal Code, April 13th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, all I will say in reply is that it is the member and his colleagues who have cast judgment on all law-abiding firearms owners in this country by confiscating their lawfully obtained property. They have used misinformation campaigns to demonize and vilify those who simply own firearms for the purposes of hunting, sport shooting and recreation, or who use them on their farms as a tool.

If we are not going to cast judgment on people, then perhaps we could start with not casting judgment on law-abiding citizens in this country. If we are going to cast any judgment at all or take any responsibility as parliamentarians, perhaps we should focus on those doing the most damage in society, such as irremediable offenders and repeat offenders, whether they are doing property crimes or crimes against persons, and making sure that those people suffer consequences instead of law-abiding citizens.

[Criminal Code, April 13th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River.

It is a privilege to rise and represent the constituents of Red Deer—Lacombe in this debate, who would be mortified, I believe, to know what the legislation is actually proposing to do to our criminal justice system, notwithstanding the words coming from government MPs.

Let me start with a little bit of context. I am the chair of the Conservative rural crime caucus and had the pleasure of helping to create a document in 2018 that we published as MPs from rural Alberta. Virtually every one of my colleagues from rural Alberta participated in this. We consulted and talked to a wide variety of people in our province. We talked to victims. We talked to rural crime watch people. We talked to anti-crime organizations. We talked to victims-of-crime services and to law enforcement experts, and we produced a comprehensive, thorough and multifaceted report, which we then tabled at the public safety committee in the last Parliament. My colleague from Lakeland had a motion in that Parliament talking about rural crime.

I want to remind all colleagues in the House that crime in rural areas, and specifically here in western Canada, is significantly on the rise. It has been shown statistically. One does not have to go very far to look. A document from the Angus Reid Institute published January 10, 2020, shows that crime rates in Canada dropped precipitously from 1991 to 2014, falling more than 50% during that period. However, crime rates have ticked upward over each of the past four years for which data is available, and that trend is continuing. It shows that confidence is waning significantly in our law enforcement agencies, courts and provincial jurisdictions. It notes that it is more significantly happening in western Canada, and in the Prairie provinces in particular.

Colleagues can imagine that the proposed changes to this legislation would be somewhat horrific to my constituents who ask me about it. If anybody wants to read the report, “Towards a Safer Alberta: Addressing Rural Crime”, it addresses a lot of crime in general by addressing rural crime. I would encourage them to do so. It can be found on my website, www.blainecalkinsmp.ca. I would encourage people to have a look at it and see what good work MPs in western Canada have done to bring forward the concerns of our constituents.

I want to talk a little bit about the overall Government of Canada's approach since it became the government in the fall of 2015. I am not going to get into too much discussion about specific firearms legislation in Bill C-71 or Bill C-21, but I will talk about Bill C-75 and now Bill C-22, and the soft-on-crime approach that the government seems to have. The rationale that it is presenting seems to basically undermine the needs of victims in this country, especially when some of these crimes are certainly crimes against people. They are not just property crimes.

What are some of the things that the government has done? In Bill C-75, which could be called the prequel to Bill C-22, the government basically hybridized well over 100 offences in the Criminal Code. To those who wonder what that means, there are basically two ways in which a Crown prosecutor can proceed with charges before a justice. One of them is through an indictable offence. Until this bill came along, it usually carried with it a set of penalties for which there was a requirement to spend some time in jail or in custody. Then there is something called a summary conviction offence, which is the equivalent, I guess, of a U.S. misdemeanour. It usually carries with it a very small sentence or time served in jail, in lieu of being unable to pay a fine of some kind.

Here are some of the things for which the current government, in the previous Parliament, changed the sentences from mandatory indictable offences to hybrids. This allows the Crown to plea bargain away serious offences such as impaired driving, punishment for theft, both under $5,000 and over $5,000, possession of instruments for breaking and entering, selling automobile master keys and other items, enabling theft, possession of property, stolen property obtained by crime and, of course, importing or exporting property.

That just names a few offences. As I said, there were over 110 offences that the government essentially reduced the penalties for. In fact, it would now be possible for someone to get a summary conviction offence for abduction of a person under the age of 16 or abduction of a person under the age of 14. Those were also included in Bill C-75. It would now be possible to pay a fine less than someone would pay for failing to stop at a stop sign. That is the legacy of Bill C-75 in the first Parliament.

Now let us fast forward to Bill C-22 and take a look at what Liberals are removing mandatory minimum penalties or just basic minimum penalties for in the Criminal Code. First, there is using a firearm or an imitation firearm in the commission of an offence. Interestingly the government is removing Airsoft and paintball guns from possession completely for law-abiding citizens, but if a criminal is using a firearm or an imitation firearm in the commission of an offence, they will now get the pleasure of going home and sitting there, thinking about what they have done. Possession of a firearm, knowing that its possession is unauthorized, is the whole point. Rather than reducing penalties for people who knowingly use or are in possession of unauthorized firearms, the government is instead taking firearms away from law-abiding citizens who are co-operating with the government. It does not make any sense.

More items include possession of a weapon obtained by the commission of an offence. One of the biggest problems we have with rural crime is people going onto properties to steal vehicles, tools and other items that are easily saleable and marketable on the black market. People also, from time to time, go to these properties purposely looking for firearms to steal. Why on earth would the government want to make it less punishable for these types of thieves who are purposefully targeting establishments, casing rural farms and casing our communities?

Why would we reduce the penalties for individuals who are purposefully trying to steal firearms? These firearms end up on the streets of our cities and our communities and end up being used in the commission of offences. This makes no sense, but the government seems to think that this is a good idea.

Here is something we can categorize in the realm of the bizarre. Why on earth would the government remove any semblance of a minimum penalty for someone who was trafficking weapons and firearms? If we listen to police chiefs or victims' services people anywhere in major urban centres, crime is proliferating especially with the use of handguns and firearms in those communities. We know that most of those firearms are obtained illegally through theft or are smuggled across our border. I would think that the government would say it was going to crack down on smugglers, but it would seem that the government is encouraging smuggling while discouraging lawful ownership. Importing or exporting a weapon knowing it is unauthorized is called smuggling. The bill would reduce minimum penalties for that.

The next item is discharging a firearm with intent. Why would we reduce a penalty for somebody purposely discharging a firearm with intent? This makes absolutely no sense. The Liberal MPs are simply misleading the House and Canadians with what their true intent is with Bill C-22, and it is incumbent upon all of us with a conscience in the House of Commons, and with an eye to doing what is right for the law-abiding citizens that we represent, to defeat this irremediable piece of legislation.

[HMCS Wetaskiwin, April 12th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, as the previous member of Parliament for the constituency of Wetaskiwin, it is an absolute privilege for me to be in the House today to honour the 81st anniversary of HMCS Wetaskiwin.

Laid down in north Vancouver on April 11, 1940, this Flower-class corvette proudly launched on July 18, 1940, and on December 17, was the first west-coast-built corvette to enter service with the Royal Canadian Navy during the Second World War.

She participated in 40 transatlantic convoys, including the largest convoy of the Second World War, with 166 ships escorted without loss. On July 31, 1942, while escorting convoy ON.115, she and HMCS Skeena sank the U-boat U-588.

HMCS Wetaskiwin received battle honours of the Atlantic 1941-1945 and of the Gulf of St. Lawrence 1944. She and her crews served our nation proudly and with honour.

It is important to pause to reflect and remember the important events that have shaped our nation's great history.