Brian Murphy

[Public Safety, April 16th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe has asked for a cost-sharing agreement for its RCMP detachment. The three mayors met with the minister in 2007 and wrote to him in December 2008. I wrote to the minister myself in January 2009. The problem has not yet been resolved.

Only two of 269 communities have no such agreement, and both are located in south-eastern New Brunswick. Why the discrimination? When will Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe get an agreement?

[Keeping Canadians Safe (International Transfer of Offenders) Act, April 16th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, there have been 1,314 applications for transfer received by international transfers unit of Correctional Service Canada from 2002 to 2007. Of those, 519 were denied by the minister, who has the right under the existing legislation to do that, on the basis of threats to public security or not a significant link to the country.

Is that not working? Why do we need then Bill C-5, which purports to be for enhancing public safety, if the minister already has that discretion and has used it? I do not know the math of 519 out of 1,314, but it is almost in half the cases.

What is wrong? “If it ain't broke”, why fix it?

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 16th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I know the member is close to being the dean in Parliament. I will have to look at my remuneration package to figure out that $200 remark and will get my assistants to work on it, but I want to ask him a serious question about omnibus bills.

We do not use omnibus bills in Parliament in that name. However, in my short time here, which is about one-sixth of the time of the hon. member, I have seen various measures dealt with in one bill. I assume he is saying it is not against procedure to do same, but he would say that it is sneaky to do same and would not recommend it.

I know he is a learned author in these matters of parliamentary procedure, but is he saying it is sort of legal but semi-moral or is he saying it is all political and we have to sort of, as he would say, not pass go and not collect $200?

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 15th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I want to change the channel a little and ask the hon. member, who I know has a very deep interest in the arts, about something on page 305 of this budget document where it talks about the cultural crown corporations. There are five lines in the entire budget about cultural crown corporations.

To paraphrase it, it says that all the cutting and slashing has already been done so we do not have to do anything more specific in terms of savings because everything is working out pretty good it seems with CBC, and the Canadian Council for the Arts, the National Film Board and Telefilm Canada. However, that is not what the stakeholders in those organizations tell me and that is not what listeners of regional radio and television programming of CBC say to me in the Maritimes.

I wonder what the situation is out west. With her broad experience with the arts and cultural crown corporations, what can she tell me about the devastation the government has visited upon CBC, NFB and Telefilm, et cetera?

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 15th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I share my hon. friend's concerns about airports and access to travel for businesses and travellers in parts of Canada that are, let us say, outside the major metropolitan areas. With all due deference, the member probably thinks very highly of Windsor, but it is not Toronto, and Moncton is not Montreal, and Kelowna and Abbotsford are not Vancouver.

Therefore the budget hurts those mid- to smaller-size airports.

I want him to elaborate. In addition to the user fee, essentially, that is being tacked on to each individual traveller, I would like the member to comment on the deleterious effect, from page 292 of the bill, with respect to the cuts to CATSA in general and also the Canada Border Services Agency for international airports that have to have personnel to accept passengers returning home to Canada from charter flights. Many small and medium-size airports, from Mont Tremblant to Abbotsford to Charlottetown to Windsor, rely on these flights.

Many of these airports rely on passenger travel for survival. The Greater Moncton International Airport has more than 500,000 passengers a year, and these measures will hurt that airport because perhaps there will be one scanner for 500 passengers a day in a 20-minute or half-hour period.

That is going to really deter people from using airports like Moncton and Windsor. Perhaps the member could comment on those cuts.

[CONTROLLED DRUGS AND SUBSTANCES ACT, April 13th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to Bill C-475. It is a bill that has been introduced by a Conservative colleague in the House, and I believe it is well intentioned.

The bill simply, but in a complicated way, attempts to zero in surgically on the proliferation of club and party drugs known as methamphetamines and ecstasy. The bill, in its two clauses, attempts to pinpoint persons who possess, produce, sell or import anything knowing that it will be used to produce or traffic in a substance referred to as the two drugs I mentioned.

I think there should first be context. We live in an age when the proliferation of new drugs, drugs that market themselves and drugs that are more easily manufactured than in times before, is upon us. We also know that it is no longer the growing of drugs, but the manufacture of drugs, that is a fairly easy proposition for those in the know and produces drugs of potency that can be calibrated. I do not like to use the word calibration very much on this side, but it is apt here. The calibration of the potency of a drug is much more precise in the chemical production lab than in the marijuana and poppy fields where drugs are traditionally known to come from.

We have a real epidemic of producers who, with very short learning curves in the production of drugs, can fill our streets, schoolyards and playgrounds with perhaps permanently mind-altering drugs at an affordable price in small quantities to be concealed. It is therefore the intention, I think, of my hon. friend to zero in on these club drugs.

I must say that in the four years I have been here, the Conservative approach to law and order has been to put more coats of peanut butter on top of the jam. We all know that peanut butter does not go on jam. It is not enough just to increase sentences. It does not make the criminal justice system work. This bill attempts to widen the net. It is not just another addition of a mandatory minimum. It is not just another hard penalty for a crime that already exists under the Code. We have had four years of that from the government.

It is important to recognize that this bill comes from a private member. It does not come from the government. So bravo; at least somebody on the backbench gets the idea that we can be surgical and at the same time improve the situation with respect to controlling drugs and substances, as the act says. He expands it by saying that no person shall possess, produce, sell or import “anything”. Obviously, that thing is any element that makes up the drugs ecstasy or methamphetamine.

As this is to be sent to committee, we are saying we have to very carefully examine what that word “knowing” means. Of course, someone could have a chemical that results in the production of ecstasy. That chemical may in itself have a harmless use. It may be something that someone buys for agricultural, medicinal or cleaning purposes, but it is an element that in the end makes up the drug ecstasy. I will say ecstasy because I have an easier time saying ecstasy than methamphetamine. If it is part of that process, knowingly, this bill will attempt to insert itself into the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

If ecstasy is produced, the penalties are very precise. There is a maximum penalty, finally we are dealing with maximum penalties, which inherently has within it the long, four years or so, ignored principle, an importance of judicial discretion when giving out sentences. The government has ignored that for so long and, treating judges like schoolchildren, has said no, that it wants mandatory minimums. This bill treats specific offences with maximum sentences therefore protecting the idea that a judge in a certain circumstance could say that this was not a case that warrants the 10 year maximum in the case of having the elements that make up ecstasy and methamphetamines, and the sentence has been increased to a 7 year maximum for other drugs.

We need to look at the government's record with respect to controlled drugs and substances. For a couple of years it might have been good enough for the Conservatives to rail and complain that they did not have the keys to the castle and therefore could not do much with respect to drug awareness and the control of harmful substances but they have been in power for four years now. This is a pretty good bill but we need to look at it at committee to see if the intent aspects are covered, because no one in this House wants to make a law that looks good on the surface but will not be efficacious.

The law has to work, which is why it will be sent to committee, I suspect, and we will see if it passes the test of being upheld by the courts. What we have seen in the last few years is a real rush into a rash of laws that had not been necessarily tested. We certainly never had one charter opinion from a Department of Justice official tabled in any of the debates we have had with respect to law and order legislation.

I welcome the British Columbia member's bill. It will have a very hearty and thorough debate at committee. Overall, however, the government's attack on the harm that drugs can do to our youth has been woeful: increasing sentences and attacking the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Many experts say that increasing sentences for youth, particularly gang members, enticed into criminal activity, will have very little deterrent effect.

We need to examine the whole road map with respect to drug prevention and education. How do we get the people who are addicted to drugs off those drugs? What is the point of putting forward legislation that speaks to diversion to drug treatment courts, which are a very good thing and supported certainly on this side, when drug treatment courts in my riding, for instance, do not even exist? It is a diversion to nowhere. We are just finishing a budget debate. Where are the resources for the prevention of addictions and the treatment for addictions. That is the item that requires five or six days of debate in this country.

Everybody has had a family member who has had a dependency of some sort. Everybody in the House who has would know that it comes through treatment, education, awareness and resources in the community to attach oneself or one's family to those services that really help the fight on addictions in this community.

Many people who are involved in addictions and find themselves in the courts are victims rather than criminals. The more we can do to help the root cause of addictions, to get more people treated and to divert them to measures that are actually funded, the less we will need well-intentioned but surgical bills such as this one which only treat the disease, not the symptoms and only make society more overladen with laws and not justice.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 13th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, EI is a pressing issue for all of those who need access to it, whether it is in Toronto, Moncton or elsewhere.

We on this side prefer to take a calibrated approach to EI reform. My colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour leads the charge with respect to improvements to the EI program, which so far have been completely ignored by the government. There are people in need and people who need access to EI. There are people who need a longer term of EI.

The way to look at this subject, rather than just being outside the palace all of the time throwing snowballs, is to try to get into the palace and change the way we deal with EI, which is what we on this side are doing. We are coming up with constructive arguments toward sustainable, sensitive EI reform that will help all Canadian workers, whether in Atlantic Canada or elsewhere.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 13th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member was doing so well up to beaches and lobster.

He is correct that the fundamentals of the economy, which were put in place by a good friend of many of us on this side, Paul Martin, and the resistance of a former government to things like bank mergers, which most people on the other side agreed with at the time, are largely responsible for the fact that we did not do as badly as some other economies.

The point is, and I will use an aeronautical analogy, had someone been doing something else other than just being on auto pilot, like those members were, we might have avoided racking up such a huge deficit. To turn the argument over on my friend, a huge deficit does affect everybody in Canada and probably will affect the regions more.

When we get down to budget deficit slaying, the people of Atlantic Canada know they will be the ones to suffer. They know that budget deficits need to be dealt with and ACOA and the other shoes that may drop, Marine Atlantic, who knows, these will be the first things that the Conservative government will look at because it cares not for Atlantic Canada.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 13th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today and speak to Bill C-9, the budget implementation bill.

It is my pleasure to make a brief speech on behalf of the residents of greater Moncton, my riding of Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, and the people of Atlantic Canada.

I would like to take this opportunity to speak to the budget on behalf of Atlantic Canadians. We are all in this place representing various areas of the country and I want to point out what is a glaring absence of any policy, of any care or of any words related to the hopes, the aspirations and the mere existence of Atlantic Canada.

In the budget speech we all received a document entitled, “Leading the Way on Jobs and Growth”, delivered by the Minister of Finance who, like many in this House, has Maritime roots, in fact New Brunswick roots, which I know he is proud of. Nonetheless, in his speech of some 19 pages there was not one word toward Atlantic Canada, which is what we might call exhibit A.

Second, we in Atlantic Canada laud our coastal brethren in the Pacific for their initiative with respect to the Pacific Gateway and we understand that it is vital to Canada's economic growth and future. I could probably speak for all members of the Atlantic Liberal caucus when I say that we are happy there was mention of and movement toward forming and making stronger the Pacific Gateway, but there was not one mention of the term “Atlantic gateway” in the budget speech, the Speech from the Throne or the budget documentation.

We have a right arm and a left arm. We have a ying and a yang. In this place, we represent a country with three coasts. Economically, we have a Pacific coast but we also have an Atlantic coast and that coast deserves and is acting on a provincial level toward the crystallization of an Atlantic gateway, both port-wise and inland. No one need take my word for it. There are various provincial governments of all political stripes. We have a whole rainbow of colours of governments in Atlantic Canada now. We have a provincial NDP government, a provincial Conservative government and provincial Liberal governments. It is not partisan when I say that there is good work being done by all provincial governments on the Atlantic gateway and yet the federal government appears not to want to mention anything of it in its recalibration document. In fact, there is no real effort toward sustaining or helping the Atlantic lobster fishery which is in crisis.

I want to take a few moments to speak to other entry point aspects. Moncton is an area that is clearly inland and it is the hub of the Maritimes. It is a transportation centre. For a long time, after being one of the first airports to be transferred to a private authority in Canada, has been at the cutting edge of having small or mid-sized community transportation issues made important. The Greater Moncton International Airport handles over 500,000 passengers a year. It puts itself into the same category, with the same aspirations, hopes and struggles, as places like Abbotsford, Charlottetown, Mont Tremblant, Fredericton, Saint John and Kelowna, the airports that are not, frankly, Vancouver, Toronto or Montreal.

There are challenges presented to those points of entry, which is why, in the budget document beginning at page 299, there is the strange term called “strategic review savings”. To many people, this might go unnoticed, but we need to be clear that those are cuts to budgets. If they were cuts to budgets of Air Force One and the PMO's plane, maybe we would not have a big problem, but they are cuts to things like CATSA, the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority. Those are the fine men and women who, until I suppose a month ago or so, were not very well-known until a certain visit by a former cabinet minister to Charlottetown. However, they are the people who administer security in our airports. They perform a very vital function in flowing traffic for commerce and ensuring security, which needs to be top of mind for all of us.

In the 2011-12 budget, $12 million will be cut to the services, followed by a further $15 million in 2012-13. The government gives lip service to the notion of airport security. When the focus should be on ensuring security personnel in our airports, the only safety measure the government is able to employ is body scanners and there is no indication that the body scanners will be deployed in mid-sized airports. It is of crucial importance to people, like I say, in Abbotsford, Charlottetown and Moncton to ensure the flow of passengers continues.

The presence of body scanners suffices for the government while it cuts personnel. How will that help on the issue of security and with respect to the flow of goods and persons on a commercial level? For many of the airports in Atlantic Canada, it will be crippling. Frankly, the government is abdicating its responsibility in this regard to protect Canadians. We can forget about commerce, Atlantic Canada gateways and the importance of emerging economies, the real point is that there is an offloading of the costs of security to the citizens.

While the government talks about tax decreases and easing the burden for Canadians, what is happening through this budget instrument is that the Conservative government, in claiming to prioritize security in Canada, is hiking airport security fees to the passengers while simultaneously reducing the budget by some $12 million to $15 million for CATSA, the agency providing security. In the end, the Canadian traveller will pay.

Canadians already pay up to $17 in security taxes per flight and the government is proposing to raise it on some flights by over $8. It may not sound like a lot but for some people travelling across this country it may be the difference between some people choosing to stay home, to not travel through an airport or not to use the Moncton airport, for instance, especially if there is one scanner employed for over 500,000 passengers. We do not know what the future holds but there is certainly no emphasis on small and medium-sized cities and their airports in this budget and, as I mentioned, not a word about the issue of the Atlantic gateway.

The government claims to care about Canadian security but it is cutting funding to CATSA and expecting taxpayers, Canadian citizens, to cover the shortfall. It is another instance of a hidden tax. It is another incidence of untruthfulness in a budget document. It does not even provide sufficient funding for airport security in terms of personnel and there will be cuts of people employed at Canada's airports.

Another issue with respect to security, an issue of importance to the Greater Moncton International Airport and other airports, is the work of the Canada Border Services Agency. The disregard for the security and safety of Canadians citizens shown in this budget has been furthered by the fact that the CBSA cuts, which total $6.5 million in this year and $54 million in 2011-12, show a complete disregard for the need for service at our airports and ports. How will CBSA deal with the budget cuts?

I want to know where the champions of Atlantic Canada are. Where are the Allan J. MacEachens? Where are the Don Jamiesons? Where are the Roméo LeBlancs? They are not in the House or in the government. They are not on the government side because Atlantic Canadians have been told, along the lines of a famous 1997 speech given by the prime minister, that Atlantic Canadians should come to the House and mind their spots. They should just mind their place, follow the rules and be quiet about their aspirations.

It is no longer time for Atlantic Canadians to accept the ignorance of the government toward their dreams and aspirations. It is no longer time for them to be quiet about the future of Atlantic Canada. It also is not time for the Government of Canada to omit the words “Atlantic Canadians” from a budget document. We will not stand for it and I urge all members of the House to take that to the government during the budget debate.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 12th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I want to change the channel and talk about cultural crown corporations, and I will use the acronyms because the member knows what NFB stands for, though I am not sure about others in the House. On page 305 of the multicoloured book, it says that the Canadian Council for the Arts, CBC, NFB, Telefilm undertook strategic reviews. There are four lines in the budget about cultural institutions. Frankly, it shows how insignificant culture is to the people on the other side.

There are question marks that arise, and I would like the hon. member to comment on them because I know he has an interest in the arts and our national cultural institutions. It states:

However, reallocations were not necessary as programs delivered by these organizations are aligned with the priorities of Canadians.

In a lot of tiny communities across Canada, institutions like the CBC have made service cuts. There are parts of the Arctic and northern Canada that are not being served by any cultural institutions. What can he say about the dearth of action in the action plan on culture in this document?