Brian Murphy

[Judges Act, November 8th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to ask the Minister of Justice to comment on the rationale for the government's response. He knows that it is absolutely essential to have independent judiciary. He knows that this commission which recommended over 10% was independent. He breached that independence when he introduced Bill C-17, which talks of a lower percentage.

What economic conditions or competing demands of the government were in place specifically that led the minister to break that rule of independence of the judiciary which is older than the Magna Carta? What specific programs is the minister speaking about? What bad economic conditions were in place? Was it the $13.2 billion surplus given to him by a previous government?

[Criminal Code, November 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member for her observations on a few points.

Despite the Criminal Code of Canada making loans with excess interest rates illegal, and given that there have been so few prosecutions in the area such that this law has become necessary to fill the gap, why does my colleague think there was such a paucity of prosecutions? What could we have done about this? What should we do about it? As she knows, there is a limit to this payday loan exception.

Why are 850 of 1,300 payday loan sites supporting the bill? Does it make the member a little nervous? Is it perhaps it is a bit like the wolf setting the terms for the sheepdog's tenure on the sheep pasture?

[November 6th, 2006]

Absolutely, Mr. Speaker. Every bill has a story and every bill has a background. The background of this bill is to learn the lessons of the EU and the UN. The UN has made a declaration that is very clear and has made statements that we should look to reforms of our EI system. The lessons of the EU are that nations like Ireland have improved their economy greatly by bringing all of the regions into the fold of the Republic of Ireland.

I also want to bring back to the fullness of this debate the contextual setting that Maritimers find themselves in. In recent surveys, Maritimers are found to be hard-working individuals, working on average 36 hours per week, which is at the high end of the national average. If we ask any medical professional in the Maritimes about this, they will say that the pay is average to high, but the hours are excessive and that is having its effect.

There are pockets of prosperity in the Maritime provinces. My own region of Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe consistently performs with an unemployment rate under 9% and a population growth rate over 4%.

Eminent scholar Donald Savoie, in his most recent book, Visiting Grandchildren: Economic Development in the Maritimes, indicates that as a region Atlantic Canada is catching up on the EI contribution scale, to the point where we can talk intelligently about contributions, that is, premiums, and the draw-down, that is, programs, of EI. This bill is precisely about that paradigm and that debate. Do we increase the programs? Do we increase the premiums? Do we reduce the programs? Do we reduce the premiums? The program-premium paradigm is something to keep in mind when we discuss reforms such as these.

Bill C-269 is an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act, to tinker with the system to make it better for Canadians. For that reason, and not because we ascribe to all of its bits and pieces, we suggest that this bill be sent to committee for study.

EI touches every riding in this country. It touches the young and the old. It touches men and women. It touches families and children. Families are put in destitute positions if parents are not eligible for EI.

How the EI system works is that if there are two years or more of surplus, a committee recommends annually that premiums be set at a certain level. There are two ways to deal with such surpluses, and that is to reduce premiums or improve programs.

Members will remember that in 1990 a previous Conservative government dealt with the fund by lengthening the space between government and EI. In recent years, we have seen that the Liberal government, working on the surplus redeployment scheme, introduced programs specifically with respect to maternal and paternal leave. Here I pay homage to the hon. member for Mississauga South, whose private member's bill, such as this one is, was successful in raising the maternal and paternal leave to one year from six months. That was a private member's bill and a bold initiative supported by the Liberal government.

The vast majority of workers contribute to the employment insurance fund without ever benefiting from it. If that is because they never need to, that is a good thing, but if that is because they cannot access it or are not eligible, that is a bad thing.

EI does help those most in need, that is, seasonal workers and the seasonal economy. I speak with some experience geographically with respect to the seasonal economy. The seasonal economy contributes 25% to the GDP of this country, but also, we have workers and industries facing crises or distress, with businesses that downsize or move to developing countries.

Yet despite all of this need, somewhere between two-thirds and 40% of workers who lose their jobs are not eligible for the benefits. We must ensure that the EI program works for those who need it and that Canadian workers throughout the country get the very best coverage under the scheme that we as parliamentarians promise to give them.

The nuts and bolts of this bill are that the qualifying period would be reduced to 360 hours. There would be an increased benefit period. There would be an increase in the rate of weekly benefits to 60%. There would be a repeal of the waiting period. There would be an elimination of the distinction between a new entrant and a re-entrant to the labour force. It would eliminate the presumption that persons related to each other do not deal with each other at arm's length. There would be an increase in the maximum yearly insurable earnings to $41,500, with an indexing formula brought in.

Many of these changes might add up to too much stress on the federal budget to implement wisely and at once, but it is worth sending the bill to the committee for study. I now will pick parts of the bill that I think are particularly attractive.

In June, the government renewed the pilot project for older workers, and for seasonal workers, I should add. As I stressed before, this was good Liberal policy. It also should be increased and improved upon as the pilot moves to tier one or level one programming.

I would also have the committee retain the studying of the effective difference between our regions. It may be that difference between eligibility between regions is a more effective way to deal with the surplus.

The two week waiting period seems constant with the real world of insurance benefits paid otherwise, but there does not seem to be any reason to discriminate against new entrants as opposed to re-entrants.

Much of the bill can be studied and improved at committee. The changes that might come out of that study and recommendation process would be such that the most vulnerable workers would benefit: single parents trying to break the vicious cycle of poverty, low-paid workers in service employment, young workers trying to pay off their huge student loans, and older workers trying to get back into the workforce or trying to find a new job after losing their long time factory jobs or jobs in the sectors of this country that are going through transformation. Many of these people would benefit from the enlargement of the program in all or some of the ways recommended by the bill. It is why I suggest that the bill be sent to committee for study.

In recent years, important changes in the workforce, such as self employment, people creating their own businesses, and the evidence of fewer permanent jobs and more contractual workers, have created a far different landscape with respect to employment than existed in the times of our fathers and mothers and grandfathers and grandmothers.

Fewer and fewer people keep one permanent job their entire lives. Today, people work on contract; they have no benefits and no guarantees. They are self-employed and therefore not covered by employment insurance.

Such changes as those included in Bill C-269 have been requested by many groups in my riding. I particularly draw members' attention to the Business and Professional Women's Club of greater Moncton.

It is a sad story that we cannot provide coverage for people who have grown their own businesses and who employ other people, just because of the corporate veil that exists. For instance, a young professional woman, building her business from zero or from one employee up to 15, is given a choice between whether she should stay at home and have a child or run her business as she has done successfully in the past dozen years. This does not seem to be a fair choice. It is the kind of amendment that should be looked at in committee with respect to making the EI system work. It does not seem fair that someone should have to choose between having a child or running a business, not in a sophisticated, cosmopolitan country such as ours, a country that seeks to be on the world stage. We owe much more to our citizens.

I remind all members of the House that the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights recommended as follows:

The Committee recommends that the State party reassess the Employment Insurance scheme with a view to providing greater access and improved benefit levels to all unemployed workers.

With 40% of workers who have lost their jobs not having access to the program and with people who have grown their businesses and are self-employed not covered because of the corporate veil situation, we need to look at the bill at committee. I recommend the bill to committee for further study and I thank the hon. member for her bill.

[November 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Laurentides—Labelle for having introduced Bill C-269.

It gives me great pleasure to rise in the House and speak to the bill. I am wondering, by way of background, why the Prime Minister is afraid to go to Finland to meet his EU counterparts. It might be that in 1997 the Prime Minister referred to our nation as a failed northern European welfare state. It might be that he called us, we maritimers, having a culture of defeat.

However, the lessons of the EU and, in particular--

[Court Challenges Program, November 1st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, on October 25 the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne made an application to the Federal Court of Canada to have the government's decision to cancel the court challenges program declared null and void.

In the past, the court challenges program has enabled Acadians to obtain services in their own language and to have French language schools in their own communities. These are essential services. Not only are the cuts unacceptable, they jeopardize the ability of Acadian society to live, develop and prosper in their own language.

This is why I support the FCFA court action and further invite the minority government to come to its senses and reinstate funding to the court challenges program immediately.

[Criminal Code, October 31st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, one really has to question who is fearmongering with the public. It is not this side. What we are trying to do is suggest that the responsible course, and perhaps it will get there in committee, is to tone it down, to put some water in the wine and suggest that the government does not have to mimic the United States in everything it does. The “three strikes and you're out” American concept imported here for the six o'clock news is not the way to go.

Sound law, agreed upon with the constitutional imprimatur of the Attorney General's department, which was not forthcoming at committee, would be the way to go: make it constitutional and we are with that side of the House. We are with every aspect of the bill that not against the law. One would think that the Minister of Justice and the government in power would want to have legal laws. It is what they are supposed to do.

I will send the hon. member all of the information I have from the justice committee. He can put it in his third office, because it is quite voluminous. It might take him a while to read it.

[Criminal Code, October 31st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for London West addressed the issue of mandatory orders to provincial prosecutors, which may well be constitutionally ultra vires. She laid it out in a most articulate fashion. I will not repeat that.

The key issue of our position is that subsection 11(d) and section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms are very much at play. Any lawyer could actually make the application to strike this legislation as being unconstitutional. On this side, if this law were to pass, as the majority of Parliament may wish it to, we have obligations to stand by the law. One would hope that section 11 would be read as not being about denying the presumption of innocence because it is after a conviction. One would hope that we could read section 7 of the charter not to include the fundamental principles of justice with respect to liberty under seven years. That would be a stretch and I think it is the strongest argument.

One would hope as well that we would not have to go to the Supreme Court of Canada five years from now to see in the end that the Conservatives brought in legislation which was hasty and designed for the six o'clock news and really left citizens vulnerable to more dangerous offenders and long term offenders being on their doorsteps.

I think that on Halloween evening it is a pretty important point to make. Five years from now on Halloween, do you, Mr. Speaker, want more dangerous offenders on your doorstep because of a bad law struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada? I do not. Canadians do not either.

[Criminal Code, October 31st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the member's insight is very germane to the question. There is no ideological difference. There is a political difference. This whole Conservative justice policy is a policy by innuendo, a policy of fear, of creating fear where it did not exist, and third, because there are three prongs to it, it is a policy of having drive-by legislation that is poorly written and will not stand the test of law. In the long run, it will actually make the citizens of this country less safe in their communities.

What I said during my discourse, which I believe and I will give credit to the opposing party as well, is that every member in the chamber believes in law, order and safety in our communities. It should be a matter of rudimentary self-respect and mutual respect. No one is soft on crime. Some people want laws that make sense and will be effective and some people want to have 20 announcements on the six o'clock news across the country, putting fear where fear does not belong and promising security where security will never be.

[Criminal Code, October 31st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, many of the members comments are very well-founded and from the heart. I appreciate that.

She asked a very personal question. My uncle was a former member of this chamber and he was a provincial court judge for 35 years. I am not worried about getting re-elected on a law and order platform in Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe.

However, if she had perhaps listened to the pith of the speech, this law may be struck down, particularly under section 7 of the charter. The existing dangerous offender legislation is working. Well over 400 people are behind bars with indefinite terms because of the that legislation. I hope the member knows this.

However, this bill is perhaps putting that in jeopardy. If section 7 is to be read clearly as to what fundamental justice, or the principles thereof mean, smart lawyers, who the other side seem to loathe so much, may well attack their legislation and dangerous offenders could be back on the street because of this weak legislation.

Who cares about citizens and who cares about the crime rate more? Is it the people who say that this legislation will not work and that there will be more dangerous offenders on the streets of Moncton, or wherever, or the people opposite who cannot accept that the law, as it exists, works?

[Criminal Code, October 31st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, contrary to what the minority government across the way would like Canadians to believe, the current system with respect to dangerous offenders and long term offenders does work well.

Unfortunately, Bill C-27 seems to me to be more motivated by the Conservatives' partisan political agenda than by a real desire to better protect Canadians. It is unfortunate that this minority government thinks its partisan agenda is more important than the greater good of its citizens.

Even more importantly, Bill C-27 is a direct attack on a key concept in the Canadian justice system: the presumption of innocence.

In Canada, the presumption of innocence is guaranteed by section 11(d) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which states that any person charged with an offence has the right “to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal”.

One wonders in that last term, with the spate of Conservative appointments to the judiciary, whether we could find an independent and impartial judge of recent appointment who has not been a major contributor to the Conservative Party or has fundamental Christian beliefs. All of the appointments have not been filled and I would not make that comment until they are. One hopes for impartiality and independence in the tribunals.

The real point in this legislation is whether the person charged with an offence has the right to be presumed innocent. There are two parts to this: the part of the trial and the part of the mini-trial with respect to the designation of dangerous offender.

The reversal of the burden of proof set out in Bill C-27 is questionable.

Many legal experts have already said that the legislation could be challenged in court. Their arguments seem to me to be serious enough to warrant taking the time to examine this seriously.

In light of the provisions of the charter, Bill C-27 creates a problematic situation with regard to the reversal of onus. The burden shifts. In the past the Supreme Court of Canada has said that the presumption of innocence will be violated whenever a trier of fact may be led to convict an accused person, even though there is reasonable doubt as to some essential element of the offence. I think all parties are on the same page with respect to the conviction of the accused and the burden of proof.

Although the proposed legislation does reverse the onus, we must keep in mind that this reversal only comes into play once the offender has been found guilty of the designated, serious violent or sexual offence three times. Each time the offender is accused, he would have benefited already from the presumption of innocence. Thank God that has not been taken away. This essential principle will not be changed by Bill C-27 as it relates to the finding of guilt, but what about the effect of this guilt?

Under the proposed legislation, the offender who has been found guilty already three times of one of the listed offences in Bill C-27 will no longer be presumed innocent. As a matter of sentencing law and not constitutional law, the Supreme Court has previously held that on sentencing, any aggravating fact that is not admitted by the offender, must be proven by the Crown beyond a reasonable doubt. Let us keep that clear. On sentencing, the Supreme Court of Canada has said that we still have to prove things beyond a reasonable doubt when it comes to the aggravating circumstances in that conviction. I would say it again if I thought the other side was listening or could understand.

This rule has since been codified under section 724(3)(e) of the Criminal Code, that big book the criminal law is in. In the context of dangerous offender applications, section 753 (1.1) would undo this long standing judicial principle and rule.

Furthermore, some could argue that not only does Bill C-27 deprive offenders of the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, as stated in section 11(d) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and this is more telling and more appropriate to the argument before us today, it also allows for deprivation of liberty as stated in section 7 of the same charter. This creates the right not to be deprived of life, liberty and security of the person, except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice, a key term.

It is not clear that transferring the burden of proof from the Crown to the accused, as set out in Bill C-27, respects the principles of fundamental justice. It is not at all clear. For a long time now, the concept of fundamental justice has been one of our justice system's guiding principles. This applies to the legal system in Moncton, in New Brunswick and in Canada, as well as to all countries whose legal system is based on British common law—the root of our own common law—including the United States.

I would even go so far as to say that the Crown's duty to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of aggravating factors when determining the sentence is now a widely accepted concept. It is so widely accepted in our justice system that it can now be called a principle of fundamental justice, as it is written in section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Human Rights.

Under the current provision of the dangerous offender section of the Criminal Code, which is charter proof, 360 offenders have been designated as dangerous offenders and are currently behind bars. The system works.

Once again the minority government is all about sentences and law and order. My colleagues on the other side of the House might argue that these measures will protect innocent Canadians. As I have just said, section 7, the reasonable demands of having fundamental justice at any stage in the judicial determinations, puts in question whether this law, as presented and not yet amended at committee albeit, is in danger of falling like a house of cards on the dangerous offender designation system that already exists. It was put in place and monitored by Liberal governments. It was in the process of being improved because of the R. v. Johnson decision until the wrench was thrown in the problem.

The Conservatives have become the architects of disaster in suggesting we put in the reverse onus and the “three strikes you're out” because Arnold Schwarzenegger and those guys like it. What they are doing is possibly putting in jeopardy the whole system and that is not going to be good for victims.

Most of the justice legislation currently before the House will do little to protect Canadians and do very little for the victims. In fact, by cutting conditional sentences, sending more convicted individuals to the criminal schools of higher education, our jails, by building more jails and cramping the budget room for other needed programs, by putting longer sentences in place that will surely bring out a whole new round of graduated criminals determined to do more harm to victims and by cutting preventive and rehabilitation programs, we have no reason to think the crime rate is going to go down in Canada.

Furthermore, many studies, which is not germane to this discussion but very much germane to the discussions we have had at the justice committee, clearly indicate there is absolutely no link between harsher sentences and a lower crime rate.

It is quite telling at the committee level. When the proponents of the Conservative agenda on law and order are asked to bring witnesses who will prove empirically and objectively how these programs will work, they have very few names to present. On the other side, the people who suggest that harsher sentences do not lower crime rates have a plethora of witnesses available. That comes down to a determination by the Conservative minority government that most of those are criminal lawyers, professors and people who believe the criminal.

We have to ask ourselves this. If it is a truism that more sentences, harsher sentences and more people in jail will result in lower crime rates and a safer society, where is the proof? Canadians want the proof. Liberals want the proof. Liberals have been determined, with a justice program of over 13 years, to continually work with the outdated Criminal Code to modify the laws, as Canada grows, to protect society and victims.

In a non-partisan half second I say that is the same goal for the Bloc Québécois as well as the NDP. I know it is the same goal for the Conservatives because they keep saying it. However, they do not act in furtherance of that objective. They in fact act against that objective. They are not making the communities safer by locking everyone up. We ought to really take a non-partisan moment and say that if there is proof that these things work, show us. We are open to it.

In summary, Bill C-27 is no different than most justice bills recently tabled. It puts the political agenda of the Conservatives before the greater good of Canadians. The proof of that is they have overloaded the committee with so much work. Probably all the justice bills they keep tabling have no real intention of coming back to Parliament before what we perceive will be the next election.

Canadians have to ask, what was the objective in that? What was the objective in putting forward Bill C-9 and Bill C-10 separately? We now know that the list of witnesses is the very same and the hearings will take double the time. Why not propose them as one bill? The reason is simple. The Conservatives want to scare people into thinking we do not have a safe society. We do have a safe society. We support law and order. We support the victims in the community. We support the average Canadian who wants to be safe in his or her home.

Average Canadians are safe in their homes, even on Halloween when we have politicians masquerading as the proponents of law and order and when we have policy written on the back of a napkin dressed up as the law of the country.

We should take our duties more seriously. We should be earnest parliamentarians and pass good laws, not laws that are destined to be broken down by the loopholes contained in them by Conservative writers.