Brian Murphy

[Criminal Code, October 2nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, clearly in an area where there is a $13 billion plus surplus, to bring in this bill and not bring in any measures to educate the driving public, and the youth public, frankly, about the dangers of street racing, and where clearly resources to the RCMP are being cut for a cutting edge prevention program, it shows that the right hand and the left hand of the government do not know what they are doing. Or worse, if the government members know what they are doing, they are more interested in laws that do not necessarily make sense.

As a member of the last Parliament, the hon. member would know that Bill C-65 did attempt to address these issues, in a more organic, more intelligent and, more important, more efficacious way. I am not talking about the subsequent prohibitions later on, but in terms of sentencing and sending the message out, the mandatory aggravating factor would work. This would give judges the hammer they need in order to fashion the appropriate sentence for a convicted street racer or a person who, in my terminology, does dangerous things with vehicles. That is really what this is about.

I think the government is off the mark here. This bill is hastily drafted. It is sensational in character. It will not get to the root cause. The people of Canada are being lulled into a false sense of security by the nightly news bulletins from the Conservative Party of Canada.

[Criminal Code, October 2nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, since this is my first intervention in the House since the election campaign in New Brunswick, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Liberal government in New Brunswick and Premier designate, Shawn Graham, and his team.

As partners, we will represent New Brunswick in a new era of relations between the three levels of government.

It is my pleasure today to speak on Bill C-19. It is another one of the bills presented by the new Conservative government.

Once again, with the introduction of this proposed legislation, the Minister of Justice does not address the real issue. While he and his government might be playing to another audience, an audience in large municipal centres of rich population, dense population and voters who did not support the government, they are playing to the issues that affect people very much. While the purported message in the bill is to prevent crime and keep communities safe, the real objective of the bill, like all other bills the Minister of Justice has led through the House, is political gain.

Like the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh said earlier, we must look at the issues involved and the real merits of the bill and compare it to other bills, which have been presented in Parliament's past, to give a good review of where we want to go. I submit that this matter be sent to committee for procedural as well as substantive review.

The real issue is the saving of lives before lives are put in danger. Instead of investing time and energy into creating new offences that have a catchy title, such as is the case with Bill C-19, we as a responsible nation and as responsible parliamentarians need to invest in prevention and education to prevent street racing from happening, rather than dealing just with the victims and deaths once street racing has occurred.

It occurred to me that this would be an appropriate time to bring forward the fact that, under the public safety and emergency preparedness cuts of last week, the RCMP cut from its budget $4.6 million to do with the elimination of drug impaired driving programs through its training budget. It seems remarkable to me that on the one hand the government is suggesting our streets will be safer. On the other hand, it takes money away from a program that would have made the streets safer.

I am proud of the fact that Mothers Against Drunk Driving is a Canada-wide organization. It has probably met with every member of Parliament. It is very focused. I am very proud that the president of MADD currently is a resident of New Brunswick. It would not be particularly pleased that the first focus of the government, when it comes to driving offences, is street racing. For some time, it has been lobbying for measures such as those cut in the recent budget. It would like to see the penalties meted out to drunk driving offences, which have a long history in the Criminal Code, as severe as those for street racing violations, and they are not under this bill.

We can all agree that street racing is a dangerous activity and has no place in Canadian communities. I am tired of other parties in the House being castigated with the brush, that we are not for the protection of our citizens. I make a non-partisan statement that every member of the House is for public safety and safety in our streets. We will differ on how to get there. My remarks are about that.

How to address this problem is the real issue. The Minister of Justice believes that by creating a new series of offences that reference the existing Criminal Code offences, we will have a panacea. Because it is called a street racing bill, I am very concerned that members of the public will now think it will eradicate street racing. Nothing can be further from the truth.

The truth is there are in existence a number of harsh and severe offences, which have to be meted out by the justices and for which this very Minister of Justice has absolutely no respect. The Minister of Justice has showed that he does not even know how judges get appointed. He has to know what colour they are in political allegiance, but he has no idea how they get appointed. He has shown so little respect for judges and their discretion that he has held up a long overdue pay increase to them. He has criticized judges as Liberal judges. Today he might have argued that judges have no political stripes. We are waiting for a lot of answers from the Minister of Justice on his view and his level of respect for the judiciary of our country.

Clearly, by these amendments, he has no respect for judicial discretion. This is in a long line of bills that the government has presented. I am not sure the minister has read them all but they all represent one thing: no discretion to be left in the hands of judges, who are probably all Liberal judges, but of course that will gradually change appointment by appointment. The minister has no respect for the discretion of these judges. That is the case with this bill as well. It would take away discretion.

Mr. Speaker, unlike my hon. friend, I am used to the courtroom and there is decorum in a courtroom.

This bill, like Bill C-9 and Bill C-10, takes away the discretion that judges have and instead of sculpting what could be taken from the late Chuck Cadman's bill and Bill C-65 as presented, where these factors would be taken into account on sentencing, the Minister of Justice, in his marquee cinema like world, wants to name something and pretend that all citizens of Canada will now be safe from street racing. However, that is not the case. The bill, on a technical aspect, would further cloud some issues by creating these new offences.

The definition of street racing itself has been talked about so I will eliminate that from my speech. It is something that can be cleaned up at committee. As members have said, the definition as it relates to at least one other motor vehicle can be made to make sense because there are races that include only one vehicle.

There are also problems with the definition of “public place”. While the bill is primarily oriented toward an urban environment, the Minister of Justice and members of the House will know, whether or not they are lawyers, that public places and motor vehicles have been defined and they may include snowmobiles on icy surfaces of lakes in rural Canada. This may be of concern as we go forward in looking at this bill.

On the solo race, the race against time and against oneself, the bill does not address that behaviour. This may be more dangerous than the actual one-on-one racing that occurs in some municipalities.

Bill C-19 creates another confusion. There is a lot of confusion in every Conservative bill because the Conservatives are in a hurry to leave a strong impression in Canada. It has been well established in law that objectively the offence of dangerous driving is not as serious as criminal negligence. However, this bill establishes an identical system of imprisonment for both offences. That does not make much sense.

It is respectfully submitted that the proper approach to deal with this dangerous conduct is simply to make street racing a mandatory aggravating factor in sentencing.

I heard talk in the House about whether people need to be lawyers but surely they do not. They need to have good sense. However, it does mean that the lawyers in this House need to have common sense too. It does not excuse the lawyers from the requirement for good common sense. The good common sense from having street racing as a mandatory aggravating factor in sentencing means that while we trust judges, and on this side of the House we do, to make proper decisions, we are saying by way of public statement that they shall consider street racing, when it is present, as an aggravating factor. This would remove the issue of having to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a street race has occurred.

One could imagine, in very serious circumstances, that the lawyers would spend most of their fighting over the definition of street racing because it has not been provided in the bill. The hon. Minister of Justice says that there is a lot of common law on this but common law on racing in Canada would probably be more tuned to horse racing than street racing because Canada has not had a law on street racing, which leaves it as a dog's breakfast. We probably have a whole bunch of Liberal lawyers trying to figure it out.

Instead, we would like some Liberal legislators to make it inevitable that we will not need to deal with the definition of street racing. The Minister of Justice and his cohorts can still go out on the bandstands and say that they have cured the issue but the technical aspect is that aggravating factor in sentencing would ensure the judge is just dealing with whether he thinks there was a race, whether there was dangerous operation of a motor vehicle or whether there was criminal negligence. Those are the standards that have been used. Those terms have meaning in law. They have been considered in cases. Those are judicial decisions that judges write.

This would remove the issue of having to deal with street racing, which has not been defined, just as the Liberal's Bill C-65 and, as I said before, private member's Bill C-230, proposed by the late Chuck Cadman, proposed to deal with this. I think it is the right way to go. Preferably we will deal with it in committee and, if not, by amendment at third reading stage.

It is suggested that by providing a mandatory aggravating factor in sentencing, the message to the public will be as serious as the marquee name “street racing” and the message would be heard loud and clear. It would be easier at a sentence hearing to argue that the aggravating factors existed.

Members will note in the material supplied by the Library of Parliament that a number of the cases showed that there were other aggravating factors, not mitigating factors. The Minister of Justice likes to speak about mitigating factors, the people who got off because of circumstances. We have had plenty of cases where there are multiple increased aggravating factors, such as the use of alcohol, criminal gang activity and lack of remorse. These are aggravating factors that can be combined with the mandatory aggravating factor in sentencing that was in place in Bill C-65.

The difference between a dangerous driving offence and a dangerous driving offence involving a race will be a dog's breakfast before the courts. I think we need to be careful that, while we agree on a goal, which is keeping the streets safer, we give, not only the judges but prosecutors, the tools they need to succeed in getting convictions and not give them loopholes with undefined terms, all for the purpose of political gain.

The bill would increase the available maximum prison terms. Once again, it is a well-established legal principle that the maximum sentence is usually reserved for the worst offender in the worst case. This might give people who are very concerned about street racing offences the false impression that every street racing offence will be charged under a maximum or asked for by charging the maximum.

We know that there are summary conviction methods of proceeding here, which give prosecutors discretion in the way they wish to proceed. We also know that maximum terms are not meted out that frequently.

It is important to tell the truth to the Canadian public, that even this bill, in its form, does not guarantee that every street racing offender will get 10 or 14 years. It is time to be real with the Canadian public. The bill would provide for mandatory orders of prohibition from driving.

At this time I would like to mention again the spectre of MADD. Mothers Against Drunk Driving might very well be at our doors next week or the week after, should we move this on or pass it relatively quickly, to ask where the tough mandatory orders of prohibitions are for longer periods on continued, excessive and repetitive drunk driving offences. The bill is harsher than those infractions are and those infractions were built up over a long period of time.

Though it should be easy to support this initiative with respect to the mandatory orders of prohibition, the manner in which it is addressed is inadequate, specifically when dealing with repeat offenders.

It is important to know the distinction between dangerous driving causing bodily harm and criminal negligence causing bodily harm. Let us take ourselves to a situation in an area not unlike the area that my friend from Fundy Royal represents, a countryside where there is a known repeat offender with respect to racing. This person is dangerous to the public and to himself or herself. The person is convicted the first time of dangerous driving because the prosecutor and the police, in that case the rural RCMP, say that this will show that person and this will be a deterrent. Hopefully that person is meted out the proper sentence and the proper time is served.

On the second conviction, the police might very well charge that person, because it is a repeat offence, with criminal negligence causing bodily harm. In both cases there could be bodily harm, the same modus operandi, the same facts, but the police authorities and the prosecutor have said that, for deterrent's sake, they must charge the person with the worse offence because the person will get more time.

Under this bill as drafted, and I hope we can sort this out at committee, I submit that the repeat offence will not be caught by the mandatory prohibitions and the longer sentences. The reason is that the definition of dangerous driving causing bodily harm, if amended, with or without a street race, is not a repeat if it is charged under criminal negligence causing bodily harm.

These definitions and these legal words certainly have to be worked out at the committee level but there is more than that. It is not good enough for the chief law officer of this nation to sign off on a bill for which homework has yet to be done. It is not fair enough to say that we can fix this at committee. It is a trend. It is trend of the government to present ill-conceived, ill-drafted, hasty and sensational bills to this House, known more for their titles than their substance, and expect the hard-working members of the committee to set it all right.

If I could send one message to the government members it would be that they read the bills, consider them and consider that the Criminal Code of Canada is holistic, it is organic and it should be taken in this context.

When a person is charged with criminal negligence and dangerous driving causing bodily harm, it begs the question of whether this is a repeat offender. Is the criminal negligence a second offence? We would not know. The bill fails to answer those questions. I can tell members that every doubt will be cast in favour of the accused in our courtrooms, as they are constituted.

Many if not all studies have shown that there is no link between more severe, longer and harsher sentences and the diminution of crime rates. While I, as a member of society, might be very willing to go with the government on longer sentences and try the principle of sentence that says deterrence is important, I would need to know and I would need to be able to tell my constituents that it will work, that the thrill-seeking street racer will be deterred by a harsher sentence.

It goes back to our first point. Through education or funding in law enforcement and more cooperation with the provincial law authorities, I think more could be done than just simply getting it out on the five o'clock news that we will cure street racing now because we have a three page bill. That is not good enough.

If the minister uses the word “holistic”, then let us put it into action. Let us work together to make sure that as Nicholson, Rob he convenes meetings with provincial attorneys general and that he sees the good work being done in cities like San Diego and Los Angeles and, if I may for local advertisement, the city of Moncton in enforcing its bylaws, in preventing drive-throughs, and in preventing people from circling certain locations on a habitual basis.

Let us work together with these various levels of government, because the cities and municipalities in this country are the third order of government, and let us try to make a better bill that would save the government money, but more important, would save lives.

Bill C-19 would create a new offence punishing people for street racing just as they are already being punished now for street racing. This is already covered in the current Criminal Code. This bill would allow us to arrest people only after they have put other people's lives at risk. We have to look at the big picture. We have to work with other members of other governments to make sure that we make a better law.

[Petitcodiac River, September 26th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw the attention of the House to the current state of the Petitcodiac River.

The river deserves the immediate attention of all public office holders. However, the former Conservative government in New Brunswick and the current federal minority government have failed in their duties by choosing to ignore the plight of this once mighty river.

The construction of the causeway has had a negative impact on the Petitcodiac River. Fish have been disappearing, there has been flooding, and the tidal bore is no more. This has resulted in a loss of tourism and commercial revenue exceeding $50 million.

The former Liberal government in Ottawa had offered up to $27 million of the final cost of the project. That offer was promptly rescinded by the incoming minority Conservative government.

I urge the federal government to restore this vital resource and act promptly on the 2005 EIA. Any delay will compromise the condition of our community's environmental and economic health and show that the government does not care about the environment.

[Emergency Management Act, September 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I can say from some personal experience as a mayor of a city that has been through a number of emergencies in the past, and I think of the September 11 landing of 14 transatlantic flights in my municipality and also an ice storm or two, that emergency preparedness is something that is very much at the centre of what people expect their governments to do. This is the theme of my question.

The legislation is well intended and, frankly, merits very close consideration. It follows on some previous proposed Liberal legislation. That is not the only reason I say it is well intended. Where the rubber hits the road is the question I have for my friend. How is it contemplated that this bill will ensure that there are coordinating efficiencies between the three levels of government?

Believe it or not, the Liberal government felt very strongly that municipalities were the third order of government. Many of them have their own emergency preparedness organization plans. My municipality did. It worked very closely with the province and in some cases the federal government. This bill talks about the capital m minister having responsibility “by coordinating, among government institutions and in cooperation with the provinces and other entities, emergency management activities”.

The question, simply put, is: How heavy is the club? How much can the federal government do to coordinate such activities over such a broad spectrum and how intrusive might it be to some of the very well thought out and good working plans in place in some of the provinces? I wonder if my friend might comment on that.

[Federal Accountability Act, June 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the member for Mississauga South heard the scuttlebutt from other members of the committee, such as the esteemed member for York South—Weston, the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, the member for Vancouver Quadra and myself, who all served on the Liberal side of the committee studying Bill C-2. I am sure he heard the story of how the government proceeded with sections of the act relating to the Auditor General's provenance over aboriginal groups, first nations and aboriginal peoples and the first nations that are self-governing.

I am sure the member was told that the government determined and described that the follow the money principle of the government over there, which means taxpayers of Canada want to know what is done with their money with respect to aboriginals and first nations. I am also sure the member was told how offensive that was to aboriginals and first nations and to this side. This side brought forward the amendment that got the government's claw off the first nations and aboriginals funds, which are theirs.

What are the member's comments on that?

[Judges Act, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I have the utmost respect for the member for Yukon and he knows issues of the north very well.

I would like his comment on the good part of Bill C-17 which was of course contained in the previous bill which died on the order paper in November. That is the increase in moving allowances and other allowances in northern or remote regions for judges and their partners, as defined in the act. Does the member think those were good recommendations from the commission and the previous Liberal government with respect to the administration of justice in recognizing the hardship and costs in our northern and remote regions?

[Judges Act, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased not only as a lawyer and the associate justice critic for the Liberal Party, but also as an ordinary Canadian, to stand before the House today to lambaste the government for not respecting the independence of our judges.

Judges are well respected people with learning and wisdom, who for many people represent “the law”. It is often said that our fine law enforcement officials such as local police and RCMP administer the law to so many in the first instance, and it is true, but let me give an example of how that first ministration is almost always subject to the good decisions of a judge.

Not so long ago, in my own province, which is proudly bilingual, individuals suspected of having violated traffic regulations could be questioned in any language by otherwise well-intentioned police officers.

Through careful application of our laws and, I add, common sense, judges determined that the first question to be legally put was what language the alleged violator desired service in. That is common sense. It came from judges, not the legislature. I use this point to illustrate how lost we would be without judges and why they deserve to be treated fairly on the pay issue.

Secondly, the days are long gone where favouritism is shown to the privileged classes in the judicial system. A lawyer or judge charged with an offence now is always tried and prosecuted by an out of town, faraway lawyer and judicial prosecution team. This was settled by judges, not legislators.

If the method of payment of judges is at the whim of legislators, this independence is put in jeopardy.

That is why the previous government established the Judicial Compensation and Benefits Commission in 2003 and, having received the commission's report in 2004, it tabled its response in November 2004.

Bill C-51 was later introduced, following numerous consultations, but it died on the order paper when the government fell last November.

This bill approved wage increases, but I will touch on that later.

First, let us look at the process. The commission was comprised of Earl Cherniak, Gretta Chambers et Roderick McLennan, three distinguished Canadians.

They received many submissions and conducted public hearings. Expert evidence was called. They hired their own independent consultants. The commission drew particular comparisons to the public sector and the salaries of DM3s at the Department of Justice and also those from the private bar, where many of the good candidates for judiciary come from.

In many cases, judges today accept pay decreases for a promotion. This does not often happen in other jobs or professions. Imagine the head of the English department at the high school, the head nurse at the hospital, the foreman of the water plant or the captain of a firefighting brigade accepting less upon promotion than before. It is absurd and it is what the commission concluded.

The former government approved the findings of this independent commission for the sake of fairness.

Let us now turn to the issue of workload. The minister, who introduces legislation and works like a real sheriff, has caused a direct increase in the workload of judges.

An increase in mandatory minimums and a decrease in conditional sentencing leads, as any lawyer knows, to more jail time and therefore more careful consideration of the evidence, timing of trials, submissions on sentencing, writing of decisions, and further appeals, all the attendant work relative to the loss of liberty that is occasioned by the other two bills that the justice minister felt were a priority to this one. It is more work for judges.

At the same time, this government has indicated that the dream of a unified family court in four provinces of this country, and its concomitant appointment of new judges to fill the same, is not coming any time soon, so having retired judges work more often is the solution for the logjam in the courts of our country.

If anyone on the other side has listened to parties wishing to have key issues such as overdue child support, delayed marital property settlements, and prolonged and unsatisfactory child custody and visitation situations dealt with quickly, they will know how long it takes in provinces like New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Ontario.

No relief is on the way. That is the message from the government. On top of which, we are going to underpay the judges who are available. Justice delayed is justice denied, I remind the minister.

The government, in its two and a half page response, reached the following conclusion:

In particular, we do not agree that paragraph 26(1.1)(a) is simply directed at establishing whether the Government has sufficient funds to pay for whatever amount the Commission might otherwise think is appropriate.

In its 2006 budget, the government identified its key priorities, such as enhancing accountability, creating greater opportunity, et cetera. We have heard the five before, but one of them was protecting Canadian security. That was supposed to be important. One would think the judiciary was important to implement that.

The government said in its report that this is not one of their fiscal priorities:

In sum, the Government does not believe that the Commission’s salary recommendation pays adequate heed to this reality, as embodied in the first statutory criterion.

It is all about money and the priorities of the government. It has its five priorities. There is no money for a good judiciary, kept independent.

It is total hypocrisy. The current government has inherited the best financial situation it could have hoped for—and certainly one better than it was in 1993 when the last gang of Conservatives was tossed out—with a surplus totalling $80 billion today.

What do they with this? What do they do with this financial gift given to them by the Liberals? They cancel universal child care, eliminate $6,000 per university student for tuition fees and, touching on this subject, set aside $225 million for jails. But they failed to show the proper respect for the people who will order those jails full, or perhaps not, and they have failed to give respect to the subtle instrument that will put people in those jails, or not, and that instrument is the law.

A note on the law: judicial independence is an entrenched legal principle. Let me quote the Law Society of Saskatchewan:

Judicial independence has many definitions, but ultimately it means that judicial officers of the Court have the freedom to decide each case on its own merits, without interference or influence of any kind from any source...It is crucial that the judiciary both be independent and appear to be independent so that there is public confidence that judicial decisions are made without bias.

In order for judges to apply and interpret the law, they need to be free from inappropriate influences. As we know, in Canada there are three branches of the government. It is somewhat blurred sometimes when the government talks about it. There are the judiciary, or the courts, the executive, which is the cabinet, and the legislature, the lawmakers.

Judges are independent and should not be controlled by either elected officials or government employees. To ensure judges are independent, three important safeguards have been developed, and this is from the B.C. law association: security of tenure, which means they cannot be fired on a whim; financial security, which means that money matters, including judges' salaries, will not influence judicial decisions; and finally, institutional independence, which means the judiciary is kept separate from the other branches of government.

Judicial independence was established in 1701 by the British Act of Settlement. This allowed judges from that point on to do their jobs, immune from the pressures of outside influence. It seems the government does not respect our judicial system or the Constitution. We saw this with the accountability rebels in the last few months who wanted to take away rights of this Parliament that have been established since 1868.

In summary and in conclusion, the only accountability and the only independence the Prime Minister and his Roundheads want are the same that Oliver Cromwell wanted and that pretty much goes along these lines: “Agree with me and my authoritarian ways or off with your head”.

Judicial independence is at stake here. There are sufficient resources to secure judicial independence. Let us go with the recommendation of the commission and get rid of the tardiness that is involved around this issue.

[Judges Act, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member represents the great county of Albert from which Viscount Bennett, a great jurist and pretty good Conservative prime minister came.

Of course judicial independence is as important to this side as any of the five priorities of that side. For the parliamentary secretary to say that we do not understand the jurisprudence is false. We say to the parliamentary secretary that in fact we do, and we understand that Parliament can override the commission in this case, but it has to do it in the framework of fiscal prudence. Left with an $80 billion surplus and not respecting the independence of the commission are two good reasons that the government is in error in this respect.

On the aspect of delay, the parliamentary secretary who has a hand in this through government will know that Bill C-9 and Bill C-10 precede this bill. They are both fairly weighty justice bills that will be considered by the justice committee. Does he think that there will be speedy passage as this bill will fall in behind them, or does he see another way around the issue of the delay since 2003 of the salaries that should be awarded, other than the gracious opening he made toward amendments at second reading? Does he see a speedier way given that the justice committee is going to be bogged down, in essence, by his other priorities?

[Business of Supply, June 19th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her eloquence and her long list of needs that are apparent to all in the opposition parties. The list of needs would no doubt take in part of $5.2 billion that was promised in the Kelowna accord.

I have to wonder why the NDP pulled the plug on the Liberal government and did not allow Kelowna to go ahead. However, I have a real question for the member. Is she beginning to see that the three pillars of the Conservative government's attitude toward aboriginal affairs are patneralism, patriarchal and patronizing?

When the hearings on Bill C-2 took place in the accountability committee all opposition parties banded together to prevent the government from treating aboriginal resources and money as its own. Comments were made that the money belonged to the taxpayers of Canada. It does not. It belongs to the first nations.

Do you see the patronizing, patriarchal and patneralistic ways of the government in the way it is, in just dribs and drabs, doling out minuscule amounts of money compared to the $5.2 billion promised by Kelowna?

[Employment Insurance, June 19th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to tell a story about a woman in my riding who recently became a mother of two, two standard poodle puppies.

That will have to satisfy her maternal urge for the moment as having human babies and being an entrepreneur does not seem to be attainable given the current lack of government support for parental leave for business owners and entrepreneurs.

Under the employment insurance rules, self-employed workers may not pay EI premiums. They are therefore not eligible for parental leave. Without that safety net, many entrepreneurs do not have the resources to have children.

It is somewhat hypocritical to encourage people to go into business and then deny them the opportunity to start a family and benefit from the same social programs as other Canadian families.

I call on the government to take immediate action on the issue of parental benefits and EI for entrepreneurs. Let us extend the opportunity to have children with full social support systems to all Canadians, not just a select few.