Candice Bergen

[Committees of the House, November 17th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the eighth report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in relation to Bill C-343, An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code and the Employment Insurance Act (family leave). The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House without amendments.

I also have the honour to present, in both official languages, the seventh report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in relation to the committee's study of the federal contribution to reducing poverty in Canada.

This study started during the 2nd session of the 39th Parliament. The committee, over the years, has held numerous meetings across the country and has finally completed its work.

Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee is requesting that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.

I wish to thank all the members of the committee, past and present, from both sides of the House, for their hard work, contributions, support, and collaboration during this long study. I also want to thank the committee staff, past and present, for its professional and excellent support.

[Employment Equity, November 4th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, this past summer Canadians were shocked to learn that a woman in the Ottawa area was prevented from applying for a job within the federal government because the job was open only to applicants from an identified employment equity group.

In July the President of the Treasury Board and the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism announced that the government would review the rules on employment equity.

Could the President of the Treasury Board tell the House what this government is doing to ensure that hiring decisions are based on merit?

[Committees of the House, November 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the sixth report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in relation to Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act.. The committee has studied the bill and decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.

I would like to thank members of the committee from both sides of the House for their hard work, support and collaboration during the study of this bill.

[Preventing Human Smugglers From Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, October 28th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I want to go back to my colleague's personal experience of 18 years as an RCMP officer.

Since I have been a member of Parliament, one thing I have seen is any time we talk about mandatory minimum sentences for criminals, no matter what the crime, we just get a tremendous amount of push back, a lot of stalling and walls are always put up. There seems to be a real aversion for some opposition members to mandatory minimum sentences.

As a law enforcement officer, what did he find was the experience when people knew that if they committed a crime there would be a consequence? In this case we are talking about human smugglers and about people who want to come to Canada illegally. Could he comment on what kind of impact that makes?

[Committees of the House, October 20th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fifth report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

Our committee is requesting an extension of 30 sitting days in relation to Bill C-343, An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code and the Employment Insurance Act (family leave).

[National Family Week, October 5th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize National Family Week.

Canadian families are diverse and come in all shapes and sizes. Over the years, we have seen a dramatic shift in what the typical family looks like, but one common goal all families share is the desire to provide love and care and see the health and well-being of each family member flourish.

During our greatest challenges and our greatest successes in life, so many times our greatest strength comes from our family. Indeed, all of us in this House depend on the support of our families to do our job here each day.

Let us never forgot the importance of families in Canada and the pivotal role they play in our society. There is no replacement for the stability that families provide, and we must do all we can to support them.

I would like to invite all members to join us in celebrating the family at a reception after question period.

[Employment Insurance, September 29th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal leader is trying to have his cake and eat it too, but he cannot fool Canadians. By flip-flopping on today's Bloc bill, he thinks that Canadians will forget that he supports a $4 billion, 45-day work year. Yet even though the Liberals admit that the bill is costly and irresponsible, the Liberals' own official critic is in support of it. Who is the irresponsible one: the Liberal leader or the Liberal critic?

The fact is that the Liberal-NDP-Bloc coalition supports EI changes that would cost workers and businesses $7 billion and would result in massive and permanent hikes in EI premiums. Canadian families and small businesses just cannot afford the tax and spend schemes of the Liberal-NDP-Bloc coalition.

[Privilege, September 22nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on a question of privilege resulting from the outrageous and disturbing remarks made by Mike O'Shaughnessy, a spokesman for the Leader of the Opposition. It was recorded in the National Post today that Mr. O'Shaughnessy wrote in an email distributed to reporters that I “think it is okay to get rid of the life-saving gun registry, because in her mind”, referring to me, “domestic violence committed with a firearm is not a criminal activity”.

There are two issues here, one relating to using House of Commons resources to transmit inaccurate information about a member, and one relating to a slur upon my reputation, so grave that I must raise this in the House as a question of privilege.

On March 16, 1983, Mr. Mackasey raised a question of privilege in order to denounce accusations made in a series of articles appearing in the Montreal Gazette. On March 22, 1983, on page 24027 of Hansard, the Speaker ruled that he had a prima facie question of privilege. The reasons given by the Speaker are on page 29 of Jeanne Sauvé's Selected Decisions which states:

Not only do defamatory allegations about Members place the entire institution of Parliament under a cloud, they also prevent Members from performing their duties as long as the matter remains unresolved, since, as one authority states, such allegations bring Members into "hatred, contempt or ridicule". Moreover, authorities and precedents agree that even though a Member can "seek a remedy in the courts, he cannot function effectively as a Member while this slur upon his reputation remains." Since there is no way of knowing how long litigation would take, the Member must be allowed to re-establish his reputation as speedily as possible by referring the matter to the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections.

To suggest that I would somehow condone domestic violence is offensive and way beyond the standard even for political debate.

On page 214 of Joseph Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada, there is a reference to reflections on members. It says, “The House of Commons is prepared to find contempt in respect of utterances within the category of libel and slander and also in respect of utterances which do not meet that standard. As put by Bourinot, 'any scandalous and libellous reflection on the proceedings of the House is a breach of the privileges of Parliament...and libels upon members individually'”.

I would also refer you, Mr. Speaker, to a Speaker's ruling on October 29, 1980 at page 4213 of Hansard. The Speaker said:

...in the context of contempt, it seems that to amount of contempt, representations or statements about...members should not only be erroneous or incorrect, but, rather, should be purposely untrue and improper and import a ring of deceit.

The comments were made by the spokesman for the Leader of the Opposition who, according to the House of Commons database, is employed by the Liberal Party's research bureau and therefore his salary and his email account, from which he made this libellous comments, are provided through the House of Commons. They are not only incorrect, but his statement was politically motivated and was a deliberate attempt to tarnish my reputation in a way, as I stated earlier, that is way beyond the standard.

I will now address the other point regarding the use of House of Commons resources to transmit inaccurate information about me.

There was a prima facie finding on November 19, 2009 regarding the use of House of Commons resources to present inaccurate information about a member of Parliament. In a mailing sent to some of the constituents of the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore, you concluded that the mailing contained information that was found to be factually wrong regarding his position on the long gun registry, as well as on his voting record on that matter. Of course, it turns out that today that mailing would have been correct, but at the time, it was viewed by the Speaker to be inaccurate.

I trust, Mr. Speaker, that you do not and will not view the statements made by the spokesman for the Leader of the Opposition to be accurate. In your ruling you stated:

The situation before us today is analogous to the 2005 in which a similar mailing was sent to the constituency of the hon. member for Windsor West. That mailing had the effect of distorting the member's voting record, again on the gun registry and thereby misinforming his constituents. In finding a prima facie case of privilege, on April 18, 2005, Debates, page 5215, I stated: “This may well have affected his ability to function and may have had the effect of unjustly damaging his reputation with voters in his riding”.

I ask, Mr. Speaker, that you find that there is a prima facie question of privilege on the matter of using House of Commons resources to transmit inaccurate information about a member and on the matter of the attack upon my reputation.

[Firearms Registry, September 22nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, today is decision day for opposition MPs. They will need to decide if they will stand up for their constituents or if they will bend to their leader's wishes.

It is time to scrap the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry that has wasted over $1 billion. We know that the long gun registry does nothing to reduce crime and we believe that taxpayer dollars should be supporting measures that actually work.

The Liberal boondoggle has gone 500 times over budget and Canadians deserve value for their hard-earned money.

Today opposition MPs will have a choice. Will they stand with their constituents, law-abiding farmers and hunters unfairly targeted by the wasteful long gun registry, or will they follow the Liberal leader and his coalition partners who are determined to maintain the registry regardless of the cost? Shame.

[Committees of the House, September 21st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak against the motion that is before us today. It is not a complicated motion, but it certainly is a misleading motion. It really runs counter to the testimony that we heard before the Standing Committee on Public Safety with regard to Bill C-391.

There are a number of reasons that I believe this motion needs to be defeated. The primary reason I am going to begin with is the need for my bill and this issue to come before members of Parliament, who represent Canadians.

This is an issue that Canadians have been watching for the last 15 years and we know that even over the last several months and weeks Canadians have been, on both sides of this issue, looking to see what the arguments are for registry and against registry. However, it is time for members of Parliament to stand in their place and to vote either to scrap the long gun registry or to keep it.

What this motion does is actually stop debate on the long gun registry. Therefore, the first reason that the motion needs to be defeated is so that we can proceed with the bill and it can be voted on by all the members of Parliament and they can represent their constituents' wishes.

As I have been travelling around the ridings throughout northwestern Ontario, throughout the Yukon, and throughout Canada, and as I listened to testimony at the standing committee, there are a number of myths that have been perpetuated in regard to the long gun registry. Those myths thankfully are being dispelled and have been dispelled through testimony we heard.

One of the first myths is that police officers check the long gun registry 11,000 times a day. There are the facts, but sometimes the facts do not actually tell the truth of the story. The fact is that the registry, the entire Canadian firearms database, is checked probably between 8,000 and 11,000 times a day, but that does not constitute police officers purposely going in to directly check the long gun registry.

What that means is that police database systems are set up to automatically check the registry any time they even pull someone over to check a licence plate. If someone is speeding, if a tail light is broken, if they have to pull someone over, across this country what happens when they put in the vehicle licence plate is that it automatically hits the firearms registry.

If there is any kind of activity going on, if someone purchases and registers a firearm, if staff go into the registry, it registers a hit.

So the truth is not that police officers are looking at the registry and making tactical decisions based on the information, because it is happening automatically.

I am going to quote the chief of the Ottawa Police Service, Vern White. He said about the automatic checks:

To me, that's not an actual check of the system.

I think it is important that police realize that. Why do we not actually speak truthfully about what police are doing and if they are using the registry?

One of the reasons they told us that they do not use it is because they actually cannot depend on the information in the registry. According to the RCMP evaluation that has been quoted and discussed, of all the firearms that are acquired and confiscated in the commission of a crime, only 46% of those long guns are actually registered.

We know there are about 6.5 million long guns registered right now in the database. There are probably twice that amount of long guns in Canada. Therefore, we know and police officers have told us that when they go on a call they do not believe the information in the registry.

They believe the information in the licensing part of the database. If they see that someone has a possession and acquisition licence, or a possession-only licence, it gives them an indication if there possibly could be firearms.

One of the important things to note is that if a person has a licence to possess a firearm and they have registered long guns, they do not have to store them at their house. They can legally store them somewhere else.

Police know that. Perhaps some members of Parliament do not know that, but police know that. Therefore, when they go on a call, they are not looking at the registry and believing that if the registry says there are two firearms, then there are two firearms and if they find those two, they are safe. Absolutely not.

I will quote Chief Constable Bob Rich, of the Abbotsford Police Department:

[I]t's my firm belief that the registry is horrifically inaccurate. I talk to my investigators and I talk to my gun expert, and in story after story, whenever they've tried to use it, the information in it is wrong. [...] So I find my investigators actually don't rely on the registry. [...] I think a flawed system is worse than any system.

Sergeant Duane Rutledge who is head of emergency response in Nova Scotia said:

It's an unreliable system....In other words, I have no hesitation in saying that in my opinion, the long-gun registry does not help police stop violence or make these communities safer from violence. And there's no evidence that it has ever saved a single life on its own merits.

We heard from the chief of police in the Calgary Police Department. Calgary is one of the major cities in Canada. It has a lot of challenges in the things its deals with in gun crime. The chief of the Calgary Police Department, Rick Hanson, said unequivocally that he did not support the long-gun registry.

Again, police officers cannot count on the information. It is a partial database and it is an unreliable one. What they are looking at is the licensing information. Does somebody have the potential to own a firearm?

That myth has been dispelled. We know front line officers do not use the registry. They have overwhelmingly flooded all of us with emails and phone calls. Some of the strongest supporters of my bill, I am proud to say, are front line police officers.

Another myth is the cost of the long gun registry. We know the Auditor General told us that it cost almost $1 billion to set up. Some of the estimates are upwards of $2 billion. Let us just look at the current costs.

We know that right now the cost to implement the registry is about $68 million and that only takes into account the federal portion of the costs. One of the things nobody talks about is the cost to provincial and municipal governments. Now provinces are the ones left administering police services, unless it is the RCMP.

Police officers in provinces and municipalities are the ones who have to go out and ensure that the registry is actually complied with. They are the ones who are using their resources to compile the information such as who has a licence, who has a registration, cross-reference, did someone miss filling out a paper somewhere. Then they have to go, knock on people's doors and tell them that they have broken a paper law.

What they are not finding are drug dealers, gangsters or people who are committing crimes with firearms. They are spending their precious time and resources tracking down people who are using their firearms for legitimate purposes.

What is the cost to those police officers, municipalities and provinces? The Canadian Taxpayers Federation says that just to maintain the registry is approximately $106 million.

If we look at what it would cost to register the 7 million-plus long guns that are still out there, I am worried that if it cost $2 billion to register 6.5 million long guns, what is it going to cost to register another 7 million long guns?

Back 15 years ago we heard that the long gun registry would only cost $2 million, and it cost $2 billion. Now we are hearing only $4 million. Does that mean it might cost $4 billion to actually carry it out and make it accurate? I think Canadians overwhelmingly want to see the money go towards fighting crime, criminal activity and putting criminals in jail.

The other myth is that the long gun registry protects women and it stops domestic violence and suicide. That is one of the most misleading and inaccurate statements that has been used in this argument. Emergency doctors are dealing with suicide and they are dealing with people who are coming to the hospitals wounded, sometimes by accident. Police officers are dealing with issues of domestic violence.

Where we can actually have an impact to ensure that people who should not have guns do not get guns is in the licensing process. That is where they are screened and are stopped from getting a gun. They go through a background check.

This is an important process and we need to ensure it is strong, but once people have a gun, spending between $106 million and $2 billion to count their guns does nothing to stop violence. We need programs in place to help families. We need programs in place to help men and women who are dealing with depression, with family crisis, with young people who are at risk for drug and gang activity.

I ask all members of the House to vote against this motion. I ask members from the NDP to stand on principle, to stand on what they have said to their constituents time after time again. I ask that the member for Yukon stand up for his constituency.

I ask members to vote against this motion and let Bill C-391 go through. Let us kill this long gun registry.