Craig Scott

[Child Poverty, September 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am so impressed and indeed inspired by letters I have been receiving from students at the Duke of Connaught Public School located in Toronto—Danforth. These students are extremely concerned about the rising rates of child poverty in this country and they are calling on the government to take action now.

They are participating in a campaign called Keep the Promise Canada, which calls on parliamentarians to honour the motion put forward by former NDP leader Ed Broadbent to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000. That motion was passed by the House in 1989, yet here we are in 2014 and poverty rates remain high.

Specifically these students want to see an increase of the minimum wage and the implementation of a national child care program. As one young person put it to me, “If lowering prices [of child care] and raising wages keeps the poverty level down and keeps families off the street, start doing it”.

I could not agree more.

[Situation in Iraq, September 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I want to have a little more clarification, if I could.

On September 5, the Prime Minister phrased the involvement of Canadian Forces not in terms only of advising but also in advising and assisting. Very recently, the Prime Minister of Australia has added a qualification by saying that the 600 troops that he has sent are not there for “independent combat operations”.

We also know that initially the Prime Minister responded to requests from President Obama and not from the government of Iraq, initially, to send the troops, and we also know that in Afghanistan, special forces' primary role was to act in assistance with special forces of the U.S.

Given all these facts, what assurance do we have that Canadian troops now, and even in renewed terms, will not be involved with Iraqi troops or American troops on the ground, especially given that they are special forces used to working with American troops?

[Business of Supply, September 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to acknowledge and congratulate my colleague from Trinity—Spadina for what I believe is his first occasion to speak in the House, apart from question period. It is hard to disagree with the general thrust of his speech, other than to say that I think he may be missing the point when he says this is not a comprehensive approach. Individual pieces, when looked at with other individual pieces that are not up for debate in the same motion, can all add up to something very important.

Increasing minimum wage and having a universal child care program are two of the most significant measures, among many others that will be needed, to combat poverty and to combat the serious income equality that we all know is undermining our society. We have announced very clearly that everybody should be expecting a universal child care policy from us. We have heard about the federal minimum wage. I want to ask whether my hon. colleague from Trinity—Spadina will be demanding a universal child care policy too, going forward.

[Roderick Macdonald, June 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, McGill law professor Roderick Macdonald passed away on June 13 after battling cancer. We have lost one of our greatest scholars and most passionate humanitarians.

Roderick Macdonald was the first president of the Law Commission of Canada, an Officer of the Order of Canada, and the president of the Royal Society of Canada. He distinguished himself as a generous teacher revered by his students, a visionary dean of McGill's Faculty of Law, a staunch defender of justice, a world-renowned academic, and an author of public reports that have transformed a number of areas of law.

As his McGill colleague Richard Janda put it, Rod's most wonderful gift to others was the “myriad ways he enabled others to become their better selves”.

Rod filled the room while allowing others to fill it too. He was a force of nature who was on earth to nurture others. UBC law professor Joel Bakan captures Rod perfectly when he writes that Rod was “A remarkable human being—heart, soul, and intellect beautifully in synch.” He will be sorely missed.

[Victims Bill of Rights Act, June 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for a truly impassioned speech. It revealed a lot that I think Canadians do not want to hear, because I am sure they could not believe our government is capable of this kind of lawyering.

I wonder if my colleague would agree with me that the time might have come for some of kind of task force on the ethics and professional responsibility of the federal government's lawyers.

I am thinking about the residential schools case that we just heard described. I am thinking about the role of government lawyers in the Afghan detainee situation before the Military Police Complaints Commission. I am thinking of the current Privacy Commissioner, who argued before the committee against torture at the UN, under the Liberal government, that people could be deported to a substantial risk of torture if they were serious criminals. I am thinking of the farce of the constitutional compliance review that supposedly goes on in the Department of Justice, which we now know does not. Lawyers should not simply be mouthpieces for unconstitutional and otherwise unethical government policy.

I wonder if my colleague would agree with me that it is high time for a task force to look into this situation.

[Agricultural Growth Act, June 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. He is the NDP caucus's go-to guy for dirt-under-the-fingernails issues. I would like to ask him a question about his comments on tomato varieties.

Can he tell us more about how this is changing and why?

[The Change Agents, June 11th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, last week I had the opportunity to attend the Ottawa premiere of the feature-film drama entitled The Change Agents. The event was co-hosted by the Citizens Climate Lobby and by my NDP colleague, the member for British Columbia Southern Interior.

The writer/director of the The Change Agents, Robyn Sheppard, used to reside in Toronto—Danforth, which is one of Canada's film-making hubs. She moved out west to Nelson, B.C., where she is the drama teacher at L.V. Rogers Secondary School.

The Change Agents is the story of dedicated high school students mobilizing co-students to make a strong, passionate statement for environmental protection, especially in relation to the tar sands.

L.V. Rogers' students were involved in all aspects of the film-making process, both in front of the camera—like Lucy Carver Brennan, who plays Ruby in the film—and behind the camera.

They, and the film itself, demonstrate that young people's despair over ecological destruction can be transformed into the kind of citizen engagement that generates hope we may yet act in time to step back from the edge of the cliff.

[Victims Bill of Rights, June 6th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, that is a good question.

Yes, I imagine that this bill will make the process longer and complicate procedures, which will affect victims. I do not know exactly how the federal government can fix that without giving the provinces more resources.

[Victims Bill of Rights, June 6th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the question more or less speaks to the theme of my speech, which is that the bill does not put the federal government on the hook for any costs related to victim support and that there is no real vision for support in this bill, in the Canadian victims bill of rights. Victims need support after the process itself.

I think this was done deliberately. The government made this choice. I do not understand why, exactly, with all the fanfare around the Canadian victims bill of rights.

I do not think that this is something that can be fixed in committee. This is something that will have to come from the party, the government, and I hope it will come within a year. There is truly a gap in the vision for victims in this bill.

[Victims Bill of Rights, June 6th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, to be completely honest, that is not something I have looked at in this bill yet. However, I can see where the member is coming from.

After having spoken with the justice critic, I think it is very important that the committee hear from witnesses who can tell us a bit more about that issue. I am sorry, but that is the best I can do. However, it is a very important question.