Dan Harris

[Combating Counterfeit Products Act, January 31st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I was in the committee when we were doing the study on intellectual property. Certainly CBSA would be happy to have these new powers, but they also want the resources to go along with them so that they can actually get the training they need to identify counterfeit and other goods and the staff to be able to do searches and seizures.

I also want to ask the member, because he was part of the committee, why the government refused to agree to the NDP's amendment that there should be reports back to Parliament on this issue.

Earlier I raised with the parliamentary secretary the other issue, which is that we do not adequately measure what is actually being counterfeited and what has come in. We have anecdotal evidence, but we do not have research-based data to track the quantities of counterfeit goods.

Why is it that the member himself voted against reporting back to Parliament on this bill?

[The Senate, January 31st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal leader's bold new policy has amounted to Liberal senators becoming “Senate Liberals”. Not one senator changed party affiliation or swore off partisan activity. The standings in the Senate remain the same: 57 unelected and unaccountable Conservatives, opposite 32 unelected, unaccountable Liberals.

The member for Markham—Unionville bizarrely claimed that the fact the Liberal caucus will now meet in separate rooms made him as proud as when Canada stayed out of the war in Iraq.

Canadians are now realizing that the Liberal leader did not do his homework and is yet again crafting policy on the back of a napkin. Of course, he could have come to us. We have done the homework. Remember, just a couple of months ago the motion to take partisanship out of the Senate, the one that every single Liberal voted against.

Canadians deserve better. They deserve an end to the unelected, unaccountable, and unnecessary Senate.

[Combating Counterfeit Products Act, January 31st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his speech. We sat on the committee together when we were doing a lot of the studies prior to the bill. The things that were being found in those jackets were reprehensible. They were absolutely disgusting. Many of us did not want to even touch the counterfeit jackets, and of course, there were the electrical products.

During that study, we talked a lot about the 2007 committee report that recommended ex officio powers. I am pleased to see that in the bill now. It also recommended a reporting system for counterfeit goods.

Most of the data the government has is anecdotal. We do not actually have a system in place to determine how large the problem is. Of course, the OECD has made it clear that there is a need for better data when it comes to counterfeiting.

I would like to ask the member what is in the bill that would seek to address that concern so that we can actually measure the size and scope of the problem so we know how big it is and what kinds of resources to put in to tackle it.

I would say that cutting $143 million from CBSA will make it more challenging. Adding ex officio powers would mean more training requirements and more work on that side.

How would that be measured and balanced to make sure that the resources are there so that we can properly tackle the counterfeit goods coming in?

[Business of Supply, January 30th, 2014]

Absolutely not, Mr. Speaker. I think he has shown some very poor judgment, and I think the Prime Minister showed some pretty poor judgment in the House yesterday when he basically called the veterans who came in to demand the services they deserve part of the union, that it was a union plot. Guess what? Unions are there for working people, and soldiers and veterans in the military are working people. They work together on getting the services they need and deserve. The unions respect soldiers; why do the Conservatives not?

[Business of Supply, January 30th, 2014]

He must be in the pocket of big union bosses, Mr. Speaker, after that kind of speech.

Does he honestly not hear from his constituents about the bad service they get? The workers in Service Canada locations do an excellent job, without the resources they need to provide the level of service Canadians deserve. There is a big difference between the workers doing a great job and the managers hashing it up.

[Business of Supply, January 30th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, this week's unfortunate events involving the Minister of Veterans Affairs and tomorrow's closing of veterans' centres exposes the soft underbelly of this government beast, a government ruled by uncaring ideology instead of good public policy.

It is indeed an honour and a privilege to rise today to add my voice in defending and honouring our veterans. The reduction in services for our brave men and women who risk their lives for us, for our country, and for our freedom is appalling and without merit. The cowardice on display across the aisle dishonours the great sacrifices made by generations of men and women who have served Canada in its time of need.

Where are the Conservative backbenchers who should be pushing the government to reverse these reckless cuts? They should be joining us in calling for improvements instead of meekly lining up behind the minister and marching veterans into Service Canada to stand in line. They have already stood on the line at Passchendaele; at Vimy Ridge; at the Somme, where my great-grandfather, Lieutenant Louis Rosario Lavoie, made the ultimate sacrifice; in the Spanish Civil War; at Dieppe on D-Day; at Monte Cassino; in Hong Kong; in Korea; in Bosnia; in Afghanistan; and at countless other locations at home and around the world. They have done their time on the line.

Now the current government is asking them to make another sacrifice, and I say, no.

What all Canadians want, what veterans want and deserve, and what we on this side of the House want is for the government to give those who have faithfully served Canada, and their families, the respect and dignity they deserve.

As we approach the 100th anniversary of the start of the Great War, I am reminded of my great-grandfather, Harold Riley, who served Canada in both world wars. He was wounded three times in the Great War, came back with shell shock, and suffered regular nightmares for the rest of his life. We did not know what we now do: how to help soldiers who come back home with mental health issues.

We owe it to them to provide all the help we can so that they do not suffer like my great-grandfather and so many others did and so they can lead happy, peaceful lives after that great personal sacrifice.

It is time we act on the over 50 outstanding boards of inquiry on military suicides so that grieving families may have the answers and closure they deserve and so that we may learn how to better prevent more tragedies in the future.

Recent soldiers should be of great concern to Canadians, as they are to New Democrats. Our motion today seeks to address this very important issue.

Last October 1, on the third anniversary of the passing of my grandmother, Ivy Harris, who worked at the GECO munitions plant as a teenager with my great-grandmother, and then at 17 joined the Canadian Women's Army Corps, my father, my uncle, and I became members of the Royal Canadian Legion, Branch 73, in her honour and in honour of all of our family members who have answered our country's call. I feel it is my duty to them to rise to defend all of our veterans. It is about respect and dignity.

In addition, this is also why I will soon be tabling a private member's bill in this House to make Remembrance Day a national statutory holiday. On the 100th year since the start of the war to end all wars, my private member's bill is one way I can personally convey my profound respect for all those who have served our country and continue to faithfully serve our country to this day.

It is time we recommit ourselves wholeheartedly to our veterans. I know that Canadians agree, and I hope soon Conservatives will agree too.

Of course, today we are also talking about the closing of eight veterans' centres across the country. Veterans are going to be asked to stand in Service Canada lines or to suffer through horrific wait times on the phone. We have been hearing for the last year and a half, since Conservatives started cutting Service Canada locations, that we have dropped calls and a degradation in quality and service. Even MPs representing their constituents can sometimes have trouble getting through. Is this what we want to make our veterans do? It is a disgrace to ask our veterans to stand in line after all they have done for our country.

The closing of the veterans' centres is inevitably going to degrade the service they receive.

After my grandmother became a senior citizen and started to have trouble keeping up the house, the Veterans Affairs' centre was there for her. It helped to provide the services that helped her to stay in her home so she could live out her life in dignity and peace without having to suffer through giving up the home she had lived in for over 50 years.

I cannot fathom why the government would make these changes. It actually spits in the face of veterans when the minister makes such appalling remarks and exhibits behaviour of a crass nature. Sure he apologized, but it should not have happened in the first place. That kind of thing should never happen. To make veterans wait 70 minutes is the level of service they are going to get going to Service Canada offices, and that is exactly the service the minister gave. We think he should resign, and if he does not resign, it is the Prime Minister's responsibility to show respect to our brave men and women by firing him. He has shown time and again, on the F-35 file, on military procurement, and now in Veterans Affairs, that he has absolutely no business being a minister of the crown.

Unfortunately, coming from Toronto, I have had lots of previous experience with this minister, as the head of the OPP and as the Toronto police chief and then as chief of police in London. We would think that after all of those years of service, after all of that experience gained, he would have a bit more compassion and respect for the men and women who wear uniforms for our country.

Of course, the Veterans Affairs centres also serve RCMP veterans, men and women who have defended our streets and kept our streets safe all over the country, sometimes in very remote locations. All of these men and women who have served Canada deserve to have the best kind of service we can offer and the best mental health services we can offer. Sadly, the current government has been sorely lacking in this regard.

Again, why? Is this all about the budget line? Is this all about balancing the books so we can give a whole bunch of tax credits that will not actually help working people and will not help most of the veterans who have served our country? Is that what this is about, the bottom line? This is one area where the bottom line, while always important, should not be the deciding factor. What should be the deciding factor in the kind of services we provide, in the veterans' centres we have, and in what we do to honour their sacrifice is providing the best possible service. That should be the determining factor. However, we are closing veterans' centres all across the country, and we are going to put them in Service Canada locations.

There are 600 points of service. Having 600 point of bad service does not mean improvement in services for veterans. Replacing 13 people who deal with their cases in some offices with one person in the Service Canada office is not improving services. That is one-thirteenth, and that is if they can even get that person. If there is somebody in line in front of them, or if the person is serving someone else, they might be sent off to a telephone or asked to look at a computer to file their claims.

Online service is a whole other issue, and the current government has been lacking there too. Over 90% of EI claimants can file their claims online, but they cannot check the status of their claims online. Now we want to tell veterans to get their services online and to download an app on their phone. The world is changing, and the face of veterans is changing. They are becoming younger. Those kinds of online services might be good for them, but they are not good for those who came before them. We are asking people in their 80s and 90s to go sit in a Service Canada office and use one of their computers. It is an absolute disgrace. It is a degradation of service and has no business in this House.

We should be doing absolutely everything we can to improve services for veterans to honour that great sacrifice. I have repeated that a couple of times. They have sacrificed everything for our country, and we are not going to do the same for them. We should. We have to. We must, absolutely.

[Petitions, December 10th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I join my colleague from Toronto—Danforth in rising today to submit a petition to the House in support of victims of crime.

Despite police warnings and international treaty obligations, the Conservatives are refusing to enforce simple rules that would help track and curb gun trafficking. Therefore, among other things, they also ask the government to ensure stable, reliable, long-term funding for programs that help divert youth away from the guns and crime and help keep our streets and communities safe.

[Rail Transportation, December 6th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, to date the safety management systems have led to inspectors inspecting paperwork instead of planes and trains. The reality is that Canada's rail tracks have deteriorated, and the rules were repeatedly broken. Experts on the Transportation Safety Board have repeatedly demanded that the federal government mandate anti-crash systems that automatically slow speeding trains down.

Why are Conservatives ignoring these repeated warnings? Why have they not required the automatic anti-crash systems that safety experts are calling for?

[Privacy, December 2nd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, they seem to have caught something over there. I wonder if it is contagious.

Canadians posting on social media do not expect to be monitored by their government. They imagine that perhaps the Conservatives might have better things to do than follow their tweets and Facebook posts. Social media monitoring is a problematic use of government resources.

We know the Conservatives like to keep lists, so thanks to the new Twitter monitoring program, how many more Canadians are going to wind up on the Conservatives' enemies list?

[Privacy, December 2nd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, that is all fine and good to make a joke out of it, but Canadians posted on social media—