House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2021, with 47% of the vote.
Petitions October 27th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition on behalf of a number of petitioners from the province of Ontario.
The petitioners ask Parliament to reopen the issue of marriage and to repeal or amend the Marriage for Civil Purposes Act in order to promote and defend marriage as the lawful union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.
Justice October 26th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question from the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke. I can also say that constituents not only in her riding but in ridings across Canada have those concerns.
I can tell the House today that CBSA has deemed this individual a risk and has detained him for removal. He has the right to appeal.
Witness Protection Program Act October 20th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, I think if you seek it you would find unanimous consent to see the clock as 2:30 p.m.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police October 6th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, there have been changes. There are 23 recommendations in Mr. Justice O'Connor's report and those are being followed up. There are regular meetings between members of the RCMP and foreign police agencies taking care of international security issues.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police October 6th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member is referring to a report that came out recently. RCMP officers and foreign agencies meet regularly. That is part of international policing, and it does occur.
Mr. Speaker, this Government of Canada is committed to effective firearms control that targets criminals while maintaining the highest standards of public safety. There is no reliable evidence indicating that registration has reduced crime committed with long guns.
According to the Auditor General, data in the firearms registry is often unreliable. Paragraph 4.61 of the Auditor General's report from this past May notes that at least 9% to 12% of firearm registration certificates contained inaccurate information. This limits the reliability of the registry for police.
Supporters of the registry often claim that the police use the registry 6,700 times a day, but this is somewhat misleading. Whenever police officers in certain jurisdictions access the Canadian Police Information Centre, CPIC, for any reason, such as a simple address check, an automatic hit is generated with the Canadian Firearms Registry On-line, whether the information is desired or not. This is the case, for example, with the Toronto police services, the Vancouver police services and the B.C. RCMP, which accounts for nearly 12,000 police officers.
In 2006 the Auditor General estimated the registry has now cost over $1 billion. Two Library of Parliament studies further estimate that the enforcement and compliance costs are substantial, running into hundreds of millions of dollars.
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Don Valley East for giving me the opportunity to rise in the House today and answer her questions. The question put forward concerns the firearms program.
I would like to give her and Canadians some statistics from the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, which are quite interesting. In actual fact, there are 6,455,026 registered long guns in the country. Those are already owned by Canadians. Total homicides with long guns known to be registered in 2003, the first year the gun registry was fully operational, were two. The vast majority of homicides in Canada are committed with non-registered, illegal handguns.
In her question, the hon. member references the use of long guns in spousal homicides. This government sees any incident of spousal homicide as a tragic loss, and we place the highest priority on the prevention of domestic abuse.
According to Statistics Canada's “Family Violence in Canada, a Statistical Profile, 2004”, the use of long guns has decreased notably over the last 30 years, while the use of handguns is increasing. No reliable statistics demonstrate the decreases in long gun homicides are associated with the long gun registry. In fact, these trends began long before registration became mandatory in 2003.
In 2003, the first year that the long gun registry was fully operational, only 2 of 161 firearms-related homicides were committed with long guns known to be registered, despite the fact that there are nearly 6.5 million legal non-restricted long guns in Canada.
Regrettably, illegal handguns are the preferred weapon of choice for criminals. Again, in 2003, 101 of 161 homicides in Canada were committed with illegal non-registered handguns or with handguns that were simply not recovered. The increase in the use of handguns demonstrates the need to ensure that those who should not have access to guns do not obtain them, rather than wasting valuable resources on processes that only serve to burden law-abiding Canadians with unnecessary paperwork.
More than half of those accused of domestic homicide between 1997 and 2003 had histories of criminal violence. Seventeen per cent of male accused were suspected of suffering from a mental disorder. These individuals, clearly, should not be in possession of firearms. The government will be moving forward shortly with a series of additional measures designed to strengthen our licensing system. This is where we must focus our efforts. Instead of wasting resources on the failed effort to count and track every hunting rifle and shotgun in the country, we will focus those resources on effective front end screening and on keeping guns out of the hands of those who should not possess them.
Under the proposed changes to the Firearms Act, Canadians will still have to have a valid firearms license, will still be required to go through police background checks, and will require safety training in order to acquire or possess firearms and to acquire ammunition. The handgun registry will remain, as will the ban on all prohibited firearms. Gun owners will be required to continue to obey regulations concerning the safe storage and transport of firearms. All transactions involving firearms will be verified and recorded, ensuring that those purchasing firearms have a valid licence and preventing those with histories of criminal violence or mental disorder from purchasing firearms.
We made a promise to Canadians during the election and we are delivering on that promise. Although there has been some opposition, the resounding feedback from Canadians that we have received is in favour of our approach. We believe there are more effective ways to fight gun crime than the registration of long guns.
Maher Arar October 2nd, 2006
Mr. Speaker, nothing could be further from the truth. This government has done things already and it continues to do things. This government has instructed counsel to contact Mr. Arar's lawyer to begin negotiations and that contact has been made.
DNA Identification Act September 26th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, I compliment the member for Burlington for bringing forward this private member's bill. I suspect in the last hour that he has learned a great deal about private member's bills, what other people think and how they can pick them apart. I am sure he will see his way through to continue to push this forward.
As a former police officer, I can see a lot of merit in what he has here and I can say that for a long time, far longer than I can recall and before that, we have been using the old style fingerprints, dental records and a whole variety of things for this same reason. This is moving forward.
The government understands the principles behind this private member's bill and is sympathetic to the issue.
The bill proposes to add a new index to the National DNA Data Bank, which is managed and operated by the RCMP on behalf of all Canadian police agencies, to hold DNA profiles of missing persons and unidentified human remains. Profiles that would be cross-checked against each other and against the convicted offender and crime scene indices in an effort to identify human remains.
DNA is a valuable tool in law enforcement and it is understandable that it could be seen as a way to aid the humanitarian aspect of a missing persons index to that system as proposed in the bill.
The question we must address is whether the resources of the National DNA Data Bank should be used, not only to help solve serious crimes, but also for compassionate and humanitarian reasons.
If this is to happen, there are jurisdictional, legal, privacy and cost issues to consider and we intend to do just that.
Expanding the mandate of the National DNA Data Bank and amending the DNA Identification Act in this way could be complicated. It is imperative to this new government that every Canadians' right to privacy be preserved in the proposed legislation.
The National DNA Data Bank was established as an investigative tool to assist police in their investigation of designated offences by helping them to identify and apprehend serial and repeat offenders. The law does not currently allow for the collection of samples from non-offenders and there is no provision for cross-checking DNA profiles from non-offenders against those of convicted criminals.
With regard to the proposed legislation, we will consider whether it is appropriate to cross-check the DNA profiles of missing persons and, in particular, their close biological relatives against those of convicted offenders or against unidentified DNA from crime scenes. We will determine who would have access to the DNA samples of missing persons and who would provide consent to collect DNA samples from the personal belongings of the missing person. If profiles were to be cross-checked against those of criminal offenders and unsolved crime scenes, we will assess the privacy implications.
These issues will be clearly defined in any policy that the government will pursue relating to the hon. member's bill.
Missing persons investigations are generally initiated by local police, which we heard today from other speakers, and found human remains are under the control of provincial coroners, and that we do understand.
Depending on the circumstances, an individual case has the potential to become a criminal investigation but the investigation of a missing person is not necessarily a matter of criminal law, which is a federal jurisdiction to legislate. Not every missing person case becomes a criminal investigation or is a matter of criminal law, which is legislated at the federal level, but there obviously is potential for missing person cases to have suspicious circumstances and to, indeed, turn into formal criminal investigations.
Before amending the act, we will consider the implications that any new legislation could have on existing criminal law.
Recognizing the value of using DNA in this way, the Government of Canada is consulting its provincial and territorial partners on the creation of a national missing persons DNA index.
In the context of the federal-provincial-territorial work already underway, the Government of Canada consulted Canadians on the question of adding a missing persons index to the National DNA Data Bank. This consultation started in late 2003 with the justice ministers from the federal, provincial and territorial levels. This group of justice officials from all across Canada formed a working group which then consulted with the public.
Based on the favourable response from Canadians in those consultations, federal, provincial and territorial ministers responsible for justice confirmed their continued commitment to develop options for an effective national humanitarian missing persons index.
Officials from the federal, provincial and territorial governments are continuing to examine the cost, privacy and legal implications of creating such an index. As well, the DNA Identification Act is subject to mandatory parliamentary review which could also begin this year.
The matter requires further study. I suggest that some of the issues that were brought forward today are perhaps covered at least partly in proposed subsection 5(7) of the act. I am sure that the member is willing to tighten it up if that is what is required, but I would like to read what proposed subsection 5(7) says:
The Commissioner shall not use any DNA profile derived under subsection (6) unless the Commissioner explains to the relative who gave the consent, or provided the object or sample, that the DNA profile is to be used only for the purpose of searching for and identifying the person reported missing, and obtains the written consent of the relative to use the DNA profile.
I would suggest that some of the concerns are covered in that. Perhaps it needs to be tightened up a little more, but I think it makes it very clear that this is not to be used for some other criminal investigation, some sort of a fishing expedition I think was mentioned, but in fact it is only to be used in situations where the search is for a missing person.
In conclusion, I reiterate my support for the principles upon which the hon. member's proposal is based. This is a worthy initiative and the government is studying ways to ease the emotional burden of Canadian families with loved ones who go missing.
We are moving forward on this issue, but we must consider all of the implications of it.
Emergency Management Act September 21st, 2006
Mr. Speaker, I cannot say that I could follow all of my friend's original talk on this bill, but I do know that he has some concerns about the federal government getting into provincial concerns. I for one believe that there are a lot of safety provisions here.
As much as he has always strongly supported his own province and its autonomy, I suspect that if there were a natural disaster in the province of Quebec, he would also want the federal government to be there in many ways. I am sure the member is particularly in favour of subclause 7(d) where the federal government would provide funding with the minister's authorization.
I am wondering how he squares this whole issue. If we do not have such a bill that gives authority to the federal government to do certain things, how would we end up helping his province of which he is so proud?