David Anderson

[Criminal Code, November 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to put on the record that I am not as enthused about this legislation as the member opposite appears to be. I am from a farming area, I am surrounded by farmers and I am a farmer myself. I know that there are concerns in the agricultural community about the implications of the bill. There are also concerns in the hunting community. A few minutes ago my colleague from the Bloc talked about the fact that this is just too undefined for us to be able to pass this comfortably.

In his intervention, my colleague from the NDP talked about the fact that he is comfortable with proposed subsection 182.3(2), which states:

--“negligently” means departing markedly from the standard of care that a reasonable person would use.

On the surface that does not look too bad, but I am concerned about the courts getting involved because we have had indications from the animal rights organizations that they want to use this legislation to impact traditional farming practices. We are aware of the fact that all it takes is one judge to rule. We have had social engineering in this country before, whereby one judge in a province has ruled and governments have not appealed that ruling. We find that social engineering has changed things considerably.

Does the member have a concern about this? Is he concerned about protecting the farmers in the rural communities? Does he have any suggestions for improvements or amendments we could make which would ensure farmers and hunters that we are going to protect them and let them have their traditional practices?

[Privilege, November 14th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I would like the member to comment on another thought along that same line.

We know that the Prime Minister spent about 10 years trying to take over the Liberal Party and that during that time he controlled the vast majority of the Liberal riding associations in Quebec, if not all of them.

Those of us who are responsible MPs know what money comes into our riding and what money is in our own kitty for campaigning and those kinds of things. There are requirements to pay very close attention to how that money is coming in and how we are using it.

It seems that during that whole time money was coming in to a number of Liberal Party organizations. Knowing what the member knows about fundraising and how important it is to keep track of the money in our own riding associations, does he think that money could have come into one, two, 13 or 20 of those riding associations under the table without either the candidate being very aware that the money was in the riding or the person who controlled the riding associations knowing exactly what was going on during that time?

[Agriculture, November 1st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, we are here discussing gophers this afternoon. I noticed as my colleague from Wetaskiwin was speaking that you were listening intently, Mr. Speaker, and all the pages were paying attention to his informative and educational speech on gophers and what they are about.

I was a little concerned this afternoon, because I heard a couple of colleagues asking what we were doing talking about gophers and I overheard someone saying that just what he came here for was to talk about gophers. I need to remind the folks here of the old saying that all politics is local.

In this situation, I think that applies very strongly, because this is an important issue for a group of people: our farmers and our producers. Although some people may think it is a bit of a joke, I can assure them that it is not a joke for people facing this problem.

This government has really damaged farmers' ability to control these pests through a couple of different means, one of them being Bill C-68, which we are all familiar with. First, the government refuses to back off in its support of a gun registry that is costing Canadians billions of dollars and which in my part of the world is affecting farmers' ability to control these rodents. Second, the government has interfered with our ability to control them by interfering with the application of strychnine.

I have to compliment the member for Vegreville--Wainwright because he has been persistent in this fight to try to make sure that farmers have access to 2% strychnine. I know that it is not a new issue for him. I was here during the last Parliament and this was an issue for him then as well. He has been very persistent. In this Parliament alone he has brought two private members' bills forward, Bill C-377 and Bill C-381, both dealing with this issue. He has also brought this motion forward. My colleague should be commended for his strong work in this area.

I know that my time today will be brief, but I want to make sure, as my colleague from Yorkton--Melville did, that farmers once again are reminded of a call to action. There is an opportunity for them to influence the government's decision in this area. Until November 24, anyone who has been affected by this issue has the right to submit a brief to the government. They can send it to: Publications, Pest Management Regulatory Agency, Health Canada, 2720 Riverside Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0K9.

It is essential that people participate in this process. The government needs to know that farmers are being affected by this so that it will take the issue seriously. Those submissions should outline things like the type of damage that has been caused by gophers and the estimated cost for farmers in a bad year. I know that the costs can be huge. We have had areas in my riding where these gophers have wiped out 50, 60 or 70 acres of crop just because there are so many of them in a small area. They can be a significant problem. In 2001 and 2002, they had a huge impact on certain areas in western Canada.

In their submissions, farmers need to talk about the effectiveness of the chemicals that are available to them now. The stuff that is 0.4% is just not working and I think is probably more of a danger to the environment than the stronger strychnine solution because it ends up just being left around. The gophers do not eat it. They are not using it up. Farmers need to talk about that.

Farmers also need to talk about the cost savings and the convenience to them of having the 2% liquid strychnine solution that they can mix with their own grain. I encourage as many as possible to send in their submissions.

We only have about four ways to control gophers. Poison is one and we are here talking about it today. We think we need an effective way of doing this. Some people have suggested that we trap the gophers. That might work in somebody's city yard, but it certainly will not work on a large scale. Trapping is barely enough to control gophers in a garden. Some people have tried different methods of fumigation. It has had limited effectiveness. As I mentioned, of course, shooting gophers is getting to be more difficult because of the restrictions this government has brought in. The government does not seem to mind inconveniencing farmers. It is a bit disturbing that the government would continue to make this a problem for them.

In conclusion, let me say that we should step forward and support this bill. The environmental issues certainly can be controlled. It is our obligation to do things to help out our farming community. In a tough situation and tough times, this is something we could do that would not cost the government a lot of money and would be very effective for our producers. It would be an important step forward.

I am eager to hear what my colleague from Vegreville--Wainwright has to say in conclusion on this matter. I ask members to support his motion.

[Energy Costs Assistance Measures Act, November 1st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, this morning the former environment minister, the Liberal member from British Columbia, said that this program is basically recycled money. He said the government is taking money out of programs that are already in existence and it is smaller than it looks. He just felt it was not a good idea for this money to be coming out of other programs and then being put into this benefit. I am wondering if the member has any comments on that and whether he would think that the reason that has happened is that it is basically a consequence of a lack of planning or the result of poor planning by the government.

[Energy Costs Assistance Measures Act, November 1st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I would like some comment from the member about the lack of support in the bill for certain groups. The bill is clearly aimed at a couple of groups, primarily senior citizens who receive GIS and families who receive the national child benefit, but there are a lot of people who have been left out of the bill.

This morning I challenged the former environment minister about the fact that he seemed to think there was no necessity to extend this bill to anyone else. He said that all I was trying to do was to protect my own constituents. If someone is going to accuse me of that, I will stand here and say that I am guilty.

I am really concerned that rural Canadians are being left out of this bill, particularly those who are being hit the hardest and most directly by the higher energy costs. They would be people like truckers who are trying to make a living driving trucks. As was mentioned earlier today, they are the people who deliver our food. What will happen is they will have to pay a lot more to bring that food to market.

Another group that is affected and one that is huge in my riding is farmers. They end up getting hit absolutely head-on with the higher energy prices and higher gas prices not only for fuel for their tractors but also the natural gas prices. There is a lot of grain out there this fall that is damp and needs to be dried. People are trying to find a way to get through that and clear it up.

I would like some comments from the member on why he thinks the government has set this program up so narrowly, and why it has missed so many groups and so many individuals who need help as well.

[Energy Costs Assistance Measures Act, November 1st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a couple of issues. I hope there will be time to do so.

The member has expressed a concern about who is getting the money and where the money will be going. It is a valid concern, especially given the previous program and some of the places where the money ended up. He also said that this is basically taking tax revenue from ordinary Canadians and then passing it back to them. Because of that, I guess, he concluded that middle class Canadians should not be getting this money. He said we should concentrate on low income Canadians.

I have a question. I am wondering why he does not think that those hit hardest by energy prices should get some relief as well. I am thinking particularly of farmers and truckers. He mentioned truckers, but I come from a farming area and the situation right now is that things are as bad as they have ever been. Prices are very low and obviously the farmers are hit almost ahead of anyone else by high energy prices, spikes in fuel costs and those kinds of things.

Why does the member not seem to be concerned at all about those who are hit hardest by those energy prices, truckers and farmers in particular, especially when the farming community is in the emergency situation that it is in right now?

[Canadian Wheat Board, October 27th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is 2005 and unbelievably the grain price prairie farmers receive from the Canadian Wheat Board is still set for us by the federal government. This year the cabinet set the price so low that it is killing farmers. Farmers are getting as little as 18¢ a bushel.

This minister is incompetent. He has done nothing. Farmers, the opposition and the Canadian Wheat Board have begged cabinet to raise those prices.

When will the government raise the initial price to a level that will give farmers a fair price for their wheat and barley?

[Criminal Code, October 25th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is clear that we do not have enough police officers in this country. This is a topic that is near and dear to my own heart. I come from a rural area and actually the government has removed a number of single person RCMP detachments from my area.

We have an area along the U.S. border which is about 100 miles long and about 50 miles wide that has absolutely no permanent RCMP presence in it at all. Although it is true there are RCMP members coming in and out from other detachments, we do not have anyone who is stationed there on a permanent basis. That is frustrating.

The only good thing about it is that the people in my area are good citizens. As one of the policemen told me, if people there were not such law-abiding citizens, it would be much more difficult for them to be able to enforce the law in the area.

To respond to the member's comment about policemen being first responders on the scene, in a previous life I was involved with the ambulance service in my area for seven years. I always respected the police officers and their professionalism, especially the RCMP in our area, and for the ability that they have to deal with those types of emergency situations.

Canadians are getting frustrated with the government. They are getting frustrated with the levels of crime that are taking place. They want to see real changes. They want to see more police officers on the streets who are able to do their job. They want to see sentences that actually mean what they say they mean when they are given out. Canadians are just tired of a government that at every opportunity wimps out on these issues.

The government has done that with both Bills C-64 and C-65. We would like to encourage the government to stand up and have some backbone for a change and do the right thing.

[Criminal Code, October 25th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to stand today to speak to Bill C-64.

A little later in my speech I want to talk about Chuck Cadman, about some of the things he stood for and about some of the things that were important to him, but I first want to talk about an issue in the bill that I find important.

My colleague who just spoke said that it was not really an issue with the bill but I still want to make people aware of it. There is an entire subculture or industry of rebuilding and restoring vehicles such as motorcycles, cars and those kinds of things. My colleague reassured us that they would not be caught in the bill but I am not quite as confident as he is about that.

I want to make people aware of the fact that there needs to be some exception for people who are doing that kind of business. Obviously, we are not talking about people stealing cars off the street in the middle of the night, stuffing them in trucks, taking them to chop-shops and either chopping them down or changing the VINs on them.

It is important for people to understand that an industry has arisen dealing with restoring older vehicles. That industry is not just something that is being done in people's garages any more. It is a multi-million dollar industry. These restored cars are worth anywhere from zero dollars, which is probably the one I have in my shop at home right now, up to $500,000. I think of some of the late sixties' Corvettes, the Shelby Cobras and those kinds of things that are worth a lot of money. Those cars are getting older and their bodies have been wrecked. People want to restore and rebuild the vehicles. They have the frames and the drive trains. We can actually buy new body parts for many of these vehicles.

I have a concern that those people do not get caught in the legislation. I am not confident that it gives that kind of exception. It talks in the bill about having a lawful excuse. I do not see it in federal legislation. I hope it would be included in provincial legislation when it comes to the licensing of vehicles, which is covered by the provinces.

It is typical of the NDP-Liberal government's legislation. So often it comes forward and it does not seem to work. It restricts regular Canadians and allows the people who it should cover to escape from the law.

Chuck Cadman, as we know, was a fairly ordinary guy. He was a veteran MP when I arrived here but he was one of those folks who was going to be himself and was not going to change, and he did that. He stayed true to what he believed. The issues that brought him here were the issues that stayed important to him right to the end of his time here.

Just on a personal level, one of the reasons I got to know Chuck Cadman was because of his music. He was a former musician and played in a lot of different bands over the years. My son was 13 when I was first elected. When we came down here, Chuck was one of the guys who really fascinated him. He had played with the Guess Who and other bands. My son, Andrew was very interested in music. I always thought it was interesting that there were a lot of people around here who had power and prestige but it was actually Chuck Cadman who really appealed to my son and with whom he felt he had some connection.

Chuck was an ordinary guy doing extraordinary things. The things he focused on really were the prime issues, one of which we partially dealt with last week and the other we are dealing with this week, that being street racing and vehicle theft. He dealt with these issues in a very practical and realistic way. It was typical of him that he would not come forward with something that would not be effective, so the bills that he brought forward were effective.

This letter was read into the record a couple of times last week but I want to reinforce it. Someone who was close to Chuck Cadman, a man by the name of Dane Minor, wrote that one of the things that drew Chuck into the political arena in the first place was a visit by a former justice minister to supposedly discuss the Young Offenders Act with Chuck. The man blew into town, spent five minutes getting his picture taken shaking Chuck's hand, and went back to Ottawa saying that meetings with victims showed his government cared about victims and the faults of the Young Offenders Act. Chuck was disgusted. It was incidents like these that led him to become an MP and try to truly change things.

I would suggest that the government, as that justice minister did, has failed to respect Chuck and what it was that he wanted to take place.

I believe that these two bills that we have looked at, Bill C-64 and Bill C-65, are a dishonour to Chuck's memory. They have been watered down and do not cover the issues that he wanted to cover. It is no wonder Canadians get more and more cynical about the government and what it says that it stands for.

Last week we talked about Bill C-65 which addresses street racing. Again, we wanted amendments which held true to Chuck's intentions with the bill. For example, we wanted Chuck's increase in scale of punishment as offences mounted, which was taken out by the government. His bill read:

(a) for a first offence, during a period of not more than three years plus any period to which the offender is sentenced to imprisonment, and not less than one year;

(b) for a second or subsequent offence, if one of the offences is an offence under section 220 or subsection 249(4), for life:

(c) for a second offence, if neither of the offences is an offence under section 220 or subsection 249(4), during a period of not more than five years...and not less than two years;

Those mandatory minimum sentences were important to Chuck.

The fourth part of Chuck's bill read:

(d) for each subsequent offence, if none of the offences is an offence under section 220 or subsection 249(4), during a period of not less than three years plus any period to which the offender is sentenced to imprisonment.

We see some of the same things happening in Bill C-64. It is an act to amend the Criminal Code dealing with vehicle identification numbers and once again we see a watered down version of Chuck Cadman's intent. The Liberals are basically making a mockery once again of what he wanted and what he stood for.

Auto theft is a growing problem in this country, particularly in western Canada. It is a large problem in Regina. I am from a rural area in southwest Saskatchewan so it is not as big a problem there, but it has been a problem for a number of years in Regina. At one point I was talking to a policeman who said that it was really frustrating to deal with the Young Offenders Act because of the way in which it has been set up. They had a young man in custody who was getting out before his 16th birthday. They said that the young man's goal was to steal 250 vehicles before his 16th birthday and because he was getting out a couple of months before his birthday, they actually thought he would probably make that goal. It is good that young people have goals but that probably was not one of the more laudable ones. Auto theft is expensive to Canadians as well. It costs up to $600 million and at some point we need to deal with it.

Currently, the act of changing, obliterating or altering a vehicle identification number is not a specified criminal act. Section 354 of the Criminal Code treats tampering with a VIN in a context establishing that “in the absence of evidence to the contrary, a tampered VIN is proof of property obtained by crime”, but there is no law dealing with the direct prosecution of a person engaged in the physical act of tampering with that VIN tag. This creates a major loophole for organized crime and it needs to be closed. An effective VIN tampering provision would aid significantly in dealing with organized crime and in the prosecution of organized crime rings, but we do not think this bill would do that effectively.

One of the changes that took place in the bill over Chuck's bill concerns section 377(1), which reads:

Every one commits an offence who, wholly or partially, alters, removes or obliterates a vehicle identification number on a motor vehicle without lawful excuse and under circumstances that give rise to a reasonable inference that the person did so to conceal the identity of the motor vehicle.

It is important to note that the last phrase,“under circumstances that give rise to a reasonable inference that the person did so to conceal the identity of the motor vehicle”, was added to Chuck's bill and really does water it down. Chuck had put the onus of proof for lawful excuse on the person who is indicted, not on the crown.

Once again, we have a bill where the Liberal government had a chance to do the right thing and it has been watered down. It is frustrating. It gives criminals the out they need and it does not give leeway to regular citizens who have legitimate reasons for dealing with VIN numbers. It reminds me of a lot of other legislation we have seen. I think back to the gun registry where a law was made that really has not accomplished what it set out to do. It has left criminals free to operate and has caused nothing but a great deal of expense, time and problems for regular folks.

In conclusion, I would like to read one more statement by Dane Minor in a letter about Chuck. He states:

If the Liberals truly want to honour Chuck Cadman I suggest they pass his laws as written and actually give the police the resources to find out how many previous offences there were. If they don't have the courage to do that, at least have the decency to stop using his name in a self-serving bid to gain political points.

[Criminal Code, October 18th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I have been sitting here today and I am getting a little tired of hearing the arguments that this is a charter of rights issue in some way, shape or form. I do not think those arguments have any validity.

I am also getting a little disturbed by the fact that the Liberals seem to be continuing to play on the fact that they want to use Chuck's name on this bill. I do not think he would be happy, and obviously his family is not happy with the content of the bill. A number of amendments would have to be made before it would be acceptable to either his family or those of us who worked with him in the past.

As Dane Minor's letter said, if the Liberals want to honour Chuck's memory, then there are a couple of things they need to do. They need to pass his laws as he intended them to be written and passed. The Liberals also need to begin to provide the police with the resources to do their job. It is not good enough that they pass a law of some shape, which they are going to try to do here. They are going to leave the police without the resources they need to carry this out anyway.

I am getting a bit disturbed by what I have been hearing from the other side. The Liberals continue to bring Chuck's memory and legacy into this when this is not what his family wants. It is starting to look more like Dane Minor said, “a self-serving bid to gain political points”. I wish the government would pull back from that, take a look at the intent of what Mr. Cadman wanted to do, and take another run at this and do it right.