David Anderson

[Questions Passed as Orders for Return, May 29th, 2017]

With regard to materials prepared for ministers since December 6, 2016: for every briefing document, memorendum or docket prepared, what is the (i) date, (ii) title or subject matter, (iii) department's internal tracking number, (iv) recipient?

[Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, May 19th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity today to speak on this important issue. It is one, as my friend from Manitoba pointed out, that some of us have been involved in for quite some time. Those of us who were here in the last Parliament who were interested in human rights and religious freedom issues worked on this previously, and, as was mentioned, Mr. Cotler took the lead on that. Many of us feel that this legislation could have been passed, and maybe should have been passed, prior to this point. I am glad to see that the Senate and the House are treating this seriously and are moving it forward.

I would like to talk a bit about what the bill would do, as the senator who introduced it in the Senate said. She talked about the purpose of the bill being to provide for taking restrictive measures in respect of foreign nationals responsible for gross violations of internationally recognized human rights. It would enable the Governor General to make orders or regulations allowing the assets and property of foreign nationals to be seized, frozen, or sequestered if those foreign nationals were deemed responsible or complicit in gross violations of internationally recognized human rights. This would apply not only to business transactions and corrupt activity but also to violations of human rights. We have heard some discussion this afternoon about what those might be extended to.

The bill also proposes related amendments to the Special Economic Measures Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. It would amend section 4 of SEMA to include responsibility for complicity in extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights committed against any individual in any foreign country.

I guess the surprising thing is that legislatures around the world have been so slow to apply measures like this, but I think the time has come for us to recognize that this is an important development in international relations and that we can begin to hold people responsible who are violating human rights around the world.

This bill would make these amendments. It would impose stricter regulations on all foreign violators of human rights and give national governments, and our government, an opportunity to hold people responsible for their activities.

We need these sanctions. We cannot continue to allow our banks, our financial institutions, to be used as safe havens, in any manner, for corrupt foreign officials and human rights abusers. This legislation would enable the Government of Canada to much more quickly sanction individuals. We have seen sanctions against nations, but we have been very slow to sanction individuals. This would make it easier to do that and allow it to happen much more quickly, and it could be applied around the world.

We see so many human rights violations. We see so much corruption. We see officials moving money offshore to protect their own accounts and their families' accounts. We see torture of political activists, journalists, and human rights activists around the world. We need some tools to hold officials and leaders accountable for that kind of activity.

Unfortunately, illegal detention, torture, and death are used far too often to silence dissidents around the globe. It was just about 10 days ago that we had hearings at the Subcommittee on Human Rights on Iran, and actually, Mr. Cotler was part of the discussion that day and was one of our witnesses. I talked about the threat posed by the Iranian government, not only outside Iran but also toward its own people. It has the highest rate of execution of any nation in the world. There is a recognized, constant violation of domestic and international law. The president himself has nine departments under his strict control, and each of those departments has been recognized as violating Iranian domestic law. They continue to torture, they continue to export terror around the world, and they seem to be doing this with impunity.

We would love to see this bill in place so we can begin to hold people like that accountable for their treatment of their own citizens and for the impact of the expanded terror network they seem to be putting in place around the globe.

An example would be, within Iran, the Baha'i community. It is a minority religious community that has been basically slated for complete destruction by the Iranian government. Human rights defenders around the world have been trying to protect them and get some of their leaders released from prison. We now see some of that same activity taking place in Yemen, in the very small Baha'i community in Yemen. Interestingly, Iran's revolutionary guard seems to be involved in exporting the attitude and activity from Iran to Yemen, so another small minority community in another part of the globe is paying the price simply for what they believe in, not for what they are doing.

They want to contribute to their society, and they have been a good part of that society. However, we see a regime that is bound and determined to export its human rights violations around the world. A bill like this would go a long way to holding them to account. We believe that this would build on Canada's strong record of standing up for victims of human rights abuses.

Specific to Magnitsky and Russia, this legislation is strongly supported in the Ukrainian community in particular, and it is supported among pro-democracy Russian activists and human rights advocates. They believe that we desperately need this.

I should talk a bit about the genesis of this bill. Sergei Magnitsky was a Russian lawyer who uncovered a tax fraud, the largest tax fraud in Russian history, and was subsequently arrested and detained. He was tortured and killed in custody in a Moscow prison. Too many of these deaths go unnoticed and unrecorded, but in this case there was attention given to it. Since then, there has been an international focus on trying to bring legislation into place to remember the sacrifice he made, and to make sure that the people who were responsible, not only for his death but for the fraud and corruption that took place around it, could be held responsible.

In 2012, the Russian opposition leader, Boris Nemtsov, travelled to Canada to call on us to adopt sanctions to try to protect human rights activists and pro-democracy standards. Here we are, almost five years later, and we are finally working on this. In 2012, the United States adopted a form of Magnitsky legislation. The European Parliament has moved on this legislation, as has Estonia in 2016, and the United Kingdom in 2017.

Our history, as I mentioned, starts in the last Parliament. There was a resolution brought before the House of Commons, and it was passed unanimously. It was going to go ahead, but we had an election campaign that interfered with getting that bill through. Interesting, all three major parties committed to this legislation during that time, so we look forward to it coming into play.

I mentioned earlier about the Russian reaction to this. I guess we are disappointed by it, though we are maybe not surprised. It is unfortunate that again the Russian government seems to be unwilling to accept that it needs to make some changes if the rest of us are going to accept the way they do business in their country. When they call establishing an act that would hold human rights abusers to account an unfriendly act, and seem to be threatening that it is going to affect relations between our two countries, that is going over the top. It might be better if the Russians took a look at their system and said they could improve some things, and perhaps moved into a situation where other countries are not concerned about the way they do business. For them to try to threaten us is a waste of their time.

There are some other countries, as well, that we might be able to impact on an issue like this. My colleague mentioned the Falun Gong in China and the organ harvesting that takes place there, and the fact that officials are not being held responsible for that. We had a young lady on the Hill for the 6th Parliamentary Forum on Religious Freedom, Anastasia Lin, who was Miss World Canada. Her father is a Falun Gong practitioner and he has been under pressure in China. She won a competition to go to the Miss World competition, and they would not let her into China because of her activism on the issue. Again, it would help them if they thought we took violations of human rights seriously.

It is important that the Canadian government, for our own sake and for the sake of people around the world, adopt this legislation and put it in place as quickly as possible. I am glad to hear that the government is going to be working with us on this. If they are going to make amendments, I would encourage the Liberals to make amendments that strengthen the legislation, so that it can be even more effective than it is right now. It is good to see that the House seems to be of one mind in getting this legislation passed as quickly as possible.

[Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, May 19th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, the Russian government has reacted to the news that our government will be supporting this legislation. I would like to have my colleague comment on that. I think they refer to it as an unfriendly act and suggest it might impact our diplomatic relations. I am wondering if he thinks it is worth doing the right thing here, rather than listening to their advice to us.

[Criminal Code, May 19th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I know this bill touches on a number of issues that are very important to Canadians. I was struck by some of the complicated situations we find in this bill. The minister talked about criminalizing intervening drinking, but there would be innocent intervening drinking and guilty intervening drinking. There are some complications we really need to look at, but I think the biggest one is reasonable suspicion.

The minister has told us that there is no charter violation of personal rights in taking away the right to expect that police must have a reasonable suspicion before pulling anyone over, but we know that the majority of Canadians actually oppose mandatory screening. The legal community has said that the ruling she has lacks depth and does not reference any case law. I am wondering why the government is putting so much weight on such a lightweight judgment from her justice department.

[Railway Safety Act, May 12th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague wants this to be an issue of relevance, but it is relevant because this is the only solution that the NDP has. This legislation is principally designed as a national solution to a challenging circumstance in her riding where, according to her, there are not enough rail crossings, and therefore pedestrians in her riding are crossing the rail track at multiple uncontrolled locations and trespassing on private property. At issue is just that lack of pedestrian crossings on the Canadian Pacific Railway Outremont spur.

I wonder if the bill in its present form is actually necessary. Is this type of large-scale reach the only solution to the illegal crossings that my colleague referenced when she brought the bill forward?

I would like to take a minute or two to look at what is in place presently. My NDP colleague just referred to the Railway Safety Act being vague and confusing, and he gave some examples, but I do not think this bill is going to be the solution to clear that up. The Canadian Transportation Act includes some provisions on rail crossings. Section 100 of the act defines a road crossing as “the part of a road that passes across, over or under a railway line, and includes a structure supporting or protecting that part of the road or facilitating the crossing.”

The member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie says she wants to increase the safety of affected areas where pedestrians are crossing. I believe her approach is sincere, but as I have mentioned, we have questions about the method that she has chosen.

When we try to correct at risk situations, we should be very careful that we do not create new ones. I think that would happen if the bill were passed.

Although it tries to deal with a local issue, the bill would be national in scope, and it should be judged on that basis. Federal legislation already provides municipalities and local authorities with the authority to deal with these types of situations, with the ability to get a railroad to the table to get a crossing built.

Section 101 of the Canada Transportation Act states that if a municipality or a local authority and a railway cannot come to a conclusion and negotiate an agreement to build a crossing, the Canadian Transportation Agency can step in. It can authorize the construction of that crossing. It can determine what percentage of the construction costs each party will be responsible for. It can also determine who will maintain that crossing.

This current process puts the onus on individual local authorities, which is where it should be, to determine whether a new railway crossing is required, where and when that crossing is built and should be built, taking into consideration development plans and how much they are willing to contribute financially to see that crossing built.

The current legislative framework stipulates that if a local municipality or entity and a railway cannot come to an agreement, then the Canadian Transportation Agency can take over and assume responsibility. It can authorize the construction and determine how those costs will be split between the parties, both for the construction of the crossing and for the ongoing maintenance of it.

The minister can already help parties find common ground through various existing policies and can do it in a way that deals with the financial consequences for the stakeholders. As with so many other things, money often ends up being the sticking point on many of these negotiations.

The member told us about her work and the support she had from various agencies. However, the Montreal Port Authority is not one of those agencies that supports her proposed legislative amendment. That is the local entity involved in this situation.

Municipalities have the primary responsibility for their own infrastructure. It makes sense for them to be the ones that decide when, if, and where the railway crossings should be built. It should not be up to the Minister of Transport to determine whether a crossing must be built in a local area. It needs to be given over to the local government to make those decisions, and that is where it should stay.

As I said, the Montreal Port Authority does not support the bill. The rail line affected by the member's initiative serves the port. Setting up new crossings would disrupt port operations. Given a train cannot stop at each grade crossing, the port authority has said the company would have to uncouple and recouple the train and allow people to cross. That would significantly disrupt the operations and increase the risk for company employees and the public. I know the member does not want to hear that as a consequence of her legislation.

When people are crossing at uncontrolled locations, they are in effect trespassing on private property. The sponsor of the bill is saying that just because people are trespassing and putting themselves at risk, the minister has some obligation to build crossings for them. We do not believe this is the case. Increasing the number of pedestrian crossings increases opportunities for people to be injured and/or killed. That is not a good solution to the issue we are faced with here.

Statistics show that railway and road crossings are dangerous for Canadians. Data at the end of October 2016 indicated a total of 89 accidents at road crossings, 16 fatalities, and 20 severe injuries. These problems happen across the entire rail system, not only at these uncontrolled crossings.

We do not see how Bill C-322 in its current form could help improve and solve the problem once and for all. In our view, a broader approach to this is needed. Specific measures should be taken to improve the safety of people crossing railway lines illegally in Canada. We need to come up with a framework to deal with that.

We will oppose the bill because it proposes the wrong solution to the problem in Montreal and other densely populated cities that have rail crossings in them.

The issue is really that pedestrians are trespassing on private property, which typically has industrial activity also occurring, thus exposing people to major danger. The answer is not to give them even more opportunities to be injured and/or killed.

[Railway Safety Act, May 12th, 2017]

I hear my colleague in the back heckling me, but he should be apologizing to the people of Saskatchewan for having supported such policies.

We see the consequences in other provinces now. Unfortunately, our neighbour to the west, which was once three times the economy that we were and had three times the population, is suffering through the choice of an NDP government. We are all familiar with things like Rae days. In British Columbia, although the NDP has destroyed that provincial economy twice, it seems some people have forgotten that and may be giving the NDP another opportunity to drag British Columbia down.

[Railway Safety Act, May 12th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak to Bill C-322 this afternoon.

My experience with crossings is a little different from my colleague's. In my riding, the issues around crossings have typically been the removal of them, particularly in small towns. Train lengths have gotten longer and longer, and we now find freight trains that are two miles in length. The rail companies have actually come in and removed crossings, in their words, to try to remove the danger of people trying to cross at those places. It has made it inconvenient for a number of small communities whose people often have to go around another way to get back to the place where they started.

The second issue I have had with rail crossings in the riding is CPR removing crossings that were used privately and actually not even acknowledging our contacts with them to try to get them to explain what they had done.

I sympathize with my colleague on this issue, but I do not think she has found the correct solution to the problem. In short, the bill before us proposes to amend the Railway Safety Act to give the minister of transport the power to order a company to construct a railway crossing and to authorize the payment of subsidies in that regard. The bill is designed to address a particular problem in Montreal.

I find this to be typical of my NDP colleagues' approach to legislation. The solution is always more and more government intervention and bigger and bigger government. With these issues that should be resolved locally, they always seem to take a national hammer to them to try to repair them that way. I think that is what is happening here.

For those of us who have lived under NDP governments, this is a very familiar picture for us. We believe the solution is not always more and more government involvement and government telling people what they need to do. Of course, in my province it has had a huge impact over the years. We find ourselves, after 50 years of the NDP running the province, with an economy one-third the size of that of our neighbouring province, and it is for that particular reason. Every solution was seen to be more and more government involvement until people left and businesses left and we did not have the economic development that we actually needed in our province. We ended up with, I think, up to 80 crown corporations in a population of less than a million, and nationalized industries, such as potash, which was just about destroyed before it was sold into private hands and then became a crown jewel in our provincial economy.

[Foreign Affairs, May 11th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, our subcommittee heard that the Iranian government has created a cesspool of corruption and violence: massive numbers of public executions; deliberate destruction of religious minorities such as the Baha'i; the violation of international treaties; expanded state-sponsored terrorism; a governance system that crushes dissent; and numerous departments under the direct control of President Rouhani that directly and routinely violate domestic law.

Why is the Liberal government more interested in sitting at the table with Rouhani than listening to international human rights defenders like Irwin Cotler?

[Food and Drugs Act, May 10th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I am glad to have the opportunity to speak to this bill, and look forward to my colleague from Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa speaking to it, too. He is probably one of the most knowledgeable members in the House on these issues.

I first want to point out that GMO-free labelling is allowed in this country. From the conversation we are having here today, Canadians listening might not understand that. Any company, wholesaler or retailer, can put GMO-free labelling on their products, if they choose to do that. If they think that is somehow going to impact the market in a positive way, they have the opportunity to do that, and there are people doing that across Canada.

I am from a farm, and I am very proud of my heritage. I am proud of the crops that my neighbours produce. Some constituents in my neighbourhood are watching tonight. It is good to have them here, because they understand the challenges that farmers and producers across Canada face as they feed the rest of the world.

When in government, the Conservatives always guided the agriculture and food safety policy on the principle that decisions must be based on sound science. This actually results in Canada having one of the best food safety systems in the world. The Liberal government, apparently, seems determined to leave that behind. A number of issues have gone to the agriculture committee that do not seem to be science-based at all, but more politically based. If we are going to make decisions about these kinds of products, chemicals, pesticides, and those kinds of things based on political activity, we are going to find ourselves in a very deep hole.

The agriculture committee has dealt with things like the neonicotinoid issue and animal transport regulations issues, and the government's proposals do not deal directly with science. Much of it seems to be politically motivated. If we do that, we walk into a very deep swamp, particularly if we do that with genetically engineered products.

With respect to food safety, particularly on GMO products, the role of the government has been, and should continue to be, to regulate for the health and safety of Canadians. That is our challenge. That is the challenge governments have typically taken up, and said that their involvement, or interference, if we want to call it that, in the market needs to stop. That is why we have the food safety system that we do.

Conservatives stand for the integrity of the food system. We have a great food system, and we stand for protecting the health and safety of Canadians and farmers so that they can continue to be competitive around the world, but the reality is that GMOs have been demonstrated time and time again to be no threat to human health or safety. This bill fails to acknowledge the safeguards already in place, as well as the labelling options, one of which I mentioned a few minutes ago, that are already available to manufacturers and producers.

There were some questions this afternoon about some of the science, but I want to point out that over 2,000 studies have been done that document that there is no threat to human health or food safety from GMOs. One of my Liberal colleagues, a little earlier, asked about studying whether animals eating GMO products should be considered to be GMO in some fashion. In the United States, animal agriculture each year produces over nine billion food-producing animals, and 95% of them consume feed containing GMO ingredients.

Since the introduction of genetically engineered products, trillions of meals have been fed to animals with GMO products, and if there were an issue, it would have become obvious long ago. One study, over 29 years ago, which studied 100 billion animals, livestock productivity, and health, showed there was no noticeable impact of genetically engineered products, other than in cases where there had been an improvement. There was no impact on meat, milk, or eggs. Clearly, the benefits of GMO crops greatly outweigh the health impacts.

For example, the use of GMOs on farms in my area has reduced the price of food. GMOs have lowered the requirements for energy input, and have raised the output of crops. We have the example of something called golden rice, which could directly impact the deaths of one million children per year who suffer from a vitamin A deficiency. A number of governments have said they are not going to grow it, because it is genetically modified, no matter how much it could positively impact their people.

Some people oppose this and still try to make the genetically engineered part of that the issue. That is what this bill does as well, but there is no issue.

We have mentioned the European Union here a couple of times today. It is important to note that the EU itself has funded over 130 research projects. We would expect, given the kind of requirements the Europeans have, that they would have been interested if there were any negative impacts of these products. The research projects were carried out by 500 independent teams, and not one of them found there was any special risk from GMO crops. That is from Scientific American. The objections that we find to this whole industry are not scientific, but are definitely political.

I am a little concerned about the NDP coming forward with this bill again. It has come forward a number of times. If anything, the New Democrats are persistent, if not accurate. There is no health issue. We should not be leaving the impression with people that there is. We also should not be leaving the impression that the United States at this time requires labelling for GM products, because that is not true. The requirement that they have down there is that if there is actually a compositional difference that results in some sort of a material change to the product, then that has to be labelled for that change. That is a far cry from what we are being asked to support here. An example of that would be if canola oil had an increased lauric acid content compared to conventional oil, it would have to be labelled as a lauric canola oil. That is not what we are talking about here. To say that the United States has GMO labelling is not accurate. I do not think the mover of the bill or others here should be leaving that impression.

The member's bill contains no definition of GM food. In the bill, it actually leaves that to the Governor in Council. I do not think it would be responsible for us to be supporting this bill. The member just puts it forward with no definition of these terms. Once again, we need to understand what he is talking about. Why would he not just say that the New Democrats do not believe in anything specific enough here to even define it, that they are just going to throw it over to the government and let them somehow decide what the definition of this is? The member has a GM labelling bill, but he refuses to even consider defining what GM means in his mind. We do not have any clear understanding of what that might be.

As I mentioned earlier, the Canadian system has regulated by health and by safety, but not by composition. I do not think we need to change that, because this has worked well in the past.

In the member's bill, he decided to leave all regulations to the Governor in Council as well. Basically, the member is just saying that the New Democrats want a bill but they are going to leave it to the government to define what it is about and to set the regulations. It is kind of a strange presentation here. I think this is just a first step to try to get this bill in as quickly as possible.

I want to come back to something that is important, because we have heard this a couple of times today. The reality is that the United States does not make the distinction between novel foods and GMO foods. Novel foods are typically new products that have been developed. The Americans' view is that foods developed using new techniques do not differ from other foods in any meaningful way or present different or greater safety concerns than foods developed by traditional plant breeding. That is a pretty direct repudiation of what the member is saying, that there is GMO labelling required in the United States.

I want to give a bit of time for my colleague from Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa to be able to speak at length here, so I am going to wrap it up right now and let him have the extra time, hopefully later, that I was given.

[Ethics, May 10th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister broke the law. He accepted gifts worth thousands of dollars on billionaire island. He is under investigation by the Ethics Commissioner. His obligation is to be honest with Canadians. What is he covering up here? How many times has he communicated with the Ethics Commissioner?