David Christopherson

[Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion, March 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, last November, in my riding of Hamilton Centre, I was honoured to join with the Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion as it held its first ever conversation café at the Beasley Community Centre on Elgin Street. Attended by more than 150 people, the conversation café brought together members from many of Hamilton's cultural communities, including the Turkish, Somali, Chinese, Spanish and Arabic communities, as well as seniors and youth representatives, to discuss changes residents would like to see in their neighbourhoods and how they would like to get involved in their community life.

The conversation café continues the outstanding work of HCCI and its executive director and Diamond Jubilee medal recipient, Evelyn Myrie, who works to assist the City of Hamilton, as well as major institutions, business, service providers and others, to provide equity and create inclusive environments in all areas of civic life. This important work continues to play a critical role in Hamilton's multicultural development.

I would like to congratulate the Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion for the excellent work in our community and wish it continued success with more conversation cafés.

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, March 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, my first thought is how lucky we are in the official opposition to have such a fantastic defence critic who understands these issues so well. I am not a lawyer, not everyone here is. I am a layperson so I bring whatever practical experience and knowledge, as well as tapping into expertise. However, I listened to the hon. member point out in a very short period of time the flaws in the one example that the Conservatives stand on.

Is that not what people do when they do not have a really good argument? I have done it myself, so I know it works. They take one good issue and put it down on the ground and just stand on that one little thing and do not move. That is their one position. That one example is not nearly enough for us to be swayed to see this differently.

The hon. member for St. John's East has pointed out other equally important examples that also make the case that this would be the right change to make. Therefore, the Conservatives' one example, in our opinion, is not nearly enough. It is a point, but it is just one point. It is not enough in the tsunami of points that our defence critic can bring forward to justify the position we have over the position the government has.

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, March 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I would just point out to the member that, apparently, there were witnesses who came forward and gave evidence to this effect.

In fact we know that once the bill is passed, it will still need more work because an entire review needs to be done. We have made the commitment that the NDP, when it forms government, will do that wall-to-wall review, even if the current government will not. There is the difference. The difference is that we recognize there is still work to be done, even with this amendment and even with this bill passing. This House will be seized with this matter again in a few short years, and we will be making things even better.

Does that mean we should not pass the bill today? No.

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, March 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, when I glance at the other side, I will move my glance past that member and move on to the parliamentary secretary, who is clearly here to do some serious business.

Before the hon. member got up on who knows what point, I was commenting on the level of co-operation, and I was glad for that. It is an important file regardless of whether one is the minister, the parliamentary secretary or a critic for the official opposition, third or fourth party. The fact that we could come together said a lot about the members of Parliament who were on that committee and the intention of all sides.

I was saying that the level of co-operation switched when the Conservatives got a majority government. We had a document that was not perfect in the view of the official opposition. We know the government did not think it was perfect. Everybody put a little water in their wine and compromised a little, so that on the vast areas where we did agree, we could actually bring in a bill and get it passed.

However, because of politics, we are all going to be playing the blame game, pointing to other members and saying they slowed it down, saying they did not do the right thing. The fact remains that our fellow citizens in uniform cannot be too pleased with the way we are treating their legal system.

If I might say, it is one thing to be saluting the troops, acknowledging the troops and thanking them, but there is a whole lot more to it than just sending them off to be in harm's way. There is so much more to what it means for a nation to be supporting its soldiers, rather than just waving, saluting and saying “Yay, way to go.” This is one of those times and one of those areas.

I was looking at the debate last time, and it was interesting because the accusations being hurled from the government members were that we were trying to slow it down, and I think their main reason was that we supposedly did not like defence or we did not like the armed forces, which makes no sense whatsoever. The government side was accusing us of that.

We kept standing up and saying we did not want to delay it but we wanted to get some improvement. We wanted to get it improved to the point where it was as close as possible to the bill we already agreed on. If we could get that far, we were prepared to support it even if it did not contain all the changes we wanted.

However, because of the tenacity of the official opposition in refusing to let go of that issue and in refusing to allow ourselves to be browbeaten into supporting something we did not want to, we were being accused of unfairly holding things up. That argument does not hold a lot of water, given the fact that most of what we were seeking in those previous debates is now here in this bill.

We have an opportunity today to make an even greater improvement, and that is a good thing. What would be even better is if the government would take seriously the review of the entire military justice system and not just do it piecemeal. This is not just us. There are judges—and I will probably get a chance to read the quote in a response. This is coming from our jurors, our judges, saying that we should not do it in a piecemeal way, that we would better serve the defence of Canada and the soldiers who staff it if we did an entire review, wall to wall.

The government did not do it. It did not even bring in all the recommended changes from the first review. It received another review. It was tabled in June 2012, and there was no response to that one. Interestingly it took the government six months to table it.

Then a year later there is still nothing done. It raises the question of how serious the government is. We had to drag it, kicking and screaming, to this point, where we could protect the future of our soldiers through their not having criminal records.

I do not know why the parliamentary secretary is laughing at that. I do not see anything humorous in it. I did not mean it to be humorous. I was pointing out the importance and severity of the issue.

Finally, the official opposition is now at a point where, reluctantly, it will support the bill.

There has been no artificial delay. We said we would not pass the bill because it did not have these components and in particular this one here, the criminal records. We focused on it. We said so over and over, to the point where the government accused us of just deliberately delaying for some unknown reason. The government accused us of that.

However, we did not blink. We said no. The government could use its majority and ram it through; we could not stop it, but make no mistake, at every opportunity we had, we would not fast-track the bill. We would not let it go through any more quickly than necessary. We were going to stand up and keep making these points under the leadership of our defence critic, and that is what we did.

It is always a bit risky. However, at the end of the day, the government came to its senses enough to realize that, by acquiescing, it not only solved a bit of its problem with the party opposite it in the House, but I would like to think it also realized that this is in the best interests of our soldiers. That is who the legal system is there to serve.

Remember, we are a country where one is innocent until proven guilty. We respect so greatly the rights that individuals have. The government accuses us of being soft on crime and all this stuff. This is the same application. All we in the official opposition are saying is that there are ordinary citizens who voluntarily join and offer up, ultimately, their lives to the service of defending this country and its people. They deserve better than a piecemeal approach to reviewing the military justice system; they deserve better than a government just accusing the opposition of not caring enough; and they deserve better than to see it take so long for some justice to actually be brought to our military justice system.

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, March 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to join in the debate. I am pleased to be on my feet yet again to speak to the bill. We are of course supportive of the amendments that are in front of us. We have been supportive of the negotiated and agreed bill that came out of previous Parliaments. I echo other members who have said this could have been passed quite a long time ago. It is absolutely true.

I cannot help but think of those soldiers who have criminal records from maybe six months, eight months or a year ago, who would not have a criminal record if it happened six months from now, assuming the bill actually finds it way into law. Is that not a shame, because for some time now the official opposition has been—I am going to use this word—harping on this issue of criminal records?

I was reviewing some the earlier issues of Hansard, and there are quite a few on a relatively straightforward bill. I recalled my time as our defence critic when I worked with the parliamentary secretary on the bill. I was not on the committee that crafted it, but I was the critic at the time it was working its way through the House.

I remember working with the hon. member. I enjoyed the experience. There was a great deal of co-operation. Of course we are talking about back when it was a minority government. Things were very different then. The government was a little more open to listening and considering other points of view then, and the proof that it changed was when Conservatives had a majority government and then brought in what should have been the same bill. It was the same bill sans a number of important clauses that we thought should be in it, up to and including the issue of—

[Committees of the House, March 18th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 12th report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts in relation to its study of chapter 5, “Oversight of Civilian Aviation—Transport Canada”, of the 2012 Spring Report of the Auditor General of Canada. Pursuant to Standing Order 109 of the House of Commons, the committee requests the government table a comprehensive response to this report.

[Business of Supply, March 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question and for the fantastic work she is doing on this file.

Quite frankly, it is a bad bill the government has in front of the House in terms of reforming the Senate. It is made worse by the fact that the government did not even bother to take care of what is clearly unacceptable policy and unacceptable legislation in this country in this year—that is, that there is an age limit. People can come here as long as they are the age of majority, but they cannot go to the other place until they are 30. It is completely unacceptable and undemocratic. It points to how little a democratic lens the government put the bill through. Not only did the government not consult with Canadians, it did not even take into account basic values, meaning that if people are old enough to serve in the House of Commons, they ought to be old enough to serve in any other chamber in this country.

[Business of Supply, March 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, there are days I dream of being offered this opportunity.

However, the point is not whether we individually bring independent notions. Of course we all do. I say to my colleague through you, Mr. Speaker, that yes, we all do in our caucuses.

However, when we structurally put together a chamber that is supposed to be non-aligned—that is what the “sober second thought” means—it does not matter what the parties have done, it does not matter when the next election is and it does not matter who the prime minister is; what matters is the law in front of me and whether I think it is good or bad.

I submit through you, Mr. Speaker, to the hon. member that in that place, that is not what happens in most cases. They have whips, they have party leaders and they attend caucuses because in large part they follow the partisanship of this place, and the rest of it is a scam.

[Business of Supply, March 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the answer is contained in the motion itself that we are debating. The whole point of this is to begin and initiate a discussion with the provinces, because they are equal partners in our Constitution.

Therefore, before we get into all these kinds of academic games that the member wants to get into, let us first start with a basic premise that his party was not very good at and that the current government does not do at all, which is to sit down and ask the provinces what they think and what role they want to play. Let us start with that kind of confederation.

[Business of Supply, March 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to speak to one of my favourite subjects.

I would like to acknowledge that I will be sharing my time with the member for Hull—Aylmer.

I will focus my remarks a bit differently than some members, simply because, to me, a lot of these scandals that are happening right now with respect to expenses and where people live is really a symptom of the problem and not the real issue. I am glad that Canadians are focused on it because it is a real part of the problem. However, it is not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is the direction we are going in, whether it is status quo or moving to an elected Senate.

We should recognize that right now Canadians think the Senate sits and does not do any real harm; how much good it does is questionable, so why would we upset the apple cart? What we need to remember is that under the current system every appointed senator's vote carries more weight than those of us who are elected. That is by virtue of the fact that bills have to pass in both houses. There are fewer seats in the other house; therefore each vote carries more weight in our parliamentary system. This is not some add-on or little accessory to our parliamentary system; this is a key focal point.

Fellow Canadians must keep in mind that these scandals involve the people who make the laws and that there is no accountability. At the end of this Parliament, those of us who want to be re-elected have to go to the Canadian people and be accountable for the decisions we made and the things we did or did not do. That house does not report to the bosses, who are Canadians. That is the focal point of what we are talking about.

In my view it is critical to understand that we do not have the luxury of the traditional Canadian way of approaching things. We like Goldilocks solutions. Some issues are a little too hot, some are a little too cold, and we like the soft spot or the warm spot in the middle. That is the Canadian way. We look for compromises and ways for people to get along.

The problem in this case is that what looks like a Goldilocks solution is as dangerous as the status quo. I would argue that it is even more dangerous. The status quo or abolishing means that the middle is not voting. That is not the Goldilocks solution. I am shocked that there is any member of the west in the House who is willing to elect the Senate, give senators even more power and let them utilize all of the constitutional authority they have. If I ever ran for an open seat in the Senate and got elected as a senator, I would certainly exercise every bit of the mandate that I have been given, just as I do now as a member of Parliament.

In 1980, the Supreme Court of Canada stated this with respect to electing our Senate:

The substitution of a system of election for a system of appointment would involve a radical change in the nature of one of the component parts of Parliament.

The Supreme Court of Canada stated that to elect members to the Senate is a radical change. That means that radical change would entrench the following: British Columbia, with over 4.5 million people, would get six seats in the Senate; Alberta, with 3.8 million people, would get six seats; Manitoba, with 1.2 million people, would get six seats; Saskatchewan, with just barely over a million people, would get six seats; Newfoundland, with a population of 512,000 people, would get six seats; and, just to round it out, P.E.I., with a 150,000 people, would get four seats.

Why on earth would any member of the government, in particular those from the west, support electing the Senate to entrench that power, when the numbers are so unfair? If I were from B.C., I would begin every speech about the Senate with how unfair it is that there are not enough seats in my province to reflect our population and that it is unfair, undemocratic and needs to be improved.

In fact, I was just at the procedure and House affairs committee an hour ago, and the whole exercise around redoing the boundary commission reports is all about the number of people per riding. It is an important gauge of our democracy,yet here we are with a Senate that is extremely skewed against the west, and the government members seem to be willing to entrench that, exacerbate it and make that unfairness go on forever.

I just want to say to my friends in western Canada that as a proud Ontarian, I will stand up every chance I get for their right to proper representation, even if some of their own members will not.

I have a couple of last things.

Some of the good work and the good deeds the Senate does are often pointed out. It is possible to point to very good studies that help all of us, but the issue is whether the people who authored those reports should also be given the right to vote on laws.

That is the point. It is not whether they do good reports or not, or whether they do good deeds; it is a question of whether or not they should be entitled to pass judgment and vote on our laws, particularly when their vote has more strength than our vote. Is that really the way we want a modern democracy to operate?

If we need good deeds done, we have lots of good citizens we can call on to be on a royal commission or a blue-ribbon task force or a stand-alone commission. There are lots of people willing to do that. It will cost us some money, but it will be a lot less than the $100 million a year the Senate costs. Most importantly, we will not be bestowing upon them the right to vote on our laws. In a democracy, they should not be able to vote on laws unless they are accountable.

By the way, the government's current proposal to elect the Senate means that by law they cannot be accountable. They would run in an election on a platform of “Here is what I will do; I promise to do this, that and the other.” Then, if they were elected members of Parliament, they would come here and spend a few years, and at the end of the Parliament they would go back to Canadians and say “Here is what I promised. How did I do? Are you going to give me the right to go back, yes or no?”

Under the current government proposal, they can make any promise they want. They would serve a nine-year term and then be prohibited by law from running again. How are they supposed to be accountable? It gives no accountability, and that is what democracy is about. That is why this proposal does not work.

On this whole notion that the Senate is a chamber of sober second thought, spare me. First of all, structurally they have whips. Why is there a need for a whip if everybody is independent? Why is there a need, if there are no caucus positions? Why is there a need for a whip if everybody is supposed to give everything sober second thought?

They have a whip because it is a caucus system in all but name. There are a few senators who are truly independent, but most go to the weekly caucus meetings, and they do not rotate through the three caucuses. They go to their home caucus, the Liberal caucus or the Conservative caucus. They say, “Yes, sir. Yes, sir.” to the Prime Minister at the end of that caucus meeting, just like very other member, and they march into the Senate and do what their partisan politics dictate that they need to do.

Mr. Speaker, you are indicating my time has concluded, and I can only hope that the time for the Senate is equally concluded soon. It is the best thing we could do for this country, and the sooner we get rid of the Senate, the stronger our democracy will be.