David McGuinty

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, September 17th, 2012]

With regard to government libraries: (^a) since January 1, 2012, which departments or agencies have closed, or will be closing, their departmental or agency libraries; (b) what is the rationale for each closure; (c) what evaluations, studies, or assessments were conducted and used to make the decision to close; (d) what are the dates and file numbers of those evaluations, studies, or assessments; (e) what are the plans for the disposition of the holdings of the libraries; (f) what evaluations, studies, or assessments were conducted and used to make decisions concerning the disposition of holdings; and (g) what are the dates and file numbers of those evaluations, studies, or assessments?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, September 17th, 2012]

With respect to the United Nations Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan: (a) when was the Minister of International Cooperation first informed of the corruption within the fund and what briefing notes were prepared for the Minister regarding the situation; (b) which additional Cabinet Ministers were informed of the corruption within the fund and what briefing notes were prepared for the additional Cabinet Ministers regarding the situation; (c) what steps did the government take upon hearing of the corruption within the fund; (d) what Canadian oversight measures were in place to ensure that Canada’s financial contribution to the fund was used in an accountable manner since 2002; and (e) what meetings have been held concerning the fund, and what was the date and location of those meetings?

[Criminal Code, June 15th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I am really pleased to participate in this debate today. This is a really important issue for Canadians and for our communities.

I want to commend the member who has put forward Bill C-394 as a very sincere and thoughtful effort to do something about the proliferation of gangs and gang membership across Canadian society. I think it is a very well-motivated and good-faith initiative.

It tries to make it an offence to recruit, solicit, encourage or even invite a person to join a criminal organization. It would change the penalties if such a person did join a criminal organization. That is where we part ways with the member and the government. It is with respect to their position in this regard.

We strongly support efforts to combat and criminalize the recruitment of individuals, particularly young people, into gangs and criminal organizations. However, we are just as strongly opposed to mandatory minimum penalties. Studies everywhere on the planet prove that such sentences do not deter criminals or make Canadians safer.

However, we do support in the bill the expansion of the definition of “criminal organization offence” to include gang recruitment. This, we believe, would be a very good step toward dealing with our challenge, which is improving the situation of gangs and gang membership.

As I said, we are alarmed about the increasing number of Canadians, particularly young people, who are recruited into gangs. We support the criminalization of this activity.

However, with regard to this question of mandatory minimum sentences for gang recruitment, all the evidence from Canada, the United States, state by state by state; New Zealand; Australia; the United Kingdom; and everywhere this has been tried is overwhelmingly that mandatory minimums do not work. They are ineffective. They are often constitutionally challenged. They are problematic, because they remove the discretion from judges, who are best placed to assess the situation based on the evidence and the facts of the case in front of him or her.

We also know that mandatory minimums do not deter crime.

On the other hand, we know for sure that what mandatory minimums do is increase recidivism. They actually make it more likely that a person who gets a mandatory minimum sentence comes back and offends again. How can that be good when we are talking about dealing with young people, in particular?

Half of gang membership in Canada is under the age of 18. When we increase recidivism, we get into a vicious circle that in turn increases crime. That has a more discriminatory impact on more vulnerable groups, notably, in Canada, our aboriginal young people, among whom gang recruitment is higher than it is in other parts of our society.

In my own community of Ottawa South, I deal with community police officers all the time. These are front-line officers, men and women, who are charged with the responsibility of dealing with so-called hot spots. All of us as members of Parliament deal with these in our ridings, particularly in urban spaces.

They tell us that the ticket now, the key, is to get to kids between the ages of 8 and 12. That is the time to get to kids with activities, particularly post-school activities, that keep them on the right track.

Let us talk about that for a second. What are the circumstances that lead kids, young people in particular, to join gangs?

We know it is linked to, for example, neighbourhood crime. We know it is directly linked to poverty levels. We know it is partly about peer pressure and peer influence.

We know it is sometimes about the lack of vigilance by parents, teachers and community members and leaders. We know it has to do with a lack of opportunities for positive after-school recreation programs, for example, or homework clubs. We know it is linked to substance abuse and alcohol use. We know that this is altogether tied into a large challenge.

We think the government should be investing more in activities that engage our kids, rather than forcing mandatory minimums on judges and then downloading to the provinces the responsibility to build more jails. By the way, that is a strategy that was tried in Texas and California. Is it not interesting that the governors of both of those states have now publicly denounced that experiment? In California, the state legislature is now struggling with the weight of the cost of prisons. This is a huge part of California's teetering right now on the verge of bankruptcy.

Liberals believe that we should be investing more in soccer fields and music groups and in making our recreational spaces more available for kids. It is not a bad idea, especially when we are dealing with a childhood obesity epidemic and all kinds of health challenges related to sedentary lifestyles.

We are alarmed by the increase in the number of kids joining gangs. We support the provisions of the bill that actually go a ways in criminalizing the recruitment of kids. However, we just do not understand the government's fixation on mandatory minimums. We know that it is a narrative the government uses for its base, but it flies in the face of all experience. It flies in the face of our community policing. Front-line officers tell us that it is not working. We are scratching our heads and asking why the government wants to spend all this money on incarceration, when we know that every dollar we spend up front saves us $40 afterwards in terms of costs for criminal enforcement, incarceration, parole and beyond.

We think the bill is good in a halfway respect, but unfortunately, it goes the wrong way when it comes to mandatory minimums. As a result, we will not be supporting this bill.

[Copyright Modernization Act, June 15th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, when I first read these provisions in the bill, I was reminded of the beginning of the famous Mission Impossible series of films, in which the Mission Impossible person is asked to take on a mission, if he agrees to do so, at the end of which, once he agrees, the tape self-destructs in 30 seconds.

As a former university teacher, that is just not how learning works. Young people today use information of this kind that is available online and elsewhere and they learn in learning blocks. They often have to return to foundational learning blocks to build on them to make progress, particularly in our trade sector.

Information, when it comes to trade skills, learning skills that build one on the other to provide a good workforce for our Canadian economy, it is just not realistic to ask them to destroy material in that kind of timeline.

Again, it is not steeped in reality and perhaps not even steeped in the real interests of Canadians.

[Copyright Modernization Act, June 15th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, first, we have to be very careful. Our American neighbours have their own interests at heart, and we have to respect that. In this case, it is clear that the Americans have had a major influence on the Conservative government.

Diplomatic cables recently revealed information showing that some parts of the Conservative bill were drafted to address concerns expressed by the American industry rather than issues of interest to Canadians. That is what is going on.

We have responsibilities here as Canadian lawmakers. We have to protect our own creative sector. Quebec, for example, has world-famous producers, filmmakers and writers.

We have to protect our own interests. I am not here to criticize American society, which has to protect its own interests. Still, it is outrageous that this bill has been influenced by so much pressure from the United States.

[Copyright Modernization Act, June 15th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, good morning, after a marathon of debate and voting in the last 30 hours.

I would like to focus on some of the practical everyday aspects and impacts of this bill, legislation which the Liberal Party of Canada will not be supporting.

There are a few things that viewers and people reading Hansard might want to know. This bill is a carbon copy of a previous copyright bill, old Bill C-32, which had been brought before the House. The government has refused to amend the bill in any way, shape, or form, either through legislative amendments put by parties, or based on the sound evidence and testimony given by folks who deal with this sector day in and day out.

Let us look at some of the testimony we heard at the industry committee just in the last seven days.

It deals with the question of digital locks. As my colleague said, it would say to families, housewives, fathers and single moms or dads that when taking their kids to a soccer tournament, for example, they would not be able to copy a film to play in the car during the eight-hour ride to Windsor. If they did make a copy, they would be subject to prosecution.

There are a couple of other elements.

We heard from the CEO of UBM TechInsights, which is an Ottawa-based world-class company. Its job is to protect intellectual property for creators and owners. It is sort of like a CSI crime lab. It helps inventors and owners in the intellectual property area.

Mr. Harry Page, the CEO of the company, explained to the committee that his company employs some very extensive reverse engineering technologies, so-called forensic techniques. They are used to help people identify instances where there is an infringement. It helps them prove that to enforce their intellectual property rights.

The problem, of course, is that the digital lock measures in the bill would prevent that company from breaking a digital lock even if it is placed on a device by someone who is pirating another company's hardware or software.

Why would the government want to make it illegal for a company like UBM TechInsights to break a digital lock to prove a theft, for example, on behalf of a client? It makes no sense. Why would the government aid and abet software pirates? Why is the government not protecting companies like UBM TechInsights that have hundreds of employees and carry out this work on a global basis?

There is another practical example of the impact this legislation would have.

Campus Stores Canada testified at committee. It is a major supplier of books in the academic settings across the country, in colleges, CEGEPs and universities. Its representative said that the bill would have a negative impact on more than 100 vendor and supplier associates. The Campus Stores Canada representative testified that the new copyright act would increase the cost of Canadian textbooks by as much as 15%.

I am blessed with four kids at home, three of whom are in college and university, and I can attest to my own kids' struggles with the cost of textbooks. They work at part-time jobs and search long and hard for used textbooks, which are often not available. They have to buy new textbooks every year. That is the way the teaching system works. It is hard for young people.

Why, as the Campus Stores Canada representative testified, would it want to bring in a 15% increase on the over one million students that it serves? Of course, the company does not want to do this, but this is another practical impact of what the government is pursuing.

There is a third example, and it was picked up on by my colleague a moment ago when he read into the record some testimony from Professor Ian Hargreaves. Professor Ian Hargreaves is not just another professor in the area of intellectual property. He was the person who conducted the definitive study in Britain last year on intellectual property. It is the number one study in the United Kingdom.

It is important for Canada to look to other jurisdictions to determine how they have done it comparatively. They are struggling with the same thing.

I want to re-emphasize what Professor Hargreaves said in committee in the last several days. It was basically that the notion that informs this legislation, which is something that the conservative movement has seized upon now in its present form for many years, is about tougher enforcement. The government is going to be tougher about enforcement. We often hear that, and we often ask why the government would not want to be as tough on the causes of crime, for example, as the government says it is on the crime itself.

Professor Hargreaves said that the United Kingdom has a law in place making it unlawful to copy a song from a laptop to an MP3 player. He basically said that this was a big mistake. It has not worked in the United Kingdom. He went on to say, “The continued unlawfulness of copying a song from a laptop to an MP3 player is something which has not been tenable for really quite some time. The law needs to be sensible.” The law he referred to as making “reasonable sense to reasonable people”.

We have a situation where the government, with full knowledge of other experiences in other jurisdictions, is simply saying it does not want to change or improve this bill. Perhaps the Conservatives are motivated by such partisanship that they cannot accept good amendments from other parties. It is very unfortunate if that is the case. Perhaps they are under inordinate pressure and undue influence from the United States, which has a very powerful entertainment industry. Perhaps they are under pressure from forces in Los Angeles and Hollywood that are very worried about the growth of Canada's film industry, of the success in Toronto and Vancouver and even in cities like my city, Ottawa, where increasing numbers of films and recordings are being pursued.

I do not know what the motivation is, but it is unfortunate that the government does not see fit to work with Parliament. That is why we come to work here every day. We come to work to improve things. We have here a case where the definitive author of the biggest study in the United Kingdom in years testified that it just does not work, so why do we not actually pursue another way?

That is why we put forward a number of amendments to try to overcome these difficulties. We ask again, why will the government not amend Bill C-11 to allow consumers to break a digital lock for personal use, for what we call non-infringing purposes? Why would the government want to send a signal to the millions of Canadians who occasionally copy this kind of material for personal use that they had better watch out because they are going to be hunted down? It sort of portrays, and I am not sure if it is ignorance or just an unwillingness to see where society is on these issues.

I have four teenage kids who spend a lot of time doing creative work, listening to creative work, participating in creative work. It is now part and parcel of what they do in school. It is part and parcel of what they do in society.

Seniors are increasingly turning to online solutions. Very many seniors in my riding of Ottawa South are now doing online banking. They are pursuing online entertainment searches. Some of them have mobility problems, or perhaps are disabled.

I do not understand why the government has this pig-headedness, this hard-headedness about not wanting to improve the bill based on these practical issues that have been raised and practical solutions that have been proffered by both the U.K. experience and by parliamentarians here on the floor.

I would like to close by saying that, yes, it is important to improve and modernize our Copyright Act, but it is not a serious venture when the government carbon copies the previous facsimile of it, brings it to the floor of the House, and says, “Here, do it again. We are not interested in improving this,” when there is goodwill and good faith to do so.

[Copyright Modernization Act, June 15th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, good morning, after a long and difficult 48 hours here in the House.

I would like to pick up on some of the comments my colleague made, first of all to suggest that the Liberal Party is interested in efforts to modernize and update our Copyright Act in a fair and balanced manner. We are also deeply concerned about the digital lock provisions in this legislation.

I will ask my colleague the question this way, and I know he is capable of giving a good, fair and objective answer. This really deals with the question of recent disclosures of diplomatic cables from the United States showing that the Conservative copyright plan appears to have been drafted very much to satisfy industry concerns in the United States. I know we will not get into a U.S.-type bashing commentary. We do not need that. We have good friends and neighbours in the United States who have their own interests.

However, perhaps in the interests of Canadians watching or following this debate, can the member help us understand where the differences lie between the Canadian and the American interests in this regard? Can he give us some insight, because he is so close to the file, as to why the Conservative Party would allow itself to be perhaps influenced too greatly by American interests as opposed to Canadian interests?

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 12th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, yes, we are, right here in this jurisdiction, in the shadow of the Peace Tower.

There is a desperate need for housing. It is interesting to reflect back and remember that one of the first acts of the government, upon forming a minority government, was to do away with our housing department. It did away with it with one stroke of a pen.

Now where are we? Is there a national housing strategy? Are we dealing with some of the homelessness crises? Are we connecting the dots between homelessness and mental health issues and challenges? Are we connecting the dots with substance abuse? No, we are not.

This is a step back for Canada. This is a focus on harvesting the low-hanging fruit of natural resources as quickly as we can and sell as much fossil fuel as we can and as much mineral as we can.

We are not opposed to those extractive industries—do not get me wrong—but it is a race to sell as much as we can and make as much money as we can. In my estimation, the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister can stand up in three years' time and say, “Canadians, we know we have undermined the 21st century economy, but have we got a tax cut for you.”

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 12th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the member's question is spot on.

In the 21st century, we should not be racing to compete with jurisdictions that can dig up minerals, cut forests, harvest fish and move into the natural resources industry that Canada used to excel at in the early 20th century. This is not Canada's role for the future.

Where is the investment and venture capital? Why are we discussing new start-ups for Canada? Why is the Sustainable Development Technology foundation being robbed of capital to capitalize and partner with our private sector to give rise to new green technologies?

The race is on for energy efficiency all over the planet. Every jurisdiction knows this. Canada should be leading this race, but unfortunately I do not think the Prime Minister has a pair of running shoes.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 12th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin on a general note, for Canadians who might be watching or following this debate, to try to perhaps slow down the pace of the detail being presented on all sides of the House and remind Canadians what is at stake here.

What are we talking about this evening? Why have so many amendments been produced and presented for voting very shortly? Why is all this kerfuffle happening about this budget bill?

For everyday Canadians who are busy leading just-in-time lives, raising their kids, paying their mortgages or rent and looking after loved ones, this is very complicated, but there are some simple facts that are worthy of communication for them this evening.

First, this budget document is 425 pages in length, has 753 clauses and is changing or doing away with 70 different laws that exist today in Canada. Here are a few of the things it would do in unprecedented fashion, because it is not an economic document and it is certainly not an economic transformative plan, as the minister would have us believe.

It would rewrite Canada's environmental laws, 40 years in the making. In this draft budget, they are gone.

It would break the Conservative government's election promise by raising the age to qualify for the old age supplement from 65 to 67 years of age. Does any Canadian remember hearing that in the last election campaign? Did the government run on that platform?

It would create uncertainty for our seasonal industries with changes to employment insurance, something I will come back to momentarily.

It would hurt Canada's international brand by tearing up 100,000 immigration applications with the stroke of a pen. The 100,000 human beings waiting for their immigration applications to be processed would now be out of luck.

It would impose the Conservatives' unilateral decision to reduce health care transfer payments to the provinces and territories. Did they run on that platform? No. Did they consult or negotiate with the provinces? No.

In this bill they are targeting charities that they disagree with. Did they run on that in their platform?

They are eliminating groups such as the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, Rights and Democracy and the National Council of Welfare, all groups the Conservatives disagree with. Did they run on those promises? No.

They would be reducing the Auditor General's oversight on a number of government agencies, including the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Northern Pipeline Agency. How can that be a good thing?

It is reducing democratic oversight of our spy agency, CSIS, by abolishing the Office of the Inspector General.

It would repeal the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, eliminate a number of the government's reporting requirements on climate change and public service jobs and make changes to parole hearings. Every expert who testified warned that changes to parole hearings are unconstitutional.

In short, it is anti-democratic. They are using a single omnibus budget bill to limit debate and ram these unrelated measures through Parliament. That is what this debate is about, for Canadians who are watching.

However, it is no surprise for those of us who lived through the first incarnation of the republican government in Ontario, which has ended up here. That is because the technique that was perfected in Ontario to create omnibus bills began under former premier Mike Harris and was perfected by our present-day Minister of Finance.

Let us focus on the old age supplement as an important issue for a moment. The Conservatives are breaking their election promise, as I said, by raising the age for OAS from 65 to 67. They are ignoring the advice of the OECD, Canada's chief actuarial officer, the Parliamentary Budget Officer and even the government's own experts, who have all agreed and all testified that change is not necessary because our OAS program is already sustainable. This would hurt rural Canadians, and single women in particular, who disproportionately depend on OAS and GIS.

It also hurts our physical labourers who cannot continue working. Forty percent of our OAS recipients earn less than $20,000 a year, and more than half earn less than $25,000 a year. In my riding of Ottawa South, it is no different.

This change would hurt Canada's most vulnerable seniors the hardest. It is just not right; our seniors, who have invested so much in our country, need our support now more than ever.

Let us turn to the changes under employment insurance. What have we heard? We did not hear how these changes will help solve skilled labour shortages. We did not hear how many of the current 250,000 job openings would be filled because of these changes. We did not hear how these changes will assist the 1.4 million Canadians who are out of work. We did not hear that Canadians had been consulted about these changes. We did not hear how they will help communities and workers who only have seasonal industries to foster more full-time industries.

These changes brand those who require EI during recurring periods of no-fault job loss as “repeat offenders”, in the government's language. Can members imagine thatv if people are on in EI in Canada, they are repeat offenders?

Those people had better watch out. The changes would force them to take a 30% pay cut in a lower-skill job outside of their area of training. The changes would force people to take jobs further away from home, thereby incurring higher costs for a low-skill job that pays less. Boy, that makes sense in the 21st century.

It is policy created on the fly. The Conservatives did not have a plan or a rationale for the changes. They had no information, no facts, no analysis, just a belief that EI claimants are lazy and abuse the system.

They have a desire to penalize seasonal workers and industries. It is reminiscent of the member for Ottawa West—Nepean's press conference in Ontario several years ago, when as a minister in the Harris regime he took a box of syringes, dumped them onto the floor in front of the cameras and went on to explain that the reason the government was pushing Workfare so hard was that all welfare recipients in Ontario were shooting their cheques up their arms. That is the kind of character at play here, a character that is still there.

If members do not take my word for it, let us listen to what the media has to say about the budget.

The Globe and Mail said, “The budget bill contains too much for adequate consideration by Parliament.”

The Halifax Chronicle Herald called it “a steamroller of sweeping change, from the streamlining of environmental regulations to the reform of old age security and EI”, and called it “anti-democratic”. The paper stated that “the monster budget bill introduced last week is an omnibus bill on steroids” and went on to say, “It's also nonsense to pretend one debate, one committee review and one vote will allow Parliament to competently examine this legal spaghetti.”

The Toronto Star said, “This reeks of hypocrisy.” It also stated:

This is political sleight-of-hand and message control, and it appears to be an accelerating trend. These shabby tactics keep Parliament in the dark, swamp MPs with so much legislation that they can't absorb it all, and hobble scrutiny. This is not good, accountable, transparent government. It is not what [the Prime Minister] promised to deliver.

The Montreal Gazette stated, in speaking of Bill C-38, “If more Canadians understood it, they would be horrified by the lack of time allotted to its consideration.”

The Winnipeg Free Press stated:

Under the...Conservatives, however, parliamentary committees, like Parliament itself, are mere toys of the party in power, routinely gagged the moment an opposition MP moves a motion.

We have certainly seen that behaviour.

The Ottawa Citizen asked this simple question: “What's the rush?”

It goes on and on.

The National Post stated:

As you remove the outer layers of the bill, you discover potentially far-reaching policy shifts that have no business being in any budget, far less being scrutinized by the finance committee.

Perhaps to close, my favourite, published just some hours ago at 6:20 p.m. this afternoon, from Postmedia:

Their primary justification for the omnibus bill—that all its measures together form an integrated, coherent vision and plan of economic transformation—is demonstrably nonsense.... How can reforms to the Parks Canada Agencies Act, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and the elimination of the office of the inspector general for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service possibly be interpreted as economic?

It goes on to conclude, asking this question:

Why bother wasting time with the bothersome business of committee review and public debate? ...It would be far more efficient, certainly cheaper, for the prime minister to rule by decree.