Derek Sloan

[Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, April 16th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I understand the member supports this bill, but I just want to raise an issue that I discovered in researching this bill. In the past, many people have criticized the Harper Conservatives for being too cozy with special interests, giving them too much play in being involved in legislation. However, I found an article in the Financial Post this week that basically stated, “Jonathan Wilkinson could almost be accused of plagiarism”, with respect to copying a document that was put out by a variety of—

[United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, April 15th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I have a question with respect to free, prior and informed consent and also resource development. We know that in some cases on these large projects there may be the majority of indigenous communities, maybe even a super-majority of indigenous communities, that approve of a project but there may be a small group that does not.

In the creation of the bill, an amendment was put forward that explicitly clarified that free, prior and informed consent would not be considered an absolute veto. I wonder if the member thinks that free, prior and informed consent would give an absolute veto to any group even if a majority of other groups, for example, approved of a project.

[United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, April 15th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the member across and I appreciated him talking about uncertainty with respect to these protests and blockades. I want to ask him about a blockade that occurred in my riding. It was a famous blockade that occurred in Ontario in central Canada that lasted for three weeks and it impacted many billions of dollars worth of commerce.

I spoke to the local chief of that nation in my riding and we were trying to think of a way to end this blockade. He told me that many protesting would not heed his calls to remove the blockade because they did not respect his title of “chief” under the Indian Act. These individuals claimed that they themselves held hereditary rights to the chief role.

Does the member believe that Bill C-15 would make this type of scenario more likely to occur in the future?

[Criminal Code, April 13th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I want to point out briefly that there has been a suggestion in this debate that judges should have complete discretion with criminal punishments. I do not believe that is a legal principle. It is up to us here to make the laws and we have, in many cases, already fettered the judges' discretion. It is not up to the judges to choose capital punishment or corporal punishment, even if they wish to.

I want to ask the member if he believes that the House has the authority to fetter the discretion of judges in sentencing matters if it so chooses.

[Criminal Code, April 13th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I have a comment to make myself. Several people today have noted that the science with respect to mandatory minimum penalties has been conclusive and their usefulness has been completely debunked. In my opinion, this is false. I reached out to the Library of Parliament a few weeks ago and asked them this very question. Their conclusion to me, in a lengthy document that I would be happy to share, is that while deterrence, as such, may or may not be increased in certain punishments, it “is not the only factor in the debate over MMPs”, as mandatory minimum penalties are called, “and some other factors are more commonly addressed from a qualitative rather than quantitative standpoint.” Their final conclusion to me is, “Due to the variety of different metrics employed, the Library is unable to definitively comment on the degree to which scholarly opinion is settled with respect to MMPs.”

I wonder if the member could comment on the status of the science in question and the research report from the library.

[Criminal Code, April 13th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, there has been some concern about the use of mandatory minimum penalties.

There are still, and will remain, if this bill passes, mandatory minimums for various crimes. My concern is, why would some of these serious crimes, these types of offences, like the use of a firearm in commission of an offence, possession of a firearm or prohibited weapon, robbery committed with a firearm, and I could go on, have mandatory minimums removed when some mandatory minimums still remain? This is an issue, particularly in relation to the other laws, such as Bill C-21, which is being implemented to put more restrictions on legal firearms owners.

[Opposition Motion—Plan for Reopening the Economy, March 23rd, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, generally, today, there has been a discussion about the use of science. I want to ask the member to comment on perhaps a selective use of science.

I want to thank my wife for pointing out to me a Cochrane review that was done on the use of a PCR test, which has been the fundamental barometer of our approach to COVID at a federal and provincial level.

The gold standard is the Cochrane review. A specificity and sensitivity ratio for a test to actually diagnose this type of thing should be over 80%. Only three of 21 tests that were reviewed by Cochrane review, the gold standard in the medical community, showed any specificity or sensitivity over 50%. Its conclusion was that this should not be used to prioritize patients for treatment and that the diagnosis needed other things in relation to this.

Could the member comment on the selective use of science?

[Business of Supply, March 23rd, 2021]

Madam Speaker, in my view, there has been a lot of unnecessary fearmongering in relation to COVID-19 and I say it in this context. We have seen provincial and federal leaders not give us the correct clarity. We have seen case counts and death counts. Alberta, to its credit, has segmented it, so we can see that the majority of people who are suffering are seniors with multiple comorbidities. This information is helpful so not everybody will be afraid.

What could the Prime Minister have done to provide needed clarity and context so we do not see young children develop mental disorders over the fear of COVID-19?

[Business of Supply, March 23rd, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I just have a few comments to make here. I think there are some interesting things to be said about provincial-federal jurisdiction. On that note I would say that we need to see more leadership, even if only publicly, on a plan to get out of this.

Further, I would like to comment on some of the financial points that were made. I understood the member to be saying that basically they opened the floodgates and did everything they could to pump as much money as possible into the economy, but I do not think we could do that again. We are talking about variants. We have had various other types of diseases like SARS over the last 10 or 20 years. We will see a pandemic again at some point in the future.

How are we going to deal with this again? We cannot just keep opening the floodgates to the nth degree every single time we have a circumstance like this. What does the member have to say to that?

[Petitions, March 22nd, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House this afternoon to present e-petition 2961, with over 41,000 signatures of concerned Canadians. This petition calls for greater awareness and action overseeing all aspects of the COVID vaccination program across Canada currently under way.

The main points of the petition call upon the federal government to protect the ethical, legal and moral rights of Canadians to informed consent; to ensure COVID-19 vaccines are voluntary as opposed to mandatory, and the choice must be without prejudice; create an independent committee with a broad range of stakeholder representatives, including citizen vaccine safety advocates; ensure no committee member has intellectual or financial conflicts of interest with the pharmaceutical or medical industry; and grant this committee the power to independently review applications for approval of all vaccines, including those for COVID-19.

One of the key points within this petition is to develop a vaccine injury compensation program related to compensation for those injured or killed by vaccines, and this was actually acted upon by the federal government shortly after I authorized this petition in December of 2020.