Don Davies

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, June 19th, 2015]

With regard to hydrocarbon spills in Canada’s waters by commercial entities: (a) how many spills of oil, gas, petrochemical products or fossil fuels have been reported in Canada’s oceans, rivers, lakes or other waterways, broken down by year since 2006; and (b) for each reported spill in (a), identify (i) the product spilled, (ii) the volume of the spill, (iii) the location of the spill, (iv) the name of the commercial entity associated with the spill?

[Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act, June 18th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, as the official opposition trade critic, I am most interested in this discussion. There are some very good points being made on both sides of the House.

Obviously, trading jurisdictions have a shared interest in making sure that goods and services can flow as freely as possible across borders. However, I am wondering about some of the difficulties that could come up in that regard. As an example, the United States allows hormones in its milk, whereas Canada does not. When there are different sensitivities and sensibilities of populations over something that may involve public health or different views on things like that, there could be difficulty determining which jurisdiction is going to prevail in that regard.

I am wondering if the hon. member has any comments on that type of issue and how he sees the ability of each country or jurisdiction to maintain democratic control over their standards. How does that play into the bill?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, June 17th, 2015]

With regard to the federal executive vehicle fleet, broken down by year since 2012: (a) what was the total number of vehicles in the fleet; (b) what was the (i) total cost of procuring vehicles for the fleet, (ii) total cost of the fleet as a whole; (c) what was the total cost of salaries for drivers, including ministerial exempt staff and federal public servants whose primary responsibility consists of driving vehicles in the fleet; (d) what are the models, years and manufacturers of each vehicle in the fleet; and (e) what are the names and positions of each authorized user of a vehicle in the fleet?

[Committees of the House, June 17th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, it is with a sense of accomplishment that I present today, in both official languages, the official opposition's supplementary report to the trade committee's report entitled “Connecting Canadian Companies to International Markets: Global Markets Action Plan and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises”.

We believe in the great potential of Canada's small and medium-sized enterprises to drive Canada's economic prosperity and contribute to the well-being of our communities. Seeing new opportunities to promote SME success on the international stage, the NDP introduced the motion at the trade committee that launched this study. Our hope was to spur a thoughtful and meaningful conversation between SME owners, experts, and parliamentarians that would generate new and innovative ideas. I am proud to say that this study was conducted in an atmosphere of collegiality and bipartisan co-operation.

We are pleased with the findings of this report. Nevertheless, the official opposition has included this supplementary opinion to provide further insight into witness testimony and add important recommendations that were missed in the main report.

[Citizenship and Immigration, June 16th, 2015]

Actually, Mr. Speaker, that record pales in comparison to Scandinavian countries, which accept far more refugees, with the same populations.

This is not just a numbers game. It is also mean-spirited. Thanks to Conservative cuts, pregnant women claiming refugee status are going without prenatal care. Desperate parents are waiting so long to get care for their kids that children are ending up in the hospital, and sick people are going without chemotherapy and essential medications. That is the kind of welcome the government is giving to refugees.

Why will the minister not show respect for basic Canadian values and restore appropriate health care for refugees?

[Citizenship and Immigration, June 16th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, at a moment when the number of refugees worldwide has never been so high, the number of refugee claimants in Canada has reached record lows. We have gone from 40,000 claimants in 2000 to 13,000 in 2013. The results are clear. The Conservatives are systematically destroying Canada's proud history of welcoming those in need.

No matter how much Conservatives ignore it, caring for one another remains a core Canadian value. Is the minister really proud of his government's failure to sustain Canada's history of refugee settlement?

[Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act, June 16th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for an excellent question and an astute observation that gets to the heart of what we are doing in this place.

To govern is to identify priorities and make choices. The government has the privilege, while it has a majority, to indicate what it thinks the priorities facing this country are.

In my view, the absolutely appalling historic and current treatment of our first nations, including men, women, and children, is of momentous importance and is of such pressing social need that we should be tackling it in this House with much more vigour than we have been. There are people living on reserve in this country who are living in third world conditions. We have Canadians who do not have access to potable water. We have first nations children who get one-third the amount of money spent on their education that a typical non-aboriginal child does in this country. These are very important issues.

I would conclude by saying that I have heard a lot of talk by Conservatives in this House about their concern for women and girls, and I believe that their views are sincerely held. However, over 1,200 aboriginal women and girls in this country have been murdered or are missing. When all of the groups involved in this across the country are calling for a royal commission to find out exactly what is going on, why this has happened, and what steps should be taken, and that call is rejected by the government, then I think that is also a missed priority.

[Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act, June 16th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to address the subject of polygamy and I thank my hon. colleague for bringing it up, because it allows me to raise another potential problem with the bill and show another potential negative consequence of it.

The bill includes a provision that would compel the deportation of those who are practising polygamy, including the people who are victims of it. Attacking the issue of domestic violence through immigration and criminal law is wrong-headed. As one witness said:

...the bill seeks to deport individuals who are engaged in polygamy, including the women that the government says it is trying to protect. The denial of permanent and/or temporary resident status to people involved in polygamous relationships will not have the desired effect of protecting women. It will simply bar women in such relationships from coming to Canada in the first place.

Likewise, criminalizing forced marriage will not end this practice.... It would only drive it further underground and harm survivors of forced marriage....

Many of these victims do not want to complain about it, nor do they have the means to do so.

Again we see that while a laudable goal has been pursued here, the mechanism that has been selected by the government, after listening to experts and after thorough study, shows that perhaps it is not going to achieve its intended purpose. Deporting people who are victims of polygamy to another country only to suffer from the results of polygamy is a good example of how the bill fails in that regard.

[Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act, June 16th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand in the House today to speak and bring the perspective of the constituents of Vancouver Kingsway to this important debate.

I want to start by talking about something that I think all members of the House agree on and that comprises the fundamental aims of the bill. I support the intent of the bill, which is the fight against polygamy, forced marriages, and underage marriages. I, like every member in the House, believe strongly that all violence against women and children is unacceptable and that much remains to be done to prevent and combat these crimes. No woman, or anybody really, should be subject to gender-based violence, including the practices of forced marriage and underage marriage.

I have been in the House almost seven years and, at our best, we as members of Parliament come together and have respectful dialogues about different perspectives that can be brought to bear on some of these complicated problems. I have also been in the House when I think the worst of debate has occurred, which is when we engage in ad hominem attacks and when we substitute base accusations for careful and reasoned analysis.

We have seen examples of that when someone stands in the House and accuses members of standing with the pornographers if they do not support legislation, or of siding with the terrorists if they do not support legislation. I have heard in the House already today the member for Vancouver South suggesting that those who may have some problems with the way the bill is framed somehow have their commitment to standing up for the rights of women and children called into question. I think that is disrespectful and regrettable.

This is a bill that, while well-intentioned and, broadly speaking, aimed at something that all members of the House share as a laudable goal to be dealt with by the House, has some significant and some profoundly important problems. That is why we stand in the House today to voice those problems with the bill, as a good opposition ought to do in a British parliamentary system.

I also point out that the New Democrats, the Liberal Party, and the Green Party at committee tried to improve the bill and address the deficiencies and make the bill stronger and better and submitted some 11 different amendments that would have allowed every member in the House to stand up and support the bill unanimously. As is typical and all too common and regrettable with the Conservative government, it rejected all 11 of those amendments and, even worse, something we are seeing all too often with the government, without any real honest consideration of those amendments. That is very unfortunate.

I will start with one of the main problems with the bill and that is the title: zero tolerance for barbaric cultural practices act. Now, I am trained as a lawyer and I started reading law in 1985. I am very familiar with the titles of legislation, and the typical practice in Canadian legal history is that bills are titled in a neutral way to capture the essence of the bill. What I have seen for the first time in the history of Canada is that the government began early in its term to politicize and sensationalize the titles of bills. Frankly, that is also extremely regrettable. It may be politically beneficial for the moment for that particular party, but it does a disservice to the profound importance and respect we all should have for legislation in this country.

As is said, words matter, and the title “zero tolerance for barbaric cultural practices act” is problematic. We have heard from witness after witness as to why that is the case. There are two main reasons why that title ought not to be in the bill. First of all, it is inaccurate. The practice of polygamy, for instance, which is one of the aims of the bill, is not a cultural practice. In fact, it is actually in some cases, a religious practice.

Where I come from in British Columbia, we have had ongoing legal disputes with a group of people who live in Bountiful. They are a breakaway sect of the Mormon Church who believe that polygamy is religiously ordained and religiously permissible. That is not a cultural practice; it is a religious practice. However, we do not name this bill “zero tolerance for barbaric religious practices act”, and it would be offensive if we did so.

The second reason that this title is offensive is that several groups, particularly Muslims in this country right now, have expressed a certain sensitivity to legislative, political, cultural, and social pressure being brought to bear on them and feel that this title actually singles them out, which makes them uncomfortable.

New Democrats pointed that out to the government, asking the Conservatives to change the title by dropping the word “cultural”. What if the bill said “zero tolerance for barbaric practices act”? When everybody in this House could agree, the government refused. It refused to drop the word “cultural”.

I hear members talk about the opposition simply not being happy with a couple of cosmetic changes to the bill. Really, that is inaccurate. We were trying to improve the bill both in accuracy and in social acceptability, and the government chose to reject that.

The bill could also have serious unintended consequences, including increasing social pressure against victims of forced marriage and deporting victims of polygamy. We are also concerned that the criminalization of everybody involved in the solemnization of a polygamous marriage or a marriage that involves someone who is a minor risks having this legislation achieve the exact opposite of its aim. This is the famous law of unintended consequences.

Everybody in this House—including the government, I think—is well intentioned and wants to try to put a stop to these practices. Witness after witness at committee said that if we criminalize an entire family and compel children or family members to accuse their parents or family members of a criminal act, maybe they will be less likely to complain about the event, and we may end up driving these practices even further underground, which would make these practices more prevalent, not less prevalent.

We believe that instead of introducing a flawed bill that does not really get to the root of the problem, the government should commit to widespread and meaningful action with community groups and experts so that the real issues that these practices engender are addressed. I would argue for a multi-faceted approach to address such things as safe and affordable housing, counselling, and help for the often traumatized families who are trying to navigate complicated justice and immigration systems.

I want to read a couple of quotes that were made at committee, because they really get to the essence of the problem.

Lawyer Chantal Desloges pointed out the absence of a clear definition of polygamy. She said:

Practising polygamy is not really defined. The bill refers us to the Criminal Code definition of polygamy, but if you read the Criminal Code definition, that also is not very well defined and leaves a huge grey zone for interpretation as to what it means to be practising polygamy in Canada.

We know that polygamy is actually tied up in the legal system now, and there are charter and constitutional issues. This is an issue with the bill that I think would need more work.

Dr. Hannana Siddiqui give an excellent description of the problem with criminalization. She said:

The problem for us was that we worked directly with survivors and victims. A lot of them are girls and young women who say to us, “I do want protection from the police, but I don't want to prosecute my parents or my family. I don't want to see them go to jail.” They clearly said that if they went to the police and they were going to prosecute, then they would withdraw their charges; they would not cooperate or would not even go to the police in the first place.

Victims said that if we criminalize it, it might mean that their family ties would be broken forever. This is another unintended consequence I was referring to.

We already have laws across this country that set a minimum age for marriage in this country. It is actually not necessary for the federal government to set a minimum age of marriage, because every province has a minimum age. It varies from province to province, I understand, but that is another criticism of the bill that I have seen: it is redundant.

Also, forced marriage could be caught by any one of a number of sections of the Criminal Code already, including transferring a minor across provincial borders, assault, uttering threats, coercion, intimidation, et cetera. Arguably, even the sections of the bill that go to forced marriage are unnecessary.

I will give my colleagues on the government side of the House credit for wanting to address some serious issues, but I think that by working together, all members of this House can make the bill better. By co-operating, we can pass legislation that everybody in this House can support. That would be the aim of every parliamentarian, but that is not the case with the bill before us.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, June 16th, 2015]

With regard to the Live-in Caregiver and Caregiver programs, broken down by year, from 2010 to 2014: (a) how many applications were received by Citizenship and Immigration Canada; (b) how many applications for Live-in Caregiver and Caregiver visas were approved; (c) how many Canadian residents with Live-in Caregiver or Caregiver visas applied for permanent residency; (d) how many permanent residency applications by Live-in Caregiver or Caregiver visa-holders were approved; (e) what are the top three source countries for live-in caregivers in Canada; and (f) how many residents with Live-in Caregiver visas applied to sponsor their spouses or children, broken down by (i) raw numbers, (ii) percentage of the total?