Erin O'Toole

[Public Safety, October 24th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for that question. As someone who wore the uniform, I know the immense pride that our men and women have in the uniform.

Our government trusts the leadership of the Canadian Armed Forces to make decisions that are in the best interests of its members.

[Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act, October 24th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his question and for his work with people with disabilities across our country.

In many ways what I talked about in my remarks, the accessibility and the fact that documents incorporated by reference must be accessible using reasonable efforts, is a standard that would be, as my friend would know, quite similar to the legal standard for accommodation of people with disabilities. Reasonable methods of accommodation for people with different ranges of abilities must be provided. That is the legal standard across the country.

We are talking about a regulatory incorporation of documents by reference. It certainly does not confront folks with a disability on a day-to-day basis, such as a lot of basic accessibility issues would. However, it would have a reasonably close standard, where documents incorporated by reference would need to be accessible with reasonable effort to the folks impacted by the regulations. That is the right balance.

[Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act, October 24th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, my friend may have taught a course on regulatory interpretation while he was at Osgoode Hall. I look forward to his learned remarks on this subject in the House.

The hon. member did reference the ambulatory incorporation by reference. The ability for a government to incorporate documents by reference, and I talked about provincial or international partners' documents, is an important part of the legislative modernization process to allow our regulatory regimes to ensure that they have the most up-to-date technology and references, without the need to constantly amend the regulations and refer to newer regulations.

This is increasingly becoming a standard practice with modern jurisdictions such as Canada. In many ways it is important to note, and in my remarks I also talked about, the accessibility and the reasonable ability for such documents incorporated by reference to be accessible. That is provided for in the bill and has been consistent with the practice of government in the past.

[Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act, October 24th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for that consent.

As I was saying, Mr. Speaker, I will be dividing my time with the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board, who is far more passionate than I about the plumbing of state and the updating of our legislative and drafting requirements.

As a lawyer, prior to coming to this House, I know that these sorts of bills are important for governance and for drafting. This would have some measures that would allow our legislative and regulatory regime to be modern, and the broadest way is the technique of incorporation by reference.

Bill S-2, and the specific provision on incorporation by reference, has been studied by the Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs and reported, without amendment, to this House.

The technique of incorporation by reference is already used in a vast array of federal regulations. It is difficult to actually think of an area, a regulated area federally, where incorporation by reference is not used to some degree.

Bill S-2, the bill before the House today, is about securing the government's access to a drafting technique that has already become essential to the way governance operates in Canada. It is also in line with international trends in the modernization of regulations, and as I said, it responds to Senate and House committees, including the Standing Joint Committee on the Scrutiny of Regulations. That is certainly a committee I want to try to avoid during my time here in Ottawa.

Incorporation by reference is an effective way to tap the resources of expertise in standards in writing bodies across Canada. Canada has a national standards system that is recognized around the world, and the incorporation of standards, whether developed here in Canada or internationally, allows the best science and the most widely accepted approaches to be used so that people can have a modern and comprehensive approach to the day-to-day use of regulations in Canada.

In fact, reliance on this sort of expertise, whether domestic or international, is essential to ensuring access to the technical knowledge needed for such regulations.

Witnesses from the Standards Council of Canada before the Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs were clear in their testimony that Canada already relies extensively on international and national standards. The bill, in many ways, would ensure that regulators continue to have the ability to use incorporation by reference, or the ability to incorporate documents as they are amended from time to time, in our regulations so that Canadians can be assured that they are protected by the most up-to-date technology without the need to amend regulations or to constantly be referring to newer versions.

For these reasons, incorporation by reference is an important tool for regulators when they are designing our regulatory regimes.

The bill before the House today also strikes an important balance in respect of what may be incorporated by reference by limiting the types of documents that can be incorporated by the maker of regulations. Also, only the versions of such documents as they exist on a particular day can be incorporated when they are produced by the regulation maker. This is an important safeguard against circumvention of the regulatory process when incorporating documents that are internal to the government.

In addition to providing an express legal basis for the use of the technique of incorporation by reference, one of the most important aspects of Bill S-2 relates to accessibility. The bill would expressly impose, in legislation, an obligation on all regulators to ensure that the documents they incorporate are accessible. While this has always been something in the common law, and access to justice and common law principles always have applied to our regulatory regime in Canada, the bill would clearly enshrine that obligation in legislation.

There is no doubt that accessibility should be part of the bill. It is essential that documents that are incorporated by reference be accessible to those who are required, by regulation, to comply with those documents. That is an important and necessary step, and that is why it is included in Bill S-2.

The general approach to accessibility found in this bill would provide flexibility to regulatory bodies to take whatever steps might be necessary to ensure that these diverse types of materials, from a wide variety of sources, both domestic and international, could in fact be accessible.

Material that is incorporated by reference is generally accessible, and as a result, in some cases, no further action on the part of a regulatory authority would be necessary. An example of this is provincial legislation across Canada that is already widely and generally accessible. Federal regulations that incorporated provincial legislation would undoubtedly allow the regulator to meet the requirement to ensure that the material was accessible.

Sometimes accessing the document through the standards organization itself might be necessary. The proposed legislation would ensure that the regulated community would have access to whatever material was incorporated, with reasonable effort on their part. In this modern age, so many things are easily accessible by those that are regulated, so this reasonable-effort standard should be very easily met.

The bill, therefore, would create a meaningful obligation on the part of regulators to ensure accessibility while still allowing for innovation, modernity, flexibility, and creativity.

Bill S-2 is intended to solidify the government's access to a regulatory drafting technique, essential and responsive, in our regulations. It also recognizes corresponding obligations regulators must meet when using this tool. This bill strikes an important balance that reflects the reality of modern regulation while ensuring that appropriate protections and accessibility measures are enshrined in law.

This proposal is consistent with the position the government has long taken on the question of whether the technique of incorporation by reference can or cannot be used in regulations. It would provide express legislative authority for the use of this technique in the future and would confirm the validity of existing regulations incorporating documents in a manner that was consistent with that authority.

Parliament's ability to control the delegation of regulatory-making power would continue, as would the oversight of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations. We expect that this standing joint committee would indeed continue to play an important role in ensuring that the use of the technique continued and was exercised in the way Parliament intended.

We have many years of successful experience with the use of incorporation by reference in regulations at the federal level, and this knowledge will be useful in providing guidance with respect to this legislation in the future. There is also every indication that the use of this technique will be essential in implementing regulatory modernization initiatives here in Canada in conjunction with some of our regulatory partners around the world, most notably our partners to the south, in the United States.

We have before us today one of these bills that are essentially the plumbing in our laws and regulations in Canada. The enactment of Bill S-2 would be a logical and necessary next step to ensuring that there is access in a responsible manner to incorporation by reference documentation in a way that is accessible but that allows our regulations to be modern and to incorporate some of the best references from around the world.

I invite members to support this important legislative proposal in Bill S-2 and recognize the important steps it would take to ensure that our laws and regulations are modern, accessible, and the best they can be.

[Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act, October 24th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, with the consent of the House, I will be dividing my time with the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board.

Today I rise to speak to Bill S-2, a bill that comes to us from the Senate, which is seeking to amend the Statutory Instruments Act and consequential amendments to the Statutory Instruments Regulations.

In many ways, we have a bill before the House today that is technical in its name and technical in its nature and really can be looked at as the plumbing required in the legislative and regulatory regime. I am going to speak to that briefly today.

In many ways the bill--

[Canadian Armed Forces, October 23rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, Canada's heart and soul were attacked yesterday, but I rise today in the House to assure Canadians that both are still intact.

Parliament represents Canada's soul, heart, and democracy. Our National War Memorial represents our soul. The freedoms debated and confirmed in the House were secured by the sacrifice of tens of thousands of Canadians who died defending our values and freedoms.

Canada's deepest loss is not the innocence of our capital, but the loss of two Canadians who embodied the best of Canada. Corporal Cirillo was killed standing guard over our soul and now joins the ranks of the fallen that he was honouring. This is the same week that we lost Warrant Officer Vincent to a similarly despicable attack.

Our men and women of the Canadian Forces volunteer to serve our country, and they do so with pride. Corporal Cirillo and Warrant Officer Vincent were not attacked because of who they were, but because of the values that their Canadian Armed Forces uniform represents.

Canada's heart and soul remains strong despite these attacks. All of Parliament stands with the families of the fallen, and we stand firmly beside the Canadian Armed Forces.

[Care for Veterans, October 20th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is my distinct honour to stand today to speak to this important motion, M-532, which really touches on a number of things our government has already been moving forward in terms of improving and removing unnecessary bureaucracy from veterans care.

My colleague's proposal really is to develop a continuum of care, something that recognizes that care will evolve and that there is an important handover for our veterans, which I will speak to in my remarks.

I thank my friend and colleague, the MP for Edmonton Centre. Often in dialogue across the country we hear, can a single MP get much done? Pierre Trudeau's famous quote about MPs being nobodies 30 metres from Parliament Hill is a fallacy. If people are members of this House and they care about an issue, they can advance it remarkably. One does not have to be the leader of a party. One does not have to be a minister. One just has to be a passionate advocate.

That is what we have in my friend, the MP from Edmonton Centre, a passionate advocate for the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces, and a passionate advocate with decades of experience working with veterans.

He noted in his remarks to this House that he is just one of the 600,000 to 700,000 veterans in Canada, but his is an important voice, because he is here in Parliament. I consider myself his understudy in many ways. We represent the Royal Canadian Air Force caucus here in the House of Commons. We are a pilot and a navigator who are aircrew who fly and tease each other relentlessly. We are here working on issues of mutual concern, namely our men and women who serve this country.

What has been discussed a little bit in this House but has never been thoroughly explored in the way it should be is how we can serve veterans within this continuum of care my friend from Edmonton Centre has suggested in a way that recognizes that those 600,000 to 700,000 Canadians are vastly different.

We heard my friend from Guelph talk about the offices and things like that again. Veterans are not a unified force who all access services the same way. We have in Canada right now war veterans in their 20s from the Afghanistan conflict. We also have veterans in their 90s. In fact, my colleague from Edmonton Centre and I met a 101-year-old veteran in Normandy who travelled with the Canadian contingent to recognize the anniversary in France. The 101-year-old veteran parked his walker and walked down to Juno Beach. It was remarkable. Does the 101-year-old veteran access services the same way the 25-year-old veteran does? No, he does not.

Veterans Affairs has tried to realize that, apart from some of the dialogue we hear in Ottawa from so-called advocates who do not even understand how veterans are served, there are 15,000 veterans in their twenties who have signed up for what is called the My VAC account. They can manage their own accounts online. They want to. People from that generation have never had banking chequebooks that they have taken into a branch. Veterans Affairs has worked on apps and on online accounts, because we have thousands of veterans who want to access and learn about their benefits that way.

We also still have veterans in their 80s and 90s who need assistance, and the vast majority of those do not go to stand-alone bricks and mortar Veterans Affairs offices. For decades they have been helped by veterans service officers at Legions, a fact that a Liberal critic did not even appear to know when we were talking about how veterans access services. The Legion was empowered by an act of Parliament in 1925 to help veterans access their services. That is part of its mandate.

My veterans service officer for Branch 178, which I belong to, has personally helped over 500 veterans or their partners access benefits. Service officers are not paid, but their training and expenses are paid for by the poppy fund. A lot of MPs in this House did not appear to know what the poppy fund went to. That is where it goes, directly.

In a few weeks, Canadians will start wearing their poppies with pride. They know that the vast majority of those funds go directly to veterans support.

Of the 600,000 to 700,000 veterans in Canada, 130,000 have case files of some sort at Veterans Affairs. Of that, only 7,500 have an assigned case manager. A case manager is assigned based on an assessment of a variety of needs, including the complexity of the case, the services or support the veteran has or does not have at home, and ongoing illnesses or addiction issues. All of these things are assessed, and a case manager is assigned.

Our most complex cases number in the 7,500 to 8,000 range. We are providing in-home support for some of these veterans. A case manager can visit these veterans in their homes. Thanks to our changes, veterans can now visit up to 700 Service Canada and related offices, including joint personnel support units and mental health centres, to access the same level of service they can also get from a veterans services officer. They can also use the phone and the My VAC online account. We need to serve our veterans in a variety of ways, and we do.

Too often there is discussion about money and it is said that we can never do enough for our veterans. I agree, but let us speak about those numbers for a moment. Today $4.7 billion more is being spent on veterans than when we came into office. The vast majority of that relates to direct benefits for soldiers who were injured in the Afghanistan conflict. We have made sure that they are constantly reviewed and improved. A supplement has been introduced for the permanent impairment class so that those veterans who will have a very difficult time transitioning out of uniform into civilian employment are being provided for with additional payments.

The veterans affairs committee, in a good show of solidarity and of removing politics, came up with 14 recommendations on how to improve the new veterans charter. Many of those recommendations have already been acted on. Most important of these is the fact that a veteran will first stabilize and be assigned a proper VAC file manager before being released from the Canadian Forces. That is an important improvement. Another improvement is that certain benefits, particularly related to mental health, will be extended to families. In the coming weeks and months, more of those 14 recommendations will be acted on. I hope that all members of the committee, including a couple who spoke in the House before me, try to keep the politics removed from this.

Interestingly, the new veterans charter was created by the last Liberal government but was implemented by the Conservative government. It needs to be a living document that is improved upon. It was improved a few years ago with the permanent impairment allowance supplement. Now it is being improved to address some of the shortcomings of the new veterans charter.

My friend from Edmonton Centre talked about the concept of a continuum of care. He would like to one day see all of these services housed under one administrative department. I agree wholeheartedly with him. This is not a partisan issue. Retired Senator Dallaire, the lieutenant-general my colleague from Guelph spoke about, supports this same approach, in principle.

I will tell the House why it makes sense, and hopefully it is not a bridge too far. I enrolled in the Canadian Forces at 18. I was recruited. There is a department in the forces for recruiting. When I left, I was transferred to a different department. I left the uniform, and suddenly I was no longer part of the DND or Canadian Forces bureaucracy. I was transferred to a new one. That is not how they do it in the United Kingdom, where veterans services are part of defence services under the Ministry of Defence.

In giving speeches across the country I have met veterans from the Devil's Brigade, World War II, and Korea who have complained about problems that were caused when they left the uniform and their records were transferred to Veterans Affairs. That gap needs to be closed. People should not fall through the cracks.

I hope that the motion today about a continuum of care, brought forward by my friend from Edmonton Centre, starts this dialogue so that we can reduce the number of people who may be falling through the cracks now. Hopefully, in the future, we will see all of this in one ministry so that from enrolment and recruitment to retirement and becoming a veteran it is all in one family.

[Assaults Against Public Transit Operators, October 10th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill S-221, a bill that comes to us from the Senate, and to follow up on the remarks from my colleague, the member of Parliament for Pickering—Scarborough East, who introduced the subject to the House.

This is a bill to create as an aggravating factor in sentencing, threats of harm or violence toward public transit workers who get assaulted or threatened in the course of their employment. This would bring in considerations for the court to consider when sentencing an offender who has assaulted or put into a situation of harm someone in the course of doing a job that is a public service.

This would apply to five specific Criminal Code offences and the sentencing that comes out of convictions under those charges. The first would be uttering threats under section 264.1 of the Criminal Code; assault, section 266; assault with a weapon or causing bodily harm, section 267; aggravated assault, section 268; and unlawfully causing bodily harm, section 269.

The maximum penalties in sentencing for these violations of the code range from five to 14 years when proceeding by way of indictment. At the sentencing level, it is clear there is discretion for the court in that range and some of the considerations should be brought to the court's attention when sentencing those offenders.

The aggravating factor would apply when the victim of one of the five Criminal Code offences I outlined was a public transit operator in the course of his or her duties, a duty that is a public service, from the B.C. ferries right through to buses in St. John's, Newfoundland. It is good public policy in that these are already Criminal Code provisions. These are harms our society agrees upon, and agrees that people should be responsible for their conduct and that there should be a penalty. The penalty should consider these aggravating factors in the fact that this is someone performing their duties.

We should remember that transit workers, whether they be TTC in my area, or Durham Region Transit, cab drivers, and others, often work late shifts. In some cases they are 24-hour shifts. Rick, from Clarington Taxi, picked me up at 4:45 this morning, a time when there is potential for harm.

In some areas of the country we have seen that harm inflicted. In fact, between 2005 and 2011, Winnipeg, a city I had the pleasure of living in while I was in the air force, saw a 300% increase in violence inflicted on their transit workers in that city in just those six years.

A cursory review of newspapers just in the last few years would show that this is a national problem. In 2013, there was a very high-profile closed circuit TV assault of a transit operator in Calgary, where the vicious assault could be seen. I think a paramedic was harmed in the same incident. Just this April, in Surrey, British Columbia, a driver was punched in the face when someone was trying to run off on a fare. In Toronto, there was a quite well-known incident at Yonge and Bloor where passengers had to come to the aid of the driver, who was being assaulted.

This is a real issue that has unfortunately been on the rise at a time when we are encouraging people to take public transit. We have to support the men and women who are providing this service to make sure they can do so in a way that is professional and that provides the public good that transit provides.

They know that we, as a government, are saying there should be a harsher sentence when there is violence perpetrated toward these people for no reason other than the fact that they are doing their job.

Senator Runciman, I think, rightly expressed the need for this when he said:

This is a bill that balances Parliament's right to provide direction to the courts in defined circumstances with judicial discretion at sentencing.

As a lawyer, I think it is important for us to talk about these sentencing decisions in a professional way. Courts will arrive at a just decision in terms of innocence or guilt of a crime, and at the sentencing stage, when they are addressing punishment for that crime, they will consider a number of factors—some aggravating factors, some mitigating factors—in determining what type of punishment our society will give, through the court, to the person who commits a crime.

This should be very seriously considered when it is a crime that infringes upon the rights and the personal well-being of another Canadian, particularly someone who has been tasked with a public service role.

I would remind the members of this House that in the early debate, it is clear there is a lot of support for the bill coming to us from the Senate, and my colleague, the member for Pickering—Scarborough East, has outlined some very good cases to show why this bill is in the public good. I would also point members of this place to the Criminal Code, section 718, which outlines the purposes of sentencing. It is important, particularly for some of my friends on the other side, to remember some of the factors in this aspect.

Denunciation of unlawful conduct is a purpose and a principle of sentencing. The promotion of responsibility and acknowledging of harms to victims and their community is also a principle and a purpose of sentencing that the Criminal Code requires consideration of when someone judged to be guilty of an offence under the Criminal Code is sentenced.

One of the other purposes is rehabilitation of the offender. That should always be part of the mix, but in recent years there has been far too much consideration of just that and not enough consideration of the denunciation of conduct that goes against our community and against the public service aspects of the role of a transit worker.

This measure would apply broadly. Having lived and worked in Toronto, I have commuted by TTC and by the 501 streetcar, the famous longest-run single-run streetcar in the world, I believe, along Queen, when I lived in the Beaches neighbourhood of Toronto. This measure would not apply just to your typical driver of a bus, subway, or car. It would also include, specifically, school bus operators.

Further, the bill is very smart in that it would apply to vehicles that are not just typical modes of transport. They would also include paratransit vehicles, licensed taxis, trams, and ferries. That is not an exhaustive list. It would incorporate a number of people who perform these duties.

It is a way that Parliament, in entering into that dialogue with our courts, can show that the public, through Canada's Parliament—which includes the Senate, where the bill comes from, and the House of Commons—denounces this type of crime perpetrated against people we charge with something we consider a public good, public transit. It shows that we denounce that conduct and that we are also trying to deter such conduct. Deterrence is also part of sentencing, as I mentioned, and it is a consideration that should be present any time an offender is sentenced.

I am focusing on denunciation and deterrence as purposes of sentencing because the deterrence aspect can actually help to lead to less crime. It is not the only factor, but it is an important factor, and it is society's way, and Canada's way, to try to discourage and deter crime by imposing a stiffer penalty for such conduct.

What a great way to wrap up before the Thanksgiving break, hearing general all-party support for this important bill. It has been my pleasure to rise today in the House to speak on it, and to particularly thank the transit workers in Durham and the greater Toronto area for the work they do. This is a way we are trying to make sure they know their work is appreciated and they are kept safe.

[Child Fitness Tax Credit, October 10th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I had the honour to welcome the Prime Minister to the Durham region and to an exciting announcement at the Abilities Centre in Whitby, where he said the child fitness tax credit will be doubled. All families know the rising cost of enrolling their kids in hockey, soccer, or dance. These are real needs for each family. Over 1.4 million families benefit each year from this tax credit, including mine, with my children Mollie and Jack.

Yesterday the Prime Minister announced that we are doubling the child fitness tax credit and making it fully refundable, allowing more low-income families to benefit directly.

On top of this, we have the universal child care credit, the child tax credit, and the children's arts tax credit. In total, each Canadian family is saving approximately $3,400 a year under our government.

I want to thank the Prime Minister for putting families first more than any other leader, and I wish Canadian families a happy Thanksgiving.

[Military Contribution Against ISIL, October 7th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his question and his kind comments and use this occasion to congratulate him on joining the House of Commons. In fact, he is making a good contribution already, and he is certainly a welcome change from the previous member for Scarborough—Agincourt. It is good to see him in this place.

I would refer him to my remarks on the ability of Canada and the RCAF to assess the impact air strikes are having in concert with our allies. This is about making sure that we assess prior to every strike and then after every strike.

However, I would ask him as a new member of his caucus to ask his leader where the Liberals' deep-lying instinct for freedom has gone in their position with respect to these limited strikes, which are similar to the Kosovo mission their previous government introduced. Their absence on this file is of deep concern to many Canadians, including some Liberal Party members in my riding I was speaking with on the weekend. I would ask him to be a new voice in caucus to make sure Liberals bring their leader on track.