Francis Scarpaleggia

[Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act, March 15th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I suppose the NDP is fortunate in that it never has to say “when we were government, things were not always perfect”.

Unfortunately I was not in cabinet so I do not know what discussions took place. However, I do know that we brought in the Refugee Appeal Division, but it was not implemented at the time. I also know that when the member opposite's party was the third party—

[Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act, March 15th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the minister's sincere, I think, compliment on the effort I put into the speech because it is an important issue. I am glad that the government is investing in informing people of what really awaits them if they come here aided and abetted by human smugglers.

The issue is enforcement. It is good that the RCMP go overseas and investigates human smuggling rings. Also, we need enforcement in Canada. When an asylum seeker who is turned down at the IRB disappears into the woodwork, that is a breakdown of enforcement.

I hope the government will not only invest in information campaigns, but will invest as well in enforcement, both in terms of tracking what is going on overseas before asylum seekers come here and in keeping track of rejected refugee claimants in Canada.

[Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act, March 15th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Vancouver Centre.

In a speech he delivered in the House when Bill C-4 was introduced, the Minister of Immigration said that we needed this bill's harsh measures against asylum seekers in order to communicate to them in no uncertain terms that Canada's streets were not paved with gold and that Canada was not the place for them.

As a case in point, the minister said that asylum seekers believe they will be given $50,000 upon arrival in Canada. We know this, obviously, is not the case. There are no such pots of gold awaiting refugee claimants at Canadian border points. This false and, ultimately, disappointing picture for asylum seekers of the easy prosperity that supposedly lies at the end of a long, arduous and sometimes deadly boat trip across the seas has been attracting the world's poor, persecuted and downtrodden to North America for well over a century. As well as the very real promise of freedom, this has been a point of attraction for immigrants and refugees who desperately seek a better life free from violence or squalor.

I do not think the minister's speech nor the bill would change this fact. We also need to realize that there is a flaw in the argument that Bill C-4, which is now part of Bill C-31, somehow will discourage people from coming to Canada.

The minister assumes that we live in a world of perfect information as the neo-classical economists regularly assure us in their economic models, but the fact is that would-be asylum seekers are fundamentally unaware of what awaits them here beyond the images they have borne of a hope they often desperately cling to. Indeed, not even the minister can extinguish the hope that is, in some ways, the psychological and emotional sustenance on which many people around the world living in harsh conditions survive.

It is a given that asylum seekers have a distorted view of the benefits that await them here in this country. There is no $50,000 pot of gold that awaits them when they arrive here. The corollary of course is that they also have a distorted view of any negative consequences that might await them should they arrive as refugee claimants aided and abetted by human smugglers. They cannot be expected to have accurate knowledge of the measures in Bill C-31, the measures imported from Bill C-4, that have been created in an attempt to discourage asylum seekers from coming to Canada.

Not only are would-be asylum seekers misinformed about what awaits them in Canada but many Canadians who have access to the 24-hour news cycle and who are generally well informed are themselves unaware of the manner in which Canada treats refugees upon arrival. I am sure many members in the House have received a chain email which I have been receiving if for about eight years now. I have been getting this email from highly educated Canadians, friends of mine, good people, good Liberals who believe in individual rights and who want fair treatment of immigrants and refugees. However, because it comes in on the Internet there is a tendency to take it at face value. I will quote from the email I have been receiving and that many members have been receiving. Only in Canada. It says:

It is interesting to know that the federal Government of Canada allows a monthly pension of $1,890 to a simple refugee, plus $580 in social aid for a grand total of $2,470 monthly. That’s $28,920 in annual income.

By comparison the Old Age Pension of a senior citizen who has contributed to the development of Our Beautiful Big Country during 40 or 50 years cannot receive more than $1,012 in Old Age Pension and Guaranteed Income Supplement per month, for $12,144 in annual income.

That’s a difference of $16,776 per year.

Perhaps our senior citizens should ask for the Status of Refugees instead of applying for Old Age Pension.

That is what is circulating on the Internet here in Canada. It is so false, so prevalent and so ongoing as a form of a spam email that the Department of Immigration has actually put up a web page to try to clarify the situation.

There is a lot of misinformation both in Canada and overseas where people are getting their information from human smugglers about what awaits them here. That is true of the false benefits that await them. If we assume that, which is what the Minister of Immigration said, people think they are coming here to a pot of gold of $50,000 when they arrive, that somehow officers from the Canada Border Services Agency await asylum seekers with chequebook and pen in hand, we also have to assume that would-be asylum seekers do not know what is in Bill C-31. They do not know what was in Bill C-4. They will not be discouraged by the harsh measures in Bill C-31. Who will tell them about the harsh measures in Bill C-31. Will it be the human smugglers? Will the human smugglers tell them that they will take their money, that they will bring them over to Canada, then tell them about the new legislation that may put them in detention for a year and say that maybe they will not do that human smuggling deal after all? There is a flaw in that logic.

We all view legislation through the prisms of our respective political philosophies. For me and others in the House that prism is liberalism. Liberalism is fundamentally about the primacy of the rights and dignity of the individual. Of course, liberals recognize and understand that human beings are social animals, that we can only thrive in a group or community. Living in a group or community makes everything possible, including individual economic prosperity. A simple example is the real estate value of one's home is a function of the vibrancy of the community in which it lies: no community, no capital gain upon home resale.

Community is not only the context necessary for individual fulfillment and security. It is also a source of identity. Liberals believe in the inherent value of community, but neither Conservatives nor the NDP spread misinformation on this point. Liberals are communitarians. We believe in safe streets, believe it or not. We believe in social cohesion and maintaining the social fabric.

Where we differ from the Conservatives is that we put the individual first. In a court of law or in an administrative tribunal, the focus is on the individual, not the group to which he or she belongs. In matters of justice, when we have to judge, we believe that we must judge based on the individual's unique circumstances, not the circumstances of the larger and more amorphous group to which he or she may happen to belong.

As an aside, that is why we as Liberals have trouble with minimum sentencing. We believe the circumstances of the crime and the offender must be evaluated, namely by a judge with years of legal training and experience because, as Liberals, we believe in the power of reason to find as close an approximation of the truth as we can. We believe in the ability of judges to apply reason to the facts of the case and develop a sanction that is proper to the individual circumstances, including one that is just to the victims. We believe in victims' rights.

That is also why we object to judging a refugee claimant based primarily on his or her group affiliation or country of origin. We do not believe that a refugee's treatment at the hands of the Canadian government should be judged as a function of their country of origin, in other words, on the basis of their nationality essentially, anymore than on their race or ethnicity.

I will quote Audrey Maklin of the University of Toronto's Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights, and lawyer, Lorne Waldman, both in regard to Bill C-31's predecessor, Bill C-4. They state:

The legislation also gives the minister the power to decree certain countries as “safe.” This formalizes in law the presumption that a refugee claimant from one of these countries is a fraud. Many countries are safe for most people most of the time. Refugees are usually people who are marginalized and vulnerable, so designating a country as safe tells us nothing about the risks faced by the people likely--

[Canada Water Preservation Act, March 8th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government's opposition to Bill C-267 is puzzling because it amounts to a reversal of its previous public commitments on the issue.

In the 2008 election campaign the Conservatives said that they agreed with the principle of a federal ban on bulk water exports through a prohibition on interbasin transfers of water within Canada. This was in response to the then recently published recommendations of the Canadian Water Issues Council working in collaboration with the program on water issues at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto. These recommendations were incorporated in the earlier version of Bill C-267, which I introduced in the House of Commons prior to that election.

In the November 2008 throne speech which immediately followed the election, the government clearly committed to introducing legislation like Bill C-267. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment said in her speech that water is a resource and as such it is a matter of provincial jurisdiction.

Water is not a resource like any other. Water is not oil or copper or nickel, resources that are locked in the ground and not part and parcel of living ecosystems. Oil may be the lifeblood of the economy, but it is far from the lifeblood of the environment.

What is more, natural resources like oil are static. In their natural state they do not move across provincial and international boundaries, either above ground in rivers or underground in aquifers like water does. If they did, they might likely have been designated a shared federal-provincial responsibility, or even an exclusive federal jurisdiction in the manner of another well-known resource that moves freely through Canada's natural environment without regard for political borders, namely fish.

My colleague also said that there is no constitutional justification or rationale for federal “incursion” into the matter of prohibiting bulk water exports, that for example, the federal role does not accrue in this case under the federal residual power of peace, order and good government. However, it is not necessary to invoke this residual power to justify a federal role in limiting water transfers and exports.

If the federal government has the power to prohibit activities harmful to the environment, such as pollution, it is not because it was granted this power under a Canadian Constitution that predates the word “environmentalism”, nor is it because of the federal residual power of peace, order and good government. Rather, it is because the court has ruled that society has evolved and that environmental protection in the political and economic context of the late 20th century is a matter worthy of Criminal Code protection.

I refer the parliamentary secretary to the 1997 Supreme Court decision in the case of Regina v. Hydro-Québec, where the utility challenged Ottawa's authority to use an interim order under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act to stop the provincial utility from depositing toxic substances into a watercourse in Quebec. Hydro-Québec argued that Ottawa's interim order could not be justified either by virtue of the federal criminal power or as a matter of national concern under the peace, order and good government residual power in section 91 of the Constitution Act, 1867.

The Supreme Court, however, held that the interim order and its enabling legislation, CEPA, were valid because the protection of the environment is a major challenge of our time that constitutes “a wholly legitimate public objective in the exercise of the criminal law power”, and that “the stewardship of the environment is a fundamental value of our society and that Parliament may use its criminal law power to underline that value”. I believe the court would view Bill C-267 in very much the same light.

The Supreme Court decision was close, five to four. The dissenters held that Ottawa was not authorized to act in the matter because CEPA's purpose is to regulate, not prohibit, and that regulation is not a matter of criminal law which is normally aimed at prohibiting a deleterious action.

I would submit that Bill C-267 is not intended to regulate water removal but rather to prohibit it outright. This legislation would pass muster at the Supreme Court. In any event, the intent behind the bill is to have Ottawa engage and work with the provinces to make the current national consensus against bulk water exports watertight into the future.

In conclusion, Canadians want a government of courage and character prepared to assume federal leadership when it counts. They do not want a federal government that shrinks from involvement with the provinces on matters of profound national concern, like Canada's water sovereignty and security.

[41st General Election, March 7th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the evidence is starting to come in in Lac-Saint-Louis. Last week I was contacted by a voter who told me she received two calls during the election campaign. The first call was a live call asking her if she was going to vote Conservative. She replied she would not. Then close to election day she received a robocall telling her that her polling station had changed.

I would like to know how the Prime Minister would explain this strange coincidence. Also, how would he explain it given the fact that there were no Liberal robocalls in Lac-Saint-Louis during the election campaign?

[Corrections and Conditional Release Act, February 29th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, when we toured those two penitentiaries, we were studying drug use in prisons. During committee hearings and our visits to Joyceville and Collins Bay penitentiaries, we learned that relations between correctional officers and inmates are vitally important, even crucial, not just to ensure that the correctional environment is orderly, but also to help inmates follow their rehabilitation plan. In other words, I would not call it a friendship, but it is a relationship that provides support. By having good relations with the inmates, staff can help them and encourage them to follow their rehabilitation plans, as I mentioned.

For all intents and purposes, this bill addresses this relationship between the staff and inmates. It is very important that the bill be effective in encouraging good relationships and not hindering them. It is also very important that it be effective in terms of cost management. We know that if there are many complaints at a penitentiary, they are a burden on the administrative employees of the penitentiary. At a time of budget cuts, when there might be cuts to the penitentiaries' budgets, we have to ensure that the budget is managed very effectively. This bill, if I understand correctly, tries to make the complaints and grievance process more efficient within the penitentiaries. That in itself is a good thing.

However, it is very important that the bill not contribute to undermining the relationships that exist between the correctional staff and the inmates. In other words, if the bill causes the inmates any frustration, if they feel their complaints are not being heard, that can hinder this very important relationship between the staff and the inmates. We believe that the bill needs to be studied at length with that concern in mind.

We are concerned about the fact that the bill contains no definition of a vexatious or frivolous complaint. When terms are not clearly defined, in any field of endeavour, there is room for misinterpretation, for rules not to be properly applied or properly implemented. In this case, as I said, misunderstanding could interfere with orderly operations in the penitentiary.

The bill lacks a definition for a vexatious or frivolous complaint. What we are concerned about even more is that Correctional Service Canada itself, according to an audit of the current complaint process, recommended that a definition of a vexatious or frivolous complaint be provided. The bill does not do that.

We will have a lot of questions to ask in committee, but I truly look forward to addressing the matter again when the bill passes second reading.

[Corrections and Conditional Release Act, February 29th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for dispersing the crowd around me so that I could give my second reading speech on Bill C-293. I would like to take this opportunity to say that the Liberal Party will support this bill at second reading. In other words, we will send it to committee so that it can be studied in more detail, mainly because this bill raises some questions for us.

However, before I debate or consider the content of the bill, I would also like to take the opportunity to pay tribute to the staff of the Correctional Service of Canada, who are devoted to their mission. Every day, they carry out a task that is not always easy, to say the least, in a very professional manner and in good faith. It is a difficult task. They sometimes have to manage diverse populations within the same correctional institution. They work hard and carry out their duty to the best of their abilities.

A few weeks ago, a number of members of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security and I had the opportunity to visit two penitentiaries in Kingston—the Collins Bay and Joyceville prisons. We saw that the correctional staff is very concerned about the success and progress of the prisoners and is very proud of the correctional programs.

I would like to mention in passing that, in Canada, we have one of the best correctional programs in the world, to the point where other countries are implementing the programs that we have developed over the years. I am proud to be able to say, further to a question that I asked in committee to a representative of the Correctional Service of Canada, that many of the programs we export today were designed and implemented during Liberal governments.

I like to think that the Liberal Party's approach to justice was able to yield a positive return in this area.

The devotion of the employees working in prisons is clear, as is that of the administrative staff who work in office towers in Ottawa, where the department is headquartered.

Madam Speaker, I wish to say that it is difficult for me to address this issue because there is a lot of noise coming from the other side of the House. I understand of course, but perhaps you could help me in this regard.

[Business of Supply, February 28th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, if I recall, and I was there, the Liberals did not form government in 2006, so we could not have brought in a Liberal bill after November 2005.

With regard to her other comments, I will let other members answer for themselves.

We essentially are trying to make this a better bill. I would turn the table on the parliamentary secretary by saying that when the bill was introduced February 13 or 14, the government said it had struck the proper balance between privacy rights and public safety. It flipped its position and will now submit the bill to committee after first reading, which obviously means there is not a balance.

[Business of Supply, February 28th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, indeed, the government has shown that it is ready to change its mind as political circumstances evolve. For example, former Minister Stockwell Day said that he would not allow any identifiers to be accessed without a warrant. The new minister, once the government had its majority tucked under its arm, quickly changed that position.

I agree with the hon. member: I do not think we can trust much that comes from the government. It can change its positions depending on how political circumstances change.

[Business of Supply, February 28th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, that is an interesting comment and it may be very true.

Canadians look to the government for guidance on issues and to reaffirm values such as those in the charter. Yet we see the government not being enthusiastic about supporting the charter or the rule of law. For example, we saw the Minister of Public Safety, I think for the third time in six weeks, being told by the court that he was wrong in refusing a prisoner transfer. In fact, he had no legal basis for making his decision.

Therefore, when we have a minister of the crown constantly forcing the courts to override him, that leaves a question in the minds of many Canadians as to whether our Charter of Rights and Freedoms is indeed sacrosanct.