François Choquette

[Natural Resources, October 29th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to follow up on a question I asked on October 19 regarding the protection of the environment, which is a crucial social issue. There is also the fact that the Liberal government is constantly touting itself as the undisputed champion of the environment, when anyone can see that that is far from true. A real champion of the environment would never buy a pipeline.

In Paris, the Prime Minister said, “Canada is back”. However, once he returned to Canada, he said we would adopt the same greenhouse gas reduction targets as Stephen Harper's government did. These are extremely weak targets that will not enable us to do our share to hold climate warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

These revelations stunned many. The comments that the Prime Minister has made on television and in other media have been picked up by a number of stakeholders. Patrick Bonin of Greenpeace said that the Prime Minister's remarks on Tout le monde en parle almost made him sound like a climate change denier.

I will address these harsh comments from a very experienced environmentalist in a bit. I do think it is very important to point out that science tells us, as we saw in the latest IPCC report, that we can limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and we have the technology to do so, but that we must do much more than what the current government is doing.

I want to give some examples of people who are taking meaningful action my riding of Drummond. In the summer, the city of Drummondville consulted more than 2,400 residents about sustainable mobility. I want to congratulate John Husk, the municipal councillor for ward 5 and the chair of the Chantier sur le développement d'un plan de mobilité durable et de transport actif et collectif. This consultation will be used to develop an initial sustainable mobility plan for the city of Drummondville, which is projected to come out in September 2019. These are the kinds of actions that the Liberal government should be encouraging and supporting.

Other groups are working to protect the environment in Drummond too. One of these is the Coalition pour une action citoyenne solidaire, or COACS, which plays an important environmental protection role in our community by raising awareness and doing hands-on work. I would like to salute two members in particular, Mélanie Daigneault and Alain D'Auteuil, who are doing an amazing job of raising public awareness in our community about the importance of taking immediate action on this issue.

Let me get back to the issue at hand. Here is what Patrick Bonin had to say:

He is implying that Canada is not in a position to play a lead role in the fight against climate change. Other countries around the world expect a rich industrialized nation like Canada, which is one of the biggest polluters per capita, to be a great leader, but it is falling far short of that expectation.

Here is my question. What will the Liberal government do to be a great leader?

[Corrections and Conditional Release Act, October 19th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, absolutely. I want to start by expressing my deepest gratitude to everyone working at Drummond Institution, including the correctional officers and all other staff, especially the mental health professionals.

What is important, and not just for this bill, which fails to address the court ruling, is that we also need to do something about prison overcrowding and the shortage of health care professionals and other professionals.

My colleague also mentioned that we need these resources to reduce the overrepresentation of indigenous peoples in our prisons and in segregation. We also need to reduce the overrepresentation of people with mental illness. Most of the women who end up in segregation are women with mental illness. We need to provide services. Segregation is not a service that improves overrepresentation of women with mental illness or overrepresentation of indigenous peoples.

[Corrections and Conditional Release Act, October 19th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, earlier on I identified everything wrong with this bill. First, the government should not be tabling a bill that does not address the court rulings. This bill will be deemed unconstitutional too. That is the first problem.

The other problem with this bill is that the significant, express demands for external oversight and monitoring of inmate segregation placements were not accepted. That is an extremely serious problem. In recent years, some people have still ended up spending more than 90 days in segregation without external oversight. Just imagine the psychological and mental health consequences of spending more than 90 days in segregation.

[Corrections and Conditional Release Act, October 19th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to be rising in the House to speak to Bill C-83, an act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and another act. Before I go any further, I want to express my unqualified admiration and appreciation for the incredible and very important work done by the employees of the Correctional Service of Canada and Drummond Institution, especially the mental health professionals.

I have had the opportunity to meet with their union representatives on several occasions to learn more about what they are dealing with. What they go through every day is not easy. I take my hat off to them for doing such a terrific job. They deserve the highest praise.

I should note that these employees have been affected by the infamous Phoenix pay system problems. In 2017, 60% of the employees of Drummond Institution had issues with the Phoenix pay system. Sadly, the people at Drummond Institution have had a rough time, whether because of their poor working conditions or because of the Phoenix pay system fiasco.

Again, I thank the people at Drummond Institution who work hard to keep our communities safe while inmates serve their sentences. They also do all the work involved in rehabilitating the inmates so that they can contribute to our society and our community when they leave prison.

I now want to get into the context around Bill C-83 because that has an impact on today's debate. By the minister's own admission, the bill was only ever meant to address some of the concerns expressed by the courts in their rulings.

First, the Supreme Court of British Columbia explicitly said that there are not enough tools for ensuring that a lawyer is present during administrative segregation hearings. Inmates are put in administrative segregation without independent third-party oversight, which would allow for a second opinion before proceeding.

It also mentioned the inhumane conditions resulting from overuse of administrative segregation and the fact that a predetermined time limit on the use of administrative segregation had been ignored. That is extremely important. There has to be a limited number of days and even hours during which inmates can remain in administrative segregation.

That ties in with part of the ruling from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, which states that more than 48 hours in administrative segregation may cause serious and irreversible mental health problems. Earlier we were talking about rehabilitation. That is another very important aspect. When people have served their sentence and reintegrate into society, we do not want their mental health to be aggravated by their stay in prison. We want them to be rehabilitated so that they can contribute to our community in a positive and constructive way.

That is the most troubling part.

The use of administrative segregation has been found to be abusive by the correctional investigator countless times and in countless reports that he has published over the past decade.

In addition, some vulnerable populations, such as women with mental health issues and indigenous peoples, are overrepresented in administrative segregation. More than 42% of inmates in administrative segregation are indigenous. This situation is obviously quite problematic.

What exactly does this bill do? We are concerned that it is nothing more than a repackaged administrative segregation system. The name is different, but inmates can still be kept in segregation for an indeterminate period of time, for up to 20 hours a day. The government claims that this is a big step forward, since the maximum will be 20 hours instead of 22, but that is essentially the same. This is obviously just window dressing.

This can cause permanent damage to inmates' mental health. These inmates will be returning to society. We do not want their mental health to be permanently damaged. On the contrary, we want them to be rehabilitated and to reintegrate into society.

I am a teacher by profession. Some of my colleagues teach in the adult education program at the Drummond Institution to help inmates do everything they can to improve their situation when they return to society. These are good things that are happening in our correctional institutions. It is important to mention them and to point out all the work that is being done, as I mentioned at the beginning of my speech.

The current situation is very difficult. Very painful things have happened. There was the tragic death of Ashley Smith and the subsequent recommendations from the coroner. In June 2017, 399 federal inmates were in administrative segregation and 94 of them had been there for over 90 consecutive days. Over 90 consecutive days in administrative segregation can have an impact on a person's mental health. It is just not right.

Instead, we need to improve the situation in our correctional institutions. How is it that we still have overcrowded prisons? How is it that we still have a lack of mental health care professionals? How is it that there is a lack of programs for inmates so that they can get the training they need to find jobs when they get out of prison?

That is extremely important. We need a different approach to administrative segregation, with limits and external oversight so that there is a different point of view from that of prison workers.

In recent years, the two rulings that I mentioned earlier have shown how important it is to implement legislation that is much more structured than Bill C-83, which will do little to to change the situation.

Many studies have shown that prolonged administrative segregation can trigger or aggravate certain psychiatric symptoms, such as hallucinations, panic attacks, paranoia, depression, impulsiveness, hypersensitivity to external stimuli, and more. It can increase the number of suicide attempts or make inmates suicidal.

[Natural Resources, October 19th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals claim to be champions of the environment, but everyone knows that it is all just smoke and mirrors. They will not even be able to meet the weak greenhouse gas targets set by Stephen Harper. They are buying Trans Mountain with our money and they will not even rule out a return of energy east when the Conservatives ask.

Will the Liberals commit to listening to Quebeckers and to never bring back the terrible energy east pipeline?

[Dairy Industry, October 19th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement was a terrible shock to our community. Our dairy farmers are going to lose huge amounts of revenue. Dairy farmers in Greater Drummond feel that the Liberal government has turned its back on them.

Here is what some of them had to say about it. “I feel we were sold to the Americans.... The Prime Minister stole my vote”, said Dave Tourigny of Saint-Germain-de-Grantham.

Jean-François Janelle of Saint-Cyrille-de-Wendover said, “I feel abandoned.... The Prime Minister was everywhere on TV talking about how he was going to protect supply management”.

Linda Lallier of South Durham told us, “You know, supply management is really about people, about families for the most part, who are passionate about their work, and it is about the next generation”.

Opening up nearly 4% of the Canadian milk market is a threat to the survival of our dairy farms. The NDP supports supply management in its entirety. Why don't the Liberals?

[Trans Mountain Pipeline Project Act, October 18th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to this bill. The NDP will not be supporting it either, but not exactly for the same reasons my colleague across the way laid out. In fact, his argument is not as sound as he claims.

Bill S-245 seeks to declare the Trans Mountain pipeline project and related works to be for the general advantage of Canada. We think that is a bit much, but that is okay. We are here to listen.

Every process related to the Trans Mountain project was completed recently. It bears repeating that the assessments were conducted according to the same environmental assessment system that the Conservative government used. The government did say that it would never use this system again after it was completely gutted of all its authority and no longer provided any opportunity for real consultation. I wanted to mention that.

Then there was the dramatic announcement that Kinder Morgan would not move forward with this project because it was not profitable and it made no sense. However, on May 29, 2018, the government decided to buy Kinder Morgan's shares along with the infrastructure related to the Trans Mountain pipeline. Using $4.5 billion belonging to Canadians, the people in my riding, and Quebeckers, the government purchased outdated, problematic, 60-year-old infrastructure. No one is talking about it, but one day this old pipeline will have to be dismantled and the site will have to be decontaminated.

Canada has a tremendous amount of sites to decontaminate. Often, old mining companies leave the land polluted and fail to assume their environmental responsibilities. Taxpayers end up footing the bill for all that. The polluter pays principle is extremely important. Here, the government just decided that Canadians will pay to decontaminate the lands along the pipeline's path. I was astounded by the news.

There continues to be strong opposition to this pipeline in general, especially on the part of municipalities, environmental groups and indigenous groups. They oppose it because the government is still subsidizing the fossil fuel industry. I would remind members that some $2 billion of Canadian taxpayers' money is used to subsidize the fossil fuel industry even though Canada committed to gradually eliminating these subsidies. At this rate, with inflation, we will never get rid of them, even though they promised to do so.

On Monday, a number of members joined us in asking for an emergency debate on the latest alarming report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC. It states that if we continue doing the same things, we will never hold global warming to 1.5°C, which was the commitment made by the Liberal government in Paris. It said that Canada was back as an environmental leader on the world stage. Unfortunately, it is back with the same low targets as Stephen Harper's Conservatives, making it impossible to make any real commitments.

Therefore, we are far from satisfied. Many people have said that this IPCC report is sounding the alarm and that we must take action and bring in more measures. The report mentions something critical, which is that the technology needed to limit global warming already exists.

What is lacking is political will. Speaking of a lack of political will, the Liberal government definitely has a deficit in that area. I am not the one saying so. According to Greenpeace, the Liberal government is not doing enough to reduce GHG emissions. Greenpeace spokesperson Patrick Bonin said that Canada is really not on track to comply with the Paris accord and warned that unless drastic action is taken, it will completely miss the greenhouse gas reduction target it set for 2030.

Need I remind the House that they were very low targets? François Delorme, an economist at the University of Sherbrooke's School of Management, said that Ottawa is sending the wrong signal by giving unequivocal support to the oil and gas sector, especially with the Trans Mountain pipeline purchase. He said that the government cannot ask people to change their habits while subsidizing fossil fuels.

That was the first mistake, as we have mentioned. Yes, we need to put a price on carbon as a first step, but the next step is to stop subsidizing fossil fuels. Not only is this government subsidizing them, but it is purchasing them with taxpayers' money.

That is not all. The Trans Mountain pipeline is floundering at the moment because of a court ruling that pointed out a number of flaws, including a failure to ensure the protection of marine biodiversity and marine mammals. According to a CBC report, the killer whale has become Trans Mountain's Achilles heel, and the Federal Court of Appeal found that the National Energy Board made a “critical error” in failing to assess the impact of the marine transportation of tar sands oil on killer whales. That is another important factor the government ignored.

This has been the subject of much criticism for some time now. In her latest 2018 report, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development revealed that the Liberal government does not have an action plan for protecting marine mammals, including the St. Lawrence beluga. Because of the federal government's failure to take action, these species are going from threatened to endangered. In the report, Commissioner Gelfand wrote: “We found that federal organizations did not have any criteria or guidance for considering the specific needs of marine mammals”.

That is extremely important. Everything is connected. We see that with the Trans Mountain pipeline.

In closing, Canadians want champions of the environment. They want people who will use their money to support sustainable development and renewable resources, like the solar walls in my riding and energy efficiency. We are in the process of growing that very important sector in my riding.

There are many companies working to grow the renewable energy sector, but they have to compete with the fossil fuel industry, which receives billions of dollars in subsidies.

There is a lot more I could say, but I see that I have only a minute left. I will close by saying that Canadians expect much better from our government. The Liberals say that they are champions in the fight against climate change, but I think they have demonstrated that that is not the case.

That will not be the case until the Liberals eliminate fossil fuel subsidies and set better targets. There was an emergency debate on Monday, but nothing has been done this week and there is nothing on the agenda for next week either. The government has not made any more investments in energy efficiency, and it still wants to expand the Trans Mountain pipeline.

For all of these reasons, my constituents and other Canadians are saying that champions in the fight against climate change and champions of the environment do not buy pipelines. They invest in renewable energy.

[Canada Labour Code, October 16th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent and important question. As I have already mentioned, unions and some health and safety committees were excluded from certain steps under this bill. They were frustrated by that.

Much like my colleague, I am wondering how this bill will interact with certain collective agreement provisions, such as those relating to third party arbitration. We need to have that discussion when drafting regulations. We need to make sure that this will not undermine what is already in place and is working well. This reflection will be important. We do not yet know how we are going to sort out these two things.

[Canada Labour Code, October 16th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his clarifications regarding the budget allocated to properly support the bill's amendments to the Canada Labour Code regarding harassment and violence.

As my colleague mentioned, implementing these measures and the subsequent regulations is crucial, as is allocating the necessary financial and human resources, particularly with respect to training, in order to continue monitoring and improving working conditions.

Unfortunately, workplace harassment and violence, whether psychological or sexual, still exist today and it must stop. We must do everything we can to put an end to this abuse. I therefore support my colleague's comments.

[Canada Labour Code, October 16th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague from North Island—Powell River for her excellent speech. She gave a really good speech and delivered it with passion. She also gave many examples of what she and her constituents experience.

It is extremely important to point out that the context for this speech is Bill C-65. The bill would amend the Canada Labour Code with respect to harassment and violence, the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act and the Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 1.

Bill C-65 is a very important bill. As my colleague mentioned, the member for Jonquière worked very hard on this bill in committee. She proposed 17 amendments and three of them were accepted. This means that not only were the amendments warranted, but she managed to persuade our Liberal and Conservative colleagues of their merit. Naturally, that is very important.

For the record, the NDP has always fought to give workers better protection.

This bill sets out a clear, standardized procedure to help workers and employers address allegations of bullying, harassment and sexual harassment. Strict rules will be put in place to protect the privacy of victims of harassment or violence, which is good news. The bill will harmonize separate labour standards related to sexual harassment and violence. The two existing standards will be amalgamated to create a single standard.

Part 1 of the bill amends the Canada Labour Code to include sexual harassment and sexual violence. Some of my colleagues pointed out that psychological harassment could have been included as well. This bill covers harassment in general, but it does not get into a lot of detail about psychological harassment. That would have been an improvement to the bill. Part 2 amends part III of the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act with respect to the application of part II of the Canada Labour Code to parliamentary employers and employees. Basically, it deals with labour relations in Parliament.

Violence and sexual, physical, psychological or emotional harassment in the workplace are neither tolerable nor acceptable. That is why it is extremely important to advance this bill. However, it is important to point out that the bill does have a small flaw that must be corrected: it excludes joint health and safety committees from the investigation process, to the dismay of unions. The joint health and safety committees should continue to operate.

It is vital that they continue participating in the investigative process, as was previously the case. There are three types of joint committees that can be set up depending on the size of the business. It could be a health and safety policy committee, a local health and safety committee, or a committee with just one health and safety representative. These committees are being excluded from specific aspects of the investigative process. Under Bill C-65, the committees would no longer be able to conduct investigations of harassment or violence, or to receive complaints. The unions criticized the change because this worked in the past. We could improve the bill by keeping the unions involved.

There are a number of reasons why unions absolutely want to continue to participate in the investigative process. First, they have the expertise. They have extensive experience on joint committees that investigate harassment and violence. Therefore, it is deplorable that they are being sidelined.

Second is that the joint committees allow for an extreme diversity of investigators that is not found anywhere else. They make it possible to achieve the ideal representation, whether we are talking about sexual, ethnic or other minorities.

These committees exist. They have expertise and experience. They are legitimate and recognized. That is why unions are disappointed that these committees are being excluded from some stages of the investigation process.

Bill C-65 is essentially a procedural bill that establishes an investigative process. It is therefore very important. We know that low-income workers and those in precarious jobs, as well as racialized and queer women, are more likely to be harassed or experience violence at work. Once the bill is passed, it will apply to all federally regulated workplaces. That is good news.

However, some questions remain unanswered, so let us hope that the Liberal government answers those questions quickly. For example, will the bill be accompanied by the necessary human resources and training? When a bill is passed, the government must be sure that it can be implemented. In this case, that will take staff and training.

Will unionized workers have the right to union representation throughout the complaint resolution process? Many people are concerned about that. They need to have all the necessary information.

I am very proud of the work of the hon. member for Jonquière, who proposed 17 amendments in committee, three of which were passed. This shows that the NDP does an excellent job. Allow me to digress. Yesterday evening, I was very proud of the work of the NDP in getting a motion adopted to hold an emergency debate on the alarming IPCC report. In light of the report, the government cannot just go to Paris and say that Canada is back and then settle for keeping the Conservatives' same terrible targets. These targets do not enable us to do our fair share of the work to hold global warming at 1.5 degrees, as required.

It is also necessary to make investments in the right places. We have to stop the subsidies to the oil and gas industries, which account for nearly $2 billion in spending. Instead, we could invest that money in energy transition. To make matters worse, the government bought an old pipeline. That is terrible. It shows that the government is not serious about this. That is why I am proud that the NDP requested this emergency debate and the request was granted. Last night's debate, which lasted several hours, gave us the opportunity to stress the importance of acting quickly to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.

In closing, we will support Bill C-65, which seeks to amend the Canada Labour Code. We are pleased with the improvements that were made. Some questions remain unanswered, but the work in committee helped clarify many things. Again, I congratulate the hon. member for Jonquière, who proposed 17 amendments, three of which were adopted.