Françoise Boivin

[Justice, May 8th, 2014]

That, Mr. Speaker, is the Attorney General of Canada.

[Points of Order, May 7th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I will leave it up to you to look at the exchanges that took place and the comments made by the Minister of Justice and the Prime Minister. It is up to you to determine if their remarks were parliamentary or if they broke any rules.

One thing is clear, and I know that once we are outside the House, we are no longer under your authority, but the minister seems to have forgotten one thing. This did not start with the Chief Justice's press release, but it began earlier with a newspaper article that attributed certain comments to unidentified members from the Conservative benches who seemed to be attacking the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. Those comments were then repeated by the Prime Minister and the minister, without specifying a timeline. The chief justice felt it was important to make that correction.

I agree with those who say that this is an unfortunate incident in our Canadian democracy. I know that, every time the minister rises in the House, knowing full well that we are bound by confidentiality, he suggests things. He very nearly gives me the impression that he is relieving me of my duty of confidentiality concerning what might have happened. However, he was not part of the committee, so I do not expect him to know all of the facts about that.

That being said, regardless of what might have happened, perhaps the Chair should restore a sense of order following this incident. Our democracy is held up by a number of pillars, on of which is the Supreme Court of Canada. The separation of powers is extremely important. As lawyers—and I believe my colleague, the Minister of Justice, is a lawyer, just like me—we are required to ensure that we do not tarnish the administration of justice in Canada. Perhaps it is time for everyone to take a deep breath and respect the work we all do, particularly the unimpeachable work of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.

[Justice, May 7th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, again Conservatives just refuse to base their decisions on facts, evidence, or science.

The 2012-13 reoffending rate dropped to just 16% because of the Winnipeg Drug Treatment Court. That is well below the percentage of the regular court system. That is a fact.

Conservatives love to hold press conferences to boast about being tough on crime, and here they cannot support efforts that have actually reduced crime.

Will the minister recognize the success of this court and commit, today, to renewing its funding, and stop blaming—

[Justice, May 7th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, we already know that the Conservatives just cannot work with the provinces and the consequences of that.

Here is another example. The Winnipeg Drug Treatment Court may have to close its doors due to the lack of a clear commitment from the federal government to continue funding this program even though its effectiveness has been proven.

My question is simple: Will the minister promise to promptly co-operate with the Manitoba government and renew funding for this important rehabilitation program?

[Business of Supply, May 5th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to conclude the debate on the opposition motion.

I will read the motion, because after hearing such garbage today, I was beginning to think that I was not talking about the right one. This is what the motion, moved by the hon. member for Terrebonne—Blainville, is asking of the House:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should follow the advice of the Privacy Commissioner and make public the number of warrantless disclosures made by telecommunications companies at the request of federal departments and agencies; and immediately close the loophole that has allowed the indiscriminate disclosure of the personal information of law-abiding Canadians without a warrant.

I cannot believe that today, May 5, 2014, the Conservatives are going to vote against this motion. It is absolutely incredible. We heard all sorts of drama from the Conservatives about extremely important security issues. They shifted the debate from the opposition motion, which simply calls on the government to grant the Privacy Commissioner's request and make certain information public. It seems quite reasonable to me.

Today is the best possible day to be in the House. This morning, we debated Bill C-567, which was introduced by my colleague from Winnipeg Centre and is all about access to information. This motion is completely justified in light of the context, but they are saying all kinds of things.

I would like to comment on a question that my colleague from Timmins—James Bay asked the last Conservative member who spoke. That member laughed in his face even though the question was completely relevant. It was about peace officers, not as the local paper defines them, but as the Criminal Code defines them.

I would like to give my colleagues opposite a little lesson about the Criminal Code. It is important to define the notion of “peace officer” accurately, because Bill C-13, the government's supposed cyberbullying bill, refers to that notion. That bill is about much more than cyberbullying and the distribution of intimate images.

According to section 2 of the Criminal Code, a peace officer includes:

(a) a mayor, warden, reeve, sheriff, deputy sheriff, sheriff’s officer and justice of the peace,

(b) a member of the Correctional Service of Canada who is designated as a peace officer pursuant to Part I of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, and a warden, deputy warden, instructor, keeper, jailer, guard and any other officer or permanent employee of a prison other than a penitentiary as defined in Part I of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act,

(c) a police officer, police constable, bailiff, constable, or other person employed for the preservation and maintenance of the public peace or for the service or execution of civil process,

(c.1) a designated officer as defined in section 2 of the Integrated Cross-border Law Enforcement Operations Act, when

(i) participating in an integrated cross-border operation, as defined in section 2 of that Act, or

(ii) engaging in an activity incidental to such an operation, including travel for the purpose of participating in the operation and appearances in court arising from the operation,

(d) an officer within the meaning of the Customs Act [or] the Excise Act...or a person having the powers of such an officer...

I could keep reading this definition until 6:15 p.m. It is not so far-fetched for my colleague from Timmins—James Bay to suggest that Mayor Ford could request certain information.

What is more, the NDP has been heavily criticized today for some of its requests. However, in La Presse this morning, there was an article by Joël-Denis Bellavance on the information we are looking for with the official opposition motion moved by my colleague from Terrebonne—Blainville. Mr. Bellavance reported that the Privy Council Office also made a request of all its departments. The PCO wanted to know who these people were who made 1.2 million requests for information about Canadians. There are 1.2 million Canadians who are allegedly affected by these requests.

All day, the Conservatives have been telling us that this is terrible, that what we are asking for is scary and that the NDP does not know what it is talking about.

I even heard one of the ministers of state, a junior minister over there, say the times have changed.

I think we all know that. Information circulates quickly, I agree. Regardless of the fact that times have changed, there are still laws that apply in this country.

We all know that this Conservative government likes to intrude on Canadian taxpayers' privacy and could not care less about almost every law around. When this government gets caught, it takes a holier than thou stance or it suddenly takes a few strategic steps backward and comes back with what I like to call the Trojan Horse tactic. In other words, it disguises its approach in another way.

Everyone in the House remembers Bill C-30, introduced by my favourite minister, the former minister of public safety. I was going to say something unkind, but I will be careful. Thank God the public woke up and made a concerted effort to ensure that the government backed down. This goes to show that ridicule never killed anyone. However, sometimes it kills political careers, even though politicians will often end up becoming a judge somewhere. Everyone kept telling the former public safety minister what he was in the process of doing. They ridiculed his bill. Sometimes that is what it takes with this government.

Their concerns were heard. The Conservatives withdrew the bill and suddenly we had Bill S-4 and Bill C-13, which deals with cyberbullying. Who in the House would not want to protect victims? Who would not want to say at some point that we passed legislation after a number of young people committed suicide as a result of bullying? That is rather disgusting, although there are other unparliamentary words that could be used. It is problematic to rise in the House and say that, on the contrary, we are in favour of cyberbullying. However, once again, the Conservatives introduced five or six pages of text that were more or less accurate and then combined them with tons of provisions that amend all sorts of legislation.

Fortunately, the Minister of Justice told me that he would give the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights the time needed to examine those provisions. Perhaps we, the members of that committee, are not the best people to examine those provisions. Fortunately, we will be hearing from many experts.

I still believe that the motion that I moved at the beginning of the debate on Bill C-13 made complete sense. I proposed dividing the bill in two so that that we could do what we do best: examine the provisions of the Criminal Code and make sure that the new provisions regarding the distribution of intimate images fall within the parameters and meet the test of the Criminal Code.

Instead, we are going to be spending a lot of our time looking at the aspects of the bill dealing with privacy and how certain telecommunications providers will be able to disclose information without a warrant, or with a warrant but with a lighter burden of proof, and so on.

Unfortunately, since the beginning, this government has shown us that it has no credibility. Every week, there is a new drama featuring one of the people sitting in the front benches. At the end of last week—and it has continued into this week—it was the Prime Minister and his serious insinuations. Sometimes, not saying enough is the same as saying too much. He attacked the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Members on the Conservative benches are wondering why we do not trust them. Why are we suspicious when we get bills like Bill S-4 or Bill C-13? We are wondering what is behind those bills.

People have been debating this motion all day in the House. I repeat that it does not get any simpler than this motion, which calls on the government to follow the advice of the Privacy Commissioner. Who does not want to follow that advice? Who is against making public the number of disclosures, when even the Prime Minister's Office is quietly checking into this matter? The Conservatives are simply afraid of doing things. They want public information on our constituents, on Canadian taxpayers, but they do not want anyone other than themselves to have access to that information.

That is why the government does so much behind closed doors. The representatives of the people, here in the House, certainly have a right to know. We are getting questions as well. I hear from people, and I am sure that my colleagues in the House, even on the Conservative side, are hearing from people. I am shocked to see that many of these people, from the Reform Party of Canada and the Canadian Alliance, who made a point of calling themselves the voice of the people, are now the biggest puppets, sitting in their seats, terrified to rise and say that this makes absolutely no sense.

At some point we need to wake up and go back to our ridings to talk to our constituents, who are asking what is going on with their information, who has access to this information, when and why. Are there 1.2 million criminals somewhere in Canada? Is it because we have relaxed our rules so much that everyone—ISPs, telecommunications companies and others—feels justified in passing on information? The companies know that they will go unpunished if they freely share information on anything. That is dangerous.

Some people here in the House say that times have changed. That is true. I can do research. In fact, I do not claim to know all the sections of the Criminal Code, and I was able to find the section on the concept of peace officer right away, in two seconds. It was actually quicker than that as I think it took me one-tenth of a second to find the definition in the Criminal Code. Sometimes I tell young people or future lawyers that they are lucky because, in my day—I do not like to say this because it dates me, but it is a fact—when I did my research, I had to go to the law faculty library and open maybe 18 books before formulating an idea. Now, we just click on a button.

However, just because information travels at astronomical speeds, it does not mean that the privacy guarantees and protections granted to all Canadians under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms must be trampled by a government that does not care about protecting its citizens.

[Access to Information Act, May 5th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House today on behalf of the people of Gatineau to wholeheartedly support the bill introduced by my colleague from Winnipeg Centre, Bill C-567, An Act to amend the Access to Information Act (transparency and duty to document).

I never would have thought that we would need to go to the Conservative government and make such a direct, clear and strong case for this bill. This is a common-sense bill, and people have been calling for it for decades. A society that lacks transparency and access to information is crippled in many ways.

This is all the more surprising considering that back in 2006 the Conservative government promised to be more transparent and accountable than previous governments. I know because I lost my seat in 2006. I remember full well that people bought into that Conservative promise. People put their faith in the Conservative government, but they have been regretting that decision ever since. It is unfortunate.

Open access to information is the foundation of government accountability. Our system is in crisis, but I will come back to that a bit later.

In September 2013, which was not very long ago, I was a member of the Barreau du Québec. To maintain our licence, we have to participate in professional development. That is why I had the pleasure of taking part in a day-long seminar at the University of Ottawa for Right to Know Day and Germain Brière Day. It was fascinating to listen to the panellists who participated.

We heard many things during that day. I just about fell over when I heard access to information experts say that, according to a recent Centre for Law and Democracy study, Canada ranks fifth worldwide when it comes to access to information. They also said that Canada performed poorly in a comparison of the Access to Information Act with provincial legislation. Unfortunately, in Canada, various levels of government tend to take their cue from each other, which means things are likely to get worse over time.

What are the leading-edge standards for access to information? Various panellists talked about that. I especially enjoyed the panel on the need and the right to know, which included Robert Fife, a CTV journalist and host and a recipient of the Charles Lynch Award for outstanding news coverage, and Benoît Pelletier, the former minister of intergovernmental affairs and a constitutional law expert. That day, Guy Giorno, a partner at Fasken Martineau, delivered an extraordinary presentation. Everyone knows him because of his connection to the Prime Minister.

I was so impressed to hear these people agree that Canadian society should be a lot more open and transparent and that the general public should have more access to information. As many people said to Mr. Giorno, a man I respect, it might have been nice had he given that kind of advice to his boss back in the day. Given the Prime Minister's Alliance and Reform background, we had high hopes, because that was what he hinted at in several respects.

As I was saying at the beginning of my speech, in 2006, the government was elected in the wake of the sponsorship scandal. The former auditor general was the government's shining star and it hid behind her. With hard work and the help of her team and the media, she managed to uncover what was likely the biggest scandal in Canadian history so that such a thing would never happen again.

I think that is very sad. It would be nice to believe that we learn from history and that the negative aspects, at least, do not repeat themselves, but unfortunately, that is not what happened. Instead, we got a government that made a point of promising us a law on government accountability with more teeth and then finally introduced a really weak bill. As a result, we are seeing scandal after scandal from the Conservative government.

We are talking about access to information legislation, yet we have never had such a secretive government in the entire history of Canada. If the Prime Minister has been looking for a legacy to leave behind, he has found one. After all these years as Prime Minister, I think that he will go down in history as the most secretive Prime Minister this Parliament has ever known. Soon we will celebrate the 150th anniversary of Canada. Unfortunately, those 150 years include these Conservative years, which we will remember with a bit of a shudder. I hope these years will soon be behind us.

Whether we are talking about the Auditor General—who was a superstar when it suited the Conservatives but is now an outcast—the Chief Electoral Officer or the Parliamentary Budget Officer, all of these individuals in our major institutions have become persona non grata. That is very unfortunate.

There was also the controversial appointment of Justice Nadon. As the justice critic, I nearly fell off my chair when the Prime Minister said that he was yielding to the Supreme Court's decision. That is what everyone usually does because the Supreme Court is the highest court and an extremely important pillar of our democracy. When the highest court renders a decision regarding the legal situation in our country, we yield to it and move forward with it in a positive manner. At least that is what we thought until the Prime Minister showed us what I believe is the most striking side of his personality: his vindictiveness and his refusal to accept different views. That is unfortunate.

When preparing this speech, I consulted statements that the Prime Minister made to his caucus at various points in time, whether it was with regard to the Federal Accountability Act or quite simply their way of being. I came across the following:

“Back in 2002, before the Accountability Act saw the light of day, [the Prime Minister] had some thoughts to share with the House about the idea of a legacy as he criticized the then-Liberal government’s recent Throne Speech, as well as then-Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin”:

We heard grandiose rhetoric delivering little or even the opposite of what it promises. We heard communication strategies that talked around real issues, ignored previous failures, gave no details, no plans and no price tags. Why? The most obvious explanation is that yesterday's throne speech was not really about anything except two men: one desperate to leave a legacy and the other whose legacy will simply be leading, if only for a short period....

He continued by saying, “What is a legacy? The word is bandied about a lot here. Why does the government not have a legacy after nine years? Creating a real legacy was the reason my party was founded.” Boy, did I laugh this weekend when I read that phrase. “It was not the lure of power nor the attraction of the spotlight. It was not to pad our resumes, reward our friends...”.

Do I have to remind the House about all the nominations the government did in the Senate and elsewhere? I could go on, but I think I will conclude with a letter I received from one of my constituents, Sylvia Renaud.

I asked her for permission to share her cri de coeur and she said, “Go for it”.

Referring to the Prime Minister, she said:

I cannot stand to see that guy leading our country. He gives me panic attacks.

That man is in the process of destroying, and quietly to boot, everything that holds our country together. He is making it hard to provide necessary services to the public (the government keeps cutting and cutting the big bad public service),...cutting transfers to the provinces (health care and education), cutting home mail delivery, at a time when the population is aging...What is this government thinking?

The government buries parliamentarians under mountains of bills and bundles of hastily made amendments in order to confuse people and leave little time for properly studying or reacting to them. Isn't this starting to look like anything but a democracy?

Now he is helping himself to our personal information without asking for permission? He was never given that mandate. Aren't you starting to scared?

By using the highly calculated strategy of remaining silent, by draping himself in a cloak of silence, the Prime Minister has given himself a great power, which is amplified by the fact that he has a majority government:...the justification for all the abuses.

When you think about it, isn't it surprising to see our Prime Minister remain so silent, even invisible, as he runs the country? Isn't it surprising to see this lack of explanation and justification, this refusal to engage in conversation, enter into dialogue, or even listen to the challenges the public is really facing?

My constituent continues on like that. I am issuing the same cri de coeur to the backbenchers who were elected on a platform of transparency, openness and representing their constituents.

For goodness' sake, I urge them to support Bill C-567. It cannot hurt.

[Supreme Court of Canada, May 1st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, not only are the Conservatives unable to properly appoint a Supreme Court justice, but they are also attacking judges, including some they themselves appointed, instead of accepting responsibility for their failure as a result of their own incompetence. It is unbelievable.

With the Conservatives chose to attack the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court simply because she does a good job and ensures compliance with the law.

The Supreme Court's ruling on the Senate, the Supreme Court's rulings on the crime bill, the Supreme Court's ruling on Marc Nadon, the examples continue to grow.

Do not blame the court for Conservative incompetence. It is Conservatives, not the Supreme Court, who are ramming unconstitutional bills through the House. It is Conservatives who no longer even want to know whether a bill is constitutional before it becomes law.

That is why in 2015, people can count on the NDP to form a transparent and honest government respectful of democracy, respectful of the courts, and respectful of Canadians.

[Victims Bill of Rights Act, April 9th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to missing or murdered aboriginal women, we need to do more than providing some information to the families, who are desperately waiting. A public inquiry is essential.

A number of these rights, including the one my colleague just mentioned, already exist in some regions. I did not say that is bad. I am saying it has limitations and it must not interfere. The minister himself was clear: this must not interfere. People at the Department of Justice say the same thing: this must not compromise investigations, trials or the rights of the accused. Altogether, that creates rather weak legislation. That is all I am saying.

[Victims Bill of Rights Act, April 9th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for Andrew Swan, who is an excellent attorney general.

He identified the problem even before the government introduced its bill, its victims bill of rights. I fully expect that the provinces and territories will be forced to deal with victims requests on a daily basis. People will also ask for all kinds of resources.

In that context, I hope that the Conservative government will be open to the requests. All the parties in the House agree that we should be helping the victims, but we have to do something tangible that will truly change their lives. Writing some things down on paper and indulging in hollow rhetoric is not going to cut it.

[Victims Bill of Rights Act, April 9th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the things that can be requested are written down. Asking is one thing; receiving is another.

Let me give you an example. On page 11 of Bill C-32, it states:

10. (1) Subsection 278.7(2) of the Act is replaced by the following:

(2) In determining whether to order the production of the record or part of the record to the accused, the judge shall consider the salutary and deleterious effects of the determination on the accused’s right to make a full answer and defence and on the right to privacy, personal security and equality of the complainant or witness, as the case may be, and of any other...

Victims can ask for certain things under the bill of rights, and that is fine. However, there are many qualifications attached. I am not saying this is bad; I am simply telling the government to stop pretending that this solves all the world's problems. That is not true. It should not be raising victims' expectations, for if they were to rely solely on the headlines in the media, they might think this is paradise. This is not the case, and the fall back to earth will be brutal.

That is all I have to say. Perhaps the government needs to change its rhetoric and use a tone that is a little more reserved, to stop making victims believe in things that do not exist.