Geoff Regan

[Copyright Modernization Act, October 18th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, the hon. minister spoke about bringing forward a modern copyright law but what we see with the provisions on digital locks is that the government is going backward. It is a regressive position. He says that this is a balanced approach but allowing digital locks to trump the interests and rights of consumers is the complete opposite of a balanced approach. It does not make sense at all.

The Conservatives are saying that people can reformat it or copy it onto their iPod, or whatever, as long as there is not a digital lock. All the corporation has to do is put on a digital lock and consumers are out of luck. If a young mother wants to transfer a movie from a DVD onto an iPod, she cannot do it. How is this possibly a balanced approach?

[Points of Order, October 6th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. As you know, it can be at times noisy in the House and I think the Minister for Consular Affairs may have had difficulty hearing the question I asked, which was about Mr. Philip Halliday from Digby, Nova Scotia, who is in a Spanish prison.

I would like to give her the opportunity, if you would permit, Mr. Speaker, to answer the question.

[Foreign Affairs, October 6th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, Digby, Nova Scotia resident Philip Halliday has been in a Spanish prison for almost two years awaiting a trial date so that he can clear his name. He needs treatment for liver disease and cysts on his kidneys, but is not getting it. Friends and family are worried about his deteriorating health and the fact that no trial date has been set. They wonder why the government is doing nothing to ensure Mr. Halliday receives a fair and speedy trial or proper health care.

Can the minister explain why the government continues to abandon Canadians in dire straits abroad?

[Keeping Canada's Economy and Jobs Growing Act, October 6th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I note that the government tabled the notice of time allocation motion on the same day that it tabled the bill. In other words, it tabled the bill, which is an inch or so thick and a very complicated document, for us to consider in the House of Commons, and decided at the same time that there had been enough debate. It tabled this notice of motion on the same day to cut off debate.

Government members talk about the fact that they won the election and received a majority government with a little under 40% of the vote, so they now have four years to govern. What is not clear to me is why they are not open to having a few days or even a few weeks of debate on the hundreds of pages in the bill before it inevitably will pass.

Why is the government so opposed to having a democratic process in the House?

[Petitions, October 6th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I stand today to present a petition on behalf over 1,000 Nova Scotians who are concerned about the situation of Mr. Philip Halliday, a Canadian citizen who has been incarcerated in a Spanish prison since December 21, 2009, over 18 months, without a trial date set.

The petitioners call upon the House of Commons to defend the rights of Philip Mason Halliday and take action to intervene on his behalf with the Spanish authorities. They call upon the Government of Canada to use diplomatic channels to ensure Mr. Halliday receives a fair and speedy trial or immediate release based upon the length of his detention with no trial date and his continued deteriorating health issues.

[Business of Supply, October 4th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his excellent speech.

Earlier today, our leader, the hon. member for Toronto Centre, talked about the statistics that show a drop in the youth suicide rate in Quebec. I imagine that Quebec must have some best practices that we could talk about here. Would my hon. colleague agree that these kinds of best practices should be integrated into a national strategy?

[Business of Supply, October 4th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague noted that psychologists are not paid for under the Canada Health Act, yet psychiatrists are. That does not make much sense, because psychologists would be less expensive. I want to ask the member about that and also about the research into genetic links that has been done in this area.

[Petitions, October 4th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition from residents of Nova Scotia who draw the attention of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to the need for his department to fund a two year program to restock the Sackville River with salmon.

This request follows an act of vandalism in November 2009 when some idiot cut an oil line to an oil tank and caused the leakage of several hundred litres of furnace oil to run into the Little Sackville River. It was a terrible moment. It was a stupid thing to do.

After more than 20 years of work by residents and, in particular, the Sackville Rivers Association, the once polluted Sackville River could once again support fish life. This, of course, was a setback. That work has been undone by this oil spill.

Therefore, the petitioners ask the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to immediately fund a two year restocking program for the Sackville River and assist the Sackville Rivers Association in any remediation the river habitat may require.

[G8 Summit, October 3rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, this is one of those cases where the spokesperson on behalf of the government takes a question from the opposition side and answers a different one. It is as if I did not ask the question I asked or did not raise the issue I did at all.

The fact that after the President of the Treasury Board and his pals decided how the money should be spent it was rubber-stamped by the Minister of Transport and met some criteria that was totally unrelated to border security, for which this money was supposed to be spent, is totally irrelevant.

Is my hon. colleague actually suggesting that he could have a $50 million fund for his riding, or that there could be one for my riding? Is he suggesting that money could be transferred from another fund to every MP in the House? That is a ridiculous notion.

I challenge my hon. colleague to suggest to me that he could have the same kind of access to funds as the President of the Treasury Board had to spend in his riding. It is an outrageous statement.

[G8 Summit, October 3rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, may I say at the outset it is a pleasure to speak in the House when the members are on such good behaviour and I can be assured of the full attention of the House.

When the Conservatives formed government, they rode into town on a horse called “accountability”. The Conservatives promised to be an accountable government but there have been many examples where they have failed to meet the standard they promised. As a good example of this lack of accountability, since the fall session started the Treasury Board president has reportedly been asked over 30 questions about his role in doling out $50 million in G8 funds in his own riding, one of the most extravagant pork-barrel schemes in Canadian history as a matter of fact.

The minister's slush fund stonewalling has not gone unnoticed. When we consider that this is a government that brought forward an accountability act, that said it was going to be answerable, that it would pay attention to Parliament and so forth, it is remarkable that there is a minister who will not even stand and answer questions. One pundit recently had a particularly harsh assessment and noted that the mute minister's deafening silence made a mockery of the government's promise to be open and accountable. He added that the minister “has become a figure of ridicule as he sits silently in his seat each day, like a child banished to the corner for a timeout”.

That is a pretty frank and harsh assessment. I would think that a minister would be embarrassed by that. I would think that a minister would be determined to get up in the House and defend his record. For some reason, on more than 30 questions the minister has refused to do that. It is worrisome that a government that talks about accountability as much as the present one has would refuse to be accountable at all to people who are elected by Canadians to hold it accountable, people who are elected to come here and ask questions and try to ensure that the taxpayers' dollars are being properly spent.

One question, among others, is: Why will he not explain how he convinced his cabinet colleagues to approve a $50 million fund that was supposedly for border security? According to all the documents, including the budget and all the estimates, the $50 million was for border security.

The Treasury Board president's riding is a long way from the border. It is clear that what he did instead was take that money and spend it on pork-barrel projects in his riding.

Municipal records from Bracebridge and Gravenhurst paint a damning portrait. The minutes of a December 5, 2008 meeting of a group including the minister and some of the mayors are marked as confidential. They show that this fund was being run out of the Treasury Board minister's riding office, not out of some department. It was not being overseen by officials. It was being run out of his own office. Under the heading “Review of Project Summary Submissions to Date”, it says, “It was noted that all submissions are to be sent to” the minister's “Huntsville constituency Office and would there be distributed electronically to all committee members”.

Why will he not explain how it is that with this fund for border security he sat in the back room of his office with his pals and personally decided on which pork-barrel projects he would bestow his blessing?