Hoang Mai

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, October 23rd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure and an honour for me to rise in the House today to talk about Bill C-15.

In essence, the purpose of this bill is to enhance and reform the military justice system. Previous parliaments have attempted to come up with similar bills. Despite all of the work done in committee, where all parties agreed to amendments, here we have a bill that, unfortunately, does not go far enough and does not include all of the recommendations that were made. We must oppose it. The government is refusing to work with the opposition parties to come up with a bill that will really be good for the military justice system and, more importantly, military personnel.

As the representative for the riding of Brossard—La Prairie, I have had the honour of meeting many former members of the armed forces and current members who are making sacrifices for their country. I truly admire these people. Often, they are deployed to places where many of us would never dare to go. They do incredible work and make enormous sacrifices. We are asking the government to help them. But the government does not really seem interested in supporting veterans.

In the case of the government forcing veterans to live on less when it decided to claw back veterans' benefits, the veterans actually had to go to court and expend a lot in terms of money and stress when the government on its part could have acted.

We had to wait for the Federal Court to render a decision in favour of veterans saying that what the government did was unfair.

The government is talking out of both sides of its mouth. It says that it supports soldiers. It sends them on missions that Canadians do not always agree with, as we can clearly see in the case of Afghanistan. I am very proud to be a member of a party that is opposed to military intervention in that country.

Let us come back to Bill C-15. My colleagues have already mentioned that the way this bill is written poses a problem for the reform of the summary trial system. The members opposite have had a lot to say about it.

I would like to briefly explain what a summary trial is. When a soldier commits an offence, there is a summary trial. There is no legal counsel present and no transcript of the proceedings. The soldier may also end up with a criminal record. I will come back to that a little later.

Summary trials have no appeal mechanism. The judge is the accused's commanding officer, which is a significant conflict of interest. From a purely legal perspective, this type of trial is not valid. When soldiers undergo a summary trial, they do not have the right to receive legal counsel to defend themselves. They are therefore at a clear disadvantage, which is unacceptable.

A criminal record has fairly serious consequences. Soldiers can end up with criminal records as a result of reprimands. We understand that, in the military system, it is important that there be discipline and that soldiers follow certain rules. However, when soldiers become veterans and return to civil society with a criminal record, there are consequences for them. I think that is a problem. What are these reprimands for? Soldiers can be reprimanded for insubordination, misconduct, absence without leave and drunkenness.

We are also talking about disobeying an order. We can see that this goes too far in some of these cases. Think about this: an individual who has served Canada and who has sacrificed himself or herself would be given a criminal record. The Conservatives keep saying that we must trust and value our military members. However, if they truly believe that, then why give military members a criminal record when they return to civilian society? What does it mean to have a criminal record? It can prevent you from working, from travelling outside Canada, and it can cause you problems every day, when you try to sign a lease, for example. Some problems are really more serious. That is why we asked the government to pay attention to that.

The NDP made a number of specific proposals when this was studied by the Standing Committee on National Defence during the last Parliament. We suggested 27 “cases” in which a criminal record was unnecessary. A penalty might be necessary, no doubt a stiff penalty, but not a criminal record.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence will say that amendments were proposed by the government, but we do not understand why the government has not done its job. This was discussed during a previous Parliament. Does this mean that the government does not respect what was previously done, the discussions, the debates and the recommendations made by the Canadian Forces? Does that mean nothing because they suddenly won a majority? Does nothing that is in the best interests of Canadians and veterans count any more because they have a majority? What counts now is their take on things.

We in the NDP understand that the system must be reformed, but it is a problem when they do not listen to what has been proposed and debated. The former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, the Right Hon. Antonio Lamer, made recommendations in his report. Of his 88 recommendations, only 28 were retained. Why does this Conservative government always refuse to listen to what people have to say when solutions are proposed?

I have previously discussed the government's truly unacceptable attitude toward what veterans and the Canadian Forces request. This government does what it wants and does not listen to what people have to say. And we in the official opposition have a duty to promote these discussions. That is why we are debating this bill, which is imperfect. We understand the government's intention: it wants to reform the system. We agree with the government, but we believe this does not go far enough.

Let us look at the conflicts of interest in the grievance system. This is the situation if you have a grievance. The grievance review committee consists of retired members of the Canadian Forces. However, there may be some doubt about the impartiality and objectivity of certain committee members. Members may include commanders, for example. What we are seeking, and what the NDP proposed, in the way of specific solutions that could improve the system and that were proposed during a previous Parliament, is a slightly more civilian system, one in which 60% of committee members are civilians.

In that way we ensure that, when a grievance arises, the individual who says he or she has a problem is not punished, the process is a little more transparent, and there is less of a conflict of interest, which makes it possible to consider the matter.

Once again, our aim is really to help military members, those people who, in certain cases, must forge ahead. We respect that, but the government must respect what the opposition requests, but especially what veterans, the Canadian forces and the public request.

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, October 23rd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend my hon. colleague on his excellent speech and, above all, on his use of Latin.

One thing I find rather strange is that, in this bill, the government does not take into account previous recommendations and things that were accepted in a previous session.

And now, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence is telling us there are more amendments. First the government does not take into account the very important amendments my colleague mentioned, then it introduces a bill and improvises by proposing other amendments. There is an issue of trust with this government, especially when it comes to the way it does things and handles amendments.

Could my colleague explain why this government's actions are a cause for concern, since the government seems to be improvising without taking into account the excellent work done by the committee and other non-partisan committees that came up with real solutions?

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, October 23rd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend my colleague on his speech and on the replies he gave.

My colleague was there previously when there was Bill C-41. Why is the government not working with the opposition parties? Why is the government not listening to what was done previously in the defence committee?

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, October 23rd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague on her speech and, above all, on her reply to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence.

My colleague rightly mentioned that some recommendations were made by the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. She pointed out that only 28 of his 88 recommendations had been accepted. We want this bill to be amended in committee.

Furthermore, my colleague mentioned that the NDP also proposed amendments in previous legislatures. She expressed concern about the fact that the government is refusing to consider the earlier recommendations, as well as amendments previously accepted in the House.

Could my hon. colleague explain why she is concerned about the government's failure to co-operate?

[Business of Supply, October 18th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, it is true that we have not heard a lot from the Minister of Health. She has been absent from the debate and in reassuring Canadians. I agree that the government has changed from the time it said it would hold ministers to account, that it would show Canadians that it was responsible. That has not happened.

This is an important issue, a crisis, and we want to find a solution to it. Our focus today is on the Minister of Agriculture resigning.

[Business of Supply, October 18th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Berthier—Maskinongé not only for her question, but also for the incredible work she has done on this issue. She is our deputy agriculture critic and it is because of her hard work, and the hard work of others, that this issue has come to the forefront. I thank her and congratulate her for her work.

I agree that the minister did not do his job. It is not easy to call on a minister to resign. That is why we do not do it all the time. But in this case it is clear; the minister is the problem. We are told that we must have confidence in the system, but people do not have confidence in this minister. The media are saying that. My constituents are telling me that. There is a problem with the way the minister handled the issue. It is certain that some government policies focus on cuts, regardless of whether that reduces services. We see that every day, and unfortunately Canadians are the ones who suffer as a result.

But in this specific case, the minister truly did mismanage the crisis. Not only did he mismanage it, but he also did not take responsibility. Unfortunately, he dumped that responsibility on other people, and that is why we are calling for his resignation.

[Business of Supply, October 18th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques.

I rise today to speak to an issue of great concern to Canadians. It was even the subject of an emergency debate. This situation can be deemed a crisis. That is the right word for it. The XL Foods tainted meat scandal is having an enormous impact on the Canadian economy and especially on Canadians' confidence in the system.

It is the largest beef recall in Canada's history. A number of people have been infected by the E. coli bacteria and have fallen ill. Fortunately, there have been no deaths, but this is a very important health and safety issue for Canadians.

I have been an MP since May 2, 2011, and I can say that being a parliamentarian is not easy. We have many responsibilities. I can imagine that a minister also has many responsibilities. It is a very serious matter to call for a minister's resignation.

The NDP has given this much thought. My colleagues opposite say that it is simply a political move, but it is more than that. In this case, the minister is not doing his job and we are asking that he be replaced by someone who can do the job and inspire more confidence.

Two weeks ago, I raised a matter with the Minister of National Revenue. I asked her to apologize because the Canada Revenue Agency made a mistake. To my surprise, she apologized; she took responsibility.

In this case, the Minister of Agriculture is not taking responsibility. Even worse, he is not taking the matter seriously.

When we talked about having an emergency debate on this issue, the minister called it “silly”. Afterward, he had apologized, but it shows how the minister puts things lightly when we have a crisis. It is not helpful. We want Canadians to feel reassured but, when there is a crisis or a problem, we need to address it and talk about it. In this case, the minister did not do his job.

On October 2, when we knew there were some problems, the minister had been at a luncheon conference and said, “We had some great Canadian beef for lunch. I don’t know where it came from; I don’t care”. At the same time as the minister was saying that everything was fine, we were telling Canadians to look at where their beef was coming from because there had been a recall and they needed to be careful. Saying that everything is rosy does not help Canadians. They need to be given the right information.

On October 8, The Hill Times stated:

There is no excuse for him not to have been in the House last week for three days, dodging questions and remaining silent.

We saw that when we asked questions of the minister. The minister has a responsibility to be here to answer questions and, if there are a lot of questions, he needs to answer all of them.

People need to be reassured but the minister has failed to do that. This is but one of the things he failed on in terms of his responsibilities.

There was another incident in which the minister did not do his job properly. We have to remember the past. Why do we no longer have any confidence in the Minister of Agriculture? The reason is that this same minister held the same position in 2008, when 22 Canadians died as a result of the Maple Leaf food crisis. There was a problem at that time, and we must learn from our mistakes. Clearly, the minister did not learn his lesson.

This government is pushing for cuts. We also believe in an efficient government and Parliament, but cuts should not be made when they affect services and safety. The government is giving industry and businesses more and more power to regulate themselves. The companies themselves have to take the initiative and do the inspections. We all know that a company's main objective is to make a profit, and if measures affect that profit, the company will certainly try to do everything possible, evaluate the risks and then determine whether it should shut down or recall products.

It is up to the government to ensure that the products that are offered to Canadians are safe. We must not let businesses regulate themselves, as the government is currently doing. We should have learned from the 2008 listeriosis crisis. Twenty-two deaths is too many. Twenty-two people died, and the government did not learn its lesson. We find that rather shocking and we do not understand it. The same minister was in office then as now, and we are facing one of the biggest crises ever in terms of the recall of beef products. Clearly, we do not have any confidence in the minister because, rather than taking concrete action, he is engaging in hyperbole and saying that everything is fine. No concrete action has been taken. The government is really doing exactly the opposite of what it should be doing.

I know that the members opposite say that there have not been any cuts. Yet, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's May 8, 2012, report on plans and priorities, which was signed by this same minister, indicated that $46.6 million in cuts would be made and that 314 full-time employees would be laid off from 2012 to 2015. Clearly, cuts are being made.

I am a member of the Standing Committee on Finance. Last year, during pre-budget consultations, we asked witnesses about the potential impact of budget cuts on food inspections or food safety. The witnesses warned us in no uncertain terms during these pre-budget consultations that such cuts would jeopardize Canadians' safety, because if cuts were made to the agency mandated to protect the health of Canadians, not only would this lead to reduced services, but it would put safety at risk. And look what happened.

If the government had invested in hiring people to protect us instead of making these cuts, then the largest beef recall in history could have been avoided. What is more, 2,000 people have lost their jobs. There are closures. The impact this is having on trade and the economy far outweighs what it would have cost to keep the inspectors in place.

This motion calls for the minister to be replaced and for the budget cuts to be reversed in order to truly address this problem instead of pretending that everything is just fine and that we can eat whatever we want with no problem.

[Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act, October 4th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his question.

Let me remind him that, today, we are talking about what we are seeing on the ground. The change being made by the government directly affects people, and we are seeing that now.

I encourage the hon. member to visit communities and to meet with people. In my riding of Brossard—La Prairie, many people from various communities are experiencing this problem.

We do not have a problem with the removal of those who commit serious crimes. What we have a problem with is placing too much power in the hands of a minister who can arbitrarily decide who can enter this country and who cannot. Therein lies the problem.

[Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act, October 4th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Saint-Lambert for her question. As the NDP deputy critic for citizenship and immigration, she is well aware of all those issues. I know that she is actively travelling across Canada to meet with people. She knows that the changes made to the immigration system by the current government will have a negative and direct impact on people. So I would like to thank the hon. member for her work and for her question.

Yes, changing the definition of “serious criminality” for the purpose of access to an appeal of a determination of inadmissibility will create problems and will have a negative impact on young immigrants. Those young immigrants came here when they were very young and they do not really know their country of origin.

Once again, this government has a tendency to send people back to their country once they have been “used”. I mentioned the case of temporary workers who are brought here, put to work and then removed. In those cases as well, we are talking about young people who have contributed to our country, who have made Canada a better country and who are members of our society. But instead of rehabilitating them and giving them an opportunity to be part of the Canada we want and continue to promote, we reject them and send them back to a country they know nothing about.

[Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act, October 4th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague on her speech. A number of my colleagues have many people in their riding who immigrated to Canada and who think integration is a very important matter.

With regard to Bill C-43, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, or the Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act, we are in agreement that our legal system must be efficient and must deport serious criminals who are not Canadian citizens. All parties agree on this public safety issue. However, we are worried about the scope of the bill. It must give some weight to fairness, to the human element and to justice. From this point of view, Bill C-43 poses a problem. The main problem is that it concentrates even more power in the hands of the minister by giving him the authority to rule on the eligibility of a temporary residence applicant.

Questions must be asked about the actions of the current minister. The government's policy is oriented less and less toward immigrant integration, and family reunification is being ignored. This affects me personally. Although I was born in Canada, my parents are of Vietnamese origin. They immigrated to Canada, and a number of people in the Vietnamese community are refugees.

When we look at the direction the government is taking, we realize that they believe integration and reunification are not very important. The government would rather see temporary workers come to Canada. We give them a job, we give them a salary that is lower than what Canadians are entitled to, we say thank you and then we send them back to their home country without really thinking about what they have contributed to Canada.

The bill gives the minister discretionary authority to determine the admissibility of a temporary residence applicant. This is disturbing, as we do not know where the government is going with this. At this point in time, the government does not give priority to people who are asking to come to Canada. We think this is a problem.

There is another major problem: the department will no longer be responsible for reviewing humanitarian considerations. I just mentioned that my parents came from a country where many refugees have come from. Before this bill, the minister had an obligation, at a foreign national's request, to look into the humanitarian circumstances surrounding the situation of a foreign national who was found to be inadmissible on grounds of security, violating human or international rights or organized criminality. There are people who live in Vietnam and who are under pressure from the government.

I will read a quote from the report entitled, “Violations of Human Rights in Vietnam” from the Vietnamese Canadian Confederation. It says, “The government is restricting legitimate speech of journalists and bloggers who are advocating the rights through the usage of the Internet, newspaper and radio. There are some prison sentences for broadcasters and people like that”.

If we were to take out the right of the minister to actually look at how we can help them come here, even though they are being attacked in their own country, we would be moving Canada away from what we used to be, which was a country that was really open and that believed in human rights. The fact that we are taking out the fact that the minister can actually look at that is an issue of serious concern.

We have also noted another problem. This one has to do with the discretionary authority that is given to the minister with regard to the exemption for members of a family of a foreign national found to be inadmissible. The minister may ignore the inadmissibility of a member of the family of somebody who is inadmissible on grounds of security if the minister believes this is not detrimental to the national interest.

Here again, we are talking about powers that are placed in the hands of the minister. Here is what we are saying: if it is only one person who decides, if it is only the minister who has to make the decision, in a rather arbitrary way even though the national interest is at stake, if it is the minister who decides about policies and measures and has full authority, whether it is the current minister or the minister in a future government, there is a problem. We are seeing this more and more often under this Conservative government. There really is a trend toward more and more discretionary power, not only in immigration matters, but also on an economic level. More and more frequently, the government is giving power and discretionary authority to one person. This is what is dangerous. They are walking a path that is less and less democratic, less and less transparent, and they are relying more and more on decisions made by one single person. For the NDP, this is worrisome.

I reiterate that it is important to deport foreign criminals. We understand this aspect of the bill. We understand that this is what must happen if we want to protect Canada and ensure that the people who come here deserve to come here. A number of my colleagues opposite and we in the NDP are well aware that in our respective ridings the people who come here are usually good people who contribute to Canada's growth and help make Canada a better country. However, when you isolate them and cast them all as criminals, as this bill does, that is going too far. This is why we want the committee to look at the bill, discuss it and try to find good solutions. We really want to promote integration and have fewer discretionary powers. We have to minimize the stigmas attached to certain immigrant groups.

With regard to fairness and time frames, we know there is a problem. Why does the government not focus on the fact that families are not being reunited? This has come up in many riding offices, including my own, because I represent a riding with a high number of immigrants who are trying to bring their families here, or bring some family members here for a wedding, and this means waiting for a number of months. Nowadays, visas are being denied more and more often. The government is moving in a certain direction: rather than integrating and accepting immigrants, it puts them off and tries to send them back. Apparently, the door is open only for temporary workers who can be sent back home after they have been used for cheap labour, as I mentioned earlier.

The New Democrats know that Canada must have an effective judiciary to deport non-citizen individuals who are serious criminals but there are problems with the immigration system that should be addressed, which I just mentioned. We have serious concerns with the amount of power that would be placed in the hands of the minister.

I have something that came from a group that talks about the problems we have in terms the government not doing enough or basically taking away the right of appeal. That is also a big issue for us in terms of this bill.

The bill grants discretionary power, but more importantly, it takes away the right of appeal. It is very worrying that an individual can be refused access to an appeal process. It is a problem when more rights are being given to the Minister, but the right to appeal is being eliminated.

I will quote Andras Schreck, vice-president of the Ontario Criminal Lawyers' Association, who said that the bill raised constitutional issues under Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He stated, “I am concerned that there is no right of appeal for those being deported. This is serious injustice in that case and should be heard on their own merit”.