Isabelle Morin

[Citizenship and Immigration, February 11th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, there are other tragic deportation stories.

For instance, Ivonne Hernandez fled violence against her in Mexico and came to Canada as a refugee. Once here, she was once again a victim of domestic violence.

As a result, she went to a shelter for battered women in distress, and she lost custody of her son. Her refugee claim has been rejected, and she is now at risk of being deported, leaving her 14-month-old son in Canada. It is really sad.

What is the minister doing to ensure that Ms. Hernandez can stay with her son?

[Petitions, December 10th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to present a petition this morning signed by over 800 people from across the Island of Montreal, including people in my riding, in Saint-Laurent and in Ahuntsic.

The petitioners are calling on the government to review the flight paths of planes, set a curfew between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. and create positions on the Aéroports de Montréal board of directors to represent community groups.

The Montreal airport needs to understand the impact it is having on the local population, and although Montrealers understand the economic importance of the airport, I believe there is a way to achieve a healthy co-existence.

[Rail Transportation, December 6th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, keeping Canadians safe is one of the government's fundamental responsibilities.

In the report he released a few weeks ago, the Auditor General was very clear: serious problems in our railway safety system were raised long before the Lac-Mégantic tragedy.

The Auditor General noted in particular that inspectors did not have proper training, records were not properly maintained and there was not enough follow-up when problems were identified.

Can the minister tell us when she became aware of the problems raised by the Auditor General?

[Obesity, December 4th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to the motion on preventing obesity. I also wish to commend the hon. member for Burlington, who moved the motion.

I will take a moment to read the motion, so that my constituents can understand the context. It reads:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should continue to: (a) recognize the long-term health risks and costs of obesity in Canada; (b) support, promote and fund organizations and individuals who are involved in the physical well-being of Canadians; and (c) make the reduction of obesity of Canadians a public health priority.

I am very happy to read that, and I will definitely be supporting this motion. However, once again, the Conservatives are bringing forward a motion without any real teeth.

I would like to talk about the meaningful action the NDP has taken on this. The NDP has been working on this for the past 10 years or so. I would like to share some alarming figures I came across in my research on this.

According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, between 25% and 35% of Canadians are obese. Among children under the age of 17, about 10% are obese. The annual health-related cost is between $4.6 billion and $7.1 billion. I find those figures and this situation very troubling.

I will explain what the NDP has been doing. It all started in 2004, when the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre moved a private member's motion to regulate trans fats in food. The House unanimously adopted the motion. Since then, the government has done nothing tangible with it. It has not proposed any measures.

In 2011, the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre introduced Bill C-303, to amend the Food and Drugs Act in order to limit trans fats in food to a maximum of 2 g per 100 g.

The hon. member for Vancouver East introduced Bill C-460, An Act respecting the implementation of the Sodium Reduction Strategy for Canada.

Roughly three weeks ago, the minister appeared before the Standing Committee on Health. I asked him the same questions. I asked him why Canada still did not have any measures to deal with trans fats. Canada does not have a national sodium reduction strategy.

I have been listening very carefully to all the speeches in the House today. The Conservatives keep talking more about physical activity than about food, which I think is too bad. Physical activity is very important, but what we eat accounts for 80% of our physical health, while exercise accounts for 20%.

This brings me to my story. The reason I wanted to speak to this bill is that I am obese. In fact, I recently found out that I am morbidly obese. The alarming thing is that roughly 75% of all obese children will remain obese for the rest of their lives. They will be obese in adulthood.

By the way, my colleague is not listening to me even though he is here in the House and this is his bill.

According to my calculations, in this House there are 40 or so obese people out of a total of 300 MPs. Despite that, the member who introduced the bill did not even take the time to consult us. I think that is a shame.

The Conservative member for Ottawa—Orléans moved Motion No. 319 to combat childhood obesity, but nothing tangible has been done. For the past hour or so, the Conservatives have been saying that their greatest achievement is the children's fitness tax credit. Parents who spend $500 to register their children for physical activity can receive a $75 tax credit per child.

I want to talk about myself some more. As my colleagues know, I have a weight problem. When I was young, I did not play any team sports. When you are big, you feel bad about yourself. It is not pleasant. Many people are bullied because of their size. When I was young, I was always picked last during gym class. I was not even able to run two kilometres when the teacher asked us to.

The Conservatives say that they are helping youth by encouraging them to get involved in sports. However, there is more to the issue than that.

The parliamentary secretary told us about his father, yet I do not think that the Conservatives really understand the situation.

Nothing in the motion I have here talks about the psychological effects of being obese. There is nothing in the motion about going to speak to youth, motivating them and helping them overcome this problem. There is nothing about giving parents the tools to help their children.

Nutrition is extremely important. It is all well and good to talk about labelling, but nothing is being done to reduce sodium or trans fats. Not everyone at the grocery store reads the little labels to see what is in their food. When I asked the minister about that, she said that we could not coddle people. This is a serious issue right now, and if we do not give those people real help, we will not solve the problem. In Canada today, there are 40% more obese people than there were 30 years ago, and that number is on the rise.

Obviously, I am going to support my colleague's motion, but I would really prefer that the member not introduce it by saying that 25% of people in his riding are obese, so the government is going to do a little something and talk about it without really implementing any practical measures. I would like this motion to go farther.

Unfortunately, all too often, the Conservatives focus on a cure rather than prevention. That is what we have seen from the beginning. Since I have been here, the government has always talked about cures. The Conservatives think that they can talk about obesity and people will miraculously lose 100 pounds. That is the feeling I get from this motion.

I wanted to talk about bullying. I have been an MP for two and a half years and not a week goes by that I do not receive an email from a constituent telling me that I am too fat to be an MP. A few months ago, someone wrote to me and told me that MPs are supposed to be models. That person added that I was about 300 pounds too heavy and that I should resign.

When someone says that to me, I certainly do not say to myself that he is right and that this morning I am going to look at the nutrition labels to keep him happy.

This motion is important. We need to take it extremely seriously. I really hope that, as a result of this motion, the Conservatives will actually implement measures to reduce obesity in our society. This is a problem I have struggled with my whole life. I struggled with it when I was young and I am still struggling with it. There is a reporter here every week talking about what the MPs are wearing. That is another thing. It is a lot more expensive to buy clothing when you are overweight. People do not realize the extent of the problem.

Since I see him every day, I would have been pleased if the member had come to ask me what I thought about his motion, whether it was good, whether it was missing anything, what could be done, and so on. We could have worked together for once.

I will stop there and end by saying that I hope that the Conservatives will not think only about sports, which are important, but also about nutrition, because I do not see them making much progress in that regard. I hope that they will also think about the impact that this has on people's lives. If we do not act now and if the Conservatives fail to make progress in this area, this problem will result in huge health costs and will have a serious impact on the motivation and self-esteem of people struggling with it.

[Ethics, November 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Prime Minister demonstrated how he has cast aside his ethical standards.

Long gone are the days when the Reform Party wanted to replace the Liberals' culture of corruption that resulted in the sponsorship scandal. In fact, the Conservatives are perfecting this Liberal culture of no accountability and more than questionable ethics.

We would really like to know what the Prime Minister thinks of his chief fundraiser, Irving Gerstein. However, immersed in his world of half-truths, he refuses to even acknowledge the existence of the person who tried to influence the audit by Deloitte, the disgraced company that refuses to be held accountable.

The Senate, this so-called independent institution, this supposed chamber of sober second thought, cannot even get to the bottom of this. The scoundrels who have won the lottery for life over there are laughing at honest people. To think that there are still people in this place who want the status quo. It is time to put an end to this damned farce. Only the NDP, which still has principles, can get the job done.

[Respect for Communities Act, November 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I said in fact that I found this absurd, and I thank my colleague for giving me more time to talk about it.

The Standing Committee on Health hears from witnesses who work in health care. The Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security hears from witnesses from the public safety field. I hope that there will nevertheless be witnesses in that group able to argue that it is safer to have supervised injection sites than to have addicts wandering our streets.

That said, InSite has made its mark internationally. The facility is recognized as being good for public health. As I said, deaths by overdose have been reduced. There are also all the mental health aspects. People who inject themselves likely have mental health problems, so health care specialists are there to guide and treat them. Unfortunately, I do not know exactly where it is in my notes, but there is InSite and OnSite. People who come to InSite can be encouraged to go to the OnSite health care service upstairs. There they will find even more programs to help them.

If the bill is referred to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, unfortunately, it will not be possible to hear all those people from the health care field who can tell us what the benefits are. Ideologically speaking, we know the Conservatives are against such sites. They want to close them down. That is what they want to do with this bill. I hope that some of them will wake up and vote against it.

[Respect for Communities Act, November 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. In fact, there is a great deal of collateral damage.

In the government’s place, I would try to take the opportunity, knowing that InSite worked in Vancouver and that it is a good thing. Furthermore, studies have been done. We have seen 30 studies published in such journals as The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet and the British Medical Journal. They describe the benefits of InSite. It is thus recognized internationally, since studies have been published in such journals. They say that InSite is one of the most important public health breakthroughs in Canada.

Specifically, InSite has reduced the number of overdoses. Moreover, even though there are still people who do not go to InSite, injection drug users have gathered in one part of the city. There have thus been fewer needles in the streets. I would not like to learn that children in my community were walking in the streets, the schoolyards, or even the churchyards where people take drugs. That can have consequences for a young child.

In the government’s place, I would realize that this is a good opportunity to set up more such sites in other cities, instead of preventing those cities from getting them.

[Respect for Communities Act, November 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise in the House for the second time to speak to Bill C-2, because this bill is very important to me. Unfortunately, I have known people suffering from addiction. I say “suffering from” because this is not a choice. These people need care.

To add some perspective, Bill C-2 is very dangerous. This is a Conservative attempt to deprive us of supervised injection sites such as InSite in Vancouver.

The Conservatives' bill adds a list of conditions for opening a supervised injection site in a community that are quite complex and difficult to meet. I find this quite unfortunate.

In my speech, I talked about safety on the streets, because our Conservative friends claim they are doing this for the sake of safety. However, I would much prefer seeing people who inject drugs do so in a specific place in the city rather than finding syringes everywhere. I also pointed to the absurdity of the Conservatives' decision to refer this bill to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, rather than the Standing Committee on Health. That is rich.

That proves that the Conservatives do not believe that supervised injection sites are a health issue. However, these sites are not just places where people go to get high together. These are places where health professionals provide supervision, prevention and guidance. The fact that the Conservatives are sending this bill to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security tells me, on one hand, that they want to scare people and confuse the facts about supervised injection sites, and on the other, that so many health professionals support supervised injection sites that the Conservatives are having trouble finding enough witnesses to support their views on health. This is what I said in my first speech.

At this time, Canada has one supervised injection site, InSite. It was created as part of a public health plan by the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority and its community partners following a dramatic increase in overdose deaths in Vancouver between 1987 and 1993. At the time, the Vancouver area was also seeing a dramatic rise in the rates of communicable diseases spread by injection drug use, including hepatitis A, B and C and HIV/AIDS.

World AIDS Day is coming up in a few days, on December 1, so I would like to take a moment to talk about that. The Canadian AIDS Society, which was founded about 20 years ago, does excellent work. It is too bad that the Conservatives do not believe in the benefits of supervised injection sites, because sites such as InSite help reduce the number of people with AIDS every year.

The Conservatives like to talk about the economy. We can significantly reduce health care costs related to communicable diseases spread by injection drug use. For instance, AIDS can be transmitted sexually as well as by dirty needles. Supervised injection sites tackle this problem by distributing clean needles. Little things like that help. In my riding, an organization called À deux mains distributes clean needs to injection drug users.

I do not have the figures for hepatitis, but I have some pretty incredible figures for AIDS from a study done in 2008. I would like to share the total economic losses associated with each individual who is HIV-positive.

This was in 2009. If we factor in inflation, the numbers might be a bit higher today.

For every HIV-positive person, the estimated cost is $250,000 in health care, $670,000 in terms of productivity and $380,000 in terms of quality of life. I am not sure what, specifically, is meant by quality of life, but I imagine it has to do with everything that comes with daily life, such as productivity, food and morale, which must be at rock bottom.

These numbers from the Canadian AIDS Society add up to a total of $1,300,000 per person. According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, roughly 69,000 people in Canada had AIDS in 2011, making the total cost $4,031,490,000. That is a lot of money. I am not saying that all those people were infected by dirty needles, but some of them were. We could save a lot of money.

It is unfortunate that most bills, especially Conservative bills, focus on healing instead of prevention. The Conservatives never consider prevention. The same is true when it comes to crime. There is no prevention, just healing. People are sent to prison where no one will look after them. It is sad.

No one chooses to be an addict. We rarely talk about the social determinants of health. If you go to Vancouver East you will see that the people who live there are not very rich. They did not get everything handed to them in life. I am very fortunate. I come from an educated family. My parents taught me the importance of staying away from drugs, going to school and getting a job.

Not everyone is lucky enough to be born into those circumstances. Through no fault of their own, people end up with rather serious addictions. They shoot up drugs. I imagine that no one plans to get to that stage. I doubt they woke up one morning and decided to become a heroin addict. We have a duty as a society to help them.

I would like to come back to the issue of discarded needles that turn up all over the place. When I found out that I was going to give a speech, I checked the websites of major Canadian cities. The Conservatives say that they do not want these needles in their backyards. However, the websites of Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver and Montreal indicate that all these cities have a program to retrieve used needles found on the streets.

The Ottawa website, for example, has an 11-step set of instructions for what to do with a needle found on the street. If the city puts this on its website, there must be a lot of discarded needles. Moreover, if on its site it says to be careful and that children should never touch used needles, that must be because needles can be found where they live. This is rather worrisome.

This is also the case for Montreal. Look at the website and this is one of the first things you will read: “In order to take collective action to reduce the problem of discarded needles...”. Therefore, the problem exists. We know that there are groups in Montreal that would like to establish supervised injection sites, but Bill C-2, which the Conservatives will unfortunately pass, will block them. Thus, people will keep discarding needles in the streets.

In closing, I would like to thank the Montreal organizations that pick up these needles. Thank you to À deux mains, located in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, which is in my riding, Cactus Montréal, Spectre de rue, Pacte de rue, L'Unité d'intervention mobile L'Anonyme, Dopamine and Le Préfixe, and also several CLSCs.

These are not establishments where you go to take drugs; their mandate is prevention. I urge my colleagues to vote against this government bill, because it will be detrimental to the health of our communities.

[Criminal Code, November 26th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pride and conviction that I, too, support Bill C-452 sponsored by the member for Ahuntsic.

Human trafficking is an issue that I am really passionate about. I have had the opportunity to talk with groups such as CATHII, the International Bureau for Children's Rights, World Vision Canada, Half the Sky Québec and Walk With Me Canada, and also with experts such as Professor Yvon Dandurand, Professor Jill Hanley and Detective Sergeant Dominic Monchamp of the Montreal police force.

I have also listened to evidence from many experts and victims at meetings of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, and when I travelled to Thailand with World Vision Canada two years ago. As a result of these experiences, I am truly horrified by this serious situation, and I believe that it is urgent that we move quickly to make progress in this area.

For that reason, I support Bill C-452, which would amend the Criminal Code in order to provide better protection for victims of trafficking by setting out a legal definition of exploitation and including consecutive sentences for offences related to procuring and trafficking in persons.

To start with, we must take some time to explain what we are really talking about when we use the words “trafficking” and “exploitation”.

Trafficking in and exploitation of persons is an odious crime that can take several forms. The most common are forcible confinement; forced movement from one country to another, one province to another or one city to another; and forced labour and prostitution, when a profit is made by the person exploiting these victims. What all these crimes have in common is the fact that they are degrading, violate human dignity, and are characterized by incredible abuse, which can be physical, verbal or psychological.

The main victims are women and children, who represent 80% of persons affected by human trafficking, as indicated by a 2005 International Labour Organization study. The most vulnerable are the usual victims of this scourge, and it is our duty to do everything we can to protect them. We must not forget that almost 50% of victims are minors.

Sexual exploitation is the most common form of human exploitation. Once again, women and children are the main victims. In fact, 98% of the victims of sexual exploitation are women. Over half of them are minors.

Canada is not immune to the scourge of human trafficking. We have a real problem of human trafficking and exploitation right here in this country, and yet very few people realize the scope of the problem.

I know because, about a year ago, I showed the film Avenue Zéro in my office. I received many calls and emails from people who said that they had no idea that this was happening in their own backyards. Part of my riding, an area of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, is unfortunately known for human trafficking and prostitution. However, the general population is completely unaware of this problem.

As for human trafficking across international borders, the most recent official figures from the RCMP date back to 2005, which is quite a while ago. Perhaps more statistics are needed. In fact, the RCMP estimates that every year, about 800 individuals enter Canada illegally as a result of human trafficking, and about 1,500 to 2,000 are trafficked from Canada to the United States.

As for human trafficking within Canada, we do not currently have sufficiently clear and reliable statistics to establish exact figures. The studies done in Canada on human trafficking and exploitation often overlook the issue of trafficking in Canadian citizens and residents within the country.

It is possible, however, to assess the scope of this phenomenon and paint a picture of the people affected by human trafficking and exploitation in Canada based on studies done by international organizations and on the ample testimony of victims.

In 2009, for instance, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime led a study that found that 80% of the victims of human trafficking are trafficked for the purpose of prostitution. This observation also applies in Canada. Those most affected are women who enter Canada illegally through human trafficking, but Canadian citizens are also affected, including a significant proportion of young women from aboriginal communities. As we know, exploitation is often the result of extreme economic insecurity and a lack of knowledge of individual rights.

Like these hundreds of people who enter Canada each year to flee deplorable living conditions in their country of origin, a growing number of Canadians are faced with poverty and limited access to education. Every year, poverty pushes young girls from disadvantaged communities and aboriginal peoples to move to urban centres and leave their families behind. They are easy prey, for pimps in particular who force them to sell their bodies no matter how old they are.

The figures provided by Criminal Intelligence Service Canada on this are clear: the average age of entry into prostitution in our country is 14. As my colleague mentioned, if the age of entry into prostitution is 14, that means there are clients requesting 14-year-old girls, which is absolutely disgusting.

In light of the gravity of the facts and the extent of the tragedy, I think it is necessary to act as quickly as possible. We must remain focused because solving the problem of trafficking and exploitation requires a comprehensive strategy, including reducing the economic inequalities in our country and fighting the organized crime that is at the root of human trafficking worldwide.

Nevertheless, I know that Bill C-452 introduced by my colleague, the hon. member for Ahuntsic, is a first step in the right direction. Her bill considerably improves the legal avenues we have for fighting exploitation and it sends a clear message to human trafficking abusers and victims: we will not allow the current situation to go on much longer.

I support the legal approach taken by Bill C-452. The bill's proposed changes to sections 279.01 and 462.27 of the Criminal Code are essential for giving our police officers and our lawyers the means for effectively fighting human exploitation and trafficking.

First, the new section 279.01 would give the justice system the necessary tools for identifying cases of exploitation, through a complete list of circumstances that are deemed to constitute exploitation. That said, Bill C-452 provides a clearer and more precise definition of exploitation to ensure better victim protection. The changes made to section 462.27 of the Criminal Code, which seek to introduce offences of procuring and human trafficking, will enable more effective police action.

Bill C-452 would give the police and our justice system the means to work together to successfully combat human trafficking and exploitation. I had the opportunity to listen to Inspector Gordon Perrier, from the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the Winnipeg Police Service, when he testified before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in April. He said the following: “Combatting exploitation requires a broad range of commitments on many fronts, and all the practices police and our partners employ come together when the laws are comprehensive”.

I am absolutely convinced that, in addition to being a significant legal breakthrough in the fight against human trafficking, Bill C-452 also holds great symbolic value. Indeed, it sends a strong signal to victims of human trafficking—to women, especially aboriginal women. There is an opportunity here to refocus the law on victim protection by providing for denunciatory and consecutive sentences, which the accused must serve consecutively to any other sentence handed down by a judge.

Indeed, making the perpetrators spend more time in prison gives their victims enough time to begin their healing process, with greater peace. In doing this, we show our commitment to uphold human dignity. When we fight human trafficking we are fighting against the commodification of women and children, who are now being imported and exported, sold and resold. We are also fighting against the commodification of men who are forced to work, and against the sexual exploitation of the weakest and poorest by unscrupulous individuals and organized crime.

To conclude, I would like to take the time to talk about human trafficking for forced labour, which we might call “slavery”. In my riding, I know that there are both domestic and seasonal workers who come to Canada and are forced to work. This is not sexual exploitation; although it was mentioned that sexual exploitation accounts for 80% to 90% of cases, there are all kinds of trafficking, which Bill C-452 is designed to reduce as much as possible.

I also think that we will soon need to talk about prevention, because when some young women arrive in cities and urban areas, they often fall into prostitution at the age of 14, through no fault of their own. We should therefore start working on prevention with these young women.

[Criminal Code, November 26th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague's speech and I congratulate her on her bill, which I think very highly of. I will certainly vote in favour of the bill. I too have worked very hard on the issue of human trafficking and I think that passing this bill is essential.

That being said, I must admit that I am a bit disappointed because my colleague spoke almost exclusively about prostitution. Human trafficking is not limited to sexual exploitation. It also includes forced labour.

I know that to be true because in my riding, unfortunately, there are many cases of forced labour among domestic workers and seasonal workers. The hon. member did not say much about that. That muddies things a bit. One of the things that human trafficking experts tell me when I talk to them is that the definition is not well known.

I would like to give my colleague the opportunity to speak again because this is not just about sexual exploitation. It is also about forced labour. I would like her to share her thoughts because this is not a debate on prostitution. We are dealing with human trafficking.