Jack Harris

[National Defence, December 7th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians deserve to know the truth and yet the Conservatives have been hiding the truth from Canadians for years. The cabinet leaks are everywhere, the KPMG report is supposedly out, there is a program that no one will defend and now costs are estimated to be north of $40 billion, a litany of Conservative failure and mismanagement.

When will Conservatives come clean, admit their misguided plan has failed and finally agree to have an open and transparent competition?

[National Defence, December 7th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives do not even know how to cancel a project properly. The deliberations of the cabinet committee on operations has been leaked and after years of defending the F-35 in the most insulting way to anybody who commented, the government will now, reportedly, restart the whole process, as the NDP has demanded for years. This issue has shown the worst of Conservative mismanagement.

Will the Conservatives stop these backroom leaks, share the truth with Canadians and release and table the KPMG report today?

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, December 6th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I find my colleague's remarks somewhat amusing. I do not regret his presence in this House. I welcome his presence in this House. What I regret is the fact that some of his views are rather surprising given his experience, education and obvious intelligence. I am surprised he is not sitting on the front benches, in the cabinet, given the background he brought to this House. However, I do regret some of the partisan things that he says.

We do want to see the bill debated at an appropriate time in committee. We have been seeking to get some indication from him, other than the fact that he is prepared to talk in the committee, that some progress will be made. We have made a tiny bit of progress. The Conservatives have agreed to put one of the amendments back on to where it was before. That is a start. I look forward to having some other discussions with him before we pass this forward.

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, December 6th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the problem is twofold. We do not have any objection to a summary procedure. Most people may want to plead guilty, get it over with and recognize that they will not necessarily be treated terribly harshly. That is all well and good, and military discipline requires the availability of a summary procedure. What I object to and what I think most people object to is that if an individual ends up with a criminal record after that, it can interfere with the person's future life.

People cannot even get a pardon anymore because the government has changed the Criminal Records Act so that there are no more pardons unless they have a cabinet pardon. The royal prerogative of the Crown can still grant them a pardon. Somebody famous might be able to get a pardon from the cabinet if they are important enough, but there are no pardons for ordinary citizens, including ex-military.

The government would call it a record suspension, whatever that means in the minds of Canadians. Therefore, when people have a criminal record and cannot have access to a pardon, it can affect their employment status and their travel to other countries. It could affect any number of opportunities they might have, and we think that is very detrimental.

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, December 6th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I hear some noise from across the way. I know the member for Ajax—Pickering wants to participate in the debate. If so, I would encourage him to stand when I finish and give a speech and let us hear what he has to say about this.

The principal problem is that the government has gone back on the progress that was made and yet continues to say that it is trying to make progress. It is not making enough progress and we want to assure the people of Canada and the military that we intend to try to have a better system of military justice. There is a whole series of clauses that were amended in the last Parliament that are missing from this.

The other principal area that we have concern with, although there are several others, is the grievance procedure. The grievance procedure is unwieldy. Some improvements have been made. The military people who file grievances have the right to grieve. We put forth amendments to have civilian representation on the grievance board. Most of the grievances are really of an employment nature as opposed to a military nature and could be properly handled with the right kind of civilian oversight and participation. However, the government continues to fill the military board with military personnel, mostly of the officer class, and it is a long and unwieldy procedure.

The CDS, in the end, has the final say, except there is one major problem. The CDS can say that he or she agrees with an individual's grievance but then, if the individual is complaining that the $1,500 moving allowance that he or she was supposed to get was denied to him or her, the CDS, who is the final authority, may agree that the person is entitled to the money but the $1.500 cannot be awarded. What happens then? The grievance then has to go to lawyers at the Department of Justice to determine whether the person has a legal case against the Crown for the $1,500. What do we have that for? It makes no sense.

A good example that has been going on for some time is the home equity allowance that military members are entitled to. If they move from one place to another and lose money on the sale of their home, they are entitled to have that reimbursed from the military. Guess what? Somebody in Treasury Board has decided there is no such thing as a depressed market for real estate in Canada and people who have lost between $70,000 and $80,000 on the resale of their home can only get a maximum of $1,500. Despite the Chief of the Defence Staff agreeing with the grievers and saying that it is wrong and that they should get the money, it is no dice. It cannot happen because, despite the final say going to the Chief of the Defence Staff, we have the lawyers, the Treasury Board and others holding this up.

Those are some of the things wrong with the bill. We want a fulsome debate and a willingness on the part of the government to try to change those things.

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, December 6th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have a second opportunity to address the bill. Earlier today, I was referred to as being a one-man filibuster. I do not know how that could be. I think I spoke to the bill for 20 minutes back in March or May. If the members opposite want to see a filibuster, they should read the transcript of the justice committee meeting that took place last March on Bill C-10 where it was necessary for me to speak for at least six or seven hours in order to get some sense brought to the members opposite in terms of ensuring that at least some discussion would take place on the massive justice bill that the government put before the House. Bill C-10 was the omnibus justice bill that brought together seven, eight or nine pieces of legislation with over 200 amendments that it sought to get through committee in one day. When members opposite talk about getting a bill to committee, they are talking about a committee where they have the hammer and they can control procedure in any way they want.

I am not opposed to the bill going to committee because it needs to go to a committee. We have a new committee and, as with all committees, there is a majority of members opposite on that committee. There are new members, both from our side as well as from the other side, who were not part of the debate in the last session. However, what we are seeing in the chamber on this bill is a tremendous amount of interest by members in our party to talk about the concerns we have with respect to military justice.

I only have a few minutes but I will outline some of the principal ones. One concern is with the function of summary trial procedures before military tribunals. A summary trial takes place without a great deal of formality, as opposed to a court martial which is a much more significant judicial procedure. The reality is that more than 93% of offences that members of the military are charged with are dealt with in a summary trial proceeding. They appear before their commanding officer who listens to what they have to say, hears witnesses, makes a determination and imposes a penalty, which could be anything from incarceration, loss of rank or a fine equal to a month's pay. Many of these penalties are in breach of the Criminal Code. If I had a lot of time I would get into that. However, some of the offences are as simple as being absent without leave or being drunk in a facility which could result in a criminal offence. The nub here is that a procedure of a summary nature could result in a criminal offence.

What is wrong with that is that people do not have access to a lawyer nor do they have a lawyer present for these hearings. It is not an independent tribunal. The CO knows the person, the witnesses and probably a bit of the history of the case because he or she may have heard about it before the person appears before him or her but there are no rules of procedure or evidence. Therefore, it is very unlike the kind of trial that people would have in a civilian court if they are charged with an offence by the police. As there is no transcript, it makes it impossible to appeal under the law and yet the decision could still result in criminal record. That is wrong and it offends our sense of justice in this country.

In the committee in the last Parliament , we sought to make some significant changes to that. In the end, there was an amendment made principally to clause 75 of Bill C-41 which took a series of offences away from the criminal record circumstance. It was not enough, in our view, but some progress was made in the last Parliament. The bill came back to the House and there was a willingness to pass it in the dying days of the last Parliament.

Despite the Conservatives' alleged anxiety today and over the last number of weeks to have this bill passed and sent to committee, even though it was in the last Parliament and had reached various stages, they did not, for some reason, call it before the House. We were ready to see it passed through Parliament because there was an anxiety to have these measures put forward. We were co-operative even though it was a minority Parliament but the government did not see fit to call the bill for debate and have it passed.

Now we are back again and the Conservatives have a majority. A whole series of amendments were brought forward in the last Parliament. Were they in the new bill? No. They were stripped out after having deliberations at committee, listening to all the witnesses, having debate and passing reasonable amendments, although not all the ones we wanted. The Conservatives say that want to make progress. If they want to make progress, why did they not put back the bill that was ready to be voted on in Parliament? It is because they decided that they wanted to remove the progress that had been made in the last Parliament.

[Petitions, December 6th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour today to present five petitions from hundreds of residents from places such as St. John's East, the adjoining riding of St. John's South—Mount Pearl and the riding of Avalon.

The petitioners are part of a continuing urging by people from my province, asking the Government of Canada to reverse the decision it made to close the Canadian Coast Guard maritime search and rescue centre in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, to reinstate its staff and restore its full services.

As we know, the centre looks after a huge area of coastline, some 29,000 kilometres, and a huge area of ocean, populated by many people who earn their living from the sea, transport over it, or work offshore. It is extremely important that this service be reinstated.

The petitioners urge the government to recognize its mistake and reinstate the service.

[Committees of the House, December 6th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, outside of education and a change in the attitude of society, I think it is difficult to prevent all domestic violence. We need to have substantial tools and support for women who are in those circumstances to be able to take another path, get out of those circumstances and be safe. Support for women's shelters and alternative means of support is desperately necessary.

The equality of women is a continuing struggle in terms of being able to exist in our society on an equal footing with men. I think that support, encouragement and raising their independence to the same level is a very big key. I think focusing on prevention is a longer term task. Obviously, having the right criminal justice tools to deal with domestic violence is extremely important.

In acknowledging today as a day on which we all seek to remember and be concerned about violence against women, it is a very timely intervention by my colleague.

[Committees of the House, December 6th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I waited in vain for some relevance to the issue of organized crime. I think the kind of discussion that my friend refers to is something that should take place between he and I and not on the floor of this House. We, obviously, would want to see a vigorous modernization of the legislation to which he speaks but, unfortunately, we have not seen the commitment to get that to this point.

There are two types of organized crime that are of most concern. One is the street gangs that my colleague for Winnipeg North talked about. The other is the organized criminal activity of the drug trade, the sex trade and the human trafficking, the biker gang type of activities. These gangs not only engage in significant organized crime but they also intimidate people and engage in serious criminal activity. We also hear from time to time about corruption.

There are several categories of organized crime but the one that people are most affected by is the kind of street gang crime in which mainly young people or younger people are involved. A diversion to get them away from that activity and providing significant preventive work is an important way to diminish that. The tools in the Criminal Code can be used and the prosecutorial efforts need to be there but the prevention side is key to keeping our communities safe.

[Committees of the House, December 6th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more with the hon. member for Winnipeg North. When a city like Winnipeg is affected by young people being attracted to gangs, getting involved in criminal activity, doing harm to ordinary citizens and invoking fear, people become extremely concerned, not only about what is happening to their community but that young people are attracted to that and do not have any other alternatives.

The street gangs play a role within the prison system. When they are caught, whether it be for some petty crime or some serious crime and they end up in prison, they become part of the gangs that operate in prisons as well.

One of the major focuses needs to be prevention. We should place our first line of attack against organized crime into prevention by ensuring we have good programs for young people and that young people have opportunities, whether it be to complete their education, finish school or get some trade, occupation or educational experience that gives them hope in their lives.

Unfortunately, the government has actually failed to continue to promote this type of activity in our cities and communities. We are quite unhappy about that, as it does lead to this type of activity.