House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2015, with 72% of the vote.
Business of Supply December 4th, 2017
Mr. Speaker, I find it quite humorous and hypocritical the way the previous speaker spoke about his trust and respect for the work of CSIS and the RCMP. Was it not he and his colleagues who wanted to change Bill C-51 because they did not trust what those people were doing?
Could the hon. member comment on that?
Questions Passed as Orders for Returns December 4th, 2017
With regard to expenditures on “talent fees” and other expenditures on models for media produced by the government since January 1, 2016, broken down by department, agency, Crown corporation or other government entity: (a) what is the total amount of expenditures; and (b) what are the details of each expenditure, including the (i) vendor, (ii) project or campaign description, (iii) description of goods or services provided, (iv) date and duration of contract, (v) file number, (vi) publication name where the related photographs are located, if applicable, (vii) relevant website, if applicable?
Cannabis Act November 22nd, 2017
Mr. Speaker, the member spoke about giving law enforcement the tools with which to work. He also spoke about impaired driving. I would like to give the member a little statistical data.
The Minister of Justice spoke earlier about using scientific data. I wonder if anyone from the Liberal Party decided to phone the state police in Colorado or Washington, because Washington has 33,000 cases of drug driving evidence that it is trying to analyze. They cannot analyze it. It costs $175 per analysis, which is $6 million U.S. The U.S. sheriffs are telling their deputies not to lay charges, because they cannot afford it.
Did the Liberals talk to any law enforcement agencies in some of the states that have legalized marijuana?
National Security Act, 2017 November 20th, 2017
Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely correct. Bill C-59 is full of flaws. As the Liberals stated earlier today in one of their statements, it the result of an election promise by them. I do not think there is any room or place in Canada's security to be worrying about an election promise versus the security of Canadians. I believe the bill should have gone back for a lot more debate. The bill should never have been presented in the format it has been. It is wrong in many cases, and it is hurting a very good bill, Bill C-51, which may have had possible flaws, but not very many, and things could be reviewed and corrected.
National Security Act, 2017 November 20th, 2017
Mr. Speaker, the cost of keeping track of 180 individuals would be astronomical for the government. The money we are looking at to protect our soldiers who return with injuries would be just a small portion of what it would cost for the government to keep track of 60, 100, or 180 people.
We need to keep track of these individuals. They are now mentally prepared as terrorists, and they are coming back into this country. Do members think they can switch off like that? It is impossible. They are going to react and will follow through on what they have been trained to do in the last three or four years, or however many years they have been fighting with ISIS. It is no different than taking a police officer who worked undercover with a motorcycle gang. He cannot just switch back; it takes deprogramming. It sometimes takes two to three years. This is exactly what we need to be concerned about: the safety of Canadians.
National Security Act, 2017 November 20th, 2017
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to speak to Bill C-59, an act respecting national security matters. This is a very large bill that seeks to make some major changes to our national security. It affects Bill C-51 that was brought in by our previous government. It replaces the Security Intelligence Review Committee and the commissioner of the Communications Security Establishment with a new national security and intelligence review agency. It creates the position of an intelligence commissioner to provide day-to-day oversight of national security activities. It limits the Canadian Security Intelligence Service's ability to reduce terrorist threats. It limits the ability of government departments to share data among themselves to protect national security. It removes the offence of advocating and promoting terrorist offences in general. It raises the threshold for obtaining a terrorism peace bond and recognizance with conditions.
Obviously, there is a lot in this bill, and I will not have time to speak to all of it. Therefore, I will focus on a few key areas that I have concerns with.
As most people know, extremist travellers are those who have left Canada or other countries to join terrorist groups abroad. As ISIS continues to lose ground in Syria and Iraq, supporters of this militant group and other terrorist organizations have returned to their home countries, Canada included, with almost 60 of them now returned.
According to a recent report that was released in October from the Soufan Center, a U.S.-based non-profit organization, 33 countries have reported the arrival of at least 5,600 extremist travellers. That is 5,600 of them now returning home. The report states that those returns represent, “a huge challenge for security and law enforcement entities.”
Now is not the time to relax the laws that protect our national security. Canadians are at risk. Canada is not immune to the threats of terrorism. We have seen an attack on Parliament Hill, the terrorist attack that killed Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent, and the recent attack of a police officer and members of the public in the city of Edmonton, just next to my riding. We need strong legislation in place to protect our national security and our citizens. This is why our Conservative government introduced Bill C-51, which has been used to disrupt terrorist activities nearly two dozen times that we know of. This includes when law enforcement and intelligence officers intervened last year to stop ISIS supporter Aaron Driver, who had planned to commit a terror attack in Canada. These attacks, and attempted attacks, demonstrate that Canada needs strong security and intelligence legislation that enables public safety agencies to do their job.
Prior to our previous Conservative government's Bill C-51, the mandate of CSIS prevented it from engaging in any disruption activities. It could not approach the parents of a radicalized youth and encourage them to dissuade their child from travelling to a war zone or conducting attacks here in Canada. After Bill C-51, CSIS was able to engage in threat disruption. Warrants were not required for activities that were not contrary to Canadian law, such as approaching the parents of a radicalized youth. This was very reasonable, in my opinion. However, Bill C-59 will now limit the threat disruption activities of CSIS to very specific actions. It will require a warrant for simple and necessary activities, such as impersonating a local citizen to give a suspect the wrong directions in order to disrupt a threat. This bill unnecessarily limits and restricts the ability of CSIS to disrupt threats to national security. Bill C-59 also makes it more difficult to obtain a peace bond for terrorism cases. We should be going forward. We should be strengthening the laws in Canada, not reducing them in favour of terrorism.
Under Bill C-51, a peace bond can be issued if there are reasonable grounds to fear that a person may commit a terrorism offence and a peace bond is likely to prevent terrorism activities. That is the same as a peace bond under the Criminal Code of Canada, which I applied for on a number of occasions over the years as a police officer. When I knew someone might pose a threat to an individual, I went to a judge and had a peace warrant issued to protect the possible victim.
Bill C-59 would increase the threshold from “is likely” to “is necessary” to prevent a terrorist activity. If we have evidence that someone is planning an attack and we cannot act on good sound information, it is going to be a sad day for this country. This means that the amount of evidence that would go into proving the peace bond is necessary is nearly the same as the evidence one would need to lay a criminal charge. If we look at those set of circumstances, why would one go for a peace bond? One might as well lay the criminal charge. It is a little late.
The point of peace bonds is that there is not enough evidence to arrest and charge that suspect, but there are reasonable grounds to believe that a person is involved in terrorist activities. That is reasonable. It is reasonable under the Criminal Code to believe that if somebody threatens numerous times to kill a person, that maybe a peace bond should be issued for that person to stay away from the possible victim.
If the government raises the threshold to obtain a peace bond, people who are a risk to national security will slip through the cracks. We now have 60 of them in this country. How are our police forces supposed to keep us safe if they cannot request that special safety conditions be put on someone who is likely to engage in an attack?
I also find this legislation problematic in addressing the issue of advocating and recruiting for terrorist groups. General and broad threats against Canada or all infidels is not a crime under the Criminal Code. Hate speech and threats need to be directed at an identifiable group. Bill C-51's definition of advocating or promoting terrorism enabled law officers to more effectively pursue those distributing radicalizing propaganda and advocating violence, and it should. However, the bill before us today would delete this offence. Without the ability to target the advocacy and/or promotion of terrorism, law enforcement will be handicapped from effectively addressing the various ways that individuals are radicalized. This includes removing terrorist propaganda from the Internet.
Another concerning change is in part 8 of the bill, which would amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act. If we afford more protections to young offenders who are guilty of terrorism offences, youth will become a target for radical recruiters. Instead of cracking down on radicalization, the Liberals are creating loopholes that those who seek to radicalize youth can exploit.
One last problematic area that I want to highlight is in part 5 of the bill. This section would amend the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act, which was established by Bill C-51. The changes proposed in today's bill would make it more difficult for government departments to share information with each other. As a former police officer, I know how necessary it is to be able to share intelligence when conducting a large investigation. It can make or break a case. We have problems when it is easier for our own agencies to share information internationally than with each other. While our Five Eyes allies are all taking measures to strengthen national security, this legislation would remove the ability of our intelligence services to reduce terrorist threats.
In the last year, horrendous attacks in the United States, Europe, and our own country, have shown that no country is immune from the risks associated with terrorism and radicalization. The Anti-terrorism Act, brought forward by our previous government, struck a careful balance between protecting the civil liberties of Canadians while adequately providing law enforcement with the necessary tools to keep Canadians safe. It is the responsibility of the government to ensure that all of Canada's security and intelligence services have the tools they need to do their jobs.
National Security Act, 2017 November 20th, 2017
National Security Act, 2017 November 20th, 2017
Madam Speaker, I have read in detail Bill C-59. As the last speaker mentioned, there are over 140 pages in the bill. There are some good parts in this legislation, but there are parts I have a lot of concern about. One is the limits the bill would place on the ability of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to reduce terrorist threats in Canada. It bothers me that we would start pulling some of its authority and some of its ability to effectively make Canada safer for the public. The bill would limit the ability of government departments to share data among themselves to protect Canada's national security.
The hon. member talked about ISIS fighters coming back to Canada and the fact that we have a government that is not going to take a strong stand on this. It should be taking a strong stand.
I wonder if my colleague could comment on the ability of our government agencies to share information about the people coming back. Do we just want them to filter into our communities?
Forestry Industry November 9th, 2017
Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her reply, but I think it is a lot of bull.
Science and technology has not stopped the beetle. If the government is looking for integrity of our parks, it should just take a drive through Jasper Park and look at all the brown, dead trees from the B.C. border through to the Alberta border. Your science and technology could not even stop it within a confined area of the park, and you are saying you are doing a lot.
The government needs to put up some money to help the Province of Alberta fight the pine beetle situation. Your previous government gave $100 million. Alberta needs help right now. It cannot afford to do it on its own. Science has not stopped the pine beetle. Actual culling or burning will stop the pine beetle. We are asking you for financial assistance to stop it before it gets further east.
Forestry Industry November 9th, 2017
Mr. Speaker, on November 3, I asked the following question in the House:
I rise in the House once again to ask the Minister of Natural Resources about his plans to stop the pine beetle from attacking our [Canadian] forests.
Last year alone, the beetle increased tenfold. Even though science and research has been done, the beetle has moved from Jasper Park into central Alberta and is heading east. All of Canada's pine forests are at risk. We need financial assistance to cull the trees.
What is the Liberal government doing to stop this infestation?
Again, I am going to ask a similar question. When is the Liberal government going to step up to the plate? Last week we received an answer that it was doing science and research. I rise again to say that science and research are not applicable at this time. Why is that? We know all about the pine beetle. Science and research have been done for many years. I was there when the pine beetle was first spotted in western British Columbia in the late 1970s. If proper action had been taken then, and the trees culled or burned, I probably would not be asking the question again today.
Our boreal forests are at risk. What is needed from the minister is financial aid. Even the former Liberal government, in 2005, recognized the problem and gave $100 million to fight the pine beetle when it was still in British Columbia. Did science and research stop it? No, they did not. Did we stop the pine beetle? No, we did not.
The Government of Alberta has spent over $85 million to fight the infestation, and that funding helped slow the pine beetle, until this year. This is a drop in the bucket compared to $9 billion in damages, fighting costs, and loss of production that the fire in Fort McMurray caused, or the untold millions that it cost to fight the B.C. fires this year. Those fires were fed by dead pine forests, due to the pine beetle.
Our previous Conservative government gave $10 million in 2009 to fight the pine beetle in northwestern Alberta. The Fort McMurray fire last year helped destroy a large amount of the northern pine beetle, but unfortunately, it destroyed a lot more than that. We all saw that on the news.
I remember going to a pine beetle seminar where scientists told me the pine beetles would never get across the Rocky Mountains. They have gone way across.
During adjournment debate on October 26, I once again called on the federal government to assist Alberta in the fight against the mountain pine beetle. Companies like Weyerhaeuser, Millar Western, and West Fraser have spent millions of dollars of their own money to combat the pine beetle.
I have held meetings and round table discussions with park officials, CFS officials, as well as representatives from forestry and local communities. Parks Canada kept telling us it was going to try to cull the trees. Very little was done.
What do we need? The minister of forestry and agriculture for the Province of Alberta told me 10 days ago that they need financial help. We need need financial assistance now to cull the trees. The beetles killed 40,000 trees last year while we were holding them at bay, between the industry and the province, but it has increased tenfold to more than 500,000 this year. The pine beetle is out of control.
Again, what is the Minister of Natural Resources going to do to stop the pine beetle from attacking our forests? We have moved and must move faster than the pine beetle before it is too late for all of Canada.