Jim Eglinski

[Members Not Seeking Re-Election to the 43rd Parliament, June 5th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, as most of you know, I will not be running in the upcoming fall election. Tonight I will be saying goodbye to all my colleagues in this House on all sides. It is hard to say goodbye to fellow workers, to a job or a career that you really enjoy.

Retirement: this is not my first kick at the can. Over 50 years of public service have been very rewarding to me. Am I ending it now? I do not really know. I am not sure yet. I was blessed to be born in a great country and a prosperous province, Alberta. Life has been good to me. For me to give back was just natural.

I am a second-generation Ukrainian who grew up on a farm near Chipman, Alberta. After graduation, I joined the RCMP in April of 1968. I took a train and headed to Regina to be a Mountie. I think most of the farm boys did that back in the 1960s. It was a good choice for me. I served 35 years and had nine postings and five detachment commands. I went from a constable to staff sergeant and finished my career in the city of Fort St. John in B.C. Fort St. John is a great community in northern British Columbia.

I met my first wife, Stephanie, in 1968. We had two daughters, Kim and Susan. Stephanie was with me throughout my service. I lost her to cancer a month after I retired.

In 2002, municipal politics called me. I was elected to council and three years later re-elected as the mayor. This was a great place to learn about politics. I think it is the best politics. In 2004, I married Nancy, my current wife, who has been my strongest constituent, my right arm, my adviser and my critic. She loves politics. She gave me so much: time, love and support.

Nancy and I decided to move from B.C. to Edson, Alberta, in 2011. I was home again. My stepdaughter, Sommer, her spouse, Brad, and grandchildren Kaylynn, Jenessa, Brayden and Tyler lived there. They live there today. We built a new home on the McLeod River, just outside of Edson, to retire.

Then we met Rob Merrifield, who was the member of Parliament for Yellowhead. The next thing I knew, he asked me to join his EDA. Then I ended up being president. I never could say “no”. I have to learn that one day.

In the fall of 2014, Rob called me on a Sunday and said, “Jim, put together a special EDA meeting for tomorrow at 6 p.m.” I asked why and he said he could not tell me. He wanted to meet with Nancy and me at 4 p.m. before the meeting. I asked why. He said he could not tell me. Was I confused? I was. As the EDA president, he was telling me nothing and I had to phone everybody.

At 4 p.m. the next day, Rob and his wife, Brenda, met with Nancy and me and Rob told us he was retiring. When? Immediately. Nancy said, “What are we going to do?” Rob replied, “Jim, I think you should run. I spoke to Prime Minister Harper and it will be a great honour for you to serve as the federal MP for Yellowhead”. I said I could not, and to look at me, I was older. “No,” he said, “You're great. You have lots of experience.” I asked how long I had to make up my mind. He answered, “Two hours” because he wanted to tell the EDA. Forty-five days later, I was the MP for Yellowhead riding.

I was so proud to serve the Yellowhead riding, and I want to thank all my supporters in Yellowhead for electing me in 2014 and again in 2015. What a year it was, with two elections and opening an office in Ottawa and an office in Edson.

I remember my first week in Ottawa, when I was walked down the corridor here by Prime Minister Harper, being sworn in. The administration gave me a set of keys and said my office was 301 Justice. I asked where that was and was told, “Down the hill”. I met with finance and was told I could only spend this, could not spend that and to be careful. I was told to hire someone to work in my office. When I asked where I would find someone, they said to look around and that I would find somebody. Then I was told, by the way, I was on the immigration committee and it sits on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so to make sure I was there tomorrow. Then it was, “Goodbye and good luck.”

How many of us did that happen to? That was day one. From there we learned as we went. I love challenges, but I have to say, thank God the men's washroom was across the hall from 301 Justice.

In politics, time quickly flies. I have flown back and forth about 100 times. I have spent around 800 days on the Hill, approximately 1,000 days in the Yellowhead riding, and 15 hours every weekend, transitioning back and forth between here and there. Will I miss it? You bet. It has been an honour to serve my riding of Yellowhead, my province of Alberta, and my country. The friendships we develop here, from all parties, I will always cherish.

The people Nancy and I met in our riding, the friendships we made, they are such great people. Yellowhead riding is large, 77,000 square kilometres. As an MP, I could not have represented this great riding if it were not for my staff in Edson. I was lucky that Rob's staff stayed on when I was first elected: Jude, Annette and Theresa. If Jude is listening, she was the nerve centre of the riding, the type of person who knows everyone and everything. She was a great help. I thank the staffers who are there today, Annette, Marsha and Sandra, and those who have moved on, Amy, Sylvie and Jude.

In Ottawa, I was lucky. I hired Jeannette. What a find and what a knowledgeable staffer. She trained me, guided me and kept me in line, and that was difficult. Her knowledge and wisdom on the Hill is awesome and I thank her. Through her, I became so much better. I hired her as an employee, but I consider her a friend. I thank Jamyn, a former staffer in my Ottawa office, and Volodymyr, who is there now, for their service to me and the Yellowhead riding. I thank the four Ukrainian interns I had during the summers.

I thank my Conservative colleagues. I have learned so much from them. It has been an honour to serve with them in the government and in opposition. I will always cherish the friendships we developed. I will miss them, all of them.

I will miss the Hill, the security people, the drivers, the people in the cafeteria, the personnel around here. I stop and talk to as many of them as I can in a day. I will miss my staff. I will miss my constituents. However, I will not miss that weekly flight riding from Ottawa to home and back.

I have been so lucky that Rob Merrifield asked me to run. I have been so lucky that my constituents supported me. I have been so lucky to have had a great campaign team. I am so lucky that my replacement candidate, Gerald Soroka is a great guy, a friend and, hopefully, he can have a good office, at 301 Justice, after the federal election when he joins our prime minister, Andrew Scheer.

I could not have done any of this if it were not for my wife Nancy. I know she is listening. I thank “Beebs” for travelling back and forth across the Yellowhead riding with me, for helping in speeches, counselling me, campaigning, etc. She is special. She represented me so many times in the riding when I was here in Ottawa, giving speeches and doing all those other things. I was getting worried because people were telling me that they were starting to like her more than me. Nancy is my soulmate, a friend, and I thank her so much.

People ask me what I am going to do when I retire. There is that word again: retire. I have my health, thank God. My motor home wants to travel. My motorcycle wants to be ridden. My restoration projects are begging to be finished. My grass continues to grow. There are fish in the McLeod River that need to be caught. My deer need to be fed; I have a herd of about 15 of them.

However, mostly, I look forward to visiting my three sisters, my sister-in-law, their husbands and our four children, and spoiling our 11 grandchildren and one great-granddaughter who needs to see me more.

Canada is a great big country and I am about to hit the road, folks. Yes, I will go back to boring holes in the sky, enjoying the freedom of flight.

[Criminal Code, June 4th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, the message I want to get out to all Canadians is that vulnerable people must be respected regardless of their vulnerability, whether it is age, a disability, the way they were brought up or lifestyle. If people choose to perpetrate crimes against vulnerable persons, I want to get the message out that they are the worst types of criminals and we need to deal with them in a more severe manner than we do today.

[Criminal Code, June 4th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, it is different in two ways.

First, it would make it mandatory. Right now is at the discretion of the prosecutor or the judge to look at the aggravated sentencing. Let us take that away. Automatically, people will be punished greater if they assault a vulnerable person than if they assault someone else, just as if someone defrauds, steals or takes advantage of a vulnerable person.

The second part that comes into play is the fact that there are criminals out there. There are people who prey upon the vulnerable. The public needs to know that if people prey on a vulnerable person, they will pay a greater penalty if caught than if they were to prey on another person.

[Criminal Code, June 4th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, any committee that is formed to assist seniors in any capacity will definitely help. However, my bill does not only stick with seniors; it is anybody who is in a vulnerable position. We need to ensure that in our courts, when people are found guilty, they will dealt with more severely if they have assaulted a 95-year-old man or a person in a wheelchair

What I am trying to get to with Bill C-206 is that there have to be consequences if someone picks on vulnerable people just because they are vulnerable.

[Criminal Code, June 4th, 2019]

moved that Bill C-206, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (abuse of vulnerable persons), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak about seniors and vulnerable persons in our society, whether they are physically handicapped, have a mental condition or other. Bill C-206 focuses on the sentencing of individuals who perpetrate crimes against people specifically because of who they are: vulnerable.

The bill would amend section 718.2 of the Criminal Code by bringing further protection to seniors and other vulnerable persons to ensure that they live in safety, dignity and without fear.

As a former Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer for many years, I have seen many horrific crimes, brutality, theft and suicide. Fortunately for me, I have been able to take all the bad, the ugliness and the violence and push it to the back of my mind and I can forget about it. How much good we did and the people we helped save and set on the right course in life is very important to me.

However, there was always one type of crime I felt I could not accept, the lack of appropriate penalties in our Canadian Criminal Code, specifically for crimes against vulnerable persons. My bill would introduce tougher penalties for those who consciously use the weakness of vulnerable groups to financially, physically, sexually or emotionally abuse them.

It is difficult for the abused to admit to people that they are victims of abuse, especially at the hands of someone they know and trust. When trust is abused, the penalties should be severe. Perpetrators should be held to account with firm punishment. We must have harsher sentences for these types of perpetrators.

Criminals who target the elderly should know that they will not get away with it. Older people should not have to fear being targeted. We need stronger penalties to deter and tackle criminals who target the elderly and the disabled. There are hundreds of cases of abuse in which the offenders did not, in my opinion, receive fair punishment for their actions.

We should not tolerate or express any sort of sympathy toward conscious cruelty against seniors and other vulnerable groups. Their security should be of concern to us in Canada and their abuse should be treated as a human rights issue of the utmost importance.

I must point out that technically a judge already considers the vulnerability of a victim, including age and disabilities, when deciding on a sentencing term. It is just not specifically stated on paper or in the act. The bill would simply add it on paper as a requirement.

As people grow older, they become more isolated, so the risk of abuse increases. Punishment fails to deter would-be abusers who see older people as a soft target and we must do more to protect older people and vulnerable people. Bill C-206 would change that.

A large part of the Canadian population is either a senior or will soon be one, including me. I am already there. The demographic data released by Statistics Canada in the 2016 census shows there are approximately 5.9 million seniors in Canada.

According to government statistics, by 2031, around eight million people will be aged 65 or older. That will be almost a quarter of Canada's population. Many Canadians require care and assistance, and that number is only growing.

Offenders who exploit their weaknesses for their self-benefit and decrease the self-worth and dignity of vulnerable adults and seniors must face greater punishments in law. Statistics provided by the Department of Justice state that approximately 24% of disabled persons were victimized at least one in their lives and about 45% of seniors aged 65 and older reported experiencing some form of abuse. This is scary, especially when a quarter of our population will be in that age bracket very shortly.

However, according to the Canadian Association for Retired Persons, only 20% of elder abuse comes to the attention of responsible authorities. Why? Because many of the victims do not want to report the abuse for various reasons. These reasons include the dependence upon a caregiver who is abusive, fear of not being believed or even deep shame and humiliation because of what happened to them.

Moreover, in 32% of the reported elder abuse cases, the offender is related to the victim as a child or an extended family member. That is shocking. We can only imagine how many cases of such abuse remain unreported as the elderly are reluctant to bring charges against their family members or relatives.

It is therefore the responsibility of all of us in the House of Commons to protect those who cannot stand up for themselves by adopting measures that would deter potential offenders from committing these crimes. This is exactly what my bill is designed to do. Adopting it would mean two things: prescribing tougher penalties for the offenders and justice for the victims.

Bill C-206 covers four forms of abuse: financial, physical, sexual and emotional. I will speak about each to show how they affect vulnerable people.

The first is financial abuse, one of the most common forms of abuse against vulnerable groups.

In 2014, CBC News reported that Toronto police arrested a wife and husband who defrauded a 94-year-old woman, within four years, of $25,000 in cash, jewellery and furniture. The wife was hired as a housekeeper and became involved in the everyday activities of this victim. At some point, she forced the elderly lady into a smaller room and moved into the apartment with her husband. If it were not for a courier from a local pharmacy who, during his weekly deliveries, noticed that something was wrong when an unknown person answered the door, the consequences for that woman could have been more grave than just the money.

Under the Department of Justice, not a single reported Canadian case contains a definition of “elder abuse”. In fairness, there are some cases where the extreme age of the victim was taken into the sentencing factor, which is very good. However, my bill, Bill C-206, would take away the use of discretionary decisions and make it mandatory for the sentence to be increased due to the fact the aggravated crime was committed against a vulnerable person. This is not new in Canadian law. It is missing in certain parts of the Criminal Code and I want it to be used more broadly, especially for the crimes about which I have been talking.

In another example in the same year, 3,000 kilometres away in Edmonton, Global News wrote an article on a man who was accused of defrauding his grandmother of $265,000. He acted as his grandmother's attorney under a power of attorney agreement.

Fraud and financial abuse in general can occur not only among family members, but also with people who the victims trust the most. These cases are connected to the victim's trust and dependancy on the caregiver who is abusing the victim and, due to the simple fear of being physically abused, the victim will not report the caregiver. This is not acceptable today. These abuses are happening because offenders do not get fair punishments. They rely on the vulnerability of others and take advantage of them.

Physical abuse is the second form of abuse I want to address.

Statistics show that people with disabilities are more likely to be assaulted compared to people with no disabilities. Another disturbing case happened in Ottawa involving a personal support worker who pleaded guilty to assault charges for an incident at a retirement home. He delivered 10 punches to an 89-year-old man suffering from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

In my many years in law enforcement, this is one of the worst types of crimes I have ever encountered. Should such offenders be treated equally to those assaulting healthy and capable people? I do not think so. Their punishments should reflect the gravity of their crimes. Currently, those abusers, even if convicted, rarely get punished.

Advocates for people with disabilities have confirmed that vulnerable groups are often abused. If we look back at the report that came out yesterday, people who are vulnerable are being picked on.

In October 2014, the CBC posted a story about a 19-year-old mentally disabled woman being sexually assaulted on a bus in Winnipeg, while her support worker was sitting a couple of rows ahead. I am a father and a grandfather. To me, a 19-year-old is still a child. What this child experienced was traumatic for both her and her parents. She has a right to be safe. That is why we need a stronger law.

In the spring of 2017, a support worker in Ontario walked away with a guilty plea for only one count of assault and no criminal record in exchange for the court withdrawing 13 counts of sexual assault.

We need to be stiffer in our penalties. This is where my bill, Bill C-206, would come into play. The vulnerable in our society should enjoy an increased level of protection. They need to be confident in our legal system and must be assured that those who would try to use their vulnerability will always get a fair punishment.

The last but not least form of abuse I would like to cover today is the emotional or psychological form of abuse. I would like to add that all previously discussed forms of abuse are very much connected to emotional abuse in the sense that they have a great psychological effect on the victims.

There is no dignity in disrespecting a vulnerable person. There is no dignity in taking advantage of a vulnerable person. It is a crime and it must be punished in a greater way than it is being punished now. The cases I have talked about are not single cases; there are hundreds of them out there.

How do we change this? Canada needs harsher penalties for those who exploit vulnerable people and take advantage of their weaknesses. Tougher penalties for the abuse of vulnerable persons would make abusers think twice before committing these kinds of offences and would provide more safety for those who cannot protect themselves.

My bill would ensure that those criminals who would disrespect and use the weakness of others would not be able to get away with a simple conviction or a guilty plea, leaving the families and friends of victims desperate and disappointed in our criminal justice system.

[Criminal Records Act, May 30th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend mentioned the earlier legislation that made marijuana legal and the impact it had on the business community in his area. There are a number of small contractors throughout my riding who have been told very explicitly by their insurance companies that they need to have a form of drug testing because of this new legislation and the concerns the Insurance Bureau of Canada has. Would he like to comment on that?

[Criminal Records Act, May 30th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, the possession and acquisition licence, PAL, has been around for about 20 years now.

However, the current legislation will not decrease the criminal or backdoor marijuana trade. It will actually increase it.

I heard the parliamentary secretary say that it would stop the 14-year-olds and 15-year-olds from selling these things. However, the government put a little part in the bill saying that a 12-year-old would not be charged. If I were a criminal ringleader in organized crime, I would give all my drugs to a 12-year-old to take into the school and dispose of them for me, because no one will be charged. Therefore, the legislation is wrong. It was wrong when it was brought out. It was ill thought out. I still do not believe it is a good law for Canada.

[Criminal Records Act, May 30th, 2019]

Madam Speaker, yes, the fee, as it is today, makes it very difficult for people with marginal incomes or from marginal backgrounds. That we all understand. However, the greater problem is that the bill does not go far enough to encourage municipalities across Canada or provincial governments to play ball with what is in the bill and look at eliminating the fee for the criminal record. It could be $75 and as high as $150 in some municipalities. Then there is the fingerprint check, which could be another $75 to $150. Therefore, it has an impact. If we add that to the $630, as my colleague said earlier, then it could be close to $1,000, which is unacceptable.

This is to deal with a simple possession of marijuana record. If that is all that is in a criminal record, then it could be removed quite simply electronically. If we modernize our parole system, it could be done very cost-effectively and very quickly. However, if it remains the way the bill states it will be and it is left in the hands of the Parole Board, it will take too much time and people will still suffer.

[Criminal Records Act, May 30th, 2019]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-93, an act to provide no-cost, expedited record suspensions for simple possession of cannabis.

I hate to say this, but I do support the bill in principle. It is a terrible bill. It has been pushed on us at the end of this Parliament. The Liberals have known this was coming up, but now they are trying to ram it through. It reminds me of the NAFTA trade deal. It is not very good for Canadians.

The Liberals brought forward the marijuana legalization bill, Bill C-45, an act respecting cannabis and to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Criminal Code and other acts. It received royal assent in June 2018. The Prime Minister at that time wanted to push it through, but he had to set it aside until October 17 because there were so many complications. The Liberal government did not look at how complicated it would be for many jurisdiction across our country.

I never supported Bill C-45, and I still do not support it. It was badly thought out and badly written, probably worse than the bill before us. However, this is typical of the government. Again, look at what it did with NAFTA.

Yesterday, when the Prime Minister spoke about NAFTA, he said a deal was better than no deal. He did not say it was a great deal. Bill C-45 was his promise to the public. It was an election gimmick. It probably worked, but let us get back to Bill C-93.

No deal would be bad, therefore that is why I support this. The Parole Board wants to investigate a good portion of these applications, which its representatives said so many times at our committee hearings. It said that it did not have an electronic program. It also did not seem to be very interested in that and had not even looked at it. Many different witnesses said that the program to apply for a record pardon was too cumbersome.

A prosecutor in California recently said that when government used 20th century technology to tackle a 21st century problem, it would be the people who would pay the price. That is exactly what we are doing today. We still working with 20th century technology, most of it by hand.

Bill C-93 recommends that the Parole Board look at electronic means. It was my recommendation, and it was kept in the report. As mentioned earlier, the Parole Board could not tell us exactly how many people might apply for this. One figure was 250,000 and another agency said it might be closer to 500,000. The Parole Board said that it might get 10,000 to 12,000 people applying. It could not give us the cost. This seems to be a government agency where bureaucrats do not want to step out of their sandbox and modernize. It is not listening to Canadians to do what is best.

I would like to read about something that recently took place in the state of California, which legalized marijuana a few years ago. It is called the “Code for America’s Clear My Record to revolutionize criminal record clearance practices”. This article was posted on February 14 by Jails to Jobs magazine. It states:

Imagine the effect that automatically clearing hundreds of thousands of eligible criminal records would have on the lives of people who have them. Those unable to get jobs because of mistakes they made in the past would now be record free. Imagine that.

Considering the hassle and expense that people must go through to clear their records, it almost seems unbelievable. But it’s not. Technology has the capability to “download rap sheets in bulk, algorithmically, read them to determine eligibility and automatically fill out the petitions....”

However, we are not going that way. We made a recommendation, and I discussed it many times, but it was ignored by the Liberal government and the Liberal members on the committee.

Code for America launched clear my record. It was a program developed in the United States and it went online in California last year. California intends using this system to clear 250,000 criminal records for simple marijuana possession in one year. Here we are bringing in Bill C-93 with no real strong indication of going electronically in the modern age. I have made a recommendation, and I think it probably will sit in the background.

The whole discussion on Bill C-93 should have been about modernization and making it easy for the people to go on a computer, whether their own, or one through a social service agency or a legal channel, fill in the application, the history and make a declaration. Let the computers do a lot of the digital analyzing work of checking the records. The program could go on to interconnect with provincial court registries. The program could go on to interconnect with the RCMP. However, it is going to be done it manually in the 21st century. I cannot understand why we would go that way when the technology is out there and proves it can be done.

I have come to understand the NDP's rationale for expungement. When I listened to my colleague from the NDP explain the rationale at the committee, it made sense in a lot of cases.

I started policing back in the sixties as a young man, and the marijuana movement was just starting. We were laying charges for simple possession of marijuana or maybe trafficking if a person had a certain amount. Expungement could work if that is the only record the person has.

However, my colleague from Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner and I have concerns. He is a police officer too. In a lot of cases, going back over the years, these simple records sitting in our record systems did not start that way. They may be simple possession charges today, but they may have started off as trafficking or obstruction charges, but they were dealt down by the prosecutor and a defence lawyer to simple possession charges. We are concerned with those charges. That is why the Canadian Police Association has asked that they be thoroughly reviewed.

[Petitions, May 14th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition calling upon Parliament to designate every third Thursday in May Vyshyvanka Day throughout Canada. Every year, thousands of Ukrainian Canadians celebrate Vyshyvanka Day to show that the embroidered shirt is in their national genetic code, a symbol of the struggle for independence and a symbol of dignity, love and unity. The signatures are from across Canada.