Jim Maloway

[Abolition of Early Parole Act, February 15th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to follow the member for Windsor—Tecumseh in speaking to Bill C-59. Our party supports sending this bill to committee.

We as a group passed Bill C-21 recently. That bill dealt with providing a mandatory minimum two year sentence for white-collar criminals involved in schemes and thefts over $1 million.

Today government members have continually asked what the victims want. The victims want their money back. They did not want their money stolen in the first place.

This bill deals with the issue after the fact, after the money is gone. We need proper regulation of financial institutions, banks and investment salespeople in this country to prevent this type of thing from happening in the future.

Twenty-five per cent of the members in the House, excluding myself, are lawyers. We all know how lawyers' trust funds are dealt with. We all know how real estate brokers' trust funds are dealt with. They are dealt in trust because of past abuses. The provinces have brought in laws to define how trust funds have to be dealt with.

My understanding of the Earl Jones case is that he was not registered. How can a person invest money on behalf of clients for many years and not be registered under any authority within the jurisdiction in which he is living? Mr. Jones was dealing with financial institutions and those financial institutions should be responsible for policing their salespeople.

What was the bank's responsibility? What was the financial institutions' and the insurance companies' responsibility? What was the responsibility of the people that he was buying these investments from on behalf of his clients?

Most investors in this country are protected in case a financial adviser makes off with an investment. Most people would be compensated by the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization. That organization has a plan to compensate individuals when dealers run off with money. Banks and institutions have a corporate responsibility. We need to tighten up on the front end before the money disappears. In a five year period in the United States, 1,200 people, including Conrad Black, were sent to prison. In Canada, there were five.

This problem did not just start with the Conservative government five years ago. The Liberals faced the same problem for many years. They recognized the problem because in 2003 they set up the IMET program. Six groups operate under this particular unit within the police force. After a five year period it had only five successful convictions and imprisonments to show for its time in office. I am not saying it was a bad idea. It just did not achieve great results during that period. It should be studied and improved upon.

We also have to look at our regulatory environment. We have to start appointing to the regulatory bodies people who are not playing golf with the very people they are regulating. An incestuous relationship can develop anywhere one looks in society if we do not have the proper balance.

When we get a regulatory body, be it the Ontario Securities Commission or the national securities agency that we are debating in the House on an ongoing basis, if those regulators are not on the ball and if they are not actively trying to pursue abuses, if they are not fearful of arresting some of their friends, then we will have results. We will have activity and the arrest rate will go up and people will be put in prison in this country. Once people like Earl Jones recognize that it is going to be a one-way trip to a prison sentence, then we will see better protection.

The point is we have all these protections. We have protections in insurance. We have protections in real estate. We have protections for the law society. How difficult can it be for us to examine this area a little more and put in these protections to stop people like Earl Jones? That is how we should consider approaching this problem at the front end as opposed to the back end.

We have a lot of issues and very limited time to deal with them. I definitely want to deal with the issue of what works in crime prevention and enforcement and what does not.

A situation has developed in the United States where Newt Gingrich, who helped to create the problem, is now providing an answer from the right. The fact is it goes back further to Ronald Reagan's days and the "three strikes and you are out" that he brought in as Governor of California, and how their system developed into a warehousing system for criminals in the state. At the end of day it resulted in a higher crime rate and almost bankrupted the state in the process.

Newt Gingrich has recently changed his position on this. Not only him, but Ed Meese and other right-wing Republicans in the United States have actually come around to the NDP's approach on crime, as surprising as that might be.

We only have to look at Texas as an example. In Texas in 2007 the Republicans started to work with the Democrats. What a novel idea that is. It is like a minority government here. Why cannot all parties get together? The Gary Filmon government did it in Manitoba a number of years ago. It was a Conservative government. It worked successfully.

By the way, I ran into Gary Filmon over the Christmas holidays. I asked him if he ever contacted the federal government. He said he had sent a long email when the Conservatives came to power, but he said he had never heard back at all.

In 2007, the Democrats and Republicans in Texas decided against building more prisons. Instead they opted to enhance proven community correction approaches such as drug courts. We have those here in Canada, but I guess they did not have them in Texas. The reforms were forecast to save $2 billion in prison costs over five years. Also Texas redirected much of the money saved into community treatment for the mentally ill and low-level drug addicts. We are doing that here in this country.

These reforms reduced the Texas prison population. Now there is no waiting list for drug treatment in the state. Crime dropped 10% in the period from 2004, the year before the reforms, through to 2009. The crime rate is now at its lowest level since 1973.

In South Carolina, Newt Gingrich is talking about taking prison beds for dangerous criminals and punishing low-risk offenders through lower-cost community supervision. This is not a left-wing person talking. It is New Gingrich. It is the people that Conservatives like to follow. That is where they take their direction from, and I have an even better example. I hope I have time to provide it. I may have to wait until my questions and answers.

That is the issue of the crime rate in Florida versus in New York. Over the past seven years Florida's incarceration rate has increased 16% while that of New York's has decreased 16%.

The crime rate in New York has fallen twice as much as the rate in Florida has, but New York spent less on its prisons and delivered better public policy. In other words, the crime rate was higher in Florida and the cost was higher. New York had a lower crime rate and a lower cost.

Those are great examples. The members opposite should brush up on them.

[Abolition of Early Parole Act, February 15th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, the member knows full well that when the Conservatives were in opposition five years ago and the Liberal government of the day brought in closure, they rebelled at the idea. They did not approve of it. They did not like it one bit. Now they see nothing wrong with jumping in bed with the Bloc and forcing closure when there is absolutely no need for it in this situation. It would take maybe two or three extra days, but we could have proper committee hearings.

We will have the spectacle tonight of a committee meeting starting at 10 o'clock and ending at 3 in the morning. Is this allowing for public input?

In my province of Manitoba, we have committee meetings at normal hours when bills are dealt with. The public is invited. The member knows that, as he is from Manitoba. Any member of the public is invited to show up and make a 10-minute presentation to that committee. We do not set up our meetings to start at 10 a.m. and run until 3 a.m. Whom are we going to invite? What experts are we going to invite at that hour to get proper input on this bill? This is a bad way to conduct business, and the member knows it.

We have asked the member about the cost of this bill. The member must have some sort of costing because governments do not introduce legislation without having information at their fingertips.

Could the member tell me the projected financial cost of the implementation of this bill?

[Abolition of Early Parole Act, February 15th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I agree with many of the member's points. She talked about the problem in large part being the lack of regulation in this country, and I think she is right about that.

However, the fact is the white-collar criminals were running amok before the Conservatives even formed government. It was so serious that Jean Chrétien's government set up IMETs within the police forces. I believe six of them were in place, but they had a very poor track record. Only five people were convicted in five years, whereas the United States managed to convict 1,200 white-collar criminals. Clearly, the system of regulation in Canada has to be changed.

The Conservatives are in government right now and they are not really doing anything that would change those regulations. They have to stop appointing to the regulatory boards people who recently left the jobs they are supposed to be regulating. We cannot expect to have a proper regulating environment when the regulators are golfing with the people they are regulating. That is the system the Liberals set up and the Conservatives have done absolutely nothing to change it. That is what they should be looking at.

Passing bills like this one is fine, but the Conservatives should be looking at re-regulating so that Earl Jones could not have taken advantage of people in the first place.

[Abolition of Early Parole Act, February 15th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the member will know that in the case of Earl Jones, he was not a registered investment dealer. Members will know that people who have lost money through registered investment dealers are able to get compensated by the financial institutions, the banks and the organizations that represent these financial dealers.

The problem here is proper regulation, perhaps some trust fund and bonding regulations for people like Earl Jones, so that people do not get taken by these fraudsters in the first place.

That is really what the point is here. Just to show how lax our regulations are, the United States has had 1,200 white-collar criminals behind bars over a five-year period. In Canada, we have had five. Clearly the government has to start looking at how to prevent the problem in the first place so that people like Earl Jones do not get to defraud people.

I also want to point to some success stories on crime in the United States. As I indicated, the state of Texas, since 2007, has stopped building prisons and has enhanced community corrections approaches, such as drug courts, and has saved $2 billion over five years. Through that whole process, Texas ended up with a 10% reduction in crime from 2004 to 2009.

That is one example, and I could give many more, of being smart on crime. Republicans, right-wingers in the United States, worked with Democrats to achieve these results.

[Abolition of Early Parole Act, February 15th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, does the member think it is fair to have a process that would allow a committee to meet from 10 o'clock tonight until 3 o'clock in the morning, which is the period of time that we will have witnesses appearing on the bill? Does he think that is fair to the process to have witnesses appearing in the middle of the night?Why could we not simply go through the normal process and add an extra few days of debate and resolve the bill in the way that it is likely to be resolved anyway?

[Abolition of Early Parole Act, February 15th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, our biggest objection to the bill is the fact that the government is using closure on it. The government should understand why we are complaining about that move because when it was in opposition and the Liberals were using closure on a consistent basis, it too objected to the idea that the government could ram through legislation. There is no need for this.

We could simply proceed through the normal processes here and deal with the bill in the regular fashion, but the government is getting together with the Bloc to use closure to ram the legislation through. It is not something which should be used on a consistent basis.

Also, we have asked consistently for a costing of these bills. The fact is that no government introduces legislation without having some idea of the cost of the implementation of the bill. We have asked for that information. We are not able to get it.

In 2007, the state of Texas in the United States decided against building more prisons and opted to enhance proven community corrections approaches such as drug courts. It was able to reduce the cost of prisons and get a reduction in the crime rates since 2004 by, I believe, 10% by doing things that actually worked. Republicans and Democrats in the state were working together.

When will the government reconsider its approach on crime and start working with an all-party group in this House to get good crime legislation on the books?

[Abolition of Early Parole Act, February 15th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, the member talked about the United States situation and dealt a bit with Texas. However, in 2007, Texas decided against building more prisons and opted to enhance proven community correction approaches, such as drug courts. The reforms in that state were forecast to save $2 billion over five years. In fact, it redirected much of the money into community treatment for the mentally ill and low-level drug addicts. These reforms reduced Texas' prison population. Now there are no waiting lists in Texas for drug treatment programs. Crime has dropped 10% from 2004, a year before the reform started.

I would like to ask the member if he would like to make some further comments on what Texas has done with, by the way, Republicans and Democrats working together.

[Abolition of Early Parole Act, February 15th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, the Conservatives are raging about the Liberals speaking out against closure and yet only five years ago they were routinely raging at the former Liberal government for doing the same thing. That is rather rich coming from them.

The Conservatives talk about getting their act together. I would suggest they get their act together and start providing the costing that we and the Liberal member for Ajax—Pickering have been asking for consistently, not only on this crime bill but on other crime bills the government has brought forward.

All the Conservatives have to do is look at their American cousins, the Republicans in the United States. Newt Gingrich, one of the leaders, recognizes there is a way to be smart on crime, which that country is doing. For five years Republicans and Democrats in Texas have been working on being smart on crime. They are working in South Carolina. The Conservative government is totally out of sync.

If the Conservatives really want to do something about white collar crime, they should toughen up the financial services rules in this country to stop the fraudsters before they steal the money. The horse is already out of the barn and they are only now introducing legislation.

That is not to say the government should not be introducing legislation like this. We support the principles behind the legislation. What is the government doing about tightening up financial regulations so that guys like Earl Jones cannot steal money in the first place?

[Petitions, February 15th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, my petition is signed by dozens of Canadians calling for Canada to end its military involvement in Afghanistan.

In May 2008, Parliament passed a resolution to withdraw the Canadian Forces by July 2011. The Prime Minister, with help from the Liberal Party, broke his oft-repeated promise to honour the parliamentary motion and, furthermore, refuses to put it to a parliamentary vote in this House.

Committing 1,000 soldiers to a training mission still presents a danger to our troops and an unnecessary expense when our country is faced with a $56 billion deficit. The military mission has cost Canadians more than $18 billion so far, money that could have been used to improve health care and seniors' pensions right here in Canada.

In fact, polls show that a clear majority of Canadians do not want Canada's military presence to continue after the scheduled removal date of July 2011. Therefore, the petitioners call upon the Prime Minister to honour the will of Parliament and bring the troops home now.

[Disposition of Abolition of Early Parole Act, February 14th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, questions come up constantly about the cost of the bills. A responsible government should always be able to project the cost of any legislation, and the Conservatives know that. The bottom line is they do not really care. At the end of the day, they just want to get the legislation through.

Through economic necessity, the United States is now revisiting what Ronald Reagan started 25 years ago. Even right-wing Newt Gingrich and others are involved in working with the Democrats in the states of Texas and South Carolina to embark on programs that actually work. The U.S. is doing some of the things we are already doing up here, like drug courts and other types of measures.

Does the member question a government that would ignore what its political cousins are doing in the United States? Is it because the Conservatives are getting ready for an election campaign? They cannot be totally ignorant of what is happening with Newt Gingrich and other conservatives in the United States on the smart on crime approach.