House of Commons photoLost his last election, in 2011, with 46% of the vote.
Electronic Commerce Protection Act November 30th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member whether she is satisfied with the penalties that are listed in the bill. They seem to be fairly adequate but we have to take into account criminal organizations and other organizations that may not be deterred by penalties that are not high enough.
In her opinion, are the penalties at sufficient levels to prevent criminal organizations from getting involved in this activity?
Electronic Commerce Protection Act November 30th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, what sort of advertising program does the member think the government should embark upon if we ever get to the point that this legislation passes? It has to go through the Senate. We have to avoid an election or else we will be back here discussing the same thing a year or two from now. If we do get to the point where the Senate approves the bill, what does the member think the government should do in terms of advertising to the public, advertising to small business and trying to make certain the bill actually has teeth and proper enforcement?
Electronic Commerce Protection Act November 30th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, my brief supplementary question is whether or not the member is satisfied with the penalties under the act. I notice that there is a right to private action. I would have liked to have seen some sort of examination of the possibility of class action because there are class action provinces in Canada. If the government does not enforce the act to its fullest, does the member think that the right of private action will actually step in as the tough enforcement mechanism?
Electronic Commerce Protection Act November 30th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, my question is a bit of a follow-up from the question by the member for Mississauga South, but it has to do with the whole role of businesses. Businesses have privacy officers now, and I am talking about little businesses here. A lot of them will not even know that the legislation has passed the Senate, even when it does pass the Senate.
The question I have is whether the member thought that the government should have a roll-out plan to let small businesses know about the bill and its regulations. Perhaps that would go a long way to avoiding all of the problems that will come up as a result of the bill in terms of non-compliance and perhaps people doing things inadvertently that they would not have done if they had known what the rules are.
Petitions November 30th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, I present a petition which calls upon Parliament to adopt Canada's first air passengers' bill of rights.
The petitioners support Bill C-310 which includes compensation for overbooked flights, cancelled flights and unreasonable tarmac delays. The legislation is inspired by a European Union law which has been in effect for five years. Air Canada is already operating under the European laws for its flights to Europe. Why should Air Canada customers receive better treatment in Europe than in Canada?
The bill would ensure that passengers are kept informed of flight changes, whether there are delays or cancellations. The new rules would be posted in the airports. The airlines would be required to inform passengers of their rights and the process to file for compensation. The bill deals with late and misplaced baggage. The bill requires all-inclusive pricing by airline companies to be in their advertisements.
Bill C-310 is not meant to punish the airlines. If the airlines follow the rules, they will not have to pay one dime in compensation to passengers.
The petitioners call on the Government of Canada to support Bill C-310 which would introduce Canada's first air passenger bill of rights.
Air Passengers' Bill of Rights November 30th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, last week the United States transportation department imposed the first penalties in North America for tarmac delays, collecting $175,000 from three airlines, including Continental Airlines, for leaving 47 passengers stranded on a plane for six long hours in Rochester, Minnesota. This sends a clear signal to the rest of the airline industry that companies must respect the rights of air travellers in the United States.
A week ago, the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled that passengers are entitled to compensation for flight delays, the same as for cancellation and overbooked flights under the air passenger rules that have been in place in the European Union for the last five years.
Will Air Canada and Air Transat stop flying into the United States and Europe because of fear of these new penalties?
When will the government get out of the pockets of the airline industry and support Bill C-310, the air passengers' bill of rights?
Controlled Drugs and Substances Act November 30th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, according to some United States reports, Canada is the primary source for this type of drug in the United States, which means the Americans are concerned about this.
I looked into the pill compression machine issue, which the Americans find to be important. I am not sure whether the member is aware but the pill making machines in the United States all need to be registered with the government and, even if they break down and need to be repaired, there is a paper trail there. The United States feels that if Canada were to take some action to register and regulate pill compression machines that would help the problem.
I wonder whether the member could give us his ideas on that point.
Patent Act November 27th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, I commend the previous speaker for an absolutely excellent speech on the bill at hand. I thought I heard another speech from one of her colleagues that was quite a bit different. Her colleague indicated that he would not support the bill. That is the way I heard it anyway. However, I am very pleased that not only did the member make an excellent speech, but she dealt square on with the whole issue at hand.
She outlined how the legislation originally was to be a legacy to Jean Chrétien. The legislation passed unanimously in May 2004. Its goal was humanitarian. It was non-partisan. It was supported by all members of the House, yet in five years all we have to show for this is one shipment of an AIDS drug by one company to one country. After half a decade, that is unbelievable.
It reminds me of the great intentions of the United States government to deal with Hurricane Katrina. It supposedly had a whole plan in place. At the end of the day, we saw a disaster that was compounded by the efforts of the government to help solve the disaster. Among many other things, people were living in trailers that turned out to be toxic. It was a total disaster. That was a case with a country that had huge resources and supposedly a plan.
Here we have a lack of resources, but at least we had the intention to do something good for people who were suffering. Members have brought out statistics on how quickly people are dying in Africa as a result of disease. The question is this. How could this have gone so wrong in such a short period of time and what will we do as a group, as a collective, to try to solve this issue?
We will not solve it and we will not make progress when we have speakers defending big pharma, the drug companies and the patent system. They say that they cannot get involved in this because it would offend drug companies in their ridings and that the drugs they produce are not available yet for generic companies to produce. Therefore, they are going to vote against this because they are concerned about jobs in their ridings.
Sadly, that is what this may turn out to be at the end of the day and that is really a sad commentary on the whole country in some ways.
I understand the intellectual property argument. Manitoba had huge fights in the seventies over the whole issue of whether generic drug companies should even be allowed to survive. The big guys wanted to get them out of business and argued that it was totally unfair. Then a government somewhere along the line, whether Liberal or Conservative, gave the drug companies a 20 year patent protection. I am uncertain, but I believe it was the Mulroney government.
Nevertheless, I do remember that argument at the time. There was a lot of reaction to it in Manitoba because Manitoba does not have a lot of big pharmaceutical companies but it does have generic companies that are trying to produce drugs at a reasonable cost. They are the ones who would be stepping up to the plate to help in a situation like this.
We have other really good examples, such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. I do not know how many people know Warren Buffett. He owns half of the companies in the United States, everything from 10% of Gillette and 10% of Coca-Cola, and Dairy Queen and Fruit of the Loom and so on. Warren Buffett is the second-richest man in the world and he is worth around $50 billion or close to it, slightly less than Bill Gates.
Rather than doing what some single billionaires do, this multi-billionaire decided that his kids did not need this kind of money so he gave it to Bill and Melinda Gates' trust in which they put an equal amount. They would give out the money on his behalf. The desire of both Gates and Buffett is to send the money to Africa to be used for the AIDS cause.
Warren Buffett lives in Omaha. I had the good fortune to drive through Omaha on the way to a legislators' conference in August. We decided to find Warren Buffett's house. People in Omaha know where he is. They see him around. He even hands out candies to kids at Halloween. His house has no number on it, but it was not hard to find. I did knock on his door, but he did not happen to be at home.
My point is that Warren Buffett is a fairly selfless individual. Certainly in business he has taken his knocks over the years. I could spend hours talking about the things that Warren Buffett has done in business. This man recognizes that he is not going to live forever, and he has given money to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to be used in Africa. I am not saying we have to go to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for a donation, but it is something that might have to be considered.
Another idea has come up, and I do not know how practical it is but articles have been written on it. The British are in charge of trying to eradicate the poppy in Afghanistan. Besides trying to spray it and kill it, they are trying to put in other crops. Some people have suggested that the opium crop from the poppies should be used in areas of the world that need the drug as a painkiller.
The majority of people in Africa are not used to the same sort of medical treatment that we are here in Canada. When we have a procedure done in the hospital, we are given good pain medication. People in Africa do not even have the basics. In a way we would be killing two birds with one stone if we could somehow take that crop that is going to be poisoned and sprayed and torn out of the ground and actually harvest it and use it for good in Africa. There may be some problems associated with that idea. We have to find ways to solve these problems. It is a wonderful idea.
The member of our caucus is tireless in her efforts not only in this area, but in everything she does. I actually sat with her in the Manitoba legislature some 20 years back.
We need to get something done about this. We need to straighten out this problem--
Criminal Code November 27th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, I would like to follow up on the member's comments regarding the issue of people who are accused being fingerprinted before they are actually charged, and how the Bloc proposes we should deal with that whole issue at committee, whether or not we should be eliminating the provision completely or whether we should be making an amendment to require the police to erase the fingerprints if the person is not charged. Or, if in addition to that, we should somehow build in some requirement that the accused has a responsibility to ask for their fingerprints back.
I wonder what the member's ideas are as to how this particular subject should proceed at the committee stage.
Criminal Code November 27th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, the member knows that there is a new offence being put in this Bill C-31.
The new offence is called “leaving the jurisdiction”. It has been created to target people who leave the jurisdiction in violation of bail conditions. I guess the problem is fairly big in B.C. with several hundred people hanging out in Vancouver. When they are approached by police officers, they find a huge number. I actually had the statistics, but I cannot find them right now. Of these 700 people had outstanding warrants in other provinces. Because the warrants are written up in such a way that they only cover a certain radius from where the crime occurred, they are unable to be sent back.
I would like to know, what does the member think of that particular idea, and has that been a problem in his riding in Quebec over the last number of years?