Jim Maloway

[Criminal Code, January 31st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I think the member hopes he will be able to appeal successfully to the Liberals. I would suggest he give up on that idea. I think the Liberals have already decided that they will follow the Conservatives in this venture for short-term political gain and will give up on the history of their party, going back to 1976 when it did show leadership on this issue.

It is interesting that this all comes about at a time when the United States is starting to reassess its system. When right-wing leaders such as Newt Gingrich, who was one of the top Republican leaders a number of years ago, and still is, come up with conclusions that basically agree with what the NDP and the Bloc have argued in the House on a number of crime issues, that is pretty amazing. He uses examples in the United States where the Republicans have come together with the Democrats to look at systems that actually work and have reduced the number of people in the prison populations in certain states. There is a lower rate of crime as a result of this and it is a much less cost to the taxpayers.

The government is looking at spending $9 billion on new prison construction. It is going against where the world is moving, especially when we look at the United States right now.

Would the member like to comment on those points?

[Criminal Code, January 31st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I know the previous member who asked the question was looking for an answer and the answer he received was maybe. He did not receive a definite yes or no.

I want to make some comments on the member's speech and draw his attention to comments by Newt Gingrich and Patrick Nolan on January 7, 2011 in the United States. They have come around to the way of thinking of people here in the NDP and the Bloc whereby we look at dealing with issues of crime and best practices and look to jurisdictions that have successful programs.

For example, being from Manitoba, the member knows that the Manitoba government has been successful in reducing auto theft by 80%. The Manitoba government brought in legislation dealing with the proceeds of crime and has seized 21 houses, starting with the Hells Angels gang house. Those houses are worth about $9 million to the treasury.

Those are things that work. We need to strip away the ideology. The Conservative government is basically following the Ronald Reagan solution of “three strikes and you're out”, filling up American prisons and yet the crime rate has not gone down. Right wing thinkers like Newt Gingrich have come around to our way of thinking saying that the U.S. needs to be smart on crime and that it needs to develop programs that actually work.

It does not matter what jurisdiction is implementing the programs or whether a right wing or left wing government that is implementing the programs, we need to know where it works. If a program works in Quebec, and many programs do, then we should be looking to Quebec as an example of implementation. If a program is working well in Manitoba, we should be looking at Manitoba. We should not be taking the Conservative government's ideological approach of saying that it does not fit within its ideology, that it wants to go back to Ronald Reagan's days and say that “three strikes and you're out” is the way to do it. We have had 25 years of that and we have not had good results to show for it.

The American system is bankrupting itself. Some of the states are in difficult economic times now and have to admit that they were wrong in the first place and are now letting people out of prisons. The Americans should have developed a rehabilitative approach to dealing with drug issues and so on as opposed to putting people in jail for 20 or 30 years.

[Petitions, January 31st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by dozens of Canadians to end Canada's military involvement in Afghanistan.

In May 2008, Parliament passed a resolution to withdraw Canadian Forces by July 2011. The Prime Minister, with agreement 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 the 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.

Polls show that a clear majority 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.

[Democratic Representation Act, December 16th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I have been listening to the member for 20 years and I thought I had left him in Manitoba but now I think I will be listening to him for another 20 years. He certainly has a wealth of experience being part of a caucus of, at one time, 20, then 7, then 2 and then probably 1. He has been in all sorts of roles but it is a different environment here.

The all party committee process in Manitoba started with Gary Filmon and involved all the party leaders. Anytime there was a controversial issue, anything from Meech Lake to Charlottetown to smoking issues, the leaders sent it off to a committee and they managed to solve the issue. I have mentioned this to the government on many occasions but it is not resonating here. However, I am certainly familiar with it when the member talks about it.

In terms of second reading, when a bill went to second reading in the Manitoba legislature, we allowed any member of the public to make a 10-minute presentation and answer a couple of questions. We did not exclude anybody. That is not the way it works here. The committee only invites experts. When we send this bill to committee, which we should do, the committee will not invite all the people who the member thinks would show up, which is what he was used to seeing in the last 20 years. The witness list will be very limited and it will be experts only. That is a big change for him to get used to.

I would invite a response from him on this matter.

[Ensuring Safe Vehicles Imported from Mexico for Canadians Act, December 16th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for his comments on this bill.

I do not believe that the government representative actually answered my question earlier because I was asking him for the studies and backgrounder information that the government would have, and we know the government has it. Any issues dealing with trade and free trade, the government examines in minute detail. It has studies on this and it will know exactly how many cars are projected to be coming into Canada under this program.

My guess is that because we are starting with vehicles that are 10 years and older to begin with, we are going to see very few, if any, but as the years go by toward 2019, newer and newer cars will be allowed in and that in fact may become an issue at that point, so it is incumbent upon the government to give us the studies that it has on this issue.

We want to make certain that it has talked to the motor dealers associations across the country. We have no guarantees that it has done that. My guess is that it has not done that at all at this point.

[Ensuring Safe Vehicles Imported from Mexico for Canadians Act, December 16th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the parliamentary secretary if the government has any studies with respect to how many cars are projected to be imported.

We are starting out with cars that are 10 years old and older. To be honest, I do not really think there are going to be very many involved in this category. However the phase-in over the next few years, up to 2019, when one-year-old cars will be allowed in, may offer greater numbers of vehicles.

To that end, I would also like to ask whether or not the government has done any consulting with motor dealer organizations across the country to, at a minimum, at least inform them of and keep them updated up as to the implementation of this particular measure?

[Petitions, December 16th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by Canadians calling upon the government to end Canada's military involvement in Afghanistan.

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

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 on the Prime Minister to honour the will of Parliament and bring the troops home now.

[World Autism Awareness Day Act, December 15th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to finish my speech on Bill S-211.

Approximately 200,000 Canadians are living with autism spectrum disorder. It is estimated that 1 in every 165 Canadian children born today has ASD, and worldwide the number of diagnoses of autism spectrum disorders is growing as well.

Clearly, early diagnosis is a big help in order to get treatment for people with autism. There is no known cause or cure for autism spectrum disorders. In fact, 192 United Nations representatives agree that World Autism Awareness Day could draw the attention of people across the globe to this neurological disorder that is affecting an increasing number of people.

In 2007, the United Nations General Assembly designated April 2, from 2008 on, as Autism Awareness Day. Canada is a signatory, as members know, to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which maintains that children with disabilities should enjoy a full and decent—

[Standing up for Victims of White Collar Crime Act, December 15th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, even with their 1,200 convictions in the last five years for crimes, versus our five, the Americans are still not satisfied with their system, because under the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which is the regulatory body, they still have had to deal with these issues, such as the Southern Baptist Convention Ponzi scheme, Bernie Madoff and others.

All the evidence seems to point to the fact that there is a coziness that develops between the regulators and the people they are supposed to regulate. They keep hiring people from the companies that they are regulating. They attend the same Christmas parties and go to the same golf tournaments, and that seems to be part of the problem.

If they could appoint or hire people who have a law enforcement type of approach, I think we would all be better off. We would be able to catch these schemes earlier on.

[Standing up for Victims of White Collar Crime Act, December 15th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I listened intently to the member's explanation of how the IMETs were supposed to be working. The fact of the matter is that since they were set up in 2003, and there are six IMETs in place, their record is not all that good. They have only had five convictions in all that time.

When we look at the United States, in that same period of time the U.S. has had 1,200 convictions, including Conrad Black. He committed all of his white collar crimes in Canada, yet it was the Americans who caught him and put him in jail. He is one of the 1,200 in the United States.

Clearly, we have to look at the whole regulatory scheme. The regulation in this country seems to be very lax.

A recent interview in Canadian Business Online magazine quoted certain people on Bay Street as to whom they are afraid of. They said that it was not the Canadian cops they were afraid of, nor was it the Ontario Securities Commission, which they should be afraid of, but it was the United States Securities and Exchange Commission because it has real teeth. Obviously the Americans have a better system and it has shown results by virtue of the fact that 1,200 convictions have occurred in the United States and we have had 5.

What is wrong with the system in this country?