Jim Maloway

[National Hunting, Trapping and Fishing Heritage Day Act, June 16th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to finish off the three remaining minutes of my speech regarding Bill C-465. The bill has the full support of everyone in all four parties in the House, so I do not imagine it will present a huge problem to get the bill passed through committee.

One of the aspects of the bill is that it would designate September 30, or perhaps the third Saturday in September, depending on how the committee develops it, as the national hunting, trapping and fishing heritage day. We have to recognize that the United States has had such a heritage day since 1972. With the increased border changes over the last couple of years, with the United States now requiring passports for their citizens to return to the United States and with the global recession still not being quite resolved, there is a lot of pressure on tourism right now in Canada.

As I had been indicated before, in Manitoba, in northwestern Ontario and right across the country the fishing camps, tourist camps and all sorts of other camps are hurting. Numerous camps that rely on American tourists and cross-border tourism are finding that their business is down. I was told that business may be down as much as 30%. Therefore, we need to come to grips with how we can recover from that and get the hunters and fishers back to Canada to keep our industry alive.

One of the ideas that I have pushed in the past, which I know other people support, is that we should work with the Americans to reduce the price of passports. We have had various meetings with United States congresspeople and at every meeting the issue of having a bigger update of people applying for passports has been raised. At our last meetings in February, one congressman indicated that to get passports for just himself and his family was quite an expensive enterprise. We should be working at that level with the United States to try to reduce the cost of the passports to encourage more people to get them so we can get more tourism from the United States.

I cannot believe that my three minutes could possibly be over. I had so much more to talk about. I had some information on the buffalo hunt, which members will know was pointed to as an example of bad hunting practices where 60 million buffalo were practically wiped out. However, it has all been brought back by conservation and farmers and ranchers working to--

[Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation Act, June 16th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-22 for two minutes.

I have to admit that this has been a very long process. I have been reading the Hansard on this bill and previous incarnations of it. This whole process has been about five years now. The computer industry changes very dramatically, so the government and Parliament had better hurry up and get on top of this issue. We may find that by the time we get to where we want to be, a new problem will have presented itself.

In June 2008 the legislative assembly of Manitoba passed a law requiring all persons to report to cybertip.ca any material that could constitute child pornography. Ontario passed a similar law in December 2008. The United States and Australia adopted laws in 2002 and 2005 respectively, imposing this requirement on ISPs.

I will point out some of the benefits of dealing with cybertip.ca. It is currently estimated that over 5 million child sexual abuse images are on the Internet. An analysis of over 12,000 website incidents was done by cybertip.ca. It was looking into the countries that hosted these sites. The United States was number one at 49%. Russia was second at 20%. Canada had a surprising 9% of all the sites. Japan was at 4.4%. South Korea was at 3.6%.

[Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation Act, June 16th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, part of the bill requires that an ISP or other person providing Internet services, when the police is notified, must keep the computer data related to the child pornography offence for 21 days and after that the computer data must be destroyed unless the police have obtained a court order to keep the data.

Other members have drawn attention to this provision and asked the question about whether the 21 days are long enough? I would like to ask the member, as a long standing lawyer and a member of the House, whether he thinks the 21 days would be adequate or is that another provision that we are going to have to change at committee?

[Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation Act, June 16th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the member about the offences in Bill C-22. It seems to me that as an individual the offences are $1,000 for a first offence, $5,000 for a second offence, and evidently $10,000 for a third offence or possibly six months in jail. On the corporate side for companies it is $10,000 for the first offence, $50,000 for a second offence, and $100,000 for three or more offences.

It seems to me that most of the child porn sites would be run by corporations and probably underworld figures. That would be my guess. It seems to me that these amounts of money are not going to deter organized crime. The $10,000 for an offence is just nothing more than the cost of doing business.

I would ask the member whether he has the same sort of concerns about the offences in the bill and whether or not, at committee, we might look at perhaps increasing those penalties?

[Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation Act, June 16th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for another excellent speech on this bill. I think I heard roughly the same speech last November.

Last November the member for Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe talked about how Brazil had set up an ethics rules basis for ISPs. More importantly he talked about how Germany and Sweden blocked the child porn sites.

It seems to me to be very wasteful for us to have spent five years on this, and it will probably be another five years before we get this legislation through the House. The minister announced she was putting $42 million into more police activity to play cat and mouse with a bunch a criminals who are simply going to move to another jurisdiction when they are close to being caught.

We could solve the whole problem. If Sweden has blocked it and Germany has blocked it, why would we not simply short-circuit this whole tortuous route that we are following here and simply do what they are doing and block it?

Have those programs for blocking it been successful? When did they start? What can the member tell us about what is happening in Germany and Sweden?

[Fairness for Military Families (Employment Insurance) Act, June 16th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-13 on behalf of my party.

I want to say at the outset that the military looks for young people as recruits. It is not looking for older people my age. The military attracts and advertises to a younger group of people who are not really joining for the benefits and who do not necessarily understand what they are getting into, at the end of the day. They may think, perhaps wrongly, that they are going to be taken care of if they fulfill their mission and something befalls them in the process.

Therefore, I think it is a positive sign, unlike in World War I and World War II, when we had cases of post traumatic stress and suicide and these issues tended to be ignored, covered up, and downplayed as signs of weakness on the part of individuals.

In today's environment, certainly since the end of the gulf war, we are seeing more interest in post-traumatic stress disorder issues. It is definitely something we have to look at. The military personnel have to be made aware that we are prepared to look after them a little more than we have in the past.

I have a 23-year-old son in the reserves. As a matter of fact, he moved to Kingston on June 1, and he will be going to Afghanistan in November. He is not concerned about these issues, even though he is aware of the statistics and so on. People in his position are not necessarily preoccupied with what could possibly happen.

However, those of us who have been around for a while know historically that there is a certain percentage of people who will develop problems in a war environment. Therefore, we have to prepare ourselves to take care of those instances.

I know that the Bloc member who just spoke gave some statistics. About 4% of soldiers have suicidal tendencies when they come back from Kandahar, and 15% have mental health issues. The member wants us to look at perhaps a more comprehensive approach to the EI program.

Since the employment insurance system was set up in the 1940s, we have seen a positive progression of the system to the point where, in the 1970s, the system was very open, and many people were able to take advantage of it. However, it was curtailed and cut back somewhat in the last number of years. We saw for the first time, I believe it was the first time, a sitting government take money, take the surpluses from the EI system and use them to pay down the deficit. We saw that to the tune of $57 billion.

One might ask what is wrong with that. The answer is that the money does not belong to the government. It is money that is raised from the workers themselves and that is matched by the companies that employ them. Therefore, it is not right for the government to be using that money essentially as a source of revenue to pay down the debt of the country. It is essentially robbing the workers and the employers of these contributions.

Now that we have gone through a very large recession over the last year, it has become clear that there are some problems with employment insurance that need to be fixed. We have seen some measures on the part of the government. Last year, $1 billion, which was agreed to by the government and the NDP, funded measures for self-employed people under Bill C-56.

We have had several bills introduced in the House. The question is why we are doing this in a piecemeal fashion. It is not dissimilar to the crime agenda of the government. Rather than introducing those bills on a one-off basis, in a boutique sort of fashion, we asked why the government did not, as it did for the budget implementation bill, which by the way we did not agree with, simply put all these changes in an omnibus bill, bring it to Parliament, and make up for 100 years of inaction on much-needed reforms in the Criminal Code. The same approach should happen here.

We should deal with all these issues in one big bill. The bill is, of course, being supported unanimously in the House. However, my friend, the member for Winnipeg Centre, pointed out initially, when the bill was introduced, that this was something that probably could have been done simply through an administrative measure, perhaps through an order in council.

It affects perhaps 50 to 60 soldiers a year. The cost of the program is around $500,000 to $600,000 a year. Basically, it amends the Employment Insurance Act to extend the benefit period, the period of duration of parental benefits, for Canadian Forces members whose period of parental leave is deferred or who are directed to return to duty from parental leave. That was an oversight in our system in the past. The Conservative member who introduced the bill was certainly attentive to that missing part, so he introduced this bill. It is very positive from his point of view.

Our critic, the member for Acadie—Bathurst, brought in an amendment. We thought it was a good suggestion, and we still do, that would allow the bill to apply to the RCMP and police forces, because there are several members from the police forces and the RCMP who travel with our regular forces and our reserves when they go into theatre. There are also some who are in Haiti at the moment. We feel that they should be covered under the bill as well. The Liberal members also seem to be agreeable to that. For whatever reason, at committee, that particular amendment was not adopted. I am really not sure why that would have been a problem. Nevertheless, it was not adopted.

The fact of the matter is that it is time for us to sit back. We have to proceed, obviously, and pass the bill today, but we have to have the government, or a new government, at some point in time, do a comprehensive study. It should not be one that takes a decade, but at least do a comprehensive study of the EI program. Get input from all of the interested parties. Bring in a comprehensive approach to EI so that we can get away from this piecemeal approach to EI reform, which is basically predicated on the basis of what sort of press conference or press coverage we can get on a limited measure on a certain day. That is not what the public of the country sent us here to do. That is not the way they want us to approach the legislative agenda of the country. They want to see a comprehensive plan for EI. They want to see a comprehensive plan for other sectors of our country as well.

[Petitions, June 16th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to present a petition signed by dozens of Canadians who call upon the government to reverse Health Canada's decision of March 19, 2010, that beverage companies will be allowed to add up to 75% of the caffeine allowed in the most highly caffeinated colas to all soft drinks. Soft drinks have been designed and marketed toward children for generations. Canadians are very concerned about children drinking coffee in colas, as they acknowledge caffeine is an addictive stimulant.

[Hi Neighbour Festival, June 16th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, on Saturday, June 5, it was my pleasure to participate in the annual Hi Neighbour Festival and parade in Transcona and to celebrate its 45th anniversary. It was also an opportunity to celebrate the new home of the festival's committee mascot, Hi Neighbour Sam.

Hi Neighbour Sam is an 11-foot statue that was commissioned in 1968 and built by local artist, Giorgio Barone, one of the many workers who helped build the national railway system and moved here to establish the historic Canadian Railway settlement of Transcona.

Hi Neighbour Sam now commands the center boulevard of Regent Avenue, greeting citizens as they cross the traditional boundary of Plessis Road into what was once the official town of Transcona.

Congratulations to the people of Transcona and to the members of the Transcona Business Improvement Zone who led the search for Hi Neighbour Sam's new home and for their good work in organizing a wonderful Hi Neighbour Festival.

[Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights, June 15th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I must admit that I am enjoying this debate a lot and I have not even started speaking to the bill.

I want to point out for the voters in the riding of the member for Edmonton—Strathcona that they certainly got a bargain when they chose her as their member. She is extremely energetic. I do not think she ever sleeps. She constantly works and puts top effort into it.

It is interesting to note that the government has used every means at its disposal to try to derail this bill. On May 6, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons told the Speaker that the bill required a royal recommendation. That is a government manoeuvre to slow down a bill because a private member's bill cannot call on the government to expend money. Governments draw long bows in many cases and look for obscure arguments to try to get bills ruled out of order on the basis that they need a royal recommendation.

Like the road runner in the cartoon, the member for Edmonton—Strathcona has gone through the government's defences. The Conservatives lost their request to the Speaker. The Speaker ruled in favour of the member for Edmonton--Strathcona, so it is now onward and upward with this bill. I believe the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc are all united in support of Bill C-469. The government's best laid plans have gone awry and that is good news.

Bill C-469, An Act to establish a Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights, would be a first for Canada. I support this historic federal bill, which would enshrine the right of all Canadians to a healthy environment.

Rights are a reflection of what matters most to a society. At this point in history, few things pose a greater risk to the health and well-being of individuals and communities than the health of our planet. We only have to look at what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico right now. If that is not a wake-up call, then I do not know what is.

Recognition of environmental rights is a global phenomenon. National governments are stepping forward to recognize some form of right to a healthy environment in national constitutions. It has been pointed out that 130 countries recognize the right to a healthy environment in their constitutions.

We only have to look back to the recent past to see what happened after the fall of the Soviet Union. Rivers were polluted and the Chernobyl meltdown caused much devastation. We discovered that the military was dumping nuclear waste into the ocean. Even the American military has done such things in the past.

People demanded changes. They realized we cannot sustain ourselves in a toxic environment. There have been rising cancer rates among farmers across this land. There have been increasing movements to restrict cosmetic pesticides, to identify chemicals in things like perfume.

People are taking a positive approach to the environment and holding industry to account, and that rankles the Conservatives. Big business dislikes any type of tough environmental regulations because it hits it on the bottom line. Many businesses would like to move all production to the Third World, and they have certainly done a lot of it, but they cannot just pack up and take everything away. They will fight all attempts to hold them accountable in terms of tough environmental laws.

International bodies, regional authorities, and local municipalities all over this planet are declaring the right to clean air, clean water, and uncontaminated land. In fact, our environmental rights are enjoyed in over half the countries in the world, through either international agreements or the provisions of national constitutions.

The first document in international law to recognize the right to a healthy environment was only written in 1972, just a short time ago. The Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, also known as the Stockholm Declaration, was adopted June 16, 1972 at the 21st plenary meeting of the United Nations.

The first principle of the Stockholm Declaration states:

Man has the fundamental right to freedom, equality and adequate conditions of life, in an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well-being, and he bears a solemn responsibility to protect and improve the environment for present and future generations.

Since the adoption of the Stockholm Declaration, the world has seen a huge shift toward confirming environmental rights. Today a proliferation of international law agreements and at least 85 national constitutions recognize some form of right to a healthy environment. Environmental rights are also enshrined in the sub-national constitutions of many nations, such as state constitutions and provincial charters.

I might point out that it is disasters like the BP experience in the United States that will actually drive the agenda. We cannot see a lot of good coming out of a disaster like this, but it will actually set the legislative agenda, certainly in the United States, and probably in other countries around the world. It will pull a lot of people, a lot of politicians who are in the middle, onside and will make them recognize that we have to take a very tough position against the corporations.

In many respects, we cannot blame the corporations for wanting to maximize profits, as long as we have a system in our country that rewards the maximization of profits at all costs and rewards the executives with bonuses based on how efficient the system is and how lean and mean they run the company. They lay off the inspectors. They lay off the professionals. They operate with skeleton staff at the lowest possible cost to maximize profits so that they can get bigger bonuses. Any kind of environmental consideration is basically thrown by the wayside. Clearly, appealing to their good sense and corporate responsibility is not going to work. To rein in these corporations, they have to be legislated, and the legislation has to be followed up with proper enforcement and proper penalties.

These rights are further upheld by the national and sub-national legislation of many nations as well as by the declarations of countless local governments. Despite this global trend, environmental rights remain largely unconfirmed in Canada. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms does not address environmental protection or environmental health. In fact, environmental rights are recognized by only four provincial and territorial laws: Quebec, Ontario, Northwest Territories, and Yukon.

Environmental rights recognize and seek to protect the quality and health of the environment that is essential to human life and dignity. For example, the constitution of Argentina recognizes that all inhabitants should enjoy the right to a healthy and balanced environment that is fit for human development so that productive activities satisfy current needs without compromising those of future generations. They also have the duty to preserve the environment. Damaging the environment generates the obligation to repair it, and as a priority, in the manner established by law.

I had another example from the Philippines. A court in the Philippines has ordered a cleanup of the highly polluted Manila harbour, based on the constitutional right to a balanced and healthy ecology. There is also a case from Costa Rica, where a constitutional court ordered a halt to the unsustainable sea turtle fishery based on the constitutional right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment.

As we can see, it can be done if we have a will to do it, and I think that we are getting there, little by little. We are getting there.

[Balanced Refugee Reform Act, June 15th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to stand today to recognize the minister, the NDP critic and the members of the opposition parties, the Bloc and the Liberals, for accomplishing something very substantial in a minority government.

I want to quote from an article in the Canadian Encyclopedia for the year 2000 regarding comments on the previous Liberal minority government of Pearson just to show what a minority government can accomplish. It reads as follows:

For all its superficial chaos--

Does that sound familiar?

-- the Pearson government left behind a notable legacy of legislation: a Canada Pension Plan, a universal medicare system, a unified armed force, a new flag and a revised transport Act.

I could read another quote but I will not. The fact is that minority government accomplished much more in that period than many majority governments. I hope this will be a new beginning in terms of working in a minority situation to get things done.