Jim Maloway

[Air Passengers' Bill of Rights, June 15th, 2010]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-541, An Act respecting the rights of air passengers.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to introduce Canada's first air passenger bill of rights. The bill relates to laws and regulations already in place in Europe and the United States. This is a newly amended version of Bill C-310 and continues to focus on compensation for overbooked flights, cancelled flights, unreasonable tarmac delays, delayed flights and many other provisions. It would also require all-inclusive pricing, that being the total cost of a trip, and airline advertising.

The new version incorporates amendments suggested by the other parties during the first bill's year-long journey through the debates and committee rooms of Parliament. It now includes the following; it clarifies the process by which the airlines can appeal to the Canadian Transportation Agency to decide whether delays are caused by decisions made by an airport authority or other agencies; and it reduces compensation from the first bill for tarmac delays from $500 to $100 per hour but only up to the ticket price, and for denied boarding and cancelled flights by 50%, to $250, $400 and $600, depending on the length of the flight, and only up to the price of the ticket.

I introduced my first air passengers' bill of rights to Parliament just months before the Obama administration began changing its regulations and fining airlines for what was considered unfair treatment of passengers involving tarmac delays. The American fines now add up to $27,500 per passenger for tarmac delays over three hours, with the money going to the government.

My bill has always been much more moderate in compensation, with the money going to the paying passengers who suffer the inconvenience. The bill is not meant to punish the airline industry but merely to correct bad behaviour. If the airlines follow the rules, they will not have to pay any compensation.

Air Canada and Air Transit are already operating under these kinds of laws for their flights to Europe. Today, Canadian passengers get better treatment when they fly to Europe than when they fly in Canada. Canadians want to know why they should not get first class treatment--

[Multiple Sclerosis, June 14th, 2010]

Mr. Chair, it seems to me that the more I listen to the debate here, the more the government is actually losing ground. It has lost ground vis-à-vis the provinces over the last year.

It seems to me that we should be taking the member for Etobicoke North and putting her in charge of the program because I think she has a better potential for getting the premiers and the health ministers across the country on side and getting a program.

I mentioned before that on H1N1, the government had a plan. It got the provinces together, albeit not all of the provinces were on the same page but the government got them together and the program was delivered in a timely fashion.

The government should be able to do the same thing here. It is just incapable of getting the job done.

[Multiple Sclerosis, June 14th, 2010]

Mr. Chair, the fact is that there was no action plan mentioned at all in the member's speech. I think people watching television and those in the gallery tonight want an action plan from the government. They want to hear that the minister will take an aggressive stance and position, call the provincial ministers to a meeting and establish a plan to proceed, not let this whole issue carry on for another six months or year, which is what will happen.

We will be having this debate a year from now with all kinds of excuses from the minister and the government as to why they could not do this or that. If they could run a successful H1N1 program, show some direction and get the job done with the provinces, why can they not do the same thing with MS?

[Multiple Sclerosis, June 14th, 2010]

Mr. Chair, the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound gave a very good presentation. While I agree with him, I have to point out that I see a big difference between how the government reacted to the H1N1 situation versus how it has reacted to the situation with respect to MS.

If I recall, the health minister got representatives of all the provinces in a room and they worked out a plan to vaccinate the population of Canada. They did the advertising. They had it all planned out and it worked very well, I thought. The same sort of approach should be done here. We have known about Dr. Zamboni's treatment probably for a year.

I would encourage the members opposite, including the member who just spoke, to get the minister moving. She should be active with the provincial ministers of health. Let us get some action.

I was a provincial member in Manitoba for 23 years and I realize the importance of the provinces. They do not all act in concert with one another, but I think the MS Society and MS activists should be working very heavily on the provinces because that is where they are going to get action. We here have to get the group together to get the job done.

[Multiple Sclerosis, June 14th, 2010]

The minister said yes. Has anyone been worse off as a result of this treatment? That would cause some pause if it is a very risky treatment.

I am sure there is some issue here with insurance companies because we cannot go very far in life without dealing with insurance companies. Certainly the hospitals and doctors have to answer to their malpractice insurers and this procedure would probably have to be approved by them.

I would like to know from someone here in the debate how many people have been treated, how many people have benefited, and how many people have had an adverse reaction or died. That would give us a better idea of where things are going. Ultimately, if the government does not get its act together in Canada, people are going to do what they are doing. They are simply going to get the procedure elsewhere.

[Multiple Sclerosis, June 14th, 2010]

Madam Chair, I would be very interested in knowing how many patients Dr. Zamboni and others have treated at this point and what the results have been. What is the efficacy of the treatment so far? Has anyone died as a result of this treatment?

[Protecting Victims From Sex Offenders Act, June 14th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, a Conservative member said that they are going to have a majority government. I say dream on. That is never going to happen with that government. The reality is that things are getting a little bit desperate over there because they know that time is not on their side. The Conservatives are finishing their fifth year in government now. While things may look reasonably rosy relatively speaking, when one starts adding months and years to their longevity in government, there is a certain time when things are going to start to fall and they will not be able to regain.

My point is that that is the agenda they are following and it causes problems for the legislative agenda. The political agenda rules over the legislative agenda. The Conservatives could care less about the legislative agenda. They are really looking at it in terms of the day-to-day politics, how well they can do in the polls and what they can gain out of it. That is not how they should be governing in terms of the legislative agenda with respect to crime. The police forces need action now. The public deserves better from the government. It deserves an intelligent, smart on crime approach, which it is not getting from the government.

In terms of the other provisions of this bill, it also expands the registry to include those convicted of sexual offences outside Canada. That is very important given the identification of sex tourism. It probably existed for many years, but it has only come to public attention over the last decade or so. I think we could all agree that is an excellent improvement to the registry.

Another excellent improvement is the expansion of the type of information included in the registry, including necessary administrative fields that are currently absent.

Another positive aspect would be allowing the police to notify authorities in other foreign and Canadian jurisdictions when a registered sex offender will be travelling to their area.

There are also various administrative changes to improve coordination and communication between different agencies.

There was some mention in terms of information such as the identification of the type of car that was being driven and a certain expansion of information regarding the offenders that is not currently allowed in the registry. There is no point in having information in a registry that does not allow the police to get proper information. It is very important to have information such as phone numbers and car identification.

[Protecting Victims From Sex Offenders Act, June 14th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to speak to this bill. I have to say at the outset that I was very impressed with the approach of my friend, the member for Edmonton—St. Albert, to the bill. If the Conservatives put him in charge of the justice agenda, we might see better results than we are seeing right now. I do not know how much better, I do not want to go too far, but from what I have seen so far, he would be a big improvement on the front bench on that side. I would change some of the management if I were at the top over there, but I am not, of course.

This bill is one which we will support going to committee at second reading. We will examine it further and look at potential amendments. There is not a lot that I personally see wrong with the bill. The statutory review of the sex offender information registry by the public safety committee was under way with a confidential draft report having been circulated to the committee members on May 29. Despite this, typical of the government, in the same vein that it proceeded with the pardon issue, it chose to table the changes to the registry on June 1 in the form of Bill C-34.

In terms of the key aspects of this legislation, one of the major provisions is the mandatory registration of those convicted of a designated sexual offence. Currently, registration must be applied for by the prosecutor and granted by the judge. If an application is made, an order shall be issued, unless the offender can show that the impact on his liberty is grossly disproportionate to the public interest in protecting society.

The second aspect to the legislation provides for mandatory DNA sampling of those convicted of a designated sexual offence. Currently, the sampling must be applied for by the prosecutor and granted by the judge.

Another aspect of the legislation is the expanding of the police's ability to access the registry for crime prevention purposes. Currently, police can only access the registry to investigate a crime that has occurred with reasonable belief that it is sexual in nature. In terms of crime prevention, this is a matter that was mentioned by several other members this afternoon. I believe this is part of the Ontario legislation. I am looking to the member for Edmonton—St. Albert for confirmation on that. I believe that the ability to look at crime prevention is in the Ontario legislation and that has provided the impetus for us to look at that as an improvement to the federal act.

All we have to do is look at the statistics between the two pieces of legislation to see that the Ontario legislation has a much higher number of people on the registry than the federal registry does. Police evidently have a much greater appreciation and respect for the Ontario registry than they do for the federal registry.

The federal registry has been around for a number of years. Once again, the member for Edmonton—St. Albert pointed out that in 1997 the premiers and attorneys general of the day got together with the federal government and there was a lot of early co-operation which started this process moving. We owe it to our predecessors for having the foresight to move, but it was the province of Ontario that was the first to proceed. It appears to be the template for the federal legislation.

It is important to note that once the federal legislation was in force, there was to be a review process. That is what Parliament was engaged in when the government decided to bring in its own legislation. Once again, the government is short-circuiting the process, much as it did with the pardon legislation.

Many members have spoken about the process of the Prime Minister proroguing the House and having us start over again. I believe that the member for Churchill spoke at length about the potential for having omnibus legislation, as much as we do not like it. When it comes to Criminal Code changes, our justice critic, the member for Windsor—Tecumseh has spoken several times about the need to revise the entire Criminal Code of Canada. It is long overdue and it is a huge act.

We should take an omnibus approach to the bill. This would be an argument for that approach. We would include all of the amendments to the Criminal Code in one omnibus bill and bring the Criminal Code up to date, rather than what the Conservatives are doing. They are bringing the Criminal Code amendments in one at a time in a boutique approach so that they can get a press release and a bump in the polls for each and every initiative. In fact, they should just include them in one big omnibus bill and be done with it.

The difference between that approach and the idea of using omnibus bills in terms of budget implementation is that the Conservatives use the omnibus approach and go way beyond budget implementation. They throw in the post office remailers, the sale of AECL, and on and on. We are talking about an omnibus bill that would deal with Criminal Code changes and all of these particular issues. Then we would not have this constant problem of being stuck with prorogation and election calls.

If things go well at the summits and the numbers start to improve in the next few weeks, knowing that their long-term future is not so rosy, the Conservatives may decide to cut their losses and call an election in September. We would be at it again and all of these bills would be back at square one and after the election we would have to go through this whole process again.

[Protecting Victims From Sex Offenders Act, June 14th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, we spoke today about Steve Sullivan, the federal ombudsman for victims of crime. The government hired him with great fanfare and three years later it would not renew his contract because he began to criticize the government as not being supportive of victims of crime.

For example, earlier this year, when Steve Sullivan testified at the public safety committee, he spoke about the need for the government to fund child advocacy centres in major cities across the country. These centres were to provide counselling, support, referrals and other resources for child victims of crime, particularly victims of sexual abuse. These centres would have been a concrete and meaningful way to improve the lives of victims. We know that many sex offenders were themselves sexually abused, so child advocacy centres would be an important part of preventing future sex offences. The victims' ombudsman asked for $5 million to fund these centres, but the government refused.

The government has $1 billion for security at the G8 and is closing prison farms, but it cannot afford $5 million for these very important centres.

Would the member like to make some comments about the government's lack of direction?

[Eliminating Pardons for Serious Crimes Act, June 14th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, the government undercut one of its own members. The member for Surrey North spent a lot of time putting together Motion No. 514, in which she stated:

That the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security be instructed to undertake a review of the Criminal Records Act and report to the House within three months on how it could be strengthened to ensure that the National Parole Board puts the public's safety first in all its decisions.

This motion went through the process. It sat on the order paper. It came up for debate a few weeks ago. The member was able to present it. We were able to speak to it. However, her own government undercut her. It pulled the rug out from under her. It short-circuited the process by introducing Bill C-23.

Is that any way for a government to be treating its own members, especially one who has credibility on an issue like this in the first place? The government also did its own review in 2006. The former public safety minister did a review and at the end of the day decided that everything was fine with the system.

Once again, I would like to ask the member what he thinks about the government's lurching back and forth with no direction on this issue and many other issues in the House.