Jim Maloway

[Keeping Canadians Safe (International Transfer of Offenders) Act, April 22nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment the member on his presentation. He has accurately described what the bill is all about. We know this is another PR exercise on the part of the government as far as its criminal justice agenda is concerned.

Just the other day we heard from Mr. Sullivan, the government's victims rights appointee, who after three years is not being reappointed. His criticism of the government is that it is spending too much effort on punishment and it is not worried about the issues involving victims rights. The very issues the government claims to support, he says the government is not giving the type of support to victims that it should be.

We know the system has been working just fine for 30 years. The idea that somehow we should be giving more discretionary power to the minister for a system that is working okay right now does not make any sense whatsoever. Criminals are going to eventually get out of jail in any event from, say, the United States and come back here without any type of training. How is that going to provide any type of safety for the people of this country?

[Petitions, April 22nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is signed by dozens of Canadians. It calls on the Canadian government to match funds personally donated by the citizens of Canada for the victims of the earthquake in Chile. The earthquake in southern Chile occurred on February 27 and was 8.8 in magnitude.

The Chilean Canadian community has been actively raising funds for the last number of weeks. They keep asking me to ask when the Prime Minister is going to treat the victims of the earthquake in Chile the same as he did for the victims of the earthquake in Haiti and match funds personally donated by Canadians to help the victims of the earthquake in Chile.

[Petitions, April 22nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present today. Thousands of Canadians are calling on Parliament to adopt Canada's first air passengers' bill of rights. Bill C-310 would compensate air passengers with all Canadian carriers, including charters, anywhere in the world that they fly.

The bill provides compensation for overbooked flights, cancelled flights and long tarmac delays. It addresses issues such as late and misplaced baggage. It requires all-inclusive pricing by airlines in all of their advertising. The airlines would have to inform passengers of flight changes, either delays or cancellations. The new rules would be posted at the airport and airlines would have to inform passengers of their rights and the process to file for compensation. If the airlines followed the rules, it would cost them nothing.

This legislation has been in effect more or less in this form for the last five years. The question is why Air Canada passengers get better treatment in Europe than they do when they fly in Canada.

The petitioners call on the government to support Bill C-310, which would introduce Canada's first air passengers' bill of rights.

[Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, April 21st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-201 this afternoon. I also was pleased to hear the comments of my good friend from the Bloc and certainly the new critic from the Liberal Party.

As the member from the Bloc has explained, Bill C-201 made it through second reading with the support of the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc. However, when it went to committee, the Conservatives brought in motions and the Liberals abstained, therefore allowing the Liberal motions to pass and derailing the bill.

Now the member has brought back the motions at this stage, which, I guess, points to how tenacious the member is. He explained in his presentation that this has been a five-year effort on his part where he has had thousands of signatures on petitions. I must say that the veterans have an exceptional champion in the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore. I do not know of any other member in the House, past or present, who would go to that sort of effort, spending five years on a bill that involves potentially a royal recommendation. He is as energized now on this issue as I am sure he was five years ago.

It was not a big surprise when I heard the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence make his speech tonight. Before I got ready for this speech I reviewed Hansard on all of the other speakers to the bill in the previous stages. I noticed that the parliamentary secretary was as downcast tonight as he was previously. He has experienced a hornet's nest dealing with this bill sponsored by the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore. Tonight he was talking about how fearful he was of the hundreds and hundreds of emails that would be coming his way tomorrow and the hundreds and hundreds of emails that he had to deal with the last time. I know he is certainly not looking forward to that. The fact is that he has every reason to expect that and should know that is what his party deserves for the way it has acted on this bill.

The Prime Minister was recently in Calgary visiting a food bank for our veterans. The Prime Minister made promises when he was the leader of the opposition. It is easy to make promises but how good is he at keeping these promises? He has been in power now over four years. He promised that he would take care of the agent orange situation. He promised a public inquiry into agent orange. Where is it and when will it happen? It is something that has been swept under the rug and probably will never happen. Certainly, as Brian Mulroney used to say, a sacred trust. This is another broken trust of the government.

Also, we are hearing more stories of veterans hospital beds being closed. I believe the member mentioned some examples today. There may be examples in my home city of Winnipeg as well that the government is contemplating. This is not the signal that the veterans want to hear from the government. They want a government that supports veterans. The member for Sackville—Eastern Shore tells us that 96,000 people are affected by the bill, out of a total of about 700,000 retired military and RCMP personnel.

What we are talking about here is roughly, in a gross sense, around $200 a month. This $200 will be spent by these veterans and will flow right back into the economy, which is exactly what we need in the type of fiscal environment that we are in at this stage. Regardless, even if the economy was not in the fragile state it is right now, if we were in a robust part of the economy, the fact of the matter is that this money going to these people will actually be spent. We are not going to see this money squirreled away, it is going to be spent.

This money is owed to and properly due to people who sacrificed themselves in the military. We all know of military families. We all know of children of military members who spent a whole childhood being moved around, three years here, three years there and changing schools. When they do that, the spouses find it very difficult to get jobs because, as the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore mentioned, employers are reluctant to hire somebody who may only be there for a year or two.

These people end up not setting down roots and not establishing long-term careers. When they find themselves at retirement age, they are at a disadvantage. They are not the only segment of society that is disadvantaged. We have a huge section of the seniors population in the country as a whole who are in a disadvantaged situation right now.

It is incumbent on the government to take action, and to take action on pensions. In the last week our leader explained that if we took, I believe, $700 million, we could raise 400,000 people who are living below the poverty line above the poverty line. Once again, this is all money that will just find its way back into the economy because these people will spend the money. They are not going to squirrel it away, sending it to offshore tax havens or spending it on worldwide cruises and palaces in the Bahamas.

I think that is a much more sensible way to spend our money than to be giving more corporate tax breaks to the banks who, as I have indicated many times before, made $15 billion last year and are paying their CEOs up to $10.5 million a year.

Juxtapose that reality to the reality here. We call ourselves a first world country. We should be much more careful when we say things like that, when we treat our seniors, retirees and veterans the way we do.

For some time I have wanted to invite the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore to Winnipeg because we have active legions in Winnipeg. I have three in my home riding. I have Royal Canadian Legion Transcona Branch No. 7 on Regent Avenue, and I have certainly spent a lot of time there. I also have Royal Canadian Legion Elmwood Branch No. 9 at 920 Nairn Avenue, and I have Royal Canadian Legion Prince Edward Branch No. 81 at 300 Trent. While I was an MLA for 23 years, I certainly attended that legion.

All three of those legions would be thrilled to have the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore appear there to speak to them about veterans' issues because he does such a phenomenal job. He is an inspiration to veterans right across the country. There is basically an open invitation on my part for him to come to Manitoba to talk to veterans. I think that would be time well spent for all concerned.

I want to encourage the three opposition parties to stick together on this bill and get the government on side as well.

[Keeping Canadians Safe (International Transfer of Offenders) Act, April 21st, 2010]

Madam Speaker, the member talked about the enhancement of public safety that the Conservatives want to put in this particular bill.

As the member has rightly pointed out, how would public safety be enhanced if we leave these prisoners in their tin can jails in Texas, as he mentioned, without any treatment? How would the public safety of Canadians benefit when these people get out of prison after serving their sentence without having any sort of treatment and they are back on the streets in Canada? How will that improve public safety in this country?

[Keeping Canadians Safe (International Transfer of Offenders) Act, April 21st, 2010]

Madam Speaker, the member for Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe makes excellent points, both in his speech and his answers to questions. I think we could apply the old adage to the situation with this bill that if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

In the conclusion of the International Transfers Annual Report, 2006-07, it clearly states:

An analysis of the information contained in this report doesn’t only demonstrate that the purpose and the principles of the International Transfer of Offenders Act have been fulfilled; it supports that the International Transfer of Offenders program is consistent with the Mandate of the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) and its Mission Statement in that the program contributes to public safety by actively encouraging and assisting offenders to become law-abiding citizens, while exercising reasonable, safe, secure and humane control. It ensures that offenders are gradually returned to society and that they have the opportunity to participate in programming that targets the factors that may have led to their offence.

This program has been in effect for 30 years. There is no big outcry to make this change. Now the government, for whatever reason, has decided to focus on this particular bill to essentially give more discretionary power to a minister when in fact we currently have procedures in place under the old act which are procedurally based. The question is, why is this necessary?

This bill will go to committee. We could probably make improvements to every single bill in the House, but maybe not the changes the government wants to make. There are probably some other ideas that the Liberal critic, members of the Bloc or the NDP have that could be added to this bill at the committee stage, but I see no need to fix something that has been working fine for 30 years.

[Keeping Canadians Safe (International Transfer of Offenders) Act, April 21st, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I must agree with the comments of the member for Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe in his last question. This bill is largely a PR exercise on the part of the government. The fact that it was introduced before the Prime Minister prorogued the House, setting the whole process back, is once again further proof that the government is not as tough on crime as it suggests it is.

Just last night we had Mr. Sullivan, who for the past three years has been the government's own appointee to look after the rights of victims, criticizing the government and saying that the government was more concerned about punishment than it was with the rights of victims.

We have an act right now that has been working just fine for 30 years. The government now decides, on the basis of one or two cases, that it wants to make these changes and put all of the discretion in the hands of the minister when we in fact have a very good process that works right now and has worked for 30 years. It is politicizing the process so that people like Mr. Radler can get quick entry back into the country, but somebody else who the minister does not like can be quashed. That is not the way to run a justice system.

My question for the member gets back to the whole issue of having these people under treatment when they are in a Canadian prison. He says that they might be attacking other prisoners and guards so we should leave them in the Unites States. The fact is that they will get out of prison in the United States some day without treatment and they will come back to Canada. I would submit to him that they are a bigger danger to public safety when they come back after 10 or 15 years untreated than they would be if we brought them back now and got them treated now.

[Keeping Canadians Safe (International Transfer of Offenders) Act, April 21st, 2010]

Madam Speaker, the critic has done a terrific analysis of the bill. I question the government's commitment to victims. It talks a lot about victims' rights and about how it supports those, but even its own victim's advocate, whom it appointed three years ago and whose contract will not be renewed, indicated last night that he thought the government was not doing what it could for victims, that it was more concerned with sentencing than it was with the rights of the victims. I wonder whether the government even consulted with victims and their groups with regard to the legislation.

How is the government helping victims by leaving criminals untreated in a foreign country? When they come back on their own, which they will eventually, how does that help the victims?

[Keeping Canadians Safe (International Transfer of Offenders) Act, April 21st, 2010]

Madam Speaker, this is just another bill in a long list of Conservative crime bills that show more of a desire for publicity over substance.

For 30 years the transfer of prisoners has occurred in this country in very small numbers. Very few are being rejected. The fact is that people who are brought from other countries go right to jail in Canada where they get into proper rehabilitation programs. If we were to leave them in jails in other countries, they would come back to Canada eventually and they would have had none of the training and rehabilitation they would have received had they been in Canada.

This is all window dressing on the part of the government with an eye on improving its position in the polls. We have to expose that for what it is. Having said that, all bills can be improved in committee and I do not have a problem with that. However, we should be exposing what the government's real intention is. There really is not a problem to be fixed in the first place. The system is working reasonably well but it is another situation that the government can take advantage of for short-term publicity gain.

[Petitions, April 21st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition, signed by dozens of Canadians, calls on the government to match funds personally donated by the citizens of Canada for the victims of the Chilean earthquake.

Members knows that on February 27 an 8.8 magnitude earthquake occurred in southern Chile and the Chilean Canadian community mobilized and held many fundraising events in Winnipeg and across the country to raise money.

People are asking when the Prime Minister will give the same treatment to the Chilean earthquake victims as he did for the victims of the Haitian earthquake and match funds personally donated by Canadians to help the victims of the Chilean earthquake.