Joe Comartin

[Ending the Long-gun Registry Act, October 27th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I have been involved with this file since I became the justice critic for my party in 2003, a little over eight and a half years ago. It is the one file that I can point to where there is very much misinformation, and I have to say that almost all of it is coming from the Conservative side of this chamber.

Any number of other countries have taken the same route that we have. Over a period of time, we have moved from total non-regulation of firearms to significant incursions into the right to own a firearm and how a firearm could be used. It has been a progression.

Today, if the bill becomes law, we wil be going through a regressive stage. It would be a regressive stage for this country and a regressive stage in the international arena.

I will start my comments today by describing how irresponsible this move by the government is on the international stage.

We have signed an international treaty through the United Nations that requires us, starting in 2012, to report annually all of the small firearms in the country. If the bill becomes law, we would have absolutely no way to meet that requirement. We have also signed an agreement with the Organization of American States that binds us, again, to issue a report each year on the number of small arms in the country. In both cases, this is an attempt by the international community, and I think a reasoned and progressive attempt, to bring the trade in small arms weaponry under control.

We see what happens when it gets out of control. We do not have to go off the continent; we simply have to look at the massacres occurring in Mexico at the current time. Weaponry is being smuggled in from the United States and, in one case, transferred by a government agency.

We are seeing regular massacres, but these weapons could be controlled. The United States has come online with the agreement and signed it, and so has Mexico. We are going to see some reasonable attempt to control the use of small arms on this continent because of these treaties.

However, we would not be part of that if the bill becomes law. Again, it is grossly irresponsible. I have yet to hear anything from the government as to how it is going to deal with this problem. The government not only would not keep the records, but it would totally destroy the records. There is absolutely no way we would be able to meet the international requirements that I assume we signed in good faith.

I will go on to what the member for Portage—Lisgar terms the “myths” that have grown up around the gun registry.

It is false to attribute the figure of $2 billion entirely to the registration of long guns in this country. That is grossly overinflated. In 2006-07 the Auditor General had a figure of $900 million to develop not only the long gun registry but the registry of handguns and prohibited weapons and the licensing of individuals for the right to own a gun. It was a package. At that time the cost was around $900 million.

By 2010, that figure was moving toward about $1.2 billion.

The $2 billion figure actually comes from one of the proponents of this legislation from the Conservative side. He has, in effect, made up numbers, making some gross assumptions on police expenses for using the system. It is a fallacious type of analysis in terms of any meaningful economic analysis of the use of the system. That is where the figure comes from, and again, it is grossly fallacious in terms of what it has actually cost.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety said we cannot believe any figures, but I am prepared to believe the $4 million figure on what it is costing now on an annual basis. That figure came initially out of a report from the Auditor General. It was confirmed repeatedly in annual reports from the RCMP.

The parliamentary secretary sat in the same hearings I did over the last 18 months. She heard the RCMP officials give that figure on a repeated basis. She never was able to challenge them with regard to that $4 million figure, nor has anyone else. Officials know how the system works. They know how much it is costing, which is $4 million annually for the registration of long guns in this country. That is the current figure. That is all we are going to save if we get rid of the long gun registry, $4 million. The $4 million figure is from the RCMP, and it is valid. No one could challenge the RCMP on it at committee.

One of the costs the Conservatives never talk about is how much it is going to cost to destroy the records.

I spent a fair amount of time working with the people who work in the registry. They described to me what they are going to have to do. One of the costs in that $1.2 billion figure over the years occurred when we merged the two systems. We used to have one system of registration of handguns and prohibited weapons and another separate system for the long gun registry. We eventually merged them around 2005. As we were doing that, we created a single system. That is where some of the problems were: when we did that, we identified a number of dates of registration and other information, such as addresses, that were not correct. That situation has been progressively corrected over the last five years.

We merged those two. To now take them apart is going to require an estimated two to five persons per year for a two-year period, and it will cost millions of dollars, because we cannot just destroy the whole system, because doing so would destroy the registration of handguns and prohibited weapons. It would have to be done on an individual registration basis, and it is going to take that long and cost that much.

[Ending the Long-gun Registry Act, October 27th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, what we are faced with today is really interesting. Back on October 1, 2002, the current Prime Minister made this statement with regard to the Liberal government of the day. He stated:

The government has used closure and time allocation more frequently than any previous government.

The interesting thing about that is that, at that point, October 1, 2002, there were 212 sitting days in the 37th Parliament and the Liberal government of the day had moved time allocation nine times over 212 days. The current Conservative government has now moved time allocation for the fifth time in 35 days.

Is the House leader trying to match the record set by the previous Liberal government or is he willing to look at his practice and say that it is wrong for democracy and give us more time for debate?

[Points of Order, October 26th, 2011]

My colleague from St. John's mentions that the government always talks about red tape reduction, when in fact in this case it is just piling it on for ideological reasons in its ongoing attack against the labour movement in this country.

Let me conclude with these few remarks. This precedent with Bill C-317, for all intents and purposes, allows private members' bills to increase taxes on entities that are covered by these income tax laws by putting a hair trigger on those requirements. That is exactly what is happening here.

It goes contrary to the spirit and the letter, I believe, of the Standing Orders of this place. I am confident that once you, Madam Speaker, have reviewed all the arguments you will agree.

I once again renew my request to the Chair that what has happened up to this point with regard to Bill C-317 be dismissed from the record of this House and that Bill C-317 be found to be out of order, and not allowed to proceed on to second reading.

Bill C-317 is currently scheduled for the first hour of debate as a private member's bill on November 4, so it will be necessary for the Chair to give us a ruling on this before that date.

[Points of Order, October 26th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, this is a continuation of an argument on a point of order that I raised last Tuesday and which was responded to by the member for South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale yesterday. The point of order I raised at that time was with regard to Bill C-317. It is an act to amend the Income Tax Act as it affects labour organizations in this country.

When I raised the point of order, I asked the Speaker at the time that he rule that the proceedings to date under Bill C-317, standing in the name of the member for South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, that the introduction and first reading has not respected the provisions of our Standing Orders and is therefore null and void, and that he direct that the order for second reading of Bill C-317 be discharged and the bill be withdrawn from the order paper.

I will summarize that quickly. What I was asking for and continue to ask for is a ruling that the bill, in effect, is improperly before the House and should not even have made to this stage, so we should be taking it off the order paper and not allow it to proceed into the future.

My objections to the bill were laid out on the grounds that the bill would have the effect of creating taxpayers where ones did not exist before.

This, of course, is the sole prerogative of the ministers of the Crown and cannot be done through private members' business.

The attempt here, by doing it through a private member's bill, is clearly contrary to all sorts of precedents where governments, when they are doing this, do it through the form of a government bill, a ways and means motions and a budget bill.

In his remarks, the member for South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale attempted to discredit the arguments that I presented on October 18.

Over many years in the legal field and in the courts of this country, I came to recognize that type of argument, that type of case presented by an opponent counsel. It always represents the last gasp of a lost argument, which is what we saw yesterday. It was a bit disturbing. I felt that he had misrepresented and, in one case, actually misquoted my words, attributing words to me that I did not say. He also ignored my most substantial argument. Finally, he held on for dear life to the straws of a paraphrased reference while ignoring the actual precedent on which the reference was based.

Madam Speaker, if you go back and look at my original argument, you will see the distinguishment I was making in that regard.

In his brief remarks he said:

My colleague also raised the issue of my bill creating a “new class of taxpayer”. According to the Income Tax Act....

He said that was what I said. He went on from there and spent the next 276 words of his response critiquing my apparent reference to the creation of a new class of taxpayers, as though it were the crux of my argument, which it was not at all.

Unfortunately, the member opposite attributed to me that I used the word “class” only one time. He repeated it I do not know how many times in his argument. I used the word only once. When I used that word, he appeared to have completely lost that context that was coming forth or he ignored it. I used it to point out that the guideline for determining whether or not a ways and means motion was necessary, and I was quoting from the House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition at page 900 where it uses the words, “extension of a tax to a new class of taxpayer”.

The root of that reference is Beauchesne, not me, who does not use the words “class of taxpayer” at all. In quoting me in such a way would be a similar way of me saying that he agreed with my case where, in a fragment of one of his sentences he said, “It is accepted that the bill may have the effect claimed by my colleague”. That is the kind of argument he was making. It was completely out of context and it was quite erroneous of the argument I was placing before the Speaker on October 18.

Such a selective use of quotes would be irresponsible and misleading, as it was when my colleague opposite did so yesterday.

Madam Speaker, while clearly lost on the member opposite, I am confident that you will see the marked difference between the paraphrasing he used for my argument, “a class of taxpayer”, and the actual reference from Beauchesne's, which states, “an extension of the incidence of a tax so as to include persons not already payers”. The difference between them may seem negligible but, in this case, it means the difference between it being eligible for a private member's bill or being required to be brought forth by way of a ways and means motion by the government of the day and, therefore, ineligible for a private member's bill.

The member went on in his remarks to counter my assertion that a member of a labour organization's dues were actually discretionary. This one actually blew me away in the sense of the level of lack of knowledge on the part of the member. He was arguing that the fees that union members pay were akin to the contributions one makes to a charitable organization. They are not.

I know very well that union members are required by the laws of this country, if they are represented by a union,to pay union dues. This came out of the Rand Formula, which came out of the city of Windsor as a result of a Ford strike back in 1946. It was a long fight. It is very much a major part of the history of this country. Mr. Justice Rand at that time was appointed to deal with it. He created the Rand Formula, which makes it mandatory for members of unions to pay dues. It is not a choice.

This was what he said, and it blew me away. He said:

—union members whose union has lost its tax exempt status for refusing to disclose have the right to exercise certain options. Those options include the option to be represented by another union....

That is totally false. It is not how the labour relations system in this country functions at all. An individual union member cannot just go across the street and tell another union that he or she now wants to be a member of that union and ask that it represent him or her. It does not work that way. The argument is really at the level of being preposterous.

Labour unions or organizations are democratically elected by their members. It is very similar to a government in that respect. There is a formal election process. I wonder if the member would feel that the taxes citizens pay to the federal government are discretionary in this sense as well. The answer to that is obvious: it is not at all discretionary. It is not discretionary for people to pay their taxes and it is not discretionary for people to pay their union dues.

As I said, after his remarks yesterday, his efforts to discredit my remarks had virtually no substance and my argument today confirms that. There was one exception to that and that was his contention that his bill did not actually change the tax rules. This was basically a new point that he had raised. I will summarize what he said. He said that it made the provisions of financial disclosure that must be followed that much more stringent, so it was not changing things. I disagree strongly with that interpretation, but the argument got me thinking about what door we would be opening if in fact, Madam Speaker, you found that line of argument persuasive

I will now take this idea close to the limits of its application. There are provisions in the Income Tax Act that, if broken, revoke the tax benefits of businesses, charities or non-profits, just like the one dealt with in this bill. The member for South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale asserts that no ways and means motion is required for amending the rules which would trigger the loss of those benefits.

Just last month, in September, the government adjusted some of the tax benefit rules in its second budget implementation act, specifically the rules around the business partnerships that allow taxes to be deferred within the partnership arrangements. In fact, what happened with regard to that change in benefits was that the government tabled a ways and means motion ahead of the bill being presented. That is what is required in that circumstance. It is what is required in the circumstances that we are dealing with in Bill C-317.

I do not want to be extreme in my examples regarding the ability to allow this type of an amendment. However, we have to look at the door that we would potentially open here. I say that from this vantage point.

A few years ago, as part of the G8 preparatory meetings, I happened to be in Russia and in the course of the meetings we met with a number of human rights groups, set up by our embassy there. Human rights groups were showing the leadership of that country, at that time, taking extreme measures, and I equate that to some degree with what we are seeing here. We are certainly away ahead of where this bill would be, but it is along the same slippery slope.

What Russia was doing was imposing such onerous requirements on the human rights groups to report and report that even large organizations were having to spend anywhere from 25% to 50% of their human resources and budgets on this reporting function. It made it virtually impossible for them to continue to function. The law was just coming into effect at that point, but since then a number of the organizations have collapsed under the weight of that kind of rule.

We could see the same thing happening if we continue to go down this route, where we have private members' bills coming forward, in one of the examples I used, that require a human rights non-profit group or union to have a transcript of every phone call or communication made by an employee of the organization and that information had to be provided to the government.

That was the kind of thing being done in the Russian legal system to, in effect, thwart the good work that a number of those human rights agencies were doing. That is the kind of thing we could be seeing, in any number of sectors, where that kind of an approach would have the effect of either significantly encumbering the operation of the organization or, in fact, putting it out of business.

To some degree, that is a problem with this bill. The requirements of this bill are so onerous, especially to small local unions of, say, 100 or 150 members in the local community. They would be required to do so much to comply with this bill that they could be put out of business, leaving their membership with no representation.

[Proposal to Divide Bill C-10, October 26th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I was at church on Sunday. My congregation had a petition out front on this topic, so I will be presenting that at some point in the future, calling on this Parliament to do more to protect our children. I hear that complaint a lot.

This part of Bill C-10 is one of the few times I have seen the government, since it has been in power, actually take an approach that is preventative, in particular, with regard to the new crimes that we are creating of luring and grooming.

I have to say with some pride that those sections, those proposed amendments to the Criminal Code, first surfaced in this Parliament in the form of private members' bills from the NDP, back as early as 1995, 1998, somewhere in that time period. Liberals never did anything about it and until we finally saw this bill about a year and a half ago, the government did.

I would ask my colleague from St. John's East this question. What does he see as being the greatest advantage, in terms of protecting our children, with regard to those two sections, in particular?

[Points of Order, October 26th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to intervene because I am a bit concerned about the comments from the government House leader.

We do have committee chairs who are not on the government side of the House and who act under the responsibility and right of the official opposition.

I would not want the interpretation or ruling of Mr. Milliken, the Speaker at that time, to be read as meaning that a minister can stand up when a question is directed in particular to a chair whose responsibility is that of the official opposition and not of the government.

[Points of Order, October 25th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I would like the opportunity to consider the member's argument. I am not prepared to do that at this point. I am not likely to want to submit anything further since the argument that we heard from the member had so little merit. However, just in case, I would like to review it and I will get back to you, Mr. Speaker, within 24 hours.

[Justice, October 21st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, on the omnibus crime bill, Bill C-10, yesterday at committee a representative from the Canadian Association of Crown Counsel was highly critical of the problem overload that prosecutors have in this country. They have it already.

Instead of putting more police officers in our communities, with Bill C-10 the government's plan is to jam up our courts and prisons. The prosecutors have been very clear, both provincially and federally, that they cannot carry the load anymore.

When is the government going to come clear on what Bill C-10 would cost, and what is the government going to do about relieving the pressure on our prosecutors?

[Libya, October 21st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the NDP, I would like to say how proud we are of the role our troops have played in Libya. We agreed with the United Nations: we had to intervene to stop a dictator from killing his own people.

Throughout the Middle East we are seeing people fighting for freedom. Canada has to be prepared to support them. Is it possible for the minister to be more clear about what our country is going to do to help Libya?

[Libya, October 21st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday was a historic day for Libya. The future of that country now belongs to all Libyans. The time now has come for Canada to withdraw its military operation and it is time to focus on diplomacy and helping rebuild that country.

All across the Middle East, we are seeing ordinary citizens demand freedom. Canada must be ready to support them in all ways. Can the minister now inform the House what Canada will do to foster democracy and support Libya as well as the Arab Spring?