Joe Comartin

[Disposition of an act to amend the Excise Tax Act, December 7th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I must admit that imagery is a little difficult to take.

As to democracy and the role that the Reform Party and then the Alliance played in the House when they were in opposition, it was really quite sad when they trumpeted how they were going to implement a meaningful democracy as opposed to what we had been seeing at that point from the Liberals. Shortly after they got into power, that all went by the wayside.

What it comes down to is this. The Conservative government does not believe in government at all. It would be quite happy to shrink the federal government down to a very small percentage of what it is and this type of tax approach is the way to do it. It very much takes any responsibility off the back of the corporate world, which that party is very much associated with, much as the Liberals were when they were in power, and dumps it onto the average person in Canada, particularly consumers.

That is what it is really all about. It is about shrinking government, when it comes right down to it. It is being accomplished if this bill goes through.

[Disposition of an act to amend the Excise Tax Act, December 7th, 2009]

Democracy operates at various levels, Madam Speaker. When we look at what is going on in Ontario right now, it is doing the same thing there as the Conservatives are trying to do here in co-operation with the Liberals, which is to shut down any informed debate on this. There is one day of hearings, all of which had to be held in Toronto at Queen's Park.

When we talk about democracy, we talk about informing the electorate and letting them decide at election time what their position is. What happened? I know since I was involved in the provincial election in Ontario. The HST never came up. It certainly was not in the Liberal platform. It was never mentioned once. In B.C. where it was raised, there was a commitment from the Liberal premier of B.C. at the time that in fact he would not pursue the HST.

I want to make one final point about democracy. It is interesting to watch the shift here of Liberals doing the same as the Conservatives and pointing it back to Ontario. The reality is both the premier of Ontario and the Ontario finance minister, who sits in the same riding I do, have both made it clear that if they were not being offered $4.2 billion this would not be going ahead. That is not—

[Disposition of an act to amend the Excise Tax Act, December 7th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I will be addressing all my points to Motion No. 8, which is before the House at this time. Motion No. 8 drastically and undemocratically reduces the ability of members of the House to deal with a very important issue contained in Bill C-62. We are faced with a motion that is rarely used in the House, rightfully so and quite frankly should not be used this evening and for the next couple of days.

Madam Speaker, I am splitting my time with my colleague, the hon. member for Sudbury.

The motion is rarely used. It is rarely used and it should not be used at all because it is so Draconian. This is what it is going to do. At the end of the day today, at eight o'clock this evening or around that time, we are going to have a vote on two matters before the House: an amendment to Motion No. 8 and Motion No. 8 itself.

If Motion No. 8 passes, we are in effect going to be limited to the entire legislative process in this House over the next two days. After second reading, we are going to have a maximum of four hours of committee deliberations on a bill that is some 32 pages long. It is quite complex. It is a tax bill. We are supposed to digest that as members of Parliament. We are supposed to somehow communicate to our constituents what is in the bill and the details of it, and do that in four hours in committee. Then it comes back to the House for one more day which will be a short day because it will be Wednesday and then it is over. We have a final vote at report stage and third reading, and it is done.

If we add up the hours, there are very few hours for what is a very important bill in terms of the consequences. It is a bill that huge swaths of Ontario and B.C., where it will apply, are overwhelmingly opposed to it. In the last two opinion polls 80% were opposed to it in British Columbia and 75% plus in Ontario were opposed to it.

There is a simple question that we ask. Why is the government doing this and why is it being supported by the Liberal Party? Those percentage numbers in the polls tell us why. We are getting close to the end of the year, to the break, and this is clearly designed to limit the debate so that the Canadians do no get any opportunity to express their opposition.

We, doing our job, as elected representatives are being denied any ability of any realistic kind to represent them in the overwhelming opposition to the bill.

My colleague, the member for Vancouver East, earlier today moved an amendment. That amendment would in fact allow us to put the bill over to the new year and by no later than the end of February we would have hearings that would allow those Canadians, and I would say this, I keep an open mind on this bill, who both are opposed, as we already know in overwhelming numbers, and those in support to come before the finance committee of the House of Commons and tell us what their positions are. Educate us perhaps, as opposed to having to take from the government verbatim what it wants to do.

Who would we expect to hear from? I will tell the House who I would like to hear from. I would like to hear from the first nations. We saw again today the finance minister standing just before question period and there was this big debate over who was responsible as to whether the first nations were entitled to exemptions from this legislation on the HST. He pointed the finger at the provinces. At the end of last week ministers in both B.C. and Ontario were pointing the finger at the federal government.

I would like to hear from the first nations on what their position is. I would like to hear what kind of consultations went on because we are hearing none. What I would like then to do is get some experts in to tell us, as members of Parliament, who is right. Who is supposed to deal with this issue for the first nations? They are one group I would like to hear from.

I would like to hear from retired persons because they are on fixed incomes and because of this legislation they are going to take one of the biggest hits.

I would like to hear from that lady in northern Ontario who wrote to one of my colleagues about the impact the HST is going to have on her home heating bill. She does not have other revenue coming in that would offset the $200 a year it is going to cost her just for her home heating fuel. Members of Parliament should hear from her.

I would like to hear from athletic groups in the country and other associations that are going to be negatively impacted by this tax. How many teams are we going to lose because they will not be able to afford playing any more? We need to hear about that.

I would like to hear from the tourism industry, which has been quite vocal up to this point in an organized way about its opposition to this tax. The industry knows the difficult economic situation it will face. Members of the House should hear what an additional 8% tax on its services would do to the industry. We are not going to hear from this industry in any kind of meaningful way with only four hours of hearings probably late in the afternoon tomorrow or early evening, if this motion goes through.

I would like to hear from those groups in our society that are economically vulnerable because they, like retired persons on fixed incomes, are going to take the biggest hit as far as we can see at this point.

I would like to hear from labour groups. A number of interesting positions have been taken by various federations of labour in terms of the impact this tax would have on their individual economic sectors. They are taking a significantly different position on the impact of the HST than the business community. We need to hear from both of these communities as to how this tax would impact them. If we are going to do our job as parliamentarians, if we are going to make an informed decision, then we need to hear from these groups.

I would like to hear from economists. We are hearing all sorts of things. The member for Mississauga South and members on the government side are touting the same thing, about how this is going to impact the economy, of the savings the business community would get.

We are hearing a different story from other economists. We heard from one business group that this tax would cost Ontario alone 50,000 to 60,000 to as many as 100,000 jobs. This tax would not make jobs. People would lose jobs.

We need to hear all of that information so we can make an informed decision.

When I hear some of the economic arguments, I think back to when the GST was originally brought in by the Conservatives in the Mulroney period. I remember it being a net revenue source for the government. The old manufacturers tax would be replaced with the GST and it would balance itself out. The manufacturing side would give us all those savings. That did not happen. We had a net revenue of about the same amount on the GST side. Within the first two years of the GST, several billion dollars more came in from manufacturers and it has just grown exponentially.

I would like to hear from economists who could give us an analysis, bring us up to date as to what happened when the GST came in, and what is likely to happen if the HST is brought in, in both Ontario and British Columbia.

We are not going to get any of that. We are back to the question: Why are we dealing with this motion? Why are we going to be denied the ability to do our job, the ability to make informed decisions? It is as simple as this. Both the Conservatives and the Liberals are running from the electorate. They are so afraid of what the impact is going to be if the electorate gets even more information on how negative the tax is going to be that they want to bury it as quickly as possible. That is a shame. It is not the way this Parliament or any Parliament should function.

[Community Spirit, December 4th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend a constituent who, in her unselfish actions, represents a glowing example of the generosity of spirit and integrity that characterizes my community.

When Karen Coaton, the manager of Walkerville Manor, won $1 million in a lottery last February, she did not quit her job. Rather, she followed through on a commitment she had made to the mentally challenged residents and staff of the home where she worked. She took them to Disney World in Florida. The task was not an easy one. It took eight months to make the arrangements, which included getting birth certificates and passports, as well as arranging transport and accommodations.

Recently, 22 residents and staff joined Karen on their big adventure to the Magic Kingdom. In order that no one was left out, those who could not make the trip had been treated to a special Thanksgiving dinner and all got Mickey Mouse watches.

Windsor has experienced many difficulties over the past number of years, yet the resiliency so wonderfully exemplified by Karen Coaton's big-heartedness lives on in our community. Well done, Karen.

[Points of Order, December 3rd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I would point out that any questions of privilege are within your jurisdiction, not that of the House leader.

I want to supplement the comments from my colleague and draw your, Mr. Speaker, attention to Standing Order 28(3). I think the effect of government Motion No. 8 , which has been put on notice before the House, is an end run around the jurisdiction again that you exercise under that Standing Order.

That Standing Order deals with the situation where the House is adjourned and it is proposed by the government to bring the House back. That can only be done in consultation with you, Mr. Speaker, and in effect, because of precedent in this regard, it is done after you are convinced, in the course of that consultation, that the issue facing the House, by the government wanting to face the House with it, is important enough, a crisis, whatever, and you make that decision.

The effect of government Motion No. 8 is now going to push us, if it carries through, beyond the end of the scheduled sitting time for the House of December 11. If we went to December 11, when the House normally adjourns, in the debate on this HST bill, whenever we get to actually see it, the government would then have to come to you, Mr. Speaker, and seek your endorsement, your authorization to call the House back.

Therefore, the effect of this, in addition to all the points that were made by my colleague, is to completely undermine Standing Order 28 and your authority under that. I would urge you, Mr. Speaker, to take that into consideration when you rule on this point of order.

[Tax Harmonization, December 3rd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the list of those opposed to the HST just keeps growing: retirees associations, real estate associations, minor hockey associations, first nations chiefs and the provincial premier. In fact, included in Manitoba's throne speech was an outright rejection of the HST because “it would impose more than $400 million in new sales tax costs on Manitoba families at a time of economic uncertainty”.

Why will the government not stop pushing this grossly unfair tax on P.E.I., Manitoba and Saskatchewan, as well as Ontario and B.C.?

[Privilege, November 30th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I will be brief as well. I have just two points.

First, I was concerned by the comments from the member for Edmonton Centre. He seemed to be trying to lead you to believe there needed to be a list of all the documents required in the letter that was sent into you to put you on notice that the motion on privilege was going to be raised. That is clearly not the case.

In that regard, I would simply draw your attention to chapter 3, page 142, of O'Brien and Bosc and its third point regarding what needs to be contained in the information. It only has to be the substance of the matter. That is clear both from the third report from the committee and the letter you received from the member for Ottawa Centre.

Mr. Speaker, the second point to which I would draw your attention is really about the substance of what has gone on here, as I see it. I want to support the comments that we heard from the whip from the Bloc earlier this afternoon. This is about the attempt to intimidate this witness by legal counsel. I would again draw your attention to chapter 3 of O'Brien and Bosc, page 114. For time's sake, I will start reading at the second sentence, the third line, which states:

In 1992, a witness who had testified before a subcommittee was advised by a Crown corporation employee that the issue of her testimony was being referred to the corporation’s legal department.

They were just referring the testimony to that department. The Speaker found there to be a prima facie case in that situation, even before the witness had received any direction or an attempt to be directed by the legal department; just the very fact the witness was being warned that she was going to be put on notice at the legal department was sufficient to find a prima facie case. I think that is very relevant to the circumstances we have here.

[Privilege, November 30th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the 14th report of the justice committee dated November 25 was presented to the House on November 26. My question of privilege involves the interference, and I put that objectively, by the minister's office with respect to evidence that had been requested by the justice committee from the head of Correctional Service Canada. The report sets out the sequence of events on how this came about, and I will refer to those events.

With regard to the privilege itself, I believe my privilege has been breached not only vis-à-vis the work I need to do as a member of Parliament, but that of other members of the committee and the committee as a whole. You may wish, Mr. Speaker, to go beyond the report itself to the blues to substantiate the specifics.

Mr. Don Head, who was before committee on November 4, made very clear commitments as to what information he had available and whether he could get that information back to committee in time for it to consider the information when we were doing clause-by-clause.

The need for this information was heightened in this situation by the fact that members of committee, including myself, had ascertained that was the only source for this information. We had asked the Department of Justice if it had this information. We had solicited the information from the Juristat division of Statistics Canada. Both indicated that they did not have the information. I checked with academics to see if they had it. All three of those traditional sources for this type of information indicated to committee that the only source for this information was Correctional Service Canada. As a result, on November 4, at committee's request, Mr. Don Head, the head of Correctional Service Canada, appeared before committee. The report sets this out.

In response to questions from myself and from the Bloc member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue, Mr. Head indicated that he had the information we had request but he did not have it with him that day. He indicated that he could have it by the time committee considered Bill C-36 at clause-by-clause, which was scheduled to be considered at that stage on November 16. Mr. Head was very clear that he could do that.

On November 16, I sought from the clerk of that committee whether in fact the information had been received. I and was advised at that time, as I believe at least one other member of committee was advised, that it had been received and had been sent to our offices. I did not see it and assumed that there had been a mixup in my office and we had not received it. The committee went ahead on November 16 with clause-by-clause consideration and the bill was sent back to the House.

I then made a second request for that information on November 18. When I checked in my office, I did not have it. I wanted that information so it would be available for my argument in the House at third reading stage of Bill C-36, which was scheduled at that time and took place on November 23.

When I arrived at my office on the morning of November 23, I found out that we still did not have the information. Only at that time, were we advised that the information had not come to committee yet. It had been prepared by Mr. Head and was in the hands of the Minister of Public Safety.

Quite frankly I was quite upset. I intended to debate this on the November 23, and at that time, before I actually had a chance to start my speech, the deputy House leader for the Conservatives approached me and gave me a letter, undated, from Mr. Head. It set out the information for which the member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue and I had asked, although some of it was quite confusing. Some of the specific questions were answered. That letter had been altered to the extent that the date had been taken off it. I had no opportunity to use that information.

On November 24, the bill passed the House by a recorded vote. On November 25, around noon, the same letter with the date on it appeared in our offices. The justice committee was meeting again on November 25 so we could get the report because the Conservatives had stalled it. When I attempted to get the report out of the committee on November 23, they talked it out, so we had to come back on November 25. Right around noon on November 25 we received the letter and it was dated this time. The date on the letter, signed by Mr. Head, responding in some detail to some of the questions asked by myself and the hon. member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue, was dated the November 13. Had we received that letter, we could have used that information, and it was quite relevant information, both at clause-by-clause and again in the debate in the House, sharing that information with the rest of the committee and with all members of the House in their consideration of Bill C-36. That was denied to us by the minister's office.

I want to cover some of the relevance of this because of the questions that were asked. We asked very specific questions on the rate of recidivism of people who were subject to that section of the code. We wanted to know how often it was used and specific information. In that regard, the last solid evidence we had was 10 years old. The last time a report like this had been prepared was in 1999. We needed an update on that information, and several of the key points were answered in this letter. It was completely relevant to what we needed and we were denied it.

The role of the minister is quite crucial to the role of committees, the relationship of committees and the work we do in setting public policy and reviewing bills in detail in a prudent fashion. In all honesty, I have not been able to find any prior rulings by Speakers in the House as to whether the minister has any right to insist that this type of information is vetted by him or his office before it is given to the committee. I cannot say that it has been ruled either way in the research that I and my staff have done. I would argue quite strongly that it is one of the issues that has to be decided in the determination you will make, Mr. Speaker, as to whether we have made out a prima facie case for interference and breach of privilege.

If a minister is capable of doing that, the work of the committees becomes even less relevant than it is at this point. What we need is assurance. If we are to be helping with our votes and in the work we do here in setting public policy, we need to know we have unlimited access to the information within the departments in the government. There is a long history of decisions in other areas where Speakers have said that we are supposed to have that.

Coming back, if the minister can decide whether and when we are to get that information, it makes the committees a farce. The minister simply by withholding information for a period of time, allowing votes to go ahead, allowing consideration of clause-by-clause to go ahead can stymie the work of the committee quite effectively.

At this point, we do not know, because we have heard nothing from the minister in this regard, if this was a question of incompetence on the part of his office in not recognizing the timelines that Mr. Head had very clearly committed to or whether it was intentional to withhold this information until the committee had completed its work and it was no longer of any use to us.

Whichever it is, Mr. Speaker, I would argue that we have made out a prima facie case. If you so find, I would be prepared to move the appropriate motion.

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, November 30th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to private member's Bill C-475. This is a reincarnation, if I can use that term, of Bill C-428 that was presented to the House by the member for Peace River and passed by the House in the last Parliament. Like so many other bills, it died on the order paper when the Conservative Party and the Prime Minister decided to hold an election. So it is coming back and I want to acknowledge the work that has been done by the author of the bill, the member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country. It is lovely countryside and I enjoy going out there whenever I get the chance.

The bill deals with what is, by any standard, a scourge, a really horrendous problem for our society, particularly for our young people. It attempts to further control access to methamphetamines and the drug ecstasy, to use its street name. It is a tragedy that we repeatedly run across. All members of the House at some point have had constituents come in to talk to them about this.

The drugs ecstasy and methamphetamines are both highly addictive. Not only are they highly addictive, but they are also addictive at a very rapid pace. Sometimes just an initial taking of it is enough to hook people on it and, certainly, if someone uses it three to five times there is a very high probability that he or she is going to be addicted. Also, if it is used repeatedly in any kind of high volume, strong medical evidence now shows that it causes brain damage.

The availability of this drug has an interesting history here in Canada, but what has been very clear is that it is particularly attractive to young people. As we heard from my colleague from the Bloc, even children in elementary schools get access to it. It is cheap. It is cheap to make and therefore is quite accessible on the street.

It has an interesting history here in Canada in that it started as an epidemic in the smaller communities in the mid-northern parts of the country, particularly in the western provinces. The explanation we have been given by the police authorities who have been dealing with it is that it was cheap to set up the labs and the labs were easily concealable in smaller communities. Fairly clearly, it was street gangs that were doing this as opposed to the larger organized crime syndicates that we have, although there is some indication that they are now involved in it quite substantially as well. But the initial phases were in small rural communities and it became an epidemic within a year.

Interestingly, what then happened, which I suppose is not that unusual, is that it expanded eastward and southward in this country and then southward into the United States. We have become, as we have heard from other speakers today, a major exporter of these particular drugs to the United States.

As a bit of an aside, I would like to relate some of the work we have done and information we have received both at the justice committee and public safety committee, where we heard from our police forces and communities. I want to praise these communities, particularly in the rural parts of the country. They moved as communities to effectively shut down the labs in a number of the communities and developed treatment for the youth who had been affected and addicted to these substances. It really is a good news story from that perspective. Community by community, they learned from each other and responded to this problem.

I am not going to suggest this was the be all and the end all to ending it. However, a number of the smaller communities, especially in the western provinces, were quite effective at responding to it once they had identified how bad it was.

I have to say it has been less successful in other parts of the country and is being worked on now, in co-operation with police forces and community groups. As well, there is more and more evidence that the addiction can be treated. Obviously, the person has to get off it completely. It is fairly clear that the work to rebuild a person's psychological strength can be done.

There is one other point I want to raise with regard to this phenomenon vis-à-vis Canada. The precursors, the chemical components to these drugs by and large come in from other countries. Some come from the United States to a significant degree. Some come from Asia, as well. There was a problem, for instance in the state of New York, and the stories we heard were well documented to be accurate and not just anecdotal, that people would clear the shelves of Sudafed. There are components in Sudafed that are used to make these drugs. People would go in to drug stores and literally take all of the Sudafed. The state of New York has moved to ban that. People are allowed to buy only enough Sudafed to deal with a cold, not enough to be used in the production of other drugs.

The state of New York and other states in the United States have moved to regulate those chemicals at source. If a person is manufacturing these precursors and then selling them, the person buying them has to show what they are going to be used for and why the volume being bought is needed. It has been quite effective in restricting the labs in the United States. What had been happening, and is still happening here, is the purchaser would conveniently sell it in smaller batches to any number of people. Clearly the person would have to know that some of it was getting into the hands of gangs to be used for the purposes of making illicit drugs.

Some states have shut that down by regulating it. They did not use criminal law, they used commercial and consumer regulation. What happens now is that a chain is created. The producer has to report to whom it was sold and in what volume. The person purchasing it has to do the same thing. If people then break it into sublots and sell it off, they have to show to whom they have sold it and they have to have an explanation as to what it is going to be used for. It has been quite effective in the United States to use the regulatory framework, not criminal law, to shut it down, to a great extent, leaving Canada, as I and other members have said, as an importer. The same process is going on in Canada, in terms of the sales, but the regulatory infrastructure is not in place in this country.

I do not want in any way to demean the effort of the member with respect to this legislation because we are supporting it; it is one step that is needed. However, in order to really get at this, we also need to regulate this from the producer right through the whole chain so that we are assured that it does not get into the hands of the gangs, or if it does, that we are able to trace it right to them and use this legislation to charge and convict them.

[Privilege, November 26th, 2009]

I thoroughly agree with my colleague from Hamilton that they are a very useful tool. He has added another dimension to these by giving his constituents the ability to respond.

I think from time to time we all do that. We have a mail-back to see whether they agree with the position we have taken in the ten percenter and give us additional feedback perhaps on points that we have not covered. I think it is extremely important that we keep this program going.

However, we have to curtail its abuse, and I think it is possible to do that.