Joe Comartin

[Committees of the House, June 19th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, on the first issue of whether it is courage or ideology, I can say to my friend that from some of the discussions that some of the other colleagues from the NDP and I have had with some of the members of Parliament of the Conservative Party, there are a certain number of them who think that we should be bringing him home. Therefore, it is not just ideology. It certainly does not permeate throughout the whole caucus of the Conservative Party.

With regard to the issue of the replacement of the judge, if we follow the sequence of events, for four to five years the military commission system basically was not functioning. The Americans then put one in place. They went into court and it was struck down because it did not have an appeal process. They passed more legislation to have the appeal process put into place.

When the judge who got in there was finally beginning to function, and I am sure they did not want him but he got in there, he began to provide some very basic limited rights to Mr. Khadr's lawyers to get some disclosure. As that disclosure started to come out, as I said earlier, it became very clear that they did not have the evidence that they had told the country and the world that they had against Mr. Khadr. They just did not have it.

In fact, the American supreme court decision here forced disclosure out of our intelligence people, but as that began to come out, it became quite obvious they were going to have a hard time, so they replaced the judge. The judge had no intention to retire. He had been appointed to this file and he was going to carry it through to the end of the trial.

Therefore, it is quite obvious that they manipulated the system over there, always to the disadvantage of Mr. Khadr. It is another reason why the government should be acting.

[Committees of the House, June 19th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Hamilton for allowing me to share his time.

The report goes to the fundamental reason we have democracy and elected governments. It also goes to our responsibility as members of Parliament and as government to protect our citizens.

We have a responsibility to all of our citizens. We do not have the right to pick and choose. We cannot say, in the case of Mr. Samson or Ms. Martin, that we will do whatever we can as a country to get them out of a prison in another country but then say that we will not do that for Mr. Khadr. That is not why we were sent here by our constituents.

We have a moral and legal responsibility to Mr. Khadr and these responsibilities are clear. These responsibilities should not come as a shock to the current government. Other countries like us, which have full democracies, have honoured these responsibilities since 9/11, since the start of the Afghanistan war. I am speaking of countries like England, France, Germany, and we could go down the list.

When those countries told the United States that they wanted their citizens back, those citizens who the U.S. had in custody, and which, by its own supreme court, was found to be illegal, unconstitutional and against international law, in every case the United States returned them and there were no repercussions.

The Conservative government sits in fear that somehow if it stands on its hind legs and tells the United States that it will do as it is supposed to do as a sovereign power in protecting its citizens and ask that Mr. Khadr be returned to Canada that there will be negative repercussions. The government does act from that fear and it continues to refuse to accept its responsibilities, both moral and legal.

We see that in the dissenting report. It just smacks of a lack of courage on the part of the government to do what it is supposed to do.

This is, by any international standard, a tragedy that has been allowed to go on for over six years. It was quite clear from the very beginning that Mr. Khadr was a child soldier. We were the leading country in pressing for an international protocol to protect children, whatever the colour of their skin, their religion or their families, from being used and abused as child soldiers.

All of the evidence in the Khadr case says that Omar Khadr suffered exactly that. He was used and abused by his family and by the system in Afghanistan but the Conservative government refuses to accept that reality. The evidence of that is absolutely overwhelming.

Instead, to the government's eternal shame, what we hear day after day, when Conservative members stand in the House during question period to respond to questions from all opposition parties about bringing Mr. Khadr home to have him treated here by both our criminal justice system and our health system, is the same old mantra.

What do the government members say? In essence, they say that he has been charged with serious crimes, which we have no issue with, but they do not mention the child soldier protocol. They say that we have been assured by the United States that he is being treated humanely, which is in direct contradiction to all the evidence that we have, and then they say that it is premature to do anything so they will not do anything. It flies in the face of all of the facts and all of their responsibilities.

The three opposition parties, in unison, have said that we must bring him home where we will deal with him here. The report capsulizes, in a very succinct form, what would happen if he were brought home. We have had a paper thin barrier thrown up that we cannot deal with him in our criminal justice system. That is absolutely false. There is overwhelming evidence from any number of constitutional and criminal law experts in Canada who say that we can deal with him.

We will deal with him and give him all the protection he is entitled to as a child soldier and as a juvenile. All the opposition parties are prepared to do that. I would say to the government that it should have some courage and do what it is supposed to do.

Both the supreme court in the United States and the Supreme Court in Canada have said that the military commission tribunal that has been set up at Guantanamo, Cuba, is illegal. They said that it has avoided its responsibilities under the American bill of rights and under our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Even after two supreme court decisions in this case, the government continues to say that the system over there is a legitimate one. In complete contradiction to all the legal expertise from various high courts in this country and in the United States, the government still stands in this House and repeats those falsehoods. I do not know if that is out of ignorance, out of fear or out of politics in terms of trying to be friendly with the Bush administration, but that is the reality.

I will move off the legalities for a moment and talk about the politics of the situation. The administration is about to change in the United States. When we look at the sequence of events, it is quite clear that the Bush administration pulled the judge who was actually beginning to give some favourable decisions around disclosure and replaced him with another judge who has a reputation of just forcing matters through.

Both of the leading contenders for the presidency in the United States from both parties have called for the shutting down of Guantanamo. Senator Obama has specifically called for the end of the use of the military commissions. That is what will happen in January of next year. It is a complete repudiation by whoever will be the president next year. That is the politics in that country. We still have the Conservative government toeing the line for the Bush administration.

However, before that occurs, Mr. Khadr will be forced to trial by the judge who has just been appointed. Mr. Khadr's defence counsel have said very clearly that he will be convicted because everybody gets convicted in that system. The prosecution will be able to convict anybody for anything, including murder.

As a lawyer who has practised for a long time, I have looked at the evidence, whether it was in the criminal justice system in the United States or the criminal justice system in this country, and it is quite clear that Mr. Khadr would not be convicted of any serious criminal offence. There is simply no evidence. After five years of hearing these stories, when the real evidence began to come out, and the lack of it, it was quite clear that there was no evidence. Therefore, if he is moved into the criminal justice systems in either country, the regular ones, he would not be convicted of any serious crime.

I want to say to the government that it should listen to the speeches today from all of the opposition parties and to, please, have the courage to do what it is supposed to do.

[Committees of the House, June 18th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask for the unanimous consent of the House for the following motion: That, in the opinion of the House, the government should: (a) call on General Motors to maintain production at the Oshawa truck plant throughout the term of the 2008-11 collective agreement with the Canadian auto workers; (b) insist that multinational auto manufacturers respect the principle of the Auto Pact requiring one vehicle to be manufactured in Canada for each vehicle they sell in Canada; and (c) adopt a green car strategy that would require auto makers to additionally allocate a proportional share of environmentally advanced vehicles and components to the Canadian production facilities.

[Committees of the House, June 17th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, like other members of the House, I am in a rather difficult position to address this issue without a determination from the Chair as to whether the amendment, which has been presented at literally the very last minute, is going to be admissible and we are going to send this issue back to the committee.

I am going to give my speech based on the fact that it is not going to be admissible. I came prepared to do that. My speech is going to be highly critical of both the government and the official opposition party. It is going to be critical of the member for Essex and of the Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity. Both of those members, in previous parliaments, have had this same private member's bill before the House.

The secretary of state had it before the House on two different occasions when he was in opposition. The member for Essex has had it here on two occasions, in the last Parliament and again in this Parliament.

It is a highly emotional issue for me personally, I have to say, but also for a large number of my constituents. The greatest number of individuals in Canada who are Canadian citizens or Canadian residents receiving social security in Canada live in the Windsor-Essex County area. This has been a very difficult issue for a large number of them.

When I hear the member from the Liberal Party stand in the House and talk about justice and being fair, he obviously does not understand the issue at all. As for what happened here, the Conservatives recognized this, as did a number of members from the Liberal Party historically, including the former prime minister, who was in the riding in Windsor and said he would take care of this. Like so many other Liberal promises, it got broken because they did not carry through.

The current Prime Minister was in the riding and promised to take care of it. He said that it would be taken care of if the Conservatives got into government. We have had three budgets from them now. They have not done it either.

When we hear the member from the Liberal Party stand up and talk about justice, he just misses the point entirely. The issue of justice that is involved here is that the Canadian government, by way of a international treaty with the United States, agreed that it would tax social security benefits received in Canada in the same manner as the United States had been doing it up to that point.

That was the deal we made. In the same treaty, the U.S. agreed to treat Canada pension benefits received in the United States and tax them in the same way they had been traditionally taxed in Canada. That was the essence of the deal. It is as simple as that.

The United States lived up to that agreement. It continues to tax the Canada pension benefits received in the United States the same as if they had been taxed in Canada up to that point.

Canada has repeatedly refused to abide by that treaty. What it has done to a large number of residents in the country, most of whom are Canadian citizens, is that it has refused to abide by the treaty and it has taxed them excessively, above what was originally agreed to.

I always tell this one story about the woman who lived in my riding and went to my church. She and her husband both did. They had lived in Chicago for a good number of years, had built up their social security benefits, were Canadian citizens, and had returned to Windsor to live in retirement.

They were receiving their benefits under social security. They had bought a house and still were paying a mortgage. They both were receiving social security benefits from the United States. They both got hit with substantial increases in taxes because the then Liberal administration did not honour the treaty.

They already had their situation. That is what justice is about. They built their lives in Canada based on what they had been told would happen. They bought the house knowing that they could afford to do it and then they got hit with these additional taxes from the Canadian government.

They proceeded to lose the house. To this day, that woman still curses our former prime minister, sometimes even in church, because she remembers him coming into Windsor. She remembers a number of his candidates, members of this House historically, who came into the city and said they would take care of this. They said they would see that there was justice on this file. They did not do it.

Now we have the same repeat. We hear the member for Essex and the Secretary of State for Multiculturalism both making those pledges in a very concrete form in this House in the form of private members' bills, and then nothing. With two budgets, they do not go through.

Then this got to the finance committee. I was there on the final day and said to the members of the committee from both the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party that they were breaking their promise to the recipients of these benefits and their promise to the United States, and that they were illegally breaking their treaty obligations. Every single member from the Conservative Party and every single member of the Liberal Party voted in committee to strip the bill, so that we have this motion before us now to concur in doing away with any further work on this issue.

It is obvious from my comments that I would be very happy to support the amendment that has been put forward. I do not know if it is in order. I hope it is so that we can keep this issue alive.

This goes back to 1996. I remember that in the very first speech I gave in this House after I was elected in 2000, the very first one, I raised this issue. At that time, I thanked the members of my riding who had voted for me on this issue, because I also pledged at that time that we would deal with this.

I intend to continue to fight for that justice for them, but we are now 12 years from the time they first saw this miscarriage perpetrated on them. What has happened in that time, of course, is that a great number of them have passed away, because they were all at retirement age at that time.

We are faced today with both the Liberals and the Conservatives. There may be some last minute change of heart on the part of the Conservatives if the motion for amendment is admissible, but if it is not, then they have done just exactly what the Liberals did. They went out to the country and led people to believe, in various parts of the country where there are good numbers of these residents and citizens, that they would take care of this miscarriage of justice, and they did not do it.

It is quite obvious that if the results of what happened in the finance committee continue, this Conservative government, like the previous Liberal government, has no intention of keeping its promise to the Canadian people, and that is just an absolute shame.

I will conclude with this. I am desperately hoping the Chair will rule that this proposed amendment is admissible and that we can send this back to the finance committee. Hopefully, as opposed to what we hear from the Liberals, we in fact will look at this from the perspective of where justice really lies on this issue, not being worried about whether we are treating some retirees differently than others. That is not what the issue is.

The issue is that we told these retirees this is the way we would treat them. We told the United States that this is the way we would treat them. We have broken those promises and it is time for some justice to come into play.

Again, we heard from one of the speakers who was concerned about being prudent here. We have heard both the Conservatives and the Liberals advocate strongly for billions of dollars in tax cuts to the oil and gas industry and the banking industry in this country. By comparison, the money we are talking about here, which should be fairly granted by way of a tax break to the retirees, is minuscule. It is in the millions of dollars, but it is minuscule. It is nothing like the billions of dollars that both major parties have agreed to give away and have already given away. We need that justice.

Again, I hope very much that the Chair will see his way through to finding that proposed amendment in order and that in fact we can send it back to committee and keep the issue alive.

[Privilege, June 17th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy that the House saw fit to grant unanimous consent because I have another question for my colleague from Scarborough—Rouge River. I want to apologize if I keep referring to his riding as RIver Rouge. That is the river that runs on the Detroit side of the border down my way and I confuse the two.

I want to posit something to him. I have been picking up some discussion among the members of the Conservative government that the vote that carried that amendment to the rules last week was not binding because it needed to go through the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

Today in the Speaker's ruling on the original privilege motion brought forward, he made no reference to whether that was binding. I am wondering if the member for Scarborough—Rouge River could comment on this position that I have heard bandied about, that because it did not go through the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, the motion that we passed last week changing the rules in fact is not binding on the House until it has been reviewed by the procedure and House affairs committee with a recommendation report coming from it, and only when the report was accepted by the House would the change be binding on all of us.

[Privilege, June 17th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the points my colleague has raised in his question. I must admit that I was not quite sure what was going to be in the motion by the member for Scarborough—Rouge River.

I must admit that I am a bit concerned about this being referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs because of the antics that have gone on for seven or eight months now, led entirely by the government, as the NDP sees it, in order to protect its interests in another area.

One kind of wonders about the ruling by the Ethics Commissioner when we see the kind of conduct that has gone on in the committee, with the government members protecting themselves from what I believe are ultimately going to be some very serious repercussions because of the in and out scheme.

I must admit I was half hoping that the member for Scarborough—Rouge River would get up to debate this so I could ask him whether he has concerns over the referral to the procedure and House affairs committee. Is the motion simply going to get stalled in committee by government members refusing to meet?

I know there are ways in which the committee can call for a meeting and conduct it without the chair being present; the chair has to call the meeting. My concern right now, as I understand the situation, is that there is no chair. I believe the procedural rules of the House would allow for a committee meeting to be held even if the government members opted not to show up or take part.

That will be the next question. My colleague from Scarborough—Rouge River might be able to give us some more information on that, should he see it appropriate to speak today on the motion. I am concerned about it.

I also sit on the justice committee. That committee has been thwarted for some two months now because of the conduct of the chair, also a government member. It is not good for democracy that we have this happening. I am a little concerned.

We are talking here, as I have said in my opening remarks, about the very fundamental issue of being a member of Parliament. Could it be thwarted, in spite of the very strong ruling from the Speaker, by government inaction in the procedure and House affairs committee?

Not being entirely sure what the outcome of that is going to be, perhaps I could pledge to my colleague from Scarborough—Rouge River that we in the NDP will do whatever we can to support the motion going ahead at the procedure and House affairs committee.

[Privilege, June 17th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, it is an important issue that needs to be addressed and it comes back a bit to the comments I made in my opening remarks about the way we drafted the mandate that the commissioner was under in the code. We did not clearly define what liability meant. The commissioner obviously drew the conclusion in a very narrow sense of what liability was.

Again, if we read the part of her report that dealt with the issue of liability, she was trying to make it very clear that she was interpreting it very rigidly and in a very narrow scope. She clearly was saying that liability arose at the time the action arose in court and perhaps, although she did not say this but I think we would have to draw this as an inevitable conclusion, it happened at the time that the alleged defamation occurred. It was really back when the member was alleged to have made the offending comment. Therefore, the liability actually arose at that point.

The context of it obviously had to do with a future liability. When we look at liability in the sense that she was, which is what is in the code, a liability arises out of some conduct but may not be realized until the future. It was in that context that the commissioner found that liability was that broadly to be interpreted. However, it really is a very narrow focus of what the word meant. It would be relatively easy, from my perspective, to change the code so we could more clearly define what we mean by liability.

[Privilege, June 17th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to say a few words in support of the motion.

It has caused us within the NDP and, I think, those within all opposition parties a great deal of concern as to whether the ruling by Commissioner Dawson would continue to inhibit our conduct in the chamber, at committee and just generally in terms of our ability to do our job.

I welcome the motion and I welcome your ruling, Mr. Speaker. It may not be entirely appropriate but I congratulate you on the ruling. I think it is extremely important that we no longer feel the pressure, at least those of us in the opposition parties, that we have felt since the ruling came down from Ms. Dawson, that we were not able to do our job. I think we all felt a concern in what we would say in public.

It was a ruling that to me seemed to fly in the face of the long tradition we have had, going all the way back to Westminster. I think we can argue that this right was granted to us when parliaments first began being formed within the Westminster system. It was a right that we had to respect. I have to say that the individual case that we are dealing with should not have had that right taken away in any way.

We have all listened to a lot of the speeches that were given on that opposition day. I listened to all members from all parties. We all felt that, in spite of what Ms. Dawson found, we understood how she found it, how she made those decisions and how she came to the conclusions that she came to. Even she acknowledged in the report and in her determinations the type of impact and effect it would have on us.

As I was I was reading her decision, if I read between the lines it was as if the commissioner was almost reluctant to make the determination she made but felt compelled to do so by the wording of the mandate that she had been given within the code.

Mr. Speaker, the ruling you made was extremely important. I think all of us in this House recognize the responsibilities we have to act responsibly in terms of this very special privilege we have been given. It is the members of this House alone who have this privilege throughout the country and we recognize its importance and that it is not to be abused.

However, we also must recognize that even where it is abused in individual cases that right should not be taken away from all of us. I think inevitably the only way you could conclude the decision that we had from the commissioner was to that effect.

We sit here and try to do our jobs as best we can. We try to be responsible and then we get hit, I would almost say blindsided, which is not meant in any way to be a criticism of the commissioner's decision. We could go back and probably point fingers at ourselves for not properly drafting the wording by which she was being mandated. We need to take some responsibility in that regard.

I do not have a sense that the government is willing to move on changing that mandate given that it was one of its members who initially raised the complaint before the commissioner. I do not believe we are at a stage where we can correct the wording. In any event, we do not have the time to correct it so your ruling, Mr. Speaker, is timely in that regard as well.

I want to go back to the issue of the abuse because the commissioner was obviously concerned about the impact on the victim if the power we have here is abused. I recognize that. However, all members of the House, those who are here and those who are not, should know that it puts greater pressure on us to act responsibly and we cannot shirk that duty to act responsibly.

By the same token, we cannot give up. At this point, I am really addressing my comments to members of the governing Conservative Party who were willing to say, because of the individual cases of irresponsibility, as they saw in this case and maybe in others, that the commissioner did and should have the authority to curtail our freedom as members of Parliament to speak as freely as we possibly could.

The members of the government need to step back and take a look at the history of the Westminster Parliament that we and a number of other countries have adopted and implemented, particularly in the Commonwealth.

We do not see this kind of limitation placed on parliaments elsewhere that I have been able to discover in any event. The consequences of this decision would be unique to Canada, the fear I suppose being that if it were to happen here, would it happen subsequently in Australia, New Zealand, in England or in some of the other parliaments in the Commonwealth.

We must be conscious of not creating that precedent, if I can put it that way, in the legal sense and have it followed elsewhere. We need to curtail it here and to fight strongly for the rights that we should have in regard to our ability to do the very best job we can for our constituents.

At times we do need to say things in the House and in committees that we might not perhaps otherwise say. We respect the limitations we are under and we know we have limitations. In the last few years we have had a ruling around the responsibilities we have under human rights legislation. We recognize that. We recognize that our conduct is bound by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the House.

Having said that, it does not seem to me that those two examples in any way should take away our right to speak freely, as we have historically had.

I pride myself, and I think we all do in the House, that I come here on behalf of my constituents to advocate for them, to defend them and to protect their rights. Because we have been given that right and responsibility by the constituents who have elected us and sent us here, we bring with it a duty to do our utmost to provide that protection and to advocate as strongly as we possibly can.

If we were to give that up, the very essence of why we are here and why our constituents have sent us here, we would be abandoning that duty. We would be giving it up, which may sound melodramatic but it is as fundamental as that.

We have the responsibility in the House to do whatever we can to maximize protections to our constituents, the citizens and residents of Canada. It is not too harsh to say that if we are not prepared to the maximum to stand up for those rights they expect us to protect by protecting our own rights, our ability, in effect, to do that job, then we probably should not be here.

The motion put forward by the member for Scarborough—Rouge River is extremely important. The Speaker's ruling today is extremely important because I believe it sets back into balance the rights that we have as members of Parliament. The responsibility to carry out those rights always remains with us individually and that we do not abuse them.

In the particular case that prompted Commissioner Dawson to make the ruling that she did, that legal case that is in the civil courts, whether there has been abuse and whether there has been defamation is to be left to the courts and to be dealt with there. If there is a penalty to be paid, then it should be paid there. It is not a penalty that the member should suffer in this House or in committee doing his job as a member of Parliament and, more important, it is not a penalty that any other member should have to suffer, which is what is happening here.

The Speaker's ruling today was extremely important, timely and one that was badly needed. Once again, I congratulate the Speaker on his ruling.

[National Defence Act, June 17th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, we are here today really on an emergency basis because of problems arising from the Federal Court of Appeal decision in the R. v. Trépanier.

The problems we are addressing with regard to the military justice system precede Trépanier. That decision came down at the end of April of this year. The problems the court was addressing in that case, and which were resolved rather summarily by dismissing the charges against Corporal Trépanier, stem from a long-standing frustration on the court's part that successive governments have not dealt with the needed reforms in the military justice system.

In this regard, it is important to recognize that Justice Lamer was commissioned almost six years ago to prepare a report. He prepared a very lengthy and detailed report of the analysis of the problems with the military justice system and set out very clear and specific recommendations on how to deal with those problems. That resolution surfaced first in a bill under the former Liberal administration and then in the form of Bill C-45 under the current Conservative administration.

The process has been very slow. We heard from the parliamentary secretary that Bill C-60, which is before us today, was a very quick process, and he is accurate in that regard.

The overall process has been extremely slow and unacceptably slow for the Federal Court of Appeal. For that reason, the court struck the section down in the National Defence Act that dealt with this part of the military justice system and, in effect, dismissed the charges against Corporal Trépanier.

Those are serious charges against him, with no reflection on whether he is guilty or innocent of the charges. The reality is, at this point, if that decision stands, then the charges will not be dealt with on their merits.

What was determined in the Trépanier decision was the system that allowed exclusive authority to the prosecutor to determine the type of trial an accused person would have within the military justice system was simply unacceptable in the context of Canada today, and in particular with regard to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Bill C-60 addresses this issue. Again, the bill is the same as in the recommendations from Justice Lamer and what is still contained in Bill C-45.

The government has been very slow on moving Bill C-45 ahead. It has given priority to a number of other bills and let this one languish, and that is unacceptable. Any number of other issues may be confronting our military justice system, in terms of issues under the charter, that could find us in the same situation in the next few months or the next year or two.

We absolutely demand that the government move Bill C-45 forward rapidly so we can deal with it. It has substantial support from all the opposition parties. Some specific provisions need to be corrected and some additions need to be made to it, but the bulk of the bill is one that has wide support among all the parties. I urge the government to move rapidly on it when we come back in the fall.

With regard to the specific provision in Bill C-60, as we have heard from some of the other speakers, with the exception of a couple of the paragraphs and clauses, it had all party support. In particular, by limiting the jurisdiction or the authority of the prosecutor and giving much more democratic and civil libertarian provisions to the accused, so the nature of the trial would appear at least on the surface to be more equitable, these have all been incorporated in the legislation in the form of Bill C-60.

I point out in particular that we have done away in Bill C-60 with the former format of having four different types of trials that there could be. We have reduced the number to two, which again, to a great extent, mirrors the situation in our criminal justice system generally for civilians in this country.

If Bill C-60 is passed, we will have a system where there will be a single judge, and generally speaking that will be for the less serious offences, and the accused will have the right to choose a judge and a five member panel, which would be in the form of a jury, if I can make the analogy with the civilian system.

In addition to that, although we have had panels in the past, a combination of a judge and a three member panel, there will now be five members on the panel. As opposed to the current system, the panel will have to be unanimous in its decision if a person is to be acquitted or convicted, again mirroring the situation in our criminal justice system and generally in our society.

That is a major step forward. There were several others perhaps of less significance, but it is a bill that all the parties were prepared to support.

Yesterday in committee we made two changes to the bill. One was to delete a whole clause. There was quite some disagreement over this in terms of the discussion. In particular, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence argued strenuously at the time, as he is wont to do every so often, that by deleting clause 28 in its entirety, we would be taking rights away from the accused. I know he still believes that.

My assessment of clause 28 was just the opposite. By leaving it in, we were curtailing the rights of the accused. Ultimately we were able to reach a consensus among the opposition parties to delete it. I know I have not convinced my colleague, the parliamentary secretary, but I will continue to try to do that to establish that we were right in deleting it. In the end, the opposition parties voted that down.

Another issue came up for debate in committee, which resulted in a change, not the one we necessarily wanted or not the only one we wanted. We were quite supportive of the position that the Bloc Québécois took, its critic in particular, in wanting a sunset clause. It is simply bad legislative process to run bills rapidly through the House. We know from many years of bad experiences that when we do that, we expose ourselves, as a legislature and our community as a whole, to mistakes being made.

I know my colleague from the Bloc has been very clear on a number of occasions that he is experienced. I have had the same experience as well where we have agreed to run a bill through rapidly and then, in retrospect, have realized that we made a mistake or simply left a gap in the legislation. The Bloc member's proposal to put in a sunset clause seemed to me to make good sense. We were supportive of it and, unfortunately, could not gather enough support to press it through.

The mandatory review that the Liberals proposed, which was adopted ultimately by a majority of the committee, and is in the bill before us today, has two major problems. We know, again, from many years of experience in analyzing mandatory reviews that all too often they are never conducted.

One of the flaws in our legislative process is that there is no penalty to the legislature or the government if we in fact do not put in place a mandatory review. Even though the legislation is clear that we have to, if it is not done, there is no penalty. There have been repeated occasions where bills have passed through the House, become law and the mandatory review is never carried out, or is carried out years after it is supposed to be.

The other problem with the mandatory review, and my colleague from the Bloc mentioned this, is that even if it is done, there is no imperative on the government to accept the recommendations that come out of it. It can simply say that it will not proceed with the recommendations and the changes needed are never pursued. Whereas with the mandatory sunset clause, the government would no choice but to address the issue if in fact a major problem arose.

Although overall we in the NDP support the legislation, we have serious problems with not having the sunset clause. Beyond that, hopefully the bill will resolve the issue that Trépanier has created and we can continue with the criminal justice system within the national defence system.

[Manufacturing Industry, June 16th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, for more than a century Windsor has been the automotive centre of Canada and manufacturing has been the lifeblood of the local economy. Yet since May 2002, the area has lost more than 17,700 manufacturing jobs.

Chrysler, Ford and GM have all announced layoffs and closures. The loss of jobs at these large facilities has meant losses for dozens of smaller manufacturing companies, including Industrialex Manufacturing, Diageo, The Precision Group, Southern Wire Products, Lamb Technicon, Hallmark Tool and Die, Windsor Tool and Die, and Plastex, to name only a few. They have been forced to lay off workers and in many cases to outright close their doors.

These job losses come with very real consequences. In concert with the loss of revenue that employment generates for much needed services comes the very personal cost of layoffs.

There is very little disagreement within the auto sector of what needs to be done, the roles that all the participants in the sector need to play and, in particular, the need for a partnership with the federal government.

The thousands of men, women and children in my community who are facing the negative consequences of the manufacturing crisis deserve more than the government's empty rhetoric that blames the problem on sectoral adjustments or restructuring. They deserve action now.