Joe Comartin

[Airport Security, June 18th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, as we know, the no-fly list came into effect today. We are hearing there are about a thousand names on the list.

My question is for the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. If in fact there are names on the list of people who belong to terrorist groups, why does the government not see that they are charged, prosecuted, put in jail so they will not only stop being risks to airlines, but also to all the rest of Canada?

[Foreign Affairs, June 14th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, in spite of the fact that Omar Khadr was a 15-year-old teenager at the time he was accused of being a terrorist, in spite of the fact that Australia, Germany, France and the U.K. have all mounted successful opposition to the unjust military tribunal system, in spite of the fact that he is the only Canadian at Guantanamo Bay, not once has the government, has Canada protested the use of the military commissions, nor done anything to get him home.

If the British, Australians, French and Germans could get protection from the government, why will the Conservatives not do something for a Canadian in need at this time?

[Criminal Code, June 13th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to Bill C-23. It gives me an opportunity to go into one of my favourite topics, which is the approach the government has taken with regard to crime bills.

This bill is a good example. If the government expanded the approach it took in the bill to a number of the other crime bills, the House would become much more efficient at dealing with the required Criminal Code amendments and do so in a much shorter period of time, using our resources here, in particular the resources of the members of Parliament, more efficiently.

The bill addresses a number of problems that exist in the Criminal Code currently and have existed for quite some period of time. It is not a really long bill, but it is good number of pages and it does address a significant number of sections in the Criminal Code. It improves the Criminal Code, corrects the problems and addresses the reality that we move on. Communication techniques change and technology overall changes. We need to address those changes in our criminal justice system. The bill does that in a number of ways.

What jumps out at us, if we have been here for the government's current period of time, is it could have done the same thing in a number of other ways in a number of bills that we have dealt with in the House and in the justice committee. However, the government did it on a piecemeal basis. I use, as the classic example, the commitments that all political parties, perhaps the Bloc a little less than the others, made in the last election to deal with violent crimes involving guns.

We have just finished a second bill that dealt with the reverse onus for bail when an individual is charged with an offence, the allegation being of a violent offence with the use of a gun. A few months before that, we dealt with the use of mandatory minimums and other penalties, again for people who had now been convicted of violent crimes involving the use of a gun.

Rather than combine those two bills into one and have the witnesses come before our committee to speak to both bills, the government opted to present two separate bills. It took in effect about double the time to deal with them, when we could have halved that time if they had simply been combined. This has been repeated by the government on a number of occasions with regard to crime bills and criminal justice bills.

There is a simple answer as to why this is going on, of course, which is the Conservative government very much wants to highlight each one of these bill, each one of these issues. Rather than deal with them efficiently, it wants to play the political game of trying to get as much media coverage and attention in the country as it possibly can.

Quite frankly, that is shameful because it delays the legislative process quite significantly. It delays the use of these techniques to our police, our prosecutors and our judges, simply for the purpose of playing partisan politics with those sections of the code. Again, the government has done this over and over again.

Even this bill could have been combined with a number of others, obviously then a much larger bill. Witnesses who came before us on the issues in this bill are now coming before us on similar issues and their expertise is being in effect wasted because we are hearing from them two, three and four times.

This afternoon we have even gone the route the justice committee has gone. It is so clogged with so many bills the government has now moved to appointing special legislative committees. This afternoon the individual who was in front of us had been in front of the justice committee and both legislative committees in the last three months on four different occasions. That is repeated over and over again.

The Criminal Code does need some significant updating. Again, one of the manoeuvres by the government, to follow its ideological bent, was to hamper the potential for that to happen by getting rid of the law commission. It would have been an ideal group to have done a major revamp of the Criminal Code and some our other criminal justice bills, including our Canada Evidence Act. It could have brought that up to date and given the opportunity to the House to bring the Criminal Code into the 21st century, because in many respects it is not.

However, that opportunity has now been missed. There is no potential that I can see within government services right now for anyone to do that work. If we ever get this done, if the government ever gets its head wrapped around for the absolute need to get this done, we will pay a huge bill to buy these services, whether it be from universities, law schools or the private sector and other ways to get that total revamp of the Criminal Code, which is so badly needed.

I started with the law school initially in 1969 and we needed to bring in a whole new Criminal Code, totally revamp it. That is almost 40 years ago now. We have not done that. We have done it piecemeal. Both Liberal and Conservative governments have tried to band-aid their way through the criminal justice system.

It is not the way to run a criminal justice system. It is not a way to deal with crime in society, but this is the way it has been done up to this point. We will continue to do it this way under the Conservative government because it simply does not have the vision of what is required to deal criminal conduct in our country in an appropriate manner.

With regard to the bill itself, there are several provisions that I will highlight, which will bring the bill somewhat up to date.

About two years ago we passed a bill on child pornography, which received pretty well universal support from all sides of the House at that time, but we missed one item. That was to deal with the issue of a person being convicted of a crime involving child pornography. There was no provision, and there still is no provision, in the Criminal Code to order the seizure of equipment, which might be computers, photographic equipment and a variety of a similar nature, and forfeited to the Crown.

That is one of the amendments in the bill, a badly needed one. Our police officers and judges have made very clear to us that they require this authority. Now it will be given to them.

Similarly, with regard to offences around illegal gaming, there was a real limitation on laying charges in certain circumstances because technology got ahead of the Criminal Code. That again has been corrected. No matter what the form of communication is, electronic communication, telecommunication or whatever, if it is being used for the purposes of illicit gaming, it is now an offence. Also there are provisions for forfeiture of that equipment. More important, it makes the use of that telecommunication device illegal and people can be charged for it as a separate and new offence.

One of the other points that caused me problems when I first saw the bill and on which I was successful in getting an amendment was that we were increasing the penalty on fines from an amount of what is now $2,000 in the situation of a summary conviction offence. The bill originally proposed to move that amount to $10,000. Those fines throughout my career were $500 and then we moved them up to $1,000. About 12 to 15 years ago we increased them to $2,000.

When setting standard fines, even when they are at the maximum, we need to be sure we are not creating a set of circumstances that makes it impossible for individuals who are from the lower social economic classes of our society to pay the fine, as opposed to the alternative. It happens quite regularly where a person is given the alternative of so many days in jail, usually so many weeks or months in jail, or a fine of a maximum of $2,000, as it was then.

There is a significant number of what I would say are non-violent, property type crimes where individuals are charged and convicted of those types of crimes and then are assessed a choice penalty: either pay this amount of the fine or spend 30, 60 or 90 days in jail.

If the person has an income in the six figures, a fine of a couple of thousand dollars is not a big deal to avoid spending that length of time in custody. On the other hand, for an individual with very low income, perhaps on a fixed income, the fine is insurmountable and the individual will end up spending time in jail.

We are always looking, within the criminal justice system, to strike the proper balance. Judges certainly take into account the economic circumstances of individuals but, whereas the government was proposing here to move the maximum fine from $2,000 to $10,000, the judges need to judge the fine in light of what the maximum is.

I want to acknowledge the new justice minister who understood the proposals I and some of the other members of the committee were making and accepted the fact that when we take into account inflation over this period of time, jumping it from $2,000 to $10,000 was unreasonable. We ended up compromising on a figure of a maximum fine that can be assessed in those circumstances of $5,000. That amendment was moved at committee, accepted by all the parties and is now in the bill at third reading.

The other concern I had with the bill involved official language rights across the country. A number of amendments are in the bill but there are also some gaps. Some of the amendments that went through were, I believe, moved primarily by the Bloc Québécois but they were supported by the opposition parties in one case and in another by all of us supporting them.

A number of francophone lawyers associations from across the country, which appeared before our committee, told us about one of the major problems they ran into. Although we are providing a significant amount of service, translating documents at the time of the trial and onward, there are a number of documents that people are served with, and we are not talking a lot of pages, that are only written in the official language that is dominant in that area of the country and English, generally, is dominant in eight of the provinces. In New Brunswick, which is fluently bilingual, it is not a problem because most documents there are given in both languages or are at least available in both languages, and then there are areas in Quebec where the documents are only available in French.

There was some significant discussion in committee. We heard from the government that it would be very expensive to do this. After a more thorough analysis, it became obvious that it would be a relatively minor additional cost, but it would allow the individual to have full access to the criminal justice system from the start. From the time a person is charged, the initial document with which the person is served at that point and other documents that the person may be given during that period of time, some of which the person must sign, all of those could be relatively easily translated without a great deal of expense. That amendment went through.

One of the problems that we ultimately decided not to deal with but one I want to note was the concern over the availability of trials and granting judges authority to move trials from one region of a province to another. Initially we heard from some of the francophone lawyers associations that this amendment would limit the availability of trials if it went through.

Again, after some very lengthy involvement of the national francophone lawyers association and further discussion with the Government of Canada, the justice department and some of the provinces, it was determined that it might have a minor impact on the availability of trials in French. It is not a problem in New Brunswick or with trials in English in Quebec, but it may have a minor effect in some of the other provinces.

What was determined was that we would pass the bill as proposed by the government and monitor it over the next three to five years to see if it is having an impact, with an understanding by the government that if the number of trials in the other official language began to be impeded by this provision that it would be looked at again at that time. Hopefully a consensus would build that we revert to the situation where judges would not be able that easily to transfer trials from one region to another.

It can be appreciated that an accused party when faced with a transfer of a trial is looking at extra expenses. The person's lawyer will need to travel, the witnesses will need to travel and the person may end up spending time in hotels and having to buy restaurant food while the trial is going on in another region. That certainly could be and may, in some cases, be an impediment to the trials in the other official language.

As I said, the justice department through the justice minister has committed to monitoring the situation. If it becomes a problem we hopefully will deal with it and deal with it rapidly.

The end result of the process was a healthy one from a democracy standpoint. I think the justice committee got a full appreciation of the amendments we were making.

There are a number of other technical amendments in here that facilitate the transfer of criminal justice documents between provinces. That has been a problem in the past. These amendments would facilitate that and make it easier and increase the use and the transfer of these documents by fax as opposed to hard copies that had to be delivered.

As I said earlier in my address, this would bring these sections of the Criminal Code into the 21st century recognizing the advances we have made technologically and incorporating a number of those into the amendments and now into the ode once the bill clears this House.

Overall, it is the way we should be amending. Even better would be an overall complete review of the Criminal Code and bringing it up to date. I have one more point to make that highlights this. One of the members of the Conservative Party moved a private member's bill and, in the course of the debate, he was quite eloquent in pointing out some of the serious inconsistencies we have in the Criminal Code on the sentencing side, where there is, by all objective standards, a very serious crime with a relatively minor penalty. Side by side with it, maybe one section next in the Criminal Code, there is a less severe crime, again by any objective standards, but with a penalty that is even more severe.

We have a number of those. It is another example of this need to completely revamp the Criminal Code, bring it up to date and do away with a lot of the inconsistencies.

The NDP is supporting this bill as amended and we would like to see it in place as rapidly as possible.

[Criminal Code, June 13th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I stand to speak in support of this bill which, by way of agreement of all parties, will go through the House today at all stages and will become law. This cooperation reflects a response from us demanding to deal with the piracy of movies.

The bill has basically three provisions of note. We are creating a new offence in the Criminal Code for videotaping a movie without the consent of a theatre manager. In clause 1 of the bill, no person is entitled to videotape the film that is on the screen.

I am being told by the member for Timmins—James Bay that I will be sharing my time with him. I did have a note of that, Mr. Speaker, but I think it might be a little Freudian that I buried it somewhere here in my papers. In all seriousness, I will be looking forward to the comments from the member for Timmins—James Bay who is our critic for heritage. I am sure he will have some very enlightened comments on the bill.

The second part of the bill would make it an offence, again without the consent of the theatre manager, to videotape the film for the purposes of sale or other commercial activity.

In the case of the first offence, which is simply videotaping without consent, there are certain penalties but they are of a lesser nature. If it is a situation where the person is intending to use the film for commercial purposes, which is the activity that we are most focused on preventing and, hopefully, stopping outright, the penalties would be more severe. If people are convicted of an indictable offence, they would be looking at a maximum of five years in jail.

The third provision in the bill, and it is an important provision given to the courts, is the right of forfeiture of the equipment that was used either for filming, copying or creating additional copies. This provision would give the courts the authority, on application from the crown prosecutor, to seize all those goods and forfeit them to the Crown. The one exception to the forfeiture is the situation where the property actually belongs to someone else. In those circumstances it would not be forfeited.

What we are doing here is responding to concerns that have been raised within the film industry here in Canada and within the film industry internationally, particularly in the United States, to this outright piracy of films. In that regard, the bill responds to that initial concern that we have had.

It also reflects on the current state of the laws, both under the Copyright Act and under the Criminal Code, which do not provide adequate response to this type of criminal activity, and, therefore, the need for it.

Members may have heard some of the other speakers mention a number of incidents but I want to mention one notorious incident that occurred in St. Jerome just north of Montreal. Two young men were in a theatre with a video camera, obviously intent on video copying the film on the screen, when they were accosted by the staff. The men told the staff that they had no right to demand they leave or that they not copy the movie because there were no laws in Canada requiring them to leave the theatre or to stop copying the film. At that point the staff persisted and one, who was a young woman, was actually grabbed around the throat and pushed. The police were subsequently called. When the police arrived they said that they had no basis on which to charge the men because there were no laws in Canada that would allow them to charge them, either under the Copyright Act or under the Criminal Code.

That incident in particular, but a number of other ones highlight the need for this bill and hence the support we have received from all parties in that regard.

I want to cover one other point and that is to perhaps express a bit of a concern over whether the bill would be as effective as we may have put out the image that it would be. I want to express some reservation about that and I do that in light of some of the background research I did in preparation for analyzing the bill and the need for it.

The United States addressed this problem at an earlier stage than we did. It does have a federal statute that is a little over two years old and there has only been one charge and one prosecution under it in the United States. A number of the state legislatures have also passed laws. California was the lead one. It passed it at the start of this year. Again, there have been no prosecutions whatsoever under that legislation. Illinois, one of the other earlier ones, has one a year or two old now with no prosecutions under that.

The point I would make from that experience in the United States is to perhaps caution how effectively we will be able to use this legislation. The notorious case that I described in St. Jerome will put a stop to that type of activity.

However, we know from information and research that we undertook in the public safety committee on counterfeit goods getting into Canada generally, but piracy of films as well, that a great deal of this activity is conducted by and paid for by organized crime and, in most occasions, at a very sophisticated level.

Although we would be stopping, fairly effectively with this legislation, the small operators, the success of it with regard to organized crime, to a great extent, remains uncertain. That may very well require additional efforts on the part of our governments, both at the federal and provincial level, and by our police forces right across the country to deal with the piracy of film and the use of counterfeit goods generally.

We are prepared to support this at all stages so we can put a stop to at least some of this piracy that is going on, to protect our film industry here in Canada and to protect our international reputation from this kind of conduct. We will be supporting it and we look forward to seeing what happens.

[Extension of Sitting Hours, June 11th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I will actually take issue with my friend. I do not think it is esoteric at all. I think it is fundamental to how legislation should be prepared, drafted and presented to committee.

We see it repeatedly in both of the standing committees that I sit on, where the government has I think in many respects let its ideology, its hardcore, right wing ideology, overcome practical common sense when it is drafting legislation. We see it repeatedly. We have moved any number of amendments to justice bills, not only to make them better, I think, but to actually just make them workable on the street.

I am always amazed, quite frankly, at the lack of advice. I do not want to target the current justice minister so much as the prior justice minister, who refused to take advice from officials in justice who have a great deal of experience. Because he refused to do that, repeatedly we had legislation in front of the committee that required amendment. I think the point my friend from the Yukon is making is a very good one.

[Extension of Sitting Hours, June 11th, 2007]

As my colleague from Acadie--Bathurst has said, this is about slashing the court challenges program and any number of really good programs that the government has taken an axe to, both in this budget and in previous policy decisions.

We started hearing last week that the government members were in a panic, that they had to get Bill C-52 through the House. Wait a minute, we said, the government has had well over three months to work this through. My colleague from Vancouver, our House leader, has detailed this. The government has had a number of opportunities to bring the bill forward for full debate at second reading, report stage and third reading. This is the budget. This is the biggest item for any Parliament to deal with.

What did the Conservatives do? They just kept putting it off. They brought forward other bills. This was completely within their control. They brought forward 11 other bills and said the House would deal with them first. Now we are going to deal with this one, they said, and then we are going to deal with that one. They brought forward 11 different items on 11 different days when they could have brought forward Bill C-52. Now it is panic time for the Conservatives and they are saying they have to get the bill through.

I want to address what seems to be a suggestion that somehow these programs are all going to collapse, along with this new funding, if the bill does not get passed in the next 24 hours. That is just not true. This money will be spent when Bill C-52 finally gets through the House. The flow of that money may be postponed by several days or several weeks, but it will get spent because obviously both the government and the Bloc Québécois have indicated that they are going to support the bill and they have the numbers in the House to get it passed.

Constitutionally, the government again putting around the panic that the Senate somehow is going to block this bill. That is not going to happen. It may be delayed a bit, but the Senate does not have the constitutional authority to block a money bill. Specifically, it has no authority to turn down a budget. That is not going to happen either.

What this is really about is the fact that the Conservative government is tired, it does not have a program, and it wants to get out of here. If they can get away with it, Conservative members are going to move adjournment of this House as soon as they get Bill C-52 through.

We do not have a problem with debating Bill C-52. I have here about 20 items that I would just love to be able to get into. If I did, I could be here for many hours showing the flaws in this budget. That is not what this is about. This is not about this opposition party or, quite frankly, the other opposition parties being shy about debating the contents of Bill C-52 and all that it lacks.

What this is about is the government's unwillingness to face, in a realistic fashion, what is going on in the country. It continuously gets beat up, whether it is on the climate change file or whether it is on Afghanistan. We can go down the list. The government is just tired of being here.

I could not help but think of the hypocrisy of some of the statements coming out of the mouth of the House leader when he addressed this motion earlier this afternoon. He said that we should believe the Conservatives because they did not intend to have an election. Of course he did not address the fact that their airplane was lined up, with a contract for it, and their campaign office was open and substantially staffed. They were ready to go to an election. Quite frankly, if the Canadian people and the opinion polls had not made it clear what was going to happen if they took the country to an election at that time, we would have been in an election now.

What has happened is that the Conservatives did not have a fallback position. They did not know what they were going to do if they did not have an election. They do not have an agenda as to how they are going to deal with it. They want to get out of here so they can regroup and see what they might do when we come back in the fall. They want to get out of here as fast as possible. That is what the motion is really about.

I want to say very clearly on the record that the NDP has no problems whatsoever with staying here until June 22, which is what is scheduled. Quite frankly, we have no problem with extended hours. What my party and I are concerned about is that Standing Order 56.1 will get used probably as early as Wednesday and the House will adjourn.

I know that most Canadians do not fully appreciate the amount of important work that happens outside this chamber and particularly in committee. Again, in many incompetent ways, the government kept pushing crime bills through the justice committee, through the two special legislative committees it set up, and also in some work that we have been doing in the public safety and national security committee. There is a lot of work going on, both in terms of bills that have come from the government itself and in terms of a large number of private members' bills on specific crime issues, which we have been dealing with.

A number of those, probably three, four or five, and both private members' bills and government bills, would be dealt with and completed if we stayed sitting in committee until June 22. If in fact we adjourn earlier than that, all of this work will be postponed into the fall. As well, depending on whether the government actually prorogues sometime through the early fall and comes back with a new session of Parliament, which is the rumour is floating around, some of those bills may be ended completely and never will see the light of day.

Thus, it is quite important for the House to continue to sit. We in the NDP understand that. We as the NDP are quite prepared to sit here. We as the NDP will do whatever we can to thwart the government's attempt to adjourn the House early.

The motion, though, is misleading for the public when it tries to let the public know that the government really wants to work longer hours. That is not what it is about. We believe very clearly that if we do not stop the Conservatives the House will adjourn in the next few days.

Specifically with regard to Bill C-30, it is one of the bills that badly needs to get in front of the House. All three opposition parties are supportive. They have gone to great lengths and have done a great amount of very good work in amending the bill into a form that in fact will allow the country to deal with the crisis we are confronted with as far as global warming and climate change are concerned.

In that respect, we would very much like the government to commit this week or next week to bring that bill forward for a fulsome debate at report stage and third reading. It is ready to go. All the background work has been done. In that regard I am proposing at this time to move an amendment to the motion before the House which would read as follows: “That the motion be amended to add immediately after 10 p.m. the following: 'and if the government calls Bill C-30 at any time, the House shall continue to sit until the bill has been decided at all stages'”.

[Extension of Sitting Hours, June 11th, 2007]

I note that the Minister of Finance is concerned about this. He knows this very well. One of his colleagues, John Snobelen, the minister of education, was actually caught on tape early on in the administration of that government saying that the government had to create a crisis in order to do its slashing and cutting, which is what it proceeded to do. That is really what is happening here.

[Extension of Sitting Hours, June 11th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am quite sure that the member is more than happy to cede the floor because it gives me an opportunity to come forward.

I have watched the government developing this over the last seven days. It goes back to last week, starting with what happened on Friday, and then here it is again with this motion today. It was like déjà vu all over again. These are the kinds of tactics that the Harris government used all the time.

[Extension of Sitting Hours, June 11th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, to my colleague from Wascana, I guess I have a similar question in seeking a commitment from the Liberals. We are very concerned that this motion today is simply a smokescreen on the part of the government to force the budget bill through and as soon as it is through and out of this House the government will bring in a motion under Standing Order 56.1 to adjourn this House.

As my colleague knows, probably much better than I, there is a way of stopping that motion, which is that 25 members of this House stand up and signal that they are opposed to that motion.

I am asking him today if he is prepared to commit that the Liberal Party will always have a substantial number of members in this House to oppose the motion if in fact it is brought forward by the government?

[Criminal Code, June 4th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Party raised the issue of a ban on handguns as a policy that it would have implemented had the Liberals returned to power. That was one of the promises they made in the last election.

For the NDP, I have done a fair amount of background work with respect to this issue. I remember talking to the chief of police in Windsor who asked me how we were going to ban guns and then referred to the immediate adjacent communities around Windsor. If guns are banned in Windsor, they are going to be found in the adjoining municipalities of Tecumseh and LaSalle. That is one of the problems.

I can say for the member that as a result of the Dawson shooting last year, some members of city council in Montreal are looking at bringing forward a bylaw to ban handguns in metropolitan Montreal. I will be watching that. I would encourage other members to watch as well to see whether or not that comes forward, whether it passes successfully, and then what the experience is with it.

I do want to say with regard to the ban proposed by the Liberal Party in the last election campaign, and I know we would hear this from the Conservatives as well, that it was modelled after what happened in Australia. What Australia did is what I believe the Liberals were proposing to do. People in Australia who had handguns for collection purposes or for recreational purposes were exempted. The situation my colleague described earlier of 200-plus guns and 1,000 rounds of ammunition would have been exempted, because those were all registered legally as the individual was either collecting them or using them for recreational purposes. When Australia did that, it had no ascertainable impact at all on gun crime rates in that country.

If we are going to ban handguns, it will have to be a complete ban. It is hard to imagine recreational shooters and collectors willingly accepting that. I think what we will be looking at, and I am hoping this is what we will see in the experiment in Montreal, is that a different form of storage of the weapons will be required where an individual has them legally because he or she is a collector or uses them for recreational purposes.

I need to make one more point. If we are going to do that, we have to recognize the reality of what we are dealing with. We know that more than half of the handguns and repeating illegal weapons used in crimes in this country are smuggled in from the United States, so a ban on handguns will have no impact on those. It will have some impact on the guns that are stolen from retail outlets and from individual collectors and owners and are then subsequently sold on the street and used in crimes.

The issue of the handguns that are smuggled in is a whole other problem that we need to deal with, but I know I have run out of time, so I cannot tell the House what we should be doing in that regard.