Joe Comartin

[Divorce Act, March 1st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-252 authored by the member for Lethbridge. Like my colleague from the Bloc, I would like to acknowledge the hard work that he has done on this file. The bill addresses an important point.

It was interesting to see the positive response from all members who sit on the justice committee to this particular amendment to the Divorce Act. Although it would have limited usage, it is an important one.

I feel as though I am back teaching a family law course at the university.

What is really being said by the bill is if a custody award has been made, and if an application is made to change that custody award, more specifically the visitation rights by the non-custodial parent, the judge must take into account the health of the non-custodial parent, especially if the parent is terminally ill or in critical condition. The judge hearing the application for visitation rights will have to take that into account.

I fully expect this bill will pass. At this stage, the court is not mandated to see what we call in family law as the legal principles, a situation involving a terminally ill parent as a change of circumstances. That is the vernacular within the legal principles under family law in this country. This bill mandates the judge to treat a situation involving a terminally ill parent as a change of circumstances and the judge will have to take that into account.

We heard not only from the member for Lethbridge but from other members about a number of cases where parents, for whatever reason, had not been given access to their children. They were terminally ill, but they were not given the opportunity to see their children before they passed away. More important, and this goes beyond any consideration, the children were denied the right to see their dying parent. That is a personal tragedy in a lot of cases. It also causes psychological trauma which in all likelihood will stay with the child for the rest of the child's life.

I want to be clear, as was the member for Lethbridge, that this provision cannot be used, and a court would not order, a child to see a parent in circumstances where it was not in the best interests of the child. I use as an example a bill which was brought before the House in the last Parliament by a Conservative member. In effect, it was trying to prevent a father who had killed the mother of his children from forcing the children to visit him in prison where he was confined for life. That is clearly a situation that is not in the best interests of the children. This section would not in any way prevent a judge from determining that it was not in the best interests of the children and therefore the judge would continue to deny visitation rights.

In the circumstances where it is a valid conscientious claim by a terminally ill parent, and it gives the children the opportunity, perhaps only once, to see that parent before the parent dies, I am sure in most cases a judge would find it in the best interests of the children and would make that determination accordingly.

I am quite happy to support private member's Bill C-252. I commend the member for Lethbridge for the work that he has done on this. It is an important point. It will cover a small number of cases, but they are crucial cases. In that regard it is work well done.

[Points of Order, March 1st, 2007]

Yes, Mr. Speaker. I believe this has happened on one or two other occasions. It may very well be good that you be given the opportunity to clarify this if you are so inclined.

However, this came as a surprise to us. I would like the opportunity to make argument. I am not prepared to do so at this point and would reserve that right at some point in the future, either tomorrow or when we return from the break.

[Windsor Border Crossing, February 28th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, this week we learned that the Liberal provincial government was continuing in the shameful tradition of its federal predecessors, a tradition of ignoring the will of Windsorites.

In an internal newsletter sent to government insiders, the views of residents attending an open house on the new border crossing were grossly misrepresented. The transportation communications staff who drafted the newsletter characterized their position as being opposed to tunnelling on the route leading to a new border crossing.

Nothing could be further from the truth. My colleague from Windsor West and I have heard from literally thousands of concerned constituents on this issue. An overwhelming majority of them favour tunnelling to take the trucks off our city streets and reduce the congestion and smog from idling vehicles.

I call upon the Conservative government to do what the provincial government seems to be unable to do, listen to the community, take action and get on with building a new border crossing for Windsor.

[Criminal Code, February 27th, 2007]

That is what the concern is. It is one that needs to be addressed, so I raise it at this point to do that.

With regard to the bill itself, as it is so often with bills coming from the Conservatives on crime, it comes forward well intentioned but then takes it to an extreme. It takes it over the top. That is certainly what this bill does.

This being a private member's bill, of course I am speaking only on my behalf, but I could not support this bill on second reading, even to send it to committee, because quite frankly the parts of the bill that need to be amended out of the bill would almost certainly be ruled out of order as being inconsistent with the principle and scope of the bill. I cannot support the bill. The rest of my caucus will be making their decision on their own as to what they are going to do.

We can recognize that auto theft is of serious concern, although I have to say that in a number of areas, particularly in British Columbia where this had been a rampant crime, the numbers in the last two years in fact have been dropping. I have not seen any numbers for the latter part of 2006, but in the last couple of years before that, the crime rate was actually dropping.

Setting that aside, because it is still a serious problem, the reason I cannot support the bill is that to introduce these mandatory minimums, both in terms of the fines and incarceration, is a response that, in my opinion, is going to have no impact. All the research that I have read on mandatory minimums would confirm that.

More importantly, from my perspective and perhaps from the perspective we want the community to have of this crime, it deludes our society into believing that this bill will have a positive effect in reducing the crime of auto theft. In fact, I do not believe it will have that impact because it also misses the real target we should be going after.

We know from a good deal of information that we are getting from our police services that the increase in auto theft has been driven, to a significant degree, by organized crime, both the traditional organized crime gangs and the bikers and now the street gangs. This is organized crime across that whole spectrum.

The bill does really very little to address that target group. I do not believe it does anything. Those in the target group are the ones we should be going after.

I have to say that if we look at some of the communities that have been successful, that is what they did. They used a dummy car to catch people. They have done a number of interesting and effective mechanisms, which they had already within their investigative tools, to catch the criminals. They have specifically tried to target the gangs. When they have done that, they have driven down the occurrence rate quite significantly.

I know from your signal, Mr. Speaker, that my time is up. Again I want to reiterate that, although well intentioned, this bill does not accomplish at all what it is intended to do. I would be voting against the bill on second reading.

[Criminal Code, February 27th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-343 is a private member's bill purported to deal with the issue of auto theft. What it does, as is so common with the response from the Conservative Party and the government, is introduce a simplistic analysis, although I know well-intentioned, to a reasonably complex problem.

Before I proceed, I want to raise an issue that has bothered me since I saw this bill on the order paper. The member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, who is the author of the bill, is also one of the Acting Speakers in this House. I was concerned to see a bill that I would say has, and we have seen that today, a significant degree of controversy behind it in terms of the use of mandatory minimum penalties. We also know, from the speeches that have been given so far today, that both the Liberal member and the member from the Bloc have expressed grave concern about their ability to support and do not intend to support the bill.

I had some of my staff do some research on this and it is my opinion that any member of the House who is also a Deputy Speaker or Acting Speaker should not bring forth before the House a private member's bill or a motion as part of the rotation that we all are entitled to unless it is non-controversial, it would draw or at least be expected to draw support from all the other parties and would be almost non-partisan.

My concern was further highlighted this evening when I heard the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle in his speech to the House extol the virtues of his government. He indicated quite clearly that this private member's bill was completely in keeping with the government's agenda on crime. Clearly, both in terms of the substance of the bill and then the comments this evening, they show no bipartisan approach, just the opposite.

As I said, I had my staff do some extensive research on this. The protocols are that the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker are not to introduce into the House, although they would be, as part of the rotation, entitled to do so, a private member's bill, but that the Acting Speakers can. I was not able to ascertain any protocol, either here or in other houses of similar historical background, as to whether that extended to controversial bills, which is whether Acting Speakers have the right to bring in what are clearly partisan and controversial bills. Nothing in the research that I did told me anything about that.

It would behoove this House to start a precedent in that regard, in that when the Acting Speakers are appointed by the Prime Minister that they would be directed at that time to develop this protocol, that if they are going to bring forward a private member's bill or a private member's motion, that it be one that would be fully expected to draw significant all party support of the House.

I will conclude these comments on this subject with this. The fear, of course, for us, and I say this having practised in the courts all my professional career, is that we always are concerned about appearing in the courtrooms in front of judges who are unbiased and who do not come with any conflict. We are always sensitive to judges who may have expressed a bias in one form or another and then refused to recuse themselves when challenged.

I think it is a similar type of protocol that we need to develop in sensitivity, perhaps, to bias and the appearance of bias and conflict here, because the Acting Speaker, when he or she is in the chair, has the responsibility to keep order in this House and to treat all members equitably, fairly and equally.

The apprehension that as individual members of Parliament we would have is that if we had occasion to speak against a private member's bill that had been brought forward by that same Acting Speaker, as I am about to do, it would be to expect to question and to be apprehensive as to whether I would henceforth be treated fairly by the Acting Speaker.

[Points of Order, February 27th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, first I would like to say that I support the speech by the House Leader of the Bloc Québécois, and particularly his argument regarding the immigration bill.

I will not repeat some of those arguments. It seems to me that really there are two issues that I do want to address and that you should take into account in making your decision on whether the amendments to Bill C-257 are admissible or not.

The first one is the general principle of what is within in the principle and scope of legislation. We debate that a lot in committee and occasionally in the House. The second issue that I believe you need to take into account is really the authority of the committee to control its own process. I would remind you of the number of times that you have indicated in the House how strongly you feel about the right of the committee to control its own process. I think this is an issue that has to be taken into account here.

Let me go back, though, to the primary point about whether these amendments are admissible or are outside the principle and scope of the amendments contained in Bill C-257. Again, in support of the arguments you have heard from the member of the Liberal Party and now from the House leader of the Bloc, I do not see these amendments doing anything in the way of changing the principle and scope. When one looks at them in a holistic way, they simply are clarifying what is the intention of the author of the bill, which is to make it very clear that in the amendments with regard to what we always call anti-scab conduct and anti-scab legislation, the intent is to simply clarify when this legislation is to be used.

In effect, the amendments are saying that when it comes to essential services, whether it is the Canada Labour Relations Board and I suppose even potentially the House with back to work legislation, we would conduct ourselves as if essential services were outside the scope of these amendments contained in Bill C-257. The amendments to Bill C-257 really just address that point. That is what they are about. It is simply a mechanism to clarify. We are certainly not changing the principle.

That is very clear, Mr. Speaker, if you look at the fact that the author of the bill was quite prepared to accept these amendments. They are not contrary to the principle. The real issue is whether they are outside the scope. Again, this is simply carrying out the intent of the author of the bill and nothing more.

With regard to the second issue of the right and responsibility of the committee to control its own process, as you have heard, all of the opposition parties supported these amendments and did so by having to overturn the ruling of the chair. They did that not out of any partisan basis or out of spite. They did it because there was an honest difference of opinion in how these amendments should be interpreted.

The chair of that committee saw them as being beyond the scope and ruled accordingly. The significant majority of the committee said no, this is simply about clarifying, and it is quite within both the principle and the scope of the bill, and all we are doing is clarifying what we intend these sections to do, and nothing more. On that basis, because of that difference of opinion, the majority on the committee, arguing and maintaining the position that it was simply clarifying, overturned the chair's ruling and proceeded to make those amendments and send the bill back to the House.

I have read the submissions made by the House leader for the government. I understood the arguments, which were similar to the arguments made at committee, but they are missing the essential point. We are not making changes to the Canada Labour Relations Act and Labour Code. We are simply clarifying what Bill C-257 is intended to do, nothing more than that.

Although the points were well made by the House leader for the government, the government is in fact missing that essential point of these amendments simply being clarification. On that basis, they are not beyond the principle and they are not beyond the scope of the legislation originally proposed in Bill C-257. They are well within the authority of the committee to make that decision, to make that interpretation and to make that decision to overrule the chair.

I would conclude, Mr. Speaker, by saying that you should honour that decision by the committee and allow these amendments to proceed.

[Security Certificates, February 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, we are really beyond platitudes with regard to the two men who are still being retained in the Kingston prison system. They have been on a hunger strike for more than 70 days.

After the Supreme Court decision today, striking down the certificate under which they are being held, will the government commit to negotiate seriously with its counsel to get them out on the same condition that the other four people detained under certificates have been previously released?

[Security Certificates, February 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, today, the Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision on the use of security certificates. The court ruled that they are illegal because they violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Will the government assume its responsibilities? Will it allow this House to quickly abolish security certificates? Will we finally respect human rights here in Canada?

[Railway Operations Legislation, February 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I actually looked at that precedent that the government whip has just made reference to.

It was Mr. Boudria who was the government whip for the Liberals in 1999. That precedent did not have a ruling. It was submitted. No one objected to it because at the time Standing Order 78 would have in fact been complied with because three of the five parties in the House at that time were in support of both the bill and this type of a motion.

Therefore it is not a precedent. There has been in fact no ruling on it. It has been used only once in the history and no one challenged it at that time.

I am asking you, Mr. Speaker, to rule on it at this point and find along the arguments that I made that in fact it is an attempt on the part of the government to manoeuvre its way around the Standing Orders.

[Railway Operations Legislation, February 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order this morning to challenge the receivability of the motion. The goal of the motion is to suspend the Standing Orders and allow for the imposition of a severe form of closure on a bill at all stages before the bill has been introduced. We have not seen the bill.

While I believe that under unanimous consent such a procedure would be acceptable, that is not the current situation. The government is aware that it would not get unanimous consent from ourselves or another party.

It is obvious we do not have that agreement and this bill is quite onerous. It would legislate a group of workers on a legal strike back to work. The latitude that might be available to the government if there was unanimous consent, or a majority of the parties agreeing to proceed in this fashion, should not be available with half the recognized parties in the House being in opposition to the motion.

I have three reasons why the motion is not receivable. To begin with, the motion is asking the House to accept a piece of legislation for first reading which the House has not yet seen. The bill referred to in the motion is still on notice, having first appeared on the notice paper yesterday and the House will not see the bill until Monday at the earliest, and I am expecting, quite frankly, that it is now going to be Tuesday.

We have a responsibility as legislators not to deal with hypothetical legislation and therefore the motion should not be receivable until the bill to which it refers has at least been tabled in the House and parliamentarians have had the opportunity to see the legislation in full.

The government has, and I acknowledge this, provided each of the opposition parties with a summary of the legislation. It is helpful, but it is only a summary. It would be irresponsible for members of the House to accept the summary in substitution for the full language of the legislation.

Another problem with the motion is that it will have the effect of effectively precluding the possibility of members being able to propose informed amendments to the legislation because the motion would require that the bill proceed directly to first reading, second reading and then into committee of the whole without adjournment except as moved by a member of the cabinet, by a minister.

It is not even clear if a printed copy of the bill will be available for all members by the time the government proceeds with report stage under Motion No. 15. The inadmissibility of amendments at report stage, because the motion refers the bill to committee of the whole even before the House has seen the bill or debated second reading, makes it even more difficult for members to be able to formulate informed amendments and have them accepted in the committee.

Generally, the drafting of amendments, and again, Mr. Speaker, you are well aware of this, takes days. It is not at all clear that such drafting assistance will even be available to members for a bill which the government intends to ram through in a single sitting day of the House.

I submit that the motion is being proposed to procedurally allow the government to do indirectly what it cannot do directly and that violates a long held principle in this place. The government has to be subject to the rules outlined in the Standing Orders. If it wishes to propose changes to the Standing Orders then there are well established ways to do that.

Mr. Speaker, we know that you have been a long standing protector of the Standing Orders, both in terms of what your general role is in the House and more specifically when it comes to this type of manoeuvring by a government to avoid those Standing Orders.

On the specific violations of this principle on the scope of the curtailment of debate which is proposed in the motion, our Standing Orders have remedies available to the government if it believes that legislation must be passed expeditiously.

After introducing the bill it can invoke the procedures in Standing Order 57, or closure, on any specific stage of the bill. What it is trying to do here is to do all three stages, or at least two stages, at one time before we have even seen the bill.

I remind you, Mr. Speaker, that under closure only one stage can be placed under the closure rules at a time. Again, it is trying to do all stages from first reading and printing of the bill to be considered in the same sitting, and possibly, unless a minister rises to ask for it, without adjournment. That is entirely in the hands of the government and it is a nice neat way in its attempt to get around the rules.

Mr. Speaker, I want to raise what I think is perhaps an even stronger argument as to why you should find this motion not receivable. There are provisions within Standing Order 78 that deal with exactly the type of situation we have here. This is an attempt on the part of the government to get around Standing Order 78.

As I know you are aware, the use of Standing Order 78, specifically Standing Order 78.(1), is available to the government when there is unanimity between the parties on the need for time allocation. Similarly, Standing Order 78.(2) is available when a majority of parties have agreed on the need to allocate time on a bill.

There are two sections which allow for allocation of more than one stage at a time, but the situation here is that there are two of four parties, ourselves and the Bloc, not supporting this motion or the idea of the legislation. Therefore, these two sections are unavailable to the government.

It is therefore obvious that Motion No. 15 is an attempt to cast aside these rules in this place. The government is doing this because our rules forbid the imposition of closure or time allocation on multiple stages of a bill without the consent of a majority of parties in this House. It is trying to circumvent the rules and I believe it is attempting to create precedent in doing so.

Just one more point. The government has options to pass this legislation. It could start by talking to the opposition, a suggestion which is clearly an intention of the rules surrounding the curtailment of debate throughout chapter 14 of Marleau and Montpetit.

The government could use either Standing Order 78.(3), moving of time allocation without consent, which would allow the House to decide on allotting time for any single stage of the legislation at a time, or Standing Order 57 to call for closure on any single stage of its proposed legislation.

It can do that starting Monday, but our rules do not allow for the restriction of debate on multiple stages of the legislation without again the consent of a majority of the parties.

We are looking to you, Mr. Speaker, to defend those rules in the face of this assault by the government. We look to you as our Speaker to protect our rights to function under the rules and not to allow for these procedural back door manoeuvres, clearly designed to trivialize the Standing Orders of this place.