Joe Comartin

[Judges Act, November 9th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's question allows me to briefly expand on my comments.

The government and the minister have made statements that this is a decision of Parliament. It absolutely is not. There may be enough votes, although the Bloc has its own agenda on this, which again is very shameful. However, the House will never have the opportunity because the government has taken a position, which by the tradition of this Parliament it can. If amendments come forward to increase the amount we pay our judges, in accordance with the independent commission's recommendations, the Conservatives will invoke the royal prerogative and refuse to make a royal recommendation. Therefore, those amendments will be ruled out of order.

The opposition does not have the support of the government to present those amendments because it will not receive a royal recommendation. That is the government's role.

I get the sense from some of the discussions I have had with contacts within the judiciary that the government has put out this message, it has spun it, that Parliament will make that decision. This is absolutely false. Parliament cannot make the change. The government will not allow us. It is as simple as that.

This is going through because the government has taken that position. It has cut the recommendations by 25%. Judges will be compensated by that much less because of the government, not because of the House.

[Judges Act, November 9th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Halifax has given me the opportunity to point out the role that judges play, both as retired judges and active judges. They are regularly at international conferences to share their experiences of how they built the strong judiciary we have in this country.

I would like to use a couple of examples, one being Justice Arbour and the role she played with regard to crimes against humanity and war crimes, and the role she is playing at the United Nations. She is a very good judge but she was not atypical in the role she played in advancing, which, I would guess, our government, like the Bush administration in the United States, would be opposed to, the development of international law and, specifically, an international criminal court, that would deal with crimes against humanity, genocide and holocaust. She has been one of the leading judicial figures in the world in developing that.

The other example I have comes out of my law school days in Windsor. Work is being done, with the direct active assistance of a number of the judges in Canada, to develop a judicial system in Palestine to deal with the corruption that has permeated its judicial system in the past because of the direct conflict with the involvement at the political level in the judiciary in Palestine. Quite frankly, that program is in serious jeopardy because of the Conservative government's decision to cut funding to the Palestine government. A key part of that program are the judges who come from Canada to help Palestine better its judicial system.

The program we used in Russia, again with the active participation by our judiciary, showed the Russians that the old Soviet system was not the way to go. They should not have government telling the so-called independent judiciary but in fact have an independent judiciary. It is beginning to have some impact in Russia even under the current government. The quality of the judges that we send to take part in that contributes to the development of a better judiciary right around the globe.

[Judges Act, November 9th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on the third reading of Bill C-17, a piece of legislation that at least purports to incorporate into law, as is required by legislation, the report of an independent commission with regard to salaries and other compensation for our judiciary at the federal level, all the way from the Supreme Court of Canada to our superior courts across the country, as well as our federal court system. There are approximately 1,100 of those judges across the country.

Historically this has been a very difficult problem for legislatures, at both the federal and the provincial level. The problem we have is because of the structure of our Constitution, which recognizes the independence of our judiciary and, quite frankly, the importance of an independent judiciary to the democracy of Canada. We never have been able to satisfactorily deal with how we compensate those judges and maintain their independence from the legislative and administrative branches of government.

Approximately 10 years ago, a system was developed as a result of several court decisions, and one since then, that required the legislative branch, this House and government, to establish an independent commission, a commission that would be composed of an independent neutral chair, one person delegated from the government and one from the judiciary. That commission was to investigate the compensation paid to judges right across the country at the federal level and make recommendations in the form of a report.

That report then came back, first to the government, and to the House as well, to be dealt with in committee and encompassed in legislation. That is why the bill is before the House at this point. What happened to some significant degree, and I think shamefully, is that the process either has been ignored by the government in its proper sense or has been hijacked to some degree for ideological reasons by the government. I suppose we could use interchangeable terms here.

The report that came back recommended certain compensation levels, straight salary levels, while a number of issues around pensions and fringe benefits, if I can put it in that vernacular, were to be dealt with by way of these recommendations for the government to implement.

One of the travesties of what has gone on here is that this report is almost four years old now. The previous Liberal government, as was so common with that government, dithered on it and did not deal with it other than preparing some legislation to accept it. That government then basically just let it sit, ignoring its constitutional responsibilities to process the commission's recommendations in a reasonable timeframe. That had been part of one of the court decisions, that whatever methodology was deployed it had to be used in a reasonable timeframe. The past Liberal government did not do that.

Then we had the Conservative government. Of course, I think the country generally knows its attitude toward the judiciary. One of the first things it did, in the form of this legislation encompassed in Bill C-17, was to slash the compensation, both in salary and in some of the benefits, by over 25%. To go through the bill's history, it then went to the justice committee. Attempts were made there by me on behalf of the NDP to reinstate the commission's recommendations.

I want to go directly to the intellectual dishonestly of the government with regard to this. The courts, in a series of cases, have said the commission's recommendations are to be accepted and can only be deviated from if set criteria are met. What came forward from the government was a couple of arguments, no more than that. The government tried to characterize them as sound reasons, but they were arguments that were specious and in fact intellectually dishonest.

One of the reasons the government gave for slashing the compensation recommendation was that it had the right to take into account the state of financial circumstances at the federal level when making a determination. One has to appreciate how ridiculous that was, because in the three and a half years when this report was sitting there and not being dealt with, either by the Liberal government or by the Conservative government, there were surpluses in this country that amounted to in excess of $20 billion over that period of time.

This was not money that was going to be spent by either the Liberal or Conservative governments on other programs, on other necessities in the country. It was simply set back and used to pay down the debt. That is what it was used for. The government tried to contrive an argument that somehow it had the right to take into account financial circumstances, but when one looks at the facts that of course was meaningless.

The other argument the government made was that when the commission did its assessment it did not properly take into account incomes of lawyers, because that is one of the tests that we use to set the compensation we pay our judges. The argument was that it did not take into account a broad enough scope. That simply was not true.

In fact, members of the commission appeared before the justice committee and pointed out that they made an assessment of income levels within the legal community right across the country, in large cities, large law firms, small communities, small law firms and individual practitioners of law. They said they had done all that, that they had done their job and done it properly and had reached a consensus among the three of them, the independent chair, the government appointee and the judiciary appointee. They had reached a consensus that this was the proper amount to be dealing with. So the second argument, the second so-called reason, was basically destroyed by the facts of how the commission had conducted its work.

As I said, the NDP, in my person, attempted to bring it back. It was voted down. First there was a decision that the government would not grant the royal prerogative, even though when the minister was in front of the committee he was equivocal as to whether he would accept the recommendation to increase the amount of compensation to what it was originally in the commission's recommendations.

It was ruled out. There has been no indication since then that this will change, and in fact, just the opposite. Very clearly, if those amendments were brought forward to increase the amount to its original level as recommended by the commission, the government would invoke the royal prerogative and would not be prepared to accept those changes.

That is the bill we now have in front of us at third reading for its upcoming final vote in the House.

I have to say very clearly with regard to this process that it was not honoured. It was just the opposite. In terms of the timelines that were applied, it is a disgrace for both governments, the Liberals and the Conservatives. Specifically, the Conservative government's approach or attempt to explain away its reasons for reducing the amount of compensation for judges is, as I said earlier, specious. It is intellectually dishonest. Quite frankly, it is a disgrace to the importance and the significance of having an independent judiciary, because this goes right to the heart of it.

If someone is going to go after judges' compensation in this fashion, both ignoring the process and then trying to undermine it with specious arguments, it really is very difficult not to see that the independence of the judiciary is being attacked by the government.

This is a pattern that we have seen from the government, both as a political party before it became government this last year and since it has been in power. I will go back to that to give other examples of how I have seen the judiciary at the federal level come under attack from that political party.

Before I do that, I want to make one final point with regard to the process. Given that it has taken us so long, we are now at a stage where the government has to appoint a new commission because the cycle for judicial compensation is actually in vogue at this point. The government has not done that but I assume it will be doing it shortly.

However, it begs the question: Are we going to go through the same process, assuming, and one would hope not, that the government will still be in power when the recommendation comes back from the commission? Will the government again ignore an independent commission doing good work, the solid processing of information, to determine what is appropriate compensation for our judiciary?

Given what I have seen go on in this process, I have no reason to believe that the government will not undermine the process if it does not get the recommendation that it believes is appropriate rather than what the independent commission believes is appropriate.

I believe this is part of a pattern. I will just go through a number of points where I see the Conservative Party, which is now government, attacking our judiciary from a number of different vantage points.

When the debate was going on over same sex marriage, the Leader of the Conservative Party, now the Prime Minister, made wild accusations of our judiciary being biased, that they were small “l” liberal appointments appointed by large “L” Liberal governments to specifically enhance the program of rights for the gay and lesbian community in this country. It was a wild accusation, it was offensive to the independence of our judiciary and it was wrong.

One of the leading decisions that came out of the Court of Appeal in Ontario, a three member court, was made by Justice McMurtry, a Conservative cabinet minister in the provincial Government of Ontario at one time, who was appointed to the bench by the Mulroney Conservative government. The court interpreted the Constitution and the Charter of Rights specifically based on equality rights. The Conservative Party did not want to hear that and so the Leader of the Conservative Party made a wild accusation that, ultimately, was factually incorrect.

Near the end of the election campaign, we again heard him say that he saw the judiciary as being one of his opponents if he were elected. His government and his party see the judiciary, not as part of the constitutional structure of this country and not as part of the fundamental support for democracy in this country, but as an ideological opponent to the government and its political party.

Shortly after the election, we had the member for Saskatoon—Wanuskewin attacking and putting words into the mouth of the Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice alleging she had made certain statements. The member subsequently had to apologize because they were statements that he had made up. What it showed was the attitude of the Conservative Party, now the government, toward the judiciary. It has total disrespect and it is willing to fabricate accusations against the judiciary, all of it based on a strong, ideological bent that it sees the Supreme Court, our superior courts and our Federal Courts as not being supportive.

We hear a number of members from that party constantly attacking the judiciary for making laws, not interpreting them, which is their role and the role they in fact play.

Having practised law in our courts for 27 years before I was appointed here, our judges are better than any judges in the world. I do not hesitate to say that I am proud to be part of a legal community that produces those judges. They are not perfect but they are better than any other judicial branch in the world. It is recognized around the world. If one were to go to Australia, the United States, Britain or any number of other Commonwealth countries with a similar legal structure, that is what we would hear. The decisions our judges make are used repeatedly in other countries because of the respect they have for our judiciaries, but not our government, the Conservative Party, which constantly attacks our judiciary for making laws.

They are not making laws. Their role is to interpret the Constitution and the Charter of Rights, which is what they do and they do it extremely well.

As we saw, once the Conservative Party got into power it cut the court challenges program. The methodology in that is to undermine the role that our judges play. It means that we will have a reduction in the quality and, I might even say, the quantity of cases that go in front of the court that challenge both federal and provincial statutes, practices and policies. If these cases do get there, there will likely to be a lesser quality of argument because the funding for the court challenges program has been cut by the government in a very petty, vindictive way and with absolutely no rationale for it.

We hear the President of the Treasury Board, when he stands in this House, constantly, in his bombastic fashion, attacking the court challenges program, which is really an attack on the judiciary.

The government then cut the Law Commission, which played a role of support for this House, for the committees in this House and for the legal infrastructure, if I can put it that way. It had a very important role in the research that it does and the reports that it produces. It allowed for dialogue to go on, not only within the legal community but also within the political community. It helped foster that dialogue as to where we should be going with our legal system. A great program has been cut and, I think, cut illegally.

The government did not even have the gumption to bring forth a bill, which is what I believe they must do to terminate the Law Commission. It did not do that because it knew that all three of the opposition parties would have voted it down. This is a very clear indication of the government's attitude toward the judiciary and the judicial system. It sees itself as being an opponent of that system and doing whatever it can to undermine it in a variety of ways.

Now we have the appointments of the judges. The government is at a level of hypocrisy that is frightening, as is the minister who, on the justice committee, was very strong about us cleaning up the judicial appointment process and trying depoliticize it as much as possible. We have models at the provincial level where that has been done.

The Conservatives have been in power now for a number of months. They could have done that but we have heard nothing. What we are seeing is that a good third of the appointments that have been made so far at the federal level are appointments of people who have very close ties to the Conservative Party. They may very well be good judges. The minister thinks he may have done even more than those, and it would not surprise me if he has. Maybe we have not identified all of them.

The point is that the Conservatives take a cynical approach toward the judiciary by seeing it as an opponent. They need to take care of the judiciary which means they need to undermine the judges and do whatever they can to lessen their authority.

Ultimately, it brings into disrepute the government and it does attack the very essence of the constitutional structure in this country, the important leg of that, of course, being the independent judiciary.

[Criminal Code, October 30th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, like the other two opposition justice critics, I will be brief in my comments. I would indicate at the outset, as opposed to some of the comments that we heard from the Prime Minister in public last week, that this is not a bill that any of the opposition parties are intrinsically opposed to. However, I am planning on moving a couple of amendments at committee.

I want to say to the Prime Minister that it was totally inaccurate of him to characterize this bill as one that has been held up by this Parliament or by the justice committee. Today is the first time that the bill has been before the House at second reading. The bill has not been here before. Opposition party members have not had the ability to delay the bill.

Bill C-22 has been sitting on the order paper. It was introduced at first reading back in June. The government, which the Prime Minister leads, has simply sat on the bill for that length of time. He should not point the finger at the opposition parties as in any way causing a delay with respect to this bill.

The issue of raising the age of consent from 14 to 16 has stirred a great deal of controversy in the country. As opposed to the justice minister's comments, the reality is that the age of consent has not been changed since the turn of the last century, that is when it turned from 1800 to 1900. At that time the age of consent in Canada was 12 years of age. It has not been lowered. In fact, it was raised at that time.

It is appropriate with the additional defences and protections that are in the bill, which is not what we got from the Conservative Party, or the Alliance, or the Reform. It was not in those private members' bills. The government has obviously come to its senses, in part because of a great deal of debate that went on in the justice committee in the last Parliament around the child pornography bill which was before the committee and which was eventually passed by the House. There was a great deal of debate at that time about the age of consent. As a result of the evidence that we heard from experts and people working in the field, this bill moves the age of consent from 14 to 16. At the same time we are building in some defences.

For those people who believe on a moral, ideological or religious basis that youth 14 to 16 years of age should not be engaged in any sexual activity and that we should make it a crime, that is not what this bill does. It never was intended to do that. In fact, if we did that, we would be criminalizing sexual activity of around 200,000 youth 14 to 16 years of age. I want to be very clear to the public that we are not doing that.

The bill also builds in a secondary defence with regard to the nature of the relationship, even where the couple has a relationship of an age grouping greater than five years. That is in a marital situation or where a child is expected as a result of the relationship.

I am proposing to move two amendments. One amendment is to clear up a problem that has been found to be discriminatory by two of our courts of appeal. The Liberal government never got around to amending it and the Conservative government has not either. It is clearly discriminatory, particularly to young people and to the gay community. That amendment is badly needed. It is an appropriate time to do it in this bill. I would appreciate the opportunity to move that amendment at committee.

I will make a final point with regard to the amendments that I will be proposing. Health care workers have a great concern about this bill and the situation of those youth who are in a relationship that is greater than five years and who contract a sexually transmitted disease. Under those circumstances, because of provincial law, people who go in to get treatment and care have to disclose all of their sexual partners. Those youth who did that may very well find that the evidence would be compelled to be used in a court of law against their partner. They would not want to do that and therefore, they may very well resist going for treatment and care, according to the health care workers.

I will be proposing an amendment to the Canada Evidence Act that will make that information non-compellable. There is precedent for this in our law. It would be a wise amendment. It would protect our youth. It would ensure that they got treatment if they were to contract those types of illnesses and diseases. At the same time, it would protect them in terms of the balance of the bill from being used as bait by predators.

[Income Tax Act, October 30th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I hear from a member of the Conservative Party that was the last government, but it has now been repeated by the present government.

I want to be very critical of the government. The Conservatives stand every single day in the House and talk about being a new government. This change could have been made in the budget. Then it would not have been necessary for the member for Essex to bring forward this private member's bill. The government had the opportunity.

The current Prime Minister was in my city during the election campaign in January. He promised that this change would be in the budget, but the member for Essex has had to bring the issue forward once again. The Prime Minister's parliamentary secretary had private members' bills in the House twice and he could not get the Prime Minister and the finance minister to put this into the budget.

We are not talking about a lot of money. Some $13.5 billion was put toward the debt. This injustice could be corrected by an amount in the range of $25 million a year, or smaller given the number of people who have passed away. The new government has not done that and I am calling on it to do so. There will be another budget in February or March 2007. We do not need this private member's bill for the government to do that.

What is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, the member for Calgary Southeast, going to do if the budget comes down in 2007 and this is not in it. I have to ask the same thing of the member for Essex. What is he going to do? He is in government now and has the opportunity, finally, to do this. The Liberals would never do it. Both of those members are in government and have the opportunity to correct this injustice.

Then maybe that saintly lady from my church will stop cursing in church. Maybe she will have some peace. That incident was compounded by the fact that at the same time that this was happening, her husband contracted a serious illness and passed away within a year. She is a very bitter woman, but she is not the only one in this country.

As the member for Essex mentioned, he and I have been at a number of meetings in the last three years. The meetings are getting smaller because so many of the seniors have passed away. That bitterness and anger is there. We owe them a lot and we have fallen down. This injustice needs to be corrected, not five years from now when most of them will be gone, but immediately.

If the Minister of Finance is not prepared to stand in the House and say it before the budget, he has to guarantee that it will be in the budget. If not, there will be political ramifications in Essex and Calgary Southeast and any number of other ridings that the Conservatives hold in this country.

[Income Tax Act, October 30th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, this bill deals with an issue which I spoke to in the 2000, the 2004 and now the 2006 parliaments. I raised this issue in 2001, in the very first speech I made in the House.

As we heard from the member for Essex, the author of the bill, this matter has been outstanding for over 10 years. It is a history of injustice, a history of governments changing the rules after the fact. In effect, whether intentional or simply systemic, it is an attack on our seniors, as we heard from the member for Essex, a generation of whom this country has every reason to be supportive and protective, and not to misuse or abuse. That is what happened in 1996. Part of this is a mistake that was made by a number of officials at that time, officials who, to this day, still refuse to admit that mistake, but it left a great number of our seniors vulnerable.

Basically they had lived under a tax system and had taken deductions at 50% instead of the full 100% as we have for RRSPs in Canada. They had planned their retirement based on having a certain level of income. A great number of them, including those who unfortunately have passed away, said that they could live to a certain standard if they had this income and they retired on that basis. Then in the 1996-97 period, the Canadian federal government put into place a new regime which seriously impaired their ability to live that lifestyle.

I am speaking as a lawyer. This is about a deal that was made. The seniors have lived up to it but the federal government has not. The United States federal government has, because there were corresponding responsibilities as we entered into amendments to our tax treaties with the United States. It had certain responsibilities as to how it would treat the recipients of Canada pension. The United States federal government has lived up to that. It did not change the responsibility of Americans receiving Canada pension benefits while living in the United States. We did and we changed them quite dramatically, especially when we consider how vulnerable a large number of those 85,000 were at that time and how dependent they were on that income.

By the standards of the income that members of Parliament receive, we are talking a pittance. The average recipient of social security receives less than $100 a month, which does not sound like a lot of money. It is less than $1,200 a year, but when one is living on a basic fixed income, that is a very significant amount of money.

I am going to tell two stories of our experience in this regard in the Windsor area. I was canvassing one time during an election campaign. At one door I met a man who told me that his brother lived with him. The brother used to live on his own but he could not afford to any more. He was one of those recipients. When the extra tax was taken from him, he no longer could live on his own. He would not even come out of his room, except to use the washroom. The man would take food to his brother in his room. I wanted to talk with the brother and asked if he would meet with me, but he would not. That is typical.

Then there is my friend at church who, to this day, even at church, still curses the former prime minister who originally was from my riding. She is a very saintly woman but she and her husband were both recipients. They came back from the United States, bought a house and had a mortgage to pay. When the tax grab by the federal government came in, they no longer could afford the house and they had to sell it. As saintly and holy a woman as she is, she retains that anger.

[Privilege, October 25th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, as a result of some discussion we have had at committee, and as a result of the quite admirable conduct on the part of the chair of that subcommittee, the member for Leeds—Grenville, I am pleased to stand today and indicate to the House and to you that I am withdrawing that motion based on a claim of privilege.

As the member for Leeds—Grenville pointed out, it would be appropriate for all members of the House to look at the rules with regard to confidentiality, both at the time of reports being filed with the House and at other times where information and discussion goes on in camera. In regard to that point, we have an understanding in all parties that the whips and the House leaders will attempt to send information around to all members of the House.

I thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, and again I commend the member for Leeds—Grenville for the way he has handled this matter. It is quite admirable.

[Petitions, October 25th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition pursuant to Standing Order 36, with signatures of about 150 people from all over Ontario.

The petitioners call upon the government to cancel the negotiations for the trade agreement with Korea because of its negative impact on the auto sector in particular and manufacturing generally. They also call upon the government to develop a sound automotive trade policy.

[Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, October 24th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-25 would expand programs that we have already. To some degree, from that experience, we are plugging some loopholes and expanding the use of these programs to deal with money laundering and proceeds of money laundering and with terrorist financing.

As has already been expressed by some of my colleagues from the NDP, we will be supporting the bill at second reading. As opposed to a half dozen or more other crime bills that have come from the government, this bill at least makes sense. It would address some real problems in the country with regard to money laundering by organized crime and terrorist financing from either potential terrorist groups in the country and, as often as not, from outside the country who are using Canada, as we know, mostly as a conduit.

Some of the money is raised in Canada but a great deal of both the money laundering from organized crime and from the terrorist groups outside the country is coming from outside, moving through Canada and on into the United States or back to other countries where it is used to finance terrorism in those countries.

We do have some concerns about the bill and my colleague from British Columbia just raised one of them. We do not seem to be able to figure out a way to accommodate the legal community in terms of the lawyers and the law firms having to report either suspicious transactions or large sums of money passing, mostly through their trust accounts but through their offices. That has been an ongoing problem.

The bill originated, I would say, at least two years ago and maybe three, and has been held up all that time because of the ongoing dispute between the law societies across the country and the federal government. The law society, in a previous piece of legislation, actually challenged the government in court and was successful in having itself excluded under the terminology and provisions of that particular law. We were hoping that this bill, which we hope will eventually become law, would have included at least some meaningful reporting from the legal community.

We will explore this more at the committee to see if there is some possibility of that happening and, if not, an explanation as to why not and also what types of negotiations have gone on between the federal government and the legal community, the law societies in particular, to try to resolve this issue.

One of the very good points about the bill is that it does include the foreign exchange shop. We know from a number of reports that we have had from police sources and our intelligence sources that repeatedly, because they are not covered by the existing law, people have gone to foreign exchange shops, exchanged large amounts of money from one currency into Canadian currency and oftentimes go to another shop to exchange that into another currency, oftentimes U.S. currency, and the money moves on out of the country without any formal recording. This will cease with this legislation coming into effect. It is one of the major holes that we have in our system of protections, both against organized crime and potential terrorist groups, and it badly needs to be plugged.

There is also a concern about the cost of the administration of this program as it is now, and that will become somewhat more onerous, because again, we are bringing in more private sector companies which will be responsible for additional reporting.

I know from my colleague from Winnipeg that there has been some expression of concern from small credit unions about their ability to provide sufficient resources, both in terms of technology and in terms of personnel to meet the requirements of this reporting.

That is another matter that needs to be explored at committee, and in particular, to see if the federal government could be doing something to assist smaller operators who are affected by this legislation. It may be by providing them with a software package that would let them track the funds or it may be suggestions on how small financial institutions can streamline their process and still meet the requirements of the act without making it too onerous for them to perform their responsibilities.

I want to raise one additional problem, which concerns how this information is used, and I will do it in two contexts. The Auditor General, Ms. Fraser, issued a report on the central agency, FINTRAC, which is the intelligence gathering organization in this country that sifts all this information and helps identify whether in fact it is coming from organized crime or from some terrorist activity.

In her report, which I believe was for the 2003-04 period of time, she found that although a number of transactions had been identified and had been, as permitted under the legislation, reported to both the RCMP and CSIS, neither of those agencies appeared to have used the information, either for investigation purposes or for laying charges. That appears to be an ongoing problem and it is of concern. FINTRAC was running in that year on a budget of about $31 million annually. If we are spending that amount of money on this intelligence gathering program, we should be seeing some results.

In the two subsequent years of 2004-05 and 2005-06, again there appears to have been limited use made of this. This is something that will need to be explored at committee to ensure Canadian taxpayers receive good results from their tax dollars that go into these services.

The other context where I would like to address the use of this is the issue of privacy and, in particular, the risk that some of this information will find its way into the United States and, under the patriot act, be disclosed to a number of agencies in the U.S. I have not been convinced that we have closed all the loopholes so that this information, the intelligence and results of the investigation which are badly needed in Canada, does not go into the United States.

[Point of Order, October 19th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am a bit concerned. I have been following this exchange between the previous speaker and the member for Burnaby—Douglas and I have some sense that the previous speaker may have raised some additional new points. He was not just responding to the response that we had from the member for Burnaby—Douglas. I would like to reserve the opportunity for the member, who is not present to counter that argument, that he be given the opportunity at some point in the future.