Joe Volpe

[Points of Order, December 3rd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday in question period the member of Parliament for Kitchener Centre read from what he alleged was a private communication between me, an MP from Toronto, and my constituent regarding the Liberal Party's policies toward Israel.

The House does not know how he came by that letter, indeed whether it contained the quote cited, or more importantly, whether he respected the privacy issues related to a communication between two individuals, he being neither of them.

Would he do the honourable thing and provide clarity and transparency by offering to table the document in its unredacted form, so that we can verify that legal and ethical practices were followed in the acquisition of private mail by a third party?

[Point of Order, December 2nd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, during question period, the member for Kitchener Centre made a reference to a communication that I sent to some of my constituents, wherein he referenced a statement by a representative of the Israeli delegation to Durban I.

Today, for example, there is an item in the National Post where the reporter contacted Rabbi Melchior, who led that delegation and directed it, with respect to what Canada's role at Durban I might have been, and I quote from that article:

[Rabbi Melchior said] it was important for us that the Canadians led the battle in Durban against any anti-Semitic resolution. “This doesn't seem to square with Alan Baker's version of events?”, [asked the reporter, and Rabbi Melchior said,] “I'm not sure. I haven't talked to him but I think he doesn't recall the order of things”.

The order of things is that Canada and the Liberal Party at the time, and currently, have always stood up for Israel and against anti-Semitism.

[Resumption and Continuation of Railway Operations, December 1st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It seems that the government's obstructionist tendencies are spilling over into the other place and your colleague, the Speaker of the Senate, detained me and I could not be here for the vote, but if I had been here, I would have voted with my party.

[Business of Supply, December 1st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased the member for Mississauga South went in the direction he did, which is tools are available to the House and the committee, tools that the government is ignoring.

The Minister of National Defence has said that the government will give information to witnesses because there is a question of national security and they have passed all security clearances. I humbly remind everybody, as the member for Mississauga South has done, that I received all those high clearances as well and so did several of members of my party who sit on this side of the House.

We could use those members who are privy councillors and have received the highest security clearances to receive information and to be introduced on the committee in order to make the appropriate determination as to what the government has done with information respecting detainees who were turned over or not for torture. The issue is whether the government will allow us to do that.

[Points of Order, December 1st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I heard the representations by my colleague opposite in protest of my colleague from Mississauga East—Cooksville. I just find them to be, to use very common language, mind-boggling. When a bill says that the minister may act in a particular fashion and essentially calls upon the minister to become aware of some of the abuses that are taking place in this particular sector and if the government's response is no, it does not want to hear about it and that we should rule this out of order, putting all of the onus on the Speaker's chair, it would seem to me a great dereliction of duty.

As the member for Mississauga East—Cooksville said, if the government does not like to take responsibility, if it refuses to take a look at the abuses that are prevailing and refuses to address the issues that are raised by members of the opposition, it has a very easy tool to implement that refusal, and that is to vote against the bill. However, the tool is definitely not to ask the Chair to rule everything that members of Parliament in the opposition benches bring forward as private members' bills. I think that is disrespectful of Parliament and certainly is an abuse of the procedural tools that we enjoy here.

[Points of Order, December 1st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a similar point, just for clarification. Once the Speaker has made a decision on a prima facie case that addresses the ability of members to conduct their work as parliamentarians, I would think it behooves all members of Parliament to show respect for the Chair's ruling by refraining from making the kinds of statements that lead to such questions of privilege again and again.

Mr. Speaker, I think that is the issue. I think that is something you might want to reflect upon again.

[Points of Order, November 25th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the reference that has been made in the comparison between statistics in 1996 and 2009 is absolutely fraudulent. The comparison should be 2004 and 2006.

[Criminal Code, November 24th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is any rule in the House procedures that would inhibit the right of any member of Parliament, who may not be sitting in committee or who may be sitting in committee, to address those issues once again in the House. That is why we have report stage and why we have third reading, and to then ask that the bill be referred back to committee in order to receive the information required to have a fulsome consideration of the issues at hand.

I think the hon. member may wish to make a point but I hope the point does not include withdrawing said information from the accessibility afforded members of Parliament for all other bills, including this one, when the bill comes back to the House. This is a legitimate request in a procedural attempt to look at all of the considerables in the bill.

I am sorry but I guess I fail to understand why the member would want to, along with the government members, deprive members of Parliament of the opportunity to get information.

[Criminal Code, November 24th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my remarks, there are really two issues. One of them is the issue of the substance of the debate on Bill C-36. The other one is the one that addresses procedures in the House as represented by the motion by one of my hon. colleagues that addresses the issue of whether committees can function if the government deliberately withholds information.

I know that he will recall that a member of his own caucus gave an indication that, using the royal we, the government actually did have the information that it has not shared with committee.

No committee in this House can function properly and render services to the Canadian public if it is deprived of some of the basic information as requested for committee, as I outlined in my five questions, and others have as well. It speaks to the sense of forthrightness and honesty on the part of the government that it would withhold such information.

It is not qualifying information. It is objective data. It is data that members of Parliament can use in shaping their own assessments of whether they would develop a particular view contrary or pro to the government's bill. The government, however, has chosen to simply suggest that its views are the ones that will be debated, because it certainly is not offering or willing to offer any data to substantiate its position.

[Criminal Code, November 24th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, like so many other Canadians, I have been following this debate, not only in the House over the course of the last several hours, but over the course of the last several months. All of us are interested in establishing and maintaining the reputation of the country as one that respects the rule of law and has mechanisms in place in order to enforce it and maintain that observance.

We think that the observance of the rule of law as it emanates from legislative bodies like this one is really a hallmark of our civil society. It is one that renders us a truly compassionate and humanitarian society, because it means that we care for each other's well-being and that we take the measures necessary to ensure that that well-being is respected and nurtured by all citizens.

The second thing that has attracted me to this debate is of course the claims that the government is putting forward regarding this particular bill. As a partisan individual but also as a sincere Canadian, I have been looking at the argument that we need to have a tough on crime agenda. There is not anybody I know who does not want to be tough on crime. What everybody wants, though, is an expression of the mechanisms that are in place to ensure that we monitor behaviour, observe the law and observe the mechanisms in order to capture those individuals who fall outside those basic human requirements of observance.

One individual on the street today told me to say the following. We have legislation because we want to keep in check the fact that less than 1% of the population that does not agree with the conventions that we think make us civil with each other. I add that we need to be able to have the rules in place so that we can identify what it is that differentiates that less than 1% from the rest. I take that particular issue here. I realize that those figures were used grosso modo in order to project a view.

The government members have a tendency to use this expression very loosely and largely. Every time there is a difficulty in the House with legislation and the parliamentary agenda, out comes the rabbit called the crime and justice agenda. They do not move on it very quickly. These kinds of agenda items and proposals could easily be moved through the House if they were sincere about moving the agenda along and having an intelligent debate.

Through the questions of all opposition members, and I regret to say but not government members, I see a desire to get information so that we can make the appropriate decisions on behalf of Canadians who have entrusted us with being scrupulous about the kinds of conventions that we establish as Canadian law, the kinds of conventions that we indicate are reflective of Canadian values and society and the kinds of conventions that we put down for law enforcement and maintenance, not only in terms of punishment, but in terms of modifying behaviour.

Over the course of this last hour, I have been taken aback that government members have said that we shall not have the information we think we need in order to make the appropriate decision. They have told us to trust them. This is an open society and an open Parliament. Some would say that it is an adversarial environment, but the antagonism inherent in our parliamentary system is designed to ferret out the truth. If the government decides that it will keep the truth away from the prying eyes of the official opposition and other opposition parties, then it is diminishing the value of Parliament and its trust in democracy.

The hon. member for Halifax, who is a new member in the House, said that she thinks she is entitled to have information in order to make an intelligent decision. It is almost shameful that she would have to say it, but I applaud her for doing it. What did she ask for? I noted her questions. She kept saying “we have” or “we need”. I was not sure whether she was using the royal we on behalf of the government or the opposition.

Of course the royal we, the government, already has all the information that the member for Halifax wants shared with all committee members, that she wants shared by all parliamentarians. The royal we has that information and unfortunately, the royal we, the government, is withholding that information from the prying eyes of opposition members. What is it afraid of?

I noted that with great eloquence, my colleague from Mississauga South said, “Look, just answer the following questions”. They have been asked in committee as well. For example, how often has this faint hope clause been utilized in the last 10 years? Surely the government has that information. Surely the information gives the basis, the premise upon which the government is basing Bill C-36, and they may well be right, but at least share them with us.

We are thinking men and women and we can make an analysis on behalf of Canadians, the way all parliamentarians are expected to do so. We need to know how many times and how many people apply at the very first opportunity to have section 745 applied to them. How many times has that happened? Surely that is not offensive information. Surely that should not compromise national security. Surely that will not compromise the value of fairness that all Canadians expect to be shared among Canadians.

We need them to tell us how many times this first request has been granted. Surely the information is available. We are not flying by the seat of our pants, collectively. The government might be, but surely members of Parliament are not in the habit of doing that. At least it has not been my practice. From what I have seen in the last 21 years in this place, members of Parliament want to know the facts. They want to apply the facts and they want to have those facts tested against the scrutiny of other people's criticisms. That is why we get elected to this place. We do it not for ourselves. We do it for all those Canadians who are either in the seats or in front of the television, or reading and watching the criticisms as they develop in the debate.

I sometimes wonder whether the government is actually interested in debate. Certainly it does not appear to have an interest in sharing facts that it has already collected, so when colleagues here wonder why we are not privy to the same information that the government says is absolutely crucial in order to understand the impact of these bills, such as Bill C-36, I think that is an offence against parliamentarians. It is an offence against Parliament and it denigrates the concept of democracy.

Why? It is because all those who believe in democracy are not afraid of sharing the facts, because the facts give us an opportunity to rally around what we will define as truth, and that truth is that which encapsulates all of those Canadian values that are held up as a standard around the world. We do not give ourselves an opportunity to do that and we allow the government, in its own rather retrograde way, to say, “We make the decisions. To heck with the rest of you”.

That is not right. It is not parliamentary. It is not democratic.

Why will it not give us some of the basic facts that it already has? For example, it wants to paint everybody with the same brush. Why not give us the gender and the ages of all of those people who might be eligible for application of section 745?

We are not talking about those who are going to be given the faint hope. The process is very elaborate. It is very rarely applied. Why scare everybody into thinking that the process itself is wrong and therefore everybody who is in jail already is absolutely condemned to be there forever?

We believe in punishment. We do not believe that any crime should go unpunished. None of us in the opposition, from what I can tell, would suggest that the laws should be scoffed at. No, what we need to do is have an understanding of the balance between retribution and reform, between final punishment and an opportunity to change behaviour, but we want to make an intelligent decision. We need to know, for example, what the recidivism rate is of those who apply under this section.

The government has that information. Why will it not share it? Why is it so privileged that it cannot justify its own legislation with the facts? The government is afraid that people will actually think that it might be wrong, and that can only happen if there is a proper debate. I do not think the government should shut it down.