John Brassard

[Public Safety, June 21st, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, there can be little doubt that there was political interference from the Prime Minister's Office and the then public safety minister's office because of the handwritten notes by Darren Campbell, a superintendent in the RCMP in Nova Scotia. In his notes, he wrote, “The Commissioner said she had promised the Minister of Public Safety and the Prime Minister's Office that the RCMP...would release this information.”

To release information in an active investigation could have jeopardized the investigation. Who in the Prime Minister's Office, and who in the public safety minister's office, authorized Commissioner Lucki to speak to the RCMP?

[Public Safety, June 21st, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, that is contradictory evidence, according to the commission's report. According to the commanders on the ground, Commissioner Lucki became extremely upset that the commissioners were not releasing the information in an active investigation, despite the fact that the commanders on the ground said they were not willing to do it because it would compromise the investigation.

Again, I ask this: Somebody in the Prime Minister's Office and somebody in the public safety minister's office directed Commissioner Lucki to get that information. Who was it?

[Public Safety, June 21st, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, this is critical, because, according to the commander's notes in the Mass Casualty Commission report, Commissioner Lucki promised the Prime Minister's Office and the public safety minister's office that they would release the information in an active investigation that she was discussing.

It would appear that somebody from the Prime Minister's Office and the public safety minister's office was directing Commissioner Lucki to interfere in an active police investigation, when the investigators on the ground said they did not want to.

Who in the PMO and the public safety minister's office directed Commissioner Lucki?

[Criminal Code, June 21st, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, once again we are seeing the hammer drop. It is on Bill C-21 this time, which further strengthens our resolve. You and I are unfortunate to have a front row seat to the further decline in democracy in this place and another attack on the institution of Parliament.

There has been three hours and 24 minutes of debate on this bill, which is a very substantive bill. Just last week, the Conservatives made an offer to the government: split the bill so we can work on portions of it that we can support, such as domestic violence and other matters within the bill. That was rejected by the government.

This bill would do nothing to solve gun and gang criminal activity in this country. This past weekend there were seven shootings in Liberal-held ridings just in Toronto. Instead of dealing with the situation, what the Liberals are doing is further traumatizing, stigmatizing and dividing Canadians through a bill by not offering to work and do the right thing.

My question for the minister is this. Is it true that, for the purposes of further dividing, stigmatizing and wedging, and using this bill as a politicized weapon, the Liberals have earmarked almost $1 million for an ad campaign in the summer to target opposition parties that are looking to better this bill as opposed to oppose it?

[Committees of the House, June 21st, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded division.

[Questions on the Order Paper, June 17th, 2022]

With regard to the votes in the House of Commons considered by the government to be matters of confidence: (a) since January 1, 2022, which recorded divisions in the House of Commons did the government consider to be matters of confidence, and what were the dates of each of those votes; and (b) for each vote in (a), on what date did the government inform the New Democratic Party that it considered the vote to be a matter of confidence?

[National Framework on Cancers Linked to Firefighting Act, June 16th, 2022]

My Uncle Pete, who inspired me to be a firefighter, recently developed throat cancer. He spent almost 35 years on the job with the City of Toronto. In 1985, I got a job with the City of York Fire Department as a dispatcher. I had radio experience and naturally fit in as a dispatcher, but it was not enough for me. I saw the guys and girls on the floor. I saw what they were doing, and I wanted to be a firefighter.

In 1987, I applied to the Town of Markham Fire Department. It was the Town of Markham at the time. I got on the trucks. I actually became a firefighter. I could not believe it. I was 22 years old at the time, just turning 23. There I was, with five weeks of training, in the middle of January, training to be a full-time firefighter. It was never anything that I ever wanted to do. I had always wanted to be a radio broadcaster.

The equipment they gave us at that time was unlike the equipment today. We had hip-wader boots, basically. We had long coats. There was never, ever any protection for the groin area. Everything could come up. We actually got red fireballs gloves. For those who are here today, they were effectively made of plastic. If anybody got into a fire, they would actually melt on their hands. The equipment is nothing like it was with bunker gear.

Often there were times when we went to fires at that time and we would go back to the fire station and take a shower after a fire, and the whole basin of the shower would be black. The soot and the carbon that we took in would actually have been absorbed. Everybody thinks about the impact that inhalation has on a firefighter, but it is actually the absorption. We would be sweating. All of those materials that were burned, the carbon and the soot would actually go through our skin. We would go back and the whole basin of the shower would be black.

Just imagine what that was doing to our bodies, how it was impacting our bodies. I can tell the House first-hand how it impacted many of my colleagues.

There was a fire very early on in my career at Greenspoon, a demolition company on Woodbine Avenue. They would pack all of their materials in oils. I remember that day. I was not on the actual fire, but I did spend two or three days there. The first-in crews were talking about what they had seen. Literally, the flames were 100 feet in the air. It was black smoke. Just imagine oils burning. There was black smoke everywhere. It took literally three or four days to get that fire under control. Things were burning underneath.

At the time, the breathing apparatus that we had was known as a 2APD. It was not a Scott system or a regulator system, like we have now. We would actually have a hose dangling to an exterior regulator. We would attach the hose to the regulator. That is how we breathed with compressed air on our back.

Oftentimes, at that time, not knowing what we know now, and again, this was 30 to 40 years ago, we would take the hoses off. I spent two days there, and we would take the hoses off and let them dangle. All of that stuff we were breathing in, came in through the hose, which was a direct conduit to our lungs and to our bodies.

Because of that fire, Larry Pilkey, Paul Donahoe, Harold Snowball, Lorne Martin, Doug Kerr, who recently passed away, and Jason Churchill passed away. There were six people from that fire who passed away, because of an occupational-related cancer.

I remember Jason Churchill who died at 51 years of age. Nobody changed occupational health in this province of Ontario more than Jason Churchill did. This guy was a dogged advocate for health and safety for firefighters. I am sure his name lives on for many people in the fire service.

I worked with Jason for a while. I remember sitting in the washroom of the station. He came in and he had this giant lump under his arm. He asked me, “What do you think of that?” I said, “You have to get that checked out. That's not good.” He was literally dead within a year. There is no question in my mind, no question in my colleagues' minds that it was as a result of that Greenspoon fire that Jason Churchill died. I think of others as well. Gord Hooper is struggling with cancer right now. Bruce Zimmerman, my former captain, has been dealing with stomach cancer. All of them were at that fire.

I heard the hon. member for Kitchener Centre speak about the fire in Kitchener. I was at Ed Stahley's funeral. I know about that situation and how many of those Kitchener firefighters died. It is the same thing with the Plastimet fire in Hamilton. There are still firefighters today who are suffering from occupational illnesses as a result of those two fires, just like there are with the Greenspoon demolition fire.

This does not affect just the firefighters who contract cancer and eventually die. It affects their friends and families who live with the loss all the time. I can think of Luanne Donahoe and Larry's wife who have had to move on. I can think of the families that have to deal with this cancer. It does not just affect them emotionally; it affects them financially. For their entire lives they will have to deal with the financial loss of losing one of their loved ones.

I know there has been some discussion today about birth defects. I can tell members first-hand that for many of these firefighters and their families the greatest joy in the world is having a child, but many of the children suffer from birth defects as a result of what their parents contracted at these fires.

I am really lucky. I will share personally that I have a urologist who, when I retired at age 51, after I was elected to this place, took a baseline measurement because he has seen too many firefighters come through his office who have suffered from occupational cancer, whether it is prostate cancer, bladder cancer or brain cancer. There are 12 cancers that are recognized in Ontario right now as an occupational illness, at least at last count. He has taken that baseline on me every year I go for a check-up because he wants to know, because of my occupation, whether I am going to contract cancer as a result of all of those years of taking in, not just by inhalation but also by absorption, many of those carcinogens that are being created as a result of the materials today.

The equipment has improved; there is no question about it, but making sure that we are looking after our firefighters and their families becomes critical. With respect to that fire, the fire in Kitchener, as well as the one at Plastimet, we also have to think beyond firefighters, because there were police officers and EMS officers who were on the scenes who are suffering from those occupational illnesses as well.

Let me clearly and unequivocally state that I stand here as a former firefighter who loved every minute of my job every single day. There was not a day that I did not want to go in there. Maybe I did not feel like it the day after Joe Carter hit the home run to win the World Series in 1993. I am thinking maybe I should not have been at work that day.

This is an important piece of legislation not only for firefighters who have contracted cancer and passed on, but their families and friends as well.

[National Framework on Cancers Linked to Firefighting Act, June 16th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I want to start by thanking the member for Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne for proposing Bill C-224. I also want to thank the hon. member for Saskatoon West, because just 10 minutes ago, he gave up his time so that I could speak to this bill. I want to thank him for that.

In 1982, I was an 18-year-old kid. I had gone to Humber College for radio broadcasting. My first job was working the all-night shift at a country music radio station in Brandon, Manitoba. I had never listened to country music in my life. I grew up in Montreal and Toronto. I moved to Toronto when I was 12 years old. I realized very quickly, like most fledgling radio careers, that I was not going to make much money.

My uncle was a firefighter in Toronto. My Uncle Pete—

[Judges Act, June 16th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his question.

[Judges Act, June 16th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-9, an act to amend the Judges Act, a bill that was originally introduced last year, and I may have referenced earlier that it was October 2021, but it was actually in December 2021.

I will begin, and I know he is not going to like this because he is sitting just over my right shoulder here, with some praise for our shadow minister for justice, the hon. member for Fundy Royal. Since his re-election in 2019, he has had to deal with pieces of legislation, government legislation, government fixes to legislation that have been beyond any expectation of what any opposition critic, or shadow minister, as we now call them to mirror what the parliament of Britain calls their shadow ministers. He has done incredible work holding the government to account, and it is a complicated file to be able to disseminate what all of these pieces of legislation are, how they impact Canadians, and how they impact the judicial process and the court process. He has done that honourably and with great conviction.

As we know, when we are dealing with these sorts of pieces of legislation, it is not just us, it is also policy advisors within our offices and legislative staff who comb through many of these pieces of legislation to try to make them better, to try to come up with legislation that is good for Canadians. I would argue that there is nothing more important when we deal with pieces of legislation than those dealing with our court system, those dealing with judges, those dealing with Criminal Code issues. I really want to thank our shadow minister for justice, the hon. member for Fundy Royal, for the work that he has done on many of these files.

It is difficult because, when we are dealing with pieces of legislation like what we are dealing with today, Bill C-9, we know it was introduced in December 2021. This is a bill that has obviously languished in the legislative process. We are now at second reading debate on the bill and these hours of debate today are the first for this piece of legislation, but it is piece of legislation that has received broad support right across the country. My expectation is that it will move through the legislative process rather quickly.

Some of that support has come, for example, from the Canadian Bar Association, which has expressed its support for the legislation. As I said earlier, it aims to change the judicial complaints process, which was first established 50 years ago. This is a piece of legislation that requires an update to reflect the realities of the current environment in this country. Bill C-9 proposes changes to the Judges Act to restructure the process for dealing with misconduct allegations against federally appointed judges.

In particular, the bill will amend the process through which the Canadian Judicial Council reviews the conduct of these judges in three significant ways. One, it will create a process for reviewing allegations not serious enough to warrant removal from office. Two, it will improve the process by which recommendations on removal are made to the Minister of Justice. Three, it will ensure that the determination of pensionable service for judges ultimately removed from office reflects the actual time of service and excludes the time for review.

As I said earlier, the Canadian Bar Association is clearly in support of this, and I expect that, when it gets through second reading and eventually ends up at committee, we are going to hear from the Canadian Bar Association. We will hear from other stakeholders as well, showing their strong support for review of a piece of legislation that has not been updated over the course of the last 50 years, so it is about time.

One of the most important things about this place is that we have those voices of Canadians. There are 338 members in this place who are elected to express the views of their constituents. Those are important views, and these type of debates become increasingly important in a polarized society, so we can reflect on what the pieces of legislation can do and make these pieces of legislation better. I expect, at committee, the strong voices of those stakeholders and advocates who are for the bill or against the bill will perhaps come together and really reinforce or make this piece of legislation that much stronger.

This is not the first iteration of what we have seen. The bill was originally introduced in the Senate as Bill S-5 on May 25, 2021. I went through the criteria of what the bill actually does fix, but again, like every other piece of legislation that was introduced, not only here in the House, but also in the Senate, before September of last year, this bill fell off of the Order Paper.

If we look through some of the issues with the bill, one of the things that it focuses on is the issue of process reform and consultations as well. Bill C-9 follows the 2016 federal government's public consultations on potential reforms to the federal judicial discipline process. Within the consultation report, the judicial discipline proceedings had been marked by significant increases in costs and delays, and reforms were necessary to ensure that the process was cost-effective, efficient and transparent, and to preserve public confidence in the judicial system.

Under the current system of CJC, interim or final decisions can be challenged through three layers of judicial review. One is the Federal Court, the other is the Federal Court of Appeal. There is also, with leave, the Supreme Court of Canada. As a result, the judicial conduct inquiries can be subject to multiple, drawn-out legal challenges that can take years to resolve.

I mentioned the judicial conduct and review process, but there are several other key points in this legislation. It also addresses complaints. Under both existing and new processes, anyone may submit a complaint about a judge's conduct to the CJC. Under this new process, the CJC may make a complaint only when there are at least two of its members who have reasonable grounds to believe that the public's confidence in the judge's impartiality, integrity or independence, which is critical as we know, could be undermined for any of the reasons stipulated in proposed paragraphs 80(a) through (d). An anonymous complaint, for example, would face the same threshold test as a complaint made by the CJC.

The other aspect of this bill is that it proposes a screening officer be added to the existing process. The CJC's executive director screens complaints and may dismiss those that are clearly without merit, do not involve a judge's conduct or are not in the public interest. Under the new process, the CJC designates a screening officer, who may be a judge, to conduct an initial assessment. This is proposed section 88 in the bill. Complaints may be dismissed if they are clearly without merit, are not related to one of the reasons listed in new section 80 or do not meet other screening criteria that may be established and published by the CJC under proposed section 90.

A reviewing member, as in the existing system, and this is another important piece of the new process, holds the complaints that are not dismissed after being screened by a member of the CJC. That is in proposed section 91. The judge whose conduct is the subject of the complaint may make written submissions at this stage under proposed section 93.

There are more aspects of this bill that are important, but after 50 years, it is time for an update to this review system. I am glad that we are here today debating it in our House of Parliament, and I will be glad to answer any questions that anybody might have.