Kevin Sorenson

[Organized Crime, April 11th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, each year millions of dollars worth of property and assets are seized under the proceeds of crime legislation. As there is no requirement within the law for the reporting of seizures, the system is therefore open to serious abuse.

Will the Minister of Justice introduce legislation to ensure the sale of property seized from criminals is recorded and sold through an open system that ensures public officials do not improperly benefit from such a sale?

[Assisted Human Reproduction Act, April 10th, 2003]

Let them all be women.

[Petitions, April 10th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36 I have the privilege to present to the House of Commons a petition signed by residents of Crowfoot, more specific from Drumheller, Munson, Rosebud, and Carbon, Alberta.

The petitioners call upon Parliament to protect children by taking all necessary steps to ensure that all materials which promote or glorify pedophilia or sado-masochistic activities involving children are completely outlawed of banned. This petition reflects the opinion of a majority of Canadians in condemning the creation and use of child pornography, and so it is a pleasure to present this petition to the House.

[Justice, April 8th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, under section 195(1) of the Criminal Code the Solicitor General has the responsibility, by law, to table before Parliament every year the use of electronic surveillance that is happening in Canada. Both this Solicitor General and the former solicitor general have failed to do this since 2000. My question is, why?

[An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act, April 7th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, when we go through section 2 of the Firearms Act, it defines the federal minister as being the Minister of Justice. The Firearms Act is riddled with references that talk about the authority of the federal minister or of the Minister of Justice. That is the implication here.

Bills C-10A deals with regulations, orders in council, safety courses, forms and even the appointment of a new commissioner of firearms. The House of Commons voted time after time on the ministerial aspect of the bill, and it refers to the Minister of Justice.

In my speech I talked about the hot potato and passing the buck. That is what the minister has done. He has recognized: Why should he have all the “you know what”? He would prefer to pass it on to another cabinet minister and let him carry it for a while.

The Minister of Justice probably believes that the Solicitor General has no intention of ever running for a leadership campaign and will let him handle it. But the clear intent of the government was that the firearms program would be administered by the justice department.

I heard one of the Conservative members today say in a speech that the current Solicitor General was at one time opposed to the gun registry. He was the president of the National Farmers Union. I would like him to return to his farmer friends and tell them he is now the one in charge of the firearms registry. He will find out how loved he is in the agricultural sector because that is suicide.

[An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act, April 7th, 2003]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The advantage that a member for Crowfoot has when we have a Liberal cabinet minister heckling with Bloc members is that I do not know if they are heckling me or if they are talking about something else, so as long as they keep speaking like that, I will just keep going.

What I was saying is the legislation keeps coming back into the House because it is flawed. That is the only reason that it comes back. The legislation gets shipped off to the Senate and it gets shipped back to the House because it is flawed. We are standing here today again debating a piece of legislation that has been drawn up in a knee-jerk response and does not, in any type of satisfactory way, bear forward any legislation that will supplement or help public safety in the country. We are here today debating Bill C-10A.

On a number of occasions I have been prepared to debate this legislation, which resulted because the Senate split Bill C-15B. It has created two separate pieces of legislation: Bill C-10A which is an act to amend the Criminal Code in respect to firearms; and Bill C-10B, an act to amend the Criminal Code in regard to cruelty to animals. Both legislations, the cruelty to animal legislation and the gun registry, are attacks on my constituency and on agriculture. I have heard from my constituents time and time again that there are resources that could be spent adequately and that could be directed adequately toward resourcing agriculture and making a difference. However this holds back the ability of farmers and ranchers to go about their business.

Every time my colleagues and I were prepared to speak on Bill C-10A, the controversial bill was yanked from the House agenda in a desperate attempt by the government to avoid further embarrassment over the firearms registry's horrific cost overruns.

I was not here in 1995. I have looked back in Hansard and I have looked at some of the speeches that were given in those times. I have heard where the minister would stand and say that the registry would cost $80 million. Other times someone would come forward and say that it would cost $119 million but it would generate $117 million, for a net cost of only $2 million. Then as time went on, when we could get answers out of the government, we would hear how it was costing $200 million or $300 million.

The huge cost overruns in this bill alone should force the government to yank it off the legislative agenda and scrap it, or at least call a time out.

Just last week the government House leader again withdrew the bill, as complications arose regarding the transfer of the registry from the Minister of Justice to the Solicitor General. The latest rationale for pulling Bill C-10A included references to the Minister of Justice and other wording that the government thought it would have to change before the Solicitor General legally could take responsibility for the Canadian Firearms Centre and other aspects of the program.

Apparently the government devised a new plan on the weekend, because surprise of all surprises, without much warning, again today the bill has been pushed back on to the legislative calender and now we are debating it again. However one outstanding question remains. How will the responsibility and the accountability for the firearms registry be transferred to the Solicitor General? How will pages and pages of enabling legislation be changed to transfer legally the responsibility of the firearms registry from the Minister of Justice over to the Solicitor General?

If transferring it to the Solicitor General is such a good idea, why was it not contemplated when Bill C-68 was drafted and first debated? Why the about-face? Why was it that one minister of justice after another stood and talked about public safety, how the gun registry would reduce crime in Canada and how it was a good thing? However no where in the plan was there the transfer from the Department of Justice to the Solicitor General. Why not?

The government is flying by the seat of its pants. This is a knee-jerk response. The minister has gone from wanting control of the gun registry to not wanting control of it. Some have suggested it is because the current Minister of Justice has hopes for some day running for the leadership of the Liberal Party and realizes that this legislation is a career breaker. The cost overruns, the inefficiencies, the fact that Bill C-10A will never accomplish what those members believe it will accomplish could be a career breaker. That is why it was never contemplated.

The government and the Minister of Justice are trying to save face. Back in the west we call this passing the buck. The minister believes this issue is a hot potato and he wants to shuffle it off his desk and onto the desk of the Solicitor General. He thinks this will divert attention away from the horrific cost of the registry. The government thinks the whole problem may disappear. Talk about a joke. This is not a joke. This is a sad story that is costing responsible firearm owners their freedom of ownership, and is an invasion of their right to privacy.

Until questions are clearly answered, the legislation should be yanked again. It should be pulled off the agenda again. The government should come to the House with some comprehensive plan that will answer the questions that not only the opposition party brings to the House but also the questions that the Canadian public is starting to ask. Why the cost overruns? Why is the registry being moved from the Department of Justice to the Solicitor General's department? Why is the government flying by the seat of its pants?

There are a number of other concerns that I want to address regarding Bill C-10A.

According to media reports, the Solicitor General has admitted that the savings, which his government was planning, to keep the costs of the firearms program at $113 million over the next year will not occur until Bill C-10A becomes law. In other words, if the bill is delayed again, the government will be unable to take advantage of the savings or the $113 million of administration over the next number of years. The government is trying to paint the opposition into a corner. If we attempt to delay this poor piece of legislation, the government will throw it back at us and say that the resulting cost overrun was because the opposition had the audacity to stand up in this place and debate it. Delay after delay will cost Canadians a lot of money. This registry is costing Canadians because it is a poor piece of legislation.

Similarly, the government has blamed those provinces that have opted out of administering the law for the cost overruns when the cost of the firearm registry rests squarely on the government's shoulders. It failed to accurately calculate the exact cost of the registry before Bill C-68 was ever passed and proclaimed. It failed to understand the magnitude of what it would cost.

Last week I stood in the House debating budget 2003. At that time I outlined quite clearly the financial difficulties many municipalities in my riding were encountering in paying for police services. It appears that not only are the municipalities faced with escalating costs for community policing but they are burdened by the cost of enforcing the firearms registration and regulations, costs for which they were promised they would not be solely responsible.

Last week I learned that the Camrose Police Commission, which is in my riding of Crowfoot, threw its support behind the demands of the Alberta Association of Chiefs of Police for more federal assistance with the cost of enforcing the law.

On February 12 the Alberta chiefs of police wrote to the Minister of Justice outlining their concerns about the lack of funding for policing. I will quote from the Camrose Booster dated March 25. It states, “We note that in all the discussions, briefings and planning for the implementation, much time was spent on the issues relating to the administrative aspects of this legislation”.

He was talking about the gun law. The letter goes on to say, “Forms and computer data banks seem to have dominated everyone's attention. Not much, if anything, has so far been said about the actual practicalities of enforcement of the act. More to the point, we note with concerns that the federal government has not yet expressed any view with respect to the source of funding for police activities arising out of the enforcement of this act”.

The letter was written by the President of the Alberta Association of Chiefs of Police, Marshall Chalmers, who also happens to be the chief of police with the Camrose Police Service.

Chief Chalmers has also stated, “We have to convey to you with the greatest possible force and clarity that the municipal governments quite simply cannot assume this additional burden”.

What is the Chief of Police saying? He is saying that it is the law, yes, and that they will have to uphold the law, but that they cannot afford to do it. It would be a huge burden on every municipality and every city to enforce the law that the government is sending down the pike.

Chief Chalmers stated unequivocally that without federal support, police services in the Province of Alberta will have no choice but to set an order of policing priorities that do not include the enforcement of the Firearms Act.

Interviewed by local newspapers on March 20, the Camrose chief of police said, “the initial promise in relation to the act was that the federal government would pay for the entire cost of enforcement and there would be no downloading of costs onto the municipalities. But now it is very apparent that the federal government is expecting municipalities to absorb some of the costs”.

Although, and in fairness to the Alberta chiefs of police I must recognize this fact, the chiefs do accept the act as a valid piece of legislation, they feel the issue of enforcement must be addressed, and I agree.

Not only must the question of who pays the cost of enforcement, which clearly cannot fall on financially burdened municipalities, be answered, but so must all the other outstanding questions regarding the cost of the registry.

Today a Bloc member stood in the House and said that the more tools we had to fight crime the better. They support this registry because they believe it is a tool and the more tools they have to fight crime the better.

I would put forward the argument that the gun registry is preventing us from coming forward with the needed tools to fight crime. The cost of the registry is making other resources and other tools prohibitive because they have signed on, they have been harnessed up to a piece of legislation that is burdening the whole law enforcement and the whole security side of the government down.

The other day the member from Burnaby, a New Democrat, said, with respect to the gun registry, that if it saved the life of only one Canadian it would be worth it all.

How can we make an argument against something like that, other than to say that if we were to spend $1 billion to save the life of that one individual, how many other lives would be lost by not being able to put forward adequate policing?

In another speech, the minister from Ontario, Mr. Runciman, said that in national terms $85 million would put another 1,000 custom agents on the border and $500 million would put an extra 5,900 police officers on the street. The federal alternative is to use the money to register every shotgun and bolt action .22. No great brilliance is required to figure out which would have the greater impact on crime.

Give us the $1 billion and we will put some into health care and we will put more police officers back on the street. In 1993-95 the government jerked 2,000 RCMP officers off the payroll. Let us put some of those officers back on the beat, back on the street, and see how many lives we can save. Let us see how effective we are at fighting organized crime. Let us see how effective we could be at fighting the war against child pornography.

We have a gun registry with $1 billion that will drag down every other viable program, project or resource and make it unaffordable. This is about priorities. That is why we stood in the House and asked for a cost benefit analysis. When we talk about the registry and the good things that may happen, that is okay but at what cost? We have the commissioner of the RCMP say that ongoing investigations are being put on the back burner in reference to terrorism coming to the fore. We are talking about ongoing investigations that have an impact on families. How do we tell someone who has been robbed or assaulted that there are other priorities that need to be investigated. This is all about resources.

The chiefs of police accept that the act is a valid piece of legislation, but they feel that so many other issues must be addressed. I agree with them wholeheartedly. Let us talk about funding and other resources. Let us talk about fighting pornography.

We have stood in the House so many times debating this legislation and we will not tire of it because it is poor legislation. It is legislation that is ineffective. We will not stop standing in the House speaking out against the firearms registry because we believe it is an invasion of our rights. It will not meet the goals that it sets out to meet. It is not a public security issue; it is a dollar issue. This is a raising revenue issue; this is a tax issue. This is an issue that a government that believes in big government will want to continue to move forward. Well, we will keep fighting it.

[An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act, April 7th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to debate Bill C-10A. I am not sure if, in the over two years I have been the member of Parliament for Crowfoot, I have debated any other bills to the extent that the gun registry has come back into the House.

We have talked about agriculture, terrorism and security but the gun registry keeps coming back into the House because the government has failed. It comes back into the House--

[Terrorism, April 3rd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Canadian Alliance, the official opposition, I welcome this opportunity to respond to the Solicitor General's statements regarding the listing of a further seven entities pursuant to the Criminal Code.

In late November, the Solicitor General stood in the House to announce the addition of six entities to the list initiated on July 23, a list that contained a meagre seven terrorist organizations. On December 11, the Solicitor General rose again to announce that Hezbollah was finally being added to the list but only after enduring weeks of relentless pressure from the official opposition. Again, on February 12, the Solicitor General listed a further three. At this time we criticized the Solicitor General for his failure to recognize and list Jemaah Islamiah and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

I am therefore pleased today to learn that almost two months after the Canadian Alliance, the official opposition, requested these dangerous and known terrorist organizations to be added to the list, the Solicitor General has finally listened.

Why is it taking so long for the government to recognize the obvious? Why is it taking so long to list these entities that have been recognized and listed by the United Nations and the United States? We have condemned and will continue to condemn the government for the inordinate amount of time it is taking to compile the list of known terrorist entities, which includes as of today only 26 while the United Nations has identified some 200.

The Solicitor General has just said, and I quote, that “...we cannot afford to drop our guard...We are committed to taking the steps needed to protect our citizens. Public safety is, and continues to be, our absolute priority”.

I must point out that I cannot accept this statement given recent revelations that the anti-terror databank is in jeopardy because of the lack of funds. The Canadian Public Safety Information Network, a consolidation of key justice and police data systems, including CPIC, will allow information sharing between federal and provincial law enforcement and justice agencies as well as the exchange of information between Canada and the United States. The terrorist attacks of September 11 highlighted the importance of information sharing between our two countries.

In closing, I urge the Solicitor General to find the money to ensure that the anti-terror databank is not threatened. I would suggest that he abandon the firearm registry and better utilize the money on the war on terrorism. Then and only then will he truly be making public security a priority.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2003, March 28th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to participate in the second reading debate of the budget implementation act.

This week police officers from all across the country converged on Parliament Hill to deliver this year's demands for improving the safety and security of Canadians. They had an important list which included: better protection for children, no more club fed style prisons, a national drug strategy, pension accrual rate for public safety occupations, and funding for police services.

The Canadian Police Association, representing some 30,000 frontline officers, is recommending that Parliament provide increased priority funding for local, provincial, national, federal and trans-jurisdictional policing responsibilities.

Well over a year ago the Canadian Police Association appeared before the justice committee regarding the anti-terrorism legislation. During its presentation it said:

We have serious reservations, however, about the capability of Canada's police and law enforcement officials to meet the increased demands of anti-terrorism requirements and sustain important domestic policing and law enforcement responsibilities.

To date, the government has never meaningfully addressed the Canadian Police Association's concerns.

As the CPA pointed out in its fact sheet, the 2002 federal budget allotted several millions of dollars in new spending for national security. However, only $576 million spread over six years was dedicated funding allotted to the RCMP. This amounted to only $87 million per year. Translated into human resources, it allowed for the hiring of only 446 full time employees for the RCMP, not over this year, not over next year, but over the next six years.

Need I remind the government that its slash and gouging of the RCMP that occurred in 1993 resulted in 2,200 positions being lost, a loss that has never been recouped despite years of protests and requests for increased spending.

Last year the commissioner of the RCMP openly admitted that 2,000 RCMP officers were withdrawn from other enforcement duties to respond to the terrorism crisis. These officers were taken from assignments previously considered to be priorities, such as fighting organized crime and providing frontline policing in Canadian communities. Many of those jobs were left unattended. In the commissioner's own words these files were “put on the back burner” while the RCMP attempted to apprehend terrorists suspected of using this country as a staging ground.

According to the CPA, of the complement of approximately 15,000 RCMP officers, 9,000 were assigned to municipal and provincial contracting responsibilities. Of the remaining 6,000, 2,000 or one-third of them were taken from other law enforcement responsibilities and reassigned to the terrorism file.

Minimally, 2,000 additional officers are needed to service the deficiencies that are being felt the hardest at the community level. The RCMP provides federal policing to all Canadians as well as services under contracts to all provinces, except Ontario and Quebec, the three territories, 200 municipalities, and more than 190 first nations communities.

Last year, I met with the mayor and town manager of Three Hills which is one of the larger towns in my riding of Crowfoot. Mayor Bauman raised concerns about the national resource methodology used to determine RCMP allocations within small communities and the fact that the municipality had no input in terms of how the contracts were drawn up. At our meeting, the mayor informed me that the town was faced with 20% to 25% of its budget being allocated toward policing, an expenditure that this small rural town could ill afford given all the other demands on its financial resources.

Furthermore, the RCMP stationed right in Three Hills was used by neighbouring municipalities who did not contribute financially for this essential service. More and more, Mayor Bauman explained that the services of the police officers were being stretched routinely and there was not a police presence in the community.

While I took the mayor's concerns to the Solicitor General of Canada, she took them to Alberta Solicitor General Heather Forsyth. At issue was the provincial rule that communities of less than 2,500 have police costs fully covered by the provincial and federal governments, while communities such as Three Hills, with a population greater than 2,500, would pick up the entire tab. Mayor Bauman, saying she is only looking for equity across the province, is threatening to refuse paying for the RCMP.

Another town in my riding, Drumheller, has expressed similar frustrations regarding the cost of policing. Last December, I attended a council meeting of the town of Drumheller and although it expressed a number of concerns, the most notable was the lack of RCMP resources. Although RCMP policing is primarily a provincial issue inasmuch as Alberta municipalities contract directly with the provinces for police services, I took the Drumheller concern to the Solicitor General. I did so because Drumheller is in a unique situation in that the RCMP is utilized to investigate disturbances and escapes from the Drumheller prison, which is a federal institution.

In 2001, a riot and murder investigation at the Drumheller prison cost $40,513 in overtime costs, of which $28,359 was the responsibility of the town of Drumheller. As a result of the related trials, the town also incurred significant costs in terms of the overtime and the burden of police services while officers were called to testify. At one time the town of Drumheller had an officer solely dedicated to federal issues such as the Drumheller Institution. However, that position was eliminated and it is now the responsibility of the town.

In 2000, the average caseload for police officers in Canada was 42.1 Criminal Code incidents per officer. In Drumheller, the average was 97 incidents per officer. This number is significant in that Criminal Code offences in Drumheller had dropped 24% from 1999 to 2000.

Quite obviously, the workload of the RCMP officers stationed in Drumheller is unacceptable. It puts a tremendous strain on police officers who are there, a strain that could jeopardize their ability to effectively do their jobs. Therefore, on behalf of the town of Drumheller, I have requested a review of this matter by the Solicitor General with an end to receiving a dedicated RCMP officer employed and paid for directly by Correctional Service Canada, and deployed as soon as possible.

As I stated at the onset of this debate, the RCMP was basically gutted in the early 1990s as the government introduced a program of restraint. This resulted in the loss of 2,200 RCMP positions.

Just over two years ago, in the wake of 9/11, I wrote the attorneys general and solicitors general of each province to inquire how, if indeed at all, community policing had been affected in their respective jurisdictions. In response, the Alberta solicitor general wrote back explaining:

In Alberta, there are 63 urban centres that are responsible for their own policing and contract directly with Canada for policing by the RCMP. These agreements are cost shared between the municipality and Canada based on population size...Through most of the 1990s, federal funding was insufficient to meet the needs of the contractual obligations of the agreements with Alberta...The prolonged period of federal fiscal restraint negatively impacted the RCMP's ability to deliver services required under the various contractual arrangements.

I implore the government to finally do as the Canadian Police Association has asked and that is to provide adequate priority funding for the sake of the children, and for the sake of the nation.

In closing, I wish to express the sentiments of Toronto Police Chief Fantino who said he was:

...deeply disappointed at the recent comments by (the) Solicitor General that police are adequately resourced in the area of child pornography. The Toronto Police Service has received no funding or resources from the federal government in this area. We have, however, managed to move forward thanks to a $2 million grant from the provincial government.

Police Chief Fantino has congratulated the Ontario government for moving because the federal government has not, and today we stand in the House to say thanks to the provincial government in Ontario for responding to the great need.

[Correctional Service Canada, March 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, why does the Solicitor General refuse to take the advice of the Canadian Police Association regarding potentially dangerous prisons, resort-style prisons, club fed prisons? Is the Solicitor General so confident that club feds do not exist? Will he immediately call for an independent review of our prison system to prove that he is right?