Kevin Sorenson

[Terrorism, December 12th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, repeatedly we have heard and learned about the presence of suspected terrorists operative in this country from foreign countries, that is, from the States, from Jordan, from France and from Great Britain.

This is a sorry indictment of the government, which for almost a decade has financially bled our security and intelligence agencies to the point that there is a shortage of trained analysts here in Canada.

I ask the solicitor general, why did Canadian intelligence fail to uncover the Al-Qaïda terrorists operating in our country?

[Terrorism, December 12th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaïda terrorist network had a foothold in Canada. The solicitor general's continual denial of any Canadian connection ignores the fact that we are vulnerable to the infiltration of terrorists.

I ask the solicitor general, will he now pull his head out of the sand and acknowledge, as proven yesterday with the indictment of Zacharias Moussaoui, that Al-Qaïda is present and active in Canada?

[The Budget, December 11th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, there is a disaster in the agricultural sector. Last night I spent time on the phone with a young lady from north of Drumheller in the Morrin area. I could feel her sense of frustration and her emotions as she talked about the commodity prices.

We talk about taxes. In a way the member is right. Tax cuts are right if people have the income. They would be cuts in income taxes but there are many other taxes, as the hon. member knows. For years our party has asked that the four cents excise tax on diesel fuel, the 10 cents on farm fuel, the taxes on the input costs be cut. The taxes could be pulled back at a time when agriculture needs the help.

There is no commitment in the budget to the western Canadian farmer. There is no commitment to agriculture. There is no commitment at a time when we hoped for one.

[The Budget, December 11th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's question raises a point I should have brought forward.

Just in the last week the police chief from Toronto, Mr. Fantino, came forward and said that $1 million has been spent already, it is projected that $6 million will be needed and there is no commitment from the federal government. We sat yesterday and listened as the budget came down. We heard things like a $60 million increase for the CBC, yet nothing to the degree of what is needed for some of the security services.

The problem is that although it has been deemed as a security budget, there have been seven years of cuts. I should say that incrementally in the last two or three years we have seen very minor increases in budgets, but when a huge amount is cut in the first three or four years and then tidbits are given back incrementally, it is not sufficient.

Funding for CSIS in 1993 was $244 million. It fell to $197 million in 2001, a loss of $50 million. There is no way that one budget can bring it all back. When we hear about an increase to CSIS and the RCMP, we applaud that, but the problem is that one budget cannot rectify 10 years of slashing and hacking and cuts to the security of the nation and to the safety and security of every citizen in the country.

[The Budget, December 11th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to stand in this place and to partake in the budget debate. This is the first time since being elected just a little over a year ago that I have had the opportunity to participate in a budget debate, because as we all know it is the first budget we have seen in this parliament and in probably almost two years. It is time that the finance minister indulged our interest and that of many Canadians in dealing with our financial well-being and gave us some type of indication as to the course that he has charted in these turbulent times.

As a first time member, I sat and listened yesterday and I listened intently. As the critic for the solicitor general, I was listening particularly for a mention of CSIS, the RCMP and Corrections Canada in the budget. However, as a member representing an agricultural riding, I also listened intently to the speech that our finance minister brought forth as to how it would impact agriculture. I listened in order to hear to how it would affect the farm family, how it would affect the agricultural sector. I listened and I listened and I listened. There was really no response. It is a sad commentary when the Liberal government has forgotten a very important sector of our economy, agriculture, because it affects so many in the west and the regions of Canada.

However, it is a pleasure to be here today. I stood in the House over a month ago debating Bill C-36, the anti-terrorism legislation. I began that deliberation with a quote from the Toronto Star . Although I do not have time today to quote the whole article again, I would like to quote one or two sentences by James Travers from that article:

Now the federal government is desperately trying to respond by bringing forward legislation and introducing security measures that for years have been relegated to the bottom of the agenda. It clearly hopes that the current flurry of activity will somehow mask years of inaction.

On that note, I would like to say that this is the same response that we e see in this budget: years of inaction, years of forgetting to bring in a budget and now setting a course to try to rectify it. What do we see?

Witnesses from the Canadian Police Association, representing some 30,000 frontline police personnel in Canada, including RCMP officers, recently appeared before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights regarding Bill C-36. During that presentation the association stated:

We have serious reservations...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.

Let us make this abundantly clear. The Canadian Police Association request for more resources, and that is what it was asking for on that date, was not a knee-jerk reaction to the September 11 tragedy. It was the realization that there was a much larger problem.

For nearly a decade the Canadian Police Association has been requesting more money so frontline officers can effectively do the job, all of the job, not a selective part, not just a small amount, but all of the job. It has repeatedly asked the federal government to move on repairing the gaping holes in Canada's security and enforcement capabilities. Until then, it had not had much luck.

Our frontline officers were not successful in beefing up their numbers until the horrific events of September 11 highlighted the fact that Canada is viewed internationally as a point of entry. The events of September 11 made the government and many people recognize that Canada was an entry for access to the United States for criminals and terrorists.

Therefore, although we welcome the increased dollars given to the RCMP, as announced in yesterday's budget, I would be remiss if I did not point out that it is perhaps too late and perhaps also too little. The bleeding within our security and intelligence agencies has been occurring for so long that the band-aid approach we saw yesterday simply will not stop the bleeding.

According to RCMP commissioner Zaccardelli's own admission, 2,000 RCMP officers were withdrawn from other enforcement duties to respond to the terrorism crisis. The officers were taken from assignments previously considered to be priorities, such as fighting organized crime, providing frontline policing in their communities and waging the battle against drugs. Many of those jobs were left unattended as the RCMP scurried to deal with the latest crisis within its current budget constraints. Officers previously assigned to organized crime priorities had to abandon their investigations for anti-terrorist assignments.

According to the CPA, of the complement of approximately 15,000 RCMP officers, 9,000 are assigned to municipal and provincial contract policing responsibilities. Of the remaining 6,000, 2,000 of those or one-third, were reassigned to the terrorism file as confirmed by the commissioner of the RCMP.

Minimally, 2,000 additional officers are needed to service the deficiencies that are being felt hardest at the community levels. Taking the Canadian Police Association's estimates of $125,000 per officer, at minimum the RCMP should be given $250 million for staff alone. Yesterday's announcement falls much short of that mark.

Of the solicitor general's previous funding increases of $250 million, only $9 million was allocated to provide for staffing in priority areas for the RCMP. This, again based on the Canadian Police Association's estimates, equated to only roughly 72 full time RCMP constable positions. Obviously this was not sufficient to address in any meaningful way the new and existing national policing demands placed on the RCMP.

The Canadian Police Association, therefore, desperately looking for some salvation in this budget, failed. The government failed and fell short of the CPA's needs and expectations.

I will turn to the other and equally important component of Canada's security force, that being the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or CSIS. Yesterday I had the pleasure, together with our Sub-committee on National Security, to go to CSIS offices to be briefed by the director, Mr. Ward Elcock.

Yesterday the government announced funding for CSIS of $334 million over a six year period. This amounts to $56 million per year. The new funding does not, on average, bring CSIS funding to the level it experienced in 1993. In 1993, funding for CSIS was $244 million. Under the Liberal government, funding was cut to $197 million in 2001. Funding cuts were occurring at a time when terrorism throughout the world was becoming more violent, more indiscriminate and more unpredictable. CSIS, in its 2000 public report, brought that out. It said:

Up to now, CSIS has been able to risk-manage the challenges. However, the terrorist events of late 1999 underscored the continuing requirement to review efficiency within the context of the existing threat environment, with particular emphasis on the allocation of human resources. More than ever, the Service--

This is the service dealing with our national security.

--must rely on risk management, concentrating resources selectively and precisely on the major issues, while assessing new and emerging threats.

What the report was stating was that CSIS was seeing acts of terrorism increasing and its budget decreasing. I would like to highlight the fact that this report was released before September 11. Long before the attack on America, CSIS was experiencing staffing shortages and a serious lack of trained analysts. Between 1992 and 1998 CSIS experienced a cut of 760 personnel.

Different individuals such as Wesley Wark of the University of Toronto and others brought forward the fact that money was needed but money was not enough. CSIS needed analysts and trained expertise. This budget does not allow them the resources that they need to bring them back to the 1993 level.

All these changes and enhancements as encouraged by many experts in the security field will cost much more than what was offered by the government yesterday. We need a stronger financial commitment. We need our federal government to stand and say that it recognizes the fight against terrorism will be a sustained one.

In closing, the budget is a start but it is not the whole enchilada. It is not what is needed by CSIS and the RCMP.

[Transitional Jobs Fund, December 10th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, with all the investigations into the Prime Minister's riding, it is a good thing the minister is not criticizing the RCMP.

There were allegations of a kickback of $250,000 being paid to Louis Freedman, a golfing buddy of the Prime Minister's, in return for his obtaining a $1.6 million transitional jobs fund grant for PLI Environmental in Sydney, Nova Scotia. The RCMP were investigating this as of July 27, 1999, a full 28 months ago.

Could the solicitor general tell us whether or not this lengthy investigation by the RCMP has been completed?

[Transitional Jobs Fund, December 10th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, on March 6, 2000 the RCMP launched an investigation into a transitional jobs fund grant. The money was supposed to go to the riding of Rosemont in Montreal but the jobs appeared to turn up in the Prime Minister's own riding.

The RCMP's investigation has now been over for 20 months. I ask the solicitor general, is this not an inordinate amount of time to conduct an investigation of this nature?

[Justice, December 7th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it would be an excellent idea for the solicitor general or his parliamentary secretary to take a tour of some of our prisons. It is very obvious that we have a rampant drug problem in our prisons as well as other problems. Coerced by threats and intimidation, correctional officers as well as visitors have been implicated in drug smuggling and drug distribution.

Quite obviously, we must look beyond what the solicitor general offered to the House yesterday as a solution.

I ask the solicitor general this. What is being done to effectively rid our prisons of drugs? What new measures is he considering in light of the huge problem?

[Justice, December 7th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, after the opposition raised questions in the House yesterday regarding the allegations of wrongdoing by correctional officers, the solicitor general finally announced that there would be an investigation into that. We commend Correctional Service Canada for this undertaking. However we are concerned about the limited scope of the investigation.

My question is for the solicitor general. Will this be another internal correctional service investigation or will the RCMP be called in?

[An act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act, December 6th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I have already had the opportunity to speak to Bill C-15, Bill C-15A and Bill C-15B. I was not expecting to speak to the bill, but the lack of speakers from other parties has allowed me the opportunity. That is not an attack on any other party. I appreciate the opportunity to recollect some of the concerns that the bill brings forward.

When Bill C-15 initially came forward we were disturbed by what we saw. We saw an omnibus bill that brought in many good things, but there were a number of specifics that were worrisome to the Canadian Alliance as well as to other members of the opposition.

We applaud the government for splitting the bill after pressure from the opposition. It allowed for quicker passage of Bill C-15A which dealt with child luring, disarming of a police officer and other items. It allowed us the opportunity to take the second portion of Bill C-15, study it and bring witnesses forward so that we could deal with the concerns regarding the cruelty to animal clause and the firearms issue. That is exactly what happened over the last month.

It has been a busy three months since September 11. When we have not been dealing with terrorism bills in the justice committee, we have been dealing with the cruelty to animal clause.

For us to stand in the House to explain the frustration in the agricultural sector over the last few years, it would be an understatement no matter what we tried to say. We have watched as commodity prices have fallen and input costs have gone up. Other government practices have been ineffective. Many of the agriculture programs that we would have liked to have seen from the government have been forgotten, put on the back burner or totally ignored. Due to the lack of government support there have been steps taken by the federal Liberals that would actually raise additional concerns for our farming community and food production groups.

What we see in Bill C-15B is exactly one of the concerns. This is a bill that is very divisive. It pits urban against rural. It is much like Bill C-68, the gun registration bill, which was a divisive bill. The Liberal government said we needed Bill C-68, but it pitted the urban sector against the rural sector.

Legislation dealing with cruelty to animals does the same. The agriculture sector in western Canada would say to those who are involved in defined cruelty to animal cases that there should be tougher and harsher sentences. Cruelty to animals charges should be taken seriously. Agriculture would say those who willfully bring pain on animals or refuse to look after animals need to be prosecuted.

The bill takes some of the practices that our ranching and farming communities are involved in and puts them into question. Regardless of what the minister said about acceptable practices when she came to committee, animal extremist groups and other animal rights groups have said that we need to use the legislation as a basis to bring forward prosecutions. We need to push the legislation on to the front burner and use it as a reason to prosecute.

One individual who spoke in committee referred to the legislation as only the beginning. She said the onus was on humane societies and other groups on the frontlines to push the legislation to the limit, to test the parameters of the law, and to have the courage and the conviction to lay charges. She warned us not to make any mistake about it because that was what it was all about.

What was she saying? She was saying that in Bill C-15B we have the opportunity to take the legislation that was asked for and make it a springboard for prosecutions of our farmers, ranchers, trappers, including aboriginals and all others it would affect.

I have been on the farm for 40 years. I understand a number of things about farming. One of the concerns that has been brought forward so eloquently by the member for Cypress Hills--Grasslands is that the margins are simply not there to be brought and hauled before a federal or provincial court to fight a prosecution for the sake of the humane society getting it on the agenda. Farmers and ranchers move back in fear of having to defend common practices of farming.

The government says to trust it. It has said that a few times. It said that Bill C-68 would cost $85 million. We find our trust level around the Liberal government diminishing as time goes on because Bill C-68 has cost $685 million. Who knows where it will end? Perhaps it will be at least $1 billion.

I want to mention that we have seen other bills come forward too. We have seen the species at risk bill. The phone in my constituency office in Crowfoot rings constantly. I have received hundreds of letters dealing with the species at risk bill. The government is saying that to keep these species it needs to take farmland or any type of land and protect it. It says that there would not be any compensation, or maybe a little compensation, but to trust it because it would not take huge numbers of acres; just what it needed.

The calls keep coming. We have received numerous calls and correspondences from individuals who have grave concerns about how this would impact on their livelihood and on legitimate activities.

The moving of these sections from the property section into a separate section in the criminal code is something which causes great concern. For example, section 445 deals with wilfully and without lawful excuse killing, maiming, wounding, poisoning or injuring dogs, birds or animals that are not cattle and kept for a lawful purpose. We have heard the member for Cypress Hills--Grassland talk about the changing of the definition of animal to something that feels pain.

A few nights ago in the House we discussed the strychnine bill. Gophers feel pain. It is not necessarily an acceptable practice by a lot of animal rights groups but it is another case of an exercise that is needed on ranches and farms. We support any kind of bill that would genuinely deter cruelty to animals. Bill C-15B does not. It is an attack on western agriculture and farming practices. Even though amendments have been brought forward in good will they do not suffice.