Kevin Sorenson

[Canada-Jordan Free Trade Act, November 19th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, mine may be more comments than actual questions, but I would start by saying this. In 1905-06 my grandfather moved here, broke the land, cleared the trees and, generally speaking, planted wheat. That was what was all across the Prairies of this country, wheat.

We live in an age where the farming industry is dependent on the pulse crops, beef, oats, barley, canola and every different type of peas there are. That is the background.

The next thing I want to say is that trade issues frustrate people. Right now we are hung up with what is happening at Doha. Will we see any movement at Doha? Will we see action with our trade agreements? It is frustrating to industry. It is frustrating to our economy.

One of the trademarks of our government, and it is one that personally I am very proud of, is that we have initiated many different agreements, five agreements with eight countries and we are negotiating 50 more. This means opportunities. It means opportunities for the forestry industry and for my agricultural industry.

I respect and very much appreciated the hon. member's speech, or this speech on trade, and one out of two is not bad today, but if I were to ask him one question, it would be, why is it that the other parties, both the Bloc Québécois and the New Democratic Party, do not support--

[Veterans' Week, November 6th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, members of Parliament will be returning to their constituencies to attend many different Veterans' Week ceremonies.

In my riding of Crowfoot, Government of Canada Remembrance Day wreaths will be laid in 21 communities as we gather together to express a sincere thank you to the generations of men and women who have worn our country's uniform, who have defended our way of life and made Canada strong, free and proud.

We acknowledge the contributions that ordinary Canadians have made in two great wars, in Korea, on peacekeeping missions, on military operations and in Afghanistan today.

Canadian soldiers are the best in the world. They are the best trained, the most disciplined and the most professional.

We live in a country blessed with peace, a country built on the values of generosity, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

During Veterans' Week we thank our men and women in uniform, past and present, for their sacrifice.

Lest we forget.

[Strengthening Canada’s Corrections System Act, October 29th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I think you will find agreement to see the clock at 5:30 p.m.

[Strengthening Canada's Corrections System Act, October 29th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I must admit I do not agree with the member on his stands on sovereignty for Quebec or breaking up our country. However, on the issue of justice I have grown to appreciate his comments and the fact that he has served as justice minister.

I want to comment in regard to what my NDP colleague just asked about mental illness. I chair the foreign affairs committee but replaced someone on the public safety committee, which was dealing with mental illness within the prison system. The testimony of one of the witnesses was that incarceration would actually, in many cases, give individuals the help they would not normally get.

My colleague basically disagreed with conditional sentences because he said they would allow individuals the opportunity to receive help. Many who are diagnosed with mental illness and released into society do not receive help, even if it is a condition of release. Being incarcerated, whether it be a federal penitentiary or some other type of facility, allows inmates to obtain diagnosis, assistance, a sense of being able to work through it with a little more security.

Would he elaborate a little more on what he said about conditional sentences not allowing inmates to obtain the help they need?

[Firearms Registry, October 27th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, since being elected the member of Parliament for Crowfoot, I have joined my colleagues working toward the abolishment of the failed and costly long gun registry.

My constituents have constantly and consistently contacted me opposing this issue for nine years. My predecessor, as member of Parliament, opposed the Liberal bill, Bill C-68, warning that it would not reduce gun-related violence nor protect the safety of Canadians, and that it would be too costly. He was right.

Fourteen years later, over $1 billion of taxpayer money should have been spent on policing budgets, border control, education, treatment for violent offences and help for victims.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is now calling for the registry to be abolished. For 14 years, law-abiding firearm owners, hunters, farmers and recreational gun groups have been targeted and are burdened with the ongoing high costs.

I call upon all Canadians to urge their member of Parliament to support Bill C-391 and abolish the long gun registry.

[Criminal Code, October 22nd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I also consider it to be a real pleasure to stand in this place and debate Bill S-205. It started in the Senate. It has already been mentioned, but I thank Senator Grafstein for drafting this bill.

I also specifically want to thank our member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar. Very seldom do we have the opportunity to work together. That member of Parliament sponsored this bill to come forward in this House. As we have seen today, she has been able to work with all members of the House to bring us together and have a consensus on this one bill. As a new member of Parliament, she has shown us that she works hard. Bringing forward a bill like this one is significant and I wanted to commend her for doing that.

I am pleased to support this bill. It proposes to specifically include suicide bombing in the definition of “terrorist activity” in the Criminal Code. This bill would add a for greater certainty clause, after section 83.01 of the Criminal Code, which would specify that suicide bombing comes within paragraphs (a) and (b) of the definition of “terrorist activity” when committed in the context of a terrorist activity.

As has already been talked about, this bill has had a long history in the Senate. It has been introduced four times from 2005 to 2008, but all previous versions of the bill died on the order paper. That is one of the things about a minority government. It seems that we are having so many elections. So much good legislation ends up dying on the order paper. One version, Bill S-210, was passed by the Senate on June 16, 2008.

I recognize that the current definition of “terrorist activity” contained in the Criminal Code already implicitly encompasses suicide bombing when committed in the context of terrorism. If we look at the definition of “terrorist activity” in the code, it incorporates criminal conduct as envisioned by the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, which is one of the United Nations' counterterrorism conventions. The second part of the definition includes terrorist activity which intentionally causes death or serious bodily harm or endangers a person's life. However, it is also true that the words “suicide bombing” are not expressly mentioned in the present definition of “terrorist activity”. There is considerable support for the specific criminalization of suicide bombing as part of the terrorist activity defined in the code.

Canadians Against Suicide Bombing, a Toronto-based group led by a former judge, has been particularly supportive of the objectives behind Bill S-205. The group established an online petition in support of the bill. Many prominent Canadians from all walks of life have signed an open letter of support for this bill.

I have had the pleasure of serving in Parliament for nine years. As the elected representative of the constituency of Crowfoot in Alberta, I have served in a number of different capacities in my parliamentary duties. Right now, I have the pleasure of chairing the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.

One of the opportunities that I have as the chair of the foreign affairs committee is to sit down with ambassadors from many different countries. In the last couple of days, I had the pleasure of sitting with the high commissioner from Pakistan. I think that everyone in the House understands what Pakistan is facing today. Pakistan is facing a barrage from the Taliban and terrorist groups there. We commend Pakistan on the way it is standing up to that direct line of fire, in some cases as its military goes in to try to rid the country of terrorist activity.

The topic he brought to my attention was the fear in which many people in that country live, not out on the battlefield, not in the valleys or up in the hills as they go after the Taliban or al Qaeda or other terrorist groups, but the fear in the malls and shopping centres because of terrorist activity in the towns and cities, in Islamabad and in other places, the fear of suicide bombers.

We see this more and more around the world. We see it in Iraq. We see the huge fear in Israel where people go through a metal detector before going into a mall. Their bags and backpacks are checked before they go into a shopping mall. Why? Because they have a fear of terrorist bombing. We see it in places like Pakistan and obviously in Afghanistan, where we have lost many, many troops to roadside bombs, but also to suicide bombers.

Among other things, we have studied the impact of suicide bombing in our mission in Afghanistan. Brave Canadian men and women are being targeted by suicide bombers. They see the vehicle coming toward them. They look at the eyes of the person and they watch as the person reaches into his pocket to detonate the explosives that blow up the vehicle and ignite many other explosions. We are losing far too many people from that.

I have also had the pleasure of serving as the opposition critic for public safety and emergency preparedness when we brought forward Bill C-36, the anti-terrorism bill. Again, so much of our committee time is taken up talking about the suicide bombers in many of these countries.

A number of years ago I served as the vice-chair of the subcommittee on national security. That was another committee that spent so much time concerned with bringing forward and helping to draft legislation, influence legislation that would address issues like suicide bombing. I do not want to read my resumé; that is not what I am trying to do here. But I am trying to point out that this place has been dealing with criminal and national security issues in many different committees. We are dealing with issues like the suicide bombing and it is taking up a lot of energy and a lot of time here in the House.

The main thing I learned, which is applicable in our debate today, is that when a person, a community, a nation or even the international community is threatened by violence, we have to do something about it. For that again I commend our senator and I commend our minister, I mean our member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar--I called her a minister; she is a member, but I think someday she will be a minister--for bringing this forward.

That is what Bill S-205 is accomplishing. The bill is doing something about suicide bombing. It is specific and that is what I like about it. That is why I support it. That is why I am very pleased to look around this place and see every party pledging their support for the bill.

[Criminal Code, October 22nd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I sat and listened to the member's speech and I looked around. I know we are never to make mention of certain people in the gallery, but we have representation from the Senate here; we have representation from her constituency office. I think everyone I see when I look around here, even on the opposition sides, is supportive of the idea of this.

In her speech, she spoke about many different people who have come onside and said legislation like this is needed. She talked about former prime ministers, leaders of other political parties, and I do not know if perhaps even representation from the judiciary was mentioned. However, I wonder if the hon. member would mind telling us specifically why she believes that legislation like this is important, and also whether she believes that passing a bill such as this one it would provide leadership, and would show that Canada is in a position of leadership and is really a beacon for other countries to do the same.

[Retribution on Behalf of Victims of White Collar Crime Act, October 22nd, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I spoke on this earlier in the day and the member stood and questioned me, so I would like to return the gesture and favour to him.

One of the things he pointed out in his speech, which I appreciated, was his indignation toward the fact that the courts were giving certain sentences and in just a few short months, in some cases, these individuals were being returned to the streets. I am quite pleased to hear that the member would have that type of indignation towards such a fact.

There is statutory release in this country. In some cases, two-thirds of the way through sentences offenders can be sent back out on the street. His party has for a long time been on record as supporting those types of policies that would allow criminals to be given what we call early or statutory release. My question to him is whether he would support measures to get rid of statutory release. There is ample opportunity in this place to do that.

He also mentioned the Bloc Québécois in his speech and talked about Bloc members bringing certain facts forward. They questioned earlier whether anyone was getting under two years for fraud charges. I will take the member back to the sponsorship scandal in Regina v. Coffin, where the person pleaded guilty to 15 counts of fraud, totalling $1,556,625. There were aggravating circumstances and he received 18 months.

As he suggested, in many of these cases the sentences the offenders receive and what they actually serve are two different things. Would he support measures to have what we call truth in sentencing, whereby if someone is sentenced to six or eight years, that is what they serve?

[Retribution on Behalf of Victims of White Collar Crime Act, October 22nd, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I can speak quickly. I own an auction company, so I can do it like an auctioneer.

Many people invested in these types of things to secure an education for their children. We had a case where they felt they could invest in a program and in five years, when their kids were ready to go to college, they would not have to go through the student loans. There were reasons why perhaps their children could not access a student loan. They put money in hoping their children would get an education. Well, they got an education from the school of hard knocks. That is where the children ended up going because there were no moneys because of the loss.

In other cases, the farm has been put up and owners have seen significant losses. There are cases in retirement where they have stopped--

[Retribution on Behalf of Victims of White Collar Crime Act, October 22nd, 2009]

Madam Speaker, the answer is yes, there have been. There have been a number of cases where the courts deemed differently because of mitigating circumstances such as first time offence, others with no criminal record or a case where it involved the community's best people. These were people who were volunteers in minor hockey programs or in their communities, but they were also involved.

In R v Cioffi the accused was authorizing loans to fictitious people. She was charged with fraud over $5,000. The fraud amounted to more than $4 million and lasted for four years. The scheme was set up by another person who was accused merely of implementing the program that someone else had set up. The aggravating factors in that case, the court found there was a huge abuse of trust. A large number of fraudulent transactions over a long period of time had taken place, so it was not just that she was caught up for a short period of time. The mitigating factors in this case: she never had an extensive criminal record. The accused did not personally benefit because she had set it up for someone else and the accused was also a victim of fraud. She ended up with two years less a day and the stay was granted.

In another case, R v McCarthy, the accused was charged with three counts of fraud over $5,000 related to two loans totalling in excess of $3 million and the ongoing trading of shares. The court found aggravating factors: breach of trust, considerable amount defrauded, significant number of victims. The mitigating factors were: no criminal record, no threat to the community, a record of community involvement. He received a conditional sentence. The $3 million impact to the economy is one thing that we did not really get into, but a $3 million fraud received a conditional sentence of two years less a day followed by a year of probation. The list is long.

One of the differences between governments is that when the former Liberal government tried to make it look like it was toughening up on this type of crime, it extended the maximum sentence. The courts simply did not give very many people the maximum sentence.

The bill says there will be a minimum sentence, a minimum of two years in prison for any fraudulent activity where people are charged and sentenced. Again, the bill also says we will look to restitution. That is what Canadians want. They want to know that there will be a degree of restitution where we can find it. That is what the bill does.