Leon Benoit

[Sponsorship Program, March 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is hiding from this question. Why is he hiding from this question?

He said clearly that there is no connection between ministers of his cabinet and the sponsorship issue. Yet when I ask a straightforward question regarding that relationship, he refuses to answer.

I will ask the question again. Was the Prime Minister ever advised of a sponsorship relationship between Pierre Tremblay and the current Privy Council president?

[Sponsorship Program, March 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister carefully denied any relationship between his cabinet ministers and the sponsorship issue. We know this is not correct.

Was the Prime Minister ever advised of the sponsorship relationship between Pierre Tremblay and the current President of the Privy Council?

[Criminal Code, March 24th, 2004]

moved that Bill C-452, an act to amend the Criminal Code (proceedings under section 258), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker,it is an honour for me to rise today to speak on my private member's bill, Bill C-452. I look forward to discussing the contents of my bill in the House today and as it moves through the House in the future. I think this bill is a true example of a non-partisan bill and I believe that it will be supported. I am looking forward to that.

Today I would like to explain to the House why I have decided to put this particular bill forward. I intend to outline the contents of my bill, both in specific and general terms, and then provide members with some information which will help them in their decision to support this proposed legislation.

First, my intent with regard to Bill C-452 is simple. I want to keep drunk drivers off our roads. I want to help stop the death and destruction caused by impaired driving. And I want to make sure that when people do make the decision to drive while drunk, they no longer will be protected by the current loopholes in the Criminal Code. I want to briefly outline how Bill C-452 will prevent impaired drivers from getting off on technicalities.

This bill would give the courts the ability to use sample test results as proof of the accused's blood alcohol content at the time of the alleged offences. If the accused were to dispute those results, this bill would then place the evidential burden on the accused to establish factors that affect the reliability of those results based on the balance of probabilities. Bill C-452 will increase the time allowed for the taking of breath or blood samples from an accused to three hours from the current two, and I will explain why that is necessary.

The legislation states that it is illegal to operate a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol content of more than .08. We all know that. That is currently in the Criminal Code. In order to ensure that this law is enforced effectively, Parliament enacted two statutory presumptions. The first, the presumption of accuracy, is that the breath or blood tests accurately reflect the driver's BAC at the time of testing, that is, the blood alcohol concentration. The second, the presumption of identity, is that the driver's blood alcohol level at the time of testing is evidence of his or her BAC at the time of driving, provided the samples were taken within two hours of the alleged offence.

While Parliament extended the time limit for police to demand breath samples from suspects to three hours in 1999, we failed to make a corresponding change to the presumption of identity. This means that the Crown has to call a toxicological expert to testify in each case that samples are taken more than two hours after the alleged offence. This is time consuming and expensive, and often, sadly, prosecutors will simply choose to drop the charges rather than spend the time and money that would be required to make this case in court.

The timeframe for the presumption of identity, as it is called, should be extended to three hours. My bill would do that.

Once again, I want to be clear about the intention of my bill. The issue of drunk driving and the pain and destruction it causes has been a concern for me for some time. I want to make Canada's roads safer for all of us, for our families and for our loved ones. Last year, and this is what really prompted me to bring this bill forth, I met with representatives from Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or MADD Canada. They reminded me that drunk driving is still the number one criminal cause of death in Canada. I want to emphasize that fact. Drunk driving is still the number one criminal cause of death in Canada.

On average, we lose four Canadians every day and another 200 are injured due to drunk driving. Those numbers represent hundreds of families who are left to deal with the grief and trauma of having their loved ones killed or hurt by drunk drivers. As legislators, we owe it to those Canadians to help reduce this devastation if at all possible, and MADD Canada told me that it is possible. It has outlined several areas where our laws are lacking.

When I met with its national president, Louise Knox, she told me that one major problem stemmed from the fact that the courts have interpreted the Criminal Code in such a manner that breath or blood tests are often thrown out, based solely on the accused's own testimony, which contradicts the science-based test results. Without the test results being accepted as accurate, the charges are usually dropped and the accused is acquitted. What kind of a system is this when the accused's testimony overrides the scientifically based test procedures? It is simply crazy.

I want to tell the House about the two main defences being used by those accused of drunk driving to avoid being punished. They are defences that are successfully used in many cases. These loopholes are the exact ones that my private member's bill, if passed, will close.

The first is called the “Carter” defence, whereby the accused testifies that he or she had only a small amount to drink prior to the offence. The defence calls a toxicologist to confirm that the accused's blood content would definitely have been below the .08 level if such a small amount were consumed.

If the court accepts the accused's evidence, the test results are completely disregarded even if they were administered properly, even if they were consistent with the reading on the roadside screening device, and even if they are supported by the officer's evidence that the accused showed signs of intoxication. It is incredible.

I want to put this defence into perspective so that what I am saying is crystal clear. Let us say that someone gets picked up due to erratic driving or after they have had an accident. The police suspect impaired driving and do an initial roadside test. It tests positive for BAC above the legal limit. The individual is then taken down to the local police station for the next test. The result is again positive. The police have done their job, right?

Now the individual arrives in court. The accused's defence is that he or she drank so little that the test simply must have been wrong. It is only the word of the accused that he or she drank so little that the tests have to be wrong. The way the Criminal Code is currently written, it allows judges to throw out the test results, which are scientifically based and which have proven to be very accurate in hundreds and hundreds of tests. If a person gets the right lawyer and the right judge, he or she is let off the hook for a very serious crime that has often led to death. More accurately for the public, if they get the wrong lawyer and the wrong judge, they are often let off the hook due to technicalities alone.

My bill would close that loophole. Those accused of impaired driving would have to prove on the balance of probabilities that the tests were wrong.

The second defence that is commonly used is the “last drink” defence. In this case, those who are accused testify that they consumed a large amount of alcohol immediately before driving but they say the alcohol could not possibly have been absorbed into the bloodstream when they were stopped by the police.

These accused argue that their blood alcohol content was below the legal limit when they were driving and only rose above the limit in that interval between the time they were caught driving and when the testing was done. Again, the breath results are rejected and the accused are acquitted, strictly on their word that they had taken a large amount to drink just before driving so therefore their alcohol content simply could not have been high enough at the time of driving.

These technicalities are simply not acceptable. They are not an acceptable way for people to get off the hook when they are in fact guilty of drunk driving. What I propose to do is help prevent some of the four deaths that occur every day and the 200 injuries that occur every day from people getting off the hook due to technicalities. If it did happen that someone drank too much booze and then drove but was not technically over the limit when driving, is it unreasonable to change the law to send a clear message, “Too bad, simply do not drink that amount and drive”?

People simply should not drink an amount which could bring their alcohol content level above that which would make them impaired when they drove. Or better yet, people simply should not drink and drive.

What has been the result of these two loopholes being allowed to remain? Despite an estimated 12.5 million impaired driving trips every year in Canada, the majority of offenders are not even stopped by police. We can understand why. The police cannot be everywhere; we understand that. However, even when people are stopped, officers often do not press charges. Police do not believe that their work and effort will result in convictions because the laws are simply not strong enough and most important, because those loopholes are there.

In other countries these things simply are not allowed to happen. For example, the impaired driving legislation in the United Kingdom takes into account in all cases the assumption that the accused's blood alcohol content at the time of driving was not less than that indicated in the blood test. The only exception arises when the accused proves that he or she consumed alcohol after driving, but before providing the breath and blood sample proves that, and also proves that as a result of this consumption his or her blood alcohol content would not have exceeded the limit at the time of driving. In the United Kingdom they have to prove those two things.

Obviously this places a much heavier onus on the accused who wishes to challenge the blood alcohol content results from scientifically based testing.

It is similar in the United States. The onus is placed on the offender to prove his evidence. I believe that Canada is the only western democratic country which allows these types of technicalities to interfere with convictions in this type of a situation. It is no longer acceptable and my bill would change that.

When I tabled the bill in the last session before Parliament prorogued, the then parliamentary secretary to the minister of justice said that he would like to do everything possible to deal with those who would drive impaired upon our roads. He criticized portions of my bill, specifically the provision allowing a court to consider evidence of the accused's driving and demeanour. The parliamentary secretary pointed out that such evidence is irrelevant to an over 80 charge. He is correct.

However, he did not understand the thrust of my proposed amendment. While not relevant to the proof of the offence itself, these factors are very relevant to the accused's contention that there is evidence to the contrary casting doubt on the BAC reading. He missed the point entirely. I do not think he was really listening to what I said.

For example, it would clearly enhance the accused's claim that the BAC results are in error if, with even a moderately high BAC, he or she did not show any of the usual indicators of alcohol consumption, odour, slurred speech or any sign of impaired driving.

Since only credible evidence is capable of constituting evidence to the contrary, the court should consider all available evidence in assessing whether the accused's claim is credible.

The parliamentary secretary went on to speculate that there may be some resulting challenges under the charter should the bill pass, a common argument that we hear from the other side. This legislation was drafted by lawyers, refined by lawyers, reviewed by a former attorney general, and analyzed yet again by lawyers after I presented it in the House last year. They have not raised this concern about a charter challenge, so it is bogus.

I encourage all members of the House to examine this bill carefully. I encourage them to support not only my bill, but to support Mothers Against Drunk Driving in their cause to cut down on the four deaths and 200 injuries that occur every single day across this country. They can do that by supporting this bill and eliminating those two loopholes which allow people who are guilty of drunk driving to avoid being successfully charged.

[Sponsorship Program, March 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister said “come hell or high water” that he would get to the bottom of the ad scam scandal. Guess what? The water is high and the Prime Minister is drowning. He is so desperate that he blocked the public accounts committee motion to have Alfonso Gagliano's briefing notes brought to the committee.

Will the Prime Minister call off his guard dogs at the committee and allow that motion, which will have those papers tabled, so we can get to the bottom of this?

[Criminal Code, March 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to debate this issue. Many others have spoken on some of the specific issues. I will do a little bit of that too, but I would like to talk about this issue in a general fashion first.

I would like to raise the question, why, after 10 years that I have been here, are we still just talking about this issue? I was first elected in 1993 and very soon after I came down here we raised many of the issues we are still talking about today. We have asked questions of the government, in committee and in the House of Commons, as to why it is not acting more quickly on something as urgent and so critical as protecting our children from sexual predators. What question could be more fundamental for government to deal with than that?

It has been 10 years that I have been here. I have been asking questions and my colleagues have been asking questions. We stated our position on protecting children from sexual predators and nothing has happened. The legislation that we are debating today, Bill C-12, in practical terms when applied, will not change things. My question to the government is, why has it taken 10 years and why after 10 years has nothing been done on such a critical issue?

I do not expect that I will get an answer to my question today, but Canadians certainly deserve an answer to this question. It is a question that Canadians are still asking. Next to some of the hot button issues, it is one of the issues most often brought to my attention, especially the issue of raising the age of sexual consent. However, there are other aspects as well that deal with protecting our children from sexual predators.

If this issue is so important to my constituents, I would have a hard time not believing that it is also important to the constituents of all members opposite. In fact, they are hearing the same things that I am hearing because in various ways I have heard them say so. They are concerned about the age of consent. They are concerned about some of these other things like artistic merit that my colleagues and everyone in the House has been debating.

Therefore, if that concern is so widespread, including on the government side, why has appropriate action not been taken after 10 years? We will hear the government use the excuse that was used by the public works minister yesterday in question period when he said that it was not his government. He said that his government only started on December 12.

Really, that is what he said in response to a question. We were talking about how the government's reputation has been tarnished due to all the scandals, like the ad scam, the sponsorship program, and the military issue that my colleague from Prince George has brought up recently regarding how $160 million was somehow misspent. It is probably the worst type of corruption, yet the government did not pick up on it for years. These things come up, and we have been bringing them up on a regular basis.

What did the public works minister say yesterday? He said that his government has only been in place since December 12, trying to distance himself and the responsibility of the Prime Minister, the cabinet and all the members of Parliament on the government side. The Liberal members are trying to distance themselves from their responsibility; however, they were a part of the government over the past 10 years. I would be trying to distance myself from that too, quite frankly, if I were there.

However, corruption is one thing and we are not talking about corruption in this debate today. We are not talking about the sponsorship scandal or any of the other areas of corruption.

We are talking about something every bit as important though, and that is the protection of our children from sexual predators. If so many of these members of Parliament feel, as I know they do, that this is something they want to do, that they want their government to do, why have they been so ineffective in doing it? After all, they are part of the government, or at least they are supposed to influence the government in caucus and in other ways.

I do not think it is because they are not good people. I know that most members of Parliament, no matter which party they are from, do the best job they can to represent their constituents. They do that; we all do that. We work very hard at that. I believe Liberal members of Parliament are no different. I have talked with them enough to know that they want to represent their constituents.

Why then, on critical issues such as this, can they not do that? Why are they not allowed to do so? Why have they been so unsuccessful in dealing with this most urgent of issues, such as protecting our children?

The answer comes down to a lack of democratic process in the House of Commons, in the government, and in our political system. That is something that I have talked about an awful lot in the last 16 years since the Reform Party of Canada was founded.

One of the main issues that the Reform Party was founded on back in 1987 was the issue of democratic reform. It would put in place various democratic reforms so that each and every member of Parliament from every political party would have a real impact in this place. Members would be able to actually represent their constituents in this place.

Why after 16 years and why after more than 10 years of the government being in power has so little been done on that issue? It is because of Bill C-12, that we are dealing with today, and what happens with every other piece of legislation we deal with in the House that will depend on whether we have a democratic system or not?

Have we had a democratic system in place, one that was really working? The government has had 10 years to do that and it has actually made things worse rather than better. I honestly believe that things are less democratic in the House now than they were 10 years ago when I came here.

Had democratic changes been made, I believe the Liberal members of Parliament, who understand the importance of this issue, along with my colleagues and colleagues from other political parties, would have forced the government to pass legislation which would deal with these issues that we are talking about in Bill C-12.

It comes down to having a process in place that allows people from right across this country to appear to be represented and to in fact be represented by their member of Parliament. After all, their member of Parliament should answer to them and not to this cabinet and not to the Prime Minister. That is not the way our system should work.

Unfortunately, it is the way that it does work. That is a sad commentary on 10 years of Liberal government. We can go back farther than that. I am only looking at the 10 years that I have been here because I am very much familiar with those 10 years.

I know the fight that my colleagues and I, and some in other political parties too, including the governing party, have put up to bring democratic change. It would ensure that issues like the protection of children would be dealt with in the way that the general public wants it to be dealt with.

Every one of us is elected by the people in our constituency to work on their behalf, to represent their views. We learn about issues from polling and surveys, and many of us do that in our householders. We will take an issue such as the protection of children or the age of consent, and I have done that myself and many of my colleagues have done that. We have given information looking at both sides of the issue.

Sometimes we will invite someone who takes a contrary position to our own position to put information in our householders to our constituents. We will put our position in because part of being a representative is to be a local leader. Part of leadership is to try to persuade people to our point of view. We put our persuasive position in there. Then we allow our constituents to decide. We allow our constituents to make it clear, by actually voting, how they feel on these important issues.

Any survey that has been done backs up widespread public support to raise the sexual age of consent for children from 14. They should not be making decisions on whether to have sex with an adult. That is not something they should not have to think of at that age. Let them be children for awhile.

Every one of the official polls done on the issue shows an 80% support rate or higher for raising the age of sexual consent to at least 16.

It comes down to unfortunately the fact that we have, as the Prime Minister calls it, this democratic deficit. What has he done to fix it? Nothing. What has he done to deal with this issue when he must know about it, because I am sure many of his members of Parliament have made the point to him that they want these issues dealt with by the government. What has he done? He has done nothing about it.

This legislation, should it pass, quite frankly will not help solve the problem. I will quickly go through some of the specific issues in the legislation that have not been dealt with by the government. I will talk about issues that are conspicuous by their absence.

The first is the issue of artistic merit, and some of my colleagues have talked about it. The controversy on artistic merit has been going on for some time. It certainly came from the John Robin Sharpe case from British Columbia. I think we are all very much aware of that. He is a notorious child pornographer.

In the Supreme Court case, R. v Sharpe, it was determined that artistic merit should be interpreted as widely as possible. In the legislation the government has said that it will deal with it by taking away the artistic merit defence and put in place the public good defence. This was after a former justice minister, who was attempting to sell the bill to committee, admitted that the broader public good defence in fact would allow the artistic merit defence to be there. I want to read the quote from the former justice minister. He said:

Artistic merit still exists in the sense that a piece of art will have to essentially go through the new defence of public good and through the two stages. Of course, the first question is always this. Does it serve the public good?

He went on to say that artistic merit was a part of what was considered under whether it served the public good.

That issue has not been dealt with in the legislation in any kind of effective way. In practice, when it goes before the courts, it probably will not change a thing. It will probably be dealt with in exactly the same way and the artistic merit of what I call child pornography will still be a consideration and probably the results will be no different. The government has failed entirely in that regard.

The Conservative Party calls for the elimination of all defences that justify the criminal possession of child pornography. We are clear on that. Why is the government so unclear on that? What it is clear on is that it is not willing to take this issue and deal with it head on to ensure that our children are protected.

The second issue which has not been dealt with at all in the legislation is age of consent. I have already referred to that because it is an issue that so obviously should have been dealt with years ago. We all know that having 14 year olds decide whether they want to have sex with an adult is simply not acceptable, yet that is not in the legislation. In the general polling 80% of Canadians have said that they want it to be in there.

Canadians are clear on this and, as I said, many MPs have done their own surveys on this through their householders they send out to constituents. We have received results that in many cases are much higher than the 80%. Why has it not been dealt with?

Another former justice minister, although I cannot name her, said this on raising the age of consent. She indicated very clearly that it was something the government looked forward to doing. This was years ago. She said:

With regard to age of consent--from 14 to 16--we have our child as victim consultation paper. We discussed that at our federal-provincial justice ministers' meeting in September in Nova Scotia. Those consultations will be concluded and reported on by December 31 of this year, and I think we will see that a consensus is emerging that with certain safeguards we should probably be moving on the age of consent from 14 to 16.

This was in October 2001. What that former justice minister is saying is that she believes all provinces, and that is what we found too, want to go ahead with raising the age of sexual consent from 14 to 16. She acknowledged that was what Canadians wanted and it was certainly what the premiers wanted. Therefore, the federal government would not be improperly interfering in the areas of provincial jurisdiction, something that is so important to our Bloc colleagues as well as to us. We are very conscious of the federal government respecting provincial jurisdiction. That has been done. The provinces want to go with this and the federal government is ignoring that wish.

Again, Bill C-12 fails to raise the age of consent of sexual contact between children and adults. That is clear. The government claims that it has somehow effectively dealt with this issue of the age of consent. It has not. Though, as I have said before, probably a majority of its members of Parliament support that. Why do a majority of its members of Parliament support that, even in the governing party? Because their constituents have told them that.

The third issue, which I will refer to very briefly, is the issue of minimum sentences. In the bill the government raises the maximum sentence allowed under these various offences, but it puts in place no mandatory minimum sentence. Raising the maximum sentence probably will do nothing to help judges take these issues more seriously under the law. Putting in place mandatory minimum sentences for these offences on the other hand will mean judges will have no choice. Parliament will have dictated and minimum sentences will be put in place. It will give offenders at least the minimum sentence as required by law, but the government has refused to do that.

I want to close by saying that it is hard for me to understand why after 10 years this has not been changed and why the bill will not change it. It is a sad commentary. Let us move ahead. I can assure the House the next government will change that.

[Sponsorship Program, March 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the fact is that the common thread through all of this political mess and all this corruption is the current Prime Minister. He was told in 1995 by the Treasury Board, of which he was chair, to stop breaking the rules.

Why did the Prime Minister ignore these demands of Treasury Board, continue to break the rules and continue to hand out contracts to his political friends?

[Sponsorship Program, March 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's career is becoming better known every day. The Prime Minister said he knew nothing about ad scam until 2002. The truth is that in 1995 he was told by Treasury Board, of which he was vice-chair, by the way, to stop breaking the rules in awarding contracts.

Months later, his staff were still breaking the rules. Ministerial staff simply do not wing it on their own. They follow orders. Why did the Prime Minister continue to break the rules and dole out contracts to his political friends?

[Canadian Wheat Board, March 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I have always believed that the Canadian Wheat Board has marketing experts who do a pretty good job of marketing western Canadian farmers' wheat and barley. However, I am not so sure anymore. Although, the fault may lie with the board. Either way our farmers have lost a lot of money because of this.

Adrian Measner admitted at the House of Commons agriculture committee yesterday that more than $7 a bushel net to farmers on farm was available in the fall of 2002, and the farmers received about $4 a bushel. It is unfortunate indeed that $3 was left on the table and lost to farmers at a time when farmers simply could not afford to lose that money.

It is clearly time for farmers to be given a choice to market through the wheat board or not, as they choose. In any modern democracy this is an accepted right, a right which is allowed to all except western Canadian grain farmers. It is time for that to change.

[Sponsorship Program, March 11th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the government will hide behind anything it can to keep the truth from Canadians and that is not acceptable.

Tampering with documents is a very serious issue and Mr. Cutler was an honourable and respected public servant. This government has refused to listen to him for the past 10 years but it had to listen today. He indicated that either someone tampered with the documents used for the 1996 external audit of ad scam or the audit itself was fixed. Which was it?

[Sponsorship Program, March 11th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the list of scandals grows and here is yet another one. Allan Cutler testified today that he believes documents were cleansed before the 1996 external audit of ad scam.

Who tampered with these documents and what does this government have to hide?