Libby Davies

[Director of Public Prosecutions, March 3rd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I see that a number of Liberal members just came in. It is very interesting that they missed the vote on their own amendment, but we would be prepared to give unanimous consent to have them recorded as voting for their own amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I would seek unanimous consent that they be recorded as voting for their motion.

[Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, February 29th, 2008]

Exactly. Where is the former minister of immigration? Maybe we should have her in the House and she could speak to it.

Members of the NDP are behind the bill 100%. We think it is workable. It is manageable. It has incredible support in the community. We have had petitions and letters come in on this issue. People want to see this happen. We could do something small, but it would have a big impact on the lives of people.

This is a private member's bill, so members should be make up their own minds about it. They should look at its merits, never mind what the parliamentary secretary said, and think about their constituents and whether they would support a measure like this. If members address the bill on that basis, they will find that they have to support it.

Again, I congratulate the member for Parkdale—High Park for bringing the bill forward and for sticking with it. Members of the NDP will stick with it too and we will do everything we can to get it through the House.

[Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, February 29th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to rise in the House today to support Bill C-394, put forward by the member for Parkdale—High Park.

This is a terrific bill. All members of the NDP have given very strong support to this idea. It is one simple thing we can do to fix our terrible immigration system. We support the idea of allowing families in Canada to sponsor, once in a lifetime, a relative who would not otherwise qualify under the existing family clause.

Originally I sponsored the bill and I am delighted now that the member for Parkdale—High Park has it. I know she has been a passionate advocate for family reunification, as have all of us in the NDP.

I want to remind the House, because members have probably forgotten, especially the Liberals, that the idea of being able to sponsor a family member once in a lifetime came from a former Liberal citizenship and immigration minister. We know the Liberals like to turn their backs on all the things in which they once believed, and this is another example of that.

The minister, Elinor Caplan, suggested this program. She came to Vancouver and talked about it publicly. It got a huge reception in the community and people thought it was a great idea. She came back to Ottawa and the bureaucrats got hold of her, I think, and maybe other members of her caucus, and that was the end of it. I thought this was a good opportunity, and as a result of that, we developed this bill, and we have not let go of it since. We believe it is a very sound idea.

It is interesting to hear the debate today. It is interesting to hear the Conservative members say that the bill will be unsustainable and unmanageable and that it will create a huge backlog. Is that not the party that claimed it would fix the immigration system? Is that not the party that went out and campaigned on this? Yet we still have a system in which people get completely clogged. It takes years and years to get a family member here, to reunite with a loved one, to come here as an independent. The Conservatives did nothing, as the Liberals before them.

Therefore, I find it ironic that the folks who said they would clean up the immigration system and allow people to come to Canada now deny this very straightforward simple proposal, which would allow families here at least some relief, some way of reuniting with a family member.

As well, it strikes me ironic that in Canada, for example, we have the province of Manitoba, which has the most successful provincial nominee program in Canada. The Premier of Manitoba just came back from the Philippines with agreements and proposals to increase immigration from the Philippines. I know that Manitoba, over the last year, has seen something like 10,000 new immigrants come to that province along with their family members. It is using its provincial nominee program because it is so fed up with the fact that the federal program does not work any more. This is an indication of something that actually works. We should give credit to the Government of Manitoba for recognizing the importance of immigration in its community.

I know in my own community of Vancouver East, we would not exist in Vancouver. The history of immigration has built our city, the people who work in our city, the people who provide businesses, who provide services and cultural contributions. Vancouver would not exist as a modern day city if it were not for immigration.

I, like all my colleagues in the NDP, and I am sure other members of the House, have people coming to my office every day with the most heartfelt stories of being unable to be reunited with family members. We deal with hundreds of cases every year. Some of them just make us want to cry when we hear the stories that unfold of how people have to deal with this system and the heartbreak they go through, when all they want to do is to have a reunification of their families.

The studies and the evidence of what the net benefits are to Canada from immigration are huge. I do not think anybody here would dispute that. Therefore, the question that remains is this. Why today, when we have an opportunity to vote on the bill, would we have the Conservatives and the Liberals speaking against it? Why would we not take this opportunity to do something straightforward and simple, something that will not affect the system overall, but will make a huge difference in the lives of tens of thousands of families in our country to have the opportunity to bring forward a son or a daughter over the age of 22 who is not a dependant, or maybe an aunt or an uncle, a brother or sister or a first cousin? It might be someone who is very close to them in their family relations, but under existing provisions would be prohibited and prevented from doing so.

The bill has always been a complete win-win situation. It speaks to our deep values and the history of supporting and encouraging immigration and seeing the incredible positive benefits coming from it. We know the system overall doe not work, but we have the opportunity now to at least do this one thing that would allow some people to come here and be reunited with their family.

It is disappointing today to hear Conservative members dish this and say that it will not work. It is disappointing to hear Liberal members say that they do not care about this any more and that they will not allow it to happen.

[Arts and Culture, February 29th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary knows full well that the bill in question does not reveal the Conservatives' plan to censor Canadian films. Rather it is the guidelines that the department is drafting that would create a Canadian film censorship board, a board that would decide what film and video content would be worthy and what would not.

Therefore, does the minister agree that there can be no role for government censorship in the Canadian film industry? Will she assure Canadians that any plans to curtail artistic freedom will be stopped immediately? No censorship.

[Arts and Culture, February 29th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, New Democrats are deeply concerned by reports that the Conservatives are planning to censor film and video production in Canada to suit their friends from the religious right.

Will the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages confirm that her office is working on “updated eligibility requirements” and the “standardized and updated list of illegal and other ineligible content”?

Could the minister assure the House and Canada's cultural community that her department will not place any new barriers to accessing film tax credits in Canada? Will she give that assurance today?

[Business of the House, February 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the House leader is obviously very interested in the upcoming confidence motions, but I would like to ask him how he plans to meet the deadline that he himself set in terms of the continuation of the debate on Afghanistan, and the timing he would set for a vote on that.

As we know, we had debate on Afghanistan, a very important issue before this Parliament, on Monday and Tuesday. Given the tight timeline with the opposition days coming up and the estimates to be voted on, the deadline that he set was to have this debate done and a vote on it, I believe, before the end of March.

I would like to ask the government House leader how he will meet the deadline that he set on this important issue.

[Emergency Preparedness, February 26th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the minister still has not explained why this agreement was kept secret and even if he was aware of it. How can the Conservatives be trusted when they keep the truth from Canadians?

In the event of a civil emergency and the agreement is invoked, what process is to be followed to approve the deployment of Canadian troops to the U.S. and under whose command would Canadians operate?

Conversely, who would authorize American deployment to Canada and under whose chain of command would the Americans operate while in Canada? Why does the minister not answer that question?

[Emergency Preparedness, February 26th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP has advocated for an increased awareness of Canada's emergency preparedness and we have also called for more transparency when it comes to military affairs.

Now we learn that the Canadian armed forces signed an agreement with the United States allowing for interoperability of troops during civil emergencies, but no one told Canadians.

Why is the Conservative government being so secretive about this agreement? What does it have to hide?

[RADARSAT-2, February 14th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the proposed sale of MacDonald Dettwiler, MDA, to the American armaments giant ATK undermines Canadian sovereignty and must be stopped.

The sale of MDA is an unacceptable transfer of publicly funded technology to a private U.S. military contractor. Canadians invested over $400 million in RADARSAT-2 with the promise of priority access to the satellite in cases of emergency, such as oil spills and suspect vessels entering Canada's north.

Control of RADARSAT-2 by ATK is against our national security interests. Ottawa's access to the images produced by the satellite could be lost. Worse still, RADARSAT-2 could be used to develop space based weapons and missile guidance systems for the U.S. military.

The government must defend Canadian sovereignty and immediately halt the sale of RADARSAT-2's licensing authority to Alliant Techsystems. It is vital for RADARSAT-2 to remain under Canadian control and to be used only for peaceful purposes.

[Points of Order, February 11th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on a point of order because I want to bring to your attention what I believe are flaws in government Motion No. 4, which is on today's notice paper. While I would certainly submit that the subject of the motion is very important to this House, and indeed the country, I am making this point of order with the intention that the motion in terms of how it is written needs to be clarified, and for no other reason.

I would like to submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that the motion on notice is in fact not a motion at all, but really more like a speech disguised as a motion. You are aware that Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Form sixth edition, in citation 565, states:

A motion should be neither argumentative, nor in the style of a speech, nor contain unnecessary provisions or objectionable words. It is usually expressed in the affirmative, even when its purpose and effect are negative.

In addition, House of Commons Procedure and Practice by Marleau and Montpetit states on page 449:

Examples may be found of motions with preambles, but this is considered out of keeping with usual practice...A motion should not contain any objectionable or irregular wording. It should not be argumentative or written in the style of a speech.

I believe that government Motion No. 4 on today's notice paper fails to meet these standards. It has not been the practice of this House that a motion becomes a motion simply by taking a press release and putting the word “that” in front of it. The government motion on notice contains eight clauses that all start with a “whereas”, all of which would be totally appropriate for the debate on the motion but really amount to outlining the reasons to support the question. In other words, these clauses are an argument and therefore should not have any place in the wording of a motion on notice.

I would request that the government agree to withdraw this motion, reword it and replace it with an appropriate motion that constitutes neither a speech nor an argument. I would further submit that if the government fails to indicate that it will do this, then I would ask you to rule that this motion is not in order for debate and allow the government time to replace this flawed motion.

We know that the government is capable of putting a clear motion before the House on important matters. I would draw your attention to the one that we dealt with on Norad in May 2006, when the government motion basically said: “That this House support the government's ratification of the North American Aerospace Defense...agreement”.

We also dealt with a motion later on in May 2006, which also dealt with the extension of the mission in Afghanistan. That was Motion No. 7 in our first session. I am not going to read out that motion because it did have some whereases, but I would point out that in regard to the motion it was never put on notice and it in fact was adopted by unanimous consent as receivable. Therefore, the decision about the nature of the motion was really out of your hands, Mr. Speaker.

What I remember from that motion, Mr. Speaker, was that the government basically put a proposition to Parliament and said to take it or leave it. It was not on the notice paper so we actually had no opportunity to debate the motion in terms of whether it was in its proper form.

I would like to make two points about this motion. First, because the House agreed to waive the notice of this motion by unanimous consent, the House did not set a precedent about the admissibility of this kind of motion. I would remind you, Mr. Speaker, of what Marleau and Montpetit say on page 502: “Nothing done by unanimous consent constitutes a precedent”.

I would also further suggest that the motion of May 2006, the first motion on Afghanistan that we dealt with, was in fact a clearer proposition than the one that is now before us. The May 2006 motion contained less than 150 words and only one question that was put to the House on the extension of the mission.

The motion that is before us today, Motion No. 4, contains 560 words, including eight paragraphs of whereas clauses, which I submit are argumentative, and it contains two conditions that, as we see when we read them, are clearly outside of the control of the House and upon which support for the extension of the motion is predicated.

The previous question we had was fairly straightforward. The one before us today includes conditions and is certainly argumentative, and therefore, we believe, should not be seen as a proper motion before the House.

On matters as important as this, I believe the government has a responsibility to give the House a clear and straightforward question that can be debated and decided upon. Motion No. 4 has failed to do that. Therefore, we ask the government to voluntarily agree to rewrite it so that it does fit the usual standards and practice. Failing that, Mr. Speaker, you should rule on this question.