Libby Davies

[Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, November 3rd, 2003]

moved that Bill C-436, an act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (sponsorship of relative), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise in the House to speak for the first hour of debate to my private member's bill, Bill C-436, an act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (sponsorship of relative).

I thank the member for Winnipeg Centre for supporting the bill. I know it is an issue that he supports very much. He has had a lot of feedback in his riding about the bill and I am very happy that he is seconding the bill today.

The bill before us would allow a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident to make a once in a lifetime sponsorship of a relative who would not otherwise be considered under the family class sponsorship rules that exist today.

I brought forward the bill because one of Canada's key immigration objectives is to help families reunite in Canada. In fact we just received information from the minister a couple of days ago showing us that 28% of Canada's new immigrants are under the family class.

Upon examination of the current provisions, it becomes very clear that the current legislation defining the family class is quite restrictive, leaving many potential relatives ineligible for family reunification. I know in Vancouver East, my own riding, and indeed across the country, because I have heard from many people, many families are desperate to reunite with a family member who is still in the country of origin.

The bill is actually a very modest one. It does not change the system in any dramatic way. It lays out that a permanent resident or a Canadian citizen could sponsor, once in a lifetime, on a one time basis, a family member who would not otherwise qualify under the existing rule. It is that straightforward and it is that simple.

Just to give some context to this proposal, the Liberal red book has long put forward a goal to move immigration levels to 1% of the population, which would be about 300,000 people per year. However, as we all know, we have never come close to meeting this target. On average about 219,000 immigrants arrive each year in Canada.

In 1993 the number of people sponsored under the family class provision reached a peak of 110,000. Today the projection for family member sponsorship is around 60,000. We can see that there has actually been a decline from that peak in 1993.

The federal NDP and our leader, Jack Layton, have been very outspoken on this issue and very supportive of the bill. We do support the government target of 1% of the population for immigration. We consider immigration to be a powerful and positive contribution to the economic, social, cultural and political life of our country. We are a party that has always stood for supporting immigration.

We have seen too often a backlash against immigrants. I read a front page story in the Vancouver Sun last Thursday, the day I held a press conference in my own community around the bill, which linked immigrants to terrorists. We all know we are in an environment where there is increasing hostility toward immigration.

I am proud to say that in the federal NDP we have always supported immigration. We want to see the federal government meet its own targets. We know there are Liberal members who support those goals as well. We can help achieve the goal of 1% by supporting the bill without drastically changing the system.

Currently, under the family class section of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, only the following relatives are eligible for sponsorship, and it is quite restrictive. For example, one can sponsor a spouse, a common law or conjugal partner who is at least 16 years of age. One can sponsor a dependent child who is under 22, is a full time student, is dependent on a parent for financial support or has a disability. One can also sponsor a parent or a grandparent.

My bill would allow a further step such that someone not eligible under those restrictions could be sponsored. A brother or a sister over 18 years of age could be sponsored. A first cousin, an aunt or uncle or a niece or nephew over the age that now provides the restriction could also be sponsored. A child over the age of 22 could also be sponsored. My bill gives more flexibility.

I want to make it very clear that my bill is not opening up the floodgates to family class sponsorships. Sponsorship would be on the basis of somebody being able to do this once in a lifetime.

I am sure that all members, based on their own experiences in their own ridings, have heard of heartbreaking cases of families spending years in the system trying to get a family member to Canada from their country of origin. I find it heartbreaking to see the psychological impact and sometimes the economic impact that hits these families that have been broken up. I feel that if my bill were supported and acted upon it would be a small step in helping to provide family reunification.

Bill C-436 has received tremendous support. When this idea first came up from the former minister of immigration in 2000, 15,000 signatures were collected in Vancouver alone in support of this policy change. Unfortunately, the then minister decided not to go ahead with the change.

Even today the bill is gathering a lot of support across the country from groups like MOSAIC in Vancouver, Storefront Orientation Services, Falun Gong members, the B.C. Latin American Congress, the Inland Refugee Society of B.C., members of the Fijian community, the Iranian-Canadian Community of Western Canada, the Vancouver Association of Chinese Canadians, and well known writers like Lydia Kwa and Sook Kong, a writer, a poet and a teacher. There is also support from groups like SUCCESS, which is the largest organization in the lower mainland of Vancouver serving the Chinese and was one of the organizations that obtained those 15,000 signatures in 2000. Just yesterday I was advised that the all presidents' meeting of the Chinese Canadian National Council voted to support this once in a lifetime bill.

Word is now going out across the country that Bill C-436 is being debated in Parliament and in due course will be voted on. I think there is very strong community support. Groups and agencies that support new Canadians understand how difficult this issue of family reunification is. They understand families' desperation at trying to bring family members over. No matter how hard they try, the rules are so restrictive they are not able to accomplish it. I think this bill would help move us toward family reunification.

When we held a press conference in Vancouver on Thursday some local media were there, after which a story appeared in the Vancouver Sun. A couple of immigration lawyers were quoted as saying that the family class is “traditionally a net drain on public funds”. I was actually quite alarmed by these kinds of statements and by the fact that anybody who works with new Canadians and families would say that new immigrants and family class sponsorships are a net drain on public funds. We know that under the existing rules financial support has to be provided for anywhere from three to ten years. All kinds of existing provisions are in place to ensure that there is no financial drain on society generally. None of those rules are being proposed for change. All my bill would do is ensure that someone could sponsor one additional relative.

Other comments were made that if the bill were passed it would somehow trigger a backlash. I was very alarmed to read those kinds of comments, particularly from immigration lawyers who should be familiar with what we need to do.

It seems to me that as members of Parliament we should be supporting and advocating for family reunification. This is actually one of the core programs of the government's immigration program. It is something that is based on compassion and on the well-being and wholeness of families. Any of us could imagine what it would be like if we were here in Canada and wanted to have a relative who was a very important part of our family in this country yet were prevented from doing so.

I will be the first to say that clearly there have to be rules and regulations. My bill would not change any of the provisions around medical requirements or even the definitions of family in the existing bill. Based on the conversations I have had, there are many people who actually would like to change those definitions because they think they are too restrictive. However, that is another debate and maybe another bill for another day.

This bill is actually quite limited in that it takes in the existing definition of family class and the existing provisions for approval. It would simply allow someone, once in a lifetime, to sponsor an additional family member who would not otherwise be eligible under the sponsorship rules.

I hope members will consider the bill and look at it as a step toward actually accomplishing what I believe we all support and agree on, which is support of families and reunification. I hope members will agree that it should go to the next step, to committee. Then we would have a further discussion and there may be all kinds of suggestions about how to improve the bill, which I would certainly welcome.

One of the things I hope we can draw visibility to in putting forward the bill is the real difficulties people face in dealing with the immigration system. In our party we are actually setting up a website so that Canadians can tell us first-hand about the experiences they have had with the system. I know that many of us are familiar with that because of the cases that too often, unfortunately, we are compelled to take on.

We want to draw attention to the facts about just how difficult it is to deal with this system. Some of it is a question of resources. I think one of the reasons we do not meet the 1% target is simply that government offices overseas do not have the kind of staff resourcing they need to actually process applications. This is actually something that the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration has investigated and documented in a very thorough way. I think many of us are very concerned about the fact that while these goals exist, we are not able to meet them because we simply do not have the resources, particularly in some key offices, or we do not even have enough offices to make sure that these applications are processed in a timely way. This becomes a sort of backdoor way of keeping a gate closed on the system. I think members on that committee are very well aware of that systemic problem that exists now.

I will close by saying that I think the bill is a small step to help families with reunification. It is a very modest proposal. It would not dramatically change the system in any way. It was actually proposed by the former minister of citizenship and immigration at one point in 2000. It has tremendous support in the community. I think people see it as a practical and concrete step which they would be able to use. I look forward to the debate. I encourage members to think about the issue and to support in principle the idea of what is being put forward. I look forward to further debate at committee.

[Literacy Action Day, October 23rd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, today marks the 10th annual Literacy Action Day on Parliament Hill.

Close to 80 literacy teachers, learners and administrators have come to Ottawa from every region of the country. They want decision makers to know that Canada's literacy challenge is serious. According to StatsCan, almost half of our adult population do not possess the literacy skills they need to thrive in the new economy and information driven society. This deficit undermines the economic and social vitality of families, communities and our country, and must be addressed.

Today there are many inequalities in access to literacy services across the country. Only one in ten Canadians who could benefit from services is being helped. Literacy organizations are working flat out while resources remain static or effectively diminish from year to year.

In keeping with the spirit of Literacy Action Day, I call upon the government to take action and adopt the recommendations of the HRDC committee report to ensure that all Canadians have the literacy skills they need to succeed.

[Status of Women, October 22nd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, 37 women's centres in B.C. are facing closure because of a decision by the B.C. Liberal government to eliminate 100% of their funding.

Violence against women is on the rise, more women are facing poverty, women are denied access to legal aid and day care is being cut too by the meanest and most vicious provincial government that has targeted the most vulnerable in our society. The question is, why is the federal government not doing anything?

As the report on Canada's lack of compliance with the UN convention on the elimination of discrimination against women points out, the federal government must step in and protect women's equality. It must make it clear that what the B.C. government is doing is unlawful and unjust.

It has been 30 years since the royal commission on the status of women, yet women are falling behind, especially poor, disabled and aboriginal women.

The former finance minister is the architect of that failure, and we demand that the government live up to its international commitments for dignity and equality for women. The federal government must support these vital centres and not let them die by political neglect.

[Canada Health and Social Transfer, October 20th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the former finance minister's elimination of the Canada assistance plan has paved the way for the B.C. government to be the first province to impose time limits on social assistance. The 24-month rule will force tens of thousands into destitution and is being challenged today in B.C.

There is a clear federal responsibility here through transfer payments and under the Constitution to provide essential services to all Canadians.

Will the finance minister make it clear to the B.C. government that these changes are unlawful and unjust and must be stopped now?

[Income Tax Act, October 10th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, it is with a great deal of pleasure that I rise in the House today to speak in support of Motion No. 293 put forth by my colleague, the member from Dartmouth. It is absolutely a terrific motion and I think it has had very strong support across the country. It reads:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should celebrate and encourage Canada's magnificent and diverse culture by changing the Income Tax Act to exempt creative and interpretive artists from paying income tax on a percentage of income derived from copyright, neighbouring rights, and/or other income derived from the sale of any creative work.

I am very proud to represent a community, the riding of Vancouver East, that is home to many artists. Many people have written me or e-mailed me about this motion, and people I have met in the community have spoken to me about it. They have tremendous support for the work the member from Dartmouth has done.

I do want to say that the member, who is our culture critic in the NDP, has been a very outstanding advocate for arts and artists in this country. She works in a very quiet but very powerful way in persuading people about what needs to be done. I want to thank her for her dedication in continuing to bring forward issues that affect artists, but they are also issues in a broader public policy sense in our country.

I think this motion today is a reflection of the kind of work she undertakes to start moving the wheels of government toward recognizing some simple things that could be done to support artists right across the country.

I think there is a huge issue about lack of federal funding for the arts. We do know that every year the Canada Council for the Arts has to turn down over 75% of the applications for individual support. In fact, artists can only apply twice every four years, so we know there are big issues around lack of federal funding. In Vancouver, which generally is a city that represents a very strong arts community, there have been numerous reports through the Greater Vancouver Regional District and through the City of Vancouver that have actually exposed the lack of support given to B.C. and to Vancouver for artistic endeavours compared to other provinces.

We certainly have our share of issues and complaints about the lack of federal funding for arts and culture. I put that forward as a context that there is a larger issue we are dealing with here, and that is the cutbacks by the federal government in its support for arts and culture.

But I think the motion before us today is an opportunity to do something that will provide very tangible and real support to individual artists. It would mean that hopefully they could still access all the other programs that are available, but by saying that we would be willing to consider a part of their income tax exempt it would be a very important initiative.

I think of organizations in my riding like the Vancouver East Cultural Centre or the Video Inn or Headlines Theatre, or a very popular event that takes place in the fall called the East Side Culture Crawl, where members of the public in the thousands visit various studios in east Vancouver, talk with artists, look at their work and have a dialogue. It is an amazing event.

I think of places like Gallery Gachet or the Western Front, which is a very well known artist-run co-operative, one of the oldest in the country. I think of these venues and places in my own community where artists are able to come together to perform, to speak, to paint and to display their artistic endeavours, and where the community can also learn, understand and participate. It is something that we in east Vancouver find very empowering. It is a very important part of our community. It is very much a part of the fabric of east Vancouver.

In fact, the City of Vancouver zoned particular areas to encourage what we call artists' live/work studios, because of course one of the issues is that artists never can find affordable housing, particularly if they are doing studio work where they use industrial chemicals and paints. They need a place where they can live and work, so the City of Vancouver changed its bylaws to allow that to happen.

We are very proud that in east Vancouver we have this incredible vitality of artistic creation and endeavour. What always amazes me is that there is a very common misconception that the government is subsidizing the arts. I think it is the other way around. I think that artists are subsidizing us. If anyone ever sat down and did a proper financial accounting of the hours and years of work that artists put into their creative endeavours and the actual monetary value that artists get, it would be pennies per hour.

I think of an artist that I recently met in Vancouver, Nathaniel Geary, who just premiered his new film On the Corner at the international film festival. It is a very powerful film about the downtown east side, about the drug issues and the sex trade. It is an incredible film. It has had wonderful reviews. It is difficult for him to do the distribution for that film even though it has been critically acclaimed.

At the opening night when he spoke to the audience, who gave him an ovation for his work, he told us that it had taken him three years to write the script and then another year or two to actually do the filming, so there are four or five years of work. He did get some funding support but if he ever sat down and counted up what he put in, in a monetary sense, it would literally be pennies per hour.

That is just one example. There are tens of thousands of artists in this country who work as a labour of love on creative expression, on artistic output. Artists are not asking for a lot, which in some ways is a sad thing. They are not asking for very much. The arts community is asking that they be acknowledged for the value of their work. There is a monetary value. There is a value in terms of our society and what it represents in terms of our history and our culture.

As the member from the Tories mentioned earlier, and I agree with him, artistic expression can communicate in a much more powerful way the ideas, concepts and issues and the passion that people have about different things than we can by standing in the House and making a speech.

The motion before us today is about the principle that the value of the work produced by artists individually and collectively as a community is something we should recognize, and we should recognize it at different levels. One way to recognize the value of their work is to ensure that there is some mechanism within the income tax regime so that they can deduct some of their income from copyright and from their creative work, so that they have some benefit.

This concept is not new. It has been done in other places. The example most commonly used is Ireland, where artists are allowed to use a 100% deduction. That is not being suggested here. We are only talking about a partial deduction or a percentage of income derived from copyright, neighbouring rights or other income. We are not talking about 100%. There is a well established process that has already worked in other jurisdictions, so it is very feasible and realistic that it should be done here in Canada.

I have received quite a lot of e-mail on this issue from artists in my own riding. Kevin wrote to me and said:

This motion is not only about improving the living standards of all artists and arts institutions and nurturing the development of arts and culture in this country, but more importantly it is about the recognition and respect for the artists and arts institutions in Canada, who are presently significantly undervalued.

I would wholeheartedly agree with Kevin.

I have another e-mail that I received from Marita who wrote that if this motion were approved it would have a great effect on her life and standard of living. She wrote:

I hope that the House will see beyond the petty party lines and support this motion that not only benefits artists, but Canadian culture and forge our distinct identity.

I have another--

[Bankruptcy Legislation, October 9th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to support Motion No. 400 put forward by the member for Churchill. I want to thank the member for Churchill for her initiative because this really is an excellent motion. It is very straightforward. It states:

That...the government should amend bankruptcy legislation to ensure that wages and pensions owed to employees are the first debts repaid when a bankruptcy occurs.

I say, “Hear, hear”. It is about time.

It is really quite astounding to actually look at the current legislation and see that everybody else lines up ahead of the people who actually put their labour into whatever company or business fails.

First up is the government. The government is the first creditor to be paid, through CPP, income tax and employment insurance.

Next on the list are the secured creditors, of course, which could include institutions such as the banks. Of course the banks will make money off bankruptcy, having carried loans secured by company assets.

Third in the current legislation are the preferred creditors, who are placed on a prioritized list.

Then, of course, the employees are at the end, at number four, behind the legal costs and the levy that goes to the Superintendent of Bankruptcy. This really has to be one of the most unfair provisions. Not only have people lost their jobs, they then get slapped in the face and really stuck with it when a bankruptcy occurs. They do not get anything in terms of wages they might be owed or, most importantly, their pensions.

I think this motion for a change in the bankruptcy legislation is needed today more than ever before. We live in a world of globalized capital, of deregulation and, unfortunately, now a world of privatization. Not a day goes by on which we cannot open a major newspaper and see colossal failures of the bastions of capitalism, whether it is Enron, Air Canada or other major corporations going into a tailspin and going into failure.

In this economic climate, where there is an emphasis on corporate concentration, where the bigger fish eat the smaller fish, where there are buyouts, bankruptcies and all the rest of it, I think we really have to look at the question of who the winners and losers are. And in every single case, the losers are the people who work for those businesses and those corporations.

The Alliance may smirk at that, but it purports to represent those workers and yet it is those workers who are being absolutely skewered by the kind of legislation we have in Canada today, which sees them at the bottom of the line, not the top.

I say hats off to the member for Churchill for identifying this as an issue that needs to be corrected and for having the initiative to bring it forward. It will be beyond me if members of the House cannot find it in themselves to support the motion and to say of course employees should be the people who get their wages and their pensions covered.

We only have to look at what has taken place with Air Canada. When Air Canada filed for bankruptcy, I do not know about anybody else, but I got loads and loads of e-mail from people who were terrified that they were going to lose their pension in Air Canada because they knew what the legislation was and they knew they would be at the end of the line and out of luck.

I even had children of Air Canada retirees writing to me because they were so terrified for their mothers or fathers who had worked for Air Canada for 25 or 30 years, who had paid into their pensions, and who had grown up in the company believing that their pensions were secure. They were terrified that suddenly, through the stroke of a pen and proceedings through the bankruptcy laws and so on, their parents would find that their pensions and sense of security were in jeopardy and were threatened as a result of Air Canada filing for bankruptcy.

Surely that one example alone should serve to remind us that the law on bankruptcy as it currently exists is terribly discriminatory toward workers. It puts them at the end of the line.

A couple of weeks ago in east Vancouver I met a constituent who had gone through the most incredible runaround in trying to collect $4,000 that he was owed by a small company that had gone into bankruptcy. He had gone through employment standards, which in B.C. under Gordon Campbell do not really exist any more; there really is no protection for workers. This guy was a hardworking person. He had helped his employer. He had been a diligent worker. All he wanted was his $4,000. He could not get any help from anyone. It was not available.

What caused most of the distress for this constituent was not so much the $4,000. I think he had kind of given up on that at some point. It was the fact that there was nothing there in a legal framework that could actually protect his interests as a worker.

It demonstrated to me the need to have this motion that is before us today. I note that the Canadian Labour Congress has been advocating a package of measures that would ensure that workers' interests are protected in the event of a bankruptcy or an insolvency. It advocated the idea of a federal wage protection fund.

The member from the Bloc pointed out very eloquently that on every side workers are now completely skewered. Workers are not able to claim for EI, which is money that has actually been paid in. There is no government money in EI; it comes from the employer and the employee. Not only can they not get EI but now there is no protection under the bankruptcy legislation.

A federal wage protection fund that would provide employees with some measure of certainty of payment when they are faced with uncertainty in this world is a very good idea.

There is the idea of pension insurance arrangements. The whole scandal around what is happening to pension funds is something that should be sounding off alarm bells in this place.

Here again under the bankruptcy legislation the current situation would mean that someone who has paid into their pension does not have the most basic protection when it comes to bankruptcy. They do not even have protection for where those pension funds end up or who manages them. The administration of the Canada pension fund has been contracted out by the Liberal government, which is costing us billions of dollars. What a scam that is going on. Yet it is employees who are on the receiving end.

In conclusion, this is a very fine motion. It is so easy to shoot something down and to say it does not do this or it does not do that. The member has worked very hard to give responses to members who have raised questions or issues in the House and she will do so again today.

The basic principle of this motion before us which is to say that workers should come first in terms of the wages and pensions they are owed when a bankruptcy occurs is the correct principle. It is where we should start from. If the motion needs fixing when it is implemented and legislation is changed, there is time enough to do that for sure. Let us vote affirmatively on the principle that is being advanced by the member for Churchill.

I encourage all members of the House to support the motion for the very important principle that it advances. It is worthy of support.

[Contraventions Act, October 9th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak in the debate about Bill C-38. It has been a long time in coming. We have had this sort of strange situation where on the one hand it appeared that there was a lot of emphasis to get this bill moving, yet we are only today now debating it and sending it off to committee.

I would concur with the comments of the member from the Conservative Party who questioned what the government's real intention was with the bill and whether it would ever see the light of day in terms of something being acted upon, given the time frame in which we are operating. It is sort of politics in the twilight zone.

That aside, decriminalization as a measure to recognize the failure of our prohibitionist policies is something that many people now accept. For sure it is better to have a fine than to end up being in jail and having a criminal record. However there are a number of problems with the bill.

While decriminalization is something that we could see as a progressive step forward in dealing with the failure of prohibitionist policies, the bill as it is presents a very contradictory and confused approach. On one hand it offers a measure of decriminalization. On the other hand the political rhetoric that has been surrounding the bill, and we heard from the minister today, and the system of penalties outlined in the bill actually point to a tougher and a wider enforcement stance.

I want to put forward the remarks made by Eugene Oscapella from the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy. He has said that the bill really perpetuates the myth that the criminal law can resolve problems related to drugs. That is one concern we have. The bill relies upon the premise that somehow if we end up even with a system of fines and it is still within the criminal law that marijuana is still an illegal substance, then we are controlling the drug and controlling the use of it.

As was shown in the special committee report on the non-medical use of drugs, of which I was a member, it became very clear in the evidence that we had that whether a substance was legal or illegal had virtually no impact on its use. In fact we would be far better off providing real education for Canadians about drug issues, about the potential health issues related to drug use and focusing our financial and educational priorities on that.

As we know with smoking, for example, it is not illegal. The decrease in smoking has not come about because smoking is illegal. It has come about because it has been highly regulated and because we have spelt out what can and cannot be done. A vast amount of education has been given to people individually and within society as a whole to make them aware of the dangers of smoking. That is with a legal substance.

The argument of prohibition as a tool for dealing with drug use and the harms that can flow from drug use has been shown to be a failure.

The Senate report on marijuana came out in September 2002 and it was a very wide-ranging and excellent report. The report pointed out that 30% of the population has used cannabis at least once. That is approximately 100,000 Canadians daily. In fact of the over 90,000 drug related incidents that are reported annually by police, more than three-quarters of those incidents relate to cannabis, and over 50% of all drug related incidents involve possession of cannabis. That is from the Senate report.

Given the magnitude of that problem and the use, we have to ask ourselves whether the regime as presented in this bill will respond to the reality of what Canadians are actually doing. Certainly one concern we have with the bill is that it does not contain any provision for personal cultivation. The special committee on the non-medical use of drugs recommended that there should be some provision not only for possession for personal use but also for cultivation.

Unfortunately the government chose not to do that so we have this contradictory position where the government is saying that people will get a fine for possession of marijuana if it is 15 grams or less, but they cannot go out and buy it anywhere because it is an illegal act.

In fact, as Dan Gardner, a critically acclaimed journalist from the Ottawa Citizen , pointed that out in a series of articles he did on the drug issue. In his article on May 28, he said:

Criminologists have often found that lowering, but not eliminating, a punishment results in more punishment. It's called the “net-widening effect.”

Replace charges with fines, and people the police would have let off with a warning and a wave under the old system will instead by hit with a fine. In other words, decriminalization could lead to more people being punished, not fewer.

Then I have an image in my head of the Prime Minister in one hand holding a joint and in the other hand holding his fine. What is this actually saying? Are we saying that somehow by having a fine we are trying to give people the illusion that we will be preventing them from using marijuana? We have the Prime Minister saying, “Oh well, this is the way you do it. You smoke a joint, you pay your fine and away you go pretty happy”.

What is the purpose of the fine? If it is there as a deterrent, then again the evidence will show that as a deterrent it simply has no use. All it becomes is a source of revenue and a widening of police enforcement on the basis that municipalities will now see a way to collect more money.

I did want to respond to the question put forward by the Canadian Alliance that we had to be very careful about this bill and that we would have to talk to the Americans because it had to do with the borders. I know that some Liberal members have been off courting the drug czar and getting all the arguments from the drug czar about why this is so bad.

I truly believe the objection of the Americans to this bill has nothing to do with border crossings. It has everything to do with their political war on drugs, which in effect is a war on poor people, and the fact that they do not want to see Canada take a different kind of approach, an approach that has been successful in Europe in terms of decriminalization. That is what their objection is truly about. I really do not think it has anything to do with the border. It has to do with them not wanting to see another approach that will show the gaping holes and their own failure on the war on drugs.

We very much look forward to the debate at the committee. There obviously will be a whole variety of amendments. The NDP members will be introducing amendments because we have questions about the lack of provisions around cultivation. We have questions about the fines system. We have questions about the enforcement that underlies this, the fact that it continues this prohibitionist policy and that somehow the criminal law will deal with this issue.

We certainly look forward to what goes on in the committee and hearing from the witnesses. Hopefully the bill can be improved to better reflect the reality of what Canadians want to see, given that the use of marijuana is very prevalent in our society. I think there is a very common understanding that we do not want to see Canadians criminalized.

One other issue we will be bring forward is why there is not an amnesty provision for the approximately 600,000 Canadians who have a criminal record for simple possession. There is nothing in the bill that would give relief to people who live under the negative effects of a criminal record, for example, who cannot go across the border.

I know constituents in my own riding have faced terrible situations because they have a record from simple possession. We want to see some of these issues addressed, and we look forward to the debate in the committee.

[Film Industry, October 7th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, today is election day in California and if Arnold Schwarzenegger is elected governor it is very bad news for Canada. One of his main issues is to stop American companies filming movies and TV series here in Canada. The film industry is vital in cities like Halifax, Montreal, Toronto and my own city of Vancouver.

We know what has happened to the softwood, steel, auto and wheat industries. The government can barely manage damage control mode.

I would like to ask the Minister of Canadian Heritage, does she have a plan to defend--

[Public Safety Act 2002, October 7th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, after listening to the minister I would say that he should be embarrassed with what his government is attempting to do here by putting closure on the bill.

This is not routine business. The bill is critical in terms of security measures and the potential infringement on the civil liberties of Canadians. We can see that the government is grasping at anything as a cover to bring in closure yet again on another bill.

For anyone to suggest that this is about a modern democracy and the fact that the U.K. brings in closure all the time and therefore we should do it, so what? We are talking about the Canadian Parliament. We are talking about upholding the public interest. This is not just about the opposition doing its job or the minister doing his job. There is something very important here and it is called public interest.

If anyone ever knew about public interest it was Stanley Knowles. We should not be invoking his name and saying that Stanley Knowles knew when to cut off debate. Pierre Elliot Trudeau never invoked closure 88 times like this government has done.

Just yesterday Maher Arar was released from Syria and is finally coming home to Canada. Bill C-17 would provide enormous powers to security authorities where we could see more instances of innocent people being targeted. If that question is not a matter of public interest and something that is worthy of debate then I do not know what is.

The government should be embarrassed for trying to shut down debate on a very important bill. Bill C-17 is a package of all of these security measures. This is now the last leg the government is bringing forward. We are here to alert Canadians to what the legislation is really about.

Shame on the government and shame on the minister for yet again trying to shut down debate on this very important question affecting all Canadians.

[Points of Order, October 6th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, earlier in question period you ruled me out of order for asking the finance minister a question about commitments that might have been made by the member for LaSalle—Émard.

I wanted to raise this with you, Mr. Speaker, to get a better understanding as to where it is you see a boundary or a line because clearly other members in the House have been raising questions about the de facto prime minister with the finance minister and the Prime Minister and they have not been ruled out of order.

As far as I can see from Marleau and Montpetit, as long as my question was within the realm of the administrative responsibility of the minister in question, which I believe it was, then I am not clear on why it was ruled out of order. Maybe you could clarify that because I actually do want to understand what the issue or concern is from your point of view.