Libby Davies

[Extension of Sitting Hours, June 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, first of all I would like to thank my hon. colleague, the House leader for the Bloc, for his comments today because he laid out in a very rational and clear way how we should proceed in terms of dealing with the business of the House. He said in his remarks that this motion for extension of hours is a blank cheque. I would certainly agree with him on that. It seems the government is just saying “trust us, we are not going to bring anything else in, but it is just a matter of trust us”.

It seems to me that the purpose of the House leaders meeting, where we get together every week, is to go over legislation, to make those decisions, and as the member knows, we do that. It has been the usual practice. Given the agenda we have, and I agree with him that it is a very thin agenda, I do not see any rationale why we would not continue with that practice to look at individual bills and decide whether or not there is agreement to speed them up and have them go through quickly. That practice has been working and the government's agenda will likely be fulfilled using that ongoing practice.

[Extension of Sitting Hours, June 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened very carefully to what the government House leader has had to say today.

We were aware that he was planning to move the motion pursuant to Standing Order 27(1). I will go into it in more detail when I have the opportunity to speak to the motion.

I was interested to hear him say that he wants to set a goal each day of what we, meaning the government, want to accomplish. I know he is carefully trying to build the case as to why we should have these extended hours, but if we look at the record of what has taken place in the House, the fact is that the government has already seen the passage of about 65% of its legislation. We do have 10 sitting days left. There are probably seven bills, two of which are a problem for sure, and of those bills a number of them are relatively minor.

I know the government House leader is trying to build this big case that this is the public business that has to go through. The moving of this motion and saying that the government will unilaterally set the goal each day of what comes up and how long we sit, up to 10:00 p.m., to get through whatever it is the government wants to accomplish, strikes me as something that is very dictatorial and unilateral in its approach.

The government is one party of four parties in this House. Does the government House leader not recognize that there has been very speedy passage of a whole number of bills? What remains is not that much in terms of the government's overall agenda, so his rationale for a motion is very shaky. It is very superficial and does not have much to go on.

[Rail Transportation, June 5th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, B.C. has been hit hard by this economic recession and the Conservatives claim to understand how important it is to stimulate and support the local economy and tourism. Why then, in this economic downturn, is the federal government derailing a $30 million opportunity for a second Amtrak run from Seattle to Vancouver by charging unprecedented inspection fees?

Will the minister support the local economy and expanded rail service to Vancouver, and immediately withdraw the demand for CBSA inspection fees?

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, June 4th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, first of all, I would really like to thank the member for Burnaby—Douglas for an outstanding contribution to this debate on Bill C-15.

His remarks are intelligent. They are rational. They are thoughtful. It is not all wound up in playing this game of fear with people. It is about honesty, and I just want to say that if more people debated like the member for Burnaby—Douglas, this would be a heck of a lot better place. So I would really like to thank the member for a terrific overview that he gave on this bill and what its problems are.

One thing that did strike me is that, on the one hand, we have a solution that is coming down from the top. We have a Conservative government that is laying on this heavy-handed regime of mandatory minimums, yet on the other side we have something like Insite, a safer injection facility in east Vancouver, on East Hastings Street, that was actually a grassroots approach. It came from the community. This is a community that began to take on the issue and find ways to solve the serious problems we were facing in east Vancouver with drugs. Yet this is the same government that is trying to shut it down.

It just seems so at odds that, on the one hand, we have things that are actually working and that are saving people's lives, literally, and the Conservatives are trying to do everything they can to shut them down. They are appealing the court decision, trying to shut down Insite, and on the other hand, trying to layer on this very radical approach of mandatory minimums, as the member says, with no evidence that it will ever work.

I wonder if he would comment on those two approaches. I know what I believe is the right one, but what are his thoughts about that?

[Justice, June 4th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the decision is very clear. This issue has been very clear. In fact, for two years New Democrats pressed the government to act through letters, questions and committee work, all urging the government to repatriate Mr. Abdelrazik. In fact, our research proved the depth of mishandling by the government of different stripes compelling the foreign affairs committee to pass our motion to bring Mr. Abdelrazik home.

All of that, and the government has still refused, choosing instead to breach his rights. This has become a national disgrace. The minister surely knows what the right decision is here, to end this embarrassment and to bring Mr. Abdelrazik home, and not to appeal this decision. Surely he knows that today.

[Justice, June 4th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the reality is that the government did everything it could to keep this innocent Canadian stranded in Sudan, and now we hear from the court that CSIS was involved in his detention.

The court has declared Mr. Abdelrazik an innocent victim and has ruled that he must be returned to Canada within 30 days, but with the record of the government, I would not put it past it to further trample his charter rights, waste taxpayers' money and appeal this decision.

We want to know, will the Prime Minister declare today that he will not appeal this decision?

[Justice, June 4th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the Federal Court ruling today makes it clear that the government breached the charter rights of Canadian citizen Mr. Abdelrazik by forcing him to remain stranded in Sudan. The court declared:

There is no evidence in the record before this Court on which one could reasonably conclude that Mr. Abdelrazik has any connection to terrorism or terrorists...

The government does not get to choose to whom the charter applies. Will the Prime Minister finally do the right thing and bring Mr. Abdelrazik home?

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, June 4th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, even the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police talk about the need for a balanced approach. In their letter to the committee the police chiefs did not come out and say that they adopted mandatory minimums as the way to go. They were silent on that matter. They did talk about the need for enforcement to go after the big kingpins. Even they talk about the balanced approach.

The member has made a very good point that we have not seen the evidence that the bill will do anything to deal with the serious situation that exists with drug use.

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, June 4th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I wish I could provide some clear information to answer the member's question, because this is one of the questions we did pose to the minister. If the bill passes and a regime of mandatory minimums is enacted, we want to know the estimate of how many people would be convicted and would end up in the provincial system, which would be convictions of two years less a day. We need to know what the costs of that might be as well as the number of people convicted.

Our belief is that it will be very high based again on what we saw in the United States. We had evidence regarding that at the committee. As far as we know, there has been no work done by the government, or if the work has been done, the government certainly is not disclosing it.

My constituents and people in other places across Canada are going to be very fearful that because of these mandatory minimums when people get caught up in this net and they go through the court system, the first thing they are probably going to do is plead not guilty to try to get around the mandatory minimum. That is going to take up more court time, more lawyers' time. We are seeing the legal aid crisis, whether it is in Ontario or in British Columbia. This is only going to create more chaos in a system that is already overstressed.

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, June 4th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I believe the member supports the four-pillar approach. I thought this well substantiated policy had been adopted. However, in the latest so-called anti-drug strategy that came from the Conservative government in September 2007, one of the pillars had been dropped, and that was harm reduction.

We know about the huge battle that has taken place in Vancouver to keep Insite, the safe-injection facility, open. In fact, the Conservatives have not been able to close it down because of the massive public support across the country. Insite and things like needle exchanges are part of the four-pillar approach. This has been well adopted across the country by many big cities and smaller communities.

It was adopted by the federal government, but that radically changed when the Conservatives were elected. They dropped harm reduction and are now hell-bent on the idea that they will eliminate any funding or support for any program that they deem to be under the category of harm reduction. Instead, they are now emphasizing an enforcement regime. That will hurt a lot of people who truly need medical and social support to deal with the addiction issues that they face.

The bill will not help those people. A four-pillar approach was a much more rational public policy to deal with substance use issues. Unfortunately, the bill is now taking us in the completely opposite direction.