Malcolm Allen

[Questions on the Order Paper, April 26th, 2012]

With respect to the Crop Logistics Working Group formed by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada on November 7, 2011, what progress has been made with regard to: (a) a template service agreement; (b) movement of product in producer cars; and (c) key public sector performance measurements?

[Agriculture and Agri-Food, April 25th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, not only are these senseless cuts putting our culture at risk, they also are putting the health of Canadians at risk.

While the minister is trying to cover the real impact of his cuts to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency by saying front-line services will not be affected, the reality is the opposite. As we speak, CFIA inspectors are briefing staff about cuts to important inspection programs. In fact, they are cutting the oversight of meat products imported from the U.S.

Will the minister come clean and tell us which front-line CFIA programs are being cut?

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, April 24th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, clearly we do not want to create another quasi police force. We have a police force, whether it be the RCMP, regional police or provincial police, depending on the province and where we live across this great country. Day in and day out, we have officers who do the hard work that we ask them to do.

We need to ensure that the folks who are in security agencies make sure that the property is secure, that folks are not trespassing, that the doors are locked at night, that parking lots are clear, and that if folks get hurt or fall ill they call the appropriate authorities. In the case of a crime being perpetrated, their call to the appropriate authorities would be 911 to have the police come. They should not become an adjunct police force looking for additional powers to take on the role of a police officer, when indeed we have them available to us, as do they.

This bill should be about the unintended consequences for me as an individual when I do not have a security person looking after my house. When someone enters my door and I am confronted, I have the choice to either fight or flee. In all cases, when one can flee, one should flee.

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, April 24th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I know my colleague from Cape Breton. It is a wonderful part of the world. Next to my homeland of Scotland, it reminds me of being home when I come to Cape Breton. I have been there many times.

As the member described, if someone came into my backyard to steal my barbecue, he is right that the first response sometimes is to head to the door and prevent it. However, as I said earlier, I ought to take half a step back and question why I would go out. The person is bigger than me. Perhaps as was described, he or she may indeed be under the influence of a substance or may have a weapon. Therefore, the first response should be to dial 911 and have the police come. We should not take it upon ourselves when indeed we do not have to because we are not being physically confronted.

The issue is different if we are in a business and someone comes into that business or our home and attacks us or one of our family members. That is a huge difference. If someone is outside our home stealing property, such as in my case when folks decided to help themselves to the material in my big shed, that is a different situation altogether.

Therefore, I would implore Canadians not to take action themselves when indeed the action they should be taking is to have the police forces take the action on their behalf. That is why we have them. They do a good job. They are well trained and well prepared to take that type of action.

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, April 24th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I agree. It is an issue of what a reasonable person should do when faced with the situation, as my colleague has expressed. What do we do with someone who has indeed—

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, April 24th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague is absolutely right about the small business owners. There are many in my community.

As the member knows, although my community is more than just Welland. I love to give a plug to my riding of Welland, which is Welland, Port Colborne, Wainfleet, Thorold and parts of St. Catherines. There are small communities, like Port Colborne, Wainfleet and Thorold that have small business owners.

I think of a merchant like Elio's Foot Comfort Centre where people can get custom-made shoes and orthotics. I would encourage the member for Mississauga—Streetsville to come down and get those. If so, maybe he could get a pair of cowboy boots just like my good friend, Peter Kormos, the retired MPP from Welland. That is where he bought his good Canadian cowboy boots.

Clearly, the reason for this bill, as was said by the member for Trinity—Spadina, was what happened to Mr. David Chen in her riding. This was a small business owner who had acts of violence and robbery perpetrated against him not once but twice. We do not wish to see hard-working folks who own small businesses be victims of crime on multiple occasions, as in Mr. Chen's case, by the same person.

It is bad enough when an act is committed against a business owner or an individual, but it seems to me it is worse when the person who committed the crime comes back and perpetrates another crime against that business owner or individual. That is brazen beyond belief, that the same person would come back and try to victimize someone again.

Clearly that is why my colleague, the member for Trinity—Spadina introduced the legislation in the last House, to make sure that that did not happen.

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, April 24th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-26, an act pertaining to what civilians can or cannot do when it comes to crimes that are perpetrated against them or their property.

It reminds me of my colleague, the member for Trinity—Spadina, and her constituent who was arrested after a perpetrator, who committed crimes against his particular business, was apprehended by him in a citizen's arrest.

When we look at the bill in the sense of what we should do on a go forward basis, it reminds me that we always need to think about many things when we suggest to citizens or when we try to protect them from charges against them when they try to protect themselves or their property.

I am always cautious around that type of action. Citizens need to be careful that they do not push the limits in what they do to protect themselves and their property when perhaps leaving the situation would be more advantageous. They could be either attacked or hurt when a situation could be defused.

Clearly we want to help them protect their property, their families and themselves from unwanted criminal acts that are perpetrated against them, but by the same token, we do not want to mislead them into believing that somehow, all of a sudden, they should become some form of adjunct police force.

As much as we support the bill, I would caution folks that if they are faced with the predicament of being attacked or their property being broken into and they are unable to move away, they should take reasonable precautions to ensure their property or their family is protected in a safe way that will not inflame or injure themselves or put them or their families at an even greater risk. It is not wrong to protect one's property, one's family or one's self from the perpetrator of a crime.

However, we do not want to give that false sense that individuals should be police officers because they live out in the country. I live out in the country, and to be honest, there really are no police officers in the neighbourhood for any of us who live in rural parts of Canada. The officers are quite far away, and that is as it should be. There are not many of us there and we cannot have an officer for half a dozen houses if they are miles and miles apart. It quite often takes a period of time for folks to get there.

Many of us have been victims of folks who have taken our property. I was the unwilling victim. It happens in rural Ontario, and I am sure it happens to rural constituents across this great land of ours, those who have nice sheds. When I say a shed, it is not the ones we get at Canadian Tire, 7x12 with flimsy stuff. These are great big sheds that hold full tractors, lawn tractors, lawn implements or other implements. We get a rash of folks coming across the rural constituencies who simply decide to load up their trucks with our goods.

In my case it was the famous whipper-snipper and chain saws. The only fortunate part was that whoever the perpetrators were, they could not figure out how to get the lawnmower tractor to move. They did not know that if they yanked on the little lever on the back, it would free-wheel and they would be unable to move it because the transmission was locked, fortunately, so I did not lose that. However, I lost a whole pile of other things.

Unfortunately for me, after I decided to bolt things up and chain them all together after I had replaced them, about four months later they decided to pay me another visit and scooped more stuff, but still could not get the tractor. I have to thank my dad for that, albeit he is no longer with us. As a millwright, he left me great big 10 and 20 foot lengths of chain with the great big locks he used to have when he was an industrial millwright, which would take one heck of a heavy bolt cutter to get through if an individual wanted to do that. These folks do not have bolt cutters. They do not really come equipped with that type of tool. Therefore, they could not get the additional stuff from me.

If I had been home at the time and witnessed the fact that those folks were entering my property and stealing valuable tools from me, which I need for the purposes of looking after my property, I certainly would have been at the window, yelling at them. Depending on the circumstances of what was going on, I may have been reluctant to actually go out and physically confront them. If there were more than one of them, and I was by myself, that may not have been what I would have wanted to do. I certainly would have been on the phone to 911. I may have been marking down their licence plate number and then allowing those sorts of things to go on. I certainly would have been protecting my property from that perspective.

In all cases it is not as simple as that, because the person might have been trying to come in through the door of my house. If I happened to be home with my family, that would present a different and unique danger.

If I am protecting myself and my family from a perpetrator who is intruding into my property, with malicious intent, whether that is to physically harm me or my family, or to do damage to my property just by simply being a malicious individual, do I deserve the right to then try to protect my property? The answer to that is yes, in the perspective of understanding what one needs to do.

People need to take caution, as I suggested earlier, and establish what the situation truly is. If it is perhaps younger people, who may be more afraid of the victim than the victim is of them, the victim might be able to get them off the property. Then again, it could be a person who is well-armed. It could be more than one person. People need to look at the situation and decide how to protect themselves and property. There should be no cost to victims who protected their property by charging them rather than the person who tried to invade their property.

It gets to the nub of the situation of the rights of an individual who is about to become a victim. Clearly, that is what happens to those of us who are either on our property or perhaps are even attacked in the street while walking, for instance. We are victims of a crime and we are simply trying to defend ourselves from an attack of some description.

What it amounts to is the law should not be making a person a victim a second time. The individual has already been victimized the first time. The victim has already perhaps lost property or has had property damaged, or has received some sort of physical harm.

At the very least, people having had their property taken away from them is an emotional violation, whether they are harmed or touched in any particular way. Even though people may not be there at the time, there is a certain value to losing property, whatever that happens to be. In my case it amounted to a few thousand dollars. Those are things that a person has had for a period of time. In some cases, a person's house may have unique value or a person may have intrinsic thoughts that hearken back to loved ones. Maybe it was a prized possession that grandma left for the person. If the person loses that, the emotional violation is always there.

Any time people are victims of crime, the last thing that should happen is that they are victimized again, or at least feel as if they are victim again. They have already been victimized by someone who has decided, in a malicious way, to do damage to their property, to them and their family.

We would all want and hope that folks would not perpetrate this type of violence or crime against other folks, but it would be naive in the nth degree to think that somehow all crime will just end. That is not the case. As we all know, crime is perpetrated, albeit we know it is on the decline.

Based on that, we have to look at what we can do to ensure that crime continues to decline. Albeit my colleagues across the way and I disagree about how to handle crime and punishment and rehabilitation or how to meet the balance. This is about folks who perpetrate crimes against others and the consequences of doing that, and there should be consequences.

What should the consequences be? What do we do to ameliorate that situation because the vast majority of those who perpetrate crimes eventually come out of incarceration or remand, depending on how it is done, or will be in the general society? How do we deal with that particular situation? How do we keep folks from taking other people's property? Ultimately, it really is an issue of how to move forward on crime.

This is about ensuring that the victim does not become another victim. That is the last thing New Democrats want. It was our colleague, the member for Trinity—Spadina, who in the last Parliament asked how one could protect oneself. Is it fair and just and right to use the powers that are available to citizens to ensure they protect their property, their person or family without crossing the line and committing a criminal act?

What is that line? How do we make that line broad enough so folks do not inadvertently trip over it because they did not understand it? How can we continue to move forward and allow them to act in a responsible way because they are a victim?

The folks this legislation would cover are the unwilling and unintended victims of a crime. They had no knowledge that a crime would be perpetrated against them. This was not a contrived act that the victim knew about. The victim had no sense that a crime would be perpetrated against him or her. This really was about an unintended situation happening to the victims, not unintended by those who attacked them. An intended act is when one decides to kick down someone else's door and ransack the house.

Ultimately, what are the consequences on people who receive that intentional act? They have to understand what the law will allow them to do. They have to understand that they can protect themselves or their property knowing in the full light of day that they will not have to worry about being criminally charged because of some unintended act based on an intended act by someone else who broke into their home and attacked them, their family or their property.

Again, it really has to be a cautious act. I would not want folks to think that this becomes a carte blanche bill that would allow one to set up some form of quasi judicial force or, for those of us who live rurally, would allow one to set up some sort of adjunct police force that is not the auxiliary police force.

We already have auxiliary police officers throughout the country, in Ontario and in my region. We have many of them because we do not have enough police officers. These auxiliary police officers are used at special events and parades. They are used extensively for the Labour Day Parade to help with crowd control and traffic. In my neck of the woods there are some great hills for cyclists. The auxiliary police officers control the intersections so that the regular officers can be out doing the work they are empowered to do under the law. We do not want to see another adjunct to the auxiliary officers such that, for example, the member for Welland will now have a group, and not just a neighbourhood watch.

A neighbourhood watch is a good thing. It is a neighbourly thing when one looks after a neighbour's property by simply paying attention when the neighbour is away. In my case, when I travel here, I know that my neighbour, Dave, who lives down the street—and I will put a plug in for my neighbour—and owns Longlack Poultry comes to plow my driveway, which is greatly appreciated. He has been doing this for a number of years now. My partner appreciates when the driveway is done and she is not waiting for me to get back from Ottawa to do it. I want to thank Dave for that. He helps out with my property and keeps an eye out, as do other neighbours because we do not live next door to one another as people do in the city.

When I say that we live next door to one another we are about a half mile away from each other. The neighbourhood watch is really about noticing a suspicious vehicle. Unfortunately, that is how my material was lost. That is how folks in rural Canada lose material. Trucks pull up and look like moving vans, but they take all of one's stuff. However, we do not want to see people in a neighbourhood watch who think that they somehow have the power of the police to interfere in situations and act as if they are members of a quasi police force. I do not believe the bill intends for that. I would caution folks that is not the way we would like to see this go. The police forces have a legitimate role and they do it in a very effective way. We congratulate and thank them for all of their hard work.

This reminds me of when I was on the community policing association committee for my neighbourhood. I used to ask the sergeant about the number of police cars in the neighbourhood when we had break-ins. He would say that they were re-evaluating and would place a car here and there. I remember a complaint from a constituent that a car was not in our neighbourhood. There were none in the town at all. When I asked the sergeant why there was no car within the area, he told me that there was a stabbing in Niagara Falls. He asked if I would prefer the police car to be in my town or somewhere else. I said that I would prefer it there was not a stabbing at all. There was no car in my area because he had to allow the car to go to a very serious situation. Someone had been violently attacked and stabbed.

I will finish by saying that as New Democrats we certainly appreciate the bill coming forward. We have made an amendment to it and we would like to see that happen. However, I will say to the folks out there, whenever one is in danger, be careful, call the police and try to ameliorate the situation so that more harm is not perpetrated on oneself or one's family.

[Agriculture and Agri-Food, April 23rd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the 10% cut to the Agriculture and Agri-Food budget is a cut to front-line food safety. Just last week, we learned that 100 front-line food inspectors will be cut with no justification. It was these kinds of blind cuts that led to the Walkerton tragedy in Ontario. There are members of that cabinet who know what happened and the result of that. These cuts will put Canadian food safety at risk.

Will the government agree to public hearings and will it finally come clean on the impact of these unnecessary cuts?

[Food Inspection, April 23rd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, we witnessed over the last couple of weeks an insurmountable number of new announcements from the Minister of Agriculture regarding the CFIA and CBSA, otherwise known as the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Canada Border Services Agency.

We have watched as the CFIA has actually declined in numbers in real terms when it comes to inspection services, as well decline in budget. The minister's response was to just send it over to CBSA. What happened at CBSA? They shrank that budget too; however, today we see another announcement from the minister saying that the government will actually put some money back in, and folks can use a sort of check-off system and look after their own food security and safety.

That is not good enough. Canadians expect that their food will be safe no matter where it comes from in the world. As we know, it comes from many places around the world. In fact, over 80% of the food we consume comes from places other than our country.

What we need to do is ensure that all our food, no matter who it is for, is safe at all times, and we need to make sure that we have a robust inspection system no matter where the food comes from.

[National Defence, April 5th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, members opposite seem content to repeat “we accept the recommendations of the Auditor General”, but their words ring hollow.

The Department of National Defence received a scathing report from the former auditor general in 2010 on its helicopter purchase. The Auditor General was clear when she told the government to fix its procurement process. The minister said that all the recommendations from 2010 were “accepted and acted upon”. However, two years later, it is the same broken promise, the same broken talking points and the same report from a new AG.

Why should Canadians believe the Conservatives this time?