House of Commons photoLost her last election, in 2011, with 32% of the vote.
Madam Speaker, I would like to know what my colleague thinks of the quote , “The facts are that the federal government was responsible for making sure that there was enough vaccine for Canadians...[Prime Minister's] Chief of Staff Guy Giorno was sitting in for the planning meetings for the rollout of the vaccine”. That is from Rob Russo of CBC News Now on November 1, 2009
We have spent—
Animal Welfare October 30th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, the future of animal welfare is a serious issue that governments around the world must recognize.
There is both scientific consensus and public acknowledgement that animals feel pain and can suffer.
That is why I strongly support the motion made by my colleague from Scarborough Southwest on adopting the universal declaration on animal welfare. I also strongly support the bill introduced by my colleague from Brossard—La Prairie, which seeks to reduce the maximum number of hours during which animals in transit can be confined.
Taking proper care of animals reduces the risk of transmitting diseases to humans and of food-borne disease.
I call on all my colleagues to support these two measures.
Criminal Code October 28th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, in the April 7 letter, the Canadian Police Association talks about the importance of the program and why registration is such a key component. Let me just quote some of the reasons that the Canadian Police Association gives for supporting gun control and specifically the firearms registry:
Licensing firearms owners and registering firearms are important in reducing the misuse and illegal trade in firearms for a number of reasons.
1. Rigorously screening and licensing firearm owners reduces the risk for those who pose a threat to themselves or others. Already there is evidence that the system has been effective in preventing people who should not have guns from gaining access to guns.
2. Licensing of firearm owners also discourages casual gun ownership. Owning a firearm is a big responsibility and licensing is a reasonable requirement. While not penalizing responsible firearm owners, licensing and registration encourage people to get rid of unwanted, unused and unnecessary firearms.
3. Registration increases accountability of firearms owners by linking the firearm to the owner. This encourages owners to abide by safe storage laws, and compels owners to report firearm thefts where storage may have been a contributing factor. Safe storage of firearms.
4. Registrations provides valuable ownership information to law enforcement in the enforcement of firearm prohibition orders and in support of police investigations. Already we have seen a number of concrete examples of police investigations which have been aided by access to the information contained in the registry.
The Canadian Police Association gives 10 reasons for supporting the firearms registry. I will not go through them all, but I would be more than happy to table a copy of the letter if the members in the House would agree to that.
I would also like to quote from an email that I received on October 28, 2009 from a constituent of mine, Ms. Rosemary C. Reilly. Ms. Reilly is an associate professor in the Department of Applied Human Sciences at Concordia University, and she also resides in my riding. In her email she states:
Dear Ms. Jennings:
I am growing increasingly concerned about the private members bill C-391. This bill, named an Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, seeks to dismantle Canada's gun control laws. As my MP I urge you to vote against it.
I say to Rosemary that she can rest assured I will be voting against Bill C-391. She goes on to state:
The story around the gun registry often ignores the role long guns play in domestic violence. Rifles and shotguns are the firearms most often used to kill women and children in domestic violence. 88 percent of Canadian women killed with guns are killed with a shotgun or a rifle, the very guns that supporters of Bill C-391 say are not the cause of gun violence. 50 percent of family homicides end in the suicide of the murderer, indicating that the key to protecting women and children is thorough screening in licensing and licence renewal for gun owners.
Rosemary Reilly goes on to state in her email:
Our gun laws have been recognized worldwide as an effective tool for reducing gun violence targeting women. The number of women murdered with firearms fell from 85 in 1991 to 32 in 2005. In contrast murders of women without firearms declined only slightly during the same period of time.
Information about the guns that individuals owns is essential to Canada's police agencies...
Then she goes on to quote the same statistics that are quoted in the Canadian Police Association's April 7 letter. I assure Rosemary Reilly I will be voting against Bill C-391.
I believe there should continue to be a firearms registry and I also believe that long guns should be part of that firearms registry.
People in my riding have not been immune to gun violence. People in my riding, in my city and my province have also been victims of long gun violence, not just handgun but long gun violence, and I believe that the firearms registry should continue.
I call on the Conservative government, if it truly believes the firearms registry should be dismantled, to bring its own government legislation forth and not to go behind and use a member of its caucus to bring forth that legislation in its stead. It should have the courage of its conviction and should bring forth government legislation abolishing the firearms registry, in particular for long guns.
Criminal Code October 28th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be able to take part in this debate and to explain my views regarding gun control in Canada, the firearm registry in particular and the whole issue of Bill C-391, which was presented by the member for Portage—Lisgar.
First, I do have some experience with firearms. I did 10 weeks of basic military training as part of a summer job back in the early 1970s. I handled the semi-automatic rifle, a rocket launcher and handguns. I did it with the Black Watch reserves on Bleury Street in Montreal and I have maintained a wonderful relationship with the Black Watch ever since. Here is to the Black Watch. One of the aspects of the training was being able to strip weapons down and reassemble them in complete darkness. In fact, in that particular group, I was the one student employee who was able to do it the fastest.
I also spent summers on my grandmother's farm in Manitoba and had the opportunity to go with her when she went to hunt and shoot down some of the pesky animals, the critters, that were eating her chicken coop.
I also took part in the parliamentary program with our military forces and spent a week on one of our frigates, the HMCS Winnipeg. I had a wonderful time with the defence critic for the Bloc Québécois. There, we participated in their firearms practice several times. We had a great time there as well.
So I am familiar with firearms. Perhaps I am not as familiar as someone who is an ongoing hunter or belongs to a sporting or rifle club, but I do have familiarity. I have to say that I am a strong proponent of strong, effective gun control in general.
Second, I am also a strong proponent of the firearms registry. I am not alone in that. The Canadian Police Association and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police are also strong proponents of both effective gun control and the firearm registry.
I would like to give some other facts. We have heard some facts or alleged facts from some of the members opposite, so I would like to provide some of the other available facts. In 2008, police services queried the firearm registry 9,400 times per day on average. That is over 3.4 million times per year. This included over two million checks of individuals, 900,000 address checks and 74,000 checks of serial numbers on firearms. I am not the one giving that information. That is from the firearms registry. That is from the Canadian Police Association and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police.
On April 7, 2009, the Canadian Police Association sent a letter to our public safety critic and others. The association made that statement. I just quoted those numbers from the Canadian Police Association. If the members from the Conservative Party who are heckling me are saying that I am wrong, then they are also saying that the Canadian Police Association is wrong when it actually put those figures in its letters.
Mr. Speaker, I and my party will not support Bill C-50 because we believe that it does not treat Canadian workers equally and fairly, and it does not address the issue of regional fairness.
If we want to talk about a government's record, let us look at the record of the government that took office in 2006 with a $13 billion surplus and has frittered that surplus. One of the first actions the government did was to break a promise that it made during the 2006 election that it would not tax income trusts. It turned around and did that less than a week after it was elected to government.
Let us look at the government that claims it is reducing s taxes and yet, when one reads the budget very carefully, it has a $15 billion payroll tax that will start at the end of 2010, but it claims that it is lowering taxes. That is not lowering taxes.
Under the Liberals, the EI taxes went down every year. That is not happening under the Conservatives. They froze them and now they are going to raise them.
Mr. Speaker, last May 26, I asked a question in the House concerning employment insurance and the regional disparities and discrimination based on eligibility rules that picked out winners and losers.
The Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development went on about some of the changes that had been made to EI benefits but refused to address the issue of regional disparity and in fact regional fairness. I would again like to hear what the government has to say.
A lot of water has gone under the bridge. The Prime Minister and my leader, the Leader of the Opposition, put together a bipartisan working group composed of three Conservatives and three Liberals, and I was one of them, to work over the summer. The only party that put forward any kind of proposal at that particular working group was the Liberal Party.
In their usual manner, the Conservatives came out with figures that inflated the actual cost of the Liberal proposal. Members do not need to take my word for it, but the Parliamentary Budget Officer did an independent assessment of the government's estimate of the Liberal proposal and said that the government had overestimated and that the Liberal proposal for one eligibility rate standard of 360 hours would cost approximately $1.2 billion and not the $4 billion that the government claimed and continues to repeat, notwithstanding that the independent assessment proved it wrong.
The government has now come out with Bill C-50, which would extend benefits anywhere from 5 to 20 weeks but, again, has not addressed the issue of regional fairness.
The government has claimed that Bill C-50 would help approximately 190,000 Canadians. However, the veracity of that particular number has been questioned in the media, by third parties and in committee itself. The bill is now before committee at second reading.
Experts are saying that the figure is not 190,000. In fact, they believe the number of beneficiaries would be as low as 60,000. The government has refused to provide clarity on how it comes up with its figure of 190,000 Canadians who will be assisted by the changes it is proposing in Bill C-50.
How can the government justify throwing numbers out for which there is no basis? It refuses to explain its methodology. It refuses to provide the actual figures. It is doing the same thing with the issue of Bill C-50 and backing up the exact number of Canadians who will actually be assisted by it that it has been doing with the infrastructure and stimulus plan.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer has said that the government is providing information in such an obscure manner that it is impossible to independently verify the government's claims.
Competition Bureau October 27th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives claim to be pouring billions of dollars into asphalt and cement.
Is taxpayers' money going into the pockets of suspicious individuals or businesses?
Are the friends of Senator Housakos and the Prime Minister's advisor, Dimitri Soudas, people we would want to be associated with?
Is there a system to artificially inflate prices?
What guidelines have the Conservatives given the Competition Bureau? I would like the Prime Minister to answer.
Competition Bureau October 27th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, the claims about Senator Housakos' acquaintances remind us of the Competition Bureau's inaction in collusion investigations. Despite allegations from former senior public officials, nothing is moving forward. Despite the existence of electronic surveillance transcripts, nothing is moving forward. Despite suspicious businesses and police search warrants, nothing is moving forward.
Is the Competition Bureau dragging its feet because the Conservatives are scared of what could be discovered?
Prohibition on Importing Goods Produced by Sweatshop Labour Act October 21st, 2009
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
The government House leader has just used profane language in characterizing my attempt to get unanimous consent of the House to have the government grant citizenship.
The government House leader can be in disagreement; I have no problem with that. However, to use profane language to characterize the motion is simply unacceptable. I would simply ask him to apologize and retract his statement.
Prohibition on Importing Goods Produced by Sweatshop Labour Act October 21st, 2009
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask for unanimous consent of the House for the following motion:
That, in the opinion of the House, the government should award citizenship retroactively to the remaining “Lost Canadians”, as well as to each and any of their offspring, including to: (a) Peter Brammah, Jackie Scott, and Marion Vermeersch (born respectively in the United Kingdom; combined file Nos. 2742137 and 3430359); (b) Brian Clark (born in the United Kingdom; file No. 3279141); (c) May Lin DeHaan (born in the United States in 1961); (d) Paul Dieklemann (born in the United States on October 6, 1932; file No. 52837664); (e) Lisa Evans (born in the United States); (f) Arch Ford (born in the United States in 1945); (g) Marcel Gélinas (born in Montreal in 1922); (h) Kyle Lopez (born on April 12, 1983); (i) Jan Makins (file No. 2613315); (j) Ian Monroe (born in Scotland); (k) Kasey Elisabeth Neal (file No. 87669792); (l) Holly Marie Rabagliati and Lucy Isabelle Rabagliati (born respectively in the United Kingdom on May 24, 1973 and October 9, 2008; combined file No. 2331328); (m) Elizabeth Elaine Raichle (née McCready; born on July 4, 1994; file No. 1707304CRS); (n) Bob Russell (born in the United States in 1960); and (o) posthumously, Guy Vallière, who died in February 2009 and to whom the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration had publically promised to grant citizenship retroactively.