Marlene Jennings

[Criminal Code, June 20th, 2008]

moved that Bill S-209, An Act to amend the Criminal code (protection of children), be read the first time.

It is quite an honour for me to sponsor Bill S-209 in the House. The bill would repeal section 43 of the Criminal Code. Section 43 of the Criminal Code provides the justification available to school teachers, parents and persons standing in the place of parents to use force as a means of correction toward a pupil or a child under their care.

Growing numbers of countries have removed the availability of corporal punishment to children. As well, Canada signed and ratified the Convention on the Rights of Children in 1991, which calls on all state parties, which includes Canada, to take all appropriate legislative measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury, abuse and so on.

A longitudinal study in Canada on children shows that children who are subjected to corporate punishment show behavioural problems, including aggression toward other children and bullying toward other children.

I call on the members in the House to support the repeal of section 43 of the Criminal Code and protect our children.

(Motion agreed to and bill read the first time)

[The Environment, June 20th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, that quote proves that the Liberals can learn from their mistakes; the Conservatives have never done that.

Not one environmentalist, economist or scientist—and not a single representative of the department—has been able to say that the Conservative government's plan was valid. Eleven independent groups, including C.D. Howe, the Deutsche Bank, the Pembina Institute and the Tyndall Institute, have described it as sham.

A prime minister and a government that insist on holding our country back in the fight against the worst environmental threat the world has seen, is that not crazy?

[The Environment, June 20th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, Arthur Sandborn, from the Quebec chapter of Greenpeace, believes that the Liberal green shift is much better than the NDP's carbon market plan. Sydney Ribaux, general coordinator at Équiterre, said that this is the type of policy they would support.

Does the Minister of the Environment agree with his boss who said yesterday that these Quebec environmentalists are crazy?

[Points of Order, June 20th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, while I am not a member of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, I do know that the chair is not present today. I would hope that before the Speaker makes a ruling on the point that has been raised by the government whip, the Speaker would afford the chair an opportunity to address the point that has been raised here.

Second, in the absence of a report, the Speaker might feel it premature to issue a ruling, because one can only speculate as to what the report would deal with. It is quite possible that the Speaker would deem in fact that the report is in order and may be received and properly tabled in the House.

It is only the content of the report which would allow such a ruling, so I would ask the Speaker to allow the chair of the committee an opportunity to address this point of order. It is his ruling on the motion. The chair of that committee ruled the motion in order. It is that ruling which the government whip is contesting, so I would think it appropriate to allow the chair to address that issue here in the House.

As I said, the Speaker may feel it premature to make a ruling when there is no report before the House.

[Court Challenges Program, June 19th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the government is treating the anglophone linguistic minority, women, gays and lesbians, persons with disabilities, visible minorities and all other minorities like second-class citizens who are not entitled to the same treatment as everyone else.

Why is the government refusing to allow all minorities to use the program and defend their rights? Why can women, the disabled and visible minorities not use the program?

[Court Challenges Program, June 19th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, after depriving minorities of the court challenges program for more than 16 months, the government is now announcing that the new program will apply only to linguistic minorities. Once again, the government is showing that it does not really care about minority language communities and would rather use them for political purposes.

Why has this government chosen to politicize a program that is so important to minorities in Canada?

[Foreign Affairs, June 18th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, this whole sad story looks like an attempted cover-up involving Foreign Affairs, Public Works, Public Safety, Transport, the Privy Council, the Prime Minister's Office, CSIS and the RCMP. Why such a cover-up? To hide the Prime Minister's lack of judgment.

The Prime Minister is at the heart of this scandal, and now it is affecting his entire government. How many times did the Prime Minister himself personally meet with Julie Couillard, and under what circumstances?

[Foreign Affairs, June 18th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps he should tell that to the member for Beauce.

We now have two dates on which the government was informed of this security breach. The former minister claims that he found out about it on Sunday, May 25, and informed the Prime Minister immediately. The Prime Minister, his cabinet and his Leader of the Government in the House of Commons claim that they found out about it on Monday, May 26.

Does “immediately” mean “the next day”? The Conservatives are not taking any of these issues seriously—

[The Economy, June 17th, 2008]

The OECD, Mr. Speaker, also said that we are heading for a recession and ours is the only G-8 economy that shrank.

More and more workers are losing their jobs and all the government can find to do is to be on the attack.

Why does the government not have any solutions for Canadians who are losing their jobs? What concrete actions will the government take? Is the Minister of Finance expecting these laid off workers to believe that everything is just fine in this, the best of all possible worlds?

[The Economy, June 17th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government does not care about good hard-working Canadians losing their jobs. In the first four months of this year, Statistics Canada reported that 30,000 jobs were lost from the manufacturing sector. That does not even take into account the 2,600 jobs cut at GM and now the 2,000 jobs cut at Air Canada.

Canadians have a right to know what the Conservative government is going to do about this crisis. Is this what the finance minister meant when he said that we have strong financial fundamentals?