Marlene Jennings

[Foreign Affairs, February 8th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's statements about the Chinese government and human rights have strained relations with that country.

Huseyin Celil's basic rights are further threatened because of the Prime Minister's belligerent attitude toward China.

Will the Prime Minister agree that he is behaving recklessly and that his approach is placing a Canadian citizen in serious danger?

[Foreign Affairs, February 8th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, this government is making dangerous blunders in foreign affairs.

The Prime Minister provoked the People's Republic of China. Not surprisingly, today, the Chinese authorities are no longer cooperating with our diplomats. A Canadian citizen, Huseyin Celil, faces serious danger in China's justice system.

Does this government understand now why it cannot take such a cavalier attitude toward diplomacy?

[Committees of the House, February 5th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, if the member finds that I was playing with partisanship with regard to the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, I learned it from the Conservatives, who never cease to say that Liberals are soft on crime when in fact we are smart on crime and we are effective on crime and the reasons of crime.

However, let me provide the information that the member for Wild Rose asked for. Mr. Coffin was arrested in 1953. He underwent his trial. He was found guilty. He was convicted in February 1956. Jacques Hébert, who was a senator and is now a retired senator, was a journalist at the time and followed the case very closely. As a result of his own investigation, he wrote two books, one in 1958, Coffin était innocent, and then in 1963, J'accuse les assassins de Coffin.

As a result of evidence that he at that time was able to uncover, there was a royal commission inquiry in 1964. The judge heard over 210 people, including the juries at the time, and confirmed the procedure and the verdict, but since then, more information has come to light in recent times. That is what we are asking--

[Committees of the House, February 5th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am very surprised that not one Conservative member from Quebec has yet spoken on the issue. I would have expected the hon. member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, who is a member of the Standing Committee on Justice, to take this opportunity to express his opinion on the issue. I find it unfortunate that he remained silent.

However, I am glad to speak for my party, the Liberal Party of Canada, and particularly for the Liberal members from Quebec.

[Committees of the House, February 5th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I do expect a lot of this government, as do all Quebeckers in fact, and as does the Coffin family. We are right to expect a lot of this government. It is a government whose prime minister, ministers and parliamentary secretaries and all of whose members constantly tell us that they will stand up for justice and to fight crime. But the crime is sometimes committed by the state itself, as we have seen in the cases of David Milgaard, Guy-Paul Morin and Donald Marshall, and as I am convinced we have seen in the Coffin case. Unfortunately, the Coffin family will never be able to have the stain wiped away completely. Mr. Coffin's reputation may perhaps be restored, but he was executed, he paid the ultimate price for something that was a judicial error, a botched police investigation, as we are convinced.

On that point, I know what I am talking about; I was a member of the police commission in Quebec. I had to preside at public inquiries into allegations of police misconduct. The allegations are not always true, but still I have had to make that decision myself in the case of someone who was sentenced to life imprisonment; I had to assess the police investigation. This was not the police in the Gaspé or the Sûreté du Québec, it was a municipal police force in another region of Quebec. The police force, the prosecutor and I prepared a report that made it possible for the inmate to go to the Court of Appeal. That Court quashed the conviction and ordered a new trial, and with the evidence in the hands of the police commission, that man was found not guilty at his new trial. I know what I am talking about when I say that sometimes mistakes are made.

We believe that a mistake was made in this case. Unfortunately, Mr. Coffin paid with his life. Let this government at least offer the family some comfort by acting speedily. "Speedily" means setting up the review group immediately so that it can conduct its investigation. That group will then have to make recommendations to the Minister of Justice, who will have to decide whether to go to the Court of Appeal or whether there will be a new trial. We are waiting. This is a government that pats itself on the back and says it is always in action. Let us see the action this time. It would be the first time.

[Committees of the House, February 5th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, this is the first time that I have risen as the official opposition critic to speak about a report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. It is a real honour for me to support the report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in response to a motion that was tabled before the committee by my hon. colleague, the Bloc member for Hochelaga, and subsequently passed by the committee.

Although I am a Quebecker, I was obviously not aware of the Coffin affair at the time when it was happening because I was too young, barely a year old. Since then, though, the story has resurfaced in the media and the consciousness of Quebeckers every 10 years. There is a consensus now in Quebec on this cause célèbre. People think that the police investigation and the trial were botched and an injustice was done to Mr. Coffin.

My hon. colleague from Hochelaga related a few of the facts. Mr. Wilbert Coffin was arrested and accused of murdering three Americans. A man named Eugene Lindsey, his 17-year-old son and a friend of his son had come to the Gaspé to hunt, and one month after they had left the United States, they were found dead very close to their truck. A police investigation was launched.

As my hon. colleague from Hochelaga mentioned, this happened in a tourist area and the government was eager to ensure that Americans, who accounted for most of the tourism, would not be frightened away. Therefore, a number of little schemes were hatched.

The most touching aspect, though, is the fact that at that time in Canada, there was still capital punishment for first degree murder. Mr. Coffin paid the ultimate price. He paid with his life for what was probably a parody of justice.

In my opinion, Canada's elimination of the death penalty is a good thing. Guy-Paul Morin, Donald Marshall and David Milgaard were also the victims of judicial errors during their trials. When they were each convicted of murder, the death penalty had already fortunately been abolished. The ultimate penalty was 25 years of imprisonment before any chance of conditional release. That said, they spent nearly 25 years of their lives in prison before society, through the government, acknowledged the judicial error, recognizing that they should not have been convicted because they were innocent, and before they were released.

Unfortunately, Mr. Coffin did not have this opportunity, because the death penalty existed. Mr. Coffin's trial was so full of irregularities that I believe the government, through its Attorney General and Minister of Justice, should immediately act on the committee's report and recommendation. It should ask the criminal conviction review group to thoroughly review the file and make a recommendation to the minister following their investigation, that is, to dismiss the application for a judicial review and to proceed with a new trial, or to submit the case to the Court of Appeal.

The Liberal Party supported this motion in committee and supports this motion here in the House. We call on all members to support the motion debated here today and to push this government to act quickly, so that some light can finally be shed on this file.

I will not speak much longer, but I do wish to insist how important it is that we no longer have the death penalty. Should the minister put into place the group which will revise the case and which can then say that it merits a new trial or it merits the court of appeal to examine it, and in fact Mr. Coffin is found to have been wrongfully convicted, we cannot bring him back.

Thankfully, when the wrongfully convicted Guy Paul Morin, Donald Marshall and David Milgaard were convicted, there was no death penalty, so once we recognized and established the wrongful convictions, we have been able to make some reparations. It will never be sufficient but we have been able to do that.

Happily for Steven Truscott, who was convicted when the death penalty still existed and was condemned to be executed, because of his youthful age, only 14 years old, there was a public outcry at the thought of Canadian society and Canadian government executing him, and the government commuted his sentence to life. He therefore now has the possibility before the courts to determine whether in fact he as well was wrongfully convicted.

Wilbert Coffin has not had that opportunity and we as parliamentarians and as Canadians have to ensure that his family has the right and the possibility that all light be shed on the entire affair from the police investigation, to the actual trial, to the conduct of the attorney general, to the conduct of the crown prosecutor, and possibly that of the premier at the time, but definitely in terms of the legal process, in order to determine whether or not Mr. Wilbert Coffin was wrongfully convicted.

I and most Quebeckers are convinced that in fact he was wrongfully convicted, so I ask members to vote in favour of this concurrence motion.

[Young Offenders, February 2nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives will never let facts get ahead of good scare tactics.

Canadians trust their judges far more than they do the Conservatives. Youth justice requires more appropriate measures designed to rehabilitate juvenile delinquents and help them re-enter the community.

The minister will accomplish nothing by creating lifelong criminals. When will he stop his unwarranted attacks on our judges and our justice system? When?

[Young Offenders, February 2nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, there has been another backward justice announcement from the Conservative government showing that it has absolutely no interest in effective smart justice policy. The Youth Criminal Justice Act has been in force for three years and it is effective. Juvenile crime rates are falling across the country.

Why does the minister think he is more qualified to determine what penalties should be imposed on our youth offenders rather than our judges?

[The Environment, January 31st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, once again the minister refuses to answer the question.

The scientific community has spoken time and again in a united voice that action must be taken as quickly as possible to counter climate change. Our Prime Minister does not agree. He believes, and I quote, that “The Kyoto protocol does not deal with critical environmental issues”.

Will the Prime Minister admit that he was wrong or will he continue to mislead Canadians?

[Criminal Code, January 30th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that this is the first time that I stand in this House as the opposition justice critic and I am very pleased to do so.

It gives me great pleasure to speak to Bill C-32, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (impaired driving) and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

As I just said in French, this is my first speech as the official opposition's justice critic. I look forward to working with my colleagues, be they in my party or in other parties, to provide intelligent, smart solutions to all justice issues that come before this House.

In considering Bill C-32, we must look at its history in order to understand it. The history of Bill C-32 goes back quite a few years, in fact to May 1999 when the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights released a report entitled “Toward Eliminating Impaired Driving”.

The committee then recognized that drugs were a contributing factor to some fatal motor vehicle accidents. It also emphasized the need to develop better measures to detect drug impaired driving and to obtain the proper evidence allowing for the successful prosecution of individuals who drove while under the influence of drugs.

A further study on this issue was the Senate special committee on illegal drugs report entitled “Cannabis: Our Position for a Canadian Public Policy”. One of its important findings was that there was no reliable, non-intrusive, rapid roadside test for drugs. In the case of cannabis, the best way to test is through blood samples. This then obviously represents a challenge that needs to be met in order to address the problem of drug impaired driving.

In response to the 1999 report, the Department of Justice and its working group on impaired driving consulted extensively with the provinces and territories. The results of these consultations was the October 2003 release of the report entitled “Drug-Impaired Driving: Consultation Document”. This document pointed out that many drug impaired drivers were not voluntarily participating in testing. It does stress the need to develop measures that would allow police to demand that drivers suspected of being impaired by drug use would submit to testing.

The report highlighted two options. The first option was to set a legal limit on the presence of drugs on the body. The second option was to propose legislation that would improve the ability of our law enforcement, our police officers, to demand drug tests. A certified officer could demand a physical sobriety test or take a saliva or sweat sample at the roadside based on the reasonable suspicion of drug impairment. Failure on such a test would then represent reasonable grounds to conduct a more detailed evaluation and, obviously, more intrusive evaluation at a police station. The bill that is before us, Bill C-32, follows in the steps of this second option.

The House of Commons special committee report on the non-medical use of drugs released in the fall of 2003 called for Parliament to develop a strategy addressing the question of drug impaired driving. In April 2004, our then Liberal government, and it is quite coincidental I am sure that the present government bill carries the same number, reintroduced Bill C-32. That bill would have dealt with the drug impaired driving in the fashion described above. Unfortunately, the bill died on the order paper in May 2004 when an election was called.

The Liberals were re-elected, albeit as a minority government, and in November 2004 reintroduced that same bill but as Bill C-16, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (impaired driving) and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. That bill made its way to committee and was reported back to the House with some amendments. Unfortunately, that piece of legislation also died on the order paper when the election was called in November 2005.

Thus, the current minority Conservative government's Bill C-32 has followed in the footsteps taken by the previous Liberal government. The Conservatives, however, have chosen to reintroduce it with a few changes, namely, by incorporating stronger penalties than the Liberals' two previous bills had envisioned.

On the same topic, I noted that Canadian Press reported on the introduction of Bill C-2 with the following words. I am quoting from the November 22 wire which reads:

The federal Conservatives have brought in legislation to crack down on drug-impaired drivers--by resurrecting a plan first advanced by the Liberals, adding heavier fines and jail terms, and calling the result a Tory initiative.

I think that this description is accurate, and I can only commend the Tories for recognizing a great idea even when it was developed and first presented by another party, the Liberal Party when it was the government.

Now that we have discussed the background for the bill before us, we must examine the amendments it will make to the Criminal Code. The summary for Bill C-32 reads as follows:

This enactment amends the Criminal Code

(a) to create an offence of operating a motor vehicle while in possession of a controlled substance as defined in subsection 2(1) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act;

(b) to authorize specially trained peace officers to conduct tests to determine whether a person is impaired by a drug or a combination of alcohol and a drug;

(c) to authorize the taking of bodily fluids to test for the presence of alcohol or a drug;

(d) to create an offence of operating a motor vehicle with a concentration of alcohol in the blood that exceeds 80 mg of alcohol in 100 mL of blood and causing bodily harm or death to another person;

(e) to clarify what evidence a person accused of driving with a concentration of alcohol in the blood that exceeds 80 mg of alcohol in 100 mL of blood can introduce to raise a doubt that they were not committing the offence;

(f) to create an offence of refusing to provide a breath sample when the accused knows or ought to know that the accused’s operation of a motor vehicle caused an accident resulting in bodily harm to another person or death; and

(g) to increase the penalties for impaired driving.

The enactment also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.

As the Liberal justice critic, I want to say that my party takes very seriously problems of impaired driving caused by alcohol and/or other drugs. In my opinion, the proof of this is that, when we formed the government, we twice introduced a bill amending the Criminal Code to deal with this problem.

I believe the proof is there. We take this issue very seriously and we also take very seriously measures that are smart and effective and that have a good chance and even an excellent chance of achieving the intended objectives. Moreover, we support initiatives to provide services responsible for maintaining public order with concrete and effective tools to implement legislation aimed at cracking down on impaired driving caused by alcohol or other drugs.

We are therefore prepared to support Bill C-32 so that it can make its way to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. The committee could examine the bill in greater detail and summon witnesses and experts to give their own particular perspective. In addition, the committee could propose any amendments it deems necessary. However, I would like to say that we still have reservations about some aspects of this bill. We hope that the government will work constructively with all the opposition parties to address these reservations and that the most useful and most effective legislation will be adopted.

What concerns or reservations do we have about this bill?

Some hon. members have already voiced them.

The Canada Safety Council has already voiced some objections to roadside drug testing. It asks which type of drugs police would test for. Would it simply be illicit, illegal drugs, or would it also be drugs that are legal, in the sense that they are prescription drugs. The person could be in legal possession of those prescription drugs, but the effects of those drugs may cause impairment and it is clearly indicated, for instance, as part of the protocol for taking that drug.

How many of us have not come down with a bad cold or a bad infection, have been prescribed medication by our doctor and when we receive it at the pharmacy it clearly says on the label not to operate machinery or a moving vehicle while taking that medication.

The Canada Safety Council has concerns about what are the drugs that are going to be tested for and whether there will be the possibility of distinguishing between prescription drugs and illegal drugs. As well, how would we deal with the fact that there are certain drugs, like marijuana, which may linger in the body well after the initial high is over and well after the effects of impairment of one's abilities have completely dissipated but traces of the drug still remain?

The Canada Safety Council is asking these questions. How is this bill going to deal with these issues? These are questions that hopefully will be answered if this bill goes to committee.

As I said, as the Liberal critic I will be recommending to my colleagues to vote in favour to send it on to committee so that we can attempt to get answers to these questions and, if it is possible, to amend the bill. If we are given solid answers by experts who say that yes, we could do that and we could amend the legislation in such a way to ensure that it happened, then we would hope that we would get government cooperation in order to do so.

I had another question which was not answered by the parliamentary secretary during questions and comments. I asked whether or not studies had been done to determine in what percentage of cases where there has been death or injury caused by a motor vehicle and there is evidence of impairment--and let us just consider alcohol impairment--the Crown actually brought forth manslaughter charges, which includes the section of the Criminal Code that exists right now that deals with manslaughter and also includes death and injury caused by a vehicle, including impaired driving and provides for a maximum sentence of life.

I would like to know what scientific studies have been done to determine why it is that those provisions have not been used obviously sufficiently from what the parliamentary secretary said. He talked about people who are impaired causing carnage with their vehicles et cetera and that they are getting away with it because they are refusing to take the testing. Where are the problems? We have provisions right now but they appear not to be used. Why is that? What is the evidence that would show why they are not being used?

Finally, we know the government has announced that it will be placing $2 million to the benefit of our law enforcement in order to get the training and to do these roadside sobriety tests. How much money, if any, is the government planning to use to do a public education campaign?

History has shown that Canada-wide public education campaigns about impaired driving have been very well received by the public.

That is why today people have a designated driver when they spend an evening with friends or go to a party in a hall or restaurant where alcohol is served. Today, the vast majority of people resign themselves to drinking nothing. But if they do decide to drink, they have a designated driver.

Does the government plan to put money and people behind the idea of an education campaign on driving while under the influence not only of alcohol, but also drugs, for example? I would like to know. Perhaps the answers will come out during the committee hearings, if the House decides to refer this bill to committee.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to my colleagues in this House who are taking part in this debate. As I have already said, I recommend that my colleagues from all parties refer this bill to committee so that we can try to answer these questions and, if necessary, improve the bill.