Marlene Jennings

[Access to Information, September 22nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister is not saying is that the reports were released without the names. Names have only been required since the arrival of this new minority Conservative government. This is the truth.

The media now tells us that on March 1, 2006, the PMO was given the option of no longer receiving those emails from the PCO. However, one week later, two more names of individuals employed by the PMO were added. This is proof that the statements of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister were false.

Your—

[Status of Women, September 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the minister has just proved that the previous federal government provided funds to women’s shelters.

My question is addressed to the chair of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. Will her committee do everything in its power to ensure not only that the Women’s Program continues—in spite of this minority Conservative government—but that any possible amendments to the criteria for awarding grants will not jeopardize the survival and the work of women’s groups that represent thousands of Canadian women?

[Status of Women, September 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the previous government listened to more than 52% of the population: the women of Canada. The minister is wrong when she says that federal funds do not go to women’s shelters because there has always been federal funding for those shelters. The evidence is there. Groups that represent and provide services to thousands of women across Canada will have to close their doors because this minority Conservative government has cut their lifeline. Organizations have been waiting for months to meet with the minister.

How can she explain this situation to—

[Access to Information, September 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's Director of Communications and other members of his staff got the name of an individual who made a Department of Public Safety access to information request.

Disclosing the name of a person requesting access to information is unacceptable. It is against the law. Does the minority Conservative government understand that? Will the Prime Minister finally send a clear message that the law must be obeyed?

[Access to Information, September 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, this minority Conservative government is mocking our Canadian laws. Now we understand why journalists have to get their names in the Prime Minister's little black book before they can ask him any questions.

This morning, we found out that the Prime Minister's Director of Communications gets the names of people who make access to information requests.

Will the Prime Minister ask his Director of Communications to resign immediately?

[Firearms Registry, September 19th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Public Safety would rather act ideologically than protect Canadians, no matter what facts he has been given.

Yesterday, police forces illustrated the usefulness of the gun registry by arresting a potential copycat of the Dawson shooting before he went into action at his school.

Will the minister announce that the firearms registry will be fully maintained in order to protect his fellow citizens and to protect our children?

[Firearms Registry, September 19th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is interested in facts. Let us listen to some fact.

The Prime Minister was wrong when he said that the gun registry would not prevent the kind of tragedy we witnessed in Montreal. Yesterday, Quebec police, using information from Canada's gun registry, arrested a teenager who planned a copycat of the Dawson College shooting. Tragedy has been averted and lives have been saved because of the gun registry.

How many examples does the Prime Minister need before he listens to the police, Canadians, Premier Charest and parents who want the gun registry maintained because it protects--

[Canada Elections Act, September 18th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I have one very simple question. Bill C-16 purports to be a bill about fixed elections and purports to provide the security that in the future there will be elections every fourth year in the month of October, starting in October 2009, and that the only time there would be a “pre-election” would be if the government lost confidence.

So on the one hand, in saying that, the party sitting opposite me, the government, the Conservative Party that forms the government, is admitting in fact that it is not quite fixed election dates, because the Prime Minister can go to the Governor General at any point and recommend that the Governor General dissolve Parliament. The Governor General has full authority to dissolve the government at her discretion.

My question, then, is this. Given that, and it is a fact, would the hon. member be in favour of amendments to Bill C-16 that would clearly describe on what kinds of votes of confidence a prime minister would be able to go to the Governor General and recommend premature dissolution of Parliament and limit those occasions?

Would the member opposite be in favour of such an amendment? It would state, for instance, that only votes of confidence on a budget would provide justification for a prime minister to go before the Governor General and ask for a premature dissolution of Parliament under Bill C-16? Would the member opposite be in favour of that?

[Canada Elections Act, September 18th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, there are several ways. One of the ways would be, while not limiting the Governor General's power and authority to dissolve Parliament at his or her discretion upon recommendation of a prime minister, to include clauses that would actually specify the reasons or the justification that a prime minister could legally have to recommend to the Governor General premature dissolution of Parliament.

We would need to actually specify the reasons with which a prime minister would be able to go to the Governor General prior to the date that has been fixed under the bill to recommend premature dissolution. It might be that it would not be a vote of confidence. Would that not be novel? It might be that it would not be a confidence vote because maybe the party that is in power has suddenly gone through the roof in the polls and knows that there is something bad coming down the pipe that maybe nobody else knows about, so maybe it should call an election now.

Nothing in Bill C-16 would stop that party, which is now the ruling party, from doing exactly what it accused and denounced the Liberal Party of doing when we were in power. We would want to look very carefully at including amendments that would limit the reasons that a prime minister could give to the Governor General to recommend an early dissolution of Parliament.

[Canada Elections Act, September 18th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting, talking about electoral reform, because Bill C-16 has absolutely nothing to do with electoral reform. If in fact it had something to do with electoral reform, it would then be proposing an amendment to our Constitution to limit the authority of the Governor General and therefore that of the Prime Minister to call an election at any time. Therefore, I have a real problem with this. I want to see the bill go to committee so that we can amend it.

If we are in fact for real fixed elections, and Bill C-16 is about real fixed elections, it would then mean going to all of the provinces for a constitutional amendment in order to limit the authority, the power and the royal prerogative of the Governor General to dissolve Parliament at any time at her or his discretion.