Matthew Dubé

[Public Safety, November 6th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-59, as those parents said today at their press conference, does nothing to fix the problem that they face every single time they try to travel. I would ask the minister if he wants to go in front of those families to tell them, “Do not worry, your child is not on the list.” These are the false positives that are being lived by thousands of Canadians.

Children, business people, and even veterans are finding travelling difficult. They are being humiliated, profiled, and are living in fear of ending up on the no-fly list.

Again I ask the minister: will she fully fund an actual redress system, yes or no?

[Points of Order, November 3rd, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same point of order. I listened with great interest to the hon. member from Carleton.

The NDP is also concerned about the abusive use of omnibus bills that we have been seeing from this government over the past two years, despite the promises that it made. As a result, we have an interest in speaking to this point of order. I simply want to tell you that we will do so as soon as possible.

[Privacy, November 3rd, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, regulatory power and good intentions are all well and good, but if we really want companies to be more vigilant in protecting the private lives of Canadians, the reality is that the government has to go after what is most important to them: their wallets. That is exactly what the Privacy Commissioner is asking when he talks about fining businesses, like Equifax, that compromise the privacy of Canadians.

Will the minister follow up on the Privacy Commissioner's recommendation and take the necessary steps to actually begin fining large corporations that compromise the privacy of Canadians?

[Access to Information, November 3rd, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, despite the Liberals' promises to be more open and transparent, what we have is an Information Commissioner who is getting a growing number of complaints for requests for information that are being denied before Bill C-58 is even passed by the House. It is completely unacceptable. The bill has not even become law yet. However, the commissioner is proposing amendments to improve the bill.

Will the Liberals keep their promises and work with us, the NDP, and with the Information Commissioner to truly improve access to information?

[Points of Order, November 2nd, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, although we accept the parliamentary secretary's apology, I want to emphasize that he should be apologizing not for the way the member for Richmond Centre feels, but for the way he, the parliamentary secretary, acted. That is a very important distinction.

As the Speaker has said, the custom of the House is to accept apologies and deal with it afterwards. I think it is worth pointing out that when it is a parliamentary secretary who represents a minister of the crown, it is absolutely appropriate that the opposition feel comfortable doing their jobs of questioning and holding the government to account without being accosted by someone who is representing cabinet.

I hope this will provide an opportunity for members of the other side to reflect on that kind of action and to recognize that no one party in this House has a monopoly on righteousness and appropriate behaviour. With that, I will not question the member's intentions and will accept the apology. Just know that when we hear words to the effect, “apologize if I offended someone”, that is certainly not the way we hope people would go about this type of thing in the future.

[Correctional Service Canada, October 31st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, after the troubling revelations of harassment at CSIS, the Correctional Service Canada is now at the heart of a scandal at the Edmonton jail. The assaults and threats against female correctional officers are unacceptable.

We know CSC has suspended the offending individuals, but my question to the minister is this. Can he assure us that such behaviour is not happening in other federal establishments, and will he undertake investigations to be absolutely certain?

[Criminal Code, October 27th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his great work on this file, at committee in particular. It is a complicated issue. The question he asks and the comments he makes are very interesting and important. I will admit that even I have sometimes heard contradictory information with respect to what level of THC is required in the blood to be in a state of impairment and, as is the case with this bill, to lead to impaired driving. I think that is certainly a huge challenge. As my colleague mentioned, the fact that the government does not have the answer to that is extremely concerning.

The issue here, and I will speak as the NDP's public safety critic, goes back to the work that policemen do. If we, as legislators, are grappling with these issues, and if the government does not seem to have the answers, then obviously police officers will need more than that. They want that fact-based information as well. My colleague mentioned about young people needing credible information. Certainly, police officers, when doing the work prescribed to them by a bill like Bill C-46, would also need that kind of credible information. The government does not have it right now. Therefore, I think it has a lot of homework to do before we can get this right.

[Criminal Code, October 27th, 2017]

It is certainly an important point, Madam Speaker. Again, this is the failing of the approach that the Liberals have taken. This is a complicated issue. It requires many people around the table, many of whom feel that they were either not at the table or not there long enough to properly execute what needs to be done.

I will go back to what we heard from police. They said that they need more training, that they want to be able to do the job they need to do. The reason why that is so important is because it is two-pronged. On the one hand, it goes without saying that better police training will go a long way to ensuring public safety. At the same time, if we also want to protect people's rights and make sure we are not getting these false positives and things, that is another reason for why training is so important.

There are all of these issues, whether money, education programs, training, consultations with the provinces, how it is going to be sold, etc. This has been one of the biggest issues with the Liberals plan, and it is unfortunate that the provinces have been stuck with picking up the pieces. In most cases that we have seen so far, they are doing their darndest, if I can say it that way. At the same time, it certainly shows a failed approach by the Liberal government, something it said it would do better.

[Criminal Code, October 27th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. I also take this opportunity to congratulate her on her work on this issue. She has had the opportunity to ask the government a number of questions in the House of Commons on this very topic. However, the responses have been less than convincing, not only in terms of figures, as I mentioned in my speech, but also regarding taxation.

After all, the government could have committed to dedicating a certain percentage of the proceeds to education and prevention. It could have discussed and negotiated with the provinces to ensure that they do the same on their end. I know that the various ministries involved in the Quebec government have talked about the importance of education and prevention, and have spoken out about this shortcoming regarding legalization more broadly.

This is directly related to Bill C-46, because anything we do to try to tackle the scourge of impaired driving must include education and prevention; I want to reiterate that. After all, we do not want to be left only to deal with the consequences; rather, we want to prevent them altogether.

[Criminal Code, October 27th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I absolutely share that concern. As I said at the outset of my speech, one of the criticisms we have had with this plan is on the inadequate consultations that have taken place with the provinces. We see how some of them are reacting, particularly when I look at my home province of Quebec, for example.

That point is even more important when we consider that, both in Quebec and Ontario, with such large populations, we have provincial police forces that are obviously going to be ensuring road safety and doing roadside stops. They need to be working with their provincial ministries, which the government seems to have left twisting in the wind.

I also believe that police officers will be the first ones to talk about the virtues of education and prevention. Police officers do not want to make these arrests. They, as we do, want to see prevention, so that we do not see lives lost in the first place.

How will education happen? It is hard to say right now. Certainly the provinces will bear a big load of that burden, which is part of the failure that the Liberal government has had on this front, despite our support, more broadly speaking, of legalization.