Matthew Dubé

[Combating Terrorism Act, April 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, these nuances are problematic, especially in light of the decisions that the court has previously made. I will come back to what needs to be done in terms of the court's decisions.

It is extremely disappointing that the Liberal Party supports the bill. We want to hear what the court has to say, but we also believe that, as parliamentarians, we have a responsibility to address the problem before it reaches that point.

I will repeat exactly what my colleagues have already said concerning the lawyer at the Department of Justice. Fortunately, he spoke publicly about the fact that the government was not conducting any prior verification. We are demonstrating due diligence to ensure that things do not reach that point. We have responsibilities as legislators.

[Combating Terrorism Act, April 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, they are two separate issues.

I do not want to put myself forward as an expert in the law, but what is important here is the issue of detention and the definition. I am referring, for example, to the fact that there is a definition under which it is possible to arrest people who have not necessarily been accused of an act of terrorism.

Without wanting to get involved in another debate, I would like to make a distinction between what I understood of the issue and the member's comments. There are two different issues at play.

I will stick to the debate on Bill S-7. When we talk about civil liberties, the key issue is the way in which people are defined when it comes to detention. That is what is important here, today. Once again, I stress that I am not an expert in the law. However, this nuance is extremely important.

[Combating Terrorism Act, April 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for this warm welcome.

Considering what we are dealing with, what happened yesterday and what happened in Boston a week ago, I want to begin by offering my condolences to the families and loved ones of the Boston bombing victims. I am speaking on behalf of all my constituents, regardless of their political allegiance, and I also want to thank all those who helped foil the plot that we were informed about yesterday.

I travel regularly on VIA Rail, and I am pleased to see that people whom we do not always see in action, are doing an exceptional job, and I thank them for that.

Having said that, it is important to reflect on this issue, even though it is always a bit awkward to ask political questions after such incidents, because it may be interpreted as partisanship. However, that is precisely what we are seeing here today.

Since the beginning of the 41st Parliament, the government keeps resorting to gag orders and closure motions. We have to ask ourselves if this is really a priority for the government, considering that it has so often tried to ram bills through, under the pretext that they are important for the economy or for public safety. The reasons given by the government are sometimes trivial and are sometimes made up. We must ask ourselves that very important question. We must ask ourselves whether it is truly appropriate to suddenly bring this debate back in order to score political points.

We must also ask ourselves another question. If the minister is serious about improving legal actions relating to terrorism, why did he not present the bill himself in the House of Commons? Why delegate such an important task to the Senate, which is unelected and unaccountable to the public?

We were elected by the public as part of their civil rights to represent them. Given his numerous responsibilities, rising in the House to introduce a bill is the least a minister of State can do. This was another concern we had about this bill, and again it makes us wonder how serious the government is about this issue.

The Conservatives claim to be the great defenders of public safety and like to spit on the work of the opposition parties, particularly the work of the NDP. We have good reason to wonder whether they are serious about this matter, when they send bills to the Senate and impose gag orders.

I am very interested in this issue. At the risk of sounding young to some of my colleagues, the events of September 11, 2001, had a tremendous impact on me and affected a lot of people. Those events marked the beginning of my interest in politics. I was a teenager then. It is actually a big deal for me to admit that in a debate in the House. However, it is true, because I find it very interesting to look at it from that angle. As I result, I followed all the debates around those events and they sparked my interest in politics. We are all familiar with the debates that were held in the U.S. on the infamous patriot act and all those debates on civil rights and civil liberties, as well as constitutional issues.

In Canada, we have not been immune to those issues. A lawyer once said that just because unfortunate events take place and we do not support certain legal decisions, does not mean we automatically have to change the law. It is important to keep that in mind for debates like this.

After all, we cannot say that we want events like that to occur. Those attacks are clearly tragic events. It is shameful that members of our society think about doing such things, but we have to be very careful before we make any changes. The fact that a tragedy takes place does not mean that we must automatically change things. We must really take the time to look at existing measures. Before we change the law, we must look at what we can do for the people who are already doing this work.

Yesterday, members of the RCMP and various public security forces thwarted a plot despite the budget cuts imposed by a government that claims to be the champion of public safety.

In recent months, the NDP has raised a number of questions in the House. The members for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca and Alfred-Pellan, our public safety critics, and the member for Gatineau, our justice critic, have asked questions about why the government has been talking up public safety while cutting staff at organizations that are working very hard to maintain this safety.

Before making major changes that will violate civil liberties, we must ensure that people already on the ground who are using existing measures are well equipped to continue doing what members of every political persuasion recognize as excellent work. This is a fundamental issue in this debate, given the major changes being proposed.

My colleague, the member for Brossard—La Prairie, and all my colleagues who spoke before me, talked about the debates on public safety that have taken place in the House over the past 10 years, since 9/11. The issue was whether or not a person should be detained for 72 hours.

Is it appropriate for Bill S-7 to be so broad in scope that it allows people who are not even suspected of committing terrorist acts to be detained? In committee, we saw that this was deliberate on the part of the government.

In my opinion, it is very disturbing to know, as my colleague from Gatineau said, that the government wants to keep things vague when an amendment is suggested. That is very problematic. We must be very careful when introducing bills about safety that could violate civil liberties. We have to be as clear as possible, no matter what our political leanings. We have to protect people's safety while ensuring that we continue to live in a free society that protects fundamental rights and civil liberties, which are extremely important.

The Supreme Court of Canada rendered a decision along those same lines. Since it pertains to the subject of debate, I would like to tell the House that I had a conversation with my hon. colleague from Toronto—Danforth. He already mentioned this to the House. He told me that despite the Supreme Court decision, there are some good points in the existing legislation and that it is very important for us to keep in mind that, as parliamentarians, we have a duty to make our own decisions.

I think it is important that we not view the Supreme Court as a body that decides for Parliament, but rather one that works in co-operation with Parliament to ensure that our laws properly reflect the values of our society.

For this reason, if the court has a problem with a bill, it can simply return it to Parliament. It does not always prescribe corrections, if I remember correctly from my courses on political and constitutional issues. It is important to have this dialogue. This debate has been going on for many years.

In 2007, about five years ago, it was noted that legislation proposed in the past had not changed anything in terms of people's safety and that the existing legislation was more than adequate.

I would therefore ask the government to reconsider its proposed legislation. We cannot support this bill because it infringes on civil liberties.

The government needs to take a good look in the mirror and decide to continue to give the necessary resources to the people we saw hard at work yesterday. That proves that they are doing an excellent job. The tools are already available to them. We need to continue to work with what we have. We should not be trying to make any major changes like the ones proposed in this bill. Those changes will achieve nothing and will only violate our civil liberties.

In closing, I want to point out once again that regardless of the political debates we might have, I think we all agree that we need to fight terrorism and protect Canadians. Let us do so responsibly. That is crucial to protecting the values of our society.

[Combating Terrorism Act, April 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague spoke about this at the beginning of his speech, but I would like to give him the opportunity to speak some more about the fact that the government seems to want to make this issue a priority.

Yet, the minister did not feel it was necessary to introduce the bill himself; he left it to the Senate. What is more, it was tabled a week after the events in Boston.

Is my colleague disappointed that the government is not taking this more seriously given the many times it has invoked closure since the start of the 41st Parliament and given the fact that this issue seems urgent because of what we saw yesterday and what happened in Boston a week ago? Instead, it introduces bills in the Senate and waits so that it can use them to score political points.

[Taxation, April 19th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, as always, we are proud to vote against a budget that only increases Canadians' cost of living.

Fishing, a proud Quebec and Canadian tradition, is another sport being squeezed by the Conservatives. The price of fishing rods, reels and line will all go up. Millions of Canadians preparing to go trout fishing in a month's time will have to pay more thanks to the Conservatives.

Why do the Conservatives want to impose such a high tax on fishing?

[Taxation, April 19th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, NDP MPs rose not to take away Canadian jobs, and that is what the Conservatives' mismanagement is doing. They should look at themselves in the mirror.

Speaking of mismanagement, it is still costing Canadians dearly. The Conservatives have raised tariffs on almost everything while trying to distract people by claiming to reduce tariffs on hockey equipment, but hockey helmets, essential safety equipment, are still subject to tariffs. Budget 2013 will likely raise the price of hockey helmets.

Why are Conservatives raising prices and taxing hockey players' safety equipment?

[Business of Supply, April 16th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I find it curious that the member continues to focus on the eight letters written by NDP members. He does not seem to understand one thing, however. It is not that we do not want foreign workers; we do not want a repeat of what happened with pilots, for example.

I am talking about the Sunwing pilots, some of whom live in my riding. They are laid off during the so-called off-season. Then, the company hires foreign pilots and pays them less. The company saves money and gives discounts to customers who want to travel south during the off-season. In the end, the company comes out ahead. It is incredibly dishonest.

We want to see improvements to the program, but it is not true that these people are making the same amount of money. I do not know how else to put it. And basing arguments on letters written by members, without understanding the context in which they were written, is obvious intellectual dishonesty.

I think that, first, the member should apologize for using this argument. Second, I would ask him to explain why a company such as Sunwing behaves the way it does, laying off Canadians and then turning around and hiring foreign workers, on the pretext that it is the off-season.

[Nuclear Terrorism Act, March 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, I missed my colleague's speech because of the House schedule.

I would still like to ask him a question, which I believe gets to the heart of what we are trying to do with this bill.

While this issue is a challenge for our country, it still involves international treaties and commitments we have made regarding those treaties.

I would ask him to speak about how we hope that this bill is a signal that Canada will begin to do more to honour its international commitments.

I would also like him to demonstrate how our international reputation is waning and how the NDP's vision is quite different.

[The Budget, March 26th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.

To those who are saying that there were no tax increases, I think that Mouvement Desjardins in Quebec might have something to say about that. This budget does increase taxes on this important economic engine.

Let us talk about infrastructure, one of the points my colleague focused on. I find it intriguing that the government is investing $53 billion in a supposedly new fund, the building Canada fund, even though the country's infrastructure deficit is $123 billion. I think it will be hard to get this deficit under control with so little money, over the course of 10 years, no less.

The Fédération québécoise des municipalités, whose board of directors includes mayors from my riding, opposed this budget for exactly those reasons. Urban sprawl is a significant issue where I come from. People are leaving Montreal and moving to the suburbs. We are desperately in need here, and the budget does not do enough.

I would like to hear what my colleague thinks about this issue. How will the government try to eliminate the deficit with so little investment?

[Petitions, March 26th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour of tabling a petition that was sent to me by a Saint-Basile-le-Grand resident concerning this government's botched and unacceptable employment insurance reform. She works in the academic community at a Montreal university. There has been very little discussion about that particular community in the context of this reform, but people in the academic environment, teachers, staff, and so on, will be greatly affected by it.

It is my pleasure to table this petition that she signed and circulated among her colleagues in Montreal and on Montreal's south shore. This highlights just how much Quebeckers have mobilized against this reform, as have many other Canadians. I am very proud to table this petition in the hopes that the government will acknowledge it and cancel this unacceptable reform.