House of Commons photoLost his last election, in 2015, with 31% of the vote.
Petitions February 5th, 2014
Mr. Speaker, in support of the bill I just tabled calling upon the federal government to recognize February 21 as international mother language day, I also have the privilege of tabling a petition signed by hundreds of citizens in and around my riding calling upon the Government of Canada to designate February 21 as international mother language day in recognition of the value of linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism.
International Mother Language Day Act February 5th, 2014
moved for leave to introduce Bill C-573, an act to establish International Mother Language Day.
Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to be tabling a bill today calling upon the federal government to recognize February 21 of every year as International Mother Language Day.
On that day in 1952, five students of the University of Dhaka who were protesting the imposition of Urdu on the Bengali population were killed by police. They became the martyrs of the Bengali language movement.
In 1999, UNESCO recognized February 21 as International Mother Language Day.
Every year, I host an International Mother Language Day event in my riding. I do so in part because I see in it something fundamentally Canadian, because what allowed us to be and what keeps us as one is a respect for the importance of our mother languages, because the culture of our first nations is carried forward on this land in the form of over 60 distinct languages, and because we are home to languages spoken all over this world, including Bengali, the preservation of which inspired a day that, through this bill, we can make Canadian.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)
Business of Supply February 3rd, 2014
Mr. Speaker, I have heard a lot from the Liberals and the Conservatives today about protecting the consumer, but here is the state of play after 20 years of successive Liberal and Conservative governments. The average family household debt has nearly doubled. Canadians now owe over $1,600 for every $1,000 of disposable income and so on.
In 2012, bank profits totalled nearly $30 billion. Yet, we are asked to believe that it would be an economic catastrophe for the banks to put some constraint on these ATM fees.
Meanwhile, overseas, we have other countries that have done so. The Central Bank of Ireland forbids ATM usage fees. In Austria and Finland cash withdrawals are free for those with ATM cards. The sky has not fallen.
How do we reconcile what we are hearing from the Conservatives and the Liberals today in the House about a potential economic catastrophe from this motion with what is happening overseas, where these kinds of measures have actually been implemented?
Petitions December 10th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, like my neighbour the member for Toronto—Danforth, I too am proud to table Kempton's legacy petition in the House.
I share in the hope that from this petition might emerge a positive legacy from the deaths of too many youth in my city of Toronto, like Kempton Howard. Kempton's legacy petition calls in part on the Government of Canada to ensure stable, reliable, long-term funding for programs that help divert youth away from gangs and crimes, and help keep our streets and communities safe.
Petitions December 9th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, the second petition calls upon the Government of Canada to block any changes to the tripartite agreement that would allow jet airplanes or extensions of the Toronto Island airport runways, to stop subsidizing Porter Airlines, and to compel the federal Toronto Port Authority to pay millions of dollars of back taxes owed to the people of Toronto.
Petitions December 9th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, it is my honour today to rise and present two petitions signed by citizens from in and around my riding of Beaches—East York.
The first petition calls upon the Government of Canada to restore protection of the Don River, including its east and west branches, to guarantee the continued right to navigation on all of Canada's lakes and rivers and to commit to meaningful public consultation prior to approval of any project.
Committees of the House December 9th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, there have been consultations among the parties, and if you seek it I hope you will find unanimous consent for the following motion.
I move that, in the opinion of the House the government should recognize February 21 as International Mother Language Day.
Drug-Free Prisons Act November 25th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, the short answer is nothing. With regard to the longer question, I would like to go back to the question from the member for Yukon about the sky falling.
The numbers we on this side of the House have been citing with respect to increasing prison populations come from the Correctional Investigator. There were 15,100 inmates in federal prisons as of July last year. The Correctional Investigator anticipates there will be 18,684, based on new Conservative public safety and justice legislation, for example, mandatory minimum sentences.
The closing of certain facilities and the increasing population is adding to the problem of double-bunking, and directive 55 makes this the new norm. Again, this does nothing to help with public safety and the chance for offenders to come out after their time served to be productive members of our community.
Drug-Free Prisons Act November 25th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, I find it very rich for the member opposite to be accusing the NDP of fearmongering. The government constantly raises the fears of the public in an effort to raise funds for their party coffers.
What we are pointing to is in fact a very real situation of a high level of offenders in our prison system having drug problems. What we are proposing are real solutions for rehabilitation and treatment of those who are incarcerated with substance abuse problems, so that when they get released the likelihood of reoffending is lessened and the chances of improved public safety is greater.
With respect to the budget numbers that the member threw around, it is interesting to note that the correctional services overall budget cut announced last year was almost $300 million. At the best, the correctional services devotes only about 2%, or about $1,000 per prisoner per year, to these core correctional programs that the member references.
This is hardly enough to improve public safety and deal with the issue of drugs in our prisons.
Drug-Free Prisons Act November 25th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to speak to Bill C-12, as members will be aware.
However, if I may take advantage of my great privilege to speak in this place, I will preface my comments with special wishes for my friend, Nancy Mutch. Nancy for many years volunteered in Jack Layton's constituency office, and since Jack's death, has volunteered in mine. She has a golden heart, but for a couple of weeks now has been in Toronto East General Hospital under great medical care but engaged in a difficult struggle. She has always paid special attention to what goes on in this place, so I am hoping Nancy will hear me say, when I say it here, to keep fighting, that we love her, and that we need her back on the phones.
Drug addiction in our prison system is a serious problem. We have well established that so far this afternoon. It is serious, because it is linked to inmate violence and gang activity in our prisons. It threatens the safety of our correctional officers, makes it difficult for offenders to effectively reintegrate into the community once they are released, and leaves them much more likely to reoffend.
However, serious problems need serious solutions. Not only does Bill C-12 not offer any serious solutions to the drug problems in our prisons, it in fact offers no solutions at all. It has been a long-standing practice at the Parole Board to use drug tests as a tool to evaluate an offender's eligibility for release. All this bill would do is validate this practice. It is, in effect, another lame effort by the Conservatives to appear tough on crime and tough on drugs without doing anything at all to help us solve the complex problems related to drug use in our prisons.
This bill has been called, so accurately and evocatively, bumper sticker policy by my colleague from Gatineau, the justice critic for our caucus.
The Conservatives' effort to eliminate drugs from our prisons has been a remarkable failure. Proving themselves once again to be the great mis-managers of the public purse, the Conservatives have now spent more than $120 million on this interdiction effort, and according to the Correctional Investigator, this spending has had no impact on the prevalence of drugs and drug use in our prisons.
To sincerely address the problem of drug use in prisons, the Correctional Service needs to develop a proper intake assessment for all new inmates that can evaluate their needs for addiction and mental health programming and rehabilitation. It is only by providing proper addiction and mental health treatment and education to offenders that we can actually have an impact on the prevalence of drugs, violence, and gangs in our prisons.
According to the Correctional Investigator, the Conservatives' current anti-drug strategy lacks three key elements. First is an integrated and cohesive link between interdiction and suppression activities and prevention, treatment, and harm-reduction measures. Second is a comprehensive public reporting mechanism. Third is a well-defined evaluation, review, and performance plan to measure the overall effectiveness of these investments.
The Correctional Investigator's report goes on to say
A “zero-tolerance” stance to drugs in prison, while perhaps serving as an effective deterrent posted at the entry point of a penitentiary, simply does not accord with the facts of crime and addiction in Canada or elsewhere in the world. Harm reduction measures within a public health and treatment orientation offer a far more promising, cost-effective and sustainable approach to reducing subsequent crime and victimization.
Not only have the Conservatives made no progress in improving the drug situation in our prisons, they have actually made the situation worse. While the Conservatives have been happy to waste millions of dollars of public money on “drug-free prisons”, despite a consensus among experts that these efforts are ineffective, they have made cutbacks in core correctional programming that includes support for treatment for addiction and mental illness. Today federal offenders with drug-addiction problems face long wait lists before they can get treatment. There are currently over 2,400 prisoners waiting for addiction treatment in our country in federal prisons, and this situation is absolutely unacceptable.
It is unacceptable, because too often this results in offenders being released from prison without ever having access to appropriate treatment for their addictions. This leaves them more likely to commit crime and end up in the correctional system once again.
While the Conservatives like to think that they are tough on crime and they like to put forward empty gestures such as the bill before us, their policies have actually increased the chances that offenders will be released from prison as addicted to drugs as they were on the day they were arrested. Our communities have become less safe, not more safe, because of these policies.
Last year, the number of people incarcerated in Canada reached an all-time high, with over 15,000 federal inmates, and that number is projected to rise to almost 19,000 by next year. Despite these trends, budgets for addiction treatment and counselling in our corrections system have been decreasing.
Our prisons are becoming more and more overcrowded, with the practice of double-bunking increasingly becoming the norm. This is a situation that fosters the proliferation of gangs and violence in our corrections system. This situation puts the safety and security of our federal corrections officers in jeopardy.
The federal government has a duty to ensure that work conditions are safe for every citizen under federal jurisdiction in this country, but it has a particularly sacred duty to ensure the security of those who put their lives on the line for the public, such as the federal police, our military and corrections employees.
Conservative cutbacks and jail overcrowding have made the job of our corrections officials more dangerous, according to the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers. A recent article in the Huffington Post quotes corrections officer Trevor Davis, who works at the William Head Institution on Vancouver Island, as saying, “[The Prime Minister] wants to be tough on crime...but he’s not giving us the resources to do it properly”. As Mr. Davis puts it, “[The Tories] are making our jails unsafe.”
We talked about this matter this morning at length in the context of Bill C-5, about the current, and frankly, previous governments' disregard for the issue of workplace health and safety. Let me come back to Bill C-12 and the bumper sticker approach to drug-free prisons. The bill would not render our prisons drug free. It would simply turn practice into law and leave a dire situation, the need for assessment and treatment for the incarcerated in the interest of public safety, untouched.
According to the report of the Correctional Investigator, close to two thirds of offenders were under the influence of intoxicants when they committed the offence leading to their incarceration. That is a statistic closely connected with the fact that 80% of offenders arrive at a federal penal institution with a past history of substance abuse. The bill would change none of that. It would send offenders back into the population without ever seriously addressing the circumstances that gave rise to their offences.
That is the stuff of this government and its bumper sticker politics. It is beneath this place and all of us, but it is to this kind of politics from the Conservative government that we have unfortunately become accustomed.
With that, I welcome any questions.