Megan Leslie

[Petitions, May 31st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition today from petitioners from around the Halifax and Dartmouth areas who are calling upon the government to restore funding to KAIROS.

The petitioners state that whereas the programs delivered by KAIROS benefit hundreds of thousands of people in marginalized communities who are facing humanitarian crises, as well as political oppression, and who urgently need these funds and services, and whereas this decision cuts funding to many projects, including a legal clinic to assist women who are victims of the ongoing violence in the Congo, African youth organizations, a women's organization protecting against human rights abuses in Colombia, grassroots local support to peace and human rights work, women in Israel and Palestinian territories who work as partners for peace in the Middle East and various environmental initiatives, therefore, the petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to immediately restore its funding relationship with KAIROS and to fund KAIROS overseas programs for the period 2010-2013.

Both the petitioners and I look forward to the minister's response.

[Health, May 31st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the Assisted Human Reproduction Agency of Canada is supposed to uphold ethical principles, carefully monitor scientific advances in this complex field and protect Canadian families. However, since being created, it has done very little licensing or regulatory work. Over the last month, three of the agency's directors have resigned. We do not know what is going on because it is being muzzled.

Will the government tell Canadians what its plan is to bring real accountability and transparency to this agency?

[May 26th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, our foreign aid is nowhere near the 0.7% of GDP in the millennium development goals and we renege on our promises to get there the minute the G8 photo op is over, each and every time. The message that we are sending is that women do not count unless they are mothers.

Do members know what a real plan looks like? This is what a real plan should look like. First, Canada should use its position as host of the G8 and G20 to take a leadership role, a global leadership role towards improving maternal and child health in the developing world by: one, committing significant new funds, separate from existing commitments, to build on successful international health interventions; two, by moving toward doubling our contribution to the global fund to fight HIV-AIDS, TB and malaria; and three, by ensuring that Canadian support for maternal health in the developing world includes a commitment to strengthening sexual and reproductive health care services, including family planning and safe abortion where it is legal.

This is a real plan. Will the government act on it?

[May 26th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, on March 26 I asked the government about its plans to include contraceptive health in its G8 child and maternal health initiative. Since then the government has conceded that access to contraceptives should be included. I am very pleased that it has realized that access to contraception can reduce maternal mortality by 70%.

However, the government has continued to refuse access to abortion under the plan, despite knowing that more than half a million women die every year in developing countries because of unwanted pregnancies, including 55,000 women from botched abortions. We should note that these figures are based on reporting rates that are traditionally very poor.

This is completely unacceptable, but of even more concern, according to the Canadian International Development Agency, is that 2.5 million teenagers worldwide have unsafe abortions, and those young women face, to a very significant degree, serious complications that are often life threatening.

No one is fooled about the underlying reasons for this. It is clearly ideologically based. Because of this, lives are at risk and the cycle of links between poverty and child and maternal health issues continues.

The government ignored advice from domestic and international experts when it excluded abortion funding from its G8 maternal and child health initiative, including CIDA, UNICEF and World Vision.

The risk of a woman dying as a result of pregnancy or childbirth is one in seven in the poorest parts of the world, but it is more than 80% preventable, and this is what the Royal Society of Canada is saying. To go back to contraception, this week it said:

Provision of effective contraception for approximately 200 million who have none will prevent 23 million unplanned births, 22 million induced abortions and 14,000 pregnancy-related maternal deaths each year.

This evidence is so irrefutable, it is there in black and white, but when I originally asked the government a question about contraception and maternal health, it said it would not even fund contraception. Now it says yes; but do we trust it to keep its promises?

Further, the government does not have the support of Canadians on this issue. The Canadian Press-Harris/Decima poll found this month that only 30% of respondents would support the government's decision excluding abortion funding from the G8 initiative.

Thus the government is rejecting the advice of Canadians, it is rejecting the advice of experts, and it is rejecting the advice of other G8 countries and G8 governments, like the U.S. and the U.K. who have come out against our government's decision.

Further addressing child and maternal health, we have to get serious about poverty. We need to come together on this issue as we approach the deadline for the millennium development goals that aim to reduce extreme poverty around the world by 2015. We need to increase funding to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, all of which have links to child and maternal health. The Canadian share would be about $700 million over the next three years.

While Canada has followed through on its 2005 commitments to increase aid to Africa, we continue to be at risk of falling back to previous levels of inaction, because the government is freezing its current contributions at 2010 levels for five years.

All of these issues are linked. Therefore, my question to the government is, will it stop with its ideologically driven agenda and take a comprehensive approach to child and maternal health in the global south?

[Health, May 25th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, since 2006 the infant mortality rate in Canada has skyrocketed and poverty is the underlying cause for this increase.

It creates barriers to accessing health care, health education, obstetric care and good nutrition. The problem is particularly acute in Nunavut where the infant mortality rate is four times higher than the national average.

How many more lives will be lost before the government takes action? When will the government get serious about addressing the direct link between poverty and health?

[Consumer Product Safety, May 11th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, parents across the country are checking their medicine cabinets this week and dealing with the latest product recall. This time it is a children's pain reliever.

The recall by Johnson & Johnson is another example of how lax regulation can lead to dangerous consequences. Canada has abysmal product safety laws. It is time that the government stepped up. Voluntary recalls are not enough.

When will the government get serious about protecting Canadians from dangerous tainted products?

[Canadian Human Rights Act, May 10th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise to speak to Bill C-389 today. I am so proud to have seconded the bill that was introduced by my colleague the member for Burnaby—Douglas, who is an incredible advocate for trans rights and human rights for Canadians.

The bill would bring Canada closer to providing the respect owed and the recognition of rights owed to the transgendered community by adding the terms gender identity and gender expression to the Canadian Human Rights Act as prohibited grounds of discrimination.

Human rights continue to be contentious in the country. Equality for all is somehow seen as a threat to the few and compassion is sometimes a very scarce commodity. We need to reframe the debate around human rights in Canada. Words like tolerance and accommodation, which imply some sort of undesired obligation, need to be replaced with words like respect and dignity.

In short, we need to be kinder to each other. We need to respect differences. Equality should be fostered through social, economic and environmental justice. Our human rights codes should reflect our pursuit of justice and we have the opportunity in this parliamentary session to do just that.

Why would we add these terms as prohibited grounds for discrimination? Gender identity is a person's innate feeling of being male, female, both genders, neither or in between. It is not a reference to people's biological sex or their sexual orientation. Identity is something to be respected and honoured and gender identity is no different. Gender expression is the expression of that inner identity. It is the freedom to be, plain and simple, one's self.

These terms, though they seem very simple on their face, are difficult for some people to grasp. Inclusion of these terms aims to address issues of sexism in the country, issues of homophobia and of transgressing traditional teachings.

It is telling that this is the first time that legislation of this kind has been debated in the House of Commons. There has not been equal progress toward equality for the trans community as there has been for other marginalized groups.

Fear and prejudice has delayed this human rights journey and delay has meant that trans people have been discriminated against. They have been subject to discrimination. They have been subject to prejudice. They have been subject to harassment and violence every day.

Trans people are victims of violent acts, such as assault and murder, for no justifiable reason. They are regularly denied things we all take for granted, like access to health care and housing, the ability to obtain identification documents, access to washrooms and other gendered spaces and the ability to acquire and maintain employment.

I have a friend who asked me to write a letter explaining the case law on the use of washrooms for transgendered people. She carries this letter around in her purse so she can pull it out and use it whenever she needs. Imagine the indignity of having to have a letter in one's purse or wallet explaining that the use of the washroom is allowed. Imagine the indignity of being challenged to use a washroom and having to dig out a letter that has some official law firm logo on the top so someone will take him or her seriously and recognize that the individual does have a right to use the gendered space.

All of this can be addressed through human rights protections and a concerted effort to eradicate and shed light on the lives and struggles of the trans community.

On March 30, 2000, the Ontario Human Rights Commission published a policy on discrimination and harassment because of gender identity, noting, “There are, arguably, few groups in our society today who are as disadvantaged and disenfranchised as transgendered community. Transphobia combined with the hostility of society to the very existence of transgendered people are fundamental human rights issues”.

This is a very powerful statement about what goes to the very core of how we choose to treat and respect one another. Trans people are members of our families and our communities. There is no them here, only us.

I use to do education workshops on trans rights when I worked and volunteered with the Nova Scotia Rainbow Action Project. Gender expression and gender identity are not included in the human rights act in Nova Scotia. Therefore, we worked with the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission to help it understand the day-to-day realities faced by transgendered people in Nova Scotia, the discrimination and the hate they experienced. At the end of one of these workshops, the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission assured us that it would “fit” trans discrimination under sex, even though it technically was not sex discrimination.

This is exactly the kind of thing trans people face every day. They do not quite fit here or there, but somehow they are expected to cope and to be happy with filling the space of the cracks. Now is the opportunity to right one of those wrongs. It is a small legislative change that would have tremendous impact on the dignity of trans people in Canada.

The addition of gender identity and gender expression as prohibited grounds of discrimination in the Canadian Human Rights Act is, without question, a very positive first step to achieving equality for the trans community. Make no mistake. This is just an initial step in a continuing journey, but it does lay the groundwork for the work that remains. Hopefully, by entrenching the rights of the trans community, it will act as a catalyst for change as well as a protection and recourse as the trans community navigates what will not likely be an obstacle-free path, even with the inclusion of these terms in our human rights legislation.

As we move forward, we should ask ourselves what equality for the trans community would look like. Equality would mean that gender reassignment procedures would be reimbursed by provincial health insurance everywhere in Canada. There would be policies implemented to combat discrimination and exclusion faced by transgendered persons in the labour market, education and health care.

It would include education and training programs, as well as awareness raising campaigns. There would be better training to health service professionals, including specialists and general practitioners, with regard to the rights and needs of transgendered persons and the requirement to respect their dignity. Trans voices would be represented in government, in schools, in the media, on equality bodies and in national human rights structures.

With the bill, Canada can lead by example. We can demonstrate the inclusiveness of our communities and the strength we find in breaking down barriers and in insisting that discrimination become something of the past. I plan to vote in favour of the inclusion of trans rights in the Canadian Human Rights Act, as well as its inclusion on the hate crimes list in the Criminal Code of Canada. I encourage every member of the House to join me in entrenching protections for gender identity and gender expression.

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, May 7th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, currently, under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the CDSA, it is illegal to produce, traffic or import methamphetamines and ecstasy, as it is for all illegal drugs. Bill C-475 would extend to the ingredients of methamphetamines and ecstasy and changes the act to make it illegal to produce, sell or import anything that would be used to produce the final product.

It is really a reincarnation of Bill C-428 from the 39th Parliament, only this version was changed to include ecstasy and a few other very minor wording changes. It is important to let people know that this bill does not include mandatory minimums, which is not like other crime bills that we have seen introduced by government members.

The main point about the bill is that it would not do very much to enable the justice system to deal more effectively or efficiently with methamphetamines or ecstasy. It may seem like it would because it talks about the ingredients of meth and ecstasy, but it would appear that the justice system already has an adequate way of dealing with this through its organized crime provisions in the Criminal Code.

At committee I was able to ask legislative counsel from the Department of Justice about the bill. I will like read from the transcript. The member from Halifax said:

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have one question for you. Hopefully you can answer it. Do you see this amendment capturing any situation that isn't already covered by the organized crime provisions, or is it just the provision in and of itself that it's illegal to produce? Do you see this as actually having an impact?

The lawyer answered:

In terms of the production, I don't think so; nothing comes to mind. In terms of the impact on organized crime, I don't think it has an impact either.

The member from Halifax said:

Do you mean no impact positive or negative?

The Justice lawyer answered:

Hopefully it will have a positive effect in the sense that it will act as a deterrent, but in terms of the relationship between this offence and other offences, I don't think there is any.

The member from Halifax said:

Those are all my questions. Thanks.

Ultimately, it seems like it would not have very much of an effect. The lawyer did mention deterrence, however, the House has heard reams of evidence showing that deterrence is not really an effective strategy when it comes to drug crimes.

Should we support a bill that does not seem to have very much effect? Is this an example of the maxim, no harm, no foul? It is a private member's bill, so I submit that there are two considerations. First, I do respect any member's attempt to respond to the needs of his or her constituents by bringing forward a private member's bill. Our ability to bring forward legislation is a special privilege and it is a very challenging thing to see realized as there are so many steps to getting a piece of legislation through the House. Private member's bills are usually a direct response to the needs or the demands of constituents in a riding, so I tend to give a lot of weight to private member's bills, provided they are not harmful.

Therefore, I do congratulate the efforts that the member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country has made to see this bill through the House.

The second thing to consider when deciding how to vote on a private member's bill is the fact that it is a free vote and all members get to make up their mind on whether they will support it. If other members of the House were to ask me for my advice on whether they should support it, I would say that it was their choice. It does not seem to have much of an impact but it does not seem to have a negative impact either.

I would like to use the rest of my time to talk about what good drug policy would look like. Would it not be exciting to debate intelligent drug policy for Canada? First, with regard to drug labs, we have seen some really interesting non-criminal ways of dealing with labs in the U.S. The U.S. has seen more successes with commercial and consumer regulation which limits the quantity of over-the-counter medication that a person can purchase and it questions the reason for the purchase. This kind of regulation can serve to limit the production of drugs like methamphetamine and ecstasy and it can act like a preventive measure, unlike this bill.

The existing legislation that we have in the Criminal Code or in the CDSA, the CDSA serves more as an after the fact punishment if a person is caught rather than effectively trying to reduce the ability to produce.

Regulations like the U.S. legislation requiring photo ID and a signature also provide ways to track, identify and police offenders who purchase over-the-counter drugs for meth and ecstasy production. Therefore, why are we not looking at U.S. solutions that have worked like consumer and commercial regulations, instead of adopting solutions that have failed, like a bloated prison system?

Why are we not looking at harm reduction? We have Mainline Needle Exchange back home in Halifax and Vancouver has Insite, a safe injection site. Despite the life-saving successes of harm reduction measures, such as needle exchanges, successes in reducing the spread of HIV and hepatitis C among drug users and successes in increasing access to treatment, in 2007, the Conservatives introduced a new anti-drug strategy for Canada that removed all references to harm reduction.

Instead, the government has put greater emphasis on law enforcement. What a big surprise. It moves Canada closer and closer to an expensive and failed U.S.-style drug system. Right now, Canada spends 73% of its drug policy budget on enforcement. Still, drug use continues to rise. If we look at the numbers, there is 73% to enforcement, 14% to treatment, 7% to research, 2.6% to prevention and 2.6% to harm reduction.

In 2008, the National Framework for Action to Reduce the Harms Associated with Alcohol and Other Drugs and Substances in Canada convened a working group. Members included federal agencies and provincial health agencies like Health Canada and the Nova Scotia Department of Health Promotion and Protection. It also included related agency representatives from the Correctional Service of Canada, the College of Family Physicians of Canada and the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse. That is quite the team they put together.

The working groups points out:

Research findings suggest that providing appropriate services and supports across a range of systems not only reduces substance use problems but also improves a wide range of outcomes related to health, social functioning and criminal justice. Such a spectrum of services and supports is also a good investment for government, because it returns economic benefits that far outstrip its cost.

The group is calling for a national treatment strategy. This national treatment strategy would look at building capacity across a continuum of services and supports. It would look at supporting that continuum of services and supports. It would look at developing a research program and would also consider reducing stigma and discrimination. How we would do that and what that would look like?

That is intelligent drug policy and that is the kind of drug policy that we can get behind. The NDP is calling for better and more prevention programs directed at at-risk youth. We are calling for more resources for prosecution and the enforcement of existing laws. We are calling for more officers on the street, as promised by the Conservatives but not yet delivered. We are calling for an overall co-ordinated strategy focused on gangs and organized crime and also toughened proceeds of crime legislation.

[Fairness for Military Families (Employment Insurance) Act, May 7th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for his kind words and happy Mother's Day to him as well.

[Fairness for Military Families (Employment Insurance) Act, May 7th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Edmonton—Strathcona for her kind words and also recognize the incredible advocacy she is doing on behalf of her constituents in the House.

The member raises some really good points about what I said earlier, how the lives of military families are really complicated. They are very unusual. They do not have lives like most of us. We go to work at 9 a.m., go home at 5 p.m., and have the weekends to play ball with our kids.

Their lives are very complicated. It involves being deployed. It involves being away from their families for long periods of time. It involves, hopefully not, but it does involve sometimes being hurt, returning home, and having to deal with things like post-traumatic stress disorder or physical injuries, and having that kind of recuperation time.

Having access to different supports like EI can only be a good thing. It can only be a respectful thing to show that we acknowledge the complicated lives that our military families have. I love the ideas that the member has raised.