Megan Leslie

[Not Criminally Responsible Reform Act, May 27th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, speaking of political games, my question to my colleague is about political games when it comes to victims.

As we all know, there is a bit of a scandal happening around expenses in the Senate. I heard one of our Conservative colleagues on the radio saying that this is not what Canadians really care about, but Canadians really care about keeping our streets safe and keeping pedophiles off the street.

Really? We are talking about Senate expenses, and our Conservative colleague is talking about keeping pedophiles off the street. This is not what people are actually talking about to me day to day in my riding. They are talking to me about things that are happening in their real lives.

In that vein, it is like creating a fear, creating a sense that all these bogeymen are out there to get us, and then creating public policy based on a couple of instances of tragedy, which need to be addressed but do not necessarily create the best basis for public policy for all.

I wonder where the attention to victims is. Why do we not actually have funding for victims organizations, have funding for victims to be able to get on with their lives? That would be true attention to victims, as far as I am concerned. I wonder if she agrees.

[Not Criminally Responsible Reform Act, May 27th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague rightly pointed out that he has lots of questions. I have lots of questions as well. I spoke to the bill earlier, and I still have questions. One reason we are not able to get answers to these questions, in my opinion, is that we do not know who the government has consulted on this.

I want to ask my colleague if he knows of the organizations, individuals and experts in his community the government consulted. At the law school in Halifax, professor Archie Kaiser teaches disability law. We have Atlantic regional offices, for example, of the Canadian Mental Health Association and the schizophrenia association. As far as I know, none of these organizations have been consulted.

We want to make sure that public policy is based on the best evidence out there, not on just our gut reaction to a couple of high-profile cases. I wonder if my colleague has heard of any consultation on this legislation happening in his community.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, May 10th, 2013]

With regard to federal tax expenditures from 2006-2012: (a) what is the government’s estimate of the annual forgone revenue for the sectors of oil and gas, mining, and where applicable, clean energy, attributed to the following federal tax expenditures, (i) accelerated capital cost allowance for oil sands, (ii) transitional arrangement for the Alberta royalty tax credit, (iii) reclassification of expenses under flow-through shares, (iv) flow-through share deductions, (v) earned depletion, (vi) net impact of resource allowance, (vii) deductibility of contributions to a qualifying environmental trust, (viii) accelerated capital cost allowance for mining, (ix) canadian exploration expense, (x) canadian development expense for oil sands resource properties; and (b) if the Department of Finance is unable to provide estimates for any of the above tax expenditures, (i) what is the reason for the data gap, (ii) what steps does the Department of Finance plans on taking in future years to close the data gap?

[Government Expenditures, May 10th, 2013]

Let us get this straight, Mr. Speaker. Senators are still using the honour system for expenses while Conservatives are spying on their own backbenchers.

Moving on to another Conservative failure of accountability, the Prime Minister claimed that the Auditor General raised no red flags on the missing billions, but when asked if there were risks with the way this money was spent, the Auditor General said, “I guess I would have to say that there would be a risk because there is not enough information to answer the question completely”.

Why does this not match the government's definition of a red flag?

[Ethics, May 10th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, only an RCMP investigation will reveal the full scope of the fraud that has taken place.

In the Auditor General's report released a year ago, he confirmed that the Senate operates on an honour system. Senators do not have to produce any receipts or provide any proof. It was only yesterday that an end was put to this honour system, after years of abuse and fraud.

Do the Conservatives really think it is okay to spend taxpayers' money based on an honour system?

[Ethics, May 10th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the Senate is in the news again today, for all the wrong reasons. An audit has found that a number of senators have to pay back thousands of dollars. The audit also found that some senators were spending most of their lives in Ottawa while not paying taxes in their home provinces and filing false expense claims. If average Canadians did this, they would have to face real consequences under the law for fraud.

Will the government urge their senators to refer this matter to the police?

[Business of Supply, May 9th, 2013]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to ensure that I was speaking to the right issue.

I listened with great interest to my colleague's speech. We talk about the fact that the Conservatives hold themselves out as being great financial managers and then all of a sudden where is this money? There is the issue of where the money is, but there is also the issue of what else could it have been spent on and are there problems here?

What if the money had been spent on something like the eco-energy home retrofit program at $934 million? However, it was not spent there because that program does not exist, but that might resonate with folks. However, if they found out that the $23 million had been spent on media monitoring of Conservative backbenchers, I do not think Canadians would actually accept that this was an appropriate way to spend the money. Therefore, it is really important that we know where this money went.

I want to ask my colleague a question.

When the Auditor General appeared before the committee, he was asked whether it was possible that the $3.1 billion might not necessarily have been used for programs approved by Parliament. The Auditor General responded that he thought he should say that there was a chance of that because he did not have enough information to answer the question fully.

I think this is an important point. There is not enough information to respond, to know what is happening with the money.

I wonder if my colleague would agree with that assessment of the Auditor General at committee.

[Business of Supply, May 9th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, for clarification, we are not debating the motion with the amendment. We are debating the main motion.

[The Environment, May 8th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the fact is Conservatives are refusing to work with others and it is harming our international reputation.

However, I will move on to another Conservative failure. The government members have made it clear that they have no interest in the ground-breaking work of the Experimental Lakes Area, but even Conservatives have to see that it makes no sense to throw away four decades of research just because they are refusing to grant road access to scientists.

Will the minister do the right thing and will he allow these scientists to keep their experiments going?

[The Environment, May 8th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the message from the minister is struggling, period.

The minister says that he is proud to be an international pariah, that he is proud of his “fossil awards”. The Minister of Natural Resources says that he is proud to deny climate science. The Prime Minister says that he is proud to vote against the motion for climate change adaptation. Canadians would be proud if we would actually work with our international partners to protect the environment.

Therefore, why is the minister celebrating the loss of Canadian credibility on the world stage?