House of Commons photoLost his last election, in 2015, with 30% of the vote.
Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act October 23rd, 2012
Mr. Speaker, in addition to the fact that a number of the amendments that we put forward in Bill C-41, that were accepted by the Conservatives and have now been taken out, I note there were 88 recommendations in Justice Lamer's report. If we stretch, we can find that 28 or so of them have been adopted in this bill.
Would the member like to comment on the lack of thoroughness by the government in implementing the reports?
Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act October 23rd, 2012
Mr. Speaker, I agree that is what we are seeing here. We have seen this in other bills that have come before this Parliament where there was all-party agreement in the past. In one case, the refugee bill, the government chose to turf it out. It was already enacted, and the government chose to turf it out and go backwards.
We in the NDP do not wish to take Canada backwards.
Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act October 23rd, 2012
Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague from London—Fanshawe that there is a balance that we need to achieve within the ability to swiftly, in the case of a summary trial, create unit discipline and deter future violations.
There is no question about the need for that ability. No one is disagreeing that it is a special aspect of the military that needs to be maintained.
What does not need to be maintained is the future effect that those actions have on that individual. That is the issue here. It is not whether or not discipline needs to be maintained or whether the commander has the right to discipline as he sees fit. The issue is that it should not carry consequences that are outside the norm of consequences for those same actions in the real world, when in the future that person ultimately leaves the military as most Canadian soldiers eventually do.
Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act October 23rd, 2012
Mr. Speaker, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is true. That is what we have seen. They have a majority government, a strong, stable majority government in the words the Conservatives keep using, so they can do this, not because it is right but just because they can.
Clearly the Conservatives agreed in 2010 that something else was right to do. Why change it? Why bring it back differently?
To me it means that there is a level of arrogance and a level of unparliamentary behaviour on the part of the other side that is not in keeping with the good traditions of this Parliament, where we discuss, we work out differences and we come to agreements. When those agreements are thrown out by members of the Conservative side, it does not speak well of them.
Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act October 23rd, 2012
Mr. Speaker, the genesis of the act to amend the National Defence Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts, or the strengthening military justice in the defence of Canada act, which is before us, actually commenced over nine years ago, when Justice Lamer, in September 2003, as a result of a required review of the act, wrote 88 recommendations that needed to be acted on immediately to strengthen the National Defence Act. What has happened so far? Nothing has taken place.
First, we had a Liberal government that chose to ignore it and not do anything during the time it was in power.
Then we had a Conservative government, which, to its credit, actually brought forward a bill. However, not to its credit, the Conservative government decided to prorogue Parliament, so the bill died on the order paper. That was Bill C-7, and that was back in 2007. At that point, we were now four years from these recommendations having been made.
In 2008, we had Bill C-45. Again, the Conservatives brought forward a bill, but they then called a snap election, in violation of their own election law. That ended up killing that bill on the order paper again.
Finally, in 2010, Bill C-41 came forward. At the committee stage, the government and all parties agreed on amendments to Bill C-41. Why we are standing and talking about this so vociferously is that those amendments have been removed by the government.
It is audacious. It is arrogant. It is not in keeping with the good practices of Parliament that when we reach agreement on issues we can agree upon, they are removed. The Conservatives have done this over and over again. They have done it with the refugee system. They have done it with this act. It seems as though the government does not want to pay attention to what all Canadians are saying but only to what those sitting opposite are saying.
We have specific issues with this bill. One is the authority of the Chief of the Defence Staff in the grievance process. We recommended in Bill C-41 that more authority be provided, which was a direct response to Justice Lamer's recommendation. That was agreeable to the government two years ago. It is not agreeable to it now. What is going on?
There were changes to the composition of the grievance committee to include 60% civilian membership. Again, in Bill C-41, clause 11 was amended. The government agreed to it, and we thought we could go forward with it. Again, it has been removed. What does the government have against that kind of agreement?
I was a union representative for many years, way too many years. A grievance process is something that has to be seen to have a just end. To have a just end, there has to be a final and binding resolution given independently of the two parties that are at odds. In the normal employment relationship, it is the employer and the employee. In this kind of employment relationship, it is the military and the soldier.
When soldiers have a grievance, they take it to the military. We believe that they need to see that this grievance process will be done in a timely fashion and that it will have a final and binding end, which will be a non-partisan decision. That decision, as in a labour arbitration by an arbitrator, will be made by someone who is independent of the two parties. As long as the government and the military can keep appointing members and ex-members of the military to be part of that final process, it will not be seen to be justice.
Maybe in the long run we can come up with these changes. We might have a better chance of making these changes in 2015. For now, we are astounded that the government would agree, and then only two years later choose not to agree.
Finally, we requested changes to clause 75 in Bill C-41 to ensure that a person convicted of an offence during a summary trial is not unfairly subjected to a criminal record.
For those who are non-military, a summary trial is much like what goes on between the boss and an employee. An employee screws up and he or she is hauled into the boss's office and the boss has a whole range of disciplinary measures that can be meted out. That person can be sent home without pay or demoted. Ultimately if it is severe enough and has happened often enough, the employee can be fired or can be sent for help. There is a whole range of options as to what can be done.
That is very similar to what goes on with a summary trial. The individual is not usually entitled to legal representation when hauled into the boss's office. There are no notes kept or record of this trial. The only record might be of the decision to cause a penalty. In large measure, a summary trial is very much like what goes on in a workplace. The trouble is that in the military a summary trial can cause a person to have a permanent criminal record.
That could never happen in anybody else's employment anywhere in Canada. There is nowhere that a person could gain a criminal record without having been through a criminal trial with the right to representation, the right to not incriminate oneself, the right to be heard in front of a judge and the right to a jury if necessary. Those kinds of things go on in criminal trials. They are the kinds of things that our democracy stands for, and for which these soldiers go into battle to try to create in other countries. Here we are telling them they are not entitled to them themselves, that they are not entitled to the same protections that other Canadians are entitled to.
A criminal record carries with it some very severe consequences. It is very difficult for people to find a job when they come out of the military if they have a criminal record. It is very difficult to travel. As we know, recently at the border Canada has stopped people who have criminal records from coming into Canada. These people will have difficulty getting into other countries if they have criminal records.
It is not just and it is not right that from what is basically a meeting in the boss's office, people are labelled for the rest of their life as having a criminal record. That is the kind of thing that we need to remove from the bill. We understand that the government has moved some way toward that, but it has not gone the whole hog. It has not gone to the same level of decisions that we suggest do not deserve a criminal record in a summary trial.
I want to give an example of how the current military grievance process is not effective. I am trying to assist a person in my riding who had a grievance against the military, who had left the military because he was told that the best way to get what he needed done was to leave and come back. When he tried to go back, he was refused and he grieved it.
He wrote to the commanding officer who said, “I can't do anything until you grieve it”, so he filed a grievance. The response to his grievance was that he was out of time and should have filed it months ago. However, now he had an answer so he wrote to the boss and the boss said, “You're right. That rule that says you should be able to come back was what was in place at the time so we should have let you back. I'm now changing that rule retroactively so you can't come back”.
That is the kind of military justice, the kind of end to a grievance process that happens in the armed forces right now, and it makes a mockery of the system. Why call it a grievance process if that is what can happen? We might as well not have one.
There is a grievance process for good reason. It is because there are times when people need to sit down and talk out what happened. People need to sit down and actually work out that a promise was made and not kept or that a decision was taken that was not just, and find a way around that. However, at the end of that process, there needs to be an impartial decision-making body.
Justice Lamer recommended it and we agreed. We proposed an amendment in the last Parliament and the government agreed to our amendment, but it is not here. The only excuse I have heard from the Conservatives so far has been that it would be disenfranchising 700,000 people who were former members of the military from being on this tribunal. That leaves 34 million other people to be on that tribunal. There are lots of people to choose from.
Combating Terrorism Act October 19th, 2012
Mr. Speaker, the member has hit the nail on the head. This bill is a diversion. It is really not the most important thing facing Canadians. The most important things facing Canadians now are the economy, jobs and the ecology. Those things the Conservative government has refused to talk about or introduce matters dealing with those things and, instead, is giving us increased penalties for terrorism. I doubt there are terrorists who would read the bill and say, “I'd better not do that because the penalty went up”. It does not work that way. Increasing jail sentences for certain terrorist-related offences is not a deterrent. It does not stop terrorists from doing their jobs.
Combating Terrorism Act October 19th, 2012
Mr. Speaker, I am not privy to the conversations that went on behind the scenes on that, but I am aware that the omnibus bill is yet another example of the twisting of democracy by the government, creating systems of enormity that force the members on this side to vote against their consciences, even though there are things they may agree with in the bill.
The Prime Minister himself has expressed reservations about the use of omnibus bills as a method of getting many pieces of legislation done at the same time that have a wide variety of topics that need to be studied by different committees. Instead, this one will be studied by the finance committee. It is wrong, it should stop and we should watch out for it, as should Canadians.
Combating Terrorism Act October 19th, 2012
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine.
We talked a few seconds ago about transparency and accountability. However, I think that the bill is yet another example of smoke and mirrors. It is intended to deflect Canadians from the things that are really important toward things that are not pressing or urgent. It is intended to scare and strike fear into the hearts of Canadians. Apparently, the Conservative government intends to govern this country through fear.
The bill would reintroduce measures that all parties agreed in 2007 should disappear, and they did. Those measures were severe incursions into civil liberties. As it turned out, the measures never were necessary to be used to combat any kind of terrorism that went on this country, and that is both for the terrorism we heard about and the threats I am sure the public did not hear about because the police were able to find it and stop it before it happened.
Why is this being reintroduced now? Why is the bill the single most important thing facing Canadians now and on the top of the agenda for the Conservative government to carry forward? I think the answer is because it would deflect Canadians from thinking about some of the more serious problems that are going on.
Apparently, the anti-terrorism bill turned out to be unnecessary in 2007, but the Conservatives are introducing it anyway. NDP members will not be supporting the bill, as we believe it is an unnecessary incursion into civil liberties.
I believe the government is perhaps being a little two-faced on the whole notion of civil liberties. Members will recall the rancour and rhetoric over the gun registry. During the past several months of the Conservative's term in office, the use of a gun registry was a huge incursion into a person's individual private right to own a firearm, which is, of course, an American right and not a Canadian one. Nevertheless, the Conservative government was saying we had to protect civil liberties. However, here it is saying that it wants to diminish civil liberties. I do not think it should go unnoticed that the government is two-faced about this.
As a union representative in my previous life, I often had to be on guard against employers and others who were attempting to create incursions into civil liberties under the guise of protecting their investments and public safety, and their profits ultimately. For example, although it was ruled by the Supreme Court to be in violation of Canadian law, employers often wanted to have the right to test the urine, saliva and blood of their employees. It was for no apparent reason but just because they wanted to. Unlike the United States, the courts in this country have determined that it is an unreasonable incursion into our civil liberties; yet, employers keep trying to do it. They keep trying to find ways to get around these laws.
One has to wonder what would happen if, as a result of these pressures by employers, insurance companies started to take these kinds of incursions into our civil liberties. I fear that if the insurance companies looking after our health and well-being were able to accomplish these civil liberty incursions, they would be able to refuse to insure people on the basis of something they discovered as a result of a saliva test or blood test that took place long before. We have to be ever vigilant against that.
On this side of the House, we are ever vigilant against incursions of our civil liberties. However, the Conservative government believes that it needs to rule through a climate of fear. It needs to create a sense of fear in the public of Canada so that Canadians will be cowed into being appreciative of the few good things the government might happen to do. If there is anything the government has proven over the past year and half, it is that it is single-mindedly using a law and order agenda as its entire raison d'être.
There is no reason that this particular piece of legislation should be top of mind. There are far more important things that we should be doing and that we should be afraid of. However, the government would rather distract us with threats that there are imminent terrorist attacks and we must therefore change the law to allow the forces of justice in this country to have access to things that it turns out they do not need.
We believe that as a result of the application of the original Anti-terrorism Act in 2001, that $92 billion has been spent, over and above what would normally have been spent, to combat terrorism in this country. Is that a just way of spending our money? I do not think anybody would be able to tell. However, if what we are doing is creating this climate of removal of civil liberties and spending money to do it, then we must be vigilant against that, and in turn perhaps save some taxpayer dollars.
The government wants us to be afraid of terrorism, economic turmoil in other countries and environmental groups, but it forgets that Canadians are afraid of more important things that are closer to home. We should be afraid of carbon dioxide emissions and what that is doing to the planet. The government has apparently turned a blind eye to that. It has decided that there will not be a reaction from the government to implement the Kyoto Accord, or any other method of restricting the use of CO2 emissions to change our climate.
The other thing that is alarming Canadians is the ever-escalating price of energy, particularly in the east part of the country, and the imbalance that is created between the government's determination to ship our energy supply to other countries while starving other parts of the country of energy. We do not have a national energy strategy from the government. We do not have a security of energy, and people are starting to feel it. The government is clearly reacting in a way that is not in keeping with what Canadians are fearing.
There is a twisting of democracy going on. Canadians should be afraid of that. With the implementation of time limits, of prorogation, and with these giant omnibus bills that are coming forward to Parliament, we have a twisting of the democratic process, in such a way that Canadians ought to be afraid. The government would rather distract them with talk of terrorism than to actually get at the real problems that face Canadians.
It is also an example of the weird priorities of the government. We are the only ones talking about this because the government has not put up any speakers on this particular act. The government appears to think this is the most important thing facing Canadians. However, in terms of public safety, there are more important things that are closer to home that we should be talking about.
In my riding, there are gun crimes almost every month. In Toronto, six Somali youth were killed by handguns. We are not doing anything to combat the proliferation of handguns into our cities in this country. We would do something to take away some civil liberties and combat terrorism, but that is not what is killing people in this country. Handguns are killing people in this country, and certainly in the city of Toronto.
We also have the spectre of tainted meat. People are more afraid of tainted meat right now than they are of terrorism. Yet, the government's response is to say Canadians should pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, that things will be fine and this company will resurrect itself.
We have the very real problem of jobs. There are not enough jobs to go around. There is only one job for every five people who are unemployed, and we have no indication from the government of any strategy to deal with that, other than to suggest that more temporary foreign workers are necessary. We now have something like 300,000 temporary foreign workers who have come into this country.
The people in my riding are more afraid of losing their jobs than they are of terrorism. Yet the government's approach has been to bring forward an anti-terrorist bill as the most important measure that needs to be faced by Canadians and the most important fear that Canadians should have.
Therefore, the NDP will be rejecting the bill on the basis of the lack of accountability, transparency and the incursion into civil liberties that is going on in the bill.
Combating Terrorism Act October 19th, 2012
Mr. Speaker, the question I have is about the general taking of civil liberties by the government. This is not the first occasion we have seen civil liberties being attacked and they are being attacked by the other side. In this particular case, we have the right to habeas corpus and the right to investigative hearings suddenly being thrown back on us as though this is the most important thing facing Canadians, and I doubt that most Canadians will believe that.
I wonder if my colleague could comment about the civil liberties aspect of this and how this is just another symbol of a government that does not seem to care a whole lot about civil liberties.
Secure, Adequate, Accessible and Affordable Housing Act October 17th, 2012
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak in favour of Bill C-400, an act to ensure secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing for Canadians.
I congratulate my colleagues who have spoken on the bill today, the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot who presented this important piece of legislation before us, and the member for Hochelaga who speaks for our party on housing issues.
I also pay tribute to my colleague and friend, the member for Vancouver East, whose Bill C-304 from the last Parliament is the basis of the current legislation before us. It illustrates the commitment of the New Democratic Party to dealing with one of the most important issues facing Canadians: affordable housing.
This is not just about homelessness, as the member opposite would have us believe. There are many people in Canada who are under-housed and do not have enough housing. In my riding, for example, there is a widowed and disabled woman living with three teenaged children in a one-bedroom apartment, because that is all anyone has for her. Raising three children in a one-bedroom apartment is not good. She has been on a waiting list for seven years and is told it will be another five years she has to wait. Her children will have grown up before she receives adequate housing.
That is the message the government opposite seems to be missing in the debate. This is not just about homelessness; it is about adequate housing for all Canadians. It is one of the most fundamental needs of our society. Indeed, Canada is a signatory to a number of international agreements, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, recognizing that adequate housing is a basic human right.
Unfortunately in Canada there are too many families without adequate and affordable housing in their reach. Nearly 1.5 million Canadian households pay too much on their rent, over 30% of their gross income, leaving not enough money to spend on their children, their health and their future. This is not acceptable when we live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
My own riding of York South—Weston in the city of Toronto is home to 115,000 people. It is an urban riding within the metropolis of Toronto, Canada's largest city. Of the 42,000 homes in York South—Weston, half are rental apartments. Many of these apartments can be found on Weston Road, Lawrence Avenue, Jane, Keele and Eglinton. In half of those rental apartments, or some 10,000-plus apartments, we have seniors, single persons, lone-parent families and families with children paying more than 30% of their gross income on rent. That is not acceptable to the NDP.
The members opposite have suggested that maybe we should get all of them better jobs. That will not happen to seniors or children. Moreover, it certainly will not happen when there is no industrial strategy on the part of the government to create the jobs that will pay enough. Every chance the Conservatives get, they want to lower wages and expectations. However, people cannot afford housing if their wages are being lowered by the government. By paying more than 30% of their gross income, they have less money to support their children, their health and to provide for their future.
In York South—Weston, why do we have so many paying more than they can afford for rent? Despite the government's action plan, it is because there are so many low-paying minimum wage jobs in our economy today that someone earning $11 an hour will be paying 40% of their before-tax income to rent a bachelor apartment in Toronto. No one can raise a family in a bachelor apartment in Toronto, and even that is over 40% of their before-tax income.
According to the CMHC, the average rent for a bachelor apartment last year was $822 a month. It is higher now. For a two-bedroom apartment, which the women I talked about earlier would need at the least, was $1,161 a month last year. Again, that is now higher. That is the average.
No wonder we have over 10,000 households in my riding alone paying more than they can afford in rent. That means less money for their health, less for their children and less for their future. That should concern us all, not just this side of the House.
It is not a story unique to my riding of York South—Weston, as the briefs from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, among many other groups, have made quite clear for over a decade now. The social costs of bad health outcomes, of lower educational attainment, of inadequate pensions that people with low incomes live with and endure are well-documented and indisputable.
We need a national housing strategy to be developed under the leadership of the federal government in concert with our provincial and municipal partners in order to address this housing crisis. A national housing strategy is needed now more than ever and Bill C-400 seeks to achieve that very necessary goal.
Earlier this summer, the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association released its 2012 survey of social housing waiting lists in Ontario. It illustrates the deepening housing crisis for low-income families. The data showed that, in 2011, there were 156,358 households in Toronto alone on the social housing waiting lists. Another year of increased numbers, a net increase of 4,281 more households waiting for housing whose rents they can afford. Of the 156,358 households on that waiting list, over one-fifth were seniors, one-third were families with children and, as Ontario has only 260,000 social housing homes, it takes a long time to gain access to this affordable housing.
Last year only 18,500 in Ontario were successful in getting into social housing, but despite that, the waiting lists grew larger for the fifth consecutive year. For some families, according to the Non-Profit Housing Association, the wait can be over 10 years. That is unacceptable in Canada.
In my hometown of Toronto, the survey showed there were 69,342 households on the waiting list for social housing in 2011, representing over 44% of the Ontario list, despite the fact that Toronto represents only 20% of Ontario's population and despite the fact that Toronto only has 96,000 rent geared to income social housing units. That means that for every 10 social housing homes in Toronto, there are 7 families waiting to get in, 7 families paying more rent than they can afford while they wait.
I met with the vice-president of the Toronto Community Housing last week. One of the things it has had to do in order to maintain the housing stock it has is to sell off housing stock. We are reducing the amount of housing.