Mike Sullivan

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, April 25th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to speak once again to Bill C-26.

It now appears that the bill is being framed as sort of the victims versus the offenders by the other side. I would like to clarify our party's position on victims versus offenders.

The bill came from our party in the first place through the member for Trinity—Spadina. It was an attempt to turn an offender who was really a victim away from being an offender. How does that work? It is where someone who was a victim of a crime, attempted to arrest or stop a person who committed a crime and he became an offender, according to the police, because he had unreasonably detained someone.

This bill is all about that. It is to try to regain the balance between victims and offenders. The bill is now one of the very few in this Parliament to have had actual agreement on amendments at committee. Many bills have gone through committee that have had zero amendments approved by the other side.

That leads me to comparisons between this bill and other bills which have created victims, by the other side, and in which the amendments we have proposed have been outright rejected. I am of course referring to Bill C-31, which has elements of this bill in it all over the place. People who flee countries, where those people are victims of crime or who have their own personal well-being threatened, to come to a safe country are themselves victims. They are the victims of crime in those countries. They are the victims of persecution. They are victims in any imagined sense of the word.

However, if these people arrive here by the wrong method, they immediately become an offender, according to the government. If they are victims of human smuggling, they are imprisoned and are considered to be offenders.

We need to turn those things around. This is a situation that cannot be allowed to stand. Unfortunately the votes on Monday meant that those bills are now off to the Senate and perhaps they will become law.

We have a situation where the other side is accusing this side of being soft on offenders and hard on victims, and the exact opposite is true. The government has determined that people who are victims will be made offenders. The immigration bill is but one example.

That is an example of a bill where the parties actually did work together. The previous Parliament actually passed a bill that was praised and lauded, that struck a balance between people being victims and being offenders.

However, now we have a government that is insistent on its ideologically driven anti-immigrant agenda that will now treat potential immigrants who come here by magic, because they found a way to get here when they were unable to get here any other way, as criminals.

In addition, those individuals who did everything right, who acted in accordance with the law, who applied to come to Canada years and years ago are now going to be treated as criminals because they are having their money given back to them and are being told “Sorry, we did not get to your application 10 years ago, and we are never going to get to it. You have to apply again”. Those people are being made into victims by the government. We are treating people horrendously.

I also want to talk about how this bill has a possibility of creating a vigilante system. We will support it, but I want to be very clear that we do not support anything which takes Canada further into the sort of American mentality of “shoot first and ask questions later”. We do not agree with that kind of mentality.

I was in a high school in my riding last week. In that high school was a bunch of Grade 10 students. They were 13 to 15 years old. I asked them how many of them owned an illegal handgun or knew someone who owned one. Half the class put up its hand, and that is not unusual. When I asked them why all these handguns, their immediate answer was for self-defence, that they had to defend themselves against others in their communities who had handguns.

What is the government doing about the proliferation of handguns that I find in my riding? There was a drive-by shooting last night and someone was shot just last week in the same neighbourhood by illegal handguns that have arrived in my riding.

What is the government doing about the proliferation of weapons of destruction, of killing? It is removing border protections. It is laying off border services people. It is cutting the number of sniffer dogs that might stop these guns from coming into the country in the first place.

The Conservatives have decided it is better to have guns come in and to--

[Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act, March 16th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with some interest to the comments. One of the unfortunate facets of the Conservatives' approach is they put so many different provisions that have different meanings and applications into one bill and then use that as an opportunity to say, “But you voted against it”.

There are certain aspects of this bill that clearly we agree with. We agree with the notion that the refugee system is broken, which is why we passed Bill C-11. Bill C-11 does an enormous amount to streamline the refugee system in this country and to make it less likely that people could abuse the system.

However, the amendments being proposed to Bill C-11, and the addition of Bill C-4, make it impossible for this side of the House to agree to create a system where we would be making people victims. Even if people are refugees, we do not believe that the government, or any government, should make them victims. That is what this bill would do.

I would ask for the comments of the member opposite.

[Air Canada, March 16th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, which is it, a fragile economy or a strong economy? I cannot get it.

Conservatives have been recklessly meddling in the Air Canada negotiations. It only adds fuel to the fire. In the end, it is travellers and our economy that will suffer from the unbalanced approach of the Conservatives. Service quality will be affected and even safety could be at risk.

The Conservatives go full steam ahead, picking winners and losers. Their approach is harmful to Canadians. When will the Conservatives stop meddling and allow a negotiated deal that works for everyone? When will Conservatives stop interfering with private businesses?

[Enabling Accessibility Fund, March 16th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, it is hard enough for any person to get through life in Canada if he or she has a disability. Statistics Canada says there are nearly 3 million Canadians with disabilities.

The enabling accessibility fund was created to improve accessibility and reduce barriers for these people. Since 2008, the fund has gone through five projects calls and approved 644 projects worth $67 million.

One would think that would be good news for Canadians with disabilities. However, it is only true if one lives in a Conservative riding. Data released by HRSDC reveal that nearly 85% of this fund went to Conservative-held ridings. Conservatives represent barely half of Canada's population. This is clearly unfair: it discriminates against people with disabilities living in opposition-held ridings. It is an example of shameful pork-barrelling by a party that ran against such odious behaviour.

To restore credibility, the government must put into place an unbiased, non-political evaluation process, to ensure that all Canadians with disabilities have fair access to this fund. That is what Canadians expect of their government.

[Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act, March 16th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I have to agree with my hon. colleague. I wonder if he would put amendments forward to the bill to do exactly what he just suggested. He suggested that we should distinguish between people who are criminals and those who are not, even if they come as irregular arrivals. We agree. We do not want criminals using Canada as a refuge anymore than the Conservatives do but we should not be punishing people who are not criminals simply because of the mechanism by which they arrived in this country.

Going back to my friend's comment about arriving from Ireland many years ago, to some, the Irish immigrants were criminals in their own country and should not have been permitted entry into the country, but here we are. We should not be determining people's criminal status on the basis of how they arrived here. I would welcome any amendments that the member opposite would like to put forward to the bill to create that distinction.

[Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act, March 16th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House start from the premise that people who come here as refugees should never be incarcerated, no matter how they arrive. However, the government appears to be trying to fix things by moving jigsaw pieces in a puzzle that actually will not fit together. Admittedly, there is a suggestion that we need to crack down on the people who would smuggle individuals but we do not do that by making victims and we do not do it by making victims of children. It is like a Sophie's choice for the parents. They can either have their children in jail or send them to live with someone else. That is wrong. We should not put people in that position. No one should put people in that position.

[Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act, March 16th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, in light of the fact that we are talking about our clothing colour, I am wearing some green but also some black today in honour of my heritage but also to remind people that it is a gloomy day here in the House.

The bill undoes a lot of good work that took place in the last Parliament and, although I asked my friend opposite what exactly the differences were, all he could say was that there were gaps. What the government is now doing is creating gaps, where those gaps had been filled, where there was agreement by the parties to fix the problems with the legislation in such a way that all circumstances were taken care of. We have now created a whole bunch of gaps in this legislation that are glaring by their example, as was evidenced a few moments ago.

Those in some countries who may be declared safe but who happen to belong to the gay and lesbian community may in fact be refugees. However, under this new bill, they would not have the opportunity to be exempted from the rather horrendous provision of having to have a hearing within 15 days and, if they do not win, they are out.

Government members argued at some length in earlier speeches that a significant percentage of supposed refugee claimants abandoned their claim in the course of that period of time. We, on this side of the House, agree that we do not want fake claims. We do not want to encourage a system where people are coming to this country merely to abuse our system. Bill C-11, in the previous Parliament, would have fixed the problem of the fake claimants. It would have fixed the problem to everyone's satisfaction and to the minister's satisfaction. The minister praised the bill. What has changed between Bill C-11 of the last Parliament and now in terms of Canada's refugee system? Absolutely nothing. Nothing has changed since then to warrant such new and draconian measures being placed into this legislation.

The new law would have taken effect in June of this year. We could have had a law that had been through the process and was ready to roll, that fixed all of the problems, which are being talked about again in the House, of the abuse of Canada's refugee system. Those things would have been fixed and we are throwing it away. We are wasting an awful lot of time, energy and resources, but for what purpose?

One of the things that is glaring in the bill that maybe is the purpose is the absolute power it would give the minister. The minister would have the absolute power, and despite the comments from the other side that he would consult, ultimately it falls within the power of one human being to determine for most of the planet whether people are safe from persecution or not.

Lord Acton of Britain stated that, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men”. Those words were spoken over 100 years ago in the British system to describe what happens when someone is given too much power. It becomes a corrupting influence. I have the utmost of regard for the current Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. I think he will probably do a good job, but who knows who will come next?

We in Toronto have discovered just what happens when power is given to the person in charge. During David Miller's term as mayor, there was a big push on the part of the mayor to give the mayor more power to select an executive committee and to run things in a much more autocratic way. We can see what happened. We ended up with a mayor who is now abusing that power, who is running amok and who now faces the possibility of being stripped of his office as a result of the power that he has used.

That is what comes from putting too much power into the hands of one individual, and that is part of what the bill would do. It would create a system that would put everything into the hands of one individual, and we do not know who that individual will be next.

We also have situations where exemptions, exceptions that were provided for in Bill C-11, have been eliminated. For example, an individual in my riding is a coroner working for the police in what will probably be designated as a safe country. The person came to Canada as a refugee because the police told him that they could no longer protect him because he had given too much evidence against the criminal gangs that happen to exist in that country. Although the country is generally safe, that individual had to leave a beautiful home, a successful practice and quite a well-to-do lifestyle in that country because his life was in danger. The person has now gone through several stages of applying to be a refugee, which is very difficult to establish for an individual coming from such circumstances.

The bill would probably send that person back to that country to probably be killed because that country is designated as safe country, and that is wrong. The minister needs the ability to find exemptions. Individuals need to access to the legal system and access to justice, but that is being denied them by this 15 day maximum time period.

I also want to talk a bit about the old Bill C-4, which is now rolled into this bill, the Sun Sea and Ocean Lady part of the bill that suggests that persons who the minister, again leaving the power in the hands of one individual, a different minister this time, declares as irregular arrivals would make victims of those individuals.

We have heard over and over again about how the government is on the side of the victim. It is not here t in this bill. Those individuals who were innocent until they arrived in Canada are now the victims and are now to be punished by being incarcerated the day they set foot in Canada as soon as the minister declares that arrival to be an irregular arrive, which clearly would have been the case with the Sun Sea and the Ocean Lady, and probably many other arrivals we do not even know about that the minister is keeping tabs on.

That is wrong. It is wrong to create victims where victims do not exist. We all agree that persons who engage in human smuggling ought to be punished, ought to be rooted out and ought to be held to account. However, not the individuals who are seeking refuge in this country and found that the only way they could get here was through this kind of mechanism. That is how desperate people are in these countries. They accept that they need to get here through human smuggling because they have no other way to get here. We have now made victims of those individuals and that is not in keeping with what the government keeps telling us that it is all about.

We are, in fact, on the side of the victims. We are, in fact, on the side of the individuals who have been persecuted in their own country, escape by whatever means and who should not be victimized. They should not be made into criminals merely because of the means of their arrival in Canada.

The final little piece of the bill is making e victims of children. In the previous bill, Bill C-4, the government forgot that persons under 16 probably should not be slapped in jail. What has it done? Instead of saying that the parents of children under 16 will not be put in jail, the government has now said that the parents will be put in jail but the children will not. Where will that leave the children? What kind of message does that send?

I will wrap up by saying that we should not be making further victims of the children who come to this country as refugees but that, apparently, is what the bill would do.

[Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act, March 16th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that has come to my attention is that most of the strengthening of Canada's immigration system will happen anyway without this bill. In June of this year there will be implementation of the former Bill C-11, which in fact does the things the government keeps talking about need to be done. They are already going to be done.

What is so urgent and necessary that we undo what was agreed to before and now present something completely different, much more restrictive and not agreed to by the other parties in the House? Can the member outline what significant differences there are that are so egregious, that so many false refugee claims would not be captured by the existing Bill C-11?

[Protecting Air Service Act, March 13th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I spent 33 years as a union negotiator and I know that this action by the Conservative government has destroyed the balance created by the good men and women of this country who crafted our labour legislation years ago. The labour legislation that we have in Canada was deliberately exported by this country to the fledgling countries of eastern Europe when they became democracies, because it was seen as a model for the world.

This kind of action undermines that model. When one party is able to turn to its masters, the government, and say, “Please intervene and take sides in this dispute”, it undermines the continuation of that balance in our labour relations in this country. Despite the protestations on the other side of the House, that is exactly what has taken place.

We have upset the balance of labour relations and we are forever now going to have our labour relations affected accordingly, particularly in the federal sphere. However, do not think the provinces are not watching what is happening here. Parties to labour relations among the police, fire and ambulance services, which are all essential services, will now be paying attention because the government has decided that it can incorporate into legislation a guideline for an arbitrator who takes one side over the other. This guideline is all about the employer, not about what is fair to the employees. We run the risk here of destroying years and years of practice, precedent and jurisprudence with what seems to be a very simple act by the other side.

It is not enough that the government has decided that it needs to take sides; it did not even let the process actually finish. In all of my years as a labour negotiator, on many occasions the parties used the strike deadline itself as the mechanism to reach a collective agreement. In my own experience, we probably got to the eleventh hour, to 11:59, on a couple of dozen occasions. It is no surprise that Canadian legislation picks midnight as the time a strike can commence, because that is the time that people are most likely to reach an agreement. They are not likely to reach an agreement three days before when they give notice, which is what happened in this case. They are most likely to reach that agreement at midnight. That is when it happens. That is when both sides look at the cards on the table and decide that it is not worth a strike. That is exactly what happens 99 times out of 100. However, the government and the minister have not allowed that process to reach its full conclusion. That is shameful. That is destroying the Canadian labour relations model that we so gleefully exported to the rest of the world as a model for it to take.

As for the notion that Air Canada is somehow special and an essential service, the minister suggested that it is bigger than GM and Chrysler and that we do not legislate them back to work. The minister forgot to tell us that GM has shrunk enormously under its watch. It has closed four plants; no wonder it is small. It is because the jobs are disappearing in this country. The government's job creation strategy is a job abandoning strategy. It did not interfere at EMD or Stelco where jobs were fleeing the country. It is shameful on the part of the government that it would abandon some workers and then step in and side with another bunch of Canadian company directors who have decided that they need this collective agreement and are willing to put spring break, whatever that means, in jeopardy. It was not the union that put it in jeopardy in the case of the pilots; it was management that put it in jeopardy. It is management that has very deliberately done that in order to provoke the government. Make no bones about it, because that is precisely what is going on.

The other notion that is missed here by the government is the notion that was spoken about by my colleague from Nanaimo—Cowichan about worker resentment. These workers gave up a lot. They gave large concessions nine years ago when Air Canada was in trouble. Those workers have taken nothing since, virtually no gains.

These are very important workers. These are people who keep the planes flying, both mechanically and physically. I certainly do not want to be on a plane where those workers resent the government, where those workers are resentful of the choices that they have been forced to make. I certainly do not think any of them would do anything stupid. I also do not think it is smart of the government to be provoking the workers of this country.

[Safer Railways Act, March 13th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, much has been said about the monetary penalties attached to this bill, but I wonder if monetary penalties mean anything if there is no enforcement. If people are not caught then there is not going to be any monetary penalty.

Second, the amounts are touted as being very high, yet I note that a million dollars is really only a couple days' bonus for the CEO of Air Canada, for example. How can we then suggest that these are actual deterrents to bad behaviour on the part of the railroads?