Mike Sullivan

[Pooled Registered Pension Plans Act, January 31st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, having 50 people talking about pooled registered retirement savings plans seems strange for that party.

Has the member opposite been listening to the debate and the comments of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, who said several times that reducing tax cuts to already profitable corporations will hurt already profitable businesses by reducing their profits? Yet the Minister of Finance has told us that these tax cuts for already profitable corporations were to create jobs. The government cannot have it both ways. The money cannot be used to create jobs and to raise profits. Which one is it? Why are we harping on this?

[Pooled Registered Pension Plans Act, January 31st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague's speech, but we still have the same problem, in that many Canadians cannot afford any kind of voluntary system to which employers do not contribute. There is no requirement within this pooled retirement savings plan to cause employers to contribute. Therefore, employees who are making minimum wage will never be able to contribute to it. I have negotiated a number of times with employers whose employees were down near the bottom of the food chain as it were, and there was no way they could contribute anything extra to any form of pension plan.

What will the government do for those kinds of individuals who have no opportunity and will not gain an opportunity by the introduction of yet another saving scheme?

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, December 15th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's comment. That is partly what concerns us if the bill and the possibility of amendments are not studied thoroughly at committee. There are aspects of this law that, as the hon. member suggests, might allow people to believe they are on a mission from God and protected by legislation allowing self-defence as a defence in situations in which they are acting as vigilantes.

We are concerned that the bill is not clear about whether or not that is the intent. It appears to expand the definition of self-defence beyond defending oneself, creating an understanding that one can defend a third party. If that is the case, how far does that go? Does that then become the rule of law?

We are also concerned that the bill will not be fully discussed at committee, as has been the case with many other bills on the crime agenda of the government. We are concerned that if this is rammed through without the possibility of amendments, where those amendments would make sense and actually clarify the law, then of course we would not be doing Canadians a service.

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, December 15th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, yes, indeed, we have hit upon the nub of the concern in law. This particular self-defence clause in the Criminal Code has been on the books for over 100 years. It is the subject of much jurisprudence, which would appear to have twisted the original intent, giving perpetrators of crime the ability to use self-defence as a way of escaping punishment for their actions. That twisting of the law by jurisprudence is part of what the present bill would appear to try to solve.

However, New Democrats are not certain if the clarification that this bill provides goes too far. If the clarification creates a system in which vigilantism becomes possible, that is something we are opposed to. We do not accept that citizens become vigilantes who attempt to enforce the law and defend other citizens from harm in a manner which will cause more harm. That is one of our concerns with this bill.

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, December 15th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, the NDP is certainly considering whether this bill is in fact what it says it is: merely a clarification of the right to self-defence. We will not know until there has been fulsome discussion in committee with many witnesses and representations from police forces, prosecutors and defence attorneys about whether this bill would actually solve the problems they see with the self-defence jurisprudence or whether it would create new problems.

We will not know whether New Democrats have particular amendments until after the bill has gone through committee. However, we hope that in this particular case the government will listen to potential amendments. We hope the government will work with us to create a clearer bill that has a better chance of actually being useful to Canadians.

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, December 15th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, that is precisely our fear. The apparent expansion of the definition of self-defence, because it is somewhat unclear in the legislation, to include a person not being in harm's way but defending someone else who is in harm's way could, we fear, lead to unintended consequences. The example I gave was of the ice cream truck being held up at gunpoint, which ended peacefully. No one was injured.

However, if this law had been in place, one could imagine that a citizen from a dwelling nearby may decide to take action using self-defence as the reason for taking action and cause much greater harm than was caused at the time.

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, December 15th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, part of this bill is a reprise of a bill that was put forward originally by the member for Trinity—Spadina in Toronto, called the Lucky Moose bill, after a store owner in her riding who, after a robbery, arrested a man by himself and then was himself charged with forceable confinement after apprehending the suspect.

The second part of the bill has to do with a redefinition in the Criminal Code of what constitutes self-defence in law, in other words, what issues can and what circumstances can give rise to the successful application of the self-defence principle and, therefore, allow a person to remain immune from prosecution because of his or her actions.

With regard to the first part, I would remind hon. members that in my previous speech I talked about a personal event in which I arrested a suspect who had been robbing cars along the street and who was clearly inebriated. I, at some personal risk, took the steps of apprehending him and calling the police. The police came in great numbers because they knew I had caught somebody, an ambulance came because he had cut himself, and the firemen came, too. When I asked the firemen why they were there, they said, “If he catches on fire, we'll put him out”.

However, my point is that I acted with some immediate feeling of necessity without thinking what the law might say. In fact, I was probably outside the law because it was not my property.

The second occasion that I gave an example of was of an ice cream truck in my riding that had been held up at gun point. This is the more concerning of the two portions of the bill: the issue of whether the definition of self-defence now has expanded to include the ability to defend someone else, the ability to enter into a robbery in progress or any other threatening situation as a bystander and attempt to defend the life or the property of someone else using this self-defence law.

The law, as it currently stands, would seem to limit the ability of people to defend themselves. That is the limit upon which that law is based.

However, it appears that the law would now be expanded to include the ability to defend a third party. We think that might lead to vigilantism and therefore would require more discussion at committee in a fulsome way with many witnesses.

[December 14th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, we still have no answer to our question about the heritage property itself and how this building was undeclared as a federal heritage property and will now be destroyed by Downsview Park.

I will read a letter from one of the volunteers to the right hon. Stephen Harper:

Dear Sir,

This is a plea for help, a plea made on behalf of many thousands of young Canadians who are no longer in a position to plea for themselves. They died over Nazi Germany flying for Bomber Command during World War II, determined to deny the members of the so-called master race from achieving their stated ambition -- to rule the world. Flying for that same Command I watched many of these young Canadian men -- they were little more than boys -- die right alongside me.

Many of the artifacts remembering their bravery and premature deaths are housed in the Canadian Air and Space Museum in Downsview Park. Their home must be one of, if not the, most famous historical structure[s] in Canada. And yet, unbelievably, this noble building has no heritage protection. As a result the present commercial body overseeing its fate has plans to bulldoze this real estate out of existence and replace it with ice rinks; plans that, unannounced to the volunteers at the museum, have been in place for two years. By carrying out this underhanded planning the powers that be in the park are making a mockery of the sacrifices of these young Canadians. By carrying these plans through they are not just humiliating the volunteers at the museum in Toronto, they are making a fool of Canada itself.

[December 14th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, concerning the property at 65 Carl Hall Road. This building was designated a federal heritage building in 1992. It is the former home of de Havilland, where many aircraft were built for service during World War II. It is a heritage building because of the long and storied connection to our aerospace industry, including our first satellite, Alouette, and the Canadarm. Federal Heritage Buildings Review Office report states that it represents the early development of the aircraft industry in Canada, this country's contribution to the allied war effort and the impact of war on the Canadian economy. The building is especially rare in that it spans such a long period in Canada's aviation history, from pioneering days in the late 1920s, through World War II to the 1950s and 1960s as de Havilland's guided missile division and into the 1990s when it was still constructing fuselages for aircraft ordered by the U.S. army.

Besides the historical value of the building, it houses an impressive collection of artifacts from Canada's long history of air and space industrial developments. The collection is called the Canadian Air and Space Museum. It houses the only full-scale replica of the Avro Arrow, which was killed by the Diefenbaker Conservative government in 1959. It houses a full-scale replica of the Alouette satellite. It houses the Lancaster bomber, which, in addition to a storied history in World War II, spent many years on a pedestal at the Canadian National Exhibition. It was being lovingly restored by volunteers, one of whom actually piloted Lancasters in the war. The museum houses many hundreds of donated artifacts from veterans from all over Canada.

Not only has the federal government declared this property a heritage site, but it is also listed by the city of Toronto as a heritage property. The museum has been a significant part of Downsview Park and forms part of the public attraction to the park. Many thousands of visitors, including tens of thousands of schoolchildren from all over Ontario, come to learn about our aviation and space history in the building where much of that history began.

On September 20, the museum, along with other tenants of 65 Carl Hall Road, were suddenly, without warning, given eviction notices. Downsview's public comments about the closure of the museum, parroted by the government, were full of inaccuracies. There were no subsidies. The museum was not 17 months in arrears. The park never consulted with the museum before serving the eviction notice. The museum did not opt to switch from profit-sharing to market rent, it was forced to do so by the park. The museum is not a private collection, but a volunteer charitable organization. The building is not in an irreparable state and no study has been undertaken to determine if the cost of any repairs needed will keep the building as a heritage site.

We are told that Parc Downsview Park, the federal crown corporation which maintains the property, agreed to terms with the developer over a year ago. Nothing was said to give any warning to the museum any time before the locks were changed. The park has never offered an alternative to house the collection. The museum was never given the opportunity to raise the funds to make the necessary repairs to 65 Carl Hall Road.

The response to my question of October 24 were that the museum was private, and falsely accused the museum of not having paid its taxes. There was no response to the question of the destruction of a heritage building, nor to what process was used to remove the heritage designation of the building. The building was declared a heritage property many years ago. Nothing of its nature or status has changed in the interim.

As a result of investigations concerning the leasing of the land, the order-in-council from the government clearly states that 65 Carl Hall Road was being leased to Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, owners of the Maple Leafs and the Raptors. It is reported to us that the chief operating officer of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment and the vice-president for Parc Downsview Park are in fact brothers. We would therefore ask what steps were taken to ensure that their business dealings were not a conflict of interest, nor had the appearance of a conflict of interest.

We therefore ask the government to respond to the request from the city of Toronto to keep this building as a heritage building and to answer our questions as to whether the government will preserve this building as a heritage building and maintain the property for the museum.

[Fair Representation Act, December 13th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, one of the ironies of this debate is that it is under time allocation. We are here talking about democracy and the representation roles in the House of the members of Parliament, and how many people they should represent when to the government side, it would appear it does not matter who is here because every important bill is going to have the amount of debate and dialogue that is permitted limited.

Given the debates we have had, is the member aware of any bills, including this one, that the government has accepted any modifications from any member of the opposition?