House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2015, with 42% of the vote.
Petitions October 29th, 2018
Mr. Speaker, I rise with an electronic petition, e-petition 1674, with almost 1,600 signatories, in respect of the fate of Dr. Hassan Diab, who was wrongfully extradited from Canada based on unreliable and false evidence.
The petitioners call for a full independent inquiry, not the inquiry the government has set up by the very well-respected Murray Segal, where evidence can be obtained and cross-examined so we can get to the bottom of this horrific injustice.
Justice October 25th, 2018
Mr. Speaker, Canadians from coast to coast support my bill to expunge criminal records for now-legal cannabis possession, and editorials in magazines and newspapers across the country prove it. Everyone knows that the government's pardon proposal just will not fix the problem. A pardon for a pot conviction will not help when someone fills out a rental form or a job application, but an expungement means that someone may truthfully say, “I have never been convicted of a criminal offence.” A pardon will not do that.
Will the government work with me to erase these records and let these thousands of Canadians get on with their lives?
Health October 24th, 2018
Mr. Speaker, the public health emergency caused by opioids is having devastating impacts on our families. Even our life expectancy is declining due to this crisis. The U.S. has already secured criminal pleas, along with dozens of states, for over $600 million in damages from opioid manufacturers, yet the Liberals have taken no steps to investigate potential violations of Canadian law, or to pursue civil damages. We need justice and accountability.
Will the government launch now an investigation into the role drug companies may have played in fuelling the opioid crisis in our country?
Corrections and Conditional Release Act October 23rd, 2018
Mr. Speaker, my friend from Abitibi—Témiscamingue is absolutely right. The broad review that the judge was calling for is simply not to be found in this legislation. There has been some tinkering, and there have been some modest improvements. The Liberals have referred to them in those terms.
It is unclear whether or not higher courts are going to confirm the unconstitutionality of the past system. It is unclear to me whether Bill C-83 goes the distance in achieving the justice that the courts require for those in solitary confinement.
Corrections and Conditional Release Act October 23rd, 2018
Mr. Speaker, I am not interested in NDP standards. I am interested in constitutional standards.
Two courts have told us that the government needs to go well beyond what it has done in this legislation. I acknowledge that this was not explicit, but none of the key elements that the courts have referred to are dealt with here.
My friend from St. Albert—Edmonton has pointed out that the government has decided not to have any third party review the administrator's discretion, which is a key element of this, the constitutionality or the disproportionate impact on indigenous people, blacks and people with mental disabilities. How is the bill going to address that?
Yes, there would be less time in solitary. Yes, the government has a new name to describe the practice. Yes, there have been some changes, as my friend referred to.
It is not NDP versus Conservative versus Liberal. It is about the Constitution of Canada.
I ask any fair-minded person to read this legislation, read the two judgments at issue, and see whether the government has gone far enough.
Why would the government continue an appeal in the face of this?
Corrections and Conditional Release Act October 23rd, 2018
Mr. Speaker, my friend from St. Albert—Edmonton is absolutely right, and I would go further.
Both judgments talked about the lack of external review. There is no independent third party to review the discretion of the CSC administrator, and that is shocking. That was one of the key elements of both decisions, as the member correctly pointed out.
What is also shocking is that despite losing both of these decisions so dramatically, the government sees fit to bring in a halfway measure in Bill C-83, and to continue the appeals to the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. These appeals cost lots of money, and for what purpose? Why can the government not accept what the courts have said so dramatically, improve the bill, and save people having to go all the way to the Supreme Court for the government to be told external oversight is required?
Corrections and Conditional Release Act October 23rd, 2018
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in this important debate today on Bill C-83, that would deal with the abolition of early parole and the issues on conditional release and corrections. I say at the outset that I will speak in opposition to the bill at second reading. I do so for a number of reasons I will try to describe.
I will first talk about the nature of what the bill has tried to respond to, the difficulties, the dilemmas, the torture, as some people have called it, that is involved in solitary confinement. Perhaps one can call it by other words, but that is what it is. Then I will talk about what a couple of our superior courts have said about this practice and the constitutionality of it, the fact that the government has continued with the appeals of those judgments and yet brought in a bill which by all measure is a very modest response to the very strong language of our courts in addressing the issue of solitary confinement.
I would say that this is a modest improvement. I do not want to be misunderstood. There are some things that are in the right direction in this legislation, but it is a pity that, in light of the long and thoughtful decisions in both the Ontario Superior Court and Mr. Justice Peter Leask's decision in the B.C. Supreme Court, this is the result. It is a very modest, to use a neutral word, response to their very strong language.
Let me talk initially about what they said. The B.C. Civil Liberties Association and others brought a constitutional case to the B.C. Supreme Court. In a landmark decision that was handed down in January this year, Mr. Justice Leask in his last judgment before leaving the bench provided what can only be described as a blockbuster decision. Among the things that he talked about, to build on what I asked my friend a moment ago, is the need for an independent review of segregation placements and that is entirely lacking in this decision.
He decided that the practice of solitary confinement, as it was practised at that point in time, breached the security of the person. He said: "I find as a fact that administrative segregation as enacted by [the statute] is a form of solitary confinement that places all Canadian federal inmates subject to it at significant risk of serious psychological harm, including mental pain and suffering, and increased incidence of self-harm and suicide." He wrote a 54,000-word judgment after hearing days and days of testimony, a very carefully reasoned decision and he held that it violated the security of the person that is guaranteed in our charter.
He also said that it discriminated against first nations, disabled and mentally ill individuals. The findings for that again are based on a thorough analysis of the situation at hand. He said thousands of prisoners have been subjected to solitary segregation over the years, isolated for up to 23 hours a day, sometimes for months and sometimes for years. Indeed, we know the sad story of Mr. Edward Snowshoe, an indigenous prisoner who died by suicide after languishing in solitary for 162 days without any meaningful attention from staff.
This is akin to a form of torture. This is not unlike the harm we have heard about in other contexts in this place of post-traumatic stress disorder that leads to the serious risks of suicide and self-harm as has happened so many times. Thousands of prisoners have been subjected to that isolation for so long and for so many hours a day and for so many days in a year.
There are about 14,000 inmates in federal institutions, 679 of them women. One in four of the incarcerated men spend some time in segregation. To my surprise, more than 40% of women do. This is a prevalent problem across our institutions and it is not just limited to some prisoners and some institutions, but is endemic across the country.
Those who believe that prisons are there to provide punishment but also for rehabilitation purposes should listen to what the judge concluded after days and days of testimony. He stated, “I have no hesitation in concluding that rather than prepare inmates for their return to the general population, prolonged placements in segregation have the opposite effect of making them more dangerous both within the institutions’ walls and in the community outside.” This is not serving the community and it is certainly not serving the people who have been in institutions for that long. The kinds of concerns he talked about include anxiety, withdrawal, hypersensitivity, hallucinations, aggression, rage, paranoia, hopelessness, self-mutilation and suicide ideation behaviour.
There is no question that we have dealt with a serious problem. It is not only the judge who said this. The correctional investigator of Canada and the United Nations Committee Against Torture have looked at that and concluded that there were serious issues that had to be addressed. Indeed, Justice Leask said there should be time limits of 15 days in solitary, longer periods are considered torture by the United Nations and the government indicated it could implement that standard. That is what led to the legislation before us today.
As I said at the outset, there are some tweaks in here that are helpful. The administrative segregation or solitary confinement has been rebranded as structured integration units, sort of an Orwellian term I suppose, but maybe the language will change things to some degree. Importantly, instead of spending up to 22 or 23 hours in segregation, the new scheme proposes up to 20 hours a day, but for an indefinite period of time. The Ontario Superior Court found that harmful effects can manifest in as little as 48 hours, so I ask whether that is likely to change anything in a significant fashion. I think not.
One of the things Justice Leask spent pages on in his decision was the need, as so many have said, to have an independent check on the discretion of the prison head or the Correctional Service of Canada's top official. That is lacking entirely in this bill. Senator Pate put a press release out and referred to this legislation, saying it is “only merely a rebranding of the same damaging practice”, now called structured intervention unit. She said that this bill “also virtually eliminates existing, already inadequate limitations on its use”, it “maintains the status quo regarding a lack of effective external oversight of correctional decision making”, it does nothing to deal with what Justice Louise Arbour concluded when she studied the prison for women in Kingston and she acknowledges, as the courts have, that the way segregation or solitary confinement is applied is disproportionately affecting “indigenous and racialized prisoners and those with mental health issues”.
This bill needs improvements on the checking of the discretion that is available to officials by way of appeals. The involvement of counsel on disciplinary hearings is a step forward, but there is so much that needs to be done to address the horrific practices that have been castigated by our courts in thoughtful decisions. This bill does not go far enough to address their disturbing conclusions.
Corrections and Conditional Release Act October 23rd, 2018
Mr. Speaker, to the hon. member for Malpeque, my question is this. Why is there no independent oversight of the commissioner's decision-making on putting people into administrative segregation in this bill, as Justice Leask in the B.C. Supreme Court and others have so strongly suggested?
Justice October 22nd, 2018
Mr. Speaker, Canadians were so disappointed last week when the Liberals said they would not expunge criminal records for simple possession of cannabis. The Liberals claim that they want to break down barriers to jobs, education, housing and volunteer work, but they will not take the steps necessary to do so. Only by erasing those records can we ensure Canadians do not suffer unjustly for a previous act that as of last week is entirely legal.
Will the Prime Minister support my bill and expunge those records or will he move ahead with his half-baked plan?
Veterans Affairs October 4th, 2018
Mr. Speaker, Patricia Kidd from Victoria was married to her husband, Piet, a naval surgeon, for 31 years. They raised two sons and loved each other until the day Piet died in April 2016.
Yet, Patricia is not getting a penny of his pension, as the Liberals continue to deprive veterans' spouses of benefits if the veteran they marry is over 60. The minister keeps telling me this is a top priority, but these widows are still waiting.
Will the Liberals immediately eliminate the archaic over-60 clause, so that widows like Patricia can finally get the pension they deserve?