Murray Rankin

[Canada Revenue Agency, April 19th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, problems at the Canada Revenue Agency just keep mounting: officials being wined and dined by the very people they are meant to investigate, a senior investigator going over to the company in the middle of a court case, secret sweetheart deals that let millionaire tax cheats off the hook with no penalties. This is an outrage. Canadians are tired of the wealthy and well-connected getting all the tax breaks.

When will the minister stop defending the indefensible and announce an investigation into the KPMG tax scandal?

[Holocaust-era Property Restitution, April 18th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, on Holocaust Remembrance Day we reaffirm our pledge never to forget.

Today I rise to ask the government to honour its commitment to Holocaust-era property restitution and compensation. When Nazis occupied central and eastern Europe, residents were subject to widespread property confiscation, much of which was never returned to its rightful owners. To this day, these victims remain uncompensated. Appropriate compensation would afford survivors of the Holocaust who have already endured the unfathomable some security and relief in their later years.

Over 40,000 Holocaust survivors have settled in Canada. We are home to the third-largest concentration of survivors in the world. Canada must uphold the Ottawa Protocol on Combating Anti-Semitism and the Terezin Declaration.

The past cannot be changed, but that does not absolve us of our responsibilities to survivors today. It would be fitting for our government to renew its commitment to Holocaust-era property restitution as but the smallest measure of justice for survivors' unthinkable losses.

[Justice, April 13th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the parliamentary secretary very much for his kind words. I definitely wish to continue to collaborate with him in trying to get, as he put it, the best regulatory framework for the future of cannabis use in Canada that we can. I want to make that clear and welcome his leadership on this file.

I respectfully disagree with my friend opposite. There is confusion that persists as the government does its necessary work to create safer communities and to do the things my colleague referred to. I do not understand why young people would still be prosecuted, have their lives impacted dramatically for who knows how long, for what will apparently be legal shortly thereafter.

It seems to me we need to address the status quo now while waiting for effective reform regulation in the future.

[Justice, April 13th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, on February 25, the member for Scarborough Southwest and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice answered a question of mine in which I pointed out what I thought was confusion that Canadians were experiencing about the status of the government's policy on marijuana reform.

I want to point out his answer to my question. He said:

...we want to remind all Canadians that until that important work is completed, the only control that is in place is the current criminal sanction for the production and trafficking of marijuana, and those laws remain in effect.

Of course, the member is an expert on this topic, so we know it was a slip of his tongue when he forgot that the word “possession” should have been included among the remaining criminal sanctions for marijuana. I acknowledge that. However, it is time for the government to stop denying that there is indeed confusion among Canadians about the current legal status of marijuana and about the government's intentions.

The parliamentary secretary and I sit together on the justice committee. In that committee, we have also learned that the government may spend up to $4 million this year alone prosecuting simple possession cases. Who knows how much more the provinces are spending, who of course are responsible for the administration of justice and pay crown council, have court rooms available with judges, and the like? How much are they spending for prosecuting possession of marijuana?

It needs to be said that the Liberals are spending this money despite the government's promise to legalize marijuana and despite what we hear is a growing concern from judges regarding the continued prosecutions for marijuana.

Indeed, we have obtained from the director of public prosecutions the recent case of Regina v. Racine from the Ontario Court of Justice, in which the hon. Justice Selkirk refused to accept a guilty plea for possession of marijuana. This is the court transcript of what Mr. Justice Selkirk's remarks were in December 2015.

I recall distinctly the Prime Minister in the House of Commons saying it's going to be legalized. I'm not going to be the last judge in this country to convict somebody of simple possession of marijuana....

You can't have the Prime Minister announcing it's going to be legalized and then stand up and prosecute it. It just can't happen. It's a ludicrous situation, ludicrous.

That is not me speaking. That is a justice from the Ontario Court of Justice.

By all means, the government must take the time to craft a responsible framework for legalization, but do not ask ordinary Canadians to keep paying the price.

My question is a simple one. Why does the government refuse to take the common-sense step of immediately decriminalizing simple possession of marijuana?

[Impaired Driving Act, April 13th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address such a complex and pressing initiative, as my friend the parliamentary secretary has also indicated.

Let me say at the outset that we firmly believe there needs to be future consideration of the bill, and I look forward to working with members of all parties to advance the debate on the need for a comprehensive, effective response to impaired driving that all of our communities so desperately need.

I stand with my colleague, the member for Jonquière. She and the Lac-Saint-Jean community have also seen preventable tragedies.

She told me the story of Johanny Simard, who was killed by a repeat drunk driver one month before her 16th birthday. She also told me the story of Mathieu Perron and Vanessa Viger. This young married couple in their twenties were expecting their second child when they were killed instantly by a repeat drunk driver who was behind the wheel of a speeding truck. Their son Patrick, who was in the back seat, was only two years old. He died in hospital shortly thereafter.

I would like to thank my colleague from Jonquière for her help on this file. I would also like to thank her for seeking justice, finding solutions for the future, and helping me to understand what her community has gone through.

However, they are not alone. Far too many Canadians have friends or family members who have been injured or even killed by impaired drivers. Just last month, in a case to which the parliamentary secretary also made reference, there was a case involving a gentleman north of Toronto. Justice Michelle Fuerst wrote in her decision something I wish to quote:

The sad reality is that the sentence I impose today will not make whole the families who lost three children and their grandfather, nor will it return a grandmother and great-grandmother to good health. While the criminal justice system can deter and denounce, it is ill-suited to make reparation for harm of the magnitude involved in this case.

Neither judges nor lawmakers can make these families whole again. However, as parliamentarians we can and must work against the next tragedy. Somewhere in our communities is the next victim of impaired driving.

We owe it to them and to their families to rededicate ourselves to the task of finding the most effective measures to finally put an end to impaired driving on our roads. They are counting on us not to give in to the temptation to simply talk tough in the wake of these tragedies. They are counting on us to stop the next crash, the next injury, the next death. That means having the debate our country needs, founded on the evidence, guided by the lessons of other jurisdictions, and focused on effective deterrence. It is time we measured our progress not in years served but in lives saved.

Let us consider some facts.

Successive federal governments have increased the penalties for impaired driving offences: in 1985, 1999, 2000 and 2008.

For 16 years, the law has set life imprisonment as the maximum punishment for impaired driving causing death, and 10 years imprisonment for causing bodily harm. The average prison term for such crimes has lengthened, and the percentage of offenders receiving custodial sentences has risen.

What effect has this had on the rate of impaired driving? If we look at the latest numbers from Statistics Canada, we see that Canada made incredible strides between 1985 and 2000, cutting the rate of impaired driving incidents in half. However, after 2000 progress stalled.

Six years ago, the Standing Committee on Justice completed its study on impaired driving. It showed that in 2006, the latest year for which data is available, saw more Canadians killed by impaired driving than in any year since 1998 and the third consecutive annual increase in fatalities.

That report stated:

...impaired driving remains the number one criminal cause of death in Canada...despite our collective best efforts and intentions, it is apparent that the problem of impaired driving is worsening in Canada and we are losing ground in our efforts to eliminate the problem.

Those words remain true today.

More recent data available to us now shows that the problem continued to worsen after 2009. Why is this so?

Let me turn to a review of the evidence by Mothers Against Drunk Driving for answers. They say the media, politicians, and others often argue for increased sentences as a means of deterring both the offender and others who might otherwise engage in the conduct. However, research during the last 35 years establishes that increasing penalties for impaired driving does not, in itself, have a significant specific or general deterrence impact. Rather, the evidence indicates that the risk of apprehension and, to a lesser extent, the swiftness with which the sanction is imposed are the key factors in deterrence.

This seems counterintuitive to many, but consider this: people drive impaired, even though they know it could kill them. If they can ignore that ultimate penalty, what chance does the distant threat of a jail term stand?

The evidence marshalled by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, based on numerous studies from Canada and abroad over a span of decades, led to this stark conclusion:

...lengthy prison terms cannot be justified in the name of specific or general deterrence and may even be counterproductive in terms of recidivism.

This evidence raises specific concerns about efficacy of the sentencing reforms proposed by my colleague in the bill, not to mention the vulnerability of new mandatory minimums to charter challenge.

However, the bill has two other goals, and it is for these and the urgency of its basic objective that I support further debate and study of the bill.

First, the bill would restrict some of the more dubious legal defences that contribute to Canada's distressingly low charge and conviction rate for impaired driving. My colleagues have spoken about those.

The second is that the bill would introduce random breath testing for drivers. This is a measure that has been proposed before in this House and adopted by many OECD countries, reportedly with considerable success in reducing the incidence of impaired driving. I know from my own discussions with legal and law enforcement communities that it has its supporters but also its critics. However, in the face of continuing tragedies like what we have heard about in Lac Saint-Jean, I cannot justify denying further study in this House of that potential successful measure.

These and other provisions deserve study because we know that simply raising the penalties for the fifth time in three decades is not enough, and it will not do it. We need more than new laws that happen to be appearing in our Criminal Code. We need well-trained, well-supported police officers on our roads. We need collaboration with the provinces and territories. We need smarter investigative tools, so that families are not denied justice by a technicality. We need to study the penalties that are already in place to see what works and what does not. We need to assess the technology to detect drug-impaired driving as well.

In closing, I know that every member shares our commitment to the objective of the bill, which is to save lives by deterring and ending impaired driving. This has been the goal of many studies, bills, and laws that have been passed in this place before.

I look forward to working with all members to study the bill and measure it against the standards of comprehensiveness, practicality, efficacy, and constitutionality. We owe it to the families I spoke of when I began, and countless others across Canada, who have suffered a tragic and preventable loss, to hold ourselves to high standards, to move past half measures, and to find the most effective solutions to regain the ground we have lost over the last decade in the fight to end impaired driving.

[Impaired Driving Act, April 13th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin my question by thanking the member for Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis for introducing reform of our legislation dealing with driving while impaired. It is long overdue. It has been since 2008. Driving while impaired is responsible for more than 1,000 deaths a year, and it is a leading cause of criminal death in Canada. I thank him for his efforts in this important area.

In light of the Liberals' commitment to reform other laws where impairment could occur, such as marijuana or other drugs, my question is whether the issue of drug impairment would be affected positively, negatively, or at all by the legislation before us tonight.

[Questions on the Order Paper, March 9th, 2016]

With regard to Correctional Services Canada’s (CSC) Integrated Police and Parole Initiative (IPPI): (a) what is the complete and detailed list of all evaluations and analyses of efficacy of IPPI which were proposed, conducted, and concluded between December 2009 and December 2015 that were (i) conducted by CSC itself, (ii) conducted by any other party; (b) for each item listed in (a), (i) when was it carried out, (ii) who carried it out, (iii) what was the rationale for carrying it out; (c) for each item listed in (a), what were the conclusions of the evaluation or analysis, and the justification for these conclusions, including (i) whether or not IPPI remained consistent with CSC, police service and government-wide priorities and objectives, (ii) whether or not the design of IPPI, as an enhanced supervision partnership, including objectives of information sharing and apprehension of offenders who were unlawfully at large (UAL), was consistent with practices in other jurisdictions, (iii) whether or not the changing offender profile and number of UAL offenders under CSC jurisdiction demonstrated a need for IPPI, (iv) what staffing challenges (including but not limited to staffing shortages and awareness and understanding of IPPI) affected the implementation of IPPI and what the effects were, (v) whether or not the organizational structure and reporting relationships for IPPI were designed and implemented in a way that supported the continued activities of the initiative, as well as what regional variations in reporting relationships existed and how that affected IPPI, (vi) whether or not the roles and responsibilities of IPPI stakeholders were well-defined and appropriate and what changes should be made to clarify and improve these roles and responsibilities if necessary, (vii) which police officers were most appropriate for community correctional liaison officer (CCLO) positions, (viii) whether or not CCLOs had completed IPPI training and whether or not that training was viewed as relevant, (ix) whether or not IPPI data was being correctly entered into CSC databases, including but not limited to CCLO contacts, (x) whether or not criteria for higher risk offenders for inclusion in IPPI were clearly defined or communicated, and if not, why not, and what were the consequences of this, (xi) whether or not CCLOs were situated in appropriate locations, (xii) whether or not IPPI faced implementation delays and what the consequences of these delays were, including but not limited to re-profiling of offenders, internal re-allocations, and/or lapses of funding, (xiii) whether or not communication and partnerships between CSC, police services and community stakeholders were effective and in what ways they could be improved, (xiv) whether or not stakeholders were consulted to see if their perceptions of CSC’s mandate and strategies had improved since the implementation of IPPI, (xv) whether or not available data suggested that IPPI had an effect on recidivism rates, (xvi) whether or not UAL apprehensions increased following the implementation of IPPI and by how much, (xvii) whether or not IPPI was cost-effective, and if this determination was not possible, why not; (d) for each item identified in (a), (i) how do each of the findings identified in (c) differ from the findings of Evaluation Report: Integrated Police and Parole Initiative published in November 2008, (ii) for what reasons do each of these findings differ; and (e) with regard to the decision to discontinue IPPI, (i) by what process was this decision reached, (ii) what was the rationale for this decision, (iii) in what way did this decision incorporate the items listed in (a) and the findings outlined in (c), (iv) what was the cost-savings of the discontinuation, (v) has CSC or any other government body considered reintroducing IPPI, (vi) what criteria are being used in this consideration?

[Justice, February 25th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the current government is sowing confusion left and right on marijuana. The Liberals promised to legalize it, but they offered no timeline. When the chiefs of police complained that this was creating uncertainty, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice helpfully cleared things up when he said that, well, the current approach of criminalizing people for possession is failing, but the government is still going to continue the current approach indefinitely.

Why does the government not clear up the confusion and simply decriminalize personal possession of marijuana immediately?

[Royal Canadian Mounted Police, February 19th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, harassment in any workplace is a serious issue. It must be dealt with fairly and immediately, but according to new reports, complaints about things like bullying and sexual touching were raised by former RCMP employees in 2014 and 2015 but were too often ignored. When fault was found, the penalties were just not credible.

The RCMP investigating itself is just not working. Will the minister agree to take this on directly and order a full, independent review of harassment in the RCMP?

[Business of Supply, February 18th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, that is a thoughtful question. It is, indeed, problematic. “Slippery slope” is an old cliché, but I do worry about it. If we start making blanket condemnations of views that are impossible or, indeed, abhorrent in certain places, it is a slippery slope because then people will ask what we are going to do about it. An earlier question raised the same thing, how we are going to action this particular condemnation.

The question is an excellent one, with which I agree.