Murray Rankin

[Parliament of Canada Act, March 31st, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I should say the member for Winnipeg Centre. I stand corrected.

I had the pleasure of speaking on that bill, and I found that it was a fascinating bill because it would have addressed the changes required to the access to information regime in a very specific way. What it did was call for the changes that the government had suggested when it was seeking a mandate from the Canadian public. The wisdom of the bill was to limit itself to just those changes that the government said were required to fix the act. Only one of six was implemented, as I recall.

This bill before us today would do a couple of things. First, it would require the minutes of the meetings of the Board of Internal Economy to be opened by default. That is an interesting concept. Interestingly, though, retired clerk Mr. Rob Walsh says that it is entirely unnecessary. There was no need for a bill to address that because it can be done, as in all committees, by making its procedures open if it wishes to do so. The second amendment was to change the purpose clause of the Access to Information Act, something that I note the commissioner herself thought was unwise.

I commend to the House Professor Sean Holman, a professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, who wrote an article about the so-called transparency act before us. Its title is revealing. It is “Are the Liberals Fooling Everyone Again?” That says quite a bit about this issue. It has, as he says, some laudable ideas, but when pressed about the concept that somehow government information would be “open by default”, which the hon. member for Papineau referred to in his remarks, Professor Holman said that the member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor said that people would still have to file access to information requests to get government records. That does not suggest that big a change.

The notion that the government would be required to provide detailed rather than brief explanations on why it was opposed to the disclosure of information would, in my judgment, would simply be a speed bump along the way to withholding information. Frankly, it would just require people to push a computer button and have the regular bumf as to why this particular exception does not work.

The real guts of what is required is to fix the exemptions in the statute, which are outrageously out of date in the context of our 21st century economy. This came in before we even had computers. The exemption is where the action is. This bill is entirely silent on it. I commend to the House the excellent recommendations found in the long-awaited report by the Information Commissioner today, which will show us the road map to really provide open government in Canada. It is not this bill, I am afraid to say. Though laudable in some respects, it does not even go a tiny distance to doing what is required, which is the root-and-branch work, the hard work that she has suggested needs to be done in her report.

With that said, I do not wish to suggest that there are not some things that are important. The thing that this bill would do, which I commend, is what my hon. friend from Winnipeg tried to do with his bill, giving a power that every commissioner across the country has, which is to order disclosure and make binding orders on the government. That is something that has been sought for decades.

The Access to Information Act, after all, is three decades old. It has never had the ability to enable the commissioner to do anything more than simply recommend disclosure. It is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, whereas in the provinces an order by the information commissioner is binding on the government, subject only to judicial review. That is the law. One shall disclose what the commissioner orders.

Finally, the bill, and I give credit where credit is due, would do that. It is a long-standing policy of the NDP and something which most critics have said is needed, and I commend the member for Papineau for doing that. It would also require a legislative review, which of course we think is eclipsed by the excellent work on the commissioner's part today.

In conclusion, I do not know whether amending the Parliament of Canada Act with respect to the Board of Internal Economy's disclosure provisions is necessary. The retired clerk says no, but why not? It is okay. The order-making power is good, absolutely. As to changing the purpose clause, the commissioner does not think that is a good idea and neither do I in particular, but the idea of ordering disclosure is a long-overdue improvement to the legislation.

Would that the bill went far enough to give Canada the open government that the government of the day here has promised us and which it has failed to deliver on ever since the so-called and much lamented Accountability Act was first brought forward.

[Parliament of Canada Act, March 31st, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, it is hard to say a lot in six minutes on an area as important as access to information, but let me do my best.

Today, was a historic day. After two hard years of deliberation, our Information Commissioner, Madame Legault, brought forth a whole variety of recommendations to improve the Access to Information Act. I say that in the context of the debate on Bill C-613 that is before us, because this bill would not go nearly as far as even a tiny way toward what the commissioner said is necessary to fix our broken open government system.

A bill that would have gone much further than that was introduced by my hon. friend, the member for Winnipeg North, under the title Bill C-567, which I had—

[Health, March 31st, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the reality is that federal leadership has never been so badly needed, yet the government has totally abandoned the field.

Today marks the sad anniversary of the Conservatives' total abandonment of health accords. They failed to work with the provinces and territories to address the real challenges faced by our cherished public health care system. They failed to act on home care. They failed to act on the high cost of prescription drugs. Why are they refusing to renew our health accords? Why are they undermining our health care system?

[Petitions, March 30th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to table a petition on behalf of thousands of Canadians who are calling on the Prime Minister and the Government of Canada to work with the premiers to ensure quality health care.

Tomorrow is a sad day. It marks the first anniversary of the expiry of the 10-year federal-provincial health accords. These citizens are concerned about our public medicare system and want the federal government to show leadership to preserve and enhance it.

I thank the thousands of citizens who signed on. I thank Dr. Monika Dutt, who appeared with me and other MPs at a press conference today. I also thank the Canadian Doctors for Medicare for showing leadership on this issue and for being an advocate for evidence-based reforms to improve Canada's health care system.

[Citizen Consultation Preceding Natural Resource Development, March 27th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, that is a difficult act to follow, but I will do my best.

Motion No. 533 is very specific in what it requests. It talks about how the federal government, in exercising its jurisdiction, should be submitting natural resource development projects to a broader consultation with first nations and citizens in communities and urban areas. That is the breadth of what is being proposed here. It makes a very broad yet very succinct request of this House.

In addressing the motion, I would like to talk about the nature of public participation, the nature of environmental assessment processes and the aboriginal issues relating to that, and finally about projects in British Columbia that are before us today, namely the Enbridge northern gateway and the Kinder Morgan projects, a lens through which I hope to examine the failure of a credible public participation process—not only, as the motion said, for first nations, but also for citizens in our various communities.

There is a vision for a new energy future that the Leader of the Opposition has articulated in the Policy Options magazine in September and October last year. It is quite interesting, because in that article he starts by talking about the crossroads we are at when it comes to aboriginal involvement in development. He talks of the Supreme Court of Canada's watershed case in the Tsilhqot’in matter that has driven home the fact that resource development will simply not happen without proper first nations consultation and accommodation.

I stress the word “proper” because it is not a “nice to have”, as the government treats public participation; it is a constitutionally required activity, a consultation that is not just about counting boxes and putting little ticks beside them to confirm we have had a chat. It is about a genuine good faith engagement with first nations when resource development affects either their rights or aboriginal title. When I say “title”, of course that is the burden of the Tsilhqot’in case that has been such a watershed development in our part of the world and across Canada.

Let us remember that in the Haida decision, the Supreme Court of Canada said:

Prior to establishment of title, the Crown is required to consult in good faith with any Aboriginal groups asserting title to the land about proposed uses of the land and, if appropriate, accommodate the interests of such claimant groups.

In comparison, the court was clear in Tsilhqot’in that after aboriginal title has been established, the default focus is consent:

After Aboriginal title to land has been established by court declarations or agreement, the Crown must seek the consent of the title-holding Aboriginal group....

What has the Government of Canada done in response to that? What has it done in response to the excellent report by its hand-picked appointee, Mr. Douglas Eyford, who worried that projects are failing because industry has been left alone to navigate the consultation and accommodation process? The government has done nothing. It has left us with a vacuum. It has left us with projects that may or may not be in the public interest but will never proceed, because first nations have not had the constitutional rights accorded to them by the current government.

The government first tried to download it to industry, which pushed right back and said that it was the honour of the crown that was at issue and that industry was not the crown. That has been a bit of a dead end, and it is tying up development that may be in the public interest across this land. It is simply shameful.

The ultimate form of consultation in our province is called the treaty process. This past week we heard that the Government of British Columbia is essentially walking away from the BC Treaty Commission. It cannot seem to find a person to appoint to that process.

Has the Government of Canada been yelling from the rooftops that it is committed to this process, that it has spent billions of dollars trying to engage first nations in unceded land and that through the process of good faith negotiations, it is trying to address those land claims? The answer is no. I have not heard the government say one thing about the crisis facing the BC Treaty Commission. I have heard Chief Sophie Pierre say it and I have heard Jerry Lampert, the federal appointee on the commission, say it, but I have not heard the Prime Minister or a single parliamentarian address that crisis.

It is a crisis not only because billions have been spent, but because that is the way in which we truly engage with first nations to achieve resource development that is meaningful and in the interests of not just the first nations communities but the people of Canada. It is a crying shame the Conservatives seem to have let that wither on the vine.

Douglas Eyford, whom the government appointed after the debacle of the Enbridge process, recommended a special fund for consultation with first nations. That dies this year. The government will not bring a budget forward and we do not know whether it will be continued and, if so, to what degree. That is another example of the lack of concern the Conservatives have for engaging in what the courts have termed “nation-to-nation consultation” with our first nations communities.

It is no wonder this motion was brought forward to demand that this occur. It is not only in the interest of first nations, it is in the interest of all Canadians that the process of reconciliation, which the Supreme Court has demanded of us, be finally addressed, and it is not.

I could spend time on first nations and more so, but I want to talk about the environmental assessment process.

Everyone knows that Bill C-38 gutted the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. We heard that loud and clear in the travesty of the Enbridge northern gateway consultation process. Over 130 first nations across British Columbia announced their opposition. Nearly 10,000 Canadians told the joint review panel that they opposed this project. Towns and cities across Canada oppose it. The community of Kitimat, in a referendum, told the people of Canada that they did not want any of this. Was it approved? Yes. The Government of Canada did not seem to care. So much for consultation. The level of cynicism that the Conservatives have engendered in the people of my province is absolutely tangible.

When we talk to younger Canadians about their engagement in the process, they say “Why bother?” The Conservatives create these little processes and ignore them. It does not matter how many people speak out because it does not seem to make any difference.

If we get into a protest, for example on Burnaby Mountain, and Grand Chief Stewart Philip is arrested, he tells us that under the new and improved national security legislation, his advocacy, protest and dissent will not be in that context lawful because it is subject to an injunction and that he will somehow be on a terrorist list. So much for participation in that project.

What the Conservatives do not seem to get is that they cannot proceed with resource development that may well be in everyone's interest unless they get a social licence. People in our province are having none of these projects because they realize the process by which they are being reviewed completely ignores the consultation that is required.

That is why I was so proud to stand in this place and support a bill introduced by my colleague, the MP for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, Bill C-628. It would, among other things, absolutely improve the level of consultation that this motion would require us to do. One of the things that bill would do would require a report to be submitted to a joint review panel or National Energy Board, as the case may be, that would include a summary of those positions taken by municipalities, first nations and individuals and specify how the board took each position into account in deciding whether to recommend the issuance of a certificate for a pipeline. Accountability is about that. It is ensuring what people say actually matters. That is why they would be unable to ignore the 10,000 people opposed to the Enbridge northern gateway pipeline proposal. Yet the government has the audacity to simply say no problem going ahead.

Closer to home, in my community, we have another proposal coming forward, and that is the famous Kinder Morgan project, in which Trans Mountain's application to double its pipeline and radically increase the number of tankers on our coast is being considered. How can the proponent ever achieve the social licence required when so many people have said that the process of consultation is broken?

The former head of BC Hydro, in a scathing letter, withdrew, saying it was a joke. Standing is being restricted to those “directly affected, reducing the number and diversity of interveners and limiting the participation to a single letter”. That is of course is subject to a charter lawsuit claiming it violates freedom of expression.

Consequently, that is another example of why the motion is so desperately required that government can begin to take consultations seriously so it would improve the life of not only first nations, but all Canadians.

[Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act, March 27th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise you that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Châteauguay—Saint-Constant.

I support Bill C-26 to amend the Criminal Code to do a number of things to deal with the scourge of child predators. It would amend the Sex Offender Information Registration Act and create a high-risk child sex offender database, as well as make a number of changes to the Criminal Code, which I will discuss during my remarks.

This bill is consistent with the zero tolerance policy that my party, the NDP, has with respect to child sexual crimes. Sexual crimes against children have to be dealt with in the most effective manner possible. The issue then before us is whether this bill will do what it says it is trying to achieve, a goal which we applaud. The question, then, is whether some of the mandatory new minimum sentences and the consecutive sentences provisions will do the job or whether judicial discretion, which has been the case before this, will still be a relevant way to proceed.

It will be my argument that although the bill is useful in some regard, it seems to ignore the evidence in a couple of key provisions, evidence that was brought before the committee that studied the bill, which I will refer to during my remarks.

It would increase existing mandatory minimum and maximum penalties. It would amend the Evidence Act to ensure that spouses of the accused would be competent and compellable witnesses where child pornography would be involved.

It would also amend the Sex Offender Information Registration Act to increase the reporting requirements when sex offenders travelled outside the country. There is some question as to wether the laudable end goal would be achieved in practice. It would enact a high-risk child offender database to establish a publicly accessible database containing information that police would have previously made accessible to the public in other places. We have that under the legislation in my province and in others, I understand. This would create that kind of accessibility across the country.

As I said at the outset, our party has a long-standing zero tolerance policy when it comes to sexual offences against children and we therefore wonder whether this bill will do the job, protect children and keep our communities safe. For reasons I will describe, I am not sure it will do so. Simply having a tough on crime rhetoric and building more prisons and the like will be ineffective, as many of the experts said when they testified.

It is a question of having the resources available in the communities to do the job, as well as having legislation, which in and of itself is a partial measure. However, if we give people the tools and they do not have the ability to implement them because they do not have the budget, what good have we done except disappoint Canadians in our response? Therefore, are the necessary resources available? The answer appears to be no.

We have suggested that necessary resources be earmarked for the RCMP registry and budgets be made available to support victims. For example, the NDP fought for the Circles of Support and Accountability program only to find out that the measly $650,000 in funding that Correctional Service Canada offered was simply all and that it would not do the job.

CoSA, which is the Circles of Support and Accountability to which I have referred, receives funding from the National Crime Prevention Centre, which will end this fall. It costs $2.2 million a year. CoSA has been extraordinarily successful in having people settle into normal lives. Just having coffee and ensuring people are on track has proven, as it has been studied, to actually work and make a difference. Will there be money available for such programs? I do not think so, and that is what is so problematic about the bill.

If the government really were tough on crime, aside from getting good talking points, it would put its money where its mouth is.

Let us talk about what some of the experts have said about the specifics of the bill and see whether it is evidence-based or merely populous.

The politics are that we all join in wanting to make our communities safer for children, but one of the ways the Conservatives think they will do so is to have what they call mandatory minimum sentences for various offences. A long list is created.

The law requires, however, that there be a proportionate sentence for the offender and the offence. That is what the Constitution tells us. Rather, the Conservatives have mandatory minimum sentences throughout this. The message from Mr. Michael Spratt, who testified on behalf of the Criminal Lawyers' Association to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, is that it will not work. From evidence on February 16, he said:

—the message that's being sent, that minimum sentences and harsher sentences make us safer. You know that's not true. You've been told that before. You've been told that by me, and you've been told that by other experts. The evidence suggests quite the opposite —minimum sentences don't make communities safer. They don't deter the commission of offences. They impede rehabilitation. They are costly, and they can be unconstitutional.

It looks good, sounds good, but it does not work.

Another witness from the Canadian Bar Association, a former crown attorney, Mr. Paul Calarco, said that there were very significant increases in this statute with respect to minimum offences, but stated:

I believe it is far more likely now that there will be constitutional challenges, there will be a finding of gross disproportionality, and that means the entire sentencing regime must be struck down.

Does that sound like a good way to protect our children?

It is not just these people. The famous Professor Anthony Doob from the University of Toronto testified that, “mandatory minimum penalties of this kind do not deter crime”. “Steve Sullivan testified, not only speaking to the ineffectiveness of minimum sentences but also how they can make the situation worse”. So many experts testified, asking and making the same point, that it would be likely to be held unconstitutional, therefore being a waste of time.

Also in terms of lack of evidence regarding the sexual offence registry, Mr. Calarco talked to the fact that:

There is little evidence to suggest that sexual offender registries, as they are presently constituted, prevent sexual assaults. This can be seen in both the reports of the Auditor General of Ontario and the John Howard Society....

[The] bill does not make the prevention of sexual exploitation any more likely. [Its] reporting requirements are unlikely to have any discernible effect on public safety, or will be unenforceable when they deal with matters outside [the] country....

He goes on to say that so many of the people involved in these horrible crimes are in family situations and that it will do nothing for them. A registry would not prevent these kinds of incidents. One of the most important ways to ensure a safe and just society is by rehabilitating the offenders.

Is that not what we want, to rehabilitate as opposed to simply show society's disgust with the crimes at issue?

If the experts and the evidence are saying that these kinds of measures, minimum mandatory sentences, simply will not work, if they are saying that we need more money to do the job, and if they are saying that the registries are not particularly effective, we need to address why in committee the Conservatives rejected the amendments that were proposed by the NDP to try to improve the bill.

The New Democrats suggested, for example, that the information in the new database could not be used to identify the victims and that it should be clarified. That was rejected. It was suggested to require that the minister report annually to Parliament on whether the bill was working. The Conservatives did not want that either. It is unclear why they would reject that kind of accountability. The Conservatives like to brag about accountability in their rhetoric, but when it comes to actually doing the job, they do not want to take those steps.

This is a position that puts us in great difficulty. Of course we support this bill because we have zero tolerance for sexual crimes involving children. However, we are dubious as to whether it will achieve its objectives. We wish it were more evidence-based because the evidence before the committee and before Parliament is that some of these measures will not do the job.

Nevertheless, we stand in support of the bill, wishing the Conservatives would allow a review, as they have done with other legislation, after a certain period of time so Parliament can assess whether it has been effective.

[CBC/Radio-Canada, March 27th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday's CBC layoffs will have a huge impact on western Canada. In British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, another 76 jobs will be lost. Conservative cuts are simply destroying our public broadcaster. I hear it every day.

Canadians understand the importance of quality local news and why we need a strong CBC. An NDP government would reverse the devastating $115 million that the Conservatives have cut from the CBC and we would stand up for the CBC.

When will the Conservatives just take their hands off CBC?

[Military Contribution Against ISIL, March 26th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, of course I agree that military involvement of this sort can go awry, to use her phrase.

What we will be doing is joining a very small contingent of nations in going into Syria. Right now only America, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, and Morocco have launched strikes on Syria. Canada will be only the second NATO nation to join the Syrian side of the mission, which I think is telling.

[Military Contribution Against ISIL, March 26th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his questions. I think there were five or six of them, and I am expected to answer them in, I suppose, one minute or two.

The first question I think was about what the mission is and whether it was clear. The Minister of Foreign Affairs initially said on Wednesday that our commitment is to degrade ISIS, and that will be the focus of our operations in the region. Then the Minister of National Defence, who just spoke, earlier had told CBC's Power and Politics that the goal was to defeat ISIS. I do not know if that is clear to him, but it certainly is not a clear objective to me.

A quagmire is something one gets into deeper and deeper, as we saw in Vietnam and Afghanistan. It seems to me that if he is proud of our humanitarian support, we would like to make him even prouder by doing more for the poor people of the area.

[Military Contribution Against ISIL, March 26th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, it is a very sobering responsibility that we all have as parliamentarians in addressing this issue this evening. It is an issue that will involve sending brave men and women into harm's way. Therefore, I wish to say from the outset that I will be speaking against this motion, but wish to do so in a context and with a spirit of concern for the individuals that the government is prepared to send into harm's way in this quagmire. That is what I think we are asking them to do.

I would like to begin by providing an overview and then talk about issues of legality, which I believe are at issue here this evening.

First of all, this was initially a short mission, then a longer one, and now it is going to be a year-long mission to push us over past the election. After that, who knows how much longer it will be? Our experience in Afghanistan and the Americans' experience in Iraq would lead us to believe that it is not likely to be a short mission. That is probably why this issue is even more significant this evening than it would be if we took the Prime Minister at his word that it will only be until March of 2016.

To extend and expand for one year is misleading, given the history that anyone who studied in this part of the world would have to concede exists.

Some six months ago, the Leader of the Opposition asked the Prime Minister specifically whether Canadian troops would be involved in painting targets for air strikes or would accompany Iraqi troops to the front line. The Prime Minister said no. Of course, the tragic death of Sergeant Andrew Doiron proved that the Prime Minister had misled Parliament and the Canadian public.

The Leader of the Opposition stood up two days ago and very eloquently explained what military planners have told us from the get-go, which is that a successful mission requires two things. They are defined objectives and an exit strategy. It is our submission that the Conservative government has neither. It has no strategy, other than the obvious political one of dividing Canadians. It does not even know whether this is a mission to degrade or destroy, as different people in the government have said different things. One day it was to degrade; then the Minister of National Defence said that it was to destroy. Frankly, who knows? The Conservatives have no objective, except issues that are more political than otherwise whose goals are to divide Canadians.

Exit strategy? There is no such thing. I will speak a little later about the issues of legality in this context.

I suspect that polls have made it clear that we need to talk about radicalization, but where is there anything about the de-radicalization of our youth in this particular initiative? There is nothing. Rhetoric such as “it is an attack on Canada” and “we are at war” is misleading to the extreme and serves the Conservatives' purpose of getting us into this quagmire even further.

Do we have an alternative? Obviously we do: protect refugees and offer humanitarian support. Children are freezing to death in non-winterized camps. Families are destroyed.

I was talking to a friend I visited in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. That economy is being destroyed by the millions of people who are surging across that border. Lebanon simply cannot afford it. Turkey is in the same position. I am not even talking about the internal displacement in Iraq and Syria.

The second thing that we think needs to be done, which Canada has done very well as a country, is assist in regional diplomacy. Canada used to be a country that did that. It is not anymore.

Third, we need to counter the extremist messaging and expose the brutality of ISIS. In a sense, we need to deal with that issue on the ground in order to turn public opinion, which I think is going to be required.

I have been to the mosque in Victoria a couple of times. I am going to Friday prayers again next week to see if the solutions that they are proposing to deal with any concerns arising in our community about radicalization can be dealt with, because if there is a threat, and if it is to Canada, it will be within our borders that we will solve that problem.

We have certainly see lone wolf extremists, as they are called, here in Ottawa. That does not mean there is a jihadi war against our country, rhetoric to the contrary.

In the words of our foreign affairs critic, this has gone from mission creep to mission leap. We do not even know what the costs are going to be. Apparently the effort by the member for St. John's East to get the information from the Parliamentary Budget Officer was denied. We do not know what it is going to cost, or if the government knows. There is a new report today from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who believes that our defence spending has become or will become unsustainable. I would have thought that was something that Canadians would be concerned about.

The humanitarian crisis that other colleagues have talked about is what I think ought to preoccupy the House, rather than painting targets and assisting in what can only be described, if any use of the English language is to be clear, as a combat mission to which the government wishes to commit our brave men and women. It is a combat mission that has no sanction from the United Nations, no sanction even from NATO. It seems we are the only NATO member other than the United States that is prepared to go into Syria.

As the official opposition, we were not opposed to and voted in favour of a mission that had the United Nations sanction. I speak of Libya. That is not what this is about, and I will talk about legality in a moment because that is what Canadians really wish to know about as well.

We can talk about the brutality. We all look at the pictures on TV. We all know how horrible ISIS is. This is not a situation of standing in Parliament and talking to each other about just how horrible this group is. We all know that to be true, but as a country, are we doing the right thing in committing our brave men and women in this context? That is what we are here to talk about, and I will be arguing that it is entirely illegal and that we have no trust in the Prime Minister in committing our troops in this fashion.

The mission has gone from 30 days to six months to a year, and now, we assume, forever, or another decade, or whatever it takes before we find ourselves in the same situation we found ourselves in in Afghanistan. Why is it any different here? Why will it be any different from what happened in that context? Somehow we are supposed to make an unholy alliance, like it or not, with Bashar al-Assad, the brutal dictator who kills his own people. It is unclear whether we are going in at the request of the Syrian people or not.

Sometimes an article captures things very well. Today's article by Mr. Siddiqui in the Toronto Star starts with “[The Prime Minister's] flip-flop on war fits pattern of deceit”. I commend it to Canadians to read because it so clearly describes what is going on before our very eyes today. It says:

The non-combat mission featured combat. The short-term commitment has become long. No involvement in Syria has evolved into a war on Syria.

His reasons for extending and expanding the mission are patently false. The Islamic State did not move into Syria yesterday — it was there last year as well. It does not pose a direct threat to Canada the way the prime minister frames it in order to scare us, just as George W. Bush whipped up fear about weapons of mass destruction and terrorism to justify his wars and get re-elected.

If the Islamic State poses as big a threat to Canada as the Prime Minister says it does, why has he committed only six planes and 69 Special Forces soldiers?

And on and on. What we are dealing with in this context is so disingenuous.

In the time available to me, let me now turn to the legality of this issue.

The proposed motion by the Conservative government involves Canada engaging in an illegal act under international law. The only time an engagement is deemed legal is if it is sanctioned by the UN Security Council, unless some kind of anticipatory self-defence argument can be conjured up.

I commend to Canadians the speech given by my colleague, the MP for Toronto—Danforth, earlier today, a colleague who is a Rhodes Scholar in public international law who I suggest, on careful reading of his analysis, has eviscerated any pretext of legality by the government for what it is doing by claiming that somehow we should use the Judge Advocate General to give us legal opinion. Whatever happened, in our civil context, with the opinion from the Department of Foreign Affairs? Why are we using military advisers expert in the law of war to tell us whether this mission is indeed legal?

Of course, today we heard the Minister of Foreign Affairs say it is about solicitor-client privilege, so Canadians have no right to see the legal basis. To that I would say, with respect, nonsense. The government is the client and can reveal that information should it wish to do so. From my perspective, that argument is as bogus as could be in the context of this discussion. If Canadians do not have a right to know this kind of information, how can we trust the government with the mission leap that I have described in this context?

If I may just end with one comment, Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary-General, said the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was a mistake and helped to create the Islamic State militant group. He also blamed regional powers for making the conflict worse. If the Prime Minister had been in government then, Canada would also have been contributing to the development of ISIS.

In other words, the various acts of military aggression by the west have directly contributed to the radicalization that has led to the deplorable state that we are here to debate today.