Murray Rankin

[Pensions, December 9th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, far too many Canadian seniors reach retirement and find they do not have enough savings to live comfortably.

Public pensions just have not kept pace with rising costs and changing workplaces, leaving seniors struggling to meet their most basic needs, and the situation is just getting worse, yet still the Conservatives refuse calls from the provinces and from millions of Canadians to boost the Canada pension plan.

Why is the minister still blocking action? Does he not agree that all Canadian seniors deserve to retire in dignity?

[Drug-Free Prisons Act, December 8th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the compassion of my colleague from the Northwest Territories for people like Mr. Snowshoe is well known.

The answer to the question is that it does very little. When The Globe and Mail reached out to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness on this issue, he was not available. However, an email response stated that the government's tough-on-crime agenda amounts to “strong action...to keep our streets and communities safe.” How does the suicide of Mr. Snowshoe in solitary confinement achieve that goal?

The government talks about victims of crime all the time. How does this assist victims of crime? Where are the rehabilitation expenditures in the department? For the Conservatives, it seems that consideration is secondary to looking good to their base by saying that they getting tough on crime. They even had the audacity to title Bill C-12 as a “drug-free prisons” law. That is nonsense. We know that is not the case. All it does is confirm a power that has long been available to the National Parole Board.

[Drug-Free Prisons Act, December 8th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his insight. I honestly think that solitary confinement contributes nothing. It is unethical to use it simply as a management tool for overcrowded prisons. A causal link needs to be shown that putting people into solitary confinement to address problems of mental health or substance abuse would make a difference, but there is no such evidence. I have with me reports written for the Canadian Journal of Public Health by Perry Kendall, who is the former head of public health for the Province of British Columbia, which suggest that there is no such evidence.

In other words, these people come in lonely, and two-thirds of them are under the influence of a drug or intoxicant. Most of whom are confined in the prison population, and their behaviour is not changed while they are in prison. It appears that putting them in solitary confinement only exacerbates the problem and does nothing to treat the prisoner. If we are serious about rehabilitation, we should see that solitary confinement is only a management tool and one that we are using far more than our colleagues in other parts of the modern civilized world.

[Drug-Free Prisons Act, December 8th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague from Trinity—Spadina on this issue of solitary confinement. If the government really wanted to do something about what is happening in our prison population, it could join with Mr. Howard Sapers, the ombudsman for federal prisoners, and do something.

I was shocked to discover that not only do seven times as many people commit suicide in prison than in the general population, but also that rather than having a rehabilitation system, which is what the rhetoric of the CSC would have us believe exists, we have what The Globe and Mail, in its editorial of December 5, refers to as the “flagrant overuse of solitary confinement – a punitive measure so counter-productive that even the incarceration-crazy United States is putting an end to it – risks undermining the good work the CSC does.” It needs the budget and the tools to address this crisis. It needs to deal with intake, substance abuse, and mental illness. None of that seems to be happening in this bill whatsoever.

[Drug-Free Prisons Act, December 8th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I note the enthusiasm of all members for my presentation on Bill C-12, but I am not sure that will be warranted when I finish.

I will say in advance on behalf of the official opposition that I will be supporting Bill C-12 at second reading.

The bill has a somewhat grandiose title, “The drug-free prisons act”, which, as I hope to explain in my remarks, is a long way from what the bill would accomplish.

The bill essentially confirms what is already in place. The National Parole Board, as one of the conditions for the exercise of its members' discretion, already takes into account positive results of urinalysis or a refusal to take urine tests in making its decision for parole eligibility. Despite its title, the bill would do very little, if anything, to eliminate drugs from federal prisons in Canada. That would require an investment of money and the government following some of the reports over the years by the Correctional Investigator and the federal prisons ombudsman, as I will explain. However, none of that is in the bill.

The bill simply confirms what is already in place. Members do not have to take my word for it. I went online and looked at the National Parole Board document entitled, “Decision-Making Policy Manual for Board Members”. Section 8, “Assessing Criminal, Social and Conditional Release History”, reads:

Information considered when assessing criminal, social and conditional release history includes:

...e. any documented occurrence of drug use, positive urinalysis results or failures or refusals to provide a sample while on conditional release;

The bill would do nothing but pander to the Conservative base, I suppose, and would let them have a few more talking points. However, the crisis in our prisons, which involves substance abuse, rampant gang activity and recruitment, among other things, could be addressed far more effectively by some of the things that others have pointed out and that I hope to describe today. In short, resources for rehabilitation are wanting. I can explain that just by looking at the budget of the organization and how the Conservatives have cut the budget over the years.

The Correctional Service of Canada has admitted that $122 million of Conservative spending on interdiction tools and technology to stop drugs from entering prisons since 2008 has not led to any reduction of drug use in our prisons—zero. Talk about $122 million for naught. How come nothing has been done in light of that shocking statistic? Why have there been no policy reviews or the like? A very high percentage of our offender population abuses drugs.

I have in front of me a report by Michael Crowley who is with the National Parole Board, Ontario Region. He provides a perspective on the topic at issue. His article, “Substance Abuse—The Perspective of a National Parole Board Member”, starts thus:

It is clear that alcohol and other drug problems constitute a major problem for both incarcerated offenders and those who are on some form of conditional release. It is estimated that about 70% of offenders have substance abuse problems that are in need of treatment, and that more than 50% of their crimes are linked with substance use and abuse.

Those figures are shocking. Has the government invested in rehabilitation programs in the prison population to address that?

The answer, sadly, is no. What the Conservatives have done is to increase the prisoner population through their famous mandatory minimum sentences. The population in prisons is exploding in Canada, yet the crime rate has gone down consistently.

Mental health is part of the problem. There has been a failure to address the growing issue of prisoners with addiction, as I have mentioned, as well as those with mental illness. The figure shocks me, but in 2011 some 45% of male offenders and 69% of female offenders received a mental health care intervention.

Despite this staggering figure, the Conservative government has still not even asked for a report from the Correctional Service of Canada on the implementation of recommendations to improve handling of prisoners with mental illness.

How about Ashley Smith, who, members will recall, was a 19-year-old from New Brunswick who died while in custody? A coroner's report said that the CSC remains “ill-equipped” to manage female offenders who chronically injure themselves. What has been done? To my knowledge, nothing since the coroner's report. There has been no response from the government on that. If it is truly interested in dealing with the crisis in the prison population and the number of people with substance abuse problems who continue to find drugs while there, the Conservative government would not pass an irrelevant bill that simply confirms the status quo; it would actually address the problem along the lines of what the Correctional Investigator, the CSC itself, and the prisoner ombudsman have all been saying for years.

An investment in rehabilitative programming would really start to address the problem of violence in prisons and so forth, and it would address the problem of victims when people are released into the community without the tools and then, still with mental illness problems and still with substance abuse, and go on and reoffend. That is where we could actually make a difference.

The problem of double-bunking has been brought up over and over again, and very little has been done to address that problem. Instead, we talk about “zero tolerance” for drugs, as if saying those words will somehow make it so. It certainly is not an effective policy. It does nothing to address the facts of crime and addiction that I have been trying to address in my remarks. Harm reduction measures within a public health and treatment orientation would be far more promising. That is what the Correctional Investigator said in his annual report of 2011-2012 at page 17. Those are recommendations by those who actually know whereof they speak.

The wait-list for substance abuse programming, for example, in our prisons is shocking. According to the CSC data warehouse, the number of offenders wait-listed to attend substance abuse programming as of a year ago, as of November 13, 2013, which does not even include the Pacific and Atlantic regions, is almost 2,000. It is estimated there are probably about 2,400 now.

According to the report of the Office of the Correction Investigator, close to two-thirds of offenders were under the influence of some intoxicant when they committed the offence that led to their incarceration, and four out of five offenders arrive at a federal institution with a past history of substance abuse. What has been done? The Conservatives, of course, have cut the budget for substance abuse programming. According to the Office of the Correctional Investigator, the CSC budget for substance abuse programming fell from $11 million in 2008-09 to $9 million in 2010-11, at the same time as the prisoner population was increased.

The Globe and Mail has done excellent service on another issue in drawing the problem of solitary confinement to Canadians' attention. I was not aware of this, but Canada seems to be leading the way in solitary confinement. Even the United States, with its practices in this area, has decreased the number of people and the length of time in solitary confinement.

The Globe and Mail told the story this weekend of Edward Christopher Snowshoe of Fort McPherson, who suffered from mental health issues. He spent three years in a maximum security prison in Edmonton and tried suicide four times. He was 24 when he hanged himself in a two- by three-metre isolation cell in 2010. He had spent 162 consecutive days in solitary confinement.

This man had mental health issues, yet nothing was done. Putting him in solitary confinement, which The Globe and Mail refers to as apparently a prison management system, was all that was done. Howard Sapers, who was the ombudsman for federal prisons, has been extraordinarily critical of this agency and how it deals with mental health issues.

Are members aware that the suicide rate in the federal prison population is seven times that of the Canadian population, and that there is no cap on solitary confinement? The courts have said there should be a 60-day cap.

There is no response to the Ashley Smith episode. The bill, in summary, will do nothing to address these deficiencies. It is simply pandering to the Conservative base for absolutely no benefit.

[Access to Information, December 5th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative MPs on the House access to information committee think that the best solution to fix our ever-shrinking right to know in Canada would be to charge journalists and other Canadians hundreds of dollars just to file a request for information that should be public. That is on the record.

Why should Canadians be stuck with giant fees to ask for information that by law belongs to them? Does the President of the Treasury Board agree with his Conservative colleagues that jacking up fees is a good way to fix our broken access to information law?

[Petitions, December 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, my petition calls for the improvements to retirement security of the 62% of Canadian workers without any workplace pension.

The petitioners call for expansion of the Canada pension plan and specifically for the government to reject any changes that would allow employers to renege on existing defined benefit pension promises, and to refrain from allowing the conversion of defined benefit plans to so-called shared risk plans that would permit the subsequent reduction of pension benefits paid by retirees.

[Canada Shipping Act, December 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to rise to speak in support of this historic bill introduced by my hon. colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley. It is called an act to defend the Pacific northwest, and a better name could not have been given to this initiative.

When I ran exactly two years ago, I knocked on many doors in Victoria and Oak Bay, in my part of Vancouver Island. I met so many different people, but not one person did I meet in my constituency who supported the Enbridge northern gateway project. They were all fearful of what it would do to our beautiful coast and how it would impact our first nations communities. The bill would codify that resistance British Columbians have, and that is what central to this initiative.

I was shocked and delighted a moment ago to hear the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources rise in this place and say something quite remarkable. She concluded her remarks by saying that this bill was “redundant”. I looked on Google, where we all look for definitions of words, and saw that redundant meant “not or no longer needed...superfluous”. I guess what she is saying, on behalf of the Conservative government, is that a ban on oil tankers, or VLCCs, in the Pacific northwest is unnecessary because it is already there.

I did not know that. It shows that the Conservatives actually have thought about the impact of a spill in this part of the world, and I was delighted to learn they had accepted that.

Maybe it is not necessary, but if we could therefore simply agree to those conditions, that would be great. However, the bill goes beyond that quite substantially.

It would force pipeline proponents to look at adding value to resources and creating jobs in Canada by amendments to the NEB Act, something I would commend. Most significant, perhaps, given the Tsilhqot'in case and other cases in our courts, it would strengthen consultations between the federal government and first nations communities on pipeline reviews. It would do that for all municipalities, as my friend has suggested, but it would go much beyond that in light of the new obligations we all face all as we deal with first nations in the resource development context.

For us, this is a common sense initiative that would put the environment and first nations back and centrally into the energy conversation, and would ensure that Canadians would get the full benefit of energy development.

In particular, the bill would stop the Enbridge northern gateway in its tracks. I feel I have a mandate to represent the people who sent me here, all of whom are opposed to this. Therefore, the bill, “redundant” though it may be, would definitely put a nail through the heart of that egregious project, which so few people in my part of the world think makes any sense at all. It is grotesque.

It is inspired by the experience of northwest B.C. and its fight against Enbridge. Bill C-628 would legislate immediate protections for the pristine north coast from threats from these oil tankers, while addressing the key concerns raised by the poor process that led the Conservative government to approve the pipeline.

I am very proud to have been the past co-chair of the Environmental Law Centre at the University of Victoria. Those people are now in court, fighting the NEB and the government's decision to accept the JRP's report because of its numerous procedural errors that are so patently obvious to any lawyer who has examined them. This would go some distance, if Bill C-628 were to be accepted, to address some of the deficiencies that were made so apparent during that process. It was a process where literally thousands of people appeared, some 99% of whom opposed this pipeline. Nevertheless, three individuals appointed by the NEB came to British Columbia and said that they knew what was best and that they would go ahead and recommend approval for this project.

Nobody in our community takes that process seriously. Nobody takes it seriously in the Kinder Morgan process. If this bill went some distance to improve it, it would be worth it on that basis alone.

Three hundred scientists from around the world condemned that joint review panel project as full of errors and omissions. They said that it cannot be used to make decisions about pipelines and demanded that the government finally say no to the lunacy of the Enbridge northern gateway pipeline proposal.

As recently as in today's Globe and Mail, we have seen a change in the economy. Green energy sector jobs now surpass the total of oil sands employment in this country. There are 6.5 million people employed now in the clean energy sector, according to Clean Energy Canada in a report released today. There has been $25 billion invested in Canada's clean energy sector in the past five years.

As I say, more people are employed in this sector than in the oil sands. The world has changed; the Conservatives have not. Projects like Enbridge northern gateway show how much they have their heads in the sand. Perhaps I should say in the oil sands.

A constituent in my riding, Dr. Gerald Graham, works with Worldocean Consulting. He calculated that over a 50-year period, the chance of a major tanker spill is somewhere between 8.7% and 14.1%. These are the same odds, at the top end, as Russian roulette.

Applying a standard model used by governments to project spill risks, researchers at Simon Fraser University have estimated that the northern gateway pipeline would generate a tanker spill somewhere between every 23 and 196 years, a terminal spill every 15 to 41 years, and 15 or 16 pipeline spills on land every year. Overall, they pegged the probability of a tanker spill at 90%.

Yet the joint review panel said that “a large spill is unlikely” and “a large spill would initially have significant adverse environmental effects...[but] the environment would ultimately recover.” Tell that to first nations people who depend on the sea in the northwest part of British Columbia. Tell municipalities like Kitimat, which despite propaganda from the Enbridge company decided to vote against even allowing that project in the community. They have spoken. The Conservatives have certainly not listened.

I could go on to talk about the lunacy of a report that said that dilbit may not even sink. I did not know that. Tell that to the people in Kalamazoo, Michigan. They spent over $1 billion trying to clean up something on the bottom of the Kalamazoo River, but I guess it does not sink. There must have been a lot of wasted money. The report says that when it gets to the waves and the sea water, it is an entirely different issue.

The scientists with whom I have consulted think the report's conclusion on such a central issue was itself lunacy, and of course, we are playing Russian roulette, as I said earlier, with the fate of one of the most beautiful parts of our planet and some of the most dangerous waters on our planet, when one thinks of Hecate Strait and Douglas Channel, with 90° turns out to the ocean.

If we look at the map Enbridge gave, those islands do not exist, apparently, but I have seen them. I have been there many times. It is my favourite part of this planet, and I will not let the Conservatives destroy it by allowing this pipeline and these tankers to go through this part of the world.

I have been an environmental lawyer for most of my life. I have participated in many hearings and have been commission counsel on environmental assessment projects myself. This project was flawed from the get-go. The process has been so inadequate that everyone has spoken against it. The same people are now speaking out about the Kinder Morgan process in British Columbia.

I am proud to stand here in support of my colleague for introducing this bill. We are lucky to have him in the House. He was in my riding a couple of weeks ago with several hundred more people. “Take back our coast” is what he calls it. There were several hundred a year or so ago and several hundred now. We are not going away. Our resistance to this project is only getting started. This bill would make an enormous difference in how we do business in Canada to address these kinds of projects.

I commend my colleague for this initiative, and I hope all members of the House will support it.

[Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 2, December 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, going after tax havens would appear to be the most fruitful way in which Canadians could recover income to do some of the things on infrastructure spending, homelessness, and issues that were alluded to by my friend, which, of course, we think are priorities of the government.

Integrated work with the OECD is an excellent start, but we need to have people who know what they are doing. As a law professor, I saw some of the best and the brightest drawn to the tax field, because it is complicated, intricate, and rewarding for those who have a brain for that sort of thing.

The best and the brightest are there every day on Bay Street figuring out just how to take advantage of this complicated tax code that gets bigger and bigger every year. We need people who can fight fire with fire. We need that kind of expertise to be hired. We need to bring people on in a number of ways to do the job. They are not there anymore, because the senior people, by the CRA's own admission, are no longer in place.

How can we fight fire with fire if we do not have the people there to do the job?

[Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 2, December 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's excellent, thoughtful question.

There are a number of things. We would invest in return on investment. That is to say, ROI from expenditures on real people doing the job in the CRA would produce the kinds of enormous returns we have seen in other countries. We think it is good business. We think it would deal with the fairness aspect and the equity my colleague referred to so persuasively in his remarks.

That investment would help on both of those fronts. There would be more income for all of us to build roads, schools, bridges, and so on, and of course, it would deal with the glaring unfairness the current tax code reflects.

We would close tax loopholes, stock options, and those sorts of things. Many of the proposals the Canadians for Tax Fairness brought to this place and to the finance committee would find favour in an NDP government.