Nathan Cullen

[Elections Modernization Act, October 24th, 2018]

Motion No. 76

That Bill C-76, in Clause 190, be amended by replacing line 17 on page 99 with the following:

“same electoral district as the other person or, in the”

[Elections Modernization Act, October 24th, 2018]

moved:

Motion No. 46

That Bill C-76, in Clause 117, be amended by replacing line 36 on page 60 with the following:

“the same electoral district and who”

[Elections Modernization Act, October 24th, 2018]

moved:

Motion No. 38

That Bill C-76, in Clause 107, be amended by replacing line 31 on page 54 with the following:

“the same electoral district and who”

[Elections Modernization Act, October 24th, 2018]

moved:

Motion No. 30

That Bill C-76, in Clause 93, be amended by replacing line 20 on page 47 with the following:

“electors for the same electoral district and who”

[Natural Resources, October 24th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to recycling, we can all get behind that, but when it comes to the Trans Mountain pipeline, the Liberal government has taken things to extremes, because the Prime Minister is recycling the same broken process that has already failed us. Indigenous leaders, environmental groups and local leaders have blasted his so-called new pipeline review, calling it “rigged” with “impossible” timelines.

Thrown out by the courts, rejected by indigenous leaders and a clear threat to our coastline, the only real question is how much longer will he recycle his flawed, failed and flagrantly inept process before he just finally gives up on the whole thing?

[Corrections and Conditional Release Act, October 18th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure I heard this in my friend's speech because there is the way he sees it, the way my colleague from Whitby sees it, and there is the way the courts have seen the use and practice of solitary confinement in our prisons and the response from not one, but two superior court decisions, one in British Columbia and one in Ontario, against this practice is what the bill is responding to, allegedly.

We craft laws in this place. They then get put out into the public and if they are challenged, as this previous practice was challenged in court, after the most brutal experiences where people in solitary confinement ended up killing themselves, because the practice was abused.

There are two things that both of the courts identified. One was oversight and the second was a limitation on the number of days that solitary confinement could have. A previous Liberal bill actually had some elements of oversight and had some limits to solitary confinement. The bill does neither. How does my friend not expect this to end up right back in the courts after more damage is done to more people who are incarcerated and Parliament in some future day to be taken up with the very same example after so much more human tragedy?

[Corrections and Conditional Release Act, October 18th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Manitoba for his interventions, as he knows better than most of us the overrepresentation of indigenous peoples in our prison system, as well as their overrepresentation in solitary confinement. He also well knows the long-standing evidence of the damage and the harmful effects that can happen to someone in solitary confinement.

Just for the record, the Orwellian language being thrown around in this debate is a bit worrisome. Most Canadians who are at all familiar with the topic know what solitary confinement is. It is solitary. That is what it is. Calling it “structured integration units” pretends it is something else than what it is. I think that is abusive of the debate. I think it disabuses Canadians of the truth of what is happening here.

My question is very specific. The whole reason this bill has been tabled is that the previous practice of solitary confinement in our prisons was shown not by one but two of our higher courts to be unconstitutional. The Supreme Court of British Columbia said that it allowed for prolonged indefinite confinement, but did not allow for independent oversight of decisions to segregate and to prevent inmates from having a lawyer represent them at segregation hearings.

As well, an Ontario court found the same thing, namely, the lack of independent oversight when a decision was made to put a prisoner into solitary confinement, which we know from extensive research can have long-term and damaging effects on them. There are, of course, instances when there have to be separations.

With just an “Orwellian” change of terminology, the Liberals are setting this up to head right back to the courts, because they have not included the independent oversight that both of those superior courts insisted upon in striking down the previous regime, giving the government time to fix it. This bill does not fix it. Why not?

[Climate Change, October 16th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, record-setting floods and storms, historically devastating forest fires and a melting Arctic, and rather than bold action, we get more platitudes from the Liberal government.

If empty words and broken promises were going to solve climate change, the Liberals would have had this thing beat decades ago, but they adopted Stephen Harper's climate change targets, and they cannot even meet those. No wonder they were such experts on what Harper was thinking about. They have gone down the exact same path with the exact same result, which is the definition, by the way, of insanity.

When is the Prime Minister going to wake up to the reality and stop repeating the failures of—

[Climate Change, October 16th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, has anyone ever noticed that when the Prime Minister talks about the economy and the environment going hand in hand, it is always the environment that gets screwed?

The recent report from the United Nations has sounded the alarm on catastrophic climate change, but rather than waking up from their decades- long slumber, the Liberals are hitting the snooze button: “Five more minutes, ma, please.”

The Liberals promised to end fossil fuel subsidies. Instead, they dumped $4.5 billion on a leaky old pipeline. Will the Liberals listen to 6,000 climate scientists and finally end their plan to spend billions more on yet another oil pipeline?

[Canada Revenue Agency, October 15th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, Canadian charities remember well the dark days when the Harper government used the CRA to attack them, trying to silence the voices of civil society: anti-poverty groups, environmental groups, women's groups. The Liberals promised them that the attacks would stop, but as with so many other Liberal promises, they broke their word. These groups counted Liberals as maybe friends, but with friends like them, these groups do not need any enemies.

Charities beat the Harper rules at the Ontario Superior Court. The Liberals are appealing that decision. How about going after hate groups or billionaires and their tax havens rather than trying to silence the voices of civil society?