Olivia Chow

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, November 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of sound and fury in the House this morning signifying not a whole lot. Why? Because ordinary Canadians cannot count on the official opposition, the grand Liberal Party of Canada, to actually do anything about the mini-budget. The Liberals will sit on their hands and not participate at all in the vote that will come after the debate.

The bill before us has 14 parts. None of the 14 parts really contributes much to ordinary Canadians and their communities. It continues the grand Liberal tradition of giving large corporate tax cuts to the most profitable organizations in Canada.

From 2001 to 2007 Canada has lost over $53 billion in revenue that we could have had. Imagine what that money could have done in terms of investing in communities. It does not surprise me that in the upcoming vote in the House, members of the official opposition will sit on their hands and not vote because the mini-budget before us continues the Liberal tradition.

Part 14 of the bill reduces the general corporate income tax rate much further, from the original 2001 tax rate of 28% to 21%. Now it will take it down to 15%, because 18% is not low enough. The government will forgo at least $14 billion per year because of corporate tax cuts.

What does that mean? When the bill passes, all the massive tax cuts in the mini-budget will mean close to $190 billion in lost revenue, a complete gutting. That is really unfortunate, because there will not be much money left to invest in ordinary Canadian communities.

Big urban centres and small communities across Canada are suffering a great deal. Every one of them is struggling to balance the budget, as they have to do. There are massive property tax increases all across Canada because the municipalities cannot handle the kind of debt load they have. They are looking to cut vital services in local communities.

In my area the library just up the street from where I live has always been open seven days a week. However, this coming month the library will not be open on Sundays. Why? Because it has no money to open on Sundays. The city of Toronto does not have the kind of funding to continue to keep that library open on Sundays. That is really unfortunate, because a lot of families and children count on the library to be open on a Sunday so they can do their homework, read, borrow books or videos. It is a place where a lot of the community gathers.

Speaking about gathering places, community centres are the lifeline in local areas, especially for the at risk youth. They have no other place to go other than the local community centre. However, the community centres are also facing trimming because there is just not enough funding.

Because of smog a lot of people suffer asthma attacks. We would think that the budget would have invested in public transit in a massive way. It does not. In municipalities all across Canada there is hardly any funding for public transit. We are seeing fare increases, service cuts or the inability to increase the service. People are standing out in the cold waiting for buses to come. The subways are jam-packed. More people want to leave their cars at home but unfortunately that is not possible because there is not enough investment in public transit across Canada.

We are looking also at a massive deficit in infrastructure funding. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has said that there is a $123 billion deficit in infrastructure. This budget has not increased funding in infrastructure for different cities. Whether it is highways, housing or potholes, none of that work is going to be done because there is no investment for it.

Because there is no investment in communities, cities and municipalities, many municipalities are having difficulty investing in their water treatment plants and sewage plants. In Toronto, for example, the water rate is going up because the capacity is just not there to retrofit the pipes, which needs to be done because the pipes are very old.

There is really nothing to support immigrant families in the mini-budget. We have recently found out that the user fees that are being charged by the immigration department in fact are going into the general revenue stream. The department actually makes $100 million per year from immigrants who apply to bring their families, fathers and mothers into the country. Refugees have to pay hefty fees to bring their families to Canada. None of that money, the $100 million in application fees, is invested in dealing with the backlog which is now at 800,000 people. If one is sponsoring a family, it might take three, five, eight years. In fact we have heard of cases where the parents of immigrants have died waiting to come to Canada to be reunited with their families.

There is no investment, whether it is the $100 million or new investment, in terms of settlement services. We recently heard that a lot of agencies are waiting for immigrant services funding from ISAP, the immigration settlement and adaptation program. They have not received their funding so they are beginning to give out notices to many of their agencies. That means many new immigrants will not get the services that they desperately need.

In Ontario the minister recently sent out a notice saying that Ontario is missing $100 million that was promised by the federal government to the province of Ontario for settlement services. That money has not arrived.

While there is a lot of funding for tax cuts from the surplus, there is nothing for cities, for communities and for ordinary Canadians.

We have noticed that as greenhouse gas emissions rise, the ecoEnergy program is renewed in the mini-budget but there is no expansion of the criteria. Affordable housing is not included. Seniors who barely can afford to pay rent now have to pay hefty hydro bills. Some of them I have heard are not turning up their heat this winter because they cannot afford to pay their hydro bills. We would think that the government would immediately invest in retrofitting affordable housing buildings so that the buildings would be the most efficient and state of the art so that the tenants would use less hydro and therefore pay less on their hydro bills.

Unfortunately, the ecoEnergy program that is mentioned in the bill does not include affordable housing. The $100 million program which the NDP pushed the former Liberal government into establishing is also gone.

On top of that, the ecoEnergy program does not include condominiums. In my riding, there are condominium owners who would love to retrofit their buildings. They would like to find some way to make the buildings green and energy efficient, but they cannot receive $1 from the ecoEnergy program.

This legislation is not fair for people who are earning very low income. Neither is it fair for people who are living in multi-residential buildings such as condominiums.

There is nothing in this bill for unemployed people who are seeking to get some money from employment insurance. A recent United Way report said very clearly that one of the reasons people remain poor is that they cannot access employment insurance. The national average in terms of the number of workers who can access their own employment insurance funding is only 40%. In big urban centres sometimes only 22% or 30% of workers who find themselves unemployed can access their own funding through the employment insurance program. No wonder they are stuck in a cycle of poverty.

A few days ago Campaign 2000 said that we must deal with the tragedy of child poverty. Eighteen years ago, on November 24, 1989 in this House, former NDP leader Ed Broadbent said that we have to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000. Here it is 18 years later, in 2007, and there has been no improvement in the number of kids who lead a life of poverty.

There is really not a lot of funding in this legislation. There is no increase in the child tax benefit which means that there are children who go to school who cannot afford to pay $1 to buy a hot dog or a slice of pizza. They will be excluded. Because kids' feet grow fast, families do not have the money to buy their kids new running shoes and those kids will be excluded from gym classes. The cycle of poverty will continue. That is a national shame. There is funding for the biggest, most profitable oil companies and the biggest, most profitable banks, and yet there is no funding available to help kids in Canada.

Bill C-28 also breaks the Atlantic accord. It betrays the people who live in the Atlantic provinces. No doubt my colleague, the member of Parliament for Halifax, will address this in detail later on.

The bill in front of us does not do anything for aboriginal people. One-third of aboriginal communities do not have safe drinking water. For the second straight year the Conservatives have announced that they will ensure there is safe drinking water but there is no money included in this budget to accomplish this.

There is hardly any money in this legislation to support the arts. There is no new funding for the CBC, the Canada Council, or to promote our artists. This unfortunately is a missed opportunity.

There is no increased funding in Bill C-28 for foreign aid even though the House has continually said that we have to increase foreign aid to .7% of our GDP. The mini-budget actually decreased our foreign aid as a percentage of our GDP from .34% to .31%. It is hard for Canada to talk about our international relationships and our standing in the world when we do not contribute much to foreign aid.

December 1 is World AIDS Day, and we have seen a 30% cut in funding to community groups that assist groups that deal with the prevention of AIDS. In fact, organizations in my riding have come to me and have said that they are laying off staff. All the good work they do will stop because of cuts in their funding.

There is no funding for a national home care program. Many seniors desperately need a home care program so they can stay at home. It is more economic if there is affordable, high quality home care for our seniors, which allows them to live in dignity. There is nothing in the bill for pharmacare, home care or long term care, nothing new for our seniors.

Again, there is no new funding for housing. We have a national housing crisis. When the cold weather arrives, people will still be on the streets. There are no new co-ops being built. Housing does not seem to be a priority whatsoever.

The bill mentions nothing about student loans or student debt. We know the average price of tuition for Canadian undergraduate students has tripled since 1991. The minister's mini budget does not make post-secondary education any more affordable. The provinces are not accountable for the funds transferred to them. Therefore, we do not know how those transfers will be used.

Sadly, when we talk about seniors, not only do they not get the kind of home care or nursing care hey desperately need, they also do not get an increase in their guaranteed income supplement. This means many seniors will continue to live in poverty. We already know that 25% of seniors live in poverty. For women, that figure climbs to 36%. We know there is $14 billion for the most powerful companies, but nothing for seniors.

There is hardly any mention about the minimum wage. Nor is there any commitment by the government to increase the minimum wage to $10 an hour.

There is also hardly anything for the Status of Women. I know our critic and advocate for women has been saying that we need $100 million a year. The mini budget gives $10 million a year for two years. That is hardly enough funding for the women's organizations that are struggling.

Unfortunately, the budget does not invest in our communities. It does not make our country a better place to live. In fact, if we look at this, there is a photo accompanying the economic statement recently released by the government. In the photo we see a little child looking out into the world. If we look closely at the picture, the child is standing on high ground and it looks as though this child could fall off the cliff. We are doing nothing to invest in our children and our young people. This is truly a missed opportunity for Canada.

We should be following other countries such as Ireland. It has mapped out a plan to invest in children and to reduce child poverty. It is delivering on and meeting its targets. However, Canada does not have a commissioner for children. It has no plan for children and no targets have been set to reduce child poverty. Yet there is money for very big companies. This is a sad statement on how we deal with our communities.

Sadly, the Liberals, when we finish the debate, will abstain from the vote. They will not make a statement. They will do nothing to say no to this terrible plan, and that is a missed opportunity.

[Human Rights, November 28th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, there have been consultations with all parties and I believe that if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move, seconded by the hon. members for Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, Scarborough—Rouge River and Vaudreuil-Soulanges:

That, in the opinion of this House:

i. During its wartime occupation of Asia and the Pacific Islands, from the 1930s through the duration of World War II, the Imperial Armed Forces of Japan officially commissioned the acquisition of young women for the sole purpose of sexual servitude, who became known as 'comfort women'; and

ii. That some Japanese public officials have recently expressed a regrettable desire to dilute or rescind the 1993 statement by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono on the 'comfort women', which expressed the Government's sincere apologies and remorse for their ordeal; and

iii. That Japan has made progress since 1945 in recognizing and atoning for its past actions, and for many decades has been a major contributor to international peace, security, and development, including through the United Nations; and

iv. That the Canada-Japan alliance continues to be based on shared vital interests and values in the Asia-Pacific region, including the preservation and promotion of political and economic freedoms, support for human rights and democratic institutions, and the securing of prosperity for the people of both countries and the international community; and

v. That the Government of Canada should therefore encourage the Government of Japan to abandon any statement which devalues the expression of regret from the Kono Statement of 1993; to clearly and publicly refute any claims that the sexual enslavement and trafficking of the 'comfort women' for the Japanese Imperial Forces never occurred; to take full responsibility for the involvement of the Japanese Imperial Forces in the system of forced prostitution, including through a formal and sincere apology expressed in the Diet to all of those who were victims; and to continue to address those affected in a spirit of reconciliation.

[Violence Against Women, November 28th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I have faith that all ordinary Canadians and all members of Parliament will join together and say no to violence against women and support the comfort women.

In the words of some of the victims,

[Member spoke in Cantonese]

[English]

What I just said is that rewriting history is not the answer to a lasting peace and it is not the answer to justice and reconciliation.

When will the Prime Minister publicly ask and encourage the government of Japan to formally and sincerely apologize to these comfort women?

[Violence Against Women, November 28th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, during the second world war, 15 year old girls were subjected to torture and rape by countless men from the Japanese army for weeks, months and years on end. Over 200,000 women suffered through that kind of torture.

Four of the survivors of sexual slavery are on Parliament Hill today asking us to join them in asking Japan to give a formal sincere apology. Will Canada be on the side of the comfort women? Will we take a stand?

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, November 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, millions of people in the U.S. have been in jail. There has been a dramatic increase, but the streets are not safer.

If we are looking for a model, it is right in front us, in Quebec. I have seen the way the Quebec court system works. It gives young people a second chance. It does not just talk about principles. It actually invests in young people. It has programs. It believes in young people, that because they are young, they are still learning and there is a chance for them to turn their lives around.

The majority of young people can do that. Yes, there is a very small percentage of hardened criminals, but I am not talking about them. I am talking about the majority of young people.

If we look at the rate in Quebec of those who reoffend, the ones who have gone to jail or who have committed crimes and received alternative sentences, very few of them reoffend. The percentage of young people who reoffend is actually much lower than the percentage outside Quebec. Why? It is because Quebec fundamentally believes that young people have the capacity to reform themselves.

When we talk about principles and sentencing, we have to be very clear. The first principle is that we have to believe young people have the capacity to change. If not, then we throw the key away. They are young people. For how many years are we going to put them in jail? It is not going to work. We have to find the best solutions. In Quebec quite a lot of programs work very well, and of course, there are other models outside Quebec.

On the principle of simply locking them up and putting more and more people in jail, we have seen the example in the U.S. and it has not worked.

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, November 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, when young people can express themselves creatively, they tell me that their souls get touched and they turn their lives around. Often, that is what is missing in a lot of our programs.

The part of the bill I have a great deal of difficulty with is the sentencing principle, the second part. The first part, pretrial custody, I will put aside. The second part of the bill is the sentencing principle.

I used to be a City of Toronto children and youth advocate. I have certainly looked at a lot of research and there is no evidence whatsoever from all the research I have done to suggest that adult principles of deterrence and denunciation would have any positive outcome for the public safety. If we are talking about passing a law, one would think we would look at some scientific evidence. I have not seen any.

Furthermore, with respect to the difference between adults and youth, sometimes the courts and society do not necessarily sanction that. On this concept of protection of society, the best protection is to invest in the programs that my hon. colleagues are talking about, Sundog, Sketch, the Boys and Girls Club of Canada, YOUCAN, Leave Out Violence, or the YMCA. That is the best protection we could possibly have for our young people.

I have seen communities transform themselves when we invest in the communities. The key element is that the best allies to fight youth crime are the young people themselves, if we can get the young people to turn around their lives, go back into their communities and say, “Hey, that is not a good thing to do. Look at me. I have done it. It is terrible. Follow the right path”. They are the best allies, and that is the component that is missing here. That is the best deterrent.

Having the principle of deterrence and denunciation, the second part of the bill, I do not think works.

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, November 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the overall crime rate in Canada has been falling since it peaked in 1991. Police reported about 2.6 million offences in 2004, resulting in a crime rate that was 12% lower than a decade earlier. However, youth perception of safety is declining.

Between 1998 and 2002, fewer young people, aged 16 to 24, considered their neighbourhoods to be a very safe place in which to live. In 2002, 72% felt their neighbourhoods were very safe from violent crime, a decrease from 1998, which was at that time 78%. By and large, the majority of young people still feel very safe, but there seems to be a small decrease.

We have seen another statistic from the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, which shows an increase of about 13% in the violent crime rate among young people from 1993 to 2003.

Of those young people who feel unsafe, roughly 25% of them are boys and girls who are home alone by grade seven. Eighty per cent of mothers of school-age children are in the workforce, according to the Canadian Council on Social Development, and they worry about their kids. In fact, the average child spends 67 hours of discretionary time each week at home, more hours than they spend in school. That is the time, especially after school, when they are worried about their own safety. Young people are most likely to be bullied during this time and likely to engage in unsupervised Internet use.

In terms of adolescents being victimized or running afoul of the law, research shows this happens between the hours of 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. When we talk about youth crime and youth safety, that is the time when young people sometimes get in trouble. It is between the end of the school day and when parents return home from work.

Research has also shown that this unsupervised time is the risk factor for substance abuse, gang behaviour and other problematic behaviour. Therefore, we know the time that we need to deal with, yet the bill does almost nothing. It does not talk about how we deal with prevention.

There are solutions such as dealing with anger management and bullying. The best programs that can be put in place are after school activities. Again, if young people can attend good after school activities, not only will they be safe, but their self-esteem will be enhanced and their educational success and their positive mental and physical health will be improved. Those are all the things we want for our young people.

Organizations like the Boys and Girls Club transform their after school hours from unsupervised time, where they feel unsafe, to a productive time where they can learn with structured activities.

When we talk about youth crime and safety, in the summer the New Democrats called for the extension of the Canada youth employment program to make it year round permanent program. Right now it only applies to the summer. We know this would have an impact on reducing the youth crime rate.

We have seen it over and over again. For example, the city of Toronto has an after school recreation and care program. This initiative hires young people in their own neighbourhoods. They become role models and mentors. They go to elementary and high schools to teach young people. Sometimes it is an arts program, basketball, physical programs or homework. Some of these young people could have been in trouble with the law, but they decided to turn their lives around.

These kinds of programs have a dramatic effect on safety in a community. Some may remember the summer of youth crime a few years ago. There were a lot of shootings in the city of Toronto. With different strategies, one of which is the youth employment program, the gun crimes for young people dropped 40% within one year. We know this kind of program works.

This kind of program not only provides good jobs, it provides excellent training and new opportunities to benefit the entire neighbourhood. If we look at youth crime, it is not just young people. Sometimes it is the neighbourhood or the families. The program provides young leaders with the tools and resources to reach out and support families and youth to break out of the cycle of violence, alienation and despair, which can often plague the at risk communities.

Research by Geena Brown shows that if we have these kinds of programs, fewer mothers would use emergency services, child welfare, food bank services and prescription drugs.

I want to point out how much money we could save if we could have a youth crime prevention program attached to the bill.

The latest survey I have seen shows that to keep young people in jail, even without the counselling and support that they may need while in jail, it costs society and taxpayers a bare minimum of $65,000 per year. If we add the counselling and sometimes the substance abuse help they may need, we are looking at $100,000 to $120,000 a year of taxpayer money. If we do the deterrence, the prevention kind of support we have for young people, it is much better use of funding because we know it works.

We recently looked at the figures. The justice department reported that crimes cost our society almost $50 billion a year. If we can enable groups like the Boys and Girls Club of Canada, YouCan, which teaches young people how to deal with violent situations by de-escalating and learning the skills of conflict mediation, they can take a very explosive situation, de-escalate it and young people end up supporting each other rather than resorting to violence.

We know that a lot of the young people resort to violent crimes because they feel is the only method in which they know to express themselves. It is not an excuse. They have to take responsibility, but we also have to give them the tools to learn how to de-escalate things, whether it is a bully situation or very at risk behaviour.

YouCan has had a lot of successful initiatives and many other organizations in the community have had some very good initiatives.

The Youth Criminal Justice Act contains the whole notion that when a young person commits a crime, rather than going to jail, we should find some way to give them alternative sentencing, such as working in the communities so they can reform themselves. Unfortunately, the funding has not followed that principle. A lot of neighbourhoods, organizations and municipalities said that it was a good principle, but when judges told young people, who were facing court time, that they had to take some kind of alternative programming, no programs were available in the communities. The community agencies do not have the funding to provide the alternative programs to train these young people.

Therefore, while we have had good principles in the past, we have not had the kind of funding we need to provide the community support, which is critically important.

The National Crime Prevention Centre, a major body for national crime prevention, funds pilot projects, sometimes for one year, sometimes for three years, but it does not provide permanent funding. Many of the organizations that are doing a lot of work with young people to prevent them from committing crime or after sentencing ensuring they learn the skills so they will not reoffend are saying that they need permanent funding. They know what works. The centre has seen the program work and yet after two or three years the funding dries up and a lot of young people and the communities themselves end up being in trouble.

Other areas that would really help to reduce youth crime are in supporting local initiatives. We have to assist municipalities to build, expand and support drop-in centres, whether it is social infrastructure like basketball courts, community centres or libraries. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has told us there is a social infrastructure deficit.

For example, the city of Toronto is looking at closing swimming pools because there is not enough funding to support them. Again, more and more young people, after school or even during school hours, will be unable to learn skills. Unfortunately, some of these young people will end up getting into the wrong crowd or joining a gang. Then they get into trouble, and that is unfortunate.

We know young people sometimes are get in trouble. Why? Because the rate of depression and anxiety among young people in Canada is growing. The rate of suicide is 15% among 15 to 20 year olds, which is the third worst record among OECD countries. When we look at young people, whether they are in jail or not, or in their community and whether they are young offenders or not, we see a clear link because we do not invest in communities. These young people are feeling more and more depressed. We also see obesity and even suicide.

With Canada being a rich country, how could we possibly have the third worst record of young people committing suicide? They must feel dramatically hopeless to do that.

I know I have talked about deterrence, but the bill does not go into the whole notion of how we deal with youth crime prevention. At the end of the day, that is what will work.

Another aspect the bill does not deal with, which is a key one, is witness protection. Some young people would like to tell authorities what is happening in their circle. They would like to tell them that they may know who is doing what in a community in terms of crime. However, some of them feel tremendously unprotected. If we do not beef up witness protection program, many young people will continue to feel they will be targeted or will be at risk and therefore not speak out. A strong witness protection program is very much needed.

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police recently told the Standing Committee on Public Safety that while witness protection programs are extremely important for law enforcement, they are often too expensive for the local police force. They are unaffordable for the local police departments.

We need a comprehensive youth crime prevention plan that would include youth employment, after school activities, investing in local communities, investing in witness protection programs. Then we could really talk about deterrence and prevention. The bill that is in front of us sets out these sentencing principles. It is fine to have these principles, but there is no community infrastructure or capacity to support these principles such as deterrence.

We know that jailing young people is not a deterrent. While in jail they learn to become hardened criminals. Who is in jail with them? Criminals who have been around for a long time. It is a form of university, I guess, post-secondary education. The youth go to jail and while there, learn how to become hardened criminals. Putting them in jail alone does not work. Not only is it expensive, but it sometimes is counterproductive.

Unfortunately, the key element of prevention is missing in this bill. I know of a lot of young people who started out their lives wrong, in that they made a mistake, got to know the wrong people and got in trouble. Because they are young, energetic and enthusiastic many of them are still hopeful. They have not given up hope. If we reach out to them at the right time and actually believe in them, then they can turn their lives around.

This weekend I was at an organization called Sketch. It teaches homeless youth how to express themselves through the arts, visual arts, painting, sculpture, music, theatre. Some of those young people, because they live on the streets, have had quite a bit of contact with police. Some of them have been in trouble before. This is the 10th anniversary of Sketch. Many of those young people come from broken families. They suffered abuse, sometimes physical, other times sexual. They ran away. That is why they are out on the streets. When they live on the streets they get into some crimes that sometimes they regret.

Organizations such as Sketch deal with those young people holistically to get them to express themselves through the arts and in that way, they heal themselves. They come together and form a very strong community. They support each other. They talk to each other about why they should not continue that cycle of violence, how they can get back to school, find housing and turn their lives around.

There is much we can do for young people. Unfortunately, this bill does not necessarily address all we can do to invest in young people.

[National Child Day, November 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, today is National Child Day, a day to celebrate the rights of children.

Sixteen years ago, Canada signed on to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, yet for 16 years Canada has had no one to monitor the well-being of children. It has had no target or action plan to fight child poverty or obesity. It has had no national child care plan.

In fact, it has had no plan for kids at all.

To make matters worse, Conservatives are doing nothing while foreign corporations are trying to buy up child care centres right across Canada. Big box child care centres have a lower quality and higher fees. Worst of all, they make 40% of their revenues from public dollars.

However, there is an answer. The NDP's early learning and child care act returns to Parliament today. I urge all members to vote yes to higher quality, affordable and non-profit child care and yes to Bill C-303.

Our children deserve the best possible head start in life. Let us stand up and be counted and support our children and their working families.

[Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, November 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, our Charter of Rights is meant to protect everyone in Canada. Right now we have two classes of people. The first class is Canadian citizens, who are protected. The other class is landed immigrants, who are not protected by the charter. Under the security certificates rules, it means people can be charged without knowing what the charges are against them and without knowing what the evidence is. There are secret hearings and no right to appeal. That is surely against the charter.

I do not understand why the former Liberal government introduced this process in the first place, in the nineties. With the bill in front of us, we now would have the advocate system that would not make a big difference. It has failed in the United Kingdom and other places.

What assurance do we have, if we pass the bill in the House and send it to committee, that we can improve the bill, which is so fundamentally flawed, in the various committee meetings and hearings?

[Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, November 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I understand that former legislation was struck down by the Supreme Court. If the security certificates process violates civil rights and undermines core values of our justice system, how does the bill in front of us actually deal with that aspect? Where is the accountability?

If someone is alleged to have committed serious crimes, should we not charge him or her? Is deportation not just a way of saying that this is out of sight, out of mind, it is not Canada's problem and let us just get rid of it?

That is not the most accountable way to go forward. How does this bill in front of us deal with the whole process of the justice system? Do we know whether passing this would survive the Supreme Court?