Pat Martin

[Wage Earner Protection Program Act, September 29th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for introducing the bill. It is something we in the NDP have been awaiting for a long time and we welcome it. As the minister pointed out in his remarks yesterday, there are over 10,000 commercial bankruptcies a year in this country leaving many employees owed back wages, benefits, et cetera. The bill, I would hope, puts the interests of workers first in the event of a bankruptcy.

My question is a technical question which has two parts.

First, the total amount of back wages that the employee could draw from the new wage protection fund is $3,000. We find that figure low by the calculations that we have done of the bankruptcies that we know of. I would ask him how they arrived at that figure, and it is something we obviously will raise at committee.

The second part of the question, though, is that the government would seek to have those wages reimbursed by standing in line as a creditor when the trustee of the bankruptcy discharges the bankruptcy. In other words, it would try to get that money back from the bankruptcy but it would only try to get back $2,000. Why should the bankrupt company be allowed to get away with the other $1,000 margin that it is contemplating? Why do we not try to get all the money back that the government pays out to the affected employee?

[Criminal Code, September 28th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I am very interested in Bill C-53. In fact, it does my heart good that we are debating this bill today because I am putting myself in the mindset of police officers in recent history. One can imagine the frustration they feel when they drive by the home of somebody they know full well to be involved in some unsavoury element of organized crime and see the big boat in the driveway, the Ski-Doo and the 4 x 4, and the affluence of a person with no visible means of support who has not filed income tax for five years.

There are people like that who people involved in the criminal justice know full well are guys who are up to no good. It seems like the criminals get to thumb their nose at the police officers who are held to a much higher test in terms of the onus being on them to prove, and this is an almost impossible test, that this person had managed to acquire these luxury items by legal means.

I can just imagine the frustration that police officers must be feeling. I am glad to hear virtual unanimity across the party lines that something should be done to put the tools in the hands of the good guys, and put the burden of proof and the onus on the bad guys to clear up where they got the means to buy something like a 40-foot luxury cabin cruiser. I do not accept any arguments or any criticisms that this could in any way violate someone's constitutional rights. I would ask them to simply reveal where they got the money to buy the boat, or whatever the luxury item might be.

I ask this question of my colleague because I know he has first-hand experience in these things, having been the attorney general for the province of Manitoba for a number of years. What would he recommend we put in place as a process to ensure that the provinces and the law enforcement agencies get their fair share of the proceeds that may come from liquidating these assets and that the money does not in fact end up going into the black hole that we know is the consolidated revenue fund of the Government of Canada?

Can he recommend, even if it is not as an aspect of the legislation, some process by which we will get to use some of these proceeds for future law enforcement and that it does not go to a God knows what priority of the government of the day?

[Criminal Code, September 28th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I am thankful to the parliamentary secretary for his views on Bill C-53. Coming from the province of Manitoba, I wholly support this idea as we have similar legislation our province. It has been very useful. I could cite case studies of how it has been operating very well.

My question for my colleague is not about the reverse onus, about having people demonstrate that their assets are not the proceeds of crime. My question has more to do with the technical side of where that money goes if in fact assets are seized. If they are found to be the proceeds of crime and are seized by the government, in what way will the federal government be able to convert those material possessions into dollars? What is the methodology? How will the treasury benefit from the assets seized after they are found to be the proceeds of crime?

[Queensway Carleton Hospital, September 27th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, let me also begin by complimenting the member for Nepean—Carleton. I honestly believe that this is an example of a member of Parliament doing exactly what a member of Parliament should be doing and that is to advocate aggressively on behalf of his riding and the people in his riding on an issue that I see as having broad public policy interests.

We are talking about the National Capital Commission charging rent at market value to a hospital within my colleague's riding of Nepean—Carleton. I put it to hon. members that this is simply bad public policy. I think we should support my colleague's motion as a matter of course, and as a precedent-setting matter of course this rent should be reduced to one dollar, a token amount of money.

I cannot tell the House how strongly I feel about this. I know that there are other hospitals across the country on federal land. The federal government does not charge them rent or lease amounts because it is an absurd idea to have this snake eating its tail in a circular route of public money.

The federal government gives public money to the provinces to administer health care. The province gives money to a hospital to run the hospital. Why should the hospital then be charged market value rent just to send it back to, in this case, the federal government via the National Capital Commission? It does not make any sense and it certainly puts the hospital at a disadvantage.

With all due respect to my colleague from the Bloc who was making the point that there is plenty of time for the two parties to negotiate a reasonable settlement, I ask her to consider the testimony we heard at committee from one of the principals, a member of the board of directors. It may even have been the CEO of the board of directors who pointed out that in order to plan future development they need certainty about what their capital costs will be and what their fixed costs will be. The cost of their lease as contemplated by the NCC could be as high as $3.4 million per year. Some media outlets have put it at about half that amount. Either way, it could equal the salaries of 40 nurses.

In order to plan a proposed new cancer care centre for that hospital, a much needed and much anticipated new capital investment, the directors also need to know what their costs will be, because it takes five, seven and eight years to get a new cancer care treatment centre online and up and running. They need to know with some certainty today what their fixed costs will be eight years from now or that cancer care program and building will not be built. There is some sense of urgency, even though the lease does not expire for a couple of years.

I hope members of Parliament here can see fit to at least listen to the words of Mr. Jeff Polowin, the chair of the board of directors of the Queensway Carleton Hospital. I would ask hon. members to listen to a brief part of his presentation to us. He said to our committee, “Mr. Chair, we are the only hospital in the Ottawa area that pays rent. We pay rent to the National Capital Commission...Let me stress, please, that this is not the NCC's fault”.

In fact, said Mr. Polowin, the NCC and its staff “have been extremely cooperative in searching for a compromise...but Mr. Beaudry and the NCC's hands are tied”. He goes on to say that this is purely “a political decision here in Ottawa” and that perhaps the committee “can untie his hands”.

In other words, there is some interest on the part of the National Capital Commission in accommodating the reasonable position of the hospital and the member of Parliament representing that hospital, but the NCC's hands are tied by a directive from government, from cabinet, from Treasury Board. The NCC's hands could be untied with a directive from the House of Commons to tell the cabinet and the Liberal government not to adhere to this Treasury Board guideline, in the case of hospitals alone, because it is counterproductive, it is bad public policy, it is bad for our health care system and there is no justification.

I think my colleague, the member for Nepean—Carleton, was trying to point out that we are being constrained by a policy decision made arbitrarily with no business case for it. As if there were not enough compelling reasons for the government to simply change this policy, there is this glaring contradiction of a golf course within the geographic region of the NCC being given a $1 a year lease. It is absurd to be charging a hospital which, arguably, is of greater public benefit even for those who may love golf. Surely we can accept that it is more important that the hospital be adequately funded and not be crippled and constrained by high rent costs than it is to grant this $1 deal to a golf course.

Surely we can see the sense as parliamentarians of our beleaguered health care system not being saddled with this onerous rent. The $23,000 that the hospital has been paying for over 30 years is a significant chunk of change in its own right, but to assess the rent at the market value, given what just happened to real estate prices in the last 12 months, puts an uncertainty on the board of directors of the hospital that they would have a really hard time coping with.

Therefore, in the interest of common sense, if we can appeal to nothing else but common sense, I urge members of Parliament to consider this motion and to consider entertaining the idea that in the case of hospitals, without precedent or prejudice for any other type of federal government building that may be on public land, we should in fact adopt the motion as put forward in the debate today.

Just for added weight, I should say that I have the full support of my caucus on this and, in particular, the member of Parliament for Ottawa Centre who feels very strongly about this idea but who could not be here tonight so I am representing the caucus on this issue, and other members of Parliament in the Ottawa region who are in full agreement with the motion. The only caveat or condition that the member for Ottawa Centre asked me to convey to members tonight is that he wishes this policy could be expanded so that it would apply to any hospital on any federal land anywhere in the country.

This is a good idea brought forward by a good member of Parliament who is doing what an MP should be doing and that is advocating aggressively on behalf of his constituents and on behalf of this critically important hospital. Anyone who may have the time or interest should look through the presentations made at our standing committee when we dealt with this motion. I also should point out that the motion passed at the committee. We are only asking the House of Commons to further ratify and endorse what the committee, in its wisdom, decided.

There is great wisdom in this idea. National benefits can be gained from this idea as a precedent pertaining to hospitals only, I should add. I feel very strongly that this is a good thing to do for all of these reasons.

I will close by quoting a legal opinion from the law firm of Lang Michener stating:

It is clear that the Canadian Health care system has come increasingly under financial pressures. The federal government continues to cut federal spending on provincial health care, yet, continues to demand adherence to the principles of the Canada Health Act. By forcing the QCH to pay rent for a service which is constitutionally mandated to be a “national concern” within federal jurisdiction is requiring the QCH to violate the legislative authority to which they are bound.

This lawyer sees the contradiction inherent in this practice of trying to make the Queensway Carleton Hospital pay rent at market value to the National Capital Commission.

My strong feeling is that the House of Commons should give direction to cabinet to give direction to the National Capital Commission to renegotiate a long term lease on behalf of the Queensway Carleton Hospital at $1 per year regardless of the market value of the land that it sits on.

[Criminal Code, September 27th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I have a specific question about Bill C-49 and I preface it only by saying that my colleague from Mississauga is aware of how rare it is for white collar crime to earn jail time. Much of his speech was about sentencing and jail time and a lot of us were shocked at the relatively light sentence that Mr. Paul Coffin received. Maybe all those jail cells are needed for some Indian guy who steals a loaf of bread. Maybe there is no room in the prisons for a white collar criminal who steals $1.5 million.

I will ask my colleague to contemplate Bill C-49 specifically. I would like to read one clause and then I will ask him about it. Clause 279.01(1) reads:

Every person who recruits, transports, transfers, receives, holds, conceals or harbours a person...for the purpose of exploiting them...is guilty of an indictable offence and liable

(a) to life imprisonment....

How often do we see that as a penalty in our Criminal Code?

Does my colleague believe that clause in Bill C-49 should apply for instance to those involved in the exploitation of women and the Canadian strippergate visa scandal if proven guilty?

[Criminal Code, September 27th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question and his legitimate concern for the Immigration Canada workers who were put in this terrible position of having to be instruments of collusion to have Canada facilitate the sex trade.

The answer to his question is that the immigration workers I spoke to told me about their colleagues who were stationed in Hungary and Romania to corral these women, give them visas and send them to Canada. They are stationed there to enable the exploitation of women on behalf of Toronto immigration lawyers who own the sex clubs and strip clubs.

I do not know if that particular individual still works for Immigration Canada. What was shared with me is how terrible the workers felt that they were asked to participate in this scandalous exploitation of women. I feel for them. I do not think we should ask any civil servant to knowingly take part in something that is so morally, ethically and fundamentally wrong on so many levels.

[Criminal Code, September 27th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I remind my colleague from Mississauga that I was trying to point out that the Government of Canada was using, and perhaps still is using, the exact same methodology and modus operandi employed by people in the underworld who do smuggle humans, in that job offers are in fact made. Most people probably came to Canada thinking they were coming to a legitimate exotic dancing job for above minimum wage and reasonable working conditions. He will be the first to acknowledge, I am sure, being well aware of the subject, that once they got here the situation was very different. Their documents were taken away from them.

The member need not take my word for it. My colleague would be interested in the documentary which recently aired on television and other well documented reports of women who, once they got here, were not paid a fair living wage for legitimate exotic dancing. In fact, their documents were taken away from them, they were locked into rooms, they were forced into aspects of the sex industry beyond what they bargained for. In other words, exotic dancing led to lap dancing, led to pornographic movies, led to prostitution, against their will. As many as 500 disappeared altogether and the Government of Canada has no idea where they are. This is wide scale exploitation of women that matches word for word in modus operandi the way people in the underworld work when they corral women into human trafficking situations.

[Criminal Code, September 27th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I will take this opportunity to speak to Bill C-49 to perhaps develop the concerns that I raised.

Let me preface this by saying that I am proud that Canada is taking on the global issue of trafficking in human beings. I had some experience with this as the immigration critic for my party when not too long ago boatloads of Chinese immigrants were washing up on the shores of British Columbia. To some consternation, there seemed to be waves of humans being smuggled, some 600 in total.

As we investigated this rash of illegal migrants, it became clear that they were being smuggled in a very organized and structured way by groups of Asian organized crime known as snakeheads. This is a reprehensible practice. People's hopes and ambitions were being exploited by these snakeheads who I suppose offered opportunities or hopes of a better life.

However that is only one example and that perhaps is a more benign example of the type of human trafficking that is a growing problem around the world.

In that case, those people were cheated and undertook a very dangerous practice of being smuggled across the seas, often in shipping containers, or through other methods where they could risk their lives. That was bad enough but the type of human trafficking, the type of modern day slave trade trafficking that is being contemplated by Bill C-49, is of another scale and dimension altogether. It is almost too horrible to imagine.

We recently saw a documentary on one of the news magazine programs in Canada. Some very good investigative journalism has been done showing how vulnerable young people are being seduced off the streets in places such as eastern Europe and some of the Asian countries with offers of opportunities, sometimes being misled and offered legitimate jobs in their destination country, and sometimes being overtly kidnapped and forced into this.

This used to be the stuff of dime store novels where we would hear this kind of thing happening. It is to our shock, horror and dismay to have to admit that in the year 2005 it is commonplace and in fact it is growing in practice. In developed nations, modern, contemporary countries such as Canada, it is incumbent upon us to lead the way by passing legislation that condemns this practice universally.

However the contradiction that I was trying to raise with my colleague from Davenport is that Canada has been enabling this very practice for years. Through three successive ministers of immigration, all very strong women, this practice was allowed to continue. I know for a fact that some of them tried to intervene and put a stop to the exotic dancer visa program.

One of the owners of the hotels, a famous immigration lawyer in Toronto who owns one of the strip joints, one of the biggest beneficiaries of this program, was actually interviewed by Immigration Canada. When asked about the condition of the employment of these women who were being called in to dance, he said, “Don't worry about it. Tell the minister that they are treated like fine race horses”. That was the Toronto immigration lawyer's attitude when asked to explain the terms and conditions of employment. In other words, he is keeping a stable of exotic dancers, of strippers.

We know that as many 500 of these women have been lost. They have literally slipped through the cracks at Immigration Canada. They were corralled in Romania and Hungary, where Canadian immigration officers, to enable the demand for these exotic dancers by Toronto immigration lawyers, were sent to actually recruit dancers. Taxpayers' money was spent for immigration officers to actually station themselves in Romania and sign up as many as 200 of these exotic dancer visa applicants at a time.

Then, when the women do in fact come to Canada, they find that over time their papers are taken away from them. This is the accusation made. We heard testimony to this effect on that news show which was recently broadcast. This would be a violation of and a crime under Bill C-49. As for their working conditions, they are told that their travel is restricted and they have to stay in a certain hotel. Often they are locked in certain hotel rooms, and exotic dancing leads to lap dancing, which leads to pornography and has led to prostitution, and then the women disappear.

This is horrific, whole scale, widespread exploitation of women that not only involves human trafficking but is modern day slavery. As for the fact that my own government, the Government of Canada, was facilitating this, I find it hard to get my mind around that. The fact that it was allowed to continue by otherwise progressive and feminist ministers of immigration is mind-boggling to me.

I have to rise and ask my colleague from Davenport how he squares that in his own mind. The Liberals have a Minister of Justice doing and saying all the right things internationally about trying to be at the leading edge in putting a stop to the international trafficking of human beings, whereas our own recent experience right up until a few months ago was that we were actually engaged in what I call the human trafficking and exploitation and sex slavery of women from East European countries.

God knows what happened to the 500 women who have disappeared. Maybe they have been smuggled out of the country again. That is most serious form of trafficking. Even if it was not illegal trafficking to get the women here, it certainly became illegal trafficking when they were moved across another border into the United States or God knows where.

There is an underworld that exists for this international trafficking of human beings and clearly that underworld exists in this country. I accuse that Toronto immigration lawyer of being part of that underworld. These people know who they are. They are very well known. They are in the Yellow Pages. I could tell this House their names, but I will not bother in this place because it is not worth the hassle of agitating lawyers.

In actual fact, Canada has been complicit in this international trafficking of human beings in recent years. I do not know if we have the right to be pious about our introduction of Bill C-49. When I raise this issue, it is not to be critical of the intentions and the goals of Bill C-49. These are laudable concepts. I would expect nothing else from a country such as Canada but to put in place perhaps the toughest human trafficking legislation in the world. I would be very proud.

There is one thing about Canada and our adherence to and ratification of international conventions and treaties. I have always been very proud that we do not ratify international conventions and treaties unless we actually intend to comply with and abide by them.

It has actually held us back in some respects. I have always been a little bit embarrassed that Canada has never ratified the international convention against child labour. Canada has not done that for specific reasons. In some of our prairie provinces it is not unusual for kids to be taken out of school at harvest time and seeding time to help their families around the farm. Even though we do not consider that child labour, that would be in slight violation of the literal interpretation of ILO convention 183 against child labour. We have not ratified that convention.

I raise that only as an example. I have found it a source of pride that when Canada participates in an international convention or agreement we do it with our eyes open and with every intention of complying to the letter of the law.

How, then, do we work with our partners and colleagues internationally to stem this rising tide of the trafficking of human beings when we knowingly and willingly allow this horror to take place with our eyes open?

I say “allow it to take place” because it has been at least five years since I have been aware of this stripper program, this exotic dancer visa immigration special deal to supply the pornography and sex trade with fresh, young, vulnerable women from desperate circumstances. That has been Canadian policy. It has been a big chunk of the immigration department that has been allocated to this one program. I am not trying to say that it is a third of the department's budget or anything, but it is to the point where full time officers were sent to Romania and Hungary to meet with and interview women specifically for that program.

I would argue that more care and attention have been put into the stripper program, the exotic dancer visa program, than the live-in caregiver program that provides domestic help from places like the Philippines. These programs are on a comparable scale. The difference is that on the one side we are condemning someone to sexual slavery and exploitation and on the other side we are providing a legitimate, hourly paid job at above minimum wage with Saturdays and Sundays off. This is a glaring contrast.

How could anybody in all good conscience allow this number of years to go by and be complicit with and in direction and control of a program that is tantamount to modern day sexual slavery? It absolutely boggles my mind.

As we dwell today on Bill C-49, we are talking about introducing stiff penalties for things like seizing workers' travel documents and passports. Under Bill C-49, that would be a crime punishable by up to five years in prison. That is a heavy penalty. That is far more than one would get for stealing money in the sponsorship program, so obviously the Government of Canada frowns on the idea of seizing someone's personal passport and not allowing him or her to travel.

Yet it has overlooked this in the stripper programs for years, forcing these women into labour conditions that may resemble slavery more than anything. That would be a penalty punishable by Bill C-49. What I mean by this is modern day bondage, where persons have to pay back their bond before they are allowed to begin earning a normal income.

This is exactly the structure of the exotic dancer program, which was allowed to proliferate for so many years. The women are brought over here and are told they have to pay off their travel costs first. It is a classic organized crime structure. That travel costs figure seems to be never ending. It seems to compound. They have an impossible task. They can never seem to pay it off. Therefore, their servitude and their bondage extend and extend. It is in fact modern day slavery.

On exploitation in terms of pornography and the smuggling of children, I have a researcher in Ireland who follows the human sex trade trafficking issue. It is his full time occupation. He phoned our office saying that some of the women who were imported into the exotic dancer visa program and who came to Canada were in fact under age and using false documents. In fact, this Irish non-profit organization is accusing Canada not just of trafficking and smuggling human beings in order to pimp for the underworld, but of trafficking in children, in underage, young, vulnerable women. This is information we will have to collaborate on, but it is not beyond the realm of possibility that a young woman desperate enough to come to Canada to change her circumstances may in fact have been casual about the age she put on the application.

I condemn in the strongest possible terms the Toronto immigration lawyers who own the strip clubs and who convinced the Liberal government to allow them to import these many hundreds of women.

I condemn the government for allowing this program to exist. I cannot believe how callous and uncaring it must be.

I am sympathetic to the immigration workers, some of whom have complained to me how terrible they feel about the fact that part of their job was to enable and facilitate the importation of these women under this visa program.

I have never yet met anyone who was actually stationed in Romania and Hungary, but I have met co-workers who have told me about one particular woman who was stationed there and whose job essentially was to gather up fresh meat for the pornography and prostitution industry in Canada. They have told me how sick to her stomach she felt in exploiting other women in that way, all of it with the royal seal of approval of the Government of Canada.

I am not speaking today in an effort to make us feel bad about ourselves, but I am asking us to take a long, hard look at ourselves. We may feel good and puff our chests up with pride that today we are debating a bill that will in fact address trafficking of humans. We also may say all the right things at public forums and international conventions on this subject. We would be the first at the United Nations to condemn this in the strongest possible terms, I have no doubt, but let us take a hard look at what we have allowed to happen in recent years.

Let me go back again to the one human trafficking issue with which I have in fact been directly involved. That was the issue of what we called economic migrants, who were washing up on the shores of British Columbia, sometimes literally. Sometimes they jumped out of boats which were in fact tied up just a few hundred yards offshore. They were swimming ashore 600 at a time. Those people all claimed refugee status. It took a number of years to work through whether in fact they were legitimate refugees seeking sanctuary or whether they were economic migrants seeking economic opportunities.

As the interviews went forward and as we found out more about these groups, it turned out that they were in fact being trafficked. They were being transported across the world for a fee of as much as $30,000 to $40,000. The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration took a group of us as a committee to the Chinese port in Fujian province that these people left from, which we had envisioned as a small village where people perhaps had rice paddies with water buffalo and wore those straw hats. In actual fact, it is a city of five million people and has skyscrapers that compete with downtown Toronto's.

The economic migrants being trafficked by illegal snakehead smugglers had the $30,000 or $40,000 to give the snakeheads, my point being that it is a very lucrative and profitable enterprise. In fact, there are not many other criminal activities one can undertake in developing nations and third world countries that would pay that kind of return. In a country where $350 is the average annual income, $30,000 rivals any trafficking of drugs.

Trafficking in humans, I argue, is more lucrative than the trafficking of any kind of contraband substance, with the possible exception of medicines. I understand that some medical products in fact exceed the profit margin one can make on human beings, but trafficking in human beings is an ancient and evil concept and is certainly one that I support abolishing.

The international community should unite in condemning and squashing the international trafficking and trade of humans, but let us as Canadians go into this with our eyes open and acknowledge and apologize to the international community for the role that we have played in supplying Toronto immigration lawyers with strippers that they could then sell into prostitution and pornography. God knows what has happened to them.

As I condemn those lawyers and I condemn this government, I apologize to the women who have been exploited by the Government of Canada through the exotic dancer program. I hope they are well and have survived their ordeal.

[Criminal Code, September 27th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I have a brief follow up. The member for Davenport specifically cited aspects of Bill C-49 that had strict penalties for things like seizing the travel documents of foreign workers so that they cannot leave and forcing them into labour conditions that more resemble slavery.

I ask my colleague to reconsider his remarks. Surely he followed the Toronto Star and the widespread journalism coverage of specific bars in Toronto that had visitor work visas for exotic dancers but the women were in fact treated like sex slaves. These women had their travel documents taken away from them and they were forced into activities that they did not wish to go into, pornography and prostitution, and their wages were withheld. It was human bondage.

Will my colleague at least concede that this has been an extended problem within his own jurisdiction in Toronto stemming from Canada immigration policies that have been at least enabling and facilitating the trafficking of human beings with the government's exotic dancer visa program?

[Criminal Code, September 27th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I noted from the comments of my colleague from Davenport that Bill C-49 proposes stiff penalties for those who would exploit women and children and in the trafficking of women and children.

What would be the application of Bill C-49 in a situation where the Government of Canada put immigration workers over in Romania and Budapest to seduce young women to come to Canada under the exotic dancer's visa and then to have these women imported by immigration lawyers in Toronto who own the strip clubs and have these women by the hundreds fall into what can only be categorized as sex slavery and human bondage?

Could the hon. member, as a representative of the government side, tell me how Bill C-49 would apply to this wholesale human trafficking that was the exotic dancers program with his government pimping for the underworld to import strippers who then get lost into pornography and prostitution by the hundreds? How would it deal with the mess that his government has created with its own trafficking of sex trade workers?