Paul Dewar

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, March 1st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join my colleagues in opposition to Bill C-42. It is clearly an important bill when we look at what is at stake.

There used to be a solid core of supporters and even members within the Conservative Party who prided themselves on the issue of privacy protection. That seems to have been lost recently. It has been pawned off at times, and I give the example of the bizarre and unusual case of the census conundrum.

The government has said that it wants to make sure that the privacy of citizens is protected. It has said that citizens should not feel obligated to tell the government how many bathrooms they have in their domain and other personal information. When asked how many people had actually complained about this, the government said one was enough. We are still not sure who that one person is. Some people think it might have been someone in the minister's backyard.

The point is this is not about the census and people know that. We in this Parliament are bound by the provisions for protection. We have the oversight. The problem with this bill is that we would be handing over Canadians' right to privacy to another government.

The government has talked about not being able to pony up the money for the database for the collection of this information. Not only will information be handed over to another government but that information will be held by that government and we will not be able to get to it.

I really want to underline the importance of the intervention made by my colleague from Windsor. I have had case after case right here in the nation's capital involving people who have been denied entry into the United States. When our government is asked what can be done, we are pointed to homeland security in the United States.

I do not know if the same situation exists in Saskatchewan, but I do know that people right across this country have been faced with it. If a constituent is on a no-fly list, his or her member of Parliament will probably talk to the minister or someone in his department. They are told that this is something that the department cannot handle. This is under the oversight of homeland security in the United States. After a very long route through voice mail, we can bring forward the case but that is the end of it. We will not be heard again.

Right now we have problems with regard to Canadians being able to freely travel abroad, particularly south of the border, and we have not figured that out yet. The government has been very silent on this during this debate. The government is going to oblige the United States when asked for this information, but we have not even figured out how to get someone's name off a no-fly list.

Constituents are scratching their heads and wondering why they cannot cross the border into the United States. They cannot figure out a way to get their name off the no-fly list. The government is about to open this up even further by sharing data through Bill C-42. It does not make sense.

Where is the consistency within the Conservative Party that used to stand up for privacy? This is not about the census. This is not about how many bathrooms there are in somebody's house. This is about a person's ability to travel abroad without the fear of being put on a no-fly list or without the sharing of personal information. That is what we are talking about here. We are talking about providing credit card information. We are talking about providing the date of birth of a Canadian citizen.

This reminds me of the debate in the House on Bill C-31 to reform the Canada Elections Act, when Liberals and the Bloc wanted to support an amendment to that bill and to streamline electoral practices by putting birth dates on the list.

Members may remember this. There was a strong debate in committee. I asked Ms. Stoddart, the Privacy Commissioner, to come before committee to get her opinion on whether she thought having birth date information on an electoral list was a good idea. At the time I was not supported by the Liberals, Conservatives and the Bloc, who said that we had already heard from Ms. Stoddart. The problem was we had heard from Ms. Stoddart before the amendment was put forward.

I wrote to Ms. Stoddart and asked her opinion, as Privacy Commissioner, about having one's birth date on the electoral list.

Mr. Speaker, you will know, having been in a couple of campaigns, that the electoral list is shared widely. To have that kind of private information, with people's dates of birth, on a list that is circulated so widely is asking for trouble. Allowing others to take people's information from the electoral list to apply for a credit card or to do the other things that data miners do opens up many doors.

At the time, Ms. Stoddart got back to me and the House and said she had grave concerns about this compromising Canadians' privacy. Eventually, thankfully, that bill was dropped, but it was about to go through the House. It is the NDP Party that stood against that flagrant abuse of Canadians' privacy.

Again, I go back to the Conservatives and ask what happened. They used to be the ones who talked about protecting privacy. Now it is only about whether people have to say how many bathrooms they have in their homes. That is the line in the sand now.

What about when someone travels abroad? What about when someone's data is collected and captured by another country? Does that not matter any more to the Conservatives? Is it simply a matter of shrugging and saying this is the way we do things now? I want to underline that because this is a government bill.

To my friends in the Bloc and the Liberal Party, reviewing things after five years is not going to do what is needed, or even within two years or a year. If it is bad legislation now, do not pass it. When they vote for this bill, they are blessing this process. It is too late a year later, when a constituent asks how his or her information got into a database in the United States, to say we were told that it would not happen, that we trusted this would be a process our officials would keep their eye on. That is not good enough.

Today opposition members have an opportunity to say no to this bill. It is not about saying we do not want to negotiate with our friends south of the border. It is in fact saying that we should negotiate with our friends south of the border, which we did not do.

I am surprised that both the Liberals and the Bloc have decided this bill is okay. I say this because I know many of them and know that their constituents will be concerned about privacy. I am sure many of their constituents have been on the no-fly list and have not been able to get their names off it. I am sure many members have had to deal with those cases.

At the end of the day, I return to the issue of whether this is a good deal for Canadians. I say it is not: it puts our privacy in peril. If that is the case, then we as New Democrats say no to this bill. We need a better deal and we say no to Bill C-42.

[Privilege, February 18th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker,there are a couple of points that I think are important to underline in light of the government's intervention and response to the question of privilege.

Mr. Speaker, I should point out that in the report that was submitted by the committee, at the bottom of the report, just before the chair signed off, there is a copy of the relevant minutes of proceedings. I want to underline that because it does give you a full overview of the debate within committee on this issue. I think that is important because it is in context that we are debating this point of privilege.

One of those points is not only the minister saying that, on the one hand, she was not aware of who put the “not” in the document, she was not able to divulge that, then she conveyed in testimony that she was very well attuned to what was in the proposal. That is important because when I asked her questions at committee, I asked if she had read the proposal and she had assured us that she had. That is important because of the dates. She had the sign-off from senior officials on this to approve the proposal and when we came to the point of trying to find out from her how this process worked, she was not able to tell us.

This is where I believe our privileges were compromised and where there is a prima facie case of contempt. As I mentioned in my intervention yesterday, the 1978 decision by Speaker Jerome was notwithstanding that the information that was provided to an hon. member back in 1973, and this was with regard to the opening of mail by the RCMP, there was no knowledge of it at the time. It was later found out that there was, in fact, knowledge and that there was withholding of information from hon. members.

I need to underline one thing here. There is a certain standard of conduct that all hon. members should all ascribe to, that is, telling our colleagues exactly what has happened in a truthful manner.

Cabinet ministers are held to a higher standard, for obvious reasons. They have to absolutely assure all members that they are divulging all information because of the nature of their position.

I say that because when we asked for information about how this decision was made, to be polite, the minister was evasive. She would not tell us who intervened to change this document, which I will speak to in a moment, and she led us to believe that she was not involved. That is clear, when we look at the sign-off of her deputy minister and others, the fact that she had this on her desk for the period of time she did, the fact that she said that she had studied this proposal for the time that she had and, at the end of the day, she could not disclose to hon. members who actually made the intervention to kill the proposal.

This is the higher standard I am speaking of. It is not good enough to shrug and say, “Well, I'm sorry. I should have told you I directed someone to do it, but I didn't." I think that is something that needs to be ascertained and Mr. Speaker, if you connect it to the 1973 intervention of an hon. member which led to the 1978 decision of prima facie from Speaker Jerome, you will see that there is an argument.

Finally, there is the document. I respectfully disagree with my colleague from the Conservative Party when he said that normally people would not see this document, maybe it was sloppy, maybe it could have been done differently, but it is not something we should concern ourselves with because, at the end of the day, the minister said it was her decision.

The problem is that it is the whole focus right now because it is important. It is a legal testament to whether or not this proposal was going to be approved.

To go back in time, the nature of bureaucracy and why we have documents is so that there is accountability. My friend says it is not important because normally we would not see these documents, and that this is just the way things happen, that it was sloppy, but we should not worry about it.

The only way to hold government to account, and this applies to the private sector as well, is to look at documents and contracts. This essentially was a contract, a proposal put forward to government, approved by upper levels of the bureaucracy and given to the minister to sign off.

That is the way this works. How else can we have accountability unless we look at documents to ascertain how decisions were made in this place? I know the government does not like that. It would prefer that none of us see anything. We have seen that before with the Afghan detainee documents.

At the end of the day, Mr. Speaker, I encourage you to focus on the document, the impression that was given by the minister, what was divulged by her, and at what point hon. members were actually given access to how that decision was made. I think a prima facie case will be found. As I said before, I think that Speaker Jerome's decision will help in that instance.

[International Co-operation, February 18th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, ever since Embassy magazine uncovered the doctored document exposing the minister's sneaky conduct, Conservatives have concluded that twisted talking points, not honesty, was the best policy.

CIDA officials recommended funding KAIROS because it was devoted to helping others, defending human rights and helping build democracy. Yet Conservatives cut funding to organizations like KAIROS, based on ideology not aid effectiveness.

When will the government acknowledge that foreign aid should be based on good policy and effective work? When will it reinstate KAIROS' funding?

[Privilege, February 17th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for your indulgence. As was mentioned by my colleague from the Liberal Party, this question of privilege relates to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development's sixth report, which was tabled this morning.

From subsequent submissions you have received from other hon. members, Mr. Speaker, including from me on December 13, it is clear that the Minister of International Cooperation statements to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development with regard to who was responsible for the government decision to reject a funding proposal for the Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives known as KAIROS were deliberately misleading. I believe my rights and the rights of all hon. members have been breached by the minister's misleading comments.

As has been noted in the December 9 testimony by the minister in front of the committee, when asked who was responsible for inserting the word “not” that led to the denial of funding to KAIROS, she told me and members of the committee that she did not know. As you know, Mr. Speaker, recently in the House it was established by the minister that she did know and she had directed someone to insert the said word.

I want to reference your ruling, Mr. Speaker, on February 10. You said that while giving voice to the disturbing questions with regard to the integrity of the decision-making process conducted by the minister, the absence of a committee report on the matter put a key limitation on your ability to find that there was a prima facie question of privilege arising from the minister's comments to the committee. Such a report was tabled in the House today. This report refers to the transcript of the minister's testimony to the committee on December 9, 2010, as well as a copy of the doctored document.

The original question of privilege submitted to you on December 13, 2010, Mr. Speaker, charged that the minister had deliberately misled the House and the committee on the origin of the government's rejection of the funding for KAIROS. For months, hon. members were led to believe the rejection had been advised by officials at CIDA.

In my submissions to you, Mr. Speaker, I wish to bring to your attention new and troubling facts arising from the minister's statement to the House on February 14. Her statement indicated that her testimony to the committee on December 9, 2010, was knowingly incorrect and deliberately misleading.

I believe that contempt against me, against the citizens of our country, whom I and other hon. members represent, and all parliamentarians, has been one where you will, if you see the evidence before you, find a prima facie case of contempt of the House.

I have three other references which I believe to be relevant citations for the Speaker's deliberation on this matter.

With regard to the issue of contempt of Parliament, I reference Joseph Maingot. In particular, I reference pages 227 to 229, of the second edition, which indicate the parameters of the issue of conduct constituting breach of privilege or contempt. You will find, Mr. Speaker, that this is relevant in this case.

A prima facie, case of privilege for those who are not aware of the Latin meaning, is a case where the Speaker finds evidence enough for us to carry on with a case of contempt of Parliament. Therefore, is there enough evidence in front of the Speaker for us to proceed further with a motion.

I would also like to reference O'Brien and Bosc, page 115, where there is reference to a case that was ruled on and reference to:

Misleading a Minister or a Member has also b2een considered a form of obstruction and thus a prima facie breach of privilege.

The example cited is from December 6, 1978, in a finding that a prima facie contempt of the House existed. Speaker Jerome ruled that a government official, by deliberately misleading the minister, had impeded the member in the performance of his duties and consequently obstructed the House itself.

I have one final reference. It is the same case on which Speaker Jerome ruled. On page 1856, of the December 6, 1978, issue of Hansard, there is his the full ruling on privilege. The complaint is the subject matter of a question of privilege and it is one that you will find relevant to this case.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, if we are able to establish, and if you are able to rule, that there is prima facie case of contempt with regard to our privileges, I would ask that you consider a motion, as my colleague has, with wording along the lines that the matters raised in the sixth report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, including all circumstances leading to and related to the addition of the word “not” on the official document contained in appendix A of the report, be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

[Immigration Settlement Programs, February 17th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, our community of Ottawa Centre has always been proud to welcome new Canadians. In 1979, we came together and welcomed 4,000 refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

For the media, they were called the “boat people”; for the government, they were “small boat escapees”; but to our community, they were our new neighbours and, with community support, our new neighbours thrived.

That is how we feel about new immigrants and refugees here. That is why we support settlement programs. That is why we believe the government's $53 million cuts to immigrant services will undermine the quality of life for all of us.

These cuts will take away child care resources for newcomers, at the same time that the government is making family reunification almost impossible. Language classes will be severely limited, resulting in isolation and separation, making it harder to find a job, build relations and contribute to our community.

These cuts will hurt our newest neighbours first and all of us in the long run. We call on the government to reverse those cuts now.

[International Co-operation, February 15th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about when someone is telling the truth or not. Yesterday the minister said she directed someone to insert that word to kill a grant for KAIROS.

This is what she said on December 9 when asked, “Did you put that word in there?” She said, “No.” When asked, “Do you know who did it?” She said, “I do not know”.

Where I come from, that is misleading. That is not telling the truth. That is a premise for the Prime Minister to ask the minister to leave cabinet. Is he going to do it, yes or no?

[International Co-operation, February 15th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, like the Minister of Industry on Statistics Canada, or the Minister of National Defence on Richard Colvin, the Minister of International Cooperation has now joined the growing list of cabinet ministers caught trying to defend the indefensible. The minister responsible for CIDA has admitted she misled a parliamentary committee and doctored a document. In most places that is called forgery.

Will the Prime Minister finally show some leadership and remove her from cabinet?

[Afghanistan, February 11th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, there is no there, there. We need a search warrant for the information.

The government wants Canadians to think there is nothing to see here, but recent documents obtained by the NDP show that even ISAF was complaining about the government's handling of detainees, and that is just the tip of the iceberg, After months of secret meetings between Conservatives and Liberals, after wasting $1.6 million, Canadians are nowhere closer to the truth.

The government has broken trust with Canadians. Does it not realize what accountability is all about?

[Afghanistan, February 11th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, every time we have called for a public inquiry into the detainee issue, the Conservatives have huffed and puffed that finding the truth is just too expensive. It turns out that hiding the truth is not so cheap either. It cost Canadians $1.6 million for the government to lower a cone of silence on the issue altogether, $1.6 million to keep the public in the dark, $1.6 million to undermine parliamentary supremacy and $1.6 million to cover up torture.

When will the government end this charade and allow transparency and daylight in?

[Afghanistan, February 7th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, documents obtained by New Democrats reveal that the Conservative government has spent more than $41 million hiring private security firms in Afghanistan. We have learned that some of these contractors are connected to notorious Afghan warlords.

These warlords have engaged in murder, kidnapping and bribery. They even run their own militia. So much for promoting democracy and the rule of law.

My question is, when will the government finally get these warlords off Canada's payroll?