Paul Dewar

[International Aid, April 21st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, Canada has ceded its position of leadership in fighting crimes against humanity. As a country, we are now 57th in contributions to the UN peacekeeping missions. Nowhere is this absence more acute than in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a place where we have repeatedly been asked to send peacekeepers.

The United Nations has issued a direct appeal to Canada, asking for help in the Congo. Will the government support the request by the UN to have General Andrew Leslie lead the command of the UN mission in the Congo?

[Afghanistan, April 19th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, this new information supports what Richard Colvin told Parliament back in November. The NDS is notorious for torture. It is corrupt and releases even high-value prisoners for bribes. It is accountable to no one. Yet, we send prisoners to it for “further questioning”, and when we receive a substantial allegation of torture, we ask the NDS to do what? To investigate itself.

Is the government incapable of seeing the problem in this picture we have presented? When will it halt the transfers to the NDS and call an inquiry?

[Afghanistan, April 19th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, today in Britain the High Court heard about how detainees were punched repeatedly, suffered electric shocks and sleep deprivation at the hands of the notorious NDS. Meanwhile, in Canada, the government refuses to recognize that torture is widespread, despite the fact that we have transferred many more detainees than the British ever did.

We learned over the weekend that just between January and September 2009, Canada transferred 163 Afghan prisoners to the dreaded NDS.

How can the government continue to say that these transfers were not at risk of torture? Does it think there is a separate suite for Canadian detainees in the NDS? Come on.

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, April 16th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I have a number of questions. I think it is telling that the minister has suggested this is somehow novel. I do not think there is anything novel about this. The government seems to be shutting down debate. When did it come up with this idea? Why did he not share this procedural parlour trick with everyone? If it was something he is doing in good stead to get his legislation through, fine, but he should not pretend that this is anything but the government trying to ram something through and limit the debate.

As was suggested earlier, this place shut down for an awfully long time. It was the government's decision to prorogue Parliament. The minister will know this. Even before he was the minister of his current portfolio, he was in cabinet. He knows that prorogation means a reset on the legislation. It is not credible for the minister to say that while the government prorogued, everyone knew the positions on this particular bill and we should just have what we had before and bring it forward. That is not how it works in our system.

When Parliament has prorogued, it means that all legislation has to be brought back, and it means that we go through the procedure and process of debate again. He claimed that he knows that the opposition is against the bill and that is grounds to limit debate. I would like him to go back to when he was in opposition and to credibly stand by those comments.

The government should not be in a position where it can limit debate like it is doing now. Mr. Speaker, let me finish. We have 30 minutes.

[Afghanistan, April 16th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, what Pasha, the interpreter, gave us was a first-hand, eye witness account of an NDS colonel's proposal to murder a detainee. He said that Colonel Yassin said that NDS would not accept a sick detainee and that when the Canadians insisted, Colonel Yassin removed his pistol, put it on the table, and said, ‘Here is my gun. Go shoot him. Give me the body and I will justify it for you”.

Their intentions were clear and yet the detainee was still transferred.

No more excuses. The need for a public inquiry is obvious to everyone, seemingly, except for the government. Why will it not call a public inquiry?

[Afghanistan, April 16th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, a document I received shows that when detainees were not forthcoming during questioning by Canadian officials, they would be sent to the NDS for further interrogation. We have heard testimony that this meant torture. Yesterday a military police witness testified that they had no responsibility for detainees once they handed them over. This document backs up what a top-level military advisor, known as Pasha, described as “outsourcing torture”.

Where does the buck stop? Who is accountable for Canada's outsourcing torture to the Afghans?

[Rights & Democracy, April 14th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, we just heard it. They are out of control. They are spending half a million dollars in a couple of months. The buck stops with the minister. If he is not going to do it, granted, we will do his job. We will look and make sure that every dollar is spent well.

The question is: What is going on over there? We had a parliamentary appointments commission that is supposed to be going. They get a million dollars a year. Those guys are still appointing their friends. No accountability. This is from a government that was going to be different, the new era of accountability. Where is the new era? When will they get with the program, and when will we see accountability with those guys over here?

[Rights & Democracy, April 14th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday we heard shocking testimony regarding Rights & Democracy, where government appointees handed out unauthorized contracts to friends, broke accountability rules and spent like drunken sailors. Half a million dollars of public funds have been squandered in less than two months. In fact, when I asked the interim president how much the recent contracts he signed were worth, he could not even give me a ballpark figure.

The buck stops with the minister. What will he do about this? He should fire these rogue board members.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 13th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Hamilton Mountain for the work she has done to fight for seniors.

The choice was clear. We could have invested in supporting seniors by putting in a measure that could have been easily done to ensure that when companies go bankrupt, the workers who actually created the wealth, who allowed those executive to get the big bonuses, would actually be referred to in some way. All the government had to do was change the BIA. It could have changed two pieces of legislation and that would have been done. The Nortel workers who have been left out in the cold would have been recognized. Finally, it was about $700 million versus $6 billion. The equation is clear. The government should have at least invested the $700 million for seniors and their pensions.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, April 13th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, that is the problem with the budget. We do not see innovation or the kinds of commitments that organizations like Development and Peace want to see, like sustainable agricultural.

In the eighties I was involved in development and in sustainable agriculture. Since that time, we have seen that it works, if we look at the multiplier effect, as I referenced before, in terms of the investments.

The government does not seem to be looking forward at all. It seems to be mired in its own ideology and it seems to lack any understanding of the consensus, particularly on issues around development in the south. It is really important that we look at sustainability and do not always go for the big goal. The big goal has put us into problems in terms of international development. We saw that throughout the seventies and into the eighties. We need to look at sustainable methods, small farming, and that is exactly what the budget did not do.