Paul Szabo

[Child Protection Act (Online Sexual Exploitation), November 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his contribution to the debate. I must admit that when this member gets up, he always adds to the debate. I was most interested in, and I would like to speak to it as well, other things that we should be doing, particularly, in the area of prevention. We need to anticipate much more than to simply punish after we have a problem. A dollar best spent in most situations is a dollar spent on preventing a problem, in the first case.

The member outlined a couple of items, such as the need for public education, awareness, et cetera. I wonder if the member would like to simply highlight some of the other approaches that would be appropriate with respect to the matter before the House.

[November 25th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, that is unacceptable. The member knows that the Ethics Commissioner cannot deal with these alleged ethical wrongdoings.

The report from the Ethics Commissioner could take months. In the meantime, we have a dysfunctional board, gross mismanagement, and a gross cover-up of interference by the government in this.

The Conservative-appointed chair of the board of directors has called for someone, whether it be the Auditor General or someone else, to come in and clean up the mess now, before any further damage is done to this authority.

The issue here is that timeliness is of the essence. If we do not get these matters addressed, if the government continues to stonewall, there will be further consequences.

This is a very important authority. It manages the Toronto Island airport and the port facilities. It has assets and resources. But because there are other authorities that appoint boards, we have a problem. It has to be fixed, and it has to be fixed now.

[November 25th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, the government has been stonewalling on issues I have raised about the ethical conduct of the Minister of Natural Resources and has been basically saying it is going to wait until the Ethics Commissioner reports. However, we all know that the Ethics Commissioner can only report with regard to the Conflict of interest Act.

It is solely the Prime Minister who can judge a minister's ethical performance under his guidelines for ministers. We used to have an ethics counsellor between the Prime Minister and the ministers themselves, but now it is totally the Prime Minister's call.

To remind members, we are talking about a Minister of Natural Resources who had a political fundraiser which utilized the resources of the Toronto Port Authority, a federal authority. It was confirmed in writing by the president and CEO of the Toronto Port Authority that, in fact, it happened and that it had taken corrective action. However, the board never responded and it has a responsibility here.

There is also the issue of the Minister of Natural Resources, as president and CEO at the time, signing an expense report, which is to be signed exclusively by the chair of the board, but the minister signed it herself. On the bottom it read, “Chair refused to sign”, but she signed it anyway.

There were two other expense reports that were reimbursed but were not authorized by the chairman of the board. There was a $9,000 lunch for 50 people, about $180 per person. The most expensive meal on the entire menu at that restaurant is only $80. After taking off the tip, it looks like half of the money was spent on alcohol.

The board is dysfunctional. It has demonstrated gross mismanagement of the authority. It doctored board minutes that were approved in December of 2008. The previous chair of the board has said publicly that it was illegal for the new chair of the board and the then board to doctor and alter the board minutes, which was clearly an attempt to eliminate information that would indicate there was government interference with the board.

I have called for the Auditor General to be mandated to come in. In a previous request from the board of directors itself, the Auditor General responded that her mandate did not permit her to do that, but she can, if the Prime Minister temporarily expands her mandate, go in and clean up the mess. There was no answer to that.

Now the chair of the board, Mark McQueen, of the Toronto Port Authority has himself called for the Auditor General to come in. I do not know what the answer is going to be about the Auditor General, but I doubt that it is going to change.

However, section 41.(1) of the Canada Marine Act authorizes the Minister of Transport to call for a special report of this to clean up the mess. He should do that because we need the answers to these questions. They are not forthcoming from the government.

[Criminal Code, November 24th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I hope the hon. member will scour the bill to find out what documentary evidence is necessary to do a proper committee review and request it now, because it might take that long to get it.

At the beginning of his speech, the member mentioned that this appeared to be an omnibus type bill with a lot of elements to it and a lot of issues. Were the members of the committee offered a briefing on this bill in advance so they could look at some of these preliminaries and so the quality of the debate could be more incisive rather than interrogatory?

It seems to me to be such a broad issue that any government intent on having good legislation would ensure that all hon. members were well prepared to participate in debate.

[Criminal Code, November 24th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the bill certainly does cover a broad range of issues but if I only have a short question I will stay with the fingerprints.

Given the member's statements, would it be his intent to address this issue of where they request to say that fingerprints would be taken on an arrest but if no charges are laid they would automatically be expunged from the records?

This amendment is to the Identification of Criminals Act. This has to be quite unnerving to those who would be arrested but never charged or convicted of anything. Would he support that change?

[Criminal Code, November 24th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Windsor—Tecumseh responded to this earlier and said that in his view, he assumed that somehow all the committee members had just missed the information and that they were sure it had been sent. That was not the case, so it was detrimental reliance, if anything.

There appears to be a systemic problem here, that of the withholding from committees information that they need to be able to do their work. I would have thought that the officials would have come prepared to answer those questions, obvious questions that they have undertaken to provide that information subsequently, such as how many times the faint hope clause has been used in the last ten years. This is so fundamental to the bill and for the consideration of the bill that these are questions that need not be asked; they are automatic.

I would ask the member whether or not he believes that maybe there is little bit more here in terms of possibly a breach of the rules of Parliament with regard to deliberately withholding evidence and information from committees.

[Criminal Code, November 24th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his contribution to the debate on the amendment to revert the bill to committee so it can re-examine certain clauses, simply because the information was withheld.

The member was maybe a little too kind about how this occurred. It would appear to me that the officials and Correctional Service Canada should have had that information available when they were in committee. I do not understand, for instance, how it could possibly not be available when they are there to do this work in committee.

Then we had a situation where an RCMP report, having to do with the gun registry, was somehow allegedly kept behind by a minister of the crown. Now there is another case where information on this bill is kept behind. Is there a further case where information and documentation on Afghanistan detainees is being held back from committees?

There seems to be a pattern. Would the member care to elaborate on this apparent coincidence?

[Criminal Code, November 24th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I would have commended the member's speech at third reading to members before we got to this motion.

Before becoming a member of Parliament, I was involved for many years in a shelter for battered women. I noted in committee that the Elizabeth Fry Society gave examples of 10 cases, 6 of which were women who murdered their abusive husbands, and, of those 6, 2 were found to be ineligible for early parole under the faint hope provision. Therefore, four out of the six were eligible based on the circumstances.

I wonder if the member would care to comment on that example or any other example of the kind of case where early parole under section 745 has been granted to indicate that we are not just talking about Clifford Olson.

[Criminal Code, November 24th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the member wants to speculate about what might happen. We have a situation here where the information requested by members was not provided to the committee.

I do not know how this has influenced people's impression but I do know that sometimes simple slogans, simple phrases can sway people. I have been a member of Parliament since 1993 and I believe we have addressed this. I also know that every time it has come up I have voted in favour of retaining the faint hope clause. I have no reason to believe that I should not continue to support the faint hope clause in those rare circumstances where the judges and other stakeholders believe it is appropriate.

That does not seem to have been given the scrutiny during second reading debate or third reading debate. It probably had a better debate at committee, but something happened where someone decided that fundamental information could be withheld or deferred, maybe deliberately. Why? We need to know the answer to these questions: Who is responsible? Why? Would it affect members' impressions and decisions on whether or not they will support Bill C-36?

I think it is possible that this series of events may cause some reconsideration. I would ask the member to let us see how this plays out but I very much believe that members of this place have not been well served by not getting the kind of information that we really need.

[Criminal Code, November 24th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the member is a bit premature. The matter here is not about what people would obviously conclude if asked how many people actually get through this process. We know it is a rigorous process and very few people get through it. If anybody read the specific cases involving those who do get out, they would clearly understand why there was a propriety for someone to get early parole under the faint hope clause.

There is one issue that has come out and it is an issue that the member will have to acknowledge. The bill has come back from committee and members were giving speeches at third reading before the motion was made. One side is saying that this is all about victims and about Clifford Olson. The other side is at least providing more focused information.

If those statistics had been available, the quality of questions would have changed. Maybe the quality of the commentary coming from certain members in favour of Bill C-36 would have changed. That information was not on the record specifically and from an authoritative source.

That is missing. That is why the motion to revert to committee is appropriate. That is why maybe a breach of members' rights has been committed.