Paulina Ayala

[Transportation, March 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I asked the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities whether he was in discussions with Quebec and Montreal about extending the Montreal metro's blue line. He replied that he wanted to be a partner. We agree. This project would be important to the economic development of eastern Montreal, but federal funding for this kind of infrastructure is not always renewed.

How are discussions with the city going? What kind of partnership will be developed?

[Transportation, March 20th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, local elected officials, individuals and businesses in my riding all want to move forward with the Montreal metro blue line extension. It is an infrastructure project that has strong support and is good for the local economy, but it will be hard to undertake without support from the federal government.

Despite the difficulty that the Minister of Transport is having agreeing with Quebec on funding for public transit on the Champlain Bridge, can he tell us if he is currently in discussions with Quebec and Montreal about the metro project?

[Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act, February 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, we were talking about sexual harassment in the RCMP. One thing worries me. Victims are afraid. How can a woman speak about such a difficult situation when she is ashamed? There are many other factors that come into play. If the person harassing her is her boss—the one who makes the decisions—she is out of luck.

Could my colleague explain how it is possible to introduce a bill that is so lacking in that area.

[Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act, February 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, as a mother and a member of the public, I believe we have a right to transparent police investigations. That is fundamental.

Could my colleague explain the points raised by the NDP about this bill, in particular the idea that investigations should be carried out independently so that the public can be sure that those at fault will receive due punishment and so that the atmosphere of trust and the atmosphere within the RCMP are tolerable for whistleblowers?

Could my colleague expand on that idea?

[Business of Supply, February 26th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to what my esteemed colleague said and made the connection with what we often hear the government say about creating jobs and so forth.

This is indeed a golden opportunity to create quality jobs, not just minimum-wage jobs in fast-food outlets.

Does my colleague agree that if the government truly intended to work with other levels of government, it could be an engine for economic growth, which in turn could lead to the creation of quality jobs, thereby helping Canadians build a better country for their children and for everyone?

[Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act, February 12th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately for my colleague, it is up to the Conservatives to answer that question and to explain why they did not accept these recommendations when they claim to be working for the well-being of people, when they say they want to improve working conditions and to prevent harassment. I cannot answer for them.

[Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act, February 12th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

On the contrary, experts have said that those who investigate cases involving the RCMP truly have to be independent parties who do not come from within the organization. If there is a problem within a family, it will not be resolved within the family. Help needs to come from elsewhere for it to be objective and transparent. Victims need to feel like they are being listened to. That is how to get results when it comes to whistle-blowing. The Conservatives did not listen to everyone in committee. That is clear in the transcript.

[Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act, February 12th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague just touched on a very sensitive point, namely the value of democracy. In a democracy, we must listen to one another, set aside our differences and work together.

When the Conservatives boss us around, they undermine democracy. They do that instead of improving a bill that would benefit everyone. The government's position is dangerous. We are here to represent people and provide them with a better quality of life. We are not the boss of anything and we do not have a monopoly on the truth.

By listening to professionals in the field, we could improve our legislation and truly make life easier for our constituents. In my opinion, our democracy is starting to suffer. The members opposite seem to be going deaf. They are not listening.

[Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act, February 12th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member for Saint-Jean.

A report from the International Labour Office contains data based on a 1996 survey of 15 European Union countries that included 15,800 interviews. It listed 6 million cases of physical violence, which means 4% of workers; 3 million cases of sexual harassment, or 2% of workers, and 12 million cases of intimidation, or 8% of workers. In 2009 here in Canada, over 20,000 cases of harassment have been reported, and the phenomenon is on the rise.

Violence and the workplace have always gone hand in hand, but although work was once a source of physical violence that could go as far as legal power over the life and death of a slave, today it is increasingly associated with psychological violence. This finds its origin largely in the new forms of work organization, and in management methods that emerged some thirty years ago and have led to deteriorating social relations, job insecurity and unemployment.

When referring to cases of violence, we must be sure to call them by their rightful name, so that everyone understands what we are talking about. According to the social and professional communities, one difficulty has to be taken into account: levels of tolerance for violence vary. Some forms of work organization and some situations are conducive to manifestations of violence.

The Conservatives introduced this bill in the House for first reading on June 21, 2012, and second reading on September 17, 18 and 19, 2012. Moreover, at second reading it was referred to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, which held seven meetings in October 2012, and a further sitting in November, so that a report could be adopted in mid-December. Today we are at third reading, and there really does not seem to have been any development in this bill.

The purpose of the bill was to restore public trust in the RCMP, and provide for clear and transparent accountability. Distancing itself from Canadian values with respect to law and order, however, the government seems to be forgetting that the best way of restoring public trust is to ensure transparency and remove any appearance of a conflict of interest.

Yet how is the public to be rid completely of its cynicism if the RCMP can investigate its own members, or in other words, if the police oversee investigations of their own actions?

I wonder about the fact that of the 14,000 words or so in the bill, the word “harassment” appears but once. As my colleague from Churchill pointed out, “harassment” is not even defined in the bill.

How is it that the committee considering these issues did not meet with a single representative of the RCMP who had filed a complaint of sexual harassment? Were these people not invited to attend the committee’s meetings? We would like to know why the victims were not heard from.

This is probably why Robin Kers, the union’s national representative, pointed out recently in an article in the February 4 issue of the Hill Times that the changes proposed by the government with respect to harassment within the police force were worthless, that they would not change so much as a comma in the RCMP code of conduct, and that the government had missed an opportunity to send a clear signal about accountability for harassment within the police.

Is this really surprising?

A clear and measurable policy to achieve parity between men and women in the forces would be the most constructive, structural approach to the problem of harassment. Representation of women in the forces currently stands at 20%.

On November 20, the assistant commissioner and human resources director, Sharon Woodburn, said that no concrete plan had been put forward to achieve the ratio of 30% to 35%, mentioned last April before a parliamentary committee by RCMP commissioner Bob Paulson.

I am concerned by the constant stream of harassment complaints received by the RCMP. My concern seems confirmed not by the constant number of complaints over the past decade, but by the reaction of the Minister of Public Safety last November, when he reprimanded the RCMP commissioner for discussing the gender analysis, in the interests of transparency. This did not reflect the will expressed in the bill's preamble about transparency.

On another note, the government seems to be acting in a contradictory way. On the one hand, it proposes to protect victims, something with which we agree, and it introduces a bill to increase the safety of witnesses. We talked about it yesterday. On the other hand—and after the NDP proposed amendments to deal with the concerns over human resources policies, in an attempt to rebalance them and, ultimately, reduce violence within organizations—the Conservative rejected all proposals to protect job security for members, particularly when harassment is reported. In addition to being harassed, members will be afraid to lose their job if they report someone. We seem to have here a government with a double standard.

Finally, I would like to quote Paul Kennedy, who held the job of RCMP public complaints commissioner for four years. He feels that the RCMP requires closer government oversight than what is provided under Bill C-42. The extended and repetitive situation that exists in the RCMP confirms the existence of a structural problem. Therefore, more radical solutions targeting the structure itself are required.

This is a worrisome problem that seems to exist everywhere and to be growing rapidly. The legislative approaches vary, as I am going to show.

The 2004 report entitled “L'État social de la France” and prepared by the ODIS proposes an analytical grid to evaluate the reality of moral harassment and specify its nature.

In Quebec, the Commission des normes du travail defines harassment as follows:

Harassment...at work is vexatious behaviour in the form of repeated conduct, verbal comments, actions or gestures: that are hostile or unwanted; that affect the employee's dignity or psychological or physical integrity; that make the work environment harmful.

The definition of harassment in the Act respecting Labour Standards in Quebec includes sexual harassment in the workplace and harassment based on one of the grounds mentioned in the Canadian Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.

To establish that a case actually involves psychological harassment, it is necessary to prove the presence of all the elements of the definition: vexatious behaviour; repetitive in nature; verbal comments, gestures or behaviours that are hostile or unwanted, that affect the person's dignity or integrity, and that make the environment harmful.

While we agree that the police does not have a monopoly on violence in society, it is critical that the RCMP become a place exempt from harassment. The integrity of our police is at stake. That is why the state, as employer, must ensure that RCMP members work in a healthy workplace and are protected from the situations that I described.

[Safer Witnesses Act, February 11th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, earlier, when I asked the member opposite a question, I said that protection involves costs. People need to be protected; they might need to be moved, professionals may need to be paid.

In this bill, the eligibility criteria for this program would be expanded. That looks great on paper, but there are costs involved. To those who say that their government has done a lot to protect witnesses and that it has tried to take action, I would say that the government needs to put its money where its mouth is. A great bill without the necessary budget to make it work is nothing but smoke and mirrors.

I would like my colleague to talk about the lack of funding, when it is funding that is needed to make this program work.