Peter Julian

[Committees of the House, May 2nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I did find the speech quite stimulating, but my head is fine. I hope, for the hon. member who just spoke, it is the same.

[Committees of the House, May 2nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I like the member, but quite frankly, I am concerned when he talks about what a future Conservative government will do.

We saw what the Conservatives did for veterans. They closed about 20 offices that provided services to veterans. People had to drive hundreds of kilometres to get any kind of service. The Conservatives cut services for veterans. They treated veterans with a total lack of respect. I have a lot of respect for the member, but quite frankly, we saw the contempt with which the Conservatives treated veterans under the Harper regime.

The Conservatives treated veterans terribly under the Harper regime. Can the member explain how the Conservatives will in any way treat veterans better if ever they take office?

[Combating Motor Vehicle Theft Act, May 2nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, that is a falsehood, and the member should withdraw it.

[Combating Motor Vehicle Theft Act, May 2nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Prince Albert for bringing this forward. I know that he is very sincere, having worked in Parliament with him for a number of years on this issue.

I will get into some reasons a little later on as to why I do not think this bill is the response that is needed, but I want to start off by talking about British Columbia and the British Columbia difference. We have been talking a lot about car thefts. Why is it that in British Columbia there has been an opposite result from what we are seeing in other parts of the country?

I would like to thank the integrated crime prevention services for their work, the New Westminster Police, the Burnaby RCMP and a wide variety of law enforcement from across the Lower Mainland and British Columbia who worked very carefully with the B.C. NDP government to ensure the rapid increase we have seen in so many parts of the country is not reflected in B.C. Gangs have attempted to come to British Columbia and have been pushed back and arrested. That is fundamentally important.

The bait car program, the fact that we have integrated law enforcement on this issue and the anti-gang strategy that the British Columbia government has been a very strong proponent of have all made a difference. We need to make sure that we continue to act to ensure that we are not subjected to the same rise in auto thefts in British Columbia that we have seen elsewhere in the country.

I want to come back to the rest of the country. Particularly in provinces with a Conservative government, we have seen a rapid increase in the number of auto thefts. This is very unfortunate. Having bait car programs and integrated law enforcement can help make a difference, but the federal government has a responsibility. Where I think the federal government can play a role is in providing supports so that the provinces do the right thing, as British Columbia has done. I think we will see the new Manitoba NDP government take similar types of action to help bring down the crime rate.

The reality is that we need to ensure we have an anti-gang strategy, and that includes ensuring that money laundering is not present. As members know, the NDP has long been an advocate of a publicly accessible beneficial ownership registry that ensures criminals cannot hide behind numbered companies. This is something I brought forward under the Harper government and was rejected by the Conservatives at the time. The Liberals have moved very slowly on this, but it is absolutely essential.

Law enforcement knows about this and so do so many Canadians. Having a publicly accessible beneficial ownership registry would ensure that people cannot hide behind numbered companies. An anti-gang strategy and ensuring criminals cannot launder money are absolutely fundamentally important. Canada is known as the snow-washing capital of the world because there have been successive Conservative and Liberal governments that have not taken action on this. An NDP government would make sure that we no longer have criminals hiding behind numbered companies.

I also want to talk about the importance of having the auto industry and auto manufacturers take action to ensure there are new measures to improve security features in automobiles. This made a big difference about 10 years ago. There was an evolution in technology 12 years ago, and we started to see the high rates of auto theft come down. There needs to be a similar requirement that auto manufacturers improve security features. That would make a fundamental difference.

We also need to ensure that we are funding programs that prevent youth from reoffending. This is where the funding cuts to Canadian crime prevention centres, including the B.C. crime prevention centre, are so regrettable. This happened under the Harper government. The Liberal government did not restore that funding. It is critical to have crime prevention programs in place to ensure that we can crack down on crime before it occurs. Part of that is funding programs for youth at risk to ensure that they are not subject to the kind of recruitment that, sadly, we are seeing in eastern Canada right now and on the Prairies.

There was a very regrettable decision by the Harper government to slash CBSA officials. We lost over 1,200 positions. This was over a dozen years ago and we are still bearing the consequences of this. When we talk to people in port authorities across the country, this is something that continues to be a problem. We do not have border enforcement in place, because of the cuts that occurred under the Conservatives and have been continued by the Liberals, to ensure that, if an automobile is stolen, it cannot be exported. This is a fundamental issue that has to be dealt with by the current government; it cannot be ignored.

We need all these measures that I am talking about: comprehensive crime prevention, an anti-gang strategy, and ensuring that criminals can no longer hide behind numbered companies and money launder through a publicly accessible beneficial ownership registry. We need to ensure that CBSA is staffed up so that the border agents who work so hard on our behalf have the resources to do the job they are supposed to do and that successive federal governments have not let them do because of chronic underfunding. We need to force auto manufacturers to actually put security measures into place. Often, we are talking about an automobile that costs $50,000 or $60,000 that is protected by a relatively cheap security system of a couple hundred bucks. This is not an appropriate way of ensuring that we can bring down the level of auto theft. All of these measures are really important.

I wanted to come back to the member for Prince Albert and his bill. Again, I do not, in any way, question his sincerity; it is quite the contrary. I know he is somebody who upholds the principle of effective representation. However, he has presented a bill that really does one thing: It re-establishes mandatory minimums. The reality is that, as we have seen and when speaking with Crown prosecutors we get this sense, if what we are trying to do is to have a comprehensive strategy to crack down on criminal gangs, then we need to make sure we get the gang leaders.

The way to ensure that is to be able to talk to the lower levels in the criminal organizations. The way to ensure that co-operation is not through mandatory minimums. There is nothing to deal with. The mandatory minimums mean that the hands of prosecutors and law enforcement are tied in terms of getting the co-operation that is so vital to getting to the leadership of these gangs. That is what we need to see right across the country, and mandatory minimums stop that. It is actually counterproductive in terms of how we can crack down on the auto theft that, outside of British Columbia, is becoming epidemic.

We will not be supporting the bill at second reading, though I thank the member for bringing this forward. I believe this is an important debate. The NDP believes in the kind of comprehensive strategy that we have seen work in British Columbia. Though auto theft is still high, it is lower than in the rest of the country. That is because of the comprehensive approach of integrated law enforcement, ensuring an anti-gang strategy, ensuring that we are moving to crack down on money laundering and ensuring that we are staffing up CBSA officials, so we can stop the exports of stolen automobiles at the border points that we are simply under-resourcing right now.

We need to ensure that automobile manufactures have a responsibility to improve the security features of the vehicles we spend tens of thousands of dollars to buy. These are all actions that can make a huge difference in bringing down the auto theft rates, which are far too high in the rest of Canada. We need to bring them down to what we are seeing in B.C. All these measures taken together have had a noticeable impact and have stopped it. We will continue to work hard to make sure that they are maintained to stop the chronic rise in auto theft we are seeing in the rest of the country.

[Combating Motor Vehicle Theft Act, May 2nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I always appreciate my colleague's sincerity on the issues, and I appreciate his openness for ideas. There is no doubt about it that this is an important issue. The member did say this was across Canada, but there is an exception.

As members are well aware, British Columbia, under the B.C. NDP government, has actually seen, year after year, a decrease in the number of auto thefts. The police with the integrated crime units have been particularly good at breaking down gangs that have tried to come into British Columbia from elsewhere in Canada. We have a bait car program, which has been very successful in making sure that criminals are actually caught.

As my colleague is listening, I would like to add both the fact that the auto manufacturers need to upgrade their technologies to make sure that auto theft is headed off and the fact that 12 years ago there were cuts to CBSA. The Liberal government has never restored the number of positions that we need to ensure that these stolen automobiles are actually caught before they are exported. Would the member agree that what the B.C. government has implemented, including the bait car program and integrated crime prevention, are the kinds of ideas that we also need to incorporate to make sure that we can drive down auto theft rates elsewhere in Canada?

[Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act, May 2nd, 2024]

Madam Speaker, first, the Liberals have been woefully weak when it comes to actually making the investments around clean energy so we can do the transition. Look at the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States. We can see that 1.5 million jobs have been created from President Joe Biden's investments in clean energy. When is the Canadian government going to step up on those kinds of investments?

Second, I found it a little rich to hear a Conservative colleague talking about scrutiny, when the Conservatives, during the dismal decade of the Harper regime, gave $116 billion in liquidity supports to banks. They gave $30 billion each and every year, $300 billion total, a third of a trillion dollars to overseas tax havens through the infamous Harper tax haven treaties, and then, of course, massive subsidies to oil and gas CEOs.

I want to ask my colleague whether he finds it rich that Conservatives, after all of their fiscal mismanagement, are trying to give others lessons.

[Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act, May 2nd, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I find it tragic that governments in Alberta and Saskatchewan, in the wake of the opioid crisis, are seeing the highest rise in the death rate in Canada in those two provinces. In Saskatchewan it is a 23% increase. I am surprised the member is unaware of this. He represents a Saskatchewan riding, and he is unaware of the massive increase in opioid deaths—

[Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act, May 2nd, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I am highly critical of the Conservative approach under the party's new leader, the member for Carleton.

The reality is that there used to be this ability in the House of Commons, particularly in minority governments, and the NDP, in minority governments, has pushed hard to make a difference. We have seen the results in universal health care, and are now looking forward to the results of dental care and of pharmacare for people with diabetes. Six million people across the country, 17,000 in each and every riding, would finally have their diabetes medication, which costs over $1,000 a month in many cases, being paid for. All of those things, as well as anti-scab legislation and affordable housing, were all blocked by the Conservatives.

The Conservatives seem to have taken an approach of blocking everything that comes before the House. It is almost like they do not want to see any benefits going to their constituents. I find it surprising. I find it tragic that parliamentarians elected with the commitment, as we all make during election campaigns, to come to the House of Commons and do the best for their constituents, would do the exact opposite.

Then we come back to Bill C-49, where there is a notable benefit to start moving forward with clean energy projects. There are 1.5 million new jobs in the United States, and in Canada, we are talking about tens of thousands of new well-paying jobs that could come from those good investments. We did not see any under the Harper regime.

Tragically, we have not seen any from the Liberal government. However, at least with Bill C-49, we are seeing the foundation that would allow for the investments to be made, so we would be able to create those jobs.

In the end, Conservatives will have to defend their record when they go back to their ridings when the next election happens.

[Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act, May 2nd, 2024]

Madam Speaker, as I said in my speech, of course we are concerned about the fishers, who have raised some very legitimate concerns. When we look at the issue of clean energy and the future of clean energy across Canada, it is important that we consult and that the needs of the fisheries and fishers be taken into consideration. We support all of these elements to ensure that consultations with fishers take place. With respect to Bill C‑49, there are some legitimate concerns that we think are important as well.

We think it is important to move forward with Bill C‑49 and to have these clean energy projects. At the same time, we must ensure that consultations on this industry that is so important to the Atlantic provinces are taken into consideration.

[Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act, May 2nd, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I always appreciate my colleague. I enjoyed working with him on the Canadian heritage committee.

I would certainly say that a lot of investments came from the former NDP government in Alberta under Rachel Notley, which really made a serious effort to provide for those clean energy jobs. Of course, many of those projects were ultimately approved.

Danielle Smith then did the lockdown, and $33 billion in additional clean energy projects have basically been stalled.

I know that the member knows his riding well. I think the difference between us is that he might try to attribute it to the Conservative government. I certainly attribute it to what was the best government in Alberta's history, the government under Rachel Notley, which made such a difference. It helped to reinforce the education sector and health care sector and it made a real difference in terms of good governance in Alberta. I know that for many Albertans they are hoping that day will come back again, when they can hope that there will not be the gutting of health care and education that we have seen, the stalling of clean energy projects.

The reality of farm receipts in Alberta is that they are among the worst in the country. The Danielle Smith government, the UCP government, has been devastating for Alberta.