Peter Stoffer

[World Autism Awareness Day Act, November 23rd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to follow the member from Edmonton. I have had the honour and privilege of meeting his son. He is a great kid. I have also met hundreds of other children with autism across this country. They are all beautiful, wonderful children. The member of Parliament from Edmonton's son has the right parents. They are beautiful parents and they are doing everything they can to help him. Jaden is very lucky to have the parents he has.

Beyond the love of the parents, we need the support of governments. We need the provinces and the federal government to work together to develop a national strategy so that it does not matter where one lives in this country. If a child or family member has autism, they should be able to get the help that they need. It should be similar across the country.

We just do not have that right now. Alberta is fortunate enough to have treatment up until the age of 18. In Nova Scotia, we have it starting at six, with a few trial programs here and there. Quebec has its programs as well as Ontario, but there is not a national strategy. We have asked for many years that the federal government and the provinces work together to develop a strategy that allows us to develop the best practices. No matter where people live in this country, if they have a child with autism, they should be able to get the treatment and care that is required in order to assist them.

I want to mention a few people who have been instrumental in my life in raising the cause of autism with me. First, there is Mr. Andrew Kavchak of Ottawa. When I saw him years ago, he was outside here with a sandwich sign, asking that autism be under medicare. I did not know much about the issue at that time, but I learned from him and many others. There is Laurel Gibbons, also of the Ottawa area, whose husband serves in the military. He is away an awful lot and they have a son with autism.

Roxanne Black of Vancouver has two children with autism. I know some military folks from my riding in Eastern Passage. One gentleman has served overseas in many tours of duty. He has a child who is a severe flight risk. As the hon. member indicated, some suffer a lack of speech and some are flight risks. If the crack of a door or window is open, they will take off, not knowing the fear of danger. The only thing they know is that they are going. Whether there are cars on the road or whatever, they are oblivious to that. They will just keep on going. While her husband is serving in the military, that lady back home requires support programs in order to assist her and her family.

Anyone who has met children with autism knows that they are some of the most wonderful, beautiful and gifted children in this entire country. They deserve that opportunity. In fact, I know that the autism pin that people wear is in the shape of a ribbon, but it is actually a puzzle. From what I have heard from medical experts, the objective is that if we can get the puzzle rearranged at a young enough age and if these children are diagnosed early enough, we can assist them to the point where they can live productive lives without much assistance. This is the key.

One system does not fit all children or all families. We know that. However, we have a caring and compassionate Canada. I honestly believe, our party believes, and I am sure that most members of Parliament also believe that if we put our heads together, we can come up with a system that is cost effective, accountable, and does what we would like it to do. We can provide a national system in this country for the treatment of autism.

I am going to highlight this again. I have mentioned his name many times in the House, but there is a young man here named Josh Bortolotti, who is from the Ottawa area. I believe he is around 15 years old right now. A few years ago, he was in an Ottawa Life magazine as one of the future people to watch for. Josh Bortolotti is a young man whose younger sister is autistic. He said to me and many people in the House many times that his sister cannot speak for herself, so he was going to do it. That is not bad for a kid who was only 11 years old at that time.

Josh is now 15 and is still fighting the good fight. He is raising the issue and raising funds for autism treatment. This young man will be the next Craig Kielburger, the gentleman who raised the issue of child work slavery around the world. Craig is a dynamic young man and someone to watch out for.

This is something that goes beyond politics. Every one of us knows someone in our ridings who has dealt with autism.

We just heard here in the House of Commons a very eloquent defence by a father standing up for his child. I have heard my colleague from Edmonton speak so eloquently on this issue. Kudos to him and to his wife for raising Jaden and giving him every opportunity they can possibly give their child.

Other families are not as blessed, which why we need a national strategy to ensure that autism is not put in the closet and ignored because we do not have the funds for it. The reality is that we do have the funds for it.

I have said it many times, and I honestly believe that if we could get together in a non-partisan way and work with our provincial cousins and first nations groups we could develop a strategy so that no matter where people live in this country, if they have a child with autism the child will get first class treatment and the family will get the best services possible to assist them.

On behalf of our party and all the people in my riding who I represent, I thank the member for Charlottetown for moving this particular motion and all those who spoke on this important issue. It is one of the issues that transcends politics. Hopefully, we will see the day when we can have a national autism strategy in this country.

[Privilege, November 19th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I move:

That, the matter of the question of privilege raised by the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore on November 3 of this year be now referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

[Veterans' Week, November 5th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot begin to describe what it is like to stand in the Chamber where the decision to send Canada's young men and women overseas into battle took place.

From the Boer War to World War I to World War II to Korea to peacekeeping conflicts, and to our current mission in Afghanistan, we, the members of Parliament and those in the Senate, get the opportunity because of their sacrifices to debate the future of those conflicts. That is an honour that only soldiers can give us in a democratic society.

This year's campaign poster from veterans affairs is extremely poignant. It asks every Canadian “How will you remember?”

One way that I plan to remember is something that Canada's current Minister of Veterans Affairs said in a speech not too long ago. He said he was looking at some gravesites and the names on those gravesites, and instead of just reading them in his own mind, he said them out loud. In many cases the names that he spoke out loud were probably spoken for the first time in many years.

When my father passed away, a person who was liberated in a war camp by the Canadian military and its Allies in the liberation of the Netherlands in 1944-45, my mother said, “He's up in heaven keeping an eye on me until it is my time to go and join him”.

We have almost 118,000 young men and women who are up there right now looking at all of us and keeping an eye on our current military personnel and their families. I would like to mention out loud some of the names of those who are still with us.

The great John Babcock, 109 years old, Canada's last surviving World War I veteran, and one of the very few left on this planet. May God give him many more years of a healthy lifestyle because he is the last vintage hold onto that World War I battle.

Jack Ford of Newfoundland and Labrador, the world's last surviving prisoner of war during the bombing of Nagasaki. He was in slave labour at the Nagasaki shipyards when the Nagasaki bomb went off. He, by the grace of God, is still with us in the great province of Newfoundland and Labrador. A poignant, humanistic story that the minister and I and others got to share.

On June 6, 1944, five miles off the coast of Juno Beach, a young naval officer by the name of Murray Knowles from Halifax stood there, ready to aim the guns to protect our soldiers as they went into battle on Juno Beach. What was happening at the same time he was on that ship protecting the world, his son was born in the Maritimes on June 6, 1944. And 65 years later, all of us in Canada witnessed Murray Knowles at age 92 and his son at age 65 standing shoulder to shoulder on Juno Beach.

That is the human element of what our men and women went through, and the glory of God to allow them to have shared that moment 65 years later.

I would also like to mention the great Helen Rapp. Those who know Helen know she is a staunch defender of the women who served in our military. She deserves our undying gratitude for the tremendous work that she does.

I just had the distinct pleasure of going to the Amherst Legion Branch 10 recently, and I met three fantastic unbelievable World War II veterans, Harold Ettinger, Lyon Kaufman and Allison Chapman. These three men are working in their legion in their very late stages of their lives to do one thing, to preserve the memory of those who never got a chance to come back, to preserve the memory of the stories, to tell them to future generations, and to show support to those current men and women serving overseas and their families. They deserve our undying gratitude for never allowing the flame of hope to be extinguished.

One of the ways of how we will remember is by asking exactly why did these men and women go overseas in the first place?Well, there was a sign in Ypres that I saw a few years ago, written by a Canadian, I believe a family member of a Canadian who came over. On that sign it said, “We left our country so you could live in yours”.

I think that says it all right there. Why would a 14-year-old kid from the Prairies or from a fish plant or from the woods lie about his age, join the military, and head over to the battlefields of Europe?

It was not just for excitement. It was because of an undying Canadian attitude that when the bell gets rung, we answer the call. To those 133 brave men and women who have paid the ultimate sacrifice in Afghanistan, they did not die in vain. Their families and children, some of whom we have all met, are the heroes of our generation today because they keep their memories alive. They left this country, so that the people of Afghanistan and other conflicts in the world can live peacefully in theirs.

If we keep that memory alive for all future generations, our children and grandchildren will always remember those who paid the ultimate sacrifice. There are those who are part of an aging society right now, where memories come back to haunt them because they are infirm. We need to do all we can to ensure that their memory is never extinguished.

As the Legion says, “At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them”. However, we also ask God to care for them, whether they pay the ultimate sacrifice or whether they come back broken, wounded or psychologically damaged in any way. We know that all 33.5 million Canadians, in their heart of hearts, love our military, love our veterans, and respect and love the family members and friends of those veterans.

Without them, I and the rest of us could not stand in this Chamber and be able to debate the important issues of the day. I stand here proudly to salute the men and women of our armed forces who have served.

May God bless all their memories and may God take care of their families.

[Privilege, November 3rd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, this is actually the first time in my 12 and a half years that I have had to rise on a question of privilege in the House of Commons.

When somebody sends something into a riding, it must be based on facts. It must be based on debate that happened in the House of Commons and it must be based on the truth. I received something in my riding that caused much grief to many of my supporters, because it was an outright fabrication of the facts. I cannot say one of the words we talked about earlier, but that is exactly what it is. What I received was deliberately misleading to my constituents with regard to something I have worked towards reversing for 12 and a half years.

I find it unacceptable that the member of Parliament for Saskatoon—Wanuskewin would use such an opportunity to deliberately impugn my reputation and impugn the work that I have done on a particular piece of legislation that is before the House of Commons.

It is intolerable and I have asked that the member, if he wishes this thing to end, stand in the House of Commons and apologize not just to me, but to my constituents for the deliberately misleading article that went to my riding.

[Rosemary Thompson, October 29th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, how will all of us remember Rosemary Thompson, CTV's deputy bureau chief? For her big smile, her huge laugh and for reaching out to politicians of every political party.

She has covered some of the biggest stories of our generation. She was on the referendum bus in 1995. She was outside the White House on the morning of September 11. However, the stories that Rosemary really liked covering were stories about humanity, about the human heart.

An idealist, she always believed that by shining a light on human suffering, the public and by extension Parliament might act.

She did this for the surviving Dionne quintuplets and for children with autism. Most recently, she reached past the microphones and engaged politicians of all parties to help orphaned children in Asia and Africa. She did it by organizing the Parliament Hill Goat Challenge for the Children's Bridge Foundation.

She will not be going very far, though, as she takes over as one of the workers over at the National Arts Centre, but she will miss this place because she has travelled the world and knows how great Canada is and that Parliament, at its best, is magic.

We thank her husband, Pierre, and her children, Louis and Jasmine, for sharing Rosemary with us. On behalf of all parliamentarians, I thank her and say God bless.

[Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act, October 26th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, one of the things I wish to advise my colleague is that for many years there was a bill before the House of Commons on child Internet pornography. It was first introduced in 1995 by Mr. Chris Axworthy, who was a long-time member of Parliament and became the attorney general of Saskatchewan.

The government was asked to introduce legislation through this bill or any bill it wished that would make ISP providers partially responsible to monitor their sites and when they noticed any that may have child pornography, they would be required to report it to the authorities. That is basically the bill in a nutshell, as well as certain amounts of time offenders would have to serve.

Child Internet pornography, in my own personal view, is one of the most despicable crimes perpetrated upon unsuspecting children. I have worked with OPP and RCMP officials on this and when I speak with them, they get quite emotional and concerned when they speak about what they have seen on these sites.

As a Parliament we need to do everything we possibly can in order to ensure that we mitigate, reduce and eventually stop this action. I know people are concerned about privacy rights. In fact, most ISP providers I have spoken to do not like me very much because of the fact that a bill such as this would force them to be partially responsible to monitor their sites.

I would like to ask the hon. member, who I know is an extremely intelligent and well-versed person on justice issues, not just in Quebec but in Canada, what does he think about asking ISP providers to be partially responsible, through legislation, to ensure that any pornography on websites can and will be reported to the authorities so they can do their job properly?

[Ending Conditional Sentences for Property and Other Serious Crimes Act, October 26th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, long before the Minister of State for Democratic Reform arrived in the House, I have been on the record over and over again as being opposed to Bill C-68. He can check with the gentleman right behind him, the member from Yorkton. In my 12 years in this place all I have ever asked is that the government bring in a bill that is very clear and ends the long gun registry. I would personally stand up and support that. I have been very clear on the record.

[Ending Conditional Sentences for Property and Other Serious Crimes Act, October 26th, 2009]

To be honest, Mr. Speaker, I do not know what the fiscal cost will be to people in this country. I do know that if the federal government can, it will download these fiscal responsibilities to the provinces and territories. It could end up with a bit of friction with the provinces.

Have the justice minister and the public safety minister worked with the provincial and territorial justice and public safety ministers? Has there been true consultation with the provinces and territories when it comes to these very important issues? What agreement has taken place on cost sharing and everything else?

Since 1995 we have been asking Liberal and Conservative governments to bring in a comprehensive child Internet pornography bill. We are still asking for that bill because child Internet pornography is one of the worst things perpetrated on our children.

Why is the government so reluctant to bring in a child Internet pornography bill? I already have one, and the government could just run with it. I have asked the justice minister to do the same.

[Ending Conditional Sentences for Property and Other Serious Crimes Act, October 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the best way to get attention is to politicize a very serious topic.

When it comes to issues of crime and the victims of crime, no member of Parliament has carte blanche. No member of Parliament can stand up here and say “I have all the answers” or “My party has all the answers”.

As I said earlier, there is not one member of Parliament, or a senator for that matter, who does not know someone who has been a victim of crime.

We have, over and over, tried to emphasize that if the government is going to institute longer penalties for crime, then it must tell people where the evidence is, the scientific evidence or the research, that shows that will be a preventer of crime.

Where are the funding elements to help the provinces and territories build the additional prisons for the longer times, et cetera?

We have asked those two questions over and over again, and we have not gotten an answer. I will give the Conservatives credit in this regard: they brought up a subject that is worthy of debate. I would remind them that just because they brought up a topic for debate does not mean that other members of Parliament from other parties do not have the constitutional and democratic right to ask serious questions when it comes to these issues.

[Ending Conditional Sentences for Property and Other Serious Crimes Act, October 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, that is the $64,000 question.

Here we are debating a bill regarding sentencing of certain types of criminal acts in the country, and there tends to be the perception that only the Conservatives can talk about crime and are tough on crime. Yet when it comes to an issue that affects many rural farmers and hunters and many Canadians across this country, it took a backbencher to introduce Bill C-68, the old gun legislation.

First the Conservatives had the Senate try to do it, and they failed. Then they had the member for Yorkton—Melville introduce it, and it was convoluted and failed. Then they got a new member of Parliament to introduce it.

If the government were truly serious about the gun legislation and the gun registry in this country, it would have introduced that as a government bill.

I could not help but notice in question period today that the backbencher in question asked the Minister of Public Safety a question about it. That is the first time I have ever seen that.

If the government were truly serious about elimination of the gun registry, it would have introduced it as a government bill.

Only the Conservatives can truly determine why they did not, but I think I know why. It is to give the impression within their urban ridings and with their urban voters that this is an issue. They know that a backbench bill rarely gets through.

With delays in time and everything and a possible election in the spring, this bill may never see the light of day, which is unfortunate, because I think it is worthy of the debate, and it is something the government should have done when it became government in 2006.