Randall Garrison

[Public Safety and National Security, April 30th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to be speaking to the bill as a whole. Despite the fact that amendments have been introduced, this is probably the best opportunity to talk about the bill as a whole.

I will accept the parliamentary secretary's assurance that these are in fact housekeeping amendments to correct errors. I will come back to that point in a minute.

The NDP will be speaking in favour of Bill C-479, because we believe that the bill, after it has been extensively amended, still contains important improvements in victims' rights, though we were disappointed by the unwillingness of the government to go further in some areas.

New Democrats remain concerned, however, about the use of numerous private members' bills to amend both the Criminal Code and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. There are several reasons for this. Often these private members' bills are inspired by a single incident or a single case, and therefore they have a very narrow focus. What this means is that sometimes they miss larger issues in the criminal justice system because of that focus on a single incident or a single case.

Second, private members' bills do not get the same technical expertise applied to them in their drafting as government bills do. This is a natural phenomenon, as they are prepared by a single member of Parliament, who does not have access to the large legal and policy expertise a federal department would have if it were drafting the same legislation. Thus, we end up in a situation, which we had with Bill C-479, where we had numerous amendments to the bill at committee stage, which were necessary, and even the additional amendments that were introduced at report stage. That is one reason we have concerns about the extensive use of private members' bills to amend what are really quite technical bills, the Criminal Code of Canada and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.

As well, private members' bills do not go through the screening that all government bills must go through or are supposed to go through. That is the one that supposedly checks for compliance with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In a government bill, the Minister of Justice would be required to certify that the bill did not conflict with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We do not get that kind of scrutiny for a private member's bill.

Finally, we remain concerned about making extensive changes through multiple bills proceeding along different paths through Parliament on different timetables. The sheer volume of changes being made to the Criminal Code and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act are often a problem, because they are being considered at different committees. Some of these bills are going to the justice committee, and some are going to the public safety committee. There is a risk of having legal errors and omissions as well as unintended consequences when we have different bodies of Parliament dealing with the same bill and amending the same bill on different timeframes. This, of course, includes the Senate, which would be dealing with these in a completely different timeframe.

What we have had was some bills going to the justice committee and some bills going to the public safety committee. We in the public safety committee do not have the benefit of hearing the witnesses and hearing the debate on those bills that are in justice and vice versa. They do not have the benefit of seeing what work we have been doing in the public safety committee.

For instance, specifically in the case of Bill C-479, the public safety committee did not have the advantage of seeing the text of the government's victims' rights bill, Bill C-32, and now that bill will go to the justice committee, which will not have had the advantage of hearing the witnesses on Bill C-479, which amends the very same bill on the very same topic. I think we risk errors, omissions, and unintended consequences when we proceed in this way in the House of Commons.

I hope that when the debate in justice comes to Bill C-32, it will hear some of the same witnesses we heard. However, I am sure it seems to those witnesses that Parliament has become a very inefficient place if they have to go talk about the same bills multiple times at different committees.

As I said before, and despite the rhetoric we so often hear in the House, obviously no party has a monopoly on the concern for victims of crime. However, New Democrats do differ with the government on how best to serve victims and how best to make sure that there are fewer victims of crime in the future. We in the NDP understand the importance of utilizing our corrections system to prevent additional Canadians becoming victims of crime in the future. Clearly, if one is going to do that, what one needs is a properly funded corrections system where offenders receive the treatment and rehabilitation they need, whether for addictions, mental illness, or more specific problems they may have, and where they can access training and education opportunities that are necessary for successful reintegration into our communities. If they do not get successful treatment for mental illness and addictions, if they do not get job training, then offenders will find themselves back in the same circumstances as before and therefore are very likely to reoffend, creating even more new victims.

When committee members previously visited one of our federal correctional institutions and met with the prisoners committee, two of the people there had returned to prison, and we asked them why. They both gave the very same answer. They said when they got out, they did not have any resources, they had not had the training they needed, and they ended up back with the same friends who got them into same trouble they had been in before.

Therefore, New Democrats would like to emphasize that one of the very important things we can do to prevent victims of crime being created in the future is to have a properly functioning corrections system, and we know right now we do not have such a system. There is overcrowding in the corrections system, there is underfunding of training, there are long wait lists for mental health and addiction programs. If they are not fixed, it will lead to more victims of crime in the future.

The Conservatives, especially in private members' bills, often focus on the understandable feelings of some victims that the justice system ought to be more punitive and provide a greater sense of retribution, or they focus on the victims who believe toughness is the solution for crime. However, in doing so, they risk missing the more fundamental feeling expressed by nearly all victims. The one thing that nearly all victims of crime will say, the one thing they seem to share, is the wish that no one else has to go through what they went through. This is where victims start and end.

For New Democrats and, I believe, for most Canadians, there is a concern that we not lose the balance in our justice system between the need for punishment and the common good of increased public safety that we can achieve through rehabilitation programs. That balance is placed in jeopardy by the Conservative government's “penny wise and pound foolish” approach to public safety budgets. The consequences of this failure of the Conservative government to adequately resource the corrections system will, unfortunately, be seen down the road in additional victims.

Today, we in the NDP are supporting Bill C-479 because there are provisions in it which are of clear benefit to victims. Indeed, most of the provisions in this bill are already normal practice in the parole system. These include the presence of victims or members of their families at parole hearings, consideration of victims' statements by the Parole Board in its decisions, some special provisions for the manner in which statements can be presented at parole hearings, a stronger requirement to communicate to victims information that the board considered when making its decisions, an obligation to make transcripts of parole hearings available to victims and their families, as well as to offenders, and a better system of informing victims when an offender is going to be granted a temporary absence or parole or is released at the end of his or her sentence.

All of these things normally take place and New Democrats agree that it is a good idea to entrench these rights for victims by placing them in legislation. They are now mostly discretionary and we are saying these things need to be a right for victims. It is kind of peculiar to me that Bill C-479 actually has more rights for victims in it than the so-called victims rights bills. This actually entrenches many things in legislation.

New Democrats were, however, surprised to see the government reject one amendment which we put forward. We said that right now we have a strange situation. If, for some reason, a victim is not allowed to attend a hearing, either because he or she threatened the offender or some other reason, the victim is allowed to observe the parole hearings through teleconference or video conference. Other victims do not have that choice. We proposed an amendment giving every victim the right to observe parole hearings through video conference, teleconference, or by some other means where the victim does not have to be present in the room. Some victims do not want to be in the room because of fear, some do not want to be in the room because of revulsion, and we believe that all victims should have the right to observe parole hearings by video or teleconferencing, if they so choose. As I said, it was very surprising to me that the government voted against this amendment.

Making video conferencing available also has another very important impact for victims and their families. Sometimes people have to travel across the country. If offenders have been transferred, they may no longer be in institutions near the victims, so the victims would incur travel costs and might have to take time off work that could be avoided with video conferencing. One thing New Democrats have confidence in, as raised by the member for Malpeque, is that this bill does preserve the discretion of the Parole Board with regard to how long hearings have to take place.

As my time draws to a close, let me conclude by saying the New Democrats support strengthening victims rights, but we urge all members to consider another important thing that victims need, not just legislation but also well-supported programs to help them put their lives back in order.

[Public Safety and National Security, April 30th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I ask the hon. parliamentary secretary if this amendment has been checked against the victims rights bill.

We have several private member's bills amending the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, plus the victims rights bill, which also amends the same act. Therefore, we run into the danger that these amendments would inadvertently contradict each other.

Given the number of amendments we have already had to this private member's bill—I think it is nine: eight plus this one just introduced now—I am concerned about the coordination between things that are making their way through the House through different paths and from different committees at the same time.

[Business of Supply, April 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I guess I am in the lucky position today, as members seem to ask questions to me that they have already answered themselves in the question.

Obviously it is the member for Newton—North Delta's motion today, and it is very true that we need an audit so that the evidence can be placed before the government. It apparently is not willing to read what is out there for the common person to see in the media, which is that we know there are abuses to this program.

Therefore, let us have a formal audit. Let us place that information before the House of Commons and then let us act to build a stronger Canada for those who want to come and build a future here with their families.

[Business of Supply, April 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Malpeque for his question, but he has answered his own question by naming the program at the end. It is separate and it is a different line. The moratorium we are calling for would have no impact on the agricultural workers.

However, I want to add to that the interesting thing that we heard from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour and yesterday from the Minister of Employment himself. Both of them are calling for higher wages and better working conditions. it is a bit ironic to see the Minister of Employment and the parliamentary secretary for labour calling for higher wages and better working conditions. That is not something we usually hear coming from that side of the House, but that is obviously the ultimate fix to these shortages.

[Business of Supply, April 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to rise to speak to this opposition day motion, and I want to start by stating the obvious: that as Canadians we are, apart from first nations, a nation of immigrants and refugees. Those of us who arrived here first have always been very welcoming of those who come after. We have always welcomed those who want to come here to build the country and create stability for their families, and in doing so, create a loyalty to Canada.

Now we are in the unfortunate situation where we have expanded the temporary foreign worker program so much that each year we have more and more temporary foreign workers and we have more temporary foreign workers in the country than we have immigrants every year.

Despite long wait lists for immigration by those who would love to come to Canada to make a solid future here, despite long wait lists for family reunification for people who have been waiting years for their parents or their children to come here, it is very hard for me to see how we have arrived in the situation where immigrants are still waiting to have their applications considered for six, eight, ten years, where the Conservatives have simply thrown away applications, just cancelled them, from skilled workers who want to come to this country.

It is very hard for me to see how we got to where we are today, other than to say that clearly the Conservatives have put a wrong emphasis on the temporary foreign worker program rather than on immigration and family reunification. This is an emphasis that I think most Canadians, if they were they aware of it, would never support.

We have been a welcoming country. We want people to come and join us here. We recognize that long-term immigrants will help to build a better future for all of us and a better future for their families.

We all know the experiences other countries have had when they have created guest worker programs, especially those in Europe, where they deny people long-term rights to be part of society, to be part of the country in which they are working. I belong to the school of thought to which I think most Canadians belong. If people are good enough to come and work here every day, then they are good enough to stay here and share Canada with us.

I am not opposed to the temporary foreign worker program. As my hon. colleague who spoke before me said, there are some legitimate skills shortages in our economy that need to be filled on a temporary basis. All New Democrats accept that. If highly-skilled, specialized people are needed and a search has been done for Canadians and no one is found, none of us on this side would object to filling those jobs temporarily with foreign workers. However, we do not support a program that displaces Canadian residents and denies access to entry level jobs to both youth and to new Canadians.

We have high youth unemployment rates in my community. We have high unemployment rates for first nations. We have high unemployment rates for new Canadians, all of whom would like access to those entry level jobs to get a start on their future for them and their families. Instead, their future is being blocked by the very large numbers of temporary foreign workers in my community.

We have called for a moratorium for the issuance of permits for lower skilled occupations: those in fast food and those in the service industry. Why have we done this? As we have said, there is a need for a pause here to conduct an audit and to let us have a look at the impact of this vast expansion of the temporary foreign worker program.

It is not that we do not have evidence already. The CD Howe Institute, a group which I, like most New Democrats, usually do not cite, did a study on the impact on British Columbia and Alberta on the presence of temporary foreign workers. Its findings were very specific. It found that the unemployment rate had been driven up by perhaps as much as 4% by the presence of temporary foreign workers. It also found that the impact of temporary foreign workers was to depress wages.

In those sectors of our economy where people are having trouble hiring employees, the normal thing we would see is an increase in wages in those jobs to attract people to the job. Instead, those positions are being filled by temporary foreign workers.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer, whose office the Conservatives must regret having created, is an independent officer of Parliament who works from the facts. When the Conservatives crow about the vast increases of employment they claim to have been responsible for in Canada, the PBO pointed out that at least 25% of all new jobs in Canada since the recession had gone to temporary foreign workers. That is a very large number of jobs that might otherwise have gone to Canadians.

If we stop for a moment and look very specifically at my community on lower Vancouver Island, I will restate some facts: youth unemployment is in double digit; first nations unemployment is in double digit; and unemployment for new Canadians is also in double digit.

However, we have found more than 26 employers employing hundreds of temporary foreign workers in entry-level occupations.

Now, there may be some high-skilled temporary foreign workers working in my riding. That is absolutely possible. However, these 26 employers are McDonald's, Tim Hortons franchises, and pizza franchises. These are 26 employers employing hundreds of workers.

I also want to make it clear that I have no problem with the workers who come to Canada as temporary foreign workers. In my community, they are almost all from the Philippines. They came to Canada to seek a better life. They were often falsely promised that becoming a temporary foreign worker in Canada would provide a path to permanent residency here, so they came to Canada in good faith, expecting to be able to make a life here and expecting to be able to eventually bring their families to Canada. They were just trying to do what is best for them.

Many of those on the Lower Island actually came to Canada after being employed in the Middle East, where they had no possibility of getting any permanent residency status. They actually left jobs with higher wages and better working conditions in Kuwait and other countries in the Middle East to take jobs on the Lower Island.

I know that some of the confusion has been caused by our live-in caregiver program, which again on Lower Vancouver Island is almost entirely staffed by people from the Philippines. The difference between the temporary foreign worker program and the live-in caregiver program is that the live-in caregiver program does provide that path to permanent residency in Canada, so after completing four years of work, it is possible to become a permanent resident, to reunify the family in Canada, and to help become a part of that future that we will all share together.

However, temporary foreign workers have been falsely promised that the same path is open to them, and many of them are in a quite difficult situation now, having borrowed money to come to Canada to take up these low-paying jobs.

What we have is a case of denying opportunities to Canadians while at the same time creating ideal conditions for exploiting temporary foreign workers.

I would argue that those in entry-level jobs are, by the nature of the program, very vulnerable to exploitation. Often they are ill-informed as to labour standards in Canada, having come from other countries. As a result, they are not really sure if they are eligible for overtime. They are not really sure when the employer says, “Oh, to keep this job you have to rent an apartment from me.” They are not really sure how this all works in Canada. They are often pressured into what I would call side agreements, under which they pay inordinate amounts for housing or for transportation to the job, as well as paying all kinds of other fees to their employers.

As I mentioned earlier, quite often in my community I have talked to temporary foreign workers who have paid fees exceeding $4,000 each to get the job in Canada. We all know that is illegal. The minister says if we know of cases of abuses, we should individually, as MPs, report them.

My problem with that idea is that this abuse has been well reported in the media. It is well known that this practice is going on and it is well known who is profiting from the fees charged to temporary foreign workers.

Labour market recruiters charge not only temporary foreign workers to get the jobs but also the employers. We have people on the Lower Island who are making out like bandits on both ends of the temporary foreign worker program at the expense of those workers who are just trying to provide for their families.

There is a danger of creating a rift in my community, but so far, thankfully, through the efforts of groups like the Bayanihan Community Centre, we have managed to avoid pitting the Canadian entry-level workers, the new Canadians who are already in Canada, against the temporary foreign workers. The community centre has worked very hard to try to ensure that we keep the focus where it belongs, which is on the wrong-headed nature of the temporary foreign workers program.

I myself have actually seen an email from an employer to a temporary foreign worker saying, “You are not allowed to go to the Bayanihan Community Centre. If you do so, you will be sent back to the Philippines.” They are in such a vulnerable situation that they cannot even go to the community centre that is offering some community support to those temporary foreign workers.

As I said, government members seem surprised by the abuse that is taking place, and I find that very hard to believe. We can run through, as my colleague before me did, dates stretching back to the fall of 2009, when the Auditor General first reported abuses in the program, or 2011, when the government first created blacklists, or budget 2012, when it said it would align temporary foreign workers better with the labour market, or November of 2012, when it said it would review the program, or April of 2013, when it promised to review it again.

Now, in April 2014, we have this very narrow moratorium on the food services industry. What we are asking for, what we want, is a broader moratorium and an audit of the program. We want an outcome that would see both new Canadians and young Canadians getting the first chance at entry-level jobs and an end to the exploitation of temporary foreign workers.

[Petitions, April 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present three petitions in support of the iCANdonate campaign.

It is particularly fortuitous that these petitions are being presented this week, during national organ donor week. When Canadians are looking for ways to find more people to donate organs, it behooves us to make sure we eliminate the discrimination against gay men that prevents them from donating organs and to base our decisions on donations of blood and organs on science and not prejudice.

[Vimy Ridge, April 28th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, on April 9, I was privileged to attend a ceremony commemorating the 97th anniversary of the Battle for Vimy Ridge, the site in France where four Canadian regiments first fought together as a single force and won one of the great tactical victories of the Great War, unfortunately at the cost of the lives of more than 3,600 Canadians on a single day.

We spent the following day visiting other memorials in Belgium, where Canadians also played a major role: Passchendaele; St. Julien; Essex Farm, where John McCrae wrote In Flanders Fields; and the Menin Gate, in Ypres, where literally hundreds gather each evening for a last post ceremony.

I want to thank the Minister of Veterans Affairs for inviting opposition members to accompany him on this trip, thereby demonstrating that it is possible for us to rise above narrow partisanship in the service of Canadians.

Reading the more than 11,000 names, whose final resting place is unknown, on the monument at Vimy, or the names of nearly 7,000 Canadians, among the 54,000 names of the missing on Menin Gate in Ypres, one cannot help being reminded of the diversity of those who served Canada in World War I.

I remain grateful for the opportunity to represent Canada on this trip, not to glorify war but to honour sacrifice. Lest we forget

[Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, April 28th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the member's question reminded me of my own experience, which was of course back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was in elementary school. I lived in a rural area, and the bus ride home was hell for me because I was perceived, even at that age, to be insufficiently masculine. As a result, I faced severe bullying on the school bus each and every day. I have to say that I did not face it in the classroom at school and, of course, I did not face it at home. I was literally terrorized by the bus ride every day, and my parents had a hard time understanding why I begged them to drive me to school and begged my grandparents to take me to school. I never wanted to ride the bus.

However, for me, it was a very short period of the day when I was subjected to it. Once I was home, either at my parents' home or my grandparents' home, where I spent a lot of time, I was safe from that bullying. That is the big difference now. Technology has brought that bullying into peoples' homes. It has made it not just a short period of the day, but something that people have to live with and deal with constantly.

Additionally, the anonymity that is sometimes provided by the Internet gives people licence to be even meaner, more vindictive, and more prejudiced than they might otherwise be if their names and faces were assigned to the comments that they are making.

Technology has expanded the time and the places in which individuals are subject to bullying, and it has expanded the intensity of that bullying. It is time to recognize the difference. It is not the bullying that took place when I was a kid. This is something new that is much more pervasive and much more intense.

[Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, April 28th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his kind comments. It is a privilege to share a desk with him here in the House of Commons. I get the benefit of his very sharp sense of humour, which does not always appear through the microphones.

I thank him for his kind words. Like all members of the NDP caucus, he has been a firm supporter of LGBTQ rights, and I am very proud to be the spokesperson for our party. It is the only party that has a spokesperson for LGBTQ rights in the House of Commons.

I guess that I am feeling charitable today. I am going to say that I hope that the omission of gender identity from the additions to the hate crimes section was inadvertent. Sometimes, we make Machiavellian conclusions about what is happening in the House when they are not really deserved. I am just not sure.

If we were going to amend that section and the House has already pronounced twice on the issue, it would seem to be obvious then that gender identity should have gone into clause 12 of Bill C-13. When we get to committee, we will certainly be suggesting that it be dealt with at the committee stage.

[Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, April 28th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I did not suggest that there be theft of cable signals in this bill. It is a good example of this tendency to stuff a bunch of other things into a bill which is called the prevention of cybercrime as kind of a catch-all title for the bill. Therefore, it makes it very difficult for us as members of Parliament to debate and vote on bills when the government has a bunch of unrelated things put into the same bill.

As I have mentioned, in this case we have seen bills that were dropped, such as Bill C-30, brought back into this bill, admittedly in a better form. However, I am not sure what that has to do with bullying or cyberbullying.

There have been a lot of things mixed together in this bill, which makes it difficult for us to debate and make decisions on this. When we get to committee, perhaps there will be some opportunity to narrow the focus of the bill or improve the focus of the bill. I certainly hope that is the case.