Randall Garrison

[Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act, February 13th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the members who have spoken today, because I am beginning to get a bit of a clearer picture of what is happening in this bill.

I would like the member to talk a bit more about the issue of accessibility especially, in both languages, because I think that is a great concern that has been raised today. While we all want to see an effective bill, there seem to be some serious problems in there.

[Public Safety, February 13th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to continue talking about jobs because the Conservatives are allowing the police officer recruitment fund to run dry. The result is that police forces across the country are facing the prospect of laying off front-line officers. Street gang units in Quebec, for example, have made an important dent in organized crime, but the Conservatives are refusing to renew their funding.

How is that supposed to make our streets safer, especially when these squads have proven to be so important and effective?

[Poverty, February 13th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, this past Monday was the first Family Day in British Columbia.

In my riding, municipalities celebrated this day with a free pancake breakfast in Langford, a family fun swim in Esquimalt and family hockey games at the Sooke leisure complex, to name just a few.

While we welcome Family Day as a day to spend time together as families, we must now come together to do the work necessary to help those families who struggle every day to make ends meet. B.C. has the second-highest child poverty rate at 14.3%. The living wage in my riding is $18.07, but the minimum wage is still only $10.25, and the use of food banks in British Columbia is increasing twice as fast as the national average.

Fortunately there are groups such as the Mustard Seed food bank, the Coalition to End Homelessness and the Community Social Planning Council that are working hard to find solutions to the real challenges faced by all the diverse families in my riding, challenges in getting child care, affordable housing, food security, sustainable transportation and a living wage.

The work that these groups do will make a real difference for families in Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca in all these areas where the Conservative government is falling so short.

[Safer Witnesses Act, February 11th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I heard with interest the parliamentary secretary say there was danger in assuming things. I would like to ask the member what he thinks about the minister's assumption that we can expand this program without additional resources. It seems hard to figure out how we can admit more people and more kinds of people to this program within the existing resources.

[Safer Witnesses Act, February 11th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, just to continue this history lesson the way I would see it, my point, which I think the member for Winnipeg North has missed, is that when the program was introduced in 1996, municipalities and front-line police said right away that there were problems with it. The Liberal government was in power for another 10 years and never fixed those problems.

I admit this is a bit of a strange debate. The Conservatives took seven years to fix it and the Liberals did not fix it within ten years, so both are a bit slow. That is all I am saying here. The member has skipped over the fact that the criticisms we are trying to fix today were well known while the Liberal government was still in power.

[Safer Witnesses Act, February 11th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I share the sentiment that there is a lot more we can do to prevent crime.

My question for the member is not a personal question of where he was but where his party was. When the legislation was passed in 1996, it was a Liberal government. It was around the time I first joined the police board and the problems with the witness protection program have been known since at least 1996. During that very long period of time when the Liberals were in power, they took no action. I know from my own personal experience that local municipal police officers were pointing out that they did not have budgets for this and they could not make use of the program.

My question to the hon. member is, in the broad sense, where was he and where was his party? The government has been slow to bring this forward but it is certainly faster than the Liberals were.

[Safer Witnesses Act, February 11th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, we are back to the heart of the matter, from my point of view. Last year, as I said, only 30 out of 108 applications were approved for the program. Only 30 people in the country received witness protection. For the government to expand the numbers eligible, obviously those 108 applications are going to expand exponentially. If we cannot offer that protection to people, we will not get the benefit of this bill. We will not get them co-operating with the police on youth gangs or on national security issues. Without the funding in place, this is not going to work.

All members on this side will be looking very carefully at the federal budget to see if the resources are going to be made available to make this very positive law work on the ground.

[Safer Witnesses Act, February 11th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it is tempting to say to the hon. member for Yukon that the question was asked and answered all at once.

However, what we have heard, particularly at the municipal level, is the perception that witness protection is really part of the justice system and not the policing system. For the cost to be passed back to municipal police forces is a large problem for them and they do not see the logic of that. We are actually protecting the witnesses giving evidence in court, and we are actually protecting the integrity of the justice system by protecting those witnesses. Yes, it is true that we are talking about getting co-operation with the local police forces, but they tend to see that as a federal or provincial responsibility and not a municipal responsibility.

Thus I am looking forward, along with the member, to trying to find in committee structures that make sure that the money gets to front-line policing. As he has been on committee with me, he knows that I am not a person who calls for a lot of excess spending. I think we have to make sure that we spend in the right areas. That is why I am concerned about asking police to do all kinds of things with highly trained police officers, things that might better be done by someone else in our community with more appropriate skills, and not put all of those burdens onto the police force.

[Safer Witnesses Act, February 11th, 2013]

Mr.Speaker, I thank the member for Trois-Rivières for his question because that is the key point today. The point of view of our caucus is that we can make these important legislative changes. We can do the right thing here in the House. However, if the police do not have the funding to allow them to use the new tools we give them, then there will be no effect at all. That is why I was reminding the parliamentary secretary that, yes, we will be supporting the bill but we will be watching the federal budget very carefully to ensure that funds are included in the budget for the operation of the new aspects of this program and to ensure that the general cutbacks being applied in public safety do not end up impairing the ability to fight crime at the community level.

[Safer Witnesses Act, February 11th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, there are areas around the country that have serious problems with youth gangs and street gangs. They are most notable by their presence in the headlines, including some in downtown Toronto. That is the reason the member for Trinity—Spadina has taken such a high-profile role in trying to keep this issue before the House of Commons and to get these changes made. The activities of street gangs, by nature, often involve youth and people whose judgment is not the best, or they would not be involved in the gang. It ends up with a broader threat to the safety of innocent bystanders as a result of gang activities and conflicts between gangs.

In Montreal, my colleague, the member for Alfred-Pellan, has also done a lot of work in her community on the problems with street gangs there. Then of course in Surrey, British Columbia, where we probably have one of the largest problems with street and drug gangs, both the member for Surrey North and the member for Newton—North Delta have been very strong proponents of using this legislation to, as the police say, “crack” those gangs. They have trouble getting anyone to come forward to give evidence. If they can just get one person, they can probably get a conviction that will seriously disrupt street gang activities.