Randall Garrison

[Fisheries and Oceans, May 18th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, on the west coast, the government has announced the closure of the Kitsilano Coast Guard station located in the heart of Vancouver and one of the busiest stations in the country. This is the third station to close. However, it does not end there. The Conservatives are now contemplating closing 10 of 22 marine communications and traffic service centres.

This is not about finding savings in administration or duplication of services. The government cannot cover this up with some temporary summer programs. This is a straight-up attack on marine safety.

Why are the Conservatives gutting these marine safety services?

[National Security, May 16th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the other part the minister did not cite says:

The lessening of current restrictions could create new, and increase existing vulnerabilities in our telecommunications networks, further exposing them...to an increased threat of cyber espionage and denial of service attacks.

What makes the minister so confident when the United States, Australia and even his own department disagree?

[National Security, May 16th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, we can selectively quote from the memo all we like, but the facts and the documents contradict the minister.

[National Security, May 16th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, everyone knows the government's own information security was compromised last year by attacks from Chinese servers. Yet when the Prime Minister visited China, he was honoured to meet with Huawei, despite the Americans preventing Huawei from taking over any major telecom companies or participating in infrastructure projects. Its concern is obvious. It does not want this company getting back door access to its communications infrastructure.

Could the Minister of Public Safety tell us, in the House today, what does he know about this company that the Americans do not know?

[RCMP, May 10th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the RCMP is in the news again today for the wrong reasons: the ongoing failure to act on sexual harassment against female officers.

The RCMP Public Complaints Commission is investigating. The RCMP commissioner is doing a gender audit of RCMP policies. However, for too long the government has failed to set any deadlines for concrete action on this crisis, in effect ignoring the stress this places on those officers who serve to make our communities safer.

Where is the government's sense of urgency? Where is the minister's commitment to getting a timely resolution to this unacceptable situation in the RCMP?

[Public Safety, May 9th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, we always support better mental health on this side, but we voted against the Conservatives' budgets because they did not get the job done.

My question is for the Minister of Public Safety.

Yesterday, the minister dashed off a threatening letter to Commissioner Paulson, ordering him to report on provincial efforts to keep records on firearm sales in their own provinces and ordering the RCMP not to co-operate with provincial chief firearms officers.

Why is the minister issuing orders to the arm's-length RCMP? Why is he interfering with provinces that are trying to take action to make their streets safer?

[Citizenship and Immigration, May 7th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, does the lavish praise for the Prime Minister explain how this convicted fraudster slipped into Canada so quickly?

[Citizenship and Immigration, May 7th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, that is news to those who waited for months, if not years, for similar answers. Never have the wheels of immigration justice turned so fast as for the Conservative friend and British criminal, Conrad Black. We no sooner learned of Black's application to return to Canada than there he was sitting in his mansion in Toronto. This is the same man who, from his prison cell in Florida, lauded the Prime Minister as belonging to “the ranks of the most important federal leaders of Canadian history”.

Would the minister tell us—

[Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, May 7th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, today marks the start of National Elizabeth Fry Week. This week Elizabeth Fry societies across the country will hold community events to enhance public awareness regarding the circumstances of marginalized, victimized, criminalized and institutionalized women and girls.

The 26 chapters of Elizabeth Fry societies aim to break down the negative stereotypes that exist about women in conflict with the law. They ask us to see that it is the survival activities resulting from inequality, poverty and homelessness that are increasingly likely to be the causes of their criminalization. They draw our attention to the fact that young first nations women are significantly overrepresented in Canada's prison population.

Since 1969, the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies has worked to increased the availability of community-based social, health and educational resources for women and girls to help keep them out of prison. I would like to thank the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies for its continuing commitment to providing services for marginalized women and girls, both offenders and victims. Perhaps most importantly, I want to thank the association for reminding us all to look beyond the marginalization of the women they work with so that we can once again see the positive potential in all Canadians.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-Term Prosperity Act, May 3rd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I was very interested in the remarks by the parliamentary secretary because she talked about the bill as if it were about most of the things she was talking about today. However, it is curious that a bill that spends one-third of its time on environment deregulation was not even mentioned in her speech. A bill that provides for major changes in the employment insurance program, which will allow further changes in benefits without any reference back to Parliament, was not mentioned. The abandonment of federal responsibilities for fish habitat, which is very important for employment in sport and commercial fishing in my region, was not mentioned. The elimination of the Inspector General of CSIS, a very important part of the civilian oversight of CSIS, was not mentioned, nor were cuts to emergency preparedness, the raising of the old age security age and reductions in the coverage of federal contractors' employment equity.

The things she talked about, wonderful themes the government likes to put in its talking points, were not actually the stuff that we find in the bill before us today.

I wonder if she would like to comment on some of the actual content of the bill.