Randall Garrison

[Criminal Code, May 20th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I always value hearing from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice.

On the question of words before “reasonably foreseeable”, he has asked me to back up a couple of words, but if I do that, I want to back up to “who's natural death has become reasonably foreseeable”. If we back up that far, there is even more ambiguity. What is natural death? That is what we all face. “Natural death has become reasonably foreseeable” is no clearer. I would stress again that it is not a term used in medicine and it is not a term used in law. Therefore, I am not arguing about its value; I am arguing about its certainty. At this point, it has no certainty.

On the question of what happens after June 6, I do not believe there is a legal vacuum. I know the temporary exemption process expires. When we were dealing end of life with my mother, the last thing I wanted to do was hire a lawyer and go to court. I was spending the time with her in the hospital, as was my sister, though, it was not something we would have wished to go through. Therefore, I am not certain that this expiring is a bad thing.

[Criminal Code, May 20th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I first have to say that I am shocked that the government again is denying members, under a very reasonable proposal that would not affect the ability to meet the June 6 deadline, the opportunity to speak in this debate because like the hon. member, I have learned very much from hearing others speak. I very much respect the level of debate in this House.

In terms of the reflection period, I firmly believe, and it is mostly on the personal experience I went through last fall, that at the very end of life when someone is suffering intolerable pain, it is not only intolerable for the person, but it is very difficult for the family members who spend most of the time in the hospital with their loved one, who have no idea how long the natural process will take, and suffer along with the person. I think that 15 days was certainly too long and 10 days is better. In my view, and given my personal experience, it is still too long.

[Criminal Code, May 20th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to have the opportunity to finally speak to the bill at report stage, although, as I just said in my previous question, I am really sad to have to do this under time allocation and knowing that many of my colleagues will not get the chance to bring the voices from their constituencies to this chamber on the bill.

I was prevented from speaking at second reading by the time allocation imposed by the government, but something even more peculiar happened when it did that. The abrupt change of the House schedule on May 4 with time allocation forced the second reading vote forward by five days, and for those of us who have responsibilities both here and in our ridings, it meant on that Wednesday morning, I was already flying west before the time allocation motion was introduced. It meant that I could not be here to cast my vote at second reading because I was already flying in the wrong direction.

I lost my chance to go on record as voting against Bill C-14 in principle. That is what I intended to do, not just because of my own experience and beliefs, but also because I believe it contradicts the Supreme Court's Carter decision, and most important, because the bill contradicts the opinion of virtually every person and every family in my riding that has contacted me about this issue.

I have been involved in discussions about end-of-life issues with several individuals who are facing severe debilitating and painful illnesses. I have talked to them directly. I have met with them and have heard their concerns. This reminds me to mention an important issue that is not in the bill, and that is the issue of palliative care and the need for us as a society to do a much better job with end-of-life care.

I do want to praise those who are actively already working in end-of-life care. This is not a criticism of their efforts that they make each and every day to provide better care for those who are facing end of life, but they are forced to do so too often with too few resources and in substandard situations.

I have been involved in public discussions locally on this issue, stretching back to a public forum on March 21, 2015, which was jointly sponsored by a group called Victoria Choices in Dying and Dying with Dignity. We heard from a panel of speakers, which I was privileged to be on, but we also heard from the public. We heard speaker after speaker at that forum say that they wanted the right to control end-of-life issues. They wanted the right to make decisions for themselves, and they wanted the right for their family members not to have to suffer intolerable pain for great lengths of time, but to be able to make the choice for assisted dying.

I believe, as I said, not just speaking on the basis of my own conscience, but representing the beliefs and needs of my community, that I should oppose Bill C-14, not just for what is not in the bill, like palliative care, which only gets a mention in the preamble and for which the government has, incidentally, provided no new resources and there is no reason to wait for legislation to do that, but I will oppose the bill for what is actually in the bill. I believe the bill is too restrictive and respects neither the letter nor the spirit of the Carter decision.

I think we are in this unfortunate position because the government failed to listen to the key recommendations of our own special joint committee of the House and Senate. The committee made very wise recommendations with regard to the bill, yet only a few of them were incorporated into the bill at the committee stage.

In the interests of time, I will focus on what I believe are the three key faults in Bill C-14.

The first and most important to me is the absence of a provision for advance directives.

I want to talk, if I am able to do so, about a very personal experience, the death of my mother last fall. My mother had always been very clear, even before she developed dementia, and that dementia began to take away her capacity, she did not want measures to keep her alive, lying in the bed without consciousness, with no quality of life, and especially if she were in great pain.

Her dementia was not the immediate cause of her death, so she would not have qualified under the bill because she did not have a terminal illness, but in her case, six years after the onset of the dementia, she no longer had the capacity to make decisions. Other medical conditions left her in a situation which she had feared: in great pain and unable to care for herself. Those other medical conditions did eventually take her life in conjunction with the decisions we as her children and the medical practitioner made at the time.

We feel very fortunate that my mother had been very clear about her wishes. Although that did not really make the decisions we had to make easy, we were confident that we were doing what she had wanted to do. My own family's experience and the experiences of other families in my constituency are why I believe so strongly that Canadians have the right to make advance directives about their care.

The second reason that I am opposing this bill is the fact that it would impose what it calls a reflection period on those at the end of life. Of course, again, those who have dementia or other similar medical conditions would not be able to have a reflection period because they would no longer have capacity. However, even for those who are competent at that point in their life, I believe that the 10 days, which the committee thankfully reduced it to, is still far too long for those who are living in intolerable pain, and far too long not just for them, but far too long to ask their families and friends to witness that suffering. If there is to be a reflection period, it needs to be even shorter than those 10 days.

My third reason for opposing this bill is the fact that it would narrow who is eligible to receive medical assistance in dying to those whose death is “reasonably foreseeable”. I know that others have said that we know what that means and it is specific. However, the only way I can understand that we all know what that means is that all our deaths are reasonably foreseeable, but what it means beyond that, I have no idea. It is not a term that is used in medicine. It is not a term that is used in law. That very ambiguity raises the spectre of excluding people who need medical assistance in dying and who would have been qualified for it under the Carter decision.

According to the lead counsel in the Carter case, even Kay Carter, a fierce advocate for the right to assisted death for those who are suffering intolerably but from a non-fatal condition, would probably be excluded from accessing medical assistance in dying under Bill C-14 as it stands. What this would do is force people into incredibly cruel strategies like starving themselves to death to make their death imminent and allow them to qualify. I would hope that this House would not impose those kinds of restrictions on people and make them make those kinds of choices at the end of their life.

Would I rather have this bill than no bill? The answer I guess I am going to have to decide on. My decision is going to be that yes, I would rather have no bill. I prefer to go with the Carter decision. Do I think it would have been better to have a bill? Yes I do. I am not opposed to having a bill on this, but it has to respect the Carter decision, and it has to have clear provisions in it, and it needs to have a reflection period shorter than 10 days. If we do not have the bill, what happens? We do not have a legal vacuum as people are saying. We have the Carter decision, which would provide guidance. There is a legal framework.

Although I did not actually look this up, when the abortion provisions were removed from the Criminal Code, the House of Commons tried twice to create new law regulating abortions. I am sure these same arguments were made at that time, saying that practitioners would not want to perform abortions because there was no legal framework. In fact, we went with the court decision. We still exist with the court decision on abortion as our legal framework and we have not had chaos in the medical community on that; not that in any way I wish to compare abortion to medical assistance in dying, but only on this issue of whether there is a legal framework that will apply on June 6.

The failure to meet the June 6 deadline for this legislation lies with all of us. It lies with the previous government; it lies with the current government, and it lies with us as a House of Commons. We all have to take responsibility for missing that deadline.

However, I do have to say I believe the government could have managed the House time better so that all of us could have participated in the debate and that debate could have been accomplished in time to meet the deadline. All the Liberals had to do was schedule this bill as a priority in this sitting of the House, which they failed to do. That did not happen. Therefore, I will, when the time comes, stand and vote against this bill at third reading. In the meantime, I will also vote against it at report stage.

[Criminal Code, May 20th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I, too, would like to thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health for her very thoughtful remarks on the bill.

My question for her is about process. I am one of the people who did not get an opportunity to speak to the bill at second reading. Under the time allocation motion, we now, today, will have 10 amendments on the bill before us and we will have only nine speakers. We actually have more amendments than speakers on the bill.

I wonder how she feels or why she feels the government is unwilling to accept the proposal that was just made that would allow this debate to continue on Monday and allow many more members of Parliament to participate in the debate at report stage, because we are going to have less than 10% of the members of Parliament actually participating at this stage.

[Life Means Life Act, May 19th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am not going to say that I am pleased to rise this afternoon to discuss Bill C-229, but rather that I am surprised to rise in this Parliament to be discussing a bill that has been brought forward from the last Parliament.

It is unexpected to see what was clearly a political showpiece, introduced by the Conservative government just before the last election as Bill C-53, reintroduced into the House. It shoots some holes in one of the arguments I used to make, having been the NDP public safety critic for the last five years, that these bills tended to come from the PMO. Clearly, this time they cannot come from the PMO. They are coming from some other place and the former PMO.

It is also surprising, because this tough on crime agenda that the member for Calgary Signal Hill introduced, endorsed the tough on crime agenda idea. This is an agenda that has been rejected by many jurisdictions in North America that have gone down this path. It was rejected by many U.S. states, including the State of Texas, which was probably the poster child for tough on crime agendas. It realized that these kinds of bills do not work.

The former U.S. attorney general, Eric Holder, said:

...statistics have shown — and all of us have seen — that high incarceration rates and longer-than-necessary prison terms have not played a significant role in materially improving public safety, reducing crime, or strengthening communities.

I am also surprised because I thought it was pretty clear that this tough on crime agenda was rejected by Canadian voters at the last election.

As I said, as the NDP public safety critic in the last Parliament, I had the task of opposing the raft of so-called tough on crime bills that made up an agenda for the last government. I am surprised to see the member for Calgary Signal Hill donning this cloak of tough on crime as if it helps to promote his bill, which it does not. However, it does clearly situate the bill among that sea of bills that the Conservatives introduced that had common characteristics.

These characteristics are that they had a certain popular appeal because they were directed at horrible crimes, or at deservedly unpopular criminals, a common characteristic that gave a false impression of how our criminal justice system actually works. In fact, they are bills that were largely unnecessary. They have a common characteristic in that they are singularly ineffective at improving public safety. Finally, they often had the common characteristic of claiming to serve the interests of victims. As someone who taught criminal justice for 20 years and worked a lot with victims and victims' families, I know that what victims' families say they want is for no one to go through what they have gone through ever in the future.

The last characteristic that almost all of these tough on crime bills have in common is that they are almost certainly unconstitutional. Cases are now working their way through the judicial system that will invalidate most, if not all, of these bills adopted in the previous Parliament from the tough on crime agenda. There were harsher sentences, mandatory minimum sentences, barriers to parole, or even in the most baffling case, the retitling of pardons as record suspensions and increasing the barriers to getting a pardon for those who had been rehabilitated and were trying to reintegrate into society. They increased the barriers to getting a pardon, which would allow them to get a good job, return to the community, and support their families. This whole sea of laws are now in the process of being struck down.

I know that the Minister of Justice has launched a review of the entire Criminal Code, which will also address all of these tough on crime bills that resulted either from private member's bills or from the government's omnibus crime bills.

What we saw recently, in April, was that the Supreme Court of Canada struck down two portions of the tough on crime agenda. It struck down mandatory minimums of one year for drug offences, and struck down the provisions that take away the right of those who serve time before being convicted and sentenced to get additional credit for that time served. It was just 10 days later that the B.C. Court of Appeal also overturned mandatory two-year minimum sentences for drug trafficking for those under the age of 18 or in places frequented by youth.

I will turn now to the actual provisions in Bill C-229, which are really life without parole for murder when associated with certain other offences or which involve certain victims, or murders which are carried out with special brutality, or high treason.

The very title of the bill, life means life, is false. It really distorts what goes on in our criminal justice system. Those with life sentences, even if they are released from the institutions, which most are not, remain under supervision for the rest of their lives and remain under restrictions even if they are paroled. A life sentence in Canada does mean a life sentence under supervision.

As I said, with those who are convicted of first degree murder, we heard talk about families having to go through the application for parole again and again, but they do not start that process for 25 years. Those convicted of first degree murder most often have a 25-year period before the parole thing kicks in. At minimum, they are going to have a 10-year period. That is a bit of a distortion of what actually happens to families in the cases of these most serious crimes, but not in the cases of some minor crimes, I will concede.

There is an irony also in the bill in its content. The Conservatives were very intent on removing what used to be called the faint hope clause, former section 745.6 of the Criminal Code, which allowed those convicted of the most serious crimes who had received a life sentence with no eligibility for parole for more than 15 years to request a hearing to allow them to have a parole hearing. That was seen as very effective by those who work in the corrections system.

The Conservatives in 2012, through a bill from the Senate, Bill S-6, repealed that faint hope clause, yet it comes back in this private member's bill as after 35 years, admittedly longer, but it does restore a version of that faint hope clause. I find that ironic.

If it should ever be passed, I believe that the courts will find the bill unconstitutional on two grounds. One, it would be arbitrary in that what is the penal purpose? What purpose is served by the bill? I submit that there is no penal purpose being served by the bill, because as I said, those who commit these most serious crimes are almost never released. Two, it would probably be declared unconstitutional as cruel and unusual punishment.

I know the member for St. Albert—Edmonton said he believes it is constitutional, but we can cite a very large number of legal scholars, Isabel Grant from UBC being one, and Debra Parkes from the University of Manitoba as another who would differ quite strongly with him. Of course, so does the trend of the recent Supreme Court decisions and the B.C. Court of Appeal decision, and a year before, the decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal, which I forgot to mention, which overturned aspects of mandatory minimum sentences involving firearms.

The real impact of the bill would be to ensure that those convicted of these admittedly terrible crimes serve longer times in institutions, but we know from what happened in the United States that this has no impact on public safety, and note that in Canada we now have a murder rate which is at its lowest since 1966.

What it would do is create a management problem in our prisons. Those who think they are never going to get out have no incentive to engage in rehabilitation programs and they have no incentive toward good behaviour. I am going to quote what Don Head, the commissioner for Correctional Service of Canada said on this:

As the proposed legislation would lengthen the incarceration period for some offenders, it's possible that it can reduce incentives to rehabilitation and good behaviour, potentially compromising institutional security as well as the safety of my staff and other inmates.

We have to be very careful about creating a situation which would endanger the safety of our correctional staff who already work in situations of great stress and also that of other inmates.

In conclusion, of course, I will not be supporting this private member's bill. Instead, I would like to see the House deal with provisions that would provide greater opportunities for rehabilitation, an addiction treatment in prisons, greater access to pardons, and all those kinds of things that might help us avoid these kinds of crimes in the future.

[Privilege, May 18th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same and a related question of privilege. In the House, one of the privileges that we observe is to accept the word of other hon. members.

The member who just spoke questioned the word, given in good faith, of two members who just spoke. I will add my testimony. I saw the Prime Minister, I would use the word, charge across the floor, with intent, and shove people with the intent of moving the whip down the aisle, an intentional action by the Prime Minister, which is unacceptable in the House of Commons, the use of physical force.

As part of doing that, he knocked one of my colleagues into the desk. She was physically shoved into the desk. I witnessed this. Then she was unable to continue in the House. Her privileges were breached by the physical actions of the Prime Minister.

I would ask the Speaker to rule, both, on the question of the violation of privilege by the Prime Minister, and also on the question of whether we accept hon. members' words in the House or not.

[Public Safety, May 18th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, after voting in favour of Bill C-51, the Conservatives' dangerous and ineffective spy bill, the Liberals changed their tune during the election, when they promised to repeal problematic elements of the draconian bill “without delay”.

Seven months later, the minister has accomplished nothing. Meanwhile, we have reports of unauthorized spying on journalists by the RCMP, and Canadians are increasingly worried about their civil liberties.

Why are the Liberals breaking their promise on Bill C-51 and leaving Canadians' civil liberties at risk?

[Copyright Act, May 17th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I was very pleased this morning that the Minister of Justice introduced Bill C-16, which would guarantee equal rights for transgender and gender-variant Canadians. This bill passed in the House of Commons in 2011 and passed again in essentially the same form as a private member's bill that I introduced in 2013. I was very pleased the minister made a commitment to deal with this bill expeditiously.

Therefore, I would like to move the following motion: That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, Bill C-16, an act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code, shall be deemed to have been read a second time and referred to committee of the whole, deemed considered in committee of the whole, deemed reported without amendment, deemed concurred in at report stage, and deemed read a third time and passed.

[Business of Supply, May 16th, 2016]

Madam Chair, that raises the next question I have for the minister, and that is regarding support service contracts. Under the Conservatives, we saw a tendency to privatize more and more of what one might call the maintenance functions of essential services within the Canadian military. That was quite often done without considering its impact on the safety of those workers involved in the workplace, but also the safety and security of Canada as we bring more and more private contractors on to our bases.

Others, like the U.K., went way down this road and now they are spending billions of dollars to roll this back, as they found it did not actually save them money, and it did cause those health and safety problems, as well as security problems, on the bases.

Therefore, as we are acquiring lots of new equipment, there is work that sometimes euphemistically is called warranty work, which is really maintenance work. I would like an assurance from the minister that he will make sure that Canadian Forces keep our own independent ability to maintain that new equipment we buy, so that we remain independent of any company that might go bankrupt or have other priorities. We really can repair our own ships and our own planes and keep the Canadian Forces working with our own Canadian Forces employees.

[Business of Supply, May 16th, 2016]

Madam Chair, I thank the minister for that answer. I still remain concerned that there seems to be more cheerleading in the discussion on ballistic missile defence on the other side, but that I guess remains to be seen.

I want to turn to some issues that come up frequently in my riding with regard to defence. One of those is the rollover of civilian contracts. Up till 2011, there was a practice with civilian employees that, if they were in a temporary contract for three years, they could be rolled over into a permanent position after that time. The Conservatives stopped that practice as a cost-saving measure. I do not think they really considered the negative impacts in terms of morale, staff relations, staff retention, or the fact that any savings they got were at the expense of families by taking away security of employment for those families.

Therefore, my question for the minister is this. Will he look at reversing that policy and returning to the policy where, if people have been in something called a temporary position for a number of years, we finally admit that it is a permanent position and give those employees the security they need?