Rob Nicholson

[Petitions, October 18th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition from members of the Greater Niagara Medical society. I met with them a couple of weeks ago. Needless to say, they are quite concerned about the changes proposed by the finance minister.

In particular, the petitioners believe these changes will jeopardize the investments they have made in their practices, the staff they employ, the patient care they are able to provide, and ultimately their ability to retire. As well, they believe these proposed changes will drive some of our country's best and brightest physicians out of this country.

The petitioners are opposed to what the Minister of Finance has proposed. Therefore, I would like to table this petition. This is not in the usual form, so I would ask for the consent of the House to table it.

[Birthday Congratulations, October 4th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise in the House today to recognize the hon. member for Haldimand—Norfolk. As a matter of fact, I am dying to “Finley”, I mean, finally have this opportunity to pay tribute to the member on the occasion of her 60th birthday.

She is known to Canadians for her successful tenure as the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development, as well as Citizenship and Immigration, but there is much more to this remarkable woman. She founded the largest publicly funded ambulance service company, and is active in the Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships. From her crusade to help fight human trafficking to her passion to encourage young people to enter politics through the annual Doug Finley Memorial Dinner, this member gives far more than she receives.

It is with great pleasure that I join Canadians across this country in wishing my colleague and, more importantly, my friend, many happy returns on her 60th birthday.

[Members sang Happy Birthday]

[Oceans Act, September 28th, 2017]

To coast.

[Justice, September 25th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice is warning that it desperately needs more judges. Just last week, B.C. courts were forced to shut down because of the government's indecision. What is the problem with the government? Why did it not make these judicial appointments? It had all summer to do it, and now we have a situation of Ontario desperately needing 12 more judges. There are 57 vacancies.

I have a solution for the Liberals. If they cannot get the job done, turn it over to us and we will make the appointments. How about that?

[Justice, June 19th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals keep telling us that they take judicial appointments seriously, yet to date there are still judicial vacancies right across the country. Under our Conservative government, we appointed more than 500 judicial appointments. If the Liberals are incapable of doing their job, the opposition would be more than happy to do it for them.

These delays in the criminal justice system must end and criminals must be prosecuted. When are the Liberals going to start taking this job seriously and fill all the judicial vacancies without excuses?

[Justice, June 16th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are not even appointing the necessary judicial advisory committees that give advice when making appointments. Incredibly, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Saskatchewan, and southwestern Ontario still do not even have a committee to advise the minister on judicial appointments.

Obviously, the government has a problem in this area. What is it going to take for it to cleanup this mess?

[Justice, June 16th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, today, the Supreme Court of Canada confirmed that trials needed to be conducted in a timely manner.

Our Conservative government appointed well over 500 highly competent and diverse individuals to the bench. There was never a shortage of exceptional candidates to choose from. When are the Liberals going to get their act together and fill all these judicial vacancies?

[Criminal Code, June 15th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, that would be fascinating. I would like to hear from the Liberals if they will table the solicitor-client advice that is given to the justice minister.

Under the Conservative government, we were very consistent. We were very compliant with all the constitutional provisions. It is true, we were always worried about victims of crime and law-abiding citizens who had the right to live in the country and not be victimized. I am very proud of that record. Stephen Harper was always consistent. Anything that was brought before the House in the area of justice, he was interested in knowing whether victims were being protected and whether law-abiding Canadians and their interests were being heard. I am confident all our bills were legitimately compliant with the rules.

People can challenge these things if they like, but for the Minister of Justice to start putting this extra thing into every bill is not necessary. I am not quite sure why the Liberals are doing it. However, if the minister wants to put out a statement that she is confident that it complies with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Bill of Rights, go ahead. However, having this as part of every piece of justice legislation is completely unnecessary.

[Criminal Code, June 15th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, that is a fair comment. We were very cognizant and compliant with all the laws, including the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Bill of Rights. The minister of justice was always advised on these, and we certainly took that advice.

The details of it are solicitor-client privilege, and the parliamentary secretary to the justice minister mentioned that. I have said right here, if the minister wants to put out a charter statement, she should go right ahead and say it complies with the charter. I have no problem with that. Say it complies with the Canadian Bill of Rights as well. That is a wonderful thing. However, to make this a part of every piece of legislation is absolutely unnecessary.

Again, I do not see why the Liberals are doing this. There is some sort of statement or something. However, nonetheless, and I pointed this out, if people feel the bills are unconstitutional, for whatever reason, they have the ability to challenge that. This has been going on for the last 35 years, and John Diefenbaker's Bill of Rights has been here for almost 60 years now.

The rights of our country have been protected by every Conservative government. No one has a better record of standing up for rights and freedoms of Canadians than the Conservative Party.

[Criminal Code, June 15th, 2017]

Of course they should have that, Mr. Speaker. This section of the Criminal Code does that. This section protects all individuals performing religious services. It makes a specific reference to anyone who might try to disrupt a religious service.

I have never heard of anyone ever having a problem with this section. If we sit down with people and talk to them about different possibilities of a disturbance or anything like that, many would agree on the seriousness of anybody disrupting a religious service or threatening somebody who practises his or her religion.

The member mentioned the motion. We heard again and again how concerned the Liberals were about people having the right to practise their religion without fear, without hate, without prejudice, without any disruption whatsoever. Therefore, I was surprised when I picked up the bill. After the Queen, this is one of the first things the Liberals wanted to get rid of. I do not get it, getting rid of the specific protection that our head of state has. What is the problem with that?

The timing of this is terrible in my opinion. It is the 65th anniversary of the Queen's reign, and now members decide to get rid of the specific protection that is accorded to her. However, the other section is the only area of the Criminal Code that specifically delineates religious services and those who perform those religious services. Why would they get rid of it? I wanted to have a motion here to have these separated. I hope the Liberals will reconsider this.

I think there is great consensus on a lot of the different sections in here. A lot of the sections make the Criminal Code gender neutral. A lot of the sections update the wording and get rid of sections that have long had no relevance. Most important, the area with respect to sexual consent and the other laws, like the rape shield laws, are extremely important. The Liberals should have had this as a separate bill rather than toss this all into it, but we on this side of the House do not run the show.

Again, I have invited my colleagues to mention it to their constituents and ask them how they feel about the Liberal Party getting rid of the section that protects people in the practice of their religion. I am going to look forward to getting some feedback from them in the fall.