Robert-Falcon Ouellette

[Halloween, October 31st, 2017]

[Member spoke in Cree as follows:]

Niwakomacuntik Tansai Nemeaytane Awapamtikok.

[English]

Mr. Speaker, some politicians have skeletons, others bodies. Today is a very special, scary day. Today is Halloween, but it is also the birthday of my son Jacob Joseph Ouellette. He is 11 years old today. I miss Jacob very much and love him also. I am very sorry that I am often absent, but his mother and I are always thinking of him. I ask that he please continue working hard, smiling, helping others, keeping a positive attitude, and giving everything he has to the task at hand. He should remember that we love him and also his brothers and sisters: Xavier Gabriel, Edouard Real, Julien James, and Abigaelle Rose.

I also congratulate the people who have made Winnipeg a safe place in our inner city to trick or treat on Halloween. Organizations like Ma Mawi, AYO, and Meet Me at the Bell Tower have made an incredible difference in our inner city. Thanks to Michael Champagne, Chris Clacio, Grace Scott, Samuel Trout, Mark Wright, Mary Jane Daniels, Fred Flett, Shirley Bear, Wayne Roberts, and Chickadee Richard. They are our heroes. They are Winnipeg.

[Member spoke in Cree]

[Criminal Code, October 24th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, it is obviously a grave concern to me. I represent a riding that has an awful lot of social issues, even in my own case when I was at the University of Manitoba. I do not always wear a suit and I was walking around in a certain area of town in Winnipeg and, lo and behold, with my long hair and just wearing a T-shirt, I was stopped by police and questioned. It is nothing that ever happened to me when I was in Quebec City or Calgary but it happened to me in Winnipeg. I had many of my students say they were always being stopped, especially a lot of the men, indigenous men in this case with very strong aboriginal appearance, even stronger than mine. They were being stopped and questioned by police. It does create that potential, so we do have to be very careful in ensuring that, for instance, police forces receive adequate training and sensitization on the issue, to make sure that we continue to work with these communities.

The City of Winnipeg under the former chief of police, Devon Clunis who is a great moral man, was attempting to build bridges to get the police out of their patrol cars and into the community to speak with people and get people working together to have a discussion to build bridges. Often, if they do not have those bridges it becomes very easy to start seeing it as a war zone where it is us against them. Really, it is about serving communities.

[Criminal Code, October 24th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for offering more information about the issue of THC levels in the blood. Obviously, there are people who have chronic issues.

I remember, from discussions with some of my comrades from the 5 Field Ambulance when I was in the army, that in Afghanistan in the medical corps we would often have to treat people who would come into the hospitals who might be Afghans and some of them had chronic drug use for many years. Unfortunately, the medics gave one dose and a second dose and it still didn't have any impact; the individuals still felt a lot of pain and that was because they had been constantly using, often in this case, opium or the poppy. It does create an issue where the person seemingly was functional working in the Afghan military, but probably it would not be acceptable within any western military or for sure in the Canadian Armed Forces.

I am not an expert, but I did go to the justice committee for one day to some of the hearings. I heard about the idea of how we have to be careful with police checks and how we ensure that we do not go after one ethnic group or one group more than another. I will stop there because I need another question.

[Criminal Code, October 24th, 2017]

Niwakomacuntik Tansai Nemeaytane Awapamtikok.

[Member spoke in Cree]

[English]

Mr. Speaker, outraged by the toll alcohol is having in northern Saskatchewan, in 2015 a crown prosecutor took six months off work to talk to first nation communities and look for solutions.

Harold Johnson, an indigenous author of a new book called Firewater, took a critical look at the impact alcohol has had on the people in the north. Harold, who is based in La Ronge, Saskatchewan said:

...alcohol is responsible for much death and destruction in the north, and as a Crown prosecutor he's had a front-row seat to its effects.

Ninety-five percent of what we deal with in provincial court, the person who committed the offence was drunk at the time of the offence. It's every day.

Are we tired of going to the graveyard? Are we tired of burying our relatives? Have we had enough of this now?

As Johnson told the CBC, alcohol misuse permeates all aspects of society, whether it's the justice system, health, poverty or the economy.

Indeed, according to a 2011 study of northern Saskatchewan health regions, two-thirds of fatal motor vehicle accidents are alcohol-related. The rate of drug and alcohol use during pregnancy in the north is three times the provincial rate.

Moreover, the CBC reports that according to Johnson, it even affects the cost of infrastructure in the north, as contractors take into account absenteeism and lowered productivity because of hangovers and include those costs in bid prices.

It is an issue that has also touched Johnson in his own personal life. Two of his brothers have been killed by drunk drivers, and most recently in 2014. The Justice Department gave him six months to work with the Lac La Ronge Indian Band and the Montreal Lake Cree Nation in a search of answers to open a discussion. He says he is not hoping to work miracles, but just to get people talking. As he says, “Are we tired of going to the graveyard? Are we tired of burying our relatives? Have we had enough of this now?”

I am proud to be here to debate Bill C-46, which proposes substantive changes to modernize the provisions of the Criminal Code dealing with drug- and alcohol-impaired driving offences.

The purpose of the bill is to protect public health and safety by creating new provisions and strengthening existing provisions to deter impaired drivers and come down hard on anyone caught committing drug- and alcohol-impaired driving offences. This bill also aims to give police the resources they need to improve the detection of the presence of drugs and alcohol in impaired drivers and facilitate the prosecution of such cases. It is important to develop a regulatory policy to stop impaired driving.

Part 1 of the bill amends certain provisions that deal with offences. Among other things, the amendments seek to do the following: enact new criminal offences for driving with a blood drug concentration that is equal to or higher than the permitted concentration; authorize the establishment of prohibited blood drug concentrations; and authorize peace officers who suspect a driver has a drug in their body to demand that the driver provide a sample of a bodily substance for analysis by drug screening equipment that is approved by the Attorney General of Canada.

It is important not only in the big cities, but also in the rural areas and communities where I come from. I am proud to be here and to have the opportunity to express myself in Cree, English, and French, the founding languages of our nation.

People may have noticed that I did not provide a translation for the part of my speech that I delivered in Cree. I addressed those words to the people in our communities. I hope they will hear them. They need to hear discussions about what we once were and what we can become.

[Business of Supply, October 23rd, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting how the member talked about not tainting the names of other politicians when in fact this motion brings into great disrepute all politicians here. We are poisoning the well of all of us. We are not allowing the Ethics Commissioner the opportunity to really study this issue properly, to make sure that she can share with us her recommendations concerning the situation.

When we take the time to sit and question the morals and ethical judgment of someone, we have to look to what they have done. On the finance committee, for instance, with the enhancements to the Canada pension plan benefits, we saw how the Minister of Finance built a coalition of other finance ministers across the country to increase the amount of benefits that would be paid to Canadians, to make sure that Canadians would have a better future in the long term, so that our pensions would be better and would provide for us.

I am very proud of the work of the Minister of Finance. He is a very honourable individual and has done great work for this country. I hope we will take the time to allow the Ethics Commissioner the opportunity to do her work, so that we can rely on her good judgment. Once that has been done, then we can also make the judgments that we want to make here in the House.

At this time, however, I think we should really be very considerate and protect this honourable profession of politicians and politics.

[Business of Supply, October 17th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, there is a point of order. I believe the member said “being unscrupulous” when referring to someone in the House. I believe that is unparliamentary language that we should not be using in reference to other members.

[Business of Supply, October 17th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, the member for Sherbrooke mentioned cynicism. It is important to consider that aspect in this matter.

We often have water here in the House and if I continue to put a drop of poison in this water, it becomes no less poisonous over time. As I continue to add more and more poison to this water, it becomes undrinkable. This is what is occurring in our politics. We have the Ethics Commissioner who has an opportunity to study this issue and make sure that we are not poisoning the well for all politicians, that we do not bring dishonour upon ourselves by bringing dishonour upon some other individual.

One of the things I have often heard is that when we are outside the House, we try to remove politics from the issue and say that a person works so hard for their constituency. The implication is that we say some things about each other in the House, but that outside the House we are friends.

I would like to remind members that we have to give the Ethics Commissioner the opportunity to make a ruling so that we can be aware of the issue, but not to go out and blame hon. members of the House, because at the end of the day, we have to work together and we do not want people in Canada to lose faith in their public institutions, but to continue to believe that these institutions can build a better day for all of us.

[Oil Tanker Moratorium Act, October 2nd, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I want to go back to this idea of balance.

There was an article in the Winnipeg Free Press that discussed Lynn Lake and some of the mining that was going on there. Under current laws, the mining companies were allowed to pollute, destroy the environment, and make the these areas uninhabitable for indigenous people and average Canadians. I am very proud of the government going out, trying to get a balance between the environment and the economy. I know we are trying to redo the National Energy Board. The expert panel put out a report recently and Liberals have been reviewing that report. I have been reviewing that report.

Are there laws in Canada that should be changed to protect the environment? At the end of the day, we still have to live here. We have to drink the water and breathe the air. If we cannot do that, perhaps it is poor on a few of us and bollocks to the rest of us, but at the end of the day, we do have to live here.

[Oil Tanker Moratorium Act, October 2nd, 2017]

[Member spoke in Cree]

[English]

Mr. Speaker, in 1989, the Exxon Valdez had an unfortunate incident. Human failure led to a critical incident that led to tonnes of crude oil being released into the environment, which still impacts the environment to this day.

In discussions with the Haida Gwaii, they have indicated they are not in favour of the transportation of crude oil through their traditional territories.

I think this is an attempt by the government to come up with a balance between the economy and the environment, allowing crude oil to be shipped from certain areas of the country but not others, depending on where we are and the type of environment involved. This is really based on the idea of using science and data to come up with something that can respect the long-term vision for what we can and cannot do. This does not mean, though, that I do not believe that this moratorium will prevent other types of economic development taking place.

What are the member's beliefs or feelings about the idea that we need to strike a balance in what we need to do to protect the environment while also developing the economy?

[Oil Tanker Moratorium Act, October 2nd, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate hearing about what the minister has been doing concerning consultations with first nations groups. I would like to hear some of his ideas surrounding the criteria, and if he could explain further some of the criteria that were used to determine whether a nation-to-nation relationship and consultation had occurred.

Also, I would like to hear more about the consultation with the environment minister and Parks Canada to ensure that this proposal fits into a global vision for what needs to occur to protect our environment.