Scott Andrews

[Veterans Affairs, March 25th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, surely the memory of those Canadians who made the ultimate sacrifice defending our freedom is beyond political partisan politics. These memorials are legacies for Canadians, not the Conservative Party.

The external committee contains real experts: veterans groups and heritage and conservation professionals. How dare the minister substitute his judgment for the judgment of our veterans?

[Veterans Affairs, March 25th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Veterans Affairs has admitted to making the new war memorial program nothing but a political slush fund. He refuses to use an already existing external committee to approve funding for a war memorial. His deputy minister recommends the use of this external committee, but the minister says he alone will make the decision on who gets funding.

Will the minister stop playing petty politics and respect our veterans? I ask the minister, will he listen to his deputy minister and allow the external committee to approve funding applications?

[Criminal Code, March 22nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, during today's debate, while listening to members' stories and about David and Kate Bagby, I remembered something that David said. He talked about granting someone bail and how keeping someone in custody might be an inconvenience of some sort. Look at the victims. How inconvenient was it for Zachary Turner? He is not going to live a life and fulfill himself as an individual.

We need to strike a balance. As some members said, we are balancing it with our charter. I think we have found the right balance in this legislation. We have given our justices another tool in the toolbox to do their jobs.

The other day someone asked me if this bill would have prevented the tragic death of Zachary Turner. We do not know if this would have prevented his death, but at the very least we have to try. This place is about trying to do something better. All members who have spoken here today are making an effort to change our laws and to make a difference.

We will be watching closely as the bill goes through the other place. We will watch our courts. The real test will be when a judge denies an individual bail because the individual has minor children in his or her custody. Then we will know if we have been successful in making a difference.

In closing, I would like to thank all parties for their support. I would like to thank the government, the Bloc, the NDP and members of the justice committee for trying to get this bill through very quickly. We missed an opportunity in December to get it through, but when the committee started up again, the committee took it on as one of its first initiatives. I am very thankful to the parliamentary secretary and the chair of the justice committee for moving on this legislation quickly.

I would also like to thank the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore for giving up his opportunity to speak today on his bill, Bill C-201, which we will have an opportunity to debate in April. He gave us the opportunity to get this bill through the House of Commons and off to the other place.

I would also like to thank the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime for coming forward and telling me and members of the committee about crimes that could have been prevented if this piece of legislation had been passed before.

I would like to thank my constituents for standing behind me and supporting me on this bill. I have heard a wide range of views from both sides on this bill, the majority of which have been totally supportive. We will never please everybody. There will always be someone who thinks that we should not do something for some reason. We respect that as well. I received emails from across the country asking me to keep up the good work and to keep this bill moving.

I thank David and Kate for letting me be a small part of this story. My prayers and thoughts will be with them. Kurt Kuenne, the documentary producer, began his story for Zachary to pass on to Zachary, but as he was creating it, Zachary's death occurred. It is amazing that although he got the footage for Zachary, the documentary became about Zachary.

I thank Senator Tommy Banks for taking on this issue. He saw the documentary in Alberta, as I mentioned earlier. I urge speedy passage of this bill in the other place so it can receive royal assent.

[Criminal Code, March 22nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, that is the whole purpose. The courts need another tool in their toolbox to do their job. The judges who release people on bail do so under the purview of our Criminal Code, and if we now strengthen bail in the Criminal Code by putting in words such as “keeping in mind children under the age of 18”, they will be given consideration when the courts give someone bail. So it gives a clear, distinct avenue for a judge to say, “Hold on a second; we need to protect the children of this accused, so we are going to deny this person bail”. This is like the way we protect witnesses and other aspects of our law when looking at bail.

[Criminal Code, March 22nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, we can all be political. I can be political with the best of them. I can argue an issue and take on the opposition and take on the government at any time. We can drive in wedges. We can put issues between us. We can set up a private member's bill to pit one member off against another member in the House.

Maybe I will do that. At some point in my political career, I am sure we will do that. It is in the nature of all of us to succeed and to move our parties and our agendas forward.

When I put this particular piece of legislation forward, I was new. I thought, being a bit naive when first elected, that one is here to make this place a little bit better.

That is the tack I took on this particular piece of legislation. There are so many things that come across our desks. I am sure if we look at some of the issues that concern many Canadians, we can make our laws a little better. People from any walk of life could have a small piece of law that needs to be changed. If a member takes it on and garners it up in the right way, making sure it is within the laws of Canada and within our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we can put any piece of legislation on the table in the House and have some success.

[Criminal Code, March 22nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore who traded his spot with me so we could move the bill through the House today. We traded today, after it came back from committee last week, and I would like to thank the member for that.

I have received a number of e-mails, surprisingly, from all across Canada on this particular piece of legislation. People were not always in the same circumstance but were in similar circumstances, where children have been hurt through custody battles. I listed three earlier from the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime. Peter Lee of Victoria, Frank Mailly of Cumberland, Ontario, and Lawrence Mends of St. Catharines all murdered their children and in some cases killed themselves. If they had not been on bail, those tragic incidents would not have happened.

[Criminal Code, March 22nd, 2010]

moved that the bill be read a third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-464 in the House at third reading. Hopefully, today we will have our last hour of debate and have it shipped off to the Senate to carry on.

I would like to take a few minutes to explain the origins of how I decided to bring this bill forward. As a newly-elected member of Parliament in the last year and a half, I was overwhelmed by the amount of information that comes across a member's desk, the amount of paper and the number of causes and interests. It is hard to manage all of that, but I have sort of taken the view that I am going to look at anything that comes across my desk that relates to home.

I had an opportunity, shortly after I was elected in late 2008, early 2009, to watch a documentary. It was called Dear Zachary. It was produced by Kurt Kuenne. It was the story of a tragic incident that happened in Newfoundland and Labrador. I watched the documentary here in Ottawa. I knew the story, the individuals involved, and the details surrounding it. I was quite moved. It was an amazing documentary that told the story of David and Kate Bagby, their son Andrew, and their little grandchild Zachary.

After seeing the documentary, I knew where I was in the order of precedence on the order paper for a private member's bill. As I and my assistant, Mr. Ken Carter, who has helped me with this bill, left the theatre, I decided this was what I wanted to do my private member's bill on.

When we come to this place and look at private members' bills, I have said it before, we present private members' bills for one of two reasons. The first is to make a political statement, knowing that once it is introduced, it is for that reason and we are not going to go anywhere with it. The second is to actually make a difference. I truly believe that once members are elected, they come to this place to make a difference. That is when I decided I would introduce my private member's bill on detention in custody for bail reform.

The documentary Dear Zachary outlined the case of Zachary Turner and the tragic events around the baby's death. I will not go into it today because we have debated it previously and told the story in committee. I do not think we need to go there today. It was in memory of Zachary Turner that I introduced this private member's bill, to try to change our bail laws, to toughen them up a little, so that we could deny bail to protect minor children in the custody of the accused.

That was the story of Zachary and his tragic death. We heard testimony in committee from David and Kate Bagby and I will speak about those two amazing individuals momentarily.

We also heard other stories of tragic deaths from a group that came to testify before committee, the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime. Heidi Illingworth, the executive director, and Krista Gray-Donald, director of advocacy and awareness, appeared at committee. It was a group that I had not solicited and I did not know of, to be honest, until I realized they were coming before the committee in support of my bill.

They told a couple of other stories of crimes that could have been prevented if we had such information in our bail laws. I am going to read a couple more cases from their testimony. There were three cases they gave examples of that I had not heard of prior to them appearing before committee last week. The first story is the following:

Peter Lee of Victoria attempted to murder his wife in 2007. He was charged but granted judicial interim release despite a recommendation by police that he not be released by the courts. Conditions were imposed that required that he not have contact with his wife, yet in September 2007 he murdered his six-year-old son as well as his wife and her parents.

He did that while he was out on bail. The second is as follows:

In Cumberland, Ontario, in April 2006, Frank Mailly murdered his two sons, ages six and nine, his daughter, aged twelve, and their mother. He then burned down their home, with their bodies in it, killing himself in the process. He was not to have contact with Francine, but he had visitation rights to the children, and he committed these murders at the conclusion of one of their visits. Mailly had a long history of domestic violence and was on bail at the time he murdered his family.

In 2002, Lawrence Mends was released on bail in St. Catharines following an attempt to take the life of the mother of his child. When he returned to her home to attack her again, he wounded her and murdered their two-year-old son, Robert, stabbing him in excess of 20 times with a knife.

These were three examples that I had no idea about when I put my bill forward. They touched me as much as the story of Zachary Turner touched me. When we hear that the courts could have had the power to keep somebody in custody when they are charged with a serious crime so that they not be released on bail to protect minor children of the accused, that is what we decided to do.

With this bill, we put in bail reform under section 515 of the Criminal Code giving the courts the power to deny bail to protect minor children of the accused.

We did our research. We wanted to ensure this amendment was charter-proof. We could have made it much stronger, but then it would not have stood up to our Charter of Rights of Freedoms, which is important.

We did our research and then we came back with this amendment that all parties could live with, including all parties in this House. After consultation, I mentioned it to the minister and we made it a little bit stronger by defining minor children.

At committee there was an amendment proposed by the government that said “all children under the age of 18”. That gave it even more clarity and is concise within the Criminal Code. We had an amendment at committee with all party support. That is why we are back here today for third reading in this House.

I am very pleased that we have managed to move this along quite quickly. I have been told that private members' bills sometimes do not even see the light of day. Someone who had done some research for me said only 1% of private members' bills actually receive royal assent. So I am quite excited that in my first term here in Ottawa I have managed to get a private member's bill this far. We do that by building consensus, doing the research, and having something that is practical and can realistically be approved.

This is about two amazing people. There are two amazing people whom I have met during this process, David and Kate Bagby. I did not know Mr. and Mrs. Bagby. I knew of them and of the circumstances around the deaths of their son and grandson.

I cannot describe what these two amazing individuals have gone through to be at this stage here with me today. They have seen the death of their son, the death of their only grandson, and they have taken up this cause over the past five years. They have seen many things transpire in Newfoundland with child welfare. Dr. Markesteyn conducted an inquiry that recommended many changes in our provincial child welfare.

I think that is another cause that we need to look at. That was provincial in nature. We had that report and often reports gather a lot of dust in this place. The provincial government now needs to take that report out, look at the recommendations, and see what has been acted upon in toughening up and improving our child welfare laws in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Then the other part was the bail reform issue. That is when they came to me and asked if somebody could take this cause up to get this bail reform before the House of Commons, which we have done. Senator Tommy Banks will be my sponsor when this bill goes to the Senate. He saw the documentary when it was in Alberta.

These two amazing people, David and Kate, have gone through a lot. I really thank them for the work they have done with me in preparing this bill. They do not like the word “closure” because there is no closure for them, having lost a son and a grandchild. They have taken this on and have tried to make laws better in our country, so that no other child, parent or grandparent will have to go through what they have gone through.

I thank David and Kate for being my inspiration in bringing this forward. This is about them.

That is the story of my bill, Bill C-464. It is a pleasure to be here to introduce this important legislation. I look forward to listening to the debate and answering any questions and comments members may have on this particular bill. I look forward to sending it to the Senate at the end of business today.

[Criminal Code, March 22nd, 2010]

moved that the bill be concurred in.

(Motion agreed to)

[Committees of the House, December 7th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to ask my hon. colleague a question. I would have liked to ask the previous speaker a question but I will focus on him.

He sat through all the hearings on NAFO and I asked this question of every single witness who appeared, Is this custodial management? In testimony after testimony everyone said that no, this is not custodial management. The only two people who think this is custodial management is the current minister and the former minister. Even their own senator does not think this is custodial management.

I have two questions for the member. Does he honestly and truly believe this represents custodial management or was his leader right when he said,“We will give coastal states, particularly Newfoundland and Labrador, an increased role in the management of the fishery”. It sounds great. “Early in our mandate, we will seek to include a bilateral agreement with the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador for this purpose”. It sounds great. “We will make moves to extend the 200-mile limit to the edge of the continental shelf, the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap in the north Atlantic, and to assert Canadian custodial management over this area”.

Who said that? It was the Prime Minister. It sounds like custodial management, but the government has not delivered on it. How does the member feel about that?

[Committees of the House, December 7th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague from St. John's East a straightforward and pretty simple question. I am wondering if he could reflect on Art May's comments and report that NAFO, at the end of the day, will not work.

Does he see any reason for us to even continue staying within NAFO at the end of the day? Does it work? Will it work? Recently, a decision was made on the Greenland halibut, where the NAFO members accepted a TAC approximately 82% greater than their own scientific council. They are going to have a scientific council making a recommendation to them, but they are not going to listen to the scientific council. Why would it work at all?