Scott Reid

[Public Safety, October 28th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, based on an email I received yesterday from his parliamentary secretary, I understand that the Minister of Public Safety will, for the first time since the Liberals took power in 2015, be initiating a discussion with the RCMP on the subject of putting defibrillators in police cruisers. Placing defibrillators in cruisers would save over 300 lives a year. That is 30 a month, so time is of the essence.

Therefore, when can we expect to learn that a decision has been made, one direction or the other?

[Judges Act, October 28th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, I have two minutes. I will be continuing after question period, after a delay of about an hour, which is better than a situation I once had where I started a speech and then was delayed by a two-week break. There is nothing like having two weeks between the first two minutes and the remaining eight minutes of a speech to allow one to refine those remarks. The second half of the speech was considerably better than the first.

This time I am going to turn it around, and I am going to put all the exciting stuff at the front end. I am going to talk about the legislative history of this bill, a bill that is so urgently important that the government is applying time allocation and limiting debate. It is a matter that is absolutely critical to get dealt with, which is presumably why the government has delayed debate from when it introduced the bill in December 2021. It did not start debate for a further six months, until June 16 of this year, just shy of six months after it was introduced. No, in fact it is exactly six months. Maybe the government is seeking symmetry here, but that is when debate at second reading started. Of course we cannot complete anything that fast. It then disappeared. It is now back in October, and the government is announcing that it is a crisis and we must deal with this immediately, after having delayed it.

However, the story is actually worse than that because the original bill was introduced in the Senate as Bill S-3, and the government then put its own bill in. Even that misses the point that there was a previous bill, which was essentially identical, introduced before the last election, the mid-COVID pandemic election, which caused everything on the Order Paper to be set aside. It was an election which served, as far as I can tell, literally no purpose. It was the least important election in Canadian history, and simply replicated the previous mandate down almost to the exact seat.

Now it is a panic. Before we had literally years to deal with it, and I should point out that this is dealing with an issue that is essentially 50 years old. However, I will stop now and I look forward to continuing after question period.

[Public Safety, October 21st, 2022]

Madam Speaker, last week the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety said the following with respect to the placement of defibrillators in RCMP vehicles, which would save 300 lives per year: “If the hon. member had a private company that wanted to donate AEDs to all RCMP vehicles, I would be happy to work with him on that.”

My question is this. In the event that one or more outside parties agrees to pay the necessary $10 million, will the government finally place AEDs in all RCMP cruisers as I have been asking it to do for the past six years?

[Public Safety, October 17th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for that very informative answer. There were a number of pieces of information that I was unfamiliar with.

One thing I picked up was her reference to what she calls contract partners, which really means the provincial and territorial governments. I am going to ask her if she is saying the following, that if the initiative were taken, say, by the government of Alberta or Saskatchewan, that would be sufficient to start the ball rolling in that province. She also indicated a willingness to work with private sector partners who provide the necessary funds to purchase these things.

May I assume that if that were to happen in some part of the country, and if the RCMP hierarchy were to resist, and it does appear that there has been resistance, institutionally, in the RCMP, that the government would override it and say, “Look, these things have been given for free. Please install them where they are being offered”?

Could she respond to those two questions?

[Public Safety, October 17th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, today's question relates to the number of lives that could be saved if the government would instruct the RCMP to install automated external defibrillators, also known as AEDs, in each cruiser.

I have been raising this issue since the Liberal government came to power in 2015, but the government unfortunately has taken no action. By my calculation, about 300 lives would be saved every year if AEDs were installed in Canada's 5,600 RCMP cruisers. Let me tell members how I have come to that calculation.

The purpose of an AED is to reduce fatalities from the kind of heart attack known as sudden cardiac arrest, a pathology that typically starts with what is known as pulseless ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation. An academic paper published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine makes the following remarkable assertion regarding this pathology: “Every patient with a witnessed ventricular fibrillation cardiac arrest should survive. If the patient does not survive, the goal is to determine why.”

In principle, AEDs, which are the devices used to counter this kind of cardiac issue, should save a lot of lives. How many? Well, ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation are the source of 85% of all sudden cardiac arrest deaths. Among this population, if each cardiac crisis were witnessed and responded to instantly by a first responder equipped with an AED, there would in principle be a perfect survival rate. In practice, the survival rate is going to be lower, but when the rate is at its highest, in controlled, highly monitored situations such as airports and casinos, it is impressive. At O'Hare airport in Chicago, for example, the save rate is 75%.

However, time is of the essence. According to the Heart and Stroke Foundation, for every minute the application of an AED is delayed, the chance of survival drops by about 7% to 10%. After 12 minutes, the survival rate is under 5%. This is why the public policy responsible, both here and in the U.S., is focused so intensely on speeding up response time when a victim or bystander contacts 911. This is why police vehicles are equipped with AEDs in places like Vancouver, Kingston, Laval, Fredericton, Medicine Hat and even Smiths Falls, in my riding.

There is an AED in the trunk of every one of the over 150 cruisers of the Ottawa Police Service. As long ago as 2012, this resulted in 22 interventions and nine successful saves of heart attack victims. In 2013, there were 23 interventions and eight lives were saved, and so on, in a long record of success right here in Ottawa. Ottawa's experience, which is typical, shows that on average, one life will be saved every year for every 17 AEDs installed in police cruisers. There is no better place to put an AED than in the trunk of a police car.

AEDs that are purchased in bulk cost a little over $1,000 each. Training costs are essentially zero, as RCMP personnel are already trained, and the cost of responding to 911 calls is not a factor, as the police already do this. We can multiply this success rate by the number of cruisers in the RCMP. If each one of the 5,600 RCMP cruisers carried an AED, it would result in 320 lives being saved every year. Since an AED remains operational for 10 years, we could save 3,000 lives over the next decade at a cost of $2,000 per life.

With these considerations in mind, why is it that the government has not, after seven years in power, arranged to have AEDs in every RCMP cruiser in the country?

[Public Safety, October 7th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, in June I asked the public safety minister about equipping RCMP cruisers with defibrillators, which would cost only $10 million and save 300 lives per year. He responded that the RCMP have “invested hundreds of millions” in life-saving equipment, which begs the question why the government does not take 10 million of those dollars and use them for the device that would, dollar for dollar, save the most lives, by a wide margin.

Here is the answer. Records shows that the last time a minister bothered to speak to the department about defibrillators was when Stephen Harper was the prime minister.

Will the Prime Minister finally place defibrillators in RCMP cruisers and save 300 lives a year?

[Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, October 7th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, many Afghans who bravely helped our military are still stranded in Afghanistan. One such case has been brought to my attention by a retired Canadian serviceman.

A former Afghan police colonel, whose courage and competence helped save Canadian lives, has been unable for months to get confirmation from Canadian authorities as to whether his application to come to Canada has been filled out properly. I cannot get confirmation either, despite asking repeatedly.

The colonel has to fill out Canadian immigration paperwork on a cellphone with limited Internet service while hiding from people who want to kill him. When he fills out an online form, Canada provides no confirmation that it has or has not been properly received. No amount of asking will convince Canadian bureaucrats to share this information, which could be passed back to the colonel, allowing him to complete the forms to our satisfaction, so he and his wife and children hide in a basement, more likely to be freed from their predicament by death than by a government that cannot be bothered to let him know what he has to do to meet our paperwork requirements.

[Automatic External Defibrillators, September 26th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, equipping each RCMP vehicle a decade ago with an automatic external defibrillator, or AED, would have cost under $10 million and would have saved roughly 3,000 lives over the 10-year life of the AED units, at a cost of $3,000 per life saved. However, this Liberal government has done nothing and those lives are gone forever.

I first raised this issue in the House in 2015 and again in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2020. Just before the pandemic, I met with the previous minister, and he agreed with me that AEDs should be a priority. In June of this year, I questioned the current minister, and he boasted to the House that he was spending hundreds of millions of dollars on what he called life-saving equipment for the RCMP, but in both cases there was no action.

Records confirm that the last time a minister even requested information from the RCMP or the department regarding AEDs for RCMP cruisers was in November 2014. Surely the time has come for less wheel spinning and more action.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, September 20th, 2022]

With regard to Correctional Service Canada’s (CSC) penitentiary farms and related CORCAN operations, related to the Joyceville and Collins Bay institutions: (a) what are the total amounts spent to build, repair, maintain, and operate all related infrastructure since January 1, 2016, broken down by (i) year, (ii) location, (iii) purpose, (iv) source of funding; (b) what are the total amounts spent to operate all related programming since January 1, 2016, broken down by (i) year, (ii) location, (iii) purpose, (iv) source of funding; (c) what are the total amounts spent to build, repair, maintain, and operate any infrastructure relating to goat dairy farming since January 1, 2016, broken down by (i) year, (ii) location, (iii) purpose, (iv) source of funding; (d) what are the total amounts spent to build, repair, maintain, and operate any infrastructure relating to cow dairy farming since January 1, 2016, broken down by (i) year, (ii) location, (iii) purpose, (iv) source of funding; (e) what are the total amounts spent to build, repair, maintain, and operate any infrastructure relating to animal slaughter since January 1, 2016, broken down by (i) year, (ii) location, (iii) purpose, (iv) source of funding; (f) what are the total amounts spent to operate all programming related to goat dairy farming since January 1, 2016, broken down by (i) year, (ii) location, (iii) purpose, (iv) source of funding; (g) what are the total amounts spent to operate all programming related to cow dairy farming since January 1, 2016, broken down by (i) year, (ii) location, (iii) purpose, (iv) source of funding; (h) what are the total amounts spent to operate all programming related to animal slaughter since January 1, 2016, broken down by (i) year, (ii) location, (iii) purpose, (iv) source of funding; (i) what are the projected total amounts to be spent on infrastructure and programming relating to goat dairy farming from fiscal year 2021-2022 through fiscal year 2025-26, broken down by (i) year, (ii) location, (iii) purpose, (iv) source of funding; (j) what are the projected total amounts to be spent on infrastructure and programming relating to cow dairy farming from fiscal year 2021-22 through fiscal year 2025-26, broken down by (i) year, (ii) location, (iii) purpose, (iv) source of funding; (k) what are the projected total amounts to be spent on infrastructure and programming relating to animal slaughter from fiscal year 2021-22 through fiscal year 2025-26, broken down by (i) year, (ii) location, (iii) purpose, (iv) source of funding; (l) what are the total revenues that have been generated by the programming and operations referred to in parts (b), (f), (g), and (h), since January 1, 2016, broken down by (i) year, (ii) location, (iii) purpose, (iv) source of funding; (m) what are the total revenues projected to be generated by the programming and operations referred to in parts (b), (f), (g), (h), (i), (j), and (k), from fiscal year 2021-22 through fiscal year 2025-26, broken down by (i) year, (ii) location, (iii) purpose, (iv) source of funding; (n) how many animals are presently at each institution, how many are allocated for what purpose, and how many are projected to be purchased or added through fiscal year 2025-26, broken down by (i) type of animal, (ii) purpose; (o) what measures are in place, and what measures are planned, at each location, to protect the well-being of the animals present, and to reduce the likelihood or possibility of animal abuse, neglect, or inhumane treatment; (p) what measures are in place, and what measures are planned to (i) monitor, (ii) interdict, (iii) reduce, (iv) eliminate the smuggling of contraband into or out of the institutions, as those measures relate to the penitentiary farms, the abattoir, and related CORCAN operations, by location; (q) do any agreements, contracts, memorandums of understanding or analogous arrangements exist between CSC or CORCAN and (i) Feihe International Inc., (ii) Canada Royal Milk, (iii) Mariposa Dairy, (iv) Gay Lea Foods Co-operative Limited, (v) any subsidiary thereof, (vi) any other external entity, respecting the sale, purchase, transfer, or use of goat milk or cow milk and, if so, what is the nature and summary of the terms of each arrangement; (r) for each penitentiary farm operation, whether referred to in parts (f), (g), and (h) or of some other agricultural nature, how much of the product is (i) kept and used inside CSC institutions, (ii) sold to external entities, (iii) transferred on a non-commercial basis to external entities, (iv) disposed of without use; (s) what is the present monthly capacity of each operation referred to in parts (f), (g), and (h), is the present monthly capacity for each operation substantially similar to the maximum planned capacity and, if not, when is the maximum planned capacity projected to be reached for each operation; (t) what is the number of inmates who are now or were previously employed in each operation referred to in parts (f), (g), and (h), broken down by (i) year, (ii) location, (iii) job or function; (u) what is the number of inmates who are projected to be employed in each operation referred to in parts (i), (j), and (k), broken down by (i) year, (ii) location, (iii) job or function; (v) how many correctional personnel are presently required, for a normal 24 hour period, to supervise each operation referred to in parts (f), (g), and (h), by location; (w) how many individuals, who are neither inmates nor correctional personnel, are presently employed, for a normal 24 hour period, in each operation referred to in parts (f), (g), and (h), by (i) location, (ii) job or function; (x) what specific measures are in place, or planned, to monitor and assess the effect of employment in CORCAN operations related to the penitentiary farms on inmates’ post-release employment and recidivism rates; (y) what specific biosecurity measures are in place, or planned, to reduce the risk of disease outbreaks or negative health effects related to the penitentiary farms on inmates, correctional personnel, animals, and nearby residents; (z) what measures are in place to monitor and ensure that CORCAN operations related to the penitentiary farms are persistently in compliance with international and statutory obligations relating to inmate labour and inmate-produced goods and products; (aa) has CSC produced projections of the costs, excluding lost revenue, relating to ceasing each operation referred to in parts (f), (g), and (h), respectively and, if so, what are the details of those projections?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, September 20th, 2022]

With regard to the Universal Broadband Fund and other funds relating to the government's various commitments since October 2015 to provide broadband and high-speed Internet services to rural and underserved communities: (a) how many applications for funding have been received for projects located in whole or in part in Lanark County or Frontenac County, Ontario; (b) of those applications in (a), how many have been approved, and when was each approved; (c) what is the total dollar amount distributed to projects located in whole or in part in Lanark County or Frontenac County, Ontario; (d) what are the details of each approved project referred to in (b), including the (i) recipient, (ii) amount, (iii) location, (iv) project description or summary.