Scott Reid

[Species at Risk Act, February 18th, 2002]

moved:

Motion No. 111

That Bill C-5, in Clause 64, be amended by replacing line 36 on page 36 with the following:

“sion of compensation, including rules for the recovery of reasonable legal and other costs arising as a result of the compensation claim.”

[Species at Risk Act, February 18th, 2002]

moved:

Motion No. 103

That Bill C-5, in Clause 64, be amended by replacing lines 13 to 15 on page 36 with the following:

“64.(1) The Minister shall, in accordance with the regulations, provide full, just and timely compensation to any person for losses”

[Health, February 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to draw attention to a very serious environmental and health issue.

Health Canada has still not issued the report that it started 10 years ago on the dangers of wood that has been treated with chromated copper arsenate, CCA. Arsenic and chromium are listed as toxic substances under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, yet CCA pressure treated wood continues to be used throughout Canada for building purposes. CCA is proven to leach from the pressure treated wood and can cause serious or debilitating illness yet this toxic wood continues to be used for our homes, decks and children's playgrounds. Other forms of pressure treatment that do not involve chromium or arsenic are now available.

CCA has been banned or restricted by six countries. It is time that Canada also addresses this issue and gives serious consideration to ending the use of CCA treated wood for any purpose through which it can contaminate environments in which Canadians live, work or play.

[Petitions, February 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition signed by over 500 people from my riding of Lanark--Carleton and elsewhere in Ontario and Quebec.

Arsenic and chromium are listed as toxic substances under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act yet chromated copper arsenate in pressure treated wood continues to be used in decks and children's playgrounds. It is proven to leach from the wood and is a serious health hazard.

The petition calls for parliament to immediately ban chromated copper arsenate from pressure treated wood products.

I pay special tribute to my constituent, Deborah Elaine Barrie, for all her hard work in raising awareness of the petition.

[Government Spending, December 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, today there are reports that the Liberal caucus is demanding a brand new slush fund and that some leadership hopefuls, notably the Minister of Industry and the Minister of Canadian Heritage, are backing the plan as a way of winning supporters from among the backbenches.

Under the proposed plan each MP would be given, according to reports in the Globe and Mail , “$100,000 to hand out at their whim to various groups in their riding”.

Some Liberal MPs are defending the plan by saying they can bring responsiveness to government spending, but this sounds suspiciously like an attempt to broaden to the constituency level the Liberal practice of taxing everybody and then using the money to swing key voters.

Our economy is going into recession and Canadians need respite from the endless cycle of tax and spend. The Liberal response of pouring hard earned money into what the Globe and Mail characterizes as slush funds is exactly the wrong answer.

[Income Tax Act, December 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary was reading from prepared notes. This is unfortunate because he wound up answering a question I did not ask.

I asked him a question specifically in regard to a point the auditor general had raised. She said Citizenship and Immigration Canada had failed to provide information about the removal of failed refugee claimants, not about the process for admitting people to the country in the first place.

There were serious inaccuracies in the parliamentary secretary's commentary. First, he said Canada is a model admired by the rest of the world. That is not so. I used to live in Australia. I was an immigrant in Australia. They laugh at our system as well they should.

Second, with regard to implementing and following through on laws, the auditor general says we have failed to follow through on the provisions of existing laws. When the government does not follow through on existing laws how can we trust it when it says it will implement new laws? The problem is the government's failure to implement and act on existing laws.

[Income Tax Act, December 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, my question this evening arises from a question I raised in the House on September 21 regarding the issue of a gentleman named Mr. Nabil Al-Marabh, who had been arrested on stabbing charges in Boston, had attempted to illegally enter the United States from Canada, had illegally re-entered Canada and was finally found to be carrying a forged passport, a forged citizenship card and a forged social insurance number and who may have been connected with terrorist organizations.

In raising this question, I was informed by the minister, who responded:

It is wrong to equate all failed refugee claimants with terrorism. That is clearly wrong.

We could all have figured that one out. She then went on to say:

We do not detain people on mere whispers. We do not detain on suspicion

In light of Bill C-36, that seems a bit ironic. Of course, the government can now detain without either whisper or suspicion, and moreover has the ability to arrest people who have the misfortune to simply have the same name as someone who is suspected of terrorism. They can find their assets seized, taken away permanently and find no compensation, even if they were completely innocent. That of course just puts the lie to everything she said.

The problem we face with Mr. Al-Marabh is that he is part of an enormous problem in which we do not have control of our borders. Having failed to assert control of our borders for a number of years, we now find a situation in which we are flooded with a large number of refugee claimants, many of whom are bogus and a small number of whom may potentially be terrorists.

If I can refer to reports of October 30, 2001, it was reported that confidential immigration documents stated that the number of foreigners claiming refugee status in Canada was expected to reach 41,250 by the end of this year. That represented a 37% increase over last year and was the biggest 12 month leap ever. That is the kind of problem we face.

I note that in the face of this the government has no adequate response. I would like to quote from the auditor general's report to make this point. The auditor general writes:

In our 1997 chapter, we concluded that a thorough review of the refugee determination process was needed. The process did not quickly grant Canada's protection to claimants who genuinely needed it, and it did not discourage those who did not need or deserve Canada's protection from claiming refugee status.

The report, which came out a few days ago, further states:

Citizenship and Immigration Canada could not provide information on removals of failed refugee claimants from the country that would indicate whether (the department's) processes were more effective.

More effective meaning more effective than they had been four years ago.

My question for the minister is simply this. Is the minister prepared today in the House to provide the information the auditor general has been seeking with regard to the effectiveness of determining whether or not people are genuine refugees, deserving of our protection, or not?

[Anti-terrorism Act, November 27th, 2001]

moved:

Motion No. 13

That Bill C-36 be amended by adding after line 28 on page 183 the following new clause:

“147. Sections 6, 6.1, 7, 8 and 81 of this Act, and section 38.13 of the Canada Evidence Act as enacted by this Act cease to apply at the end of the fifteenth sitting day of Parliament after December 31, 2006, notwithstanding section 146.”

[Anti-terrorism Act, November 27th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the government knows that the bill will pass anyway. It knows that as long as it can keep its backbenchers in line it has the numbers to push the bill through. Yet it moved time allocation after it heard members on its own backbenches starting to raise concerns like they will be voting with heavy hearts and a great deal of skepticism; the bill has an immense power for abuse and the bill is a deal with the devil.

I had the extraordinary experience recently of actually being lobbied by a Liberal backbencher who was concerned about the bill and said that we had to carry on the fight. Is the real purpose of time allocation in this debate not just to shut down the opposition, the usual Liberal tactic? Is it not really about shutting down Liberal backbenchers?

[Anti-terrorism Act, November 26th, 2001]

moved:

Motion No. 6

That Bill C-36, in Clause 29, be amended by adding after line 18 on page 62 the following:

“In no case shall a person be bound to secrecy for a period exceeding fifteen years, unless otherwise indicated by the deputy head.”

Mr. Speaker, the amendment would alter the definition of persons permanently bound to secrecy in the act. In Bill C-36 which is currently returning to the House from committee the definition of persons permanently bound to secrecy is long but includes a whole series of people. The definition is automatic. The binding to secrecy is automatic for anyone in those categories.

The purpose of the amendment is to allow the discretion to be reversed. A person would be bound to secrecy permanently if designated by the deputy head of the relevant department but not otherwise. The point of this is to deal with the almost obsessive secrecy that permeates this piece of legislation.

The dangers writ large in the attitude the government has taken toward secrecy in Bill C-36 were summarized by the remarks in the House of the member for Ancaster--Dundas--Flamborough--Aldershot. He said:

Section 87 enables the government to withhold information pertaining to security issues forever...That is the excuse that has been used by dictatorships throughout history and around the world.

That is the danger writ large. The danger writ small, if one likes, in relation to the clause was summarized most eloquently by Edward Greenspon in an article published in the November 17 edition of the Globe and Mail . I will read quite an extensive quote from the article to illustrate exactly what the concern is. He wrote:

Commentators have been rightly critical of the provisions giving the minister an unfettered blanket exception from the Access to Information Act. Ms. McLellan has indicated a willingness to amend her bill to include a Federal Court review, but that represents too drawn out a process to serve as an effective instrument of oversight.

Then there are the little noted sections of her bill that replace the old Official Secrets Act with the new Security of Information Act. The changeover unduly constrains the release of information by whistle blowers, and permits the Orwellian designation of certain government officials as “persons permanently bound by secrecy.” That means they must take their secrets to the grave.

He continues:

Ms. McLellan should take note of a comment made by University of Toronto security expert Wesley Wark at a recent symposium on her bill. “In the war on terrorism, the public will need to be told more rather than less about the actions and capabilities of Canadian security and intelligence institutions.”

There are of course good reasons some people should be bound to secrecy for an extensive period of time, say for 15 years as I propose in the amendment. There are certain cases in which a permanent lifelong ban on release of information may be appropriate. However those instances ought to be the exception and be granted on a case by case basis rather than being automatic.

Automatic secrecy provides a convenient veil behind which any number of restrictions can be hidden. When facts are hidden behind a veil there is a temptation to extend secrecy to things that have nothing to do with terrorism or national security. This would essentially gut the entire openness in government movement that has slowly built up strength over the past 20 years. It would be a real shame to see that destroyed. This is what the amendment hopes to prevent.

The amendment I have proposed would change the way deputy heads of security agencies such as CSIS, the RCMP or the Communications Security Establishment may designate employees by limiting secrecy to 15 years except when the deputy head specifically makes a change to the contrary. This would curb the absolute muzzling powers that are placed on the whistle blowing capacities of employees to expose gross excess, corruption or other misuses of power.

The 15 year limit was chosen for two reasons. First, it is consistent with the time limit on ministerial secrecy certificates. I have reservations about ministerial secrecy certificates. However the government saw fit to use 15 years so in the spirit of consistency and logic I am proposing 15 years.

Second, 15 years is the length of time after which most security information would be obsolete anyway. There are possible exceptions but most security information would be rendered obsolete.

There are exceptions. Let us imagine going back in time to the forties where one might have wanted to make exemptions of longer than 15 years for nuclear secrets. Those kinds of exemptions can be built in on a case by case basis by the people who know best. Let us give them the authority to go that way but let us not give them a blanket exemption.

The time allocation that has been put in place may make it difficult to address other aspects of the bill later. I have an amendment coming up with regard to a sunset clause. I will address the issue now because I might not have a chance to do so later.

I was an early advocate of a sunset clause. The government resisted initially. I think this was based largely on the fact that the Prime Minister had offered an ad lib comment off the cuff in Shanghai and did not want anyone to show him up. Whatever the reason, the government has been reticent about putting sunset clauses in place. That is a grave error. The partial sunset clause it put in place is inadequate.

There are aspects of the bill that are good. The sunset clause on preventive arrest that would permit ongoing investigations to be grandfathered or exempted from the sunset clause is a good idea. Where the government has put in the sunset clause it is a welcome change. However the sunset clause should be extended not to the UN conventions we are entrenching but to other aspects of the bill that would greatly reduce the traditional civil liberties of Canadians.

We need to confront an interesting question. We were talking about a three year review of the bill that would take place between now and the next election. Why are we are now talking about a five year sunset clause? I fail to see why three years made sense when the bill was introduced but now five years is appropriate, unless the review was something that could be swept under the rug as prior reviews have been.

There is a long history of reviews that have been dealt with so expeditiously that members of the committees meant to be reviewing were unaware of them. The review of the Referendum Act that supposedly took place in 1995 was so brief that members of the committee were unaware of it.

I was on the committee and I asked the chief electoral officer about the review. He said it came up as an item of business with no advance notice or discussion. It was meaningless.

As long as that was the case the government was willing to have a three year review. Now that we are talking about something genuine, a real limitation on the government and a real review which would involve any embarrassing oversteps brought to the public's view, the government wants it to be after the next election.

Members of the House ought not vote in favour of suspending civil liberties until such time as it is electorally convenient for the Prime Minister to reintroduce those civil liberties. It is a shame. It is a strong reason to vote against the bill as a whole but certainly to vote in favour of any amendment that would extend the sunset clause.