Scott Simms

[Business of Supply, September 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleagues on this side of the House from the New Democratic Party bringing this forward for debate, because so far I am finding some very good themes put forward. I am certainly finding some good ways of addressing poverty. This is one of the elements that does that.

When we consider that minimum wage is an issue, primarily of provincial jurisdictions, there are two things that play here. I just want to talk about some of the elements of poverty reduction, income inequalities and what we can do to reduce that income inequality gap.

Some of the illustrations that have been put forward today talk about a wage that helps grow the middle class in such a way that it is good for the economy, social services and communities. It provides for local infrastructure, not just roads and bridges but recreation infrastructure as well, which is essential for any community, small or large. As my hon. colleague from Trinity—Spadina pointed out, there is a staggering number of poor children in his riding.

When we address federal minimum wage, we look at a small part of the population, but the narrative is one that is sound, which is to provide people who do good work in our country a livable wage, so they can provide for their families. Let us also tie in other elements to this. Let us look at better benefits. Let us look at social programs, such as child care. Let us look at other programs that we debate about and work toward in this place.

I will not zero in on the fact that there is a minuscule number of people affected here. For these people, it means the world. Let us expand this further as a step toward a better social progressive policy from which the country could benefit. We go back to the 60s and talk about the formation of the Canada pension plan and old age security. All these debates took place as a small step toward what we have right now. This is how we do it. We look at how we can illustrate the people affected by a minimum wage. We have people who require a minimum wage to live.

Nowadays prices are astronomical in many sectors of our economy. Let me just take one of those. That is energy. Right now in my riding, the average age is above 50. A lot of the families are above 50 or 60, and in some case above 70s. They own their own two-storey homes. For one couple, both 70 years old, it costs $1,400 per month to heat their home. That is an absolutely staggering figure. The fact that they have already paid the mortgage on that home allows them live in that house. Otherwise, it would not be affordable at all. Once food prices go up, then there will be real trouble.

Let us go from what they are going through to a younger couple in the same situation, with higher heat costs and higher prices for food. They need that base degree of social sincerity that we can only create here in policy that would allow them to make a good living. What we have is a situation where a minimum wage is one of those policies, in addition to other social measures like medicare and child care.

However, let us be careful, because one of the things we have been saying here is that we would love to have the minimum wage doubled in certain cases. In Newfoundland and Labrador it is $10 per hour. Twenty dollars an hour would be great, but here is the problem with that. I know people who run small businesses in Newfoundland and Labrador. I met a man just a while ago. I went to his convenience store and I asked him how he felt about the new minimum wage rules. He said that if the minimum wage were to go up any more he would not be able to hire a second person. He would pretty much have to work 16 hours a day. Therefore, let us look at both sides of this situation very closely and be very careful, because a small business person who pays that wage also has to make a living to contribute to that community.

Let us look at this particular policy and how we can grow the middle class and allow all of society to benefit from this. Many years ago we transferred this to the provinces. I understand what the other side is saying. Even though they are opposing this measure, they are only talking about provincial jurisdiction.

If we look at this particular wage, a study states that only 416 people earn the minimum wage of the province in which they work, so that is who would be affected by this. As I said earlier, that is a minuscule number of people, but the measure is one step toward what we feel is a greater society. We can improve our services and then we can get to other things such as child care, which I mentioned earlier.

The minimum wage rates across the provinces range, but the range is not really that great. It goes from $10 an hour in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador and Northwest Territories to a high of $11 per hour in Nunavut and Ontario, $10.72 in the Yukon and $10.70 in Manitoba. So that gives us the idea. We have a $1 variance, so across the country our provincial minimum wage structure is pretty much even across the board.

We have to strike the balance between what is acceptable to small business and what is an affordable wage. If I would come down on one side or the other, yes, I want an affordable wage. That was why the fight back in Newfoundland and Labrador, on the provincial side, was a long fight, but we went from just over $8 per hour up to about $10, which really people thought was a huge, significant increase at the time, but it really was not because there are a couple of things at play.

Let us factor in the costs of medicines. Let us factor in the costs of medical care that has to be paid for. If one person in a couple becomes sick with cancer, that person has to travel—at least where I come from, in a rural area—long distances to receive the treatment they need. That costs money. A lot of that is not covered under our current medicare regime. Therefore, the cost of living goes up that much. The $10 per hour that people were pleased to receive when it happened now becomes less significant. The vast majority of people receiving that minimum wage do not receive the right amount of benefits to subsidize the medical care that they so need. That is the other aspect of this.

I hope we will support this today as a step toward developing better progressive policies that we can present to the people. I am not using this as some 2015 election ploy. I am talking about the fact that we can come up with private members' bills, motions in the House and opposition day motions like we have today, and we can use this to present to the people and say as a Parliament of all parties that we have so much further to go when it comes to progressive policies. We can talk about the past all we want, but that is not really the right bridge to build upon in order to get better wages, in order to get better benefits for the most vulnerable in our society.

I appreciate the fact that some people oppose this and some people support it, but let us come up with decent arguments as to why or why not. When we look at some of the studies that have been done, we see that some of the prices out there now for some of the basic goods of individuals are really something. If we look at the size of a family in rural areas, we see that on this chart the before-tax 2011 level of a one-person family is $16,038 per year. As my hon. colleague from Trinity—Spadina pointed out, this minimum wage gives around $30,000 a year. Let us assume for a moment that they do not get the benefits of someone who is making twice that. Let us talk about a decent package of benefits for not just an individual but also a spouse or partner and children.

This is essentially the topic that is not addressed here, but it is something that we have to keep in play when it comes to this and when it comes to pensions, because I believe a higher wage is the first step toward a progressive policy for the impoverished. It is something that is woven within the fabric of everything we talk about that is to enable people. To me this is not an economic issue; it is an issue of basic living in this country for those who are most vulnerable, especially the people my colleague from Trinity—Spadina spoke about and those in my rural riding as well. I thank him for that.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, September 15th, 2014]

With regard to all aspects of the seal industry: what are the file numbers of all ministerial briefings, departmental correspondence or other government records since 2006, broken down by (i) minister or department, (ii) relevant file number, (iii) correspondence or file type, (iv) date, (v) purpose, (vi) origin, (vii) intended destination, (viii) other officials copied or involved, (ix) country or regions involved?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, September 15th, 2014]

With regard to construction-related tenders, requests for proposals, contracts, and related activities on all military bases, assets, and facilities related to 9 Wing Gander since 2006: what are the file numbers of all ministerial briefings or departmental correspondence between the government and all entities, departments, companies, contractors, or individuals, broken down by (i) minister or department, (ii) relevant file number, (iii) correspondence or file type, (iv) date, (v) purpose, (vi) origin, (vii) intended destination, (viii) other officials copied or involved, (ix) military base, asset, or facility, (x) type of activity or contract?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, September 15th, 2014]

With regard to correspondence with federally registered political parties, what are the file numbers of all ministerial briefings or departmental correspondence between the government and any registered political party since January 23, 2006, broken down by (i) minister or department, (ii) relevant file number, (iii) correspondence or file type, (iv) date, (v) purpose, (vi) origin, (vii) intended destination, (viii) other officials copied or involved?

[Questions on the Order Paper, September 15th, 2014]

With regard to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, what are the file numbers of all ministerial briefings or departmental correspondence between the government and the Public Prosecution Service of Canada since the department’s creation, broken down by (i) minister or department, (ii) relevant file number, (iii) correspondence or file type, (iv) date, (v) purpose, (vi) origin, (vii) intended destination, (viii) other officials copied or involved?

[Drug-Free Prisons Act, June 17th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to thank my colleagues for the sudden interest in what I was talking about. It is very kind of them.

I want to talk about the member's question, which pertains to the war on drugs. There is a way to do it and a dumb way to do it, which is to ignore the treatment part of it and just go after the traffickers and the people who buy the drugs. Yes, the penalties have to be stiff to act as a deterrent, and there is nothing wrong with that, but the treatment part of it is completely ignored.

The member brought up Bill C-2 earlier. Evidence proves that what happens at an injection site actually works. It is improving the situation. It is not perfect, but it certainly is working. The reduction of 35% in drug abuse in that area shows that treatment for harm reduction has positive effects, yet it seems we overlook this because we want to go after that headline to be tough on crime, which is unfortunate.

[Drug-Free Prisons Act, June 17th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, we could probably spend a whole day discussing the problems with that penitentiary, a provincial one, lacking a federal one in Newfoundland and Labrador, which in itself is a contentious issue that I will not get into it.

We missed that golden opportunity to talk about how this would be dealt with over the next little while. We find ourselves in a situation where we have had a fairly good debate here. We have talked about how the statistics show a proliferation of drugs in the prison system across the country and how we can curtail that.

I only cited one report, which was the correctional report. It states that the idea of treatment has been sorely overlooked, to the point where we all need to get on board. This is just in this legislature. Imagine the evidence that could be brought forward if we had public hearings based upon the amount of drugs in the system and profiled the people currently in prison who are addicted.

It is one thing to talk about the entrance of illicit drugs into the system but, again, they are there because the demand remains fairly high.

We can punish them and give them an extra add-on to their sentence, but that will not stop this. What will stop this is the right treatment, which is happening in jurisdictions such as in the southern United States.

[Drug-Free Prisons Act, June 17th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am always reticent to diminish the intellectual capacity of others but, nonetheless, this gives me a golden opportunity do just that.

What the Conservatives are doing, in the case of much of the legislation they put forward, is, instead of chasing the solution, they are chasing a headline. Whenever it comes to legislation, instead of starting a conversation, the sole attempt is to start an argument. That is unfortunate because they see the end in sight without testing the way to get there, in other words, to find the people who are experts.

That is another component I did not mention enough in my speech. I am glad the member for Guelph was smart enough to realize I needed to make that point.

The point is that the evidence is there and the government chooses to ignore it because there is so much evidence compiled that is not contained within legislation. Time and time again, evidence-based solutions within legislation have suffered greatly over the past little while.

There is nothing wrong with reading the data that is put in front of us. There is nothing wrong with interpreting it. We pay millions of dollars for people to interpret the data that we receive in order to make this into decent legislation, yet the government chooses not to do that in many cases.

[Drug-Free Prisons Act, June 17th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, not just the hon. member's party, but I think many parties in this country would agree. I would not single out any party, but the ideology is such that we have to have both coming together, there is no doubt, but I think what we are doing here is living up to a standard that has been set in many jurisdictions.

As a matter of fact, in her question she talked about the treatment facilities and how we need to do this and need to go hand in hand with all these institutions. Of several jurisdictions in the United States that pursued tougher penalties, many of them would now agree that tougher penalties were one thing, but because they put less importance on the treatment, it did not serve in their favour.

Many of the most right-wing ideologues even agree with that as well. I do not mean that as a disparaging remark against my colleagues across the way; I meant other right-wing ideologues.

The point is that the evidence is clearly there among all the practitioners. People who deal with prisoners on a daily basis and deal with drug addictions agree on what she pointed out about the treatment that needs to take place, not only on the outside but on the inside of these institutions and before they even get to prisons, because they are a high number. There are 15,000 inmates, and 10,000 of them, according to a report here, may have been exposed to that type of drug use.

[Drug-Free Prisons Act, June 17th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for the resounding applause and the very warm welcome. That was very kind of them. As the cow said to the farmer every morning, “Thanks for the warm hand.”

I want to speak to Bill C-12, and I want to talk about this in the context brought up earlier by my colleague from St. John's South—Mount Pearl and talk about drugs in prisons.

The structure of the drug-free prisons act dictates that this is, as the expression goes, on target but wide of the mark. It is on target in the sense that it could potentially clean up a situation we have when it comes to people getting out of the system. However, when it comes to freeing the prisons of drugs, it is wide of the mark.

I believe that in this case, and on this particular bill, it is a little too narrow in scope to deal with a much broader issue, which is drugs in prisons, and not just federal prisons but provincial ones as well. The proliferation of drugs in prisons still exists, as studies have shown.

This particular bill, as I mentioned, is fairly narrow. I want to speak to the contents of the bill, but first I want to say that with a title such as this, it is a little disappointing that we did not have broader consultation and the broader discussion that would have followed if we had started talking about illicit drugs penetrating our prison system across this country, in particular in the federal prisons.

The summary of Bill C-12 states:

This enactment amends the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to require the Parole Board of Canada (or a provincial parole board, if applicable) to cancel parole granted to an offender if, before the offender’s release, the offender tests positive in a urinalysis, or fails or refuses to provide a urine sample, and the Board considers that the criteria for granting parole are no longer met. It also amends that Act to clarify that any conditions set by a releasing authority on an offender’s parole, statutory release or unescorted temporary absence may include conditions regarding the offender’s use of drugs or alcohol, including in cases when that use has been identified as a risk factor in the offender’s criminal behaviour. It is about transitioning from within prison to outside and checking to see if that person is abusing particular drugs when in the system.

The title of the bill, as I mentioned earlier, is the unfortunate part, because we could have had the opportunity to partake in a much broader discussion to hopefully achieve some grander solutions brought forward by people who have been involved in the prison system: former prisoners, counsellors, therapists, prison guards of course, wardens, and officials with Correctional Service of Canada. The title of the bill focuses very prescriptively on one part and one area, which I will talk about through the clauses in just a few moments.

In his 2011-12 annual report, the Correctional Investigator made the following observation with respect to the prevalence of drugs within our federal prisons. Here is what he had to say:

A "zerotolerance" stance to drugs in prison, while perhaps serving as an effective deterrent posted at the entry point of a penitentiary, simply does not accord with the facts of crime and addiction in Canada or elsewhere in the world.

Bill C-12 targets individual offenders by imposing requirements for the provision of urinalysis tests subsequent to having obtained parole, statutory release, or unescorted temporary absences. The legislation does not make any reference to or address the problem of offenders with drug and alcohol addiction problems or in any manner address the access to and prevalence of drugs within the federal institutions, which I mentioned earlier.

Currently under the act, where staff or authorities have grounds to suspect a violation by an offender with respect to drug use on parole, work release, temporary absence, or statutory release, they can order a urinalysis test. These tests are conducted to ensure that the conditions upon which release was granted are respected and adhered to.

Within institutions such tests can be ordered on a random and collective basis, unless individuals are, again, suspected on reasonable grounds of the use of illegal substances.

Bill C-12 does little to contribute to what the Office of the Correctional Investigator called for in his most recent annual report. He said, “I note that a comprehensive and integrated drug strategy should include a balance of measures—prevention, treatment, harm reduction and interdiction.”

There we find the crux of the issue, the harm reduction that we talked about in the last debate regarding injection sites. We go back to this aspect again because harm reduction is a policy that we should adhere to simply for that reason: the health of individuals who find themselves addicted to drugs and who in many cases are unable to find the help to wean themselves from a particular abuse.

The prison system does not address this issue through legislation. It addresses it through several reports, but it turns out that we are not addressing it correctly through legislation, which is the outcome we would like to achieve.

Bill C-12 has taken an exclusively punitive course of action, targeting individuals and offenders who have been granted parole and those who have been granted statutory release or unescorted temporary absences. They are transitioning out from the prison. The tests take place, and if the results are positive, then of course we have an issue.

The requirement is that prior to release, the offender who has been approved for release, in the case of parole, must provide that urine sample. There is nothing in the legislation related to what appears to be the wider systemic problem. We have problems across many provinces in many of these prisons, as demonstrated by some of the examples cited earlier by my colleague from St. John's South—Mount Pearl regarding the prison in St. John's.

Bill C-12 is a measure that at best can be said to address the symptoms of a serious correctional service problem without contributing anything of substance to resolving that problem, the overall problem that I talked about. We may be in agreement as to the specific transition of a person who has been released from prison, let us say in the case of parole. The testing involved in that is certainly worth discussing, which is why I personally would favour sending this bill to committee to find out about that. However, to call this part of a larger discussion about drugs in prison is really deceiving, because we are not addressing how to clean up prisons and get people off drugs through measures such as treatment or harm reduction in addition to these greater policing efforts.

The legislation will target those who have been granted parole or statutory release. According to the 2011-12 annual report, the Correctional Investigator says that almost two-thirds of the current prison population of approximately 15,000 federal offenders, meaning an estimated 10,000 offenders, were under the influence of alcohol or other intoxicants when they committed the offence that led to their incarceration. That is from the very beginning of committing the crime, so we can see that for many of these offenders, the base of the problem started before entering prison.

What is more disturbing is that a very high percentage of the offender population that abuses drugs is also concurrently struggling with mental illness. That is another factor for people seeking treatment that we have to address within our prison system. Again I return to the term “harm reduction”, a term that we pay less attention to these days. Again I refer to the model of harm reduction from 2003, the safe injection site in Vancouver that was mentioned in a prior debate.

The issue of drug prevalence and use within federal institutions is a complex problem. The Correctional Investigator has acknowledged that “the problem of intoxicants and contraband substances in prison is difficult to measure and monitor.” That too deserves a conversation. It deserves debate and witness testimony. Probably only the tangents and margins would be addressed in witness testimony, but this aspect really requires a broader conversation. Unfortunately, the bill is far too restrictive and prescriptive in what it wants to do.

In August 2008, the Minister of Public Safety announced a five-year, $120-million investment in Correctional Service of Canada's anti-drug strategy. The investment contained the following four components: expansion of drug-detector dog teams, hiring of new security intelligence officers, new detection equipment, and more stringent search standards. The results of these measures, according to the Correctional Investigator, appear mixed and somewhat distorted.

For example, while there has been an increase in the amount of drugs seized, the scope of the problem is difficult to determine. With respect to the results of the random urine tests administered, there has been, on the basis of these results, a decline within institutions. However, it goes on to say that:

after correcting for the removal of prescription drugs, the rate of positive random urinalysis has remained relatively unchanged over the past decade despite increased interdiction efforts.

Don Head, Commissioner of Correctional Service of Canada, confirmed this conclusion in testimony before the public safety committee in December 1, 2011.

Correctional Service of Canada's current anti-drug strategy, according to the Correctional Investigator, lacks three key elements.

First is an integrated link between interdiction and prevention, treatment, and harm reduction. Second is a comprehensive public reporting mechanism. Third is a well-defined evaluation, review, and performance plan to measure the effectiveness of these investments to be made, ways to curtail to drug use within prisons. Technology plays a large role in that, but what needs to play a much larger role, of course, would be the aspect of prevention, treatment, and harm reduction.

What might have been of value prior to Bill C-12 is that these elements would have been addressed by CSC to determine the efficacy of the programs currently in place and on which Bill C-12 is trying to build. Again, it only builds on a very small part of some of the recommendations that were put forward in many reports.

Given the reality of the prison population with respect to a history of substance abuse prior to entering correction facilities, the scale of which is massive, according to the Commissioner of Corrections, and given the fact that the CSC's substance abuse programming has been declining, the reality is that many of those eligible for parole, temporary release, or statutory release may well be ill-equipped to achieve a substance-free test result, the result being little or no treatment and a definite longer period of incarceration.

Without treatment and harm reduction, this could present a problem when it comes to the administration of Bill C-12 and what Bill C-12 hopes to do. This is something to discuss in committee, and I certainly look forward to that.

With respect to the provisions of the bill, and these are the specific provisions of the bill, let us take a look at clause 2. It is a new provision, restriction requiring the provision of a urinalysis, which would be imposed prior to release but after an offender has been granted parole.

Even though the PBC has satisfied itself that an offender meets all the criteria it has imposed and required, the offender would have to meet an additional requirement outside the normal parole process.

Also, the stipulation would affect all those seeking parole regardless of any cause. No offender being granted parole need be informed of any justification, nor can any offender granted parole refuse.

It appears cynical, true, but by imposing this requirement after parole has been granted, the government appears to have changed sections 56 and 57 of the act, which require officials to provide to the offender the basis upon which that demand for a test is based.

Interestingly, less than 23% of full paroles sought are granted. Corrections and Conditional Release Statistical Overview 2012 cites that as a statistic. Again, that is 23% of full paroles sought are granted.

Clause 3 would amend section 124. It is a new paragraph after 124(3). If the PBC is informed on matters contained in Clause 2 with respect to a positive urine test or refusal of the offender to provide a urine sample, the board is empowered to refuse to grant parole on that basis.

Not only is it the positive test, but it is also the right to refuse that test.

Clause 4 would amend subsection 133(3) of the act, which currently states:

The releasing authority may impose any conditions on the parole, statutory release or unescorted temporary absence of an offender that it considers reasonable and necessary in order to protect society and to facilitate the successful reintegration into society of the offender.

The subsection would be amended to the following:

The releasing authority may impose any conditions on the parole, statutory release or unescorted temporary absence of an offender that it considers reasonable and necessary in order to protect society and to facilitate the offender’s successful reintegration into society. For greater certainty, the conditions may include any condition regarding the offender’s use of drugs or alcohol, including in cases when that use has been identified as a risk factor in the offender’s criminal behaviour.

It would appear on a literal reading that the addition contained in clause 4 is redundant to the existing section. It would add rhetorical flourish to the powers already granted to releasing authorities to any condition deemed necessary. There seems to be redundancy here in this bill, which is one of the other things that we need to discuss.

We have seen this on many occasions in bills in the past, where the government is out there and in an attempt to look and act tough on crime, it puts forward penalty measures from the authorities in legislation that really already existed. It is trying to impose what is seemingly a new way of getting tough on crime but, in fact, already existed in many cases.

Clause 5 would amend subsection 156(1) of the act by adding to the existing section, mandating that the Governor in Council or cabinet make regulations applicable to this part requiring regulations, including:

...defining terms that are to be defined in the regulations for the purposes of this Part...

Let us talk about the key stakeholders. The Office of the Correctional Investigator has been highly skeptical about this kind of initiative, which would rest on punitive initiatives without setting those efforts within the context of increased treatment efforts.

If there is one thing that I would like to bring up in this debate, and I know that it has been brought up before, it is the issue of treatment and harm reduction within an environment where the proliferation of drugs is rampant. Yes, we agree that there should be technical measures and technological aspects of looking at prisons and guarding them so that the entrance of drugs into these institutions is cut down. There is no doubt about that.

However, let us be honest with ourselves. There is a reason why they are going in. That is because of the addictions of the inmates. People who are addicted are in there for the wrong reasons. They are in there for committing crimes, and they continue to commit crimes in this case. At the same time, every element of crime requires a treatment and requires harm reduction when necessary in order to curb that type of behaviour in the future.

This is not a way of saying, in many cases, that we want to go easy on criminals. We do not want that. However, if we want to solve the problem of the crime itself, we have to address the whole issue and not just a part of it. If we want to pretend to be tough on crime and only that, then we are missing the point. The point is that people who are victims of crime do need treatment and justice. The people who commit these crimes do need to be punished but, at the same time, treatment must be available to curb this behaviour in the future.

All modern democracies, and any democracy that puts itself centre stage of the right things to do in justice and justice legislation, will tell us that it must go hand in hand with treatment and harm reduction. What this bill would not do is address that in a more holistic way. That is what I would call, as other people have called it, an opportunity missed.

At the same time, for the merits of this particular bill and the transition from a prisoner to outside through, for example, paroles or temporary absences, we should address testing them for drugs upon release.