Serge Ménard

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, June 4th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, this is a subject on which I did not initially intend to speak, but because it relates to a significant part of my life experience, I have decided to speak to it.

When I started working as a young crown attorney in 1966, I had never heard of marijuana. It was at just about that time that it started to be seen in Canada.

In 1967 I was offered a position by the federal government as a federal crown attorney. At that time, only the federal government handled drug prosecutions. Obviously, I was informed of the dangers of drugs and so on. I will not go into details on that. The law at that time was extremely harsh for anyone who imported marijuana. Importing marijuana was subject to a minimum sentence of seven years’ imprisonment. I have heard people say in this House that no one ever received that sentence, but that is not true, people did. When I later worked for the defence, I defended clients who were sentenced to seven years for importing marijuana.

Minimum sentences like those create injustices, which I will address a little later. However, one thing is certain: from 1966 to 1986, marijuana use rose significantly. At that time, as well, cannabis, the plant from which marijuana and hashish is obtained, as it was grown in Canada, had no hallucinogenic effect. More specifically, there was no delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol in the cannabis that grew here. That situation has changed, and it seems that excellent cannabis is now being produced in British Columbia and Quebec.

So all the marijuana smoked starting in the 1960s and up to the 1980s was imported. Why was it that people faced minimum sentences like that? Certainly, at one point, there were so many that it was considered to be unreasonable, and deals were made with crown attorneys so that instead of marijuana importing charges they laid possession for the purposes of trafficking charges, for which there was no minimum sentence. That is one of the consequences of a bad law. I am certain that this law is just as bad in terms of the minimum sentences it provides, and that is why I am speaking to it.

As I have said before, bad laws make fortunes for good lawyers. You have to go and see lawyers to get out of the mess you are in. Bad laws lead to plea bargains. And justice is not done as it should be, by a judge who hears both parties; rather, it is administered behind closed doors. The practice became that laying possession for the purposes of trafficking charges would be laid rather than laying charges for importing.

And one day I did push the envelope. I had a client who was coming home from Morocco. Because she was fond of smoking hashish and found that it was cheap over there, she acquired some for her personal use and brought it back to Canada. So she was charged with possession for the purposes of trafficking, when clearly it was for her personal use. So I chose to try the case before a judge and jury. The Crown obviously understood that the jury would probably find that it was for her personal use, and asked me how I could risk having my client get seven years in prison and argue something like that. Ultimately the case was resolved with a non-custodial sentence, but on principle the charge of possession for the purposes of trafficking was retained. That is the kind of horse-trading that enforcing bad laws results in.

So we have overwhelming experience to show that minimum sentences produce no results. First, no one knows what these sentences are. Who in this House can tell me how many offences in the Criminal Code are subject to a minimum sentence?

There are 29. Here again, I know this only because I have just read it in one of the studies I consulted. I had heard there could be as many as 100 or something like that. I read it in a study by the Department of Justice. Who would know the fine details if we do not even know the number here? Can we expect the public to know?

Experience shows that indeed the minimum sentences are not known. That is the second reason. The third is that some understanding is required of the mentality of people who decide to break the law. In our discussion of the deterrence effect of sentences, we are reasoning as honest individuals with little fear of receiving a sentence if we break the law. We respect the law because we are educated and because we are aware of the damaging effects of criminality. We are also aware of our reputation.

However, I have practised criminal law all my life and went on to became Quebec minister of public security and minister of justice. I have always noted that a criminal generally does not calculate the sentence he will be given if he is ever caught committing a crime. He wonders what the chances are of his being caught. I am talking of a criminal who is calculating. A lot of crimes are committed on impulse, for revenge, through drunkenness and so on. Drunkenness will not put you on the road to good behaviour.

When we give it some thought, we realize that minimum sentences are of no value. We know from experience that minimum sentences are of no value. Studies worldwide have found that minimum sentences were of no value.

Before I move on to this study, I would like to mention one other terrible thing caused by minimum sentences. It is generally the most serious cases that come to mind when we think of minimum sentences. We think there should be a minimum sentence at least. We forget, however, that there are accomplices in many criminal adventures. People are drawn into committing a crime through friendship, family ties, the influence of other young people and all sorts of other reasons. It must be understood that a minimum sentence severe enough for the most serious cases applies as well to the least serious. That obliges judges to hand down sentences they consider unfair.

It must be understood that a minimum sentence can occasionally, but still significantly, be a provision obliging a judge to commit an injustice even though he is satisfied after hearing the case that the sentence is unjust.

I had a really striking example in my practice. While I was practising criminal law, I met a young woman who had been seduced by someone at a difficult time in her life. She had had a major accident, and her husband had abandoned her. She finally met an American, who was kind, educated and very attentive.

At some point, he told her that he would have to leave but would return. She began getting mail from him. She was getting what looked like books. The man warned her not to open the books because he had to take them to the public library himself at the time. She understood that something was not right. She said on the phone, because he was under surveillance, that she did not like what he was sending. He finally convinced her to keep the books. She kept the books, which contained drugs, until he came back and gave them to him.

Both were convicted of drug trafficking. If hon. members were the judge, would they agree to give both these individuals the same sentence? That is what happened: seven years each. This sense of justice is disgusting to us. It deprives judges of the possibility of taking into consideration personal motives, not only objective ones but subjective ones as well, in their sentencing.

Here we have another example that shows that minimum sentences are useless: the death penalty. If there is one serious sentence, it is the death penalty. And since the death penalty has been abolished here, we have seen a gradual decrease in homicides in Canada.

Now, and this is astonishing, the minister had with him a study on the effects of minimum sentences. I have a few quotes from that report, and they are very significant. This relates to another point I wanted to raise. I keep hearing the Conservatives talk of the principle of “tough on crime” with respect to minimum sentences. On this side of the House, we do not talk about “soft on crime” but rather “smart on crime”. Let us give appropriate sentences and then we will be effective against crime.

The U.S. is tough on crime. So tough that they imprison people seven times more often than we do. Are we seven times safer when we go to the States? Certainly not: in the United States people are three and half times more likely to be victims of murder than in Canada. Yet, proportionally, there are seven times more people in American prisons than here.

So the reason the Conservatives want to impose minimum sentences and show they are tough on crime is because it is popular. One needs a certain degree of courage and a certain degree of intelligence—I would say sometimes the courage of one's intelligence—to go against popular opinion. It is definitely popular. In fact, in the study the Minister of Justice had access to when he drafted these measures, we can read the following:

When surveys pose a general question about mandatory sentences of imprisonment, polls reveal strong public support for the concept.

I even remember the figure was 88% support.

However, when asked about specific cases, there is far less support among members of the public for restricting judicial discretion at sentencing. The most recent polls conducted in Australia and the United States demonstrate that public support for mandatory sentencing has declined in recent years.

Finally, we are beginning to follow the Europeans in realizing that it is pointless. The report also states:

Although mandatory sentences of imprisonment have been introduced in a number of western nations, few jurisdictions have evaluated the impact of these laws on prison populations or crime rates. The studies that have examined the impact of these laws reported variable effects on prison populations, and no discernible effect on crime rates.

So this study showed that mandatory sentences had no effect. Few studies have addressed public knowledge of statutory minimum penalties. Fortunately, the surveys that exist on this issue have generated the same findings: the general public has little knowledge of the offences that carry a mandatory minimum penalty, or of the magnitude of the statutory minima.

I would urge the Conservatives, who are forever telling us to talk to our constituents, to ask their own constituents whether they are aware of the minimum sentences prescribed for these crimes. They will see that not many people are aware of them. England conducted such a survey.

The justice department report states:

In 1998, members of the public responding to the British Crime Survey (BCS) were asked if they were aware of the mandatory minimum prison term of three years for offenders convicted of burglary...Even though this mandatory sentence had been the object of considerable media attention, less than one quarter of the sample responded affirmatively. This finding is consistent with earlier research in Canada that found that very few members of the public had any idea which offences carried a mandatory sentence...

The reference given is Roberts, in 1998.

I have found the 88% figure I mentioned earlier. I do not have very much time, but I could give many more examples. There is another thing that strikes me. When the Conservatives talk about increasing sentences, do they look like people who are getting ready to make considered, appropriate, intelligent decisions? No, they crow about what they are doing. They are going after this because it will bring them votes and because that is what they are hoping for.

But we have news for them, because apparently in many countries, including the United States, although support for mandatory minimums used to be very high, it is now diminishing to the point that, as mentioned by the previous speakers, certain American states are now backtracking on them. I too am struck by this kind of applause and argument.

I find myself scandalized by the continuing message from the present Justice minister, who seems to take it for granted that to get tough on crime is the only answer. It is the only answer for him. He should be very familiar with the situation on the ground. He should have a little more respect for people. Perhaps I shall never convince him, and I honestly think he believes what he says. Still, he should realize that other people think the opposite, and that those people, when they think the opposite, know that they are taking a position less popular than his own.

If those people are taking such a position, it is because they know things, because they have studied the subject, because they see the scientists, the criminologists, who write on the subject and explain why this accomplishes nothing. These people have the courage of their intelligence, and it seems to me that the minister should show a little more respect when he is exploring whether we should be “tough on crime” or “soft on crime”. He should do this for the people who are opposed to his position, who have the courage to adopt positions that are based on knowledge.

In summary, then, I believe from experience that mandatory minimums solve nothing, because generally people are not aware of them. Mandatory minimums do nothing because, before committing a crime, an offender does not calculate the sentence he will receive if he gets caught: mainly he calculates whether or not there is a risk of getting caught.

Mandatory minimums are what have affected me the most as a lawyer who has spent more than 30 years in criminal law. I have been practising criminal law since 1966, which is a long time. Actually, it is more than 40 years. I am aging faster than I think.

These provisions cause judges to commit injustices. Having examined all the pertinent factors they must consider in deciding on a sentence, judges feel forced to hand down a sentence they do not agree with, and are obliged to do so by the law. This also causes them to commit injustices when several accused before them have taken part in the same criminal conspiracy that carries a minimum sentence and they are unable to hand down different sentences proportionate to the gravity of the offence.

[Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act, May 12th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, my colleague is quite right.

This is about fairness and it has to be perceived as being fair. The people fighting crimes committed by corrupt and dishonest people must be treated fairly. It is not fair to promise them one thing and then to break that promise, or to avoid negotiating with representatives who are close to the grassroots. Their attitude would probably change. In my opinion, it is sheer and simple incompetence. It also supports what I have said all along: if they really wanted to tackle crime, they would look after their police. If that is all they are going to do, it is not about fighting crime but about getting votes by stating, “We're tough on crime”.

Let them say, “We're tough on crime—”

[Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act, May 12th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, when we talk about the police, we are talking about fighting crime. That has been my argument since I have been here, and forever. Police and sentencing are not the only ways to fight crime. The speaker who asked me the question is well aware of this. He is also well aware of something else. I was in government when we decided on these provisions, to genuinely create an early childhood services program. We had that debate in the middle of the effort to have a zero deficit. Lucien Bouchard, the Premier of Quebec at that time, was absolutely determined to do it because it was a matter of a very long term investment.

Delinquent tendencies can be detected in early childhood. Early childhood educators can detect them and take early action. We knew that by adopting those measures we were working for the next generation, and that the good effects would be felt in 15 or 20 years. We knew that. It was also in the approach that Quebec took. Quebec has always had its own way of dealing with juvenile delinquency. I will not pursue this subject any further because I do not have the time. However, those measures have produced remarkable results for us: juvenile delinquency in Canada as a whole is 50 times higher than in Quebec, and that is no accident.

I would add that it is frustrating to work as a representative here. In this field, laws are important as a starting point, but success depends on how the laws are enforced and what is done within the legal framework. I cannot tell you what laws we should make, but I can tell you that it is crazy to try to treat young offenders like adults. We need a government that will decide to devote the necessary resources to this, and provide training. In Quebec, we offer special training for dealing with young offenders.

The member is right to say that we started early. Unlike the previous situation, it is in Ontario and Quebec that the crime rate has declined the most. The measures that the people in charge of the Toronto police are taking are now in line with the same police philosophy as in Montreal. That is significant. Only New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island currently have crime rates lower than Ontario’s. Before, it was very strange; the crime rate was low in eastern Canada and rose as you went west. That is no longer the case. There is now a dip in Quebec and Ontario. In my opinion, that is because we apply modern policing principles that involve the community and are interventionist, that is, the police are involved in our communities. I could talk about this for hours, but I am going to stop myself right here.

[Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act, May 12th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, the sad thing is that they have nothing to say. They will not say a word, and they will not do a thing.

The Supreme Court put it very clearly. I have had the ruling on my computer for a long time. This is a part I underlined, part of Justice L'Heureux-Dubé's ruling:

In addition, because s. 2(d) [of the Charter] guarantees the collective exercise of rights that are lawful for individuals, subject to s. 1 of the Charter, RCMP management cannot refuse to recognize the right of an employee to be represented by an employee association in lawful dealings with the employer.

Is that clear or not?

Yes, Mr. Delisle lost his case, but he lost it because of his association with the Canadian Union of Public Employees, a major union. Intellectual honesty requires us to recognize that the Supreme Court ruled that the RCMP has the right to freedom of association, but that, since it includes police officers, it must associate elsewhere.

In response to the question my colleague just asked, I would say that they have offered no explanation and done nothing. That is all.

[Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act, May 12th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the average citizen may find the bill fairly boring and, at first glance, may not understand what it is about. It can be summarized in clear terms. The bill is fairly narrow in scope but it is currently very important in order to foster the development of the RCMP at a time when it is having difficulty recruiting members. Overall, it is a good measure for police forces in general.

This bill will facilitate the transfer to the RCMP of police officers who have experience in police services other than the RCMP. The greatest obstacle at present is that the police officers would lose the pension benefits to which they have contributed for a number of years. The bill would make possible a transfer to the RCMP of the pension amounts accumulated in the Ontario Provincial Police fund, for example. Therefore, the officers joining the RCMP in the middle of their careers could make contributions equivalent to those made by police officers who already have the same number of years' experience in the RCMP or they could be allowed to transfer their pension from the Ontario police fund—to use the same example—to the RCMP pension fund.

There are two aspects that must be addressed. We must deal with the rights of members who leave one police force to join another by allowing them to retain the pension benefits already accumulated and the two organizations involved must be allowed to have pension transfer agreements.

Thus, it is relatively straightforward but, by necessity, such matters need to be written in language that is fairly complex, language that I would even call difficult to wade through.

To start with, I think this is a good measure, for several reasons, not just because the RCMP is having problems at present, but also because, in general, it is a good thing for people to be able to change jobs over the course of their lives. A lot of people start with a company or an organization and at some point lose interest, but they are still productive and would like to work. They would still be interested in working if we allowed them to have an equivalent career somewhere else where their experience would be appreciated. But if they are held back by the fact that if they transferred to another career they would lose the benefits they have accumulated over 15 or 20 or 25 years, people instead decide to stay in their first job, a job that no longer interests them. I am convinced that these people are no longer as effective in that job. They are also not happy, and the other organization that could have taken them on is deprived of their experience.

So in general, in society, it is a good thing to make it possible for people to have successive careers over the course of their productive lives, their working lives. It is good for the people, it is good for morale and it is good for the organizations. In fact, I would mention in passing that the House of Commons probably benefits from this, because when we come to the House of Commons, or even to a legislative assembly, we are pursuing a different career.

That is why we support this principle. Now, some specific problems have been raised. They are in fact important for the people who are working. One member who spoke before me made the point that pension fund contributions, even contributions to a pension fund by the employer, are deferred wages. Those wages are given to someone for the work they are doing, but they are deferred precisely so the person can draw a pension at a time when they are no longer able to work.

That is how it was seen at the time. It is also so that the benefits one earns from working can be deferred in time.

The calculations done to determine the amount have to be very expert. The unions and government actuaries are very careful to count not only the years, but also the months, weeks and days worked so the person can be given the exact amount owing to them, in proportion to their contributions and their employer’s contributions, and so on. These things can seem pointless, but they are not. In practice, they are measured in dollars and cents.

Some little things should have been corrected at the same time. Other speakers have mentioned them. There is the time spent in training. For years, when young constables joined the RCMP, they did about six months’ training and they received pay, out of which a contribution to a future pension fund was deducted, in case they became members of the RCMP and made their career there. This was considered unfair because many cadets did not become members and did not pass all the exams used for selecting the best candidates. Those contributions were therefore somewhat unfair.

This situation was corrected in 1992. Cadets no longer get a salary but a housing allowance, which is equivalent to salary. Previously, it was counted from their first day of training. Thus, they contributed six more months and received a bit more money for these six months. Now that they get an allowance, their pension only starts counting after their training is completed. This applies to all cadets who joined the RCMP after 1992.

People who come from the Ontario police or another provincial police force were generally paid a salary as soon as they started their training. Contributions were withheld and their pensions will be a bit higher. As a result, there are three categories in the RCMP: people who will get a pension calculated from the first day they put on an RCMP uniform, people who will get a pension calculated from six months after they put on the uniform and remained in it, and people from other police forces who will get a pension calculated from their first day of training.

This injustice should have been corrected, but that is not enough to stop us from voting for a bill we think is otherwise quite good. When we were sitting in committee, I had the feeling the RCMP had noted the problem and would find an appropriate solution. The solution is actually very simple.

Since the RCMP accepts people who did not start their career with the force and proposes that they transfer their pension or contribute to it in order to be on the same footing as other officers with the same number of years of experience, that is to say, buy back their pension, why not allow the people who became cadets after 1992 to buy back these six months? They could contribute as much as they would have during their six months of training.

I hope this problem can be resolved soon. For the time being, though, we will vote for the bill in view of its objectives and how urgent they are.

Other problems have also been raised, including seats on the advisory committee that administers the RCMP pension fund.

Officers who sat on this committee received contributions in addition to their salaries. Our understanding is that these contributions were the equivalent of several thousand dollars, often more than $10,000 a year. This was additional pay, therefore, provided for work that only amounted to approving the actuaries’ calculations.

I do not think these officers would have been allowed to help themselves so easily to the profits generated by the pension fund if the people who were contributing most to the fund—the ordinary members of the RCMP—had been represented. This problem must be resolved in the same way that the problem of real representation for RCMP officers was resolved, not only in regard to the pension fund but in other regards as well. Other people have already spoken about this representation.

The RCMP is the only large police force that is not unionized. I should say one of the few large police forces, because some small police forces may not be unionized. In Quebec, virtually everyone is unionized. I do not know for sure in the rest of Canada, but all police officers have a kind of union. These associations are called brotherhoods, which are basically a kind of union. They obviously do not have the right to strike, but they can engage in collective bargaining over their wages and working conditions.

The RCMP is the only non-unionized police force, although there have been attempts to form an association for years, 10 at least, and more likely 15 to 20. They experienced a kind of semi-failure before the Supreme Court of Canada in 1999. I use that term because the Supreme Court of Canada did at least recognize their right to choose their representatives for negotiating their collective agreement. However, given the specific nature of their work, they could not exercise that right within a union organization that included other government employees.

The RCMP won its case with the 1999 ruling in Delisle v. Canada. This is a case I am very familiar with, having read it numerous times, incidentally. It addressed a number of principles with which I was concerned as Quebec's minister of public safety, and even before that as a lawyer. In fact, my last 10 years as a lawyer were in a labour law practice, although I was a criminal lawyer. So I heard all about it, and what is more I have read it thoroughly.

It is clear to anyone reading this case that the proper interpretation is that the Supreme Court of Canada recognized that RCMP officers had the right of association. That right of association, which is specifically recognized by the Charter, is the right to choose one's representatives. Given the particular situation of the RCMP officers, however, they could not be members of a larger labour organization which included other employees of the government.

In my opinion, if the government and the RCMP had shown any intellectual honesty, they would have wasted no time in allowing them to organize, but within a labour organization that was theirs alone and had no connection with other unions.

Instead, the whole thing was just put on hold, thereby forcing the RCMP employees to embark on lengthy legal proceedings. They had just been successful in the Ontario Superior Court, but, despite that, still had to appeal. The situation remained unchanged until they got to the Supreme Court of Canada, where this time they were told they were not in a labour organization with other unions and needed to apply the right recognized for them by the Supreme Court of Canada in 1999.

I was the public safety minister in Quebec, and there was one union that represented the Sûreté du Québec and a separate union that represented the Montreal police. I did not have direct responsibility for the Montreal police, but I was responsible for the Sûreté du Québec.

The union representatives were elected by the members. I respected the people who worked under me, and I consulted them through their elected representatives. With that attitude, I enjoyed a good relationship with the Sûreté du Québec, although it too suffered as we worked to achieve a zero deficit. We did not always give employees increases commensurate with the skills and higher education they were required to have. I believe that the atmosphere at the RCMP would be much better if the members were allowed to elect their own representatives, as members of other police forces in Canada do.

Currently, the members of the RCMP are represented by people their superiors appoint. This is known as a company union. A company union is an organization whose leaders are appointed by management. That is what is in place at the RCMP. It is funny, but there is a conflict. We will not go into detail about the conflict among them.

Why is the Conservative government taking so long, and why does it have this attitude toward the RCMP? The previous speaker rightly mentioned that the government had promised a salary increase and signed an agreement with the appointed representatives of the RCMP members, but had decided after the most recent election to take it away from them. Clearly, this is seriously undermining the relationship of trust that the government should have with the police. It is odd that this is coming from a government that brags about being tough on crime.

I heard an earlier speaker say that the government was tough on crime. God knows that I have spent my career dealing with crime, first as a young crown prosecutor, later as minister of justice and minister of public safety in Quebec and now as a member of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. I know one thing for sure: what is important is not to be tough on crime or soft on crime, but to be smart on crime. We have to take a smart approach to dealing with crime. Sometimes, that means being tough on some types of offenders, and other times, it means being more understanding and putting more emphasis on rehabilitation. That is how to get the best results.

When I hear the Conservatives talk about the need to get tough on crime, it is quite something to hear their tone of voice and how they applaud one another. These people are not saying they will solve the problem of crime. Of course, we are looking for solutions in that regard, because managing crime is not easy. It is as hard to manage as psychology. Psychology is not an exact science, like math. Psychological treatments are different. Each must be adapted to the individual in order to achieve results. Certain people respond better to certain types of intervention. It requires a great deal of intelligence and sensitivity. The same is true for crime. There is no simple formula, such as, “Get tough and you will get the results”.

The Americans are the toughest in the world. People may not know this, but Americans have 768 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants. They managed to beat Russia, China and even South Africa, which had one of the highest rates, with nearly 500 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants. We have 116 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants at this time. That is exactly the same rate as Australia, although it has varied. It is comparable to Europe and Japan, which, 10 years ago, had 36 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants. Their rate has risen to 56 per 100,000 inhabitants. In any case, those countries are effective.

Being tough on crime is not the answer. I think that it is actually somewhat hypocritical. They are not tough on crime because it is effective; they are tough on crime because they think it will get them more votes. That is the only—

[Foreign Affairs, May 8th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, Louise Arbour, the former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, has said, “The government is not meeting its obligations to Canadian citizens abroad whose right to return home is being denied.” She was referring to Mr. Khadr and Mr. Abdelrazik.

Will the Canadian government be smart enough to remove the obstacles to their returning to Canada? Section 6.(1) of the Charter clearly states: “Every citizen of Canada has the right to enter, remain in and leave Canada.” There is no need to spend another half a million dollars on legal fees to realize that and act accordingly.

[Foreign Affairs, May 8th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, in the case of Omar Khadr, the government lawyers and legal advisors who are working to challenge his rights have so far spent more than 1,700 hours on the case. The Conservatives have assigned all these resources to the case solely to shirk their responsibilities.

How can the minister justify devoting so much effort to violating the basic rights of a Canadian citizen, a child soldier, but so little effort to enforcing his own laws and the international conventions that require that he repatriate Omar Khadr?

[Annual Press Freedom Award, May 6th, 2009]

Investigative reporter Daniel Leblanc has been awarded the annual Press Freedom Award. This past Sunday was World Press Freedom Day.

The award, presented by the Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom, honours his remarkable determination to protect his confidential source, known as Ma Chouette, who enabled him to lift the veil of secrecy surrounding the sponsorship scandal and eventually led to the Gomery Inquiry. That same determined silence has led to his facing contempt of court charges, with a potential fine and a year in prison.

The Globe and Mail journalist took advantage of the awards ceremony to reiterate that a relationship of trust exists between him and his source and that no one can make him breach that confidence, since such sources are the very foundation of investigative journalism, which is of such great service to democracy.

I encourage everyone to sign the on-line petition on the Bloc site in support of this reporter, Daniel Leblanc, calling for him not to be sentenced for a criminal offence.

[Business of Supply, April 27th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Ajax—Pickering is correct. This is in fact something we were forewarned about. We were warned a long time in advance and the present government has done absolutely nothing to prepare for it. These are the last things in its initiative, when it could certainly have facilitated passport issuance or negotiated a less costly formula with the United States. It is quite unfortunate that it did not.

I am not the oldest member of this House, but I am still older than the average. I can still remember the day when relations between the two countries were so close that we could easily drive over the border in our parents’ car to go on holiday down south. Our parents did not have to have any documents.

Cities were built on the border. I recently travelled to Stanstead. One family, whose name I forget but who had become very wealthy, lived in the area near Stanstead at that time, in Rouses Point, in the United States. It was a community. They decided to build a municipal library on the border. It is still there, so that education can be encouraged equally on both sides.

In any event, I understand that we now have to have a passport to go there, but the government could have facilitated things well before it did take action.

[Business of Supply, April 27th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the attitude of the hon. member for Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière is typical of his party. When he heard that certain members of Parliament had gone to the United States to meet with some American legislators, he made fun of the trips and called them tourist jaunts. In my view, this only shows that if he had gone, that is probably all he would have found to do in the United States. The members who went and were tremendously well received and well informed by the Canadian embassy in Washington tell us that we do not go there often enough and that we need to cultivate sustained, ongoing relations with the Americans. The American press is generally not very interested in Canada and is poorly informed about how good our security is. The Americans should not be afraid that harm will come to them from Canada.

We also need to remind them—because many have forgotten—that when the going gets tough, they can count on their friend to the north. When the American embassy in Iran was invaded and occupied, for quite a long time the Canadian embassy sheltered the American diplomats who had not been taken hostage but would have been if the Iranian authorities had found them. That reminds me of the fable by La Fontaine in which a lion is caught in a net and is finally only freed thanks to a mouse that gnaws through the mesh of the netting. La Fontaine concludes that we often need someone smaller than we are.

We should all be familiar with this situation. The Conservative government has not made the necessary effort to defend our commercial interests, which have increased tremendously since free trade was instituted. In Quebec in particular, 27% of our production was exported. Now 51% of our production is exported and 80% of that goes to the United States. There are tremendous economic advantages, therefore, to keeping the borders fluid. We did a lot before and after September 11, 2001, to ensure they remained so.

One example of regular shipments of goods is the newsprint that Quebec delivers to New York. We export a lot of other products as well. We export paper but many other things too. Our biggest export to the United States is actually aluminum. Our second largest exports are in the aircraft sector, which is a real change in comparison with the last century and the last millennium. Then comes newsprint, turbojet engines, writing paper and paperboard, advanced copper wire and casings, integrated circuits and even petroleum oils, even though heaven knows that Quebec is not the largest petroleum producer in Canada.

So we are exporting more and more sophisticated products. Before the economic crisis, we were shipping products that were a lot more advanced and required intelligent work, such as aircraft and turbojet engines, and things will have to stay that way if we want to get over this crisis. We are talking about quite sophisticated goods here.

These things have become essential to our economy.

Protectionism is a natural reaction in times of crisis. We know, though—and this is the great lesson economists derived from the crisis in the 1920s—that protectionism makes the problem worse. The borders must be kept open because we export a lot, although we also import a lot from the people we export to. There is a mutual advantage, therefore, to keeping the borders open.

The government does not seem to realize all this. At a time when we should be trying to counter protectionist tendencies in order to overcome the crisis, the government is cutting the working hours of our customs officers, rather than trying to make the border more fluid. It is also reducing the modern equipment we have for monitoring the contents of trucks. I believe it is gamma ray equipment that makes it possible to check loads quickly and therefore speeds up traffic at our borders. They are also cutting border surveillance.

When the Conservatives were in opposition in 2006, they complained mightily—like us—that nine RCMP stations had been closed and they said they would re-open them. That promise went the way of most of their promises: they are in power now but have never re-opened the stations. They are giving guns to customs officers but taking away their overtime. They are giving guns to customs officers but removing some of the high tech equipment that keeps our borders fluid. That is typical of a government that calls itself conservative and is proud that it always looks to the past and gets inspiration there for what it wants to do in the future.

Once again, I think we should be aware of the dimensions of our trade with the Americans. I have it here in absolute numbers. I said it represented 51% or $150 billion in 2007. I already listed the main products that go into this total. They are transported primarily by truck. In 2004—the last year for which these statistics are available—13.45 million tractor trailers crossed the border.

There are also 90 million people who cross the U.S. border, of whom 70 million cross by land. This government seems totally unaware of how important the border is, first of all to the Canadian and Quebec economies, but also to such other things as tourism. The most recent statistics I have come from 2006 and, on average, 27.5 million tourists were visiting Quebec each year. The tourism industry generated revenues of $10.2 billion in 2005.

I spoke about the RCMP detachments and there is no point in revisiting that. It really shows the extent to which the Conservatives fail to take steps to reassure our neighbours to the south, and make promises they never keep. We are so used to them doing this that we do not need to spend much time talking about it. It is nothing out of the ordinary.

We absolutely agree with the member for Ajax—Pickering when he criticizes this administration both for its failure to grasp how important it is for us that our neighbours to the south feel safe and for constantly acting too late.

It nonetheless significant that in the first few days she was in office, a person with responsibility for overseeing land borders would say, and believe, that the terrorists who committed the attacks on September 11, 2001, came from Canada. She did have the honesty and intelligence to correct what she had said, but what she said was in fact significant. It was certainly what she thought when she said it, and it was what the people around her thought as well. There are people around her who thought these things.

I gave the example of Mrs. Clinton, whose first reaction to the electrical failures that caused a huge blackout in North America was to say that it had come from somewhere else, that it had come from Canada. It is therefore in our interests for the Americans to be better informed about Canada.

In addition, I would remind everyone that we are allowed four trips a year to Washington, which is fairly significant. When we visit the embassy in the United States, they tell us that this information is important and there should be more of it, because American legislators, legislators in the richest country in the world, in the most powerful country in the world, do not know much about countries that do not cause trouble for them. They probably know a lot more about countries that cause trouble for them, like Iran and Afghanistan and countries in the Soviet bloc, in that era.

And so we have to take action to combat that natural tendency. The Conservatives have a tendency to do exactly the opposite. They are cutting the overtime and equipment that help keep the border fluid, among other things.

I congratulate the member for Ajax—Pickering for presenting this motion and explaining it so clearly. I share his opinion entirely.