House of Commons photoLost his last election, in 2019, with 24% of the vote.
Petitions April 26th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, I have three petitions to present today, all of them on issues relating to fundamental human rights.
The first is a petition from members of my riding calling on the Government of Canada to condemn the Chinese Communist regime's systematic murder of Falun Gong practitioners through forced live organ harvesting.
Not Criminally Responsible Reform Act April 26th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, all this bill would do is give judges a little more discretion. Whenever we want to reduce a judge's discretion to provide public protection and victim recognition, the New Democrats get up in arms and say that we cannot reduce judges' discretion and that we have to trust judges.
Why does this member not trust judges when they get discretion to protect the public? Is it not the fact that all she is really opposed to is the government's agenda of public protection?
Privilege March 28th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, I do indeed rise to speak to the question of privilege raised by the member for Langley and discern the following two very important issues.
First, does Standing Order 31 give a right to every member equally to make a statement or does Standing Order 31 give a right to make a statement only to the party whip and his or her designates?
Second, does Standing Order 31 give you as Speaker the right to deny a member the opportunity to make a statement because you disagree with the content of it? If you as Speaker do not have the right to deny a member the opportunity to make an S. O. 31 statement for such a reason, how could you delegate such a prerogative to any whip or anyone else?
Delegating the right to deny what the Standing Order gives to members is altogether different from delegating mere administrative assistance to the whips.
If Standing Order 31 gives every member the equal right to make a statement, except for usual reasons relating to unparliamentary conduct, surely the House would need to amend the Standing Orders if the House wanted to restrict such statements to only the whips and their designates.
Before proceeding, I offer two qualifications to my remarks. The first is that I have no personal knowledge of the facts on which the member for Langley raises his point of privilege. I have never been refused my place in the rotation of private members' statements, so I leave it to you, Mr. Speaker, to determine the facts of the member for Langley's case from the record before you.
My remarks will be based on the premise that a member has been denied the opportunity to make a member's statement pursuant to S. O. 31 for no other reason except that his whip did not agree with his point of view. As such, this issue transcends the case of the member for Langley and transcends party boundaries.
I heard in fact that a former NDP member reported to the media that the NDP whip or leader refused him an S. O. 31 opportunity for similar reasons. I am quite certain that this is possible in every party.
The Liberal member for Papineau expressed concern about empowering members of Parliament. I am sure many will no doubt be deeply disappointed if he does not intervene on this point to urge you, Mr. Speaker, to empower MPs in this matter now that the opportunity has arisen for him to do so.
I am sure that the member for Langley himself really would not care very much about losing a mere 60 seconds of airtime. I am convinced that his concern is not simply about his 60 seconds but about the democratic governance of the House.
Many Canadians have voiced concerns that members of all parties are becoming mere proxies for party leaders. Is that phenomenon now extended even to 60-second statements?
Such democratic safeguards are more important than any single issue, even that of abortion. Such democratic safeguards also transcend partisan boundaries.
My second caution is that I do not hold myself out as an expert in the arcane precedents which govern the interpretation of the Standing Orders. I caught some of the remarks of the member for Edmonton—St. Albert on this issue. He seemed to be doing a good lawyerly job of reviewing the effect of those precedents. To that extent, I agree with and adopt his submissions.
My remarks on the other hand will be simply based on a common sense reading of Standing Order 31.
After having practised law for almost 30 years, I am well aware of how arcane precedents can lead one away from a common sense interpretation and even away from the very spirit of the enactment in question. However, I hope the precedents in this matter do not have such an unfortunate result with you, Mr. Speaker.
I have three observations to the first of the two questions I have discerned in this, and that is does Standing Order 31 give an equal right to every member to make a statement or does it give a right to make a statement only to the party whips and their designates?
First, Standing Order 31 itself clearly does not say that only a whip and his or her designate may be recognized. To my knowledge, that proposition has never before even been proposed until the government whip rose to speak to the member for Langley's question of privilege.
The practice whereby the Chair is guided by lists provided by party whips surely cannot compel the Speaker to deny a member the opportunity to speak, which Standing Order 31 itself provides to the member. Surely an administrative aid cannot now be cited as support for negating the Standing Order itself. If the House wishes to amend Standing Order 31 to limit opportunities to speak to only party whips and their designates, surely the House would give that direction to you through the ordinary process of amending the Standing Orders. Surely such as an important amendment cannot be accomplished by stealth, without any debate or vote.
Second, I understand from the commentary in O'Brien and Bosc that Standing Order 31 apparently replaced previous opportunities for members to move motions in the House. Did the House really intend to remove every member's right to make a motion and not at least give, in return, every member the right to make a mere 60-second statement? It seems to me that it was a quid pro quo at that time. That bargain having been made cannot be unmade now without an amendment to the Standing Order sanctioned by the whole House.
Third, I understand that even independent members are offered the opportunity afforded by S. O. 31. They are not recognized as parties in the House and have no recognized whip. Are they offered S. O. 31 statements merely as designates of some other party's whip? I suggest not. Rather, they are offered S. O. 31 statements in their own right as members, since that is what S. O. 31 provides to every member equally.
As to the second question, does Standing Order 31 give you, as Speaker, the prerogative to deny a member the right to make a statement simply because you disagree with the content of it? It seems obvious to me; I find no evidence that you possess such a tyrannical and anti-democratic prerogative to deny a member the right to make a statement simply because you disagree, as Speaker, with the content of it. In fact, the commentary in O'Brien and Bosc suggests that only a very limited list of reasons entitles you to disallow a member's S. O. 31 statement.
This is my next question. If you do not, as Speaker, possess such a tyrannical, anti-democratic prerogative, then how can you delegate it to anyone else, party whip or otherwise? Further, if you were to insist that you do have such a prerogative, the effect would be to make you and your opinion about statements more equal than any other member of Parliament or their opinion, to purloin a phrase from George Orwell. To delegate such a power to anyone else would make that member more equal than any other member of Parliament. I have to wonder if that is really what we have come to in this Parliament.
Petitions March 27th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, I have three petitions to present today, which total 150 people from mainly the Kitchener—Waterloo area and about 16 people from British Columbia.
The petitioners ask that the House condemn discrimination against females occurring through sex-selective pregnancy termination. They point out that 92% of Canadians believe that such a thing should be illegal. Millions of girls have been lost through this sex-selective procedure, creating a global gender imbalance. Also, I noticed when I went through the petitions that about 60% of the petitioners are women.
The Budget March 25th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of my colleague from across the way, although I found them to be quite mystifying in a number of respects. It seems as if he is almost in an alternate universe, particularly when he talks about ferry operators suffering under this bill.
I wonder if he has read that the Canadian Ferry Operators Association has said that it welcomes the 2013 federal budget and that, “This government continues to demonstrate its commitment to transportation infrastructure”.
More than that, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business has stated, “Overall, this is a good budget for small business”. It also stated, “Minister Flaherty has done a solid job by remaining on course to eliminate the deficit while announcing some important measures for Canada's entrepreneurs”.
The member said that no one in his riding would benefit from this budget. Are there no entrepreneurs in his riding?
Technical Tax Amendments Act, 2012 March 8th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by thanking my colleague for his obvious enthusiasm for these measures and for explaining them in a manner that people watching across the country can easily understand.
In the last number of years, on occasion, I have had to look some of my constituents in the eye and explain what the government is doing to get their jobs back. I often think that my opposition colleagues across the way have never had that opportunity, because all they seem to want to do is pile taxes on corporations and make them less competitive and drive them out of the country.
I would ask my colleague how he would compare and contrast the tax policies of our Conservative government with those that are likely to occur if the opposition ever manages to be in a position to govern.
International Women's Day March 7th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, tomorrow marks International Women's Day. As the International Women's Day website says, we must all do our bit to ensure that the future for girls is bright, equal, safe and rewarding. That can only be assured in a world where equality for all is recognized and protected.
In Canada, we must never forget that women were not even officially recognized as persons under the law until 1929. In overturning the law designating women as non-persons, the Privy Council called it a “relic of days more barbarous than ours” and stated that to those who would ask why the word “person” should include females, “the obvious answer is why should it not”.
These profound words echo down through the ages to our own time. No one gains by refusing to recognize the equality and the dignity and worth of any human being.
Petitions February 7th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by 27 of my constituents who remind Parliament that temporary foreign and seasonal workers play an important role in the economy but are vulnerable to exploitation, abuse and substandard working conditions.
The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to ratify the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.
Petitions February 7th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, the second petition is from more than 130 Canadians from the Guelph and London areas, who point out that Canada is the only nation in the western world to have no law restricting abortion and is in the company of China and North Korea in that respect.
The petitioners call upon Parliament to speedily enact legislation to deal with that.
Petitions February 7th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, I have three petitions to present today on three different subjects.
The first petition is from a number of Canadians from the London and Guelph areas, almost 70 in total. The petitioners point out that Canada is a nation that has long promoted the right to equal protection and equal benefit of the law. They point out that preventing the birth of baby girls through sex-selective abortion is an affront to the dignity and equality of women and girls and has denied millions of girls in Canada and throughout the world a chance to be born merely because they are girls.
The petitioners call upon the House of Commons to condemn discrimination against girls through sex-selective pregnancy termination.