Stephen Woodworth

[Business of Supply, December 5th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Scarborough Centre.

I very much appreciate the opportunity to speak about the Government of Canada's leadership on clean energy. It is truly a very good news story. Not only do we possess substantial reserves of conventional energy, but Canada is making a big name for itself in the clean energy sector. We have been leaders for some time, producing about 77% of our electricity from non-emitting sources like hydro generation and nuclear power.

Our government has moved aggressively in recent years with billions of dollars' worth of investments in clean energy, balancing our need for economic growth with our need to protect the environment.

Since 2006, the government has delivered over $10 billion to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This funding has leveraged an additional $25 billion in private investment, creating over 5,000 new jobs, many in the growing clean tech sector.

We are fighting emissions through innovation in green infrastructure, energy efficiency, clean energy and renewables. We are positioning Canada to lead in the clean tech sector and creating jobs for the future.

Our overall goal is to reduce Canada's greenhouse gas emissions by 17% below 2005 levels by 2020. This is a target that aligns with U.S. plans. Canada has significant opportunities to expand its share of the global market for energy and energy-related products, creating prosperity across this great country.

Here are just a few of the activities our government has put into play.

Our newest program, the eco-energy innovation initiative, was just launched in August of this year. It is a two-year $97 million investment to support a wide range of collaboration among industry, colleges, universities and government. These projects will focus on research, development and demonstration in five key areas: energy efficiency in buildings, communities, industry and transportation; clean electricity and renewables; bio-energy; research and development of electric vehicles; and unconventional oil and gas.

The demonstration component will focus on clean electricity and the integration of renewables into the grid and the built environment. Then there is the $78 million eco-energy efficiency initiative that will improve energy efficiency at home, at work and on the road, saving Canadians money while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The eco-energy efficiency initiative will make the housing, building and transportation industries more energy efficient. Improving energy efficiency is one of the fastest, greenest and most cost-effective ways for Canadians to reduce greenhouse gases and to save energy.

The next phase of Canada's economic action plan is also advancing the clean energy sector on several fronts by delivering a number of strategic investments. For example, we have renewed the highly popular eco-energy retrofit homes program. This helps Canadians make energy efficient home renovations.

The renewed retrofit homes program could help up to a quarter of a million homeowners across Canada improve their home's energy efficiency, and also generate up to $4 billion in economic activity.

We have also delivered another $40 million to Sustainable Development Technology Canada for the commercialization of clean technologies. This is a fantastic organization.

The 2010 energy efficiency regulations minimum energy performance standards have resulted in an annual reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 26 megatonnes. Once the minimum energy performance standards are fully in place, products that consume 80% of the energy used in Canadian homes, institutions and businesses will become regulated.

These are significant achievements in our efforts to reduce emissions. What is more, the benefits of these and other eco-energy investments will continue for years and years to come. For example, the eco-energy for renewable power program will deliver $1.5 billion in investments over the next 10 years to support our renewable energy industry.

The eco-energy for biofuels program will provide production incentives to producers of cleaner renewable fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel until 2017. Our investments in carbon capture and storage projects will help position Canada as a producer of reliable clean electricity for decades to come.

For example, one project that is under construction is the fully integrated carbon capture and sequestration, CCS, unit at SaskPower's Boundary Dam coal-fired power generation unit in Estevan, Saskatchewan. Our government delivered $240 million of investment which will leverage $1 billion from the provincial utility and will transform Unit 3 at Boundary Dam Power Station into a reliable long-term producer of 100 megawatts of clean base-load electricity while enhancing oil production and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by capturing one million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.

We have many examples of clean energy success stories across Canada.

Drake Landing Solar Community south of Calgary recently received the prestigious 2011 Energy Globe World Award for Sustainability. Drake Landing comprises 52 homes that are part of North America's very first large-scale seasonal storage solar heating system. This is the first such project in the world to provide nearly 90% of domestic space heating requirements from solar energy.

B.C. Hydro's smart grid technology project is installing large-scale batteries in two remote communities. These will provide clean power to the entire community during any outage. They will also help manage peak electricity demand periods with a lower environmental footprint.

We are helping four maritime utilities led by New Brunswick Power Corporation as it integrates smart grid technologies, load management and intermittent renewables. Also on the east coast, the Fundy Ocean Research Centre for Energy is working to harness power from the most energy-rich tides in the world.

Our government's support for the lower Churchill River projects in Newfoundland and Labrador will boost clean energy production in Atlantic Canada. The production potential of the lower Churchill project is enormous. Muskrat Falls alone will have a generating capacity of 824 megawatts. That is enough to produce an estimated 4.9 million megawatt hours per year. That is equivalent to powering almost half a million Canadian homes.

This clean renewable energy provides an opportunity for Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia to meet their own needs in an environmentally sustainable way. Once completed, Newfoundland and Labrador will obtain up to 98% of its electricity from non-emitting sources, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by up to 4.5 megatonnes.

As all members can see, the Government of Canada is delivering real emission reductions while still maintaining Canada's economic advantage. In this way, our government is helping the energy sector to become more competitive, create new greener jobs for Canadians, and further protect our environment.

Canada's energy sector, including clean tech, has an extremely positive impact on our national economy. Energy represents roughly 7% of our gross domestic product. It supports hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country. It is a major contributor to Canada's economic stability and quality of life. The positive impact of our energy sector is found throughout Canada's economy in manufacturing, support services, construction, engineering and the financial sector.

We need to continue delivering major investments in our infrastructure so that we can diversify Canada's energy markets. We need to continue our progress in developing our vast resources in an environmentally responsible way.

[Safe Streets and Communities Act, November 29th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, one thing is for sure. The money that we are going to save on the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry that the member supports is going to be put into policing and into things which really will make our communities safer.

I happen to know from my own riding the amount of money that our government continues to devote to rehabilitation and prevention. For example, just to name one or two programs, our government has invested heavily in an anti-gang strategy. My own community received $3.5 million under that. It is in one community after another all across this country with a view to keeping vulnerable young people from being lured into gangs.

My community of Kitchener developed a curriculum called the high on life curriculum, which is being used in schools now, at least all across Ontario if not Canada, to help convince young people that they do not have to do drugs to get high on life.

Our government has promoted other measures and will continue to promote measures, but it is simply not enough that we only do that. We are the only government that has a balanced approach to crime, balancing prevention and rehabilitation with appropriate respect for law and order.

[Safe Streets and Communities Act, November 29th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, what one would find if one examines this legislation is that mandatory minimum penalties are required only in cases which are particularly egregious. For example, there will be a mandatory minimum penalty for drug traffickers who engage people under the age of 18 in their business of trafficking drugs.

There will be a mandatory minimum penalty for drug producers who set up a grow op in a residential neighbourhood thereby causing a danger of fire or otherwise to communities.

There will be mandatory minimum penalties for drug traffickers who are engaged in organized crime.

These offences are all specifically targeted. Canadians would want us to impose jail sentences on these offences. The government is going to pursue those remedies.

[Safe Streets and Communities Act, November 29th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to speak today in the debate on Bill C-10, the Safe Streets and Communities Act. I am going to limit my remarks to the changes this bill makes to the Youth Criminal Justice Act. These changes were previously incorporated in Bill C-4, or what was known as Sebastian's law. Those proposals are now in part 4 of Bill C-10, clauses 167 to 204.

The former bill, Bill C-4, was first introduced on March 16, 2010, and was being reviewed by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights when the opposition caused Parliament to dissolve on March 26, 2011. Sixteen meetings had been held to study Bill C-4 and over 60 witnesses had already appeared before the committee.

The problems with our current youth criminal justice system were recently highlighted by the results of four months of observation by the Toronto Star of a typical Canadian youth court. I will briefly quote the conclusions reached, which state:

Changes to youth sentencing law in 2003 were supposed to fix an overreliance on custody. Instead, serious offenders are thumbing their noses at the courts because they know they will be treated lightly. Victims feel their voices are not heard. Kids who violently break the law, many from broken homes, are reoffending.

Our government invests significantly in crime prevention and rehabilitative measures and in restorative justice, but a balanced approach to criminal justice requires that we also pay due regard to protecting the public and victims of crime against violent youth offenders and repeat youth offenders. This is what Bill C-10 targets.

A number of amendments to the youth justice provisions of Bill C-10 were tabled by both NDP and Liberal members of the standing committee during clause-by-clause consideration and I will comment on some of the more significant of those.

One proposed amendment relates to protection of the public, specifically calling for the reinsertion of “long-term” ahead of the phrase “protection of the public” in the overarching principles of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. In highlighting protection of the public in the Youth Criminal Justice Act, the government has responded directly to recommendation 20 of the Nunn commission report.

The Nunn commission was a Nova Scotia public inquiry, which examined the circumstances surrounding the tragic death of Theresa McEvoy, who was struck and killed by a youth driving a stolen vehicle. Justice Nunn concluded that highlighting public safety as one of the primary goals of the act was necessary to deal with this small group of repeat offenders that was spinning out of control.

We agree with the conclusion drawn by Justice Nunn that the current provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act are not sufficient to deal with this small group of dangerous and repeat offenders. It is simply wrong to suggest that by removing the adjective “long-term” from ahead of the phrase “protection of the public”, we are forbidding consideration of long-term factors. No, by removing a restrictive adjective, we are merely restoring the phrase “protection of the public” to its true meaning. In doing so, we are allowing judges to consider all factors relating to public protection, including short-term and long-term considerations.

It is also very important to note that, just as it was before Bill C-10, protection of the public will continue to be simply one principle of the act, alongside and equal to other principles, such as emphasis on rehabilitation in section 3(1)(b), fair and proportionate accountability in section 3(1)(c) and special consideration for young persons in section 3(1)(d) of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Another motion to amend called for the removal of specific deterrents and denunciation from the sentencing principles in the Youth Criminal Justice Act. That is proposed by clause 172 of Bill C-10.

By allowing judges to consider specific deterrents and denunciation in sentencing, and I say only allowing, not requiring, we increase confidence in the youth justice system. We simply give judges the right to choose the tools they feel necessary to deal with the needs of the differing young persons who come before them.

In proposing this amendment, the government is not abandoning the current sentencing principles in the legislation. It is instead giving judges an additional tool to help deal with that small group of repeat and violent offenders where it is reasonable to consider specific deterrents, or even denunciation, for the benefit of the young person and in order to maintain the public's confidence in the administration of justice. Even this provision would be limited in its effect because the application of these provisions, specific deterrents and denunciation, would be subject to the principle that the sentence must be proportionate to the gravity of the offence and the degree of the responsibility of the offender.

Another of our proposals that was discussed quite extensively at the justice committee was the test for publication in clause 185 of Bill C-10. The opposition proposed to amend this clause to basically make this test optional rather than mandatory.

The wider circumstances under which publication bans may be lifted, proposed by clause 185, fulfills our government's commitment to Canadians to ensure that young offenders will be named when the circumstances of their offence requires it. In our view, it would be inappropriate for this provision to be optional when the very purpose of the amendment is to protect the public, and that is not optional. The government is not calling for unlimited publication, but merely equipping judges with an additional tool for circumstances that require it.

In fact, it should be noted that this provision would only make it mandatory for judges to consider, to think about, publication. They are not be required to order publication in any particular case.

The threshold for this is also significant. The judge is required to consider the purpose and principles set out in sections 3 and 38 of the Youth Criminal Justice Act and the judge must decide that the young person poses a significant risk of committing not just any offence but a violent offence and that the lifting of the ban is necessary to protect the public against that risk. If there is no significant risk of violence or if any other solution makes publication unnecessary, then publication remains banned. Furthermore, the onus of convincing the court of these matters remains on the prosecutor.

Our government recognizes the importance of our youth criminal justice system and as such we propose changes in Bill C-10 to address the many concerns that Canadians have expressed about the shortcomings of the current system.

Our government responded to calls for change from several provinces asking for modifications to the former Bill C-4. Manitoba, Alberta and Nova Scotia officials appeared before the commons committee in June 2010 and subsequently provided suggested amendments in relation to pretrial detention, adult sentencing and deferred custody and supervision orders.

Our government considered these submissions and made changes to the applicable provisions found in clause 169 and subclauses 174(2) and 183(1) of Bill C-10. These changes have been well-received by the provinces that proposed them and would ultimately strengthen the youth justice system.

At clause-by-clause consideration, the government also proposed changing clause 168, by replacing the verb “encourager” with the verb “favoriser” in the French version of paragraph 3(1)(a)(ii) of the act. That is a change Minister Fournier from Quebec had requested.

This government is committed to the protection of our communities and to tackling crime committed by young persons. Our view is that this can be achieved without compromising the use of measures outside the judicial process, while still preserving non-custodial sentences for the vast majority of cases where such measures are appropriate.

Part 4 of Bill C-10 would provide judges and others working in the youth justice system with tools needed to deal appropriately with the differing needs of young people who come before them, including the needs of repeat and violent offenders who have not responded well under the current system. Such changes would restore public confidence to our youth criminal justice system.

I invite all the members opposite to join us in these efforts by supporting this bill. Let us join and together take arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them.

[Petitions, November 25th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition to this House from some of my constituents in Kitchener Centre regarding Bill C-4 on human smuggling. I do so not because I necessarily agree with the petition but because I think everyone has a right to have his or her voice heard in this House.

These constituents believe that Bill C-4 would place refugees in detention only because they are seeking safety in Canada, and they do not see any other reason. Therefore, the petitioners think that would be arbitrary. They believe that Bill C-4 would place accepted refugees in limbo for five years, preventing them from seeing family members, travelling outside of Canada or integrating into Canadian society because they are not permanent residents. They believe that this measure is intended to punish refugees and they see no other reason for it.

The petitioners also believe that smuggling is already punishable by life imprisonment or by a fine of up to $1 million under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. For that reason, they call on the government to withdraw BillC-4.

[Veterans, November 2nd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I want to raise an objection to what the member just said. There is no question that I said nothing in response to the request for unanimous consent. I do not know how many of my colleagues over here did or did not. It is inappropriate for the member to make that a partisan comment by referencing the members on this side of the House.

[Petitions, October 31st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to present a petition on a subject that has already been touched upon in the House today and that is the treatment by the government of the People's Republic of China of the Falun Gong, a very peaceful and spiritual group of people who are exercising their right to pursue their principles of truth, compassion and forbearance.

It is reported that more than 3,448 practitioners have been tortured to death in the People's Republic of China. It is certainly the case that the UN special rapporteur on torture has reported many victims of alleged torture and ill treatment in China as Falun Gong practitioners. There, apparently, are 12 people in forced labour camps in the People's Republic of China who have close family ties to Canadian Chinese citizens. Any free and democratic nation has the responsibility to condemn crimes against humanity wherever they occur.

The petitioners call upon the Canadian government to use every channel possible to call for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong, especially when it meets with top Chinese leaders at international forums, and also to help rescue the family members of Canadian residents who are incarcerated because of their belief in Falun Gong.

[Kitchener Oktoberfest, October 18th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, last week Kitchener celebrated Oktoberfest, the premier North American Bavarian festival. It is a major cultural event and it brings in major tourist revenue. It is all organized by hundreds of volunteers who devote countless hours. A big thanks to all who contributed, including President Vic Degutis and Onkel Hans himself.

To my colleagues who have not yet sampled this celebration, they have to visit Oktoberfest at least once in their lives. Make it next year.

Our Festhallen are the world's best, but there is so much more to Oktoberfest. There is German Pioneer Day, the Miss Oktoberfest Gala, the Tour de Hans Celebrity Dinner, and the Family Breakfast.

Visitors can watch our “So You Think You Can Tanz” competition, join the Great Oktoberfest Barrel Race, or experience an 1890s Thanksgiving at Woodside.

Dirndls and lederhosen are everywhere.

Members should put this event in their calendars now.

It is another reason I am proud to be the member of Parliament for Kitchener Centre. Prost.

[Keeping Canada's Economy and Jobs Growing Act, October 17th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I must admit that as my friend across the way was going on I drifted in and out of attention to what he said. However, it seems to me that we are here today to debate the budget implementation act and what he is talking about is totally irrelevant to it. I would ask you, Madam Speaker, to ask the member across the way to maintain relevance to the debate at hand and stop his comments on irrelevant matters such as the Wheat Board.

[Safe Streets and Communities Act, September 27th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to take issue with a comment made by my friend, although I will say:

I want to thank him very much for his question.

What he said, as I heard it, was that this legislation proposes to put young offenders or people in custody on doubtful grounds. I can only hope, once again, that the member opposite who posed that question actually takes a minute to look at the legislation. He will see that there is no such thing in this legislation. There is so no such thing as putting people in prison on doubtful grounds. In fact, in many cases all we are simply doing is giving judges the discretion to exercise that option.

I am happy to say that in total, since 2006, our government has succeeded in passing 19 criminal justice reform bills. They have all been solid and, in my opinion, essential in tweaking and improving our criminal justice system.