Thierry St-Cyr

[The Budget, March 27th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, indeed, there are a number of holes in this budget and a number of things missing. Nonetheless, there is an attempt to start correcting the fiscal imbalance. If this allows the governments of Quebec and the provinces to put more money into health, education and social services, then this will, among other things, help the least fortunate that the hon. member was talking about. The Bloc Québécois does not agree with the NDP's centralizing, paternalistic approach that promotes interference in provincial jurisdictions.

The Liberals had 13 years to correct the fiscal imbalance and they never did it. Worse yet, they are mostly responsible because they were the ones who savagely cut transfers to the provinces in 1995. Since that time, the Bloc Québécois has been working hard in order to correct the mistake the Liberals made at the time. What is more, they never acknowledged the fiscal imbalance.

Now that the government is starting to propose a correction with this budget, we will support it, but we will continue to exert pressure in order to have this fully and completely resolved.

[The Budget, March 27th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak in this House to this budget.

My colleague from Châteauguay—Saint-Constant explained the reality of this budget quite well. This is a step toward correcting the fiscal imbalance, but things are not really resolved. We are still at the mercy of the federal government's goodwill. All we need is an election, another budget or another government and all this can change.

In fact, the first thing this government did when it came into power was tear up the agreement on child care reached with Quebec. It could very well do the same in a few months or another government could do so in a few years. Such is the cost of dependency: being at the mercy of another government for making our strategic choices in Quebec. The only solution to this is independence.

The hon. member for Châteauguay—Saint-Constant pointed out that the government needed to have the fiscal imbalance explained to it. It was the Bloc Québécois that proposed this debate in the House. Even though some progress has been made, the Conservatives still do not understand what the fiscal imbalance is. The minister claims that it has been resolved, that it is over and that nothing more will be said about it. To resolve it, he would have had to offer a real and complete solution to the fiscal imbalance, but he does not understand what that means.

The concept of the imbalance was first introduced by the Séguin commission in Quebec. It received a broad consensus, regardless of political stripes and allegiances to national unity.

When the term “fiscal imbalance” was adopted, people at the Séguin commission did not just randomly pick two words out of the dictionary. They did not draw them out of a hat. These words did not come out of nowhere. These people came up with the term “fiscal imbalance” because it was an imbalance and because it was fiscal. This seems logical enough to me.

The imbalance means that the central, federal government collects more taxes than it needs to discharge its constitutionally-assigned responsibilities, while the governments of Quebec and the provinces do not have sufficient tax revenues to provide all the services designated or required by the Constitution and the related fields of jurisdiction shared by the provincial governments.

This situation will only get worse, because expenditures related to federal jurisdictions tend to increase relatively moderately, while expenditures related to provincial jurisdictions, especially health and education, for instance, increase quite quickly.

That is the imbalance aspect and there is also the fiscal aspect. It is a taxation issue, a question of predictable, own-source revenues the provinces can collect in order to provide their citizens with the appropriate services.

One cannot consider the fiscal imbalance resolved as long as there are no fiscal solutions. It is not called the budget imbalance, the financial imbalance or the monetary imbalance. It is called the fiscal imbalance. I repeat this, because we have been repeating this for four years and, as of just last week, the government still did not understand what it was.

Thus, the government has taken a first step. It has decided to transfer more money to Quebec and the provinces. That is a step forward. However, it is not enough. This can only be a short-term solution. What Quebeckers want—and all party leaders in Quebec have said so, partisan politics aside—is to take this even further. Independent transfers are needed. The GST, for instance, must be handed over to the Quebec government to collect directly, increasing the Quebec sales tax by six points, for example and, in exchange, the federal government would agree to stop collecting that tax in Quebec.

That was the Séguin commission's preferred solution. It would be the simplest solution to implement and would give the Government of Quebec its own revenues that would grow at the same pace as its economy and would be controlled by Quebec voters when they choose their government. That is what we want. We do not want to have to start everything over in a few months, which is what happened in the past. This could be a solution to the problem.

We could also solve the problem through tax transfers, which has been done in the past. We could increase the federal income tax allowance for Quebeckers. The Government of Quebec could then increase its income tax rates by an equivalent amount. This would be completely transparent for taxpayers. This would make a difference for citizens and the government because Quebec could take advantage of its own revenues. That is what should have been done.

With respect to the budget, there is still a lot to do. In terms of equalization, the point is to ensure fiscal fairness—as I said, this is about taxation—which means that all of the provinces would have similar fiscal capacities. This regime is for provinces that fall below the Canadian average for fiscal capacity. The money they receive will enable them to offer services similar to those offered in other provinces based on the Canadian norm without having to raise their own taxes unreasonably. How is the tax base calculated? In any reasonable federation anywhere in the world, people would say that it is not complicated, that the tax base is simply all of the revenue sources available to governments.

In Canada, the government has decided to exclude, on a totally arbitrary basis, a source of revenue equivalent to half the country's non-renewable natural resources. That is completely arbitrary. It just so happens that the province that will suffer the most because of this exclusion is Quebec. In the current budget, there are two levels of inclusion that can be used to calculate equalization: 0% and 50%. Why is there no 100% level, which would benefit Quebec? The Conservative members from Quebec have failed to ensure that Quebec's voice is being heard.

I would like to address my colleagues from the rest of Canada who might say that we are complaining for nothing. How would they have reacted if the government had decided to exclude aerospace from the equalization formula. Why not? Would the Bloc support that? That would be good. It would mean additional revenues for Quebec. The aerospace industry is concentrated in Quebec and is part of our fiscal capacity. So it would be to our advantage to remove it from the calculation. But that would not make sense. Everyone would say, “why aerospace?” Why would we not exclude hydroelectricity? Why not? Non-renewable resources are excluded, so why not renewable ones?

What I am trying to show is that this measure is completely arbitrary and that it goes against the very spirit of the Canadian federation. The amount Quebec receives might of course seem large. We heard some of our colleagues speak about this. Of all the provinces that receive equalization payments, Quebec receives the least per capita. Quebec obviously receives more in equalization than Prince Edward Island. It is not just about volume, number of residents and the principle of fiscal capacity. Fiscal capacity is calculated per capita. Is each province able to offer similar services to every resident?

In conclusion, the government has taken a step forward. It is a start. The government could have done better by eliminating the arbitrary nature of equalization.

It could also have done better by offering a tax transfer.

[The Budget, March 27th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed the presentation of my hon. colleague from Châteauguay—Saint-Constant.

I have a very simple question for her in light of the progress made with respect to the fiscal imbalance.

Does she not think that this is essentially a minority government budget and that, had Quebec not elected 51 Bloc Québécois members and had this government been a majority government, it would never have bothered to respond to the aspirations of Quebeckers?

[Criminal Code, March 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the question was not as quick as the member said it would be, but I will try to provide a quick answer.

There is no reason to believe that extending current cases where there is reverse onus is justified. Basically, in our justice system, we believe in the presumption of innocence. This is the basic premise. In certain cases, the onus that is already provided in the law is reversed, but before extending it, we want to have the demonstration that this is necessary.

However, this government has never provided this. No studies support it. This is just an assumption among others, and we are opposed to sacrificing principles of natural justice for an opinion that has no justification.

[Criminal Code, March 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the problem with my colleague's remarks is that it is not at all what Bill C-35 is about.

The bill is about detention before trial. It has nothing to do with the detention of a person who has been convicted. A person who is convicted is given a sentence and must serve that sentence. We are not questioning that. What we are saying is that to determine if an accused will be detained before the trial, the Crown has to prove that there is good reason to believe that it would be dangerous to let that person out on bail. That is how things are done now. In the example given by my colleague from the Conservative Party, I am pretty much convinced that any court would have concluded that someone who shoots people should probably not be out on bail.

That is how things are done now and it works. We have never heard of a case where it did not work. Therefore, there is no need to reverse the onus before the trial, claiming that what is already in the law is unacceptable. It is already in the law.

[Criminal Code, March 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I think we all agree that in matters of justice, the government clearly does know where it is going. It is absolutely illogical on one hand to make firearms more accessible and on the other to make the rules of evidence more strict and constraining for the accused. That does not make sense. The government is taking the problem by the wrong end.

My colleague talked about the first nations programs. There, too, the government does not seem to know where it is going. It is managing justice matters without a plan; I would even be tempted to say on a day by day basis. It may very well put forward measures that seem attractive and popular but they are inappropriate. The government should go back to the drawing board.

It is not enough to say we are for law and order and tough on crime. That is not what must be done. The government must do its work well and cooperate with experts who know the field. To achieve a real reduction in crime in Canada, effective measures are needed. Obviously, the government does not know where it is going.

[Criminal Code, March 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I was talking about the hypocrisy of this Conservative government, which is claiming to table this bill in the name of preventing crime and specifically crimes committed with firearms. In the meantime, it wants to dismantle the firearms registry and it refuses to have stricter gun control.

To me it would be more logical to have an effective firearms registry and legislation prohibiting the possession of certain firearms—as the police are asking for. In fact, it would be much more effective to prevent the crimes than to reverse the onus of proof once the crimes are committed.

There is another aberration by this government which clearly shows that it is not serious about prevention. Most members in this House are probably faced with this situation in their ridings: currently, programs from the crime prevention research centre are on hold. Everywhere, community organizations working to promote crime prevention are waiting for the minister's signature to launch their projects. In my riding, Tandem, which is an organization that fights crime—by promoting prevention—is waiting for the minister's signature. Other organizations, such as Chantier d'Afrique, are also waiting.

If the government were serious, it would invest money and approve these projects, so that we can move forward in the area of prevention. It would also maintain the firearms program.

In this regard, I would like to quote some relevant figures that the Conservatives would rather not mention. These figures show that the gun registry works. Currently, 7.1 million firearms are registered. All the information gathered is far from being negligible.

Moreover, 90% of these guns are hunting rifles. Every day, the register is consulted an average of 6,500 times. Since December 1st 1998, a total of 1,154,722 guns have been exported, destroyed, neutralized or withdrawn from the Canadian information system, thus reducing by that much the risk of guns being used.

Experts are very skeptical about the effectiveness of the government's proposed measures to fight gun violence.

First, the bail system has not been the subject of as many studies as other aspects of the criminal justice system have. There may not be an answer for even the most simple questions, such as: how many individuals charged with committing a crime involving firearms are currently out on bail? This is a process that remains unknown, because it has yet to be the subject of empirical research.

According to Alan Young, a criminal law professor at York University's Osgoode Hall Law School, in Toronto, the reverse onus proposed by the Conservatives is a “complete shot in the dark”, because we do not even know if the current system is effective or not. The information is too fragmented to know the rate of recidivism or compliance, following court orders.

The need for this bill is dubious to say the least. The Prime Minister claims that 40% of offences involving firearms are committed by individuals out on bail. The Prime Minister quoted a police report which shows that, out of about 1,000 crimes involving guns or restricted weapons, some 40% may have been committed by individuals who were on parole, bail, probation or temporary absence.

However, according to Tony Doob, a criminologist at the University of Toronto, these statistics do not tell the whole story, since someone could be released on bail as a result of simple theft, a situation Bill C-35 does not address.

In addition, people accused of offences involving firearms are already faced with something like reverse onus. The question is whether the bill will make it possible to imprison a dangerous person who would not otherwise have been incarcerated.

Mr. Doob also said that Canada is not particularly lenient when it comes to releasing someone on bail. This is especially interesting since the Conservatives give the impression that this is a big threat, while the numbers do not seem to confirm that the system is lax when it comes to releasing people on bail. Statistics on incarcerations consistently show that there are more people behind bars awaiting trial than people serving sentences. I think this is worth repeating. Statistics on incarcerations consistently show that there are more people behind bars awaiting trial than people serving sentences. So we can believe that the current system does not disproportionately release people on bail.

In support of the point I have just made twice, I will add that according to Statistics Canada, in 2004, there were 125,871 Canadians in prison awaiting trial, while 83,733 people behind bars were serving court-ordered sentences.

I would also like to quote Louise Botham, president of the Criminal Lawyers Association. According to her, the court is already very careful in how it awards release on bail. She also wonders about how the bill before us will serve as a deterrent.

Studies show that mandatory minimum sentences have no deterrent effect on crime. I don't know why a reverse onus would.

It seems quite a stretch to state or to believe that a criminal on the verge of committing a crime with a firearm will say to himself, at the very last minute, that he will not do it because of bail conditions or because of the reverse onus of proof. That is not at all what goes through a criminal's mind when he is about to commit a crime.

In the United States, incarcerating an individual in order to prevent a crime is known as the incapacitation effect. At least one study suggests that hiring more police officers is a more effective use of taxpayers' money than incarcerating individuals.

Thus, the Conservative government, true unto itself, is improvising again in matters of justice. As is too often the case, it is legislating without really knowing what it is doing because it does not have any serious studies to guide its actions.

Its measures, which may seem appealing at first glance, challenge fundamental legal rights and principles without ascertaining beforehand whether or not these measures have real benefits in terms of safety. Nevertheless, we do know that some measures—measures that the Conservative government is not implementing—would have real safety benefits. As I already mentioned, the first is maintaining the firearms registry. We know it works and that it helps police officers to do their jobs. The government proposes to dismantle it.

The other measure consists of the crime prevention programs that I described earlier. All my colleagues have been through this. We are waiting for the Minister of Public Safety to make the money available. We do not need a bill requiring three readings and debates in committee and in the House for that. We only need the Minister of Public Safety to sign the authorizations for this money to go to community groups that are very good at preventing crime. It would be much more logical for the government to take that approach than the one in this bill.

[Criminal Code, March 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak to Bill C-35, which is before us here today. First of all, you will not be surprised to learn that the Bloc Québécois is against the principle of this bill, in part because we are opposed to upsetting the balance between the principles of security and the presumption of innocence. We believe that a person accused of a crime must be presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. In accordance with this presumption of innocence, it is important that the onus be on the Crown to demonstrate that the individual should not be released before his or her trial.

The Crown is in a better position to bear the burden of proof, given its expertise and resources, while the accused is left to his own devices, sometimes without even a lawyer to represent him. As a result, any encroachment on the presumption of innocence must be done with great caution, which is unfortunately not the case with this bill. The Bloc Québécois acknowledges that certain exceptions already exist, but refuses to contribute to any violation of the key principle of presumption of innocence.

I would like to begin my presentation by putting things into context. The bill was tabled in the House of Commons on November 23, 2006 and proposes amendments to the Criminal Code to provide that the accused will be required to demonstrate, when charged with certain serious offences involving firearms or other regulated weapons, that pre-trial detention is not justified. In lay terms, we could say that the bill ensures that, for certain crimes, accused individuals awaiting trial must remain in prison, unless they can prove that they do not belong there.

I would like to give an overview of the bill. At present, the general rule states that it is up to the crown prosecutor to demonstrate that the accused should not be released on bail because he or she poses a danger to the public. The Criminal Code provides for some exceptions, however, and in such cases the accused must prove that pre-trial detention is unjustified. These exceptions are: breach of release conditions, involvement in organized crime, terrorism, drug trafficking, smuggling or production, murder, treason or war crimes.

With Bill C-35, the Conservative government is trying to broaden this range of exceptions. If passed, the bill will require the accused to prove to the judge that he or she may be released without causing concern for society for in connection with any and all of the following offences: attempted murder, discharging a firearm with intent to wound, sexual assault with a weapon, aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, hostage taking, extortion, firearms trafficking or possession for the purpose of trafficking, any offence involving a firearm if committed while the accused is bound by a weapons prohibition order.

This bill has been widely criticized, not only by the Bloc Québécois but also by the legal community. It is clearly in response to the shootings in Toronto, the city in which the Prime Minister chose to announce the introduction of this bill. He was accompanied at the time by Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, a Liberal, and by Toronto Mayor David Miller, an NDPer. Support for this government bill from these two public figures prompted the Prime Minister to say that, between the three of them, they covered a large portion of the political spectrum, which meant there was some unanimity.

But when the Ontario premier and the mayor of Toronto suggested banning handguns, the Prime Minister was quick to reject the idea. “Simply banning guns we don't think would be effective,” commented the Prime Minister, “What we do need to do is stop the smuggling of illegal weapons”.

This is how the government has come to jeopardize a right that is critical to democracy, namely the presumption of innocence. But at the same time, it will not give a chance to the firearms program, whose costs—

[Business of Supply, March 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. The advantage would be the resulting budgetary independence.

I believe that the purpose of our political existence is to achieve political independence for Quebeckers as quickly as possible. This week's budget is a case in point: it has allowed Quebec sovereignists to score several points and to demonstrate what we wanted to contribute.

First, there is our incredible dependence on the federal state. When the tabling of a federal budget becomes an issue in a provincial election, there is a problem with the federation. Primarily it is a sign of the dependence of this province on the choices made by the central government.

The budget benefits sovereignists in another way. With funds provided to the next government formed by André Boisclair's Parti Québécois, we can show Quebeckers what they will be able to do when they control their own taxes and they make their own budget decisions. The effect is similar to that of the Club Med advertising: 15 seconds of Club Med, could you imagine a week? With one, two or three billion dollars in taxes recovered, we can then suggest to Quebeckers that they imagine what it will be like when we recover $41 billion in taxes.

[Business of Supply, March 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with much of what I just heard. I am even tempted to order the audio tape and make sure that all of Quebec hears it. It is the best argument in favour of sovereignty and the best argument confirming that the fiscal imbalance issue has not been resolved.

Yes, the Liberal member is entirely correct. There is absolutely no guarantee that this money will be available next year. Just as his government reneged on some promises, so has the new government. There is nothing to guarantee Quebeckers that this money will still be available for the next budget. I completely agree with the hon. member.

In fact, that was the point of my entire speech. During the 20 minutes of my speech, I explained that, as long as there is no fiscal solution, there is no permanent solution. The only avenue left for Quebeckers is to take charge of their own future and become sovereign.