Vic Toews

[Sex Offender Registry, September 30th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, that is absolute nonsense. There was no such consent. Provincial ministers are telling this minister that there is no consensus on that point.

In 1995 the government changed the law to provide house arrest for dangerous offenders instead of prison. Now, despite the protests of provincial ministers, convicted child molesters will be exempted from the national sex offender registry.

The Solicitor General continues to ignore the interests of children. Why?

[Sex Offender Registry, September 30th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, last week the Supreme Court ruled that the government's changes to dangerous offender laws made it easier for murderers and rapists to serve their time in the community rather than the prison they deserve.

Now the Liberal government is trying to pass a sex offender registry that excludes the names of those convicted of preying on children.

Why does the Solicitor General insist on protecting the interests of convicted criminals when they are destroying the lives of Canadian children?

[Criminal Code, September 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the member's question is a good one. How do we appropriately use resources in order to tackle what is a very serious problem? Do we give it directly to the police? Do we give it to the existing regulatory agencies? Do we simply pass more laws?

I would like to hear, as this debate continues, how this is going to enhance the detection of criminal activity. My own view is that there are actually good aspects of self-regulatory bodies because they have that insider knowledge which allows them to act efficiently and effectively.

[Criminal Code, September 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, let us deal very briefly with some of the peripheral matters with respect to the former minister of public works.

My party has asked for that individual to come back and explain his conduct. It was the Liberal government and the committee members who refused to allow him to testify in front of that committee. I stand by what I said. He has been implicated in some very shady deals and he should be given the opportunity to come here and clear his name. I would welcome that opportunity. I am sure that the member would also like to see that individual come before the House and be given an opportunity to clear his name if there is nothing that associates him with those shady deals.

In respect of the ethical standards, I will not comment any further on the issue of the former minister of defence. Whether we call it an illegality or a breach of ethical standards, I think we are all bound by a higher standard in this House that we need to comply with and I will not quibble about the words.

In respect of my statements about 69% of Canadians, what I said, I think very clearly, and what the polls said, is that the federal political system is corrupt, and I am part of that political system, and that reflects adversely on all of us as members of Parliament.

In respect of the specific questions on the inadequate resourcing or inadequate laws, in fact there are serious problems with the resourcing of various laws.

One of the most important areas that the Toronto police have stated over and over again is their inability to deal effectively with child pornographers. They are overstretched in terms of dealing with the challenges of technology. In some of the cases, the police have to sift through a half a million pictures, categorize and catalogue the pictures and send them off to defence counsel. It creates all kinds of resource implications.

Certainly the federal government has not been doing its fair share. The chief of police in Toronto has indicated the problem that they simply do not have the resources and has indicated areas and programs from where those resources could be taken. One example is the gun registry which the chief of police again criticized as a colossal waste of money.

There are inadequate resources and there are inadequate laws.

One of the issues that I was very hopeful the present Minister of Justice and the previous minister would address was that preliminary inquiries. With these kinds of trials, preliminary inquiries will last for years. The provincial attorneys general said that there is no need for these preliminary inquiries.

In recent cases that the Supreme Court has come out with, such as the Stinchcombe and other cases, the crown has virtually been told that it has to produce every scrap of material. Preliminary inquiries have become meaningless. They are being used as a delaying process. That aggravates the resource issue.

If the government had real guts to change the law to make the legal system more effective, many of the resource issues would be addressed simply by changing the law to reflect the 21st century technology.

It is a combination of both. Let us change the law to eliminate those anachronisms and increase resources from programs that simply are not meeting a legitimate justice need.

[Criminal Code, September 29th, 2003]

My colleague from British Columbia is reminding me of the young offenders act.

I was a provincial minister of justice in Manitoba, and I remember arguing with the federal government. It gave us a few million dollars, but its contribution fell short of the implementation costs of the young offenders act. The provinces were then stuck with the prosecutions.

In order to administer its own legislation, the federal government is probably paying somewhere in the range of 10%, 15% or 20%. I say to those provinces that might be charmed with $120 million to get exactly what they are getting in writing. They should not take the word of those guys. We have seen them fail in honouring their word time and time again.

Under Bill C-46 the Attorney General of Canada would be permitted to prosecute a narrow range of cases that threaten the national interest and the integrity of capital markets. Frankly, I would say to the provinces to let the federal government prosecute them all. Then the federal government will find out how expensive, cumbersome, and complicated it is to prosecute these cases. There are thousands of justice department lawyers who draft all this legislation, lawyers who do not have to go into court to defend that legislation and prosecute under it.

We have seen these lawyers draft gang legislation that is absolutely worthless because it is so complex. We are fighting a 21st century problem in terms of gangs with 19th century legislation. We have lawyers in the justice department who are more concerned about what the courts will say about the charter of rights than actually prosecuting criminals and telling the courts why it is important to put these criminals away.

We have turned the system on its head and now the Attorney General of Canada says he would prosecute a narrow range of these crimes. I say to the provinces to let the federal government prosecute all of these cases. It will see that the $120 million will maybe last one year, not over five years.

Generally speaking, however, with the exception of the resourcing issue and with the failure of the government to place minimum sentences, I am in support of the general thrust of the legislation. Canadians agree that confidence in our nation's corporate sector and stock markets must be retained. However, it is difficult for Canadians to take the justice minister and his parliamentary secretary seriously when they say it is important to be tough on corporate abuse of money invested by the public when nothing is being done to prevent the abuse of taxpayers' dollars by the Liberal government.

Just two weeks ago, the member for St. Albert revealed that a former assistant to the heritage minister spent over $50,000 on food and travel in just under two years and had not provided adequate information for most of the bills. Last week, or the week before last, concerns over $600,000 in questionable expense accounts by the director of the National Gallery of Canada added to this growing list of waste and mismanagement. The list is not limited to staff or appointed officials. It extends all the way up to the upper echelons of government.

Last year, private companies such as Groupe Everest and Lafleur Communications came under criminal investigation after intense pressure from the Canadian Alliance. The Auditor General's report said that senior bureaucrats broke every rule in the book by awarding contracts to these Liberal Party contributors.

Corruption in the sponsorship program has led to revelations of waste in $230 million of government advertising spending. Several Liberal ministers have been forced to resign after even the Prime Minister could no longer defend their actions.

The former public works minister, Alfonso Gagliano, was implicated in questionable advertising contracts and was conveniently shuffled out of cabinet into a Liberal patronage position as ambassador to Denmark.

The former defence minister was fired following the revelation he gave an untendered contract to a personal friend. The former solicitor general came under investigation by the ethics counsellor and resigned after he was found to have breached ethical guidelines in giving contracts to party friends.

This is the government that now says we have to get tough on the private sector and the abuse of the money that the public invests in capital markets. Yet this is a government that has taken absolutely no steps to clean up its own House. It is another example why government members do not want to see minimum sentences in place.

They simply want, as I said earlier, to wink at the judges and say that this is just business as usual and that the government must up the end of the sentences, but the judges should not worry because they can do whatever they want on the bottom end.

The justice minister is quick to point out that 55% of Canadians have lost confidence in the stock market as a result of recent corporate scandals. It is funny how he forgot to mention that the 2002 poll showed that 69% of Canadians viewed the federal political system as corrupt.

Here the justice minister is motivated to act in respect of the private sector when 55% of Canadians want to see changes in the stock market. Yet when 69% of Canadians say that the federal system is corrupt, there is an absolute silence coming from the justice minister and his parliamentary secretary in respect of this very important issue.

Canada's federal Liberal government needs to get busy cleaning up its own house if it is to have any credibility in enforcing any new laws designed to deter corporate crime.

Having said that, I think it is important for members to follow the legislation closely, bring forward appropriate amendments and support legislation that indeed deters fraud in capital markets. This is an important bill and at this point it should be advanced.

[Criminal Code, September 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in today's debate on Bill C-46, an act to amend the Criminal Code dealing with offences related to capital markets fraud. This legislation has been developed in reaction to corporate scandals that have surfaced in the United States and weakened investor confidence in capital markets worldwide. Similar American legislation was passed last July, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

As we have heard from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice, Bill C-46 proposes a number of changes that are intended to strengthen confidence in the markets, and protect investors from fraud and other unlawful conduct.

Under the new legislation we would find a new Criminal Code offence prohibiting insider trading which would carry a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment. A second new Criminal Code offence would prohibit employment related threats or retaliation which would protect so-called whistle-blowers, carrying a maximum sentence of 5 years imprisonment. The maximum sentences for existing fraud offences in the Criminal Code would be increased up to 14 years imprisonment from the current 10 years, while the penalty for fraudulent manipulation of stock exchange transactions would be increased to 10 years from 5 years.

The parliamentary secretary indicated that there would be specific aggravating factors for sentencing which would now include the extent of the economic damage done by the offence. Current mitigating factors, as he indicated, such as reputation or status, would be inapplicable to those committing serious capital market frauds if they were to rely on those very factors to commit the offence.

These are the concerns that I have in respect of this bill and they do relate to the sentencing provisions. This is a government that has consistently stated that it will get tough on crime. If we go to the Youth Criminal Justice Act or to the dangerous offenders legislation, there have always been those nice, colourful catch phrases designed to lead people from the truth of what the legislation was all about.

Last week we saw the Supreme Court of Canada correct the former minister of justice, who said he was bringing in legislation to protect Canadians from dangerous offenders. In fact, when the legislation was analyzed, as it was by the courts and confirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada, the legislation that was passed in 1997 made it easier for criminals to avoid staying behind bars. The option of a long term offender status now allows these dangerous offenders to apply under long term offender status and receive community based sentences or a form of parole.

The other point that the government has consistently stated when it talked about getting tough dealt with increasing maximum sentences. However, everyone knows it is not serious about taking steps to prevent crime by putting meaningful consequences in place because in fact what it does is never put minimum sentences in place. Whether a sentence is 10 years or 14 years, we have seen what the courts have done. They have simply applied the other avenues to allow individuals to escape responsibility through the use of conditional sentences, suspended sentences or other types of alternatives to incarceration.

I have seen that happen in the legal profession that I used to be a part of. When I started out in the practice of law, it was not uncommon for lawyers who defrauded clients to receive substantial penitentiary sentences.

Over the last number of years, of course, those lawyers who defrauded individuals, who caused incredible damage to people's savings and to the reputation of the law society, have been receiving conditional sentences. They have been able to avoid going to prison because of the tendency of the courts now, as directed by the legislation, to consider alternatives other than incarceration.

Here we see again the same kind of pattern. We hear the government say it will get tough on people who defraud investors, and yet it puts no minimum sentences in place. What the government is doing is simply winking to the judges and telling them not to worry about what it is saying about tough sentences, they can do whatever they like.

Given the direction that judges are required to follow in other parts of the Criminal Code, we will see the same kind of sentencing patterns and the alternatives to incarceration with Bill C-46. It has happened in the context of dangerous offenders and young offenders. It has happened in virtually every so-called sentencing reform that the government has brought forward. My concern is that if we want to get tough on individuals who defraud investors in the markets, minimum sentences must be put in place.

The parliamentary secretary indicated that additional investigative and prosecutorial resources would be provided in the most serious cases of capital markets fraud, including up to $120 million of federal money over the next five years. That amount is a joke. We have recently seen in the context of the Alberta gang trial where over $20 million was spent just to defend individuals, and the trial ultimately collapsed. The tens of millions of dollars that was spent in that trial is all gone. The sum of $120 million will go absolutely nowhere if we want to be serious about prosecuting this kind of fraud.

I noted the parliamentary secretary stating that the government would make some kind of agreement with the provinces. All I can say to the provinces is to beware. We have seen these kinds of agreements with the federal government before. Let us recall the medicare partnership of fifty-fifty. Now the federal government pays about 15%. Let us recall the deal on legal aid of fifty-fifty partners. Now the federal government is at about 15% or 20%.

[An Act to Amend the Criminal Code (Cruelty to Animals), September 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I too would like to add some comments with respect to this bill.

The debate regarding the bill has had a long and tortuous history. It began as part of an omnibus bill. What the Liberals were trying to do was to embarrass people into voting for the bill. If one did not vote for the bill, one was against things like the protection of children or mechanisms to ensure that police officers received additional protection. They put firearms legislation and the cruelty to animals legislation all in one bill.

Of course it was a complete subversion of transparency in the House of Commons. In fact the Liberals did not want Canadians to know what was going on in the House. Yet the Canadian Alliance stood firm on this issue and indicated that amendments needed to be made specifically to the animal cruelty sections.

I have stated before that the Canadian Alliance has been quite firm in its opinion that cruelty to animals cannot be tolerated and that indeed the penalties need to be increased to ensure that there is a proper deterrence. In fact I found it rather strange that I would be agreeing with the Liberals on that point because generally speaking the Liberals were trying to avoid criminal responsibility for criminals. Yet in this case they seemed bound and determined to push forward not only with respect to the issues regarding the additional penalties. What was a more troubling aspect of the bill was they were so willing to put criminal responsibility on to people who may not have the appropriate mens rea , that they were so willing to take away the time honoured statutory defences included in the legislation.

I found it curious that the Liberals were going to remove the legislation, the relevant sections from one part of the Criminal Code, where there were specific defences available to those who owned animals, and move them to another portion of the Criminal Code. The justification was that the bill was not changing any substantive issue, that what was illegal today would be illegal under the new legislation.

I found it a rather strange exercise after months, indeed years, of working on this legislation that all we were trying to do was put the legislation in exactly the same place in which we had left it. It made absolutely no sense. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. This legislation fundamentally changed the defences available to farmers and others who had a legitimate interest protecting their livelihood.

One of the misleading aspects about the whole debate was that people who were pushing this legislation, essentially animal rights activists from larger urban centres who did not really have an understanding of the reality of farm life, stated that the reason people were opposed to the amendments was because they wanted to see covered horrific crimes being committed against animals. They told stories about cat skinnings, dogs being starved and tortured or otherwise abused or neglected. Of course that had nothing to do with the reality of the situation. The reality of the situation was that those kinds of horrible things, cat skinnings, hurting dogs and other animals were already illegal.

I am speaking as a former prosecutor and part of the problem as a prosecutor is that it is difficult to prosecute these kinds of offences because the victims often are not in a position to speak.

Therefore, it was not the fact that the law did not properly address those kinds of situations. It was that it was difficult to prosecute those kinds of situations.

What we saw of course were various groups carrying out a particular agenda. I want to quote some of these groups because it is crucial to understand where these groups were coming from.

A lawyer for the World Society for the Protection of Animals, Lesli Bisgould, said:

In fact, the legal status of animals today is analogous to that of oppressed groups in society over the past century...the right not to be seen as a means to an end, the right not to be property.

Here we have an animal rights activist saying that animals are on the same level with oppressed groups of human beings from the last century. That is a disgusting thing to say about human beings.

We respect animals and we respect their place in our society. We respect their use by farmers and other legitimate organizations. But to suggest somehow that animals are an oppressed group, equivalent to the oppressed human beings of the last century simply is nonsense.

Even organizations as respectable as the Ontario SPCA said, in a 1999 recommendation to the justice department, that pets should:

--become literally a part of the family and any abuse, wilful or otherwise, would be treated the same as abuse of a child.

We know that the Liberals do not put much effort into protecting children in this country. So maybe this is not saying that much about animals.

I happen to believe that we have a higher duty and standard toward children than we do with animals. And to equate, again, animals with children is a dangerous kind of statement to make. It degrades human beings.

What these kind of comments illustrate is the real agenda behind these amendments; that, in fact, they were designed to put those who make their living from farming and medical research at risk; that there would be a chilling effect in the area of agriculture, medical research, hunting, trapping, and in all of these legitimate activities; that people would be too frightened to know what was the right or lawful thing to do and they would be dissuaded from participating in these activities.

Indeed, we had one of the senior justice department officials testify before the committee and refuse to disclose how he disposed of rodents and other pests on his farm property outside of Ottawa. The suggestion being he did not want to land up in some kind of criminal charge.

When it comes down to being frightened to say in the House of Parliament and its committees how one can properly deal with rodents--and this is one of the chief law officers in Canada--how much more reason do farmers, medical researchers, hunters, trappers and others, have to have about the possible repercussions of these changes?

The Alliance was very strong in putting forward specific amendments that clearly set out the defences available. This kind of nonsense that it is not explicit, it is implicit and, therefore, the defences are there. That simply has no basis in law.

If I were a defence lawyer in court, I would stand up on behalf of my client and say, “Well, you know, your honour, in the other part where the offence used to be, there were some defences specifically set out and the government, for absolutely no reason at all, introduced a bill to move the offences from one part to another but left the defences in the other part. But, your honour, you shouldn't pay any attention to that change in the legislation. Those defences, although they existed explicitly in the other part, now can be read implicitly in the new part”.

As a prosecutor, I could have stood up and said that is absolute nonsense. To think that Parliament would debate a bill and go to all this length of discussion to do absolutely nothing, makes no sense. The offences were taken out of the one part and put into another part. The fact that the defences were left in that first part obviously means that the law has been substantively changed.

I was pleased to support amendments that explicitly brought those defences into this new part. My colleague from the Bloc was very strong on that as well. We spoke together on that issue in committee and I appreciated his interventions in the course of those committee hearings. He did his constituents a good service and I believe that the Canadian Alliance spoke for its constituents in protecting their legitimate activities.

Now we have, as the member from the Progressive Conservative Party stated, certain other amendments that had been recognized as important by the Senate. These amendments have been brought forward on a non-partisan basis.

These are legitimate concerns that senators who have carefully followed the bill's discussions, made prior amendments, and brought it back to the House are now making additional amendments. They have brought these forward after conducting hearings. These are not major amendments to most of us living in urban areas. However, to those of us living in rural areas, those us who are living in the north, aboriginal hunters and trappers, these are significant amendments.

What I cannot understand and the question that I would like to leave this House in why the Liberal government is refusing these amendments is, why are Liberals so petty on this particular issue? The government's entire handling of this matter from beginning to today has been petty. Now we see another demonstration of that pettiness, that inability to bend to reasonable arguments being brought forward.

I am asking the minister on the other side to put aside the pettiness, pass this legislation as the Senate has amended it and let us move on. Let us give animals the protection they need. Let us give those hunters and trappers, farmers and medical researchers the assurance that they need that their activities are legitimate.

[Justice, September 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it is not a mosiac. It is a kaleidoscope and he is looking at the wrong end.

The government supports an open door policy of house arrest for drug dealers, rapists and child molesters. Dangerous offenders must be held in custody to protect the public from these predators.

Why does the government continue to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into a failed gun registry instead of passing laws and providing resources to police that would actually keep dangerous offenders in jail?

[Justice, September 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, in 1997 the same Liberal justice minister who said the billion dollar gun registry would only cost $2 million also promised Canadians that he would crack down on dangerous offenders by imposing tougher sentences.

Not surprisingly last Friday the Supreme Court of Canada told us that his changes in the law actually made it easier for dangerous criminals to avoid prison.

When will the Liberal justice minister bring forward legislation that protects the public by keeping dangerous offenders behind bars?

[Democratic Rights, September 24th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to extend a sincere thanks to all those people across Canada who have contacted their members of Parliament over the past several months in respect of the important issues of marriage, religious freedom and freedom of speech.

There has been an unprecedented volume of correspondence stating concerns with same sex marriage and with Bill C-250, and with the process by which the Liberal government has abdicated its responsibility and broken its promises to Canadians.

I congratulate the thousands of Canadians who have not given up on the concept of democracy and the institution of Parliament despite the betrayal by the Liberal cabinet of their trust.

This debate is not over; in fact it has just begun.

The Canadian Alliance will continue to hold the Liberal government accountable to the people who elected it and for the promises it made to Canadian voters.