Wayne Easter

[Protection of Canada from Terrorists Act, January 28th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to the remarks by the member for Prince Edward—Hastings, who is also chair of the public safety committee. I enjoy working with him, and he did a good analysis of the various authorities that CSIS has.

I would say that he took a lot of liberty in his remarks about the Liberal leader's comments, and the things he quoted are simply not true. It does not do much for the integrity of the member or his party when they constantly misquote people in the House.

The question I want to raise with the member is a serious concern. As he knows, the Liberal Party will be supporting this bill. Wesley Wark, when he was before the committee, had this to say about Bill C-44:

Bill C-44 does not add any new provisions to the CSIS Act to ensure proper consultation between the service and its minister, the Minister of Public Safety, and the two departments most likely to be impacted by expanded CSIS overseas operations—the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development and the Department of National Defence.

Liberals proposed an amendment. With the additional protection of sources and the additional powers granted in this act for work overseas, does the member not see it as a problem if activity takes place by CSIS abroad that could impact our trade relationship or the Minister of Foreign Affairs? If CSIS folks are caught in illegal activities, or whatever, as a result of a warrant issued in Canada, does he not see the dangers that situation could cause, such as trade and diplomatic problems? Why not put into the act a requirement that consultation has to take place?

[Protection of Canada from Terrorists Act, January 28th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, those were great remarks by the Minister of Public Safety. The problem is that the remarks do not relate to Bill C-44, on which the government has introduced closure. The bill he is talking about sounds to me more like the bill that may be coming on Friday.

This bill really does nothing to address the national security concerns that have been raised as a result of the Quebec activity, the incident in Ottawa, or what has happened in Paris. We expect that to be in a new bill. This bill basically brings into law some of the practices that CSIS is now utilizing and protects CSIS sources. What the minister is trying to put urgency on is not in this bill.

This is advice for the government. If the government would work with us at committee and seriously look at some of the recommendations and the amendments we make, take them seriously to improve the bill and allow us to bring in more than just a couple of witnesses to try to satisfy our needs, bring in witnesses with expertise, then it might find the opposition parties more accommodating. It would allow Parliament to operate like it is supposed to rather than running roughshod over the opposition parties with closure when it wants.

My key point, Mr. Minister, is the bill is not talking about the issues you have been talking about in response to the last questions. It is different from that.

[Don Harron, January 28th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, today I pay tribute to the late Don Harron, an unforgettable Canadian actor, comedian, cartoonist and writer. He entertained generations of Canadians with his contagious passion and light heart.

Notably, Don performed as his comic alter ego Charlie Farquharson, a folksy storyteller, poking fun at almost anything Canadian, often making politicians the target. He showed us the joy of laughing at ourselves.

As Charlie, he performed on Canadian radio, TV and a variety of shows like Hee Haw in the United States. His serious side had him hosting CBC's Morningside and in theatre acting on stages from London, England, to Stratford, Ontario. His most celebrated work was helping to bring the Island classic Anne of Green Gables alive to the stage, having been performed for 50 consecutive years at the Charlottetown Festival.

As Charlie would say in his tattered sweater, “Hee-haw, on to the next chapter.”

On behalf of the House, I thank Don for his wit, his passion and his love for this country.

[Business of Supply, January 27th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to the member's remarks that whipping up rhetoric when an election is close is not the way to manage the economy. If we hear any rhetoric, we heard it in that speech and we hear it from the Minister of Finance daily. We hear it from the Prime Minister, because he and Conservatives are always talking about balancing the books.

Is it not true that the Prime Minister has never had a surplus on his own, other than the one transferred to him by the previous Liberal government? We could call the Prime Minister “deficit king”. Is it not true that under the Prime Minister's watch in the last eight years the debt load of the country has increased at minimum by $133 billion and at maximum by $160 billion? He has added that to the debt of Canadians. Is that not true?

Now Conservatives are saying that they will balance the books. What will the Prime Minister and Minister of Finance cut in terms of value from taxes from Canadians in order to do that? They have cut EI and pretty nearly every service known to mankind in this country during their watch. Canadians are getting less value for their taxes, and that is not rhetoric; those are the facts.

[Red Tape Reduction Act, January 26th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the member talks about reducing red tape, but with so much of what the current government does, it is more deception than reality.

For example, the member talked about the infrastructure program. The government did announce the biggest infrastructure program in Canadian history, but the problem is that the money does not really flow until about 2019, and so that will not do a lot of good for Canadians.

The Conservatives have been talking about reducing red tape for years, but when I talk to small businesses they are still complaining about the burdens they face in terms of paperwork.

My last point is that the member mentioned that the Conservatives will not undermine Canadians' health and safety. However, we have seen recently on the safety side, with the RCMP, that the recommendations from the reports on Mayerthorpe and Moncton were not acted on. The reason they were not acted on is that the resources were not there in terms of personnel and finances to put in place the equipment, training, and weaponry for the RCMP to do its job.

There is a lot of deception on that side and not much reality.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, January 26th, 2015]

With regard to the Canada First Defence Strategy (CFDS): (a) does the strategy include (i) acquisition of three strategic air transport aircraft and stationing them at Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Trenton, (ii) doubling the size of the Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART), (iii) acquisition of three armed naval heavy icebreakers, and stationing them in the area of Iqaluit, (iv) building a new civilian-military deepwater docking facility to accommodate the three armed naval heavy icebreakers mentioned in (iii), (v) establishing a new underwater sensor system, (vi) building a new army training centre in the area of Cambridge Bay, (vii) stationing new long-range unmanned aerial vehicle squadrons at both CFB Goose Bay and CFB Comox, (viii) stationing new fixed-wing search and rescue aircraft in Yellowknife, (ix) increasing the size of the Canadian Rangers by 500, (x) establishing a 650-member regular forces battalion at CFB Comox, CFB Goose Bay, CFB Trenton, and CFB Bagotville respectively, (xi) adding 1,000 regular force and 750 reserve force personnel to the army in Quebec, (xii) establishing a territorial defence unit in Vancouver, Calgary, Regina, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, Saint John, St. John's, Halifax and the Niagara-Windsor corridor respectively, (xiii) recruiting 1,000 regular force personnel for the purpose of improving and enlarging the Atlantic fleet, (xiv) increasing the number of personnel in CFB Gagetown, (xv) stationing new aircraft and personnel at CFB Greenwood, (xvi) increasing the numbers of Pacific navy regular force personnel by about 500, (xvii) deploying new fixed-wing search and rescue aircraft at CFB Comox and CFB Winnipeg, (xviii) upgrading fighter aircraft at CFB Cold Lake; (b) what is the rationale for the inclusion or exclusion, from the CFDS, of each of the items mentioned in (a)(i) to (a)(xviii); and (c) for each item mentioned in (a)(i) to (a)(xviii) that is not a part of the strategy, (i) has the government taken any steps since January 1, 2012, to carry out or implement the item, (ii) if the government has not taken any such steps, does it intend to do so, (iii) if the government does intend to implement the item, when does it intend to do so, (iv) if the government does not intend to implement the item, when was this decision made, and what are the titles, dates, and file numbers of any document related to that decision?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, January 26th, 2015]

With regard to international trade, respecting the Canada-European Union Summit in Ottawa and Toronto on September 25 and 26, 2014: what are the details of all contracts for goods or services relating to the summit, providing for each contract: (i) the name of the contractor, (ii) a description of the goods or services provided, (iii) the value of the contract, (iv) whether or not there was an open bidding process for the contract?

[Petitions, December 12th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition calls on Parliament to change the charge of impaired driving causing death to the offence of vehicular manslaughter.

[Petitions, December 12th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present.

The first petition calls on Parliament to pass a resolution to establish measures to stop the Chinese Communist regime's crime of systematically murdering Falun Gong practitioners for their organs.

[Correctional Service of Canada, December 12th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the fact is that the government rejected the key recommendation. Beyond Justice Arbour's point that solitary confinement was a barbaric cultural practice, the Correctional Investigator said that using solitary confinement to manage mental illness was unsafe and should be prohibited. His finding showed 14 of the 30 suicides reviewed occurred in segregation cells.

When will the minister realize the correctional action he allows is killing people under his care and custody?