Wayne Marston

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, March 21st, 2013]

I want to start my remarks by thanking you, Mr. Speaker, regarding the issue that was raised about relevancy. I think the various Speakers in this place are quite, pardon the term, liberal in the way that they allow us to put things into context, because each one of us brings to the House a particular life experience.

I hate to say this, but in my case it was 50 years ago that I was in the Canadian military for a couple of years. I recall one of the first things we were talked to about was good order and discipline. I want to take members back for a moment, again, in the sense of a context of the power and the control that is exercised within military circles. If we were in the military in 1914 and going through basic training, they would be firing live ammunition over the top of us as we crawled through a field. Obviously, over time, those kinds of things changed.

I was in the military in 1963-64. Two years before, a corporal would have had the right to strike me if I was doing something he was not satisfied with. That changed. At the time I was there, they still found ways to draw our attention to their dissatisfaction. As we stood at attention, they would come over and say, “Excuse me, I'm adjusting your tie” and then adjust it so tight that we would start to turn blue.

The context and the reason I am saying this is that it shows the thinking of those people in power and why there has to be some kind of limitation. Rights have evolved for all Canadians in this country over a number of years, particularly the last 50 to 75 years. Other speakers today have talked about the fact that Canadians, average Canadians on the street, would believe that those rules and rights apply to all citizens. Therefore, we find ourselves in a situation, and I will not give the history as others have done, where corrective measures were started in previous houses of Parliament. We did not succeed at those times in concluding them. Then we got to the point where Bill C-15 was brought forward. I understand it was a year, roughly, since the last report calling for change had been received.

There are other remarks I would like to make but I want to speak directly to the amendments that have been proposed today. I want to say very clearly that we do not agree all the time with the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. However, in these two amendments, she is attempting to go further than the members of the committee were allowed to go by the government, because some of the amendments we proposed in that committee were voted down by the government.

This, at least, affords us all the opportunity to discuss at length some important aspects of the bill that are missing. If we give consideration to the requirement of the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff to make a relevant rationale available to the public regarding his or her instructions or guidelines given to the Provost Marshal, that is a very serious application of accountability.

When I describe the things that have changed within the military from those past years, from the live fire in training to striking people and all those things, over time people came to clearly understand what improper usage is.

This is one of those cases where now we have the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff put in the public purview where the public will be able to see what his rationale was. I think that would improve the situation. It would require a level of due diligence that is not required today. Therefore, I certainly support that amendment.

The second amendment would require that instructions or guidelines given by the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, again, to the Provost Marshal, be in accordance with the respective roles, responsibilities and principles set out in the accountability framework, signed by the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff and Provost Marshal back in 1998. Think of that date. We hear government members on the other side talk about how long it has taken to accomplish changes. It certainly has been a while.

Again, I want to stress that the NDP supports these amendments.

The accountability framework states that the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff shall not direct the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal with regard to military police operational decisions relative to an investigation. We have an area here where we are going to have a contradiction in the framework resulting from the amendment, which could be problematic going forward. From our perspective, that whole provision should have been removed. Hopefully I am being clear in the sense of the relationship between these things.

We do believe, though, that the amendment is an improvement. It does not go where we would like it to go totally, but it is an improvement on what is in the bill. We strongly believe that granting the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff the authority is in clear violation of that previous aspect. Very clearly, that just means, to the government side, that there is going to be more work required here on this.

I would like to go back to some of the notes I put together a little earlier. I had added those additional thoughts as I was sitting and listening to the debate here. In this place we often comment, particularly across to the other side, about the limitations on debate and the fact that time allocation, over and over, has prevented us from properly looking at a bill.

In this place we all know that sometimes when we are sitting here on House duty that there are debates that do not have the depth that they should have. Most times there is something we can learn from listening to the other members of Parliament. For example, for myself, the first few minutes of my presentation today came about because of the reminders coming from the statements from the government side and from previous members who spoke before me. The value of having that open debate is so important to this place and to what we are able to do.

Let us go back to a previous bill, Bill C-41, which I have not studied to the depth that committee members would have. When it came out of committee it had some recommendations that had passed at the committee stage but were left out of Bill C-15. We are kind of struggling on this side of the House to understand why that was necessary. When there was agreement in the previous committee on Bill C-41, why would the government not say, “We have looked at this. We have studied it. We will advance it forward in Bill C-15”? The government chose not to.

I would suggest a major omission was the failure to include a broadened list of offences, removed from the consequences of a criminal record. During the process on Bill C-15, New Democrats, both in the House and in committee, pressed for changes and amendments in that area. The purpose of that was to reduce the effect of disciplinary offences regarding possible criminal records.

We also challenged the failure of full charter rights in these cases. Full charter rights are as fundamental as it gets. There is no excuse or justification in my mind for a person who is serving their country, in some instances putting their lives at risk, to not have the value of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as every other Canadian has. Our military members, if anyone, who defend our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, who defend our very freedom, should have the absolute rights of all Canadians. I think it is incumbent upon this place to ensure that happens.

[Response to the Supreme Court of Canada Decision in R. v. Tse Act, March 19th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that anybody putting a bill forward in a responsible manner, one that has this potential for an impact upon Canadians, first should ensure it is charter compliant and ensure that the bill would stand up to a review by the Supreme Court. The member put forward a motion to that effect, that we put a process in place, and I would recommend that the government give it serious consideration.

[Response to the Supreme Court of Canada Decision in R. v. Tse Act, March 19th, 2013]

To be very frank, Mr. Speaker, the official opposition did not see the merits in those amendments, so we did not support them.

[Response to the Supreme Court of Canada Decision in R. v. Tse Act, March 19th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I want to say to the member that in this place, the duty of the official opposition is to call into question those times when a government, particularly one with a majority, is starting to proceed with a kind of cavalier attitude that it has the right to proceed in certain areas. Part of what we did, as the official opposition, was raise concerns and draw Canadians' attention to the issues. Once they came to understand the potential for the negative impact upon their lives, there was certainly the push-back to which she alluded.

However, there is a positive side to this, too. When the government was forced to bring the legislation back in a new form, the opportunity to work together on it made that a better piece of legislation, more compliant with the Supreme Court's view of the legislation.

The sad part is that in this place we have the opportunity of doing that on a number of different bills, but in this particular government's case, it tends to just turn its back on the offer to try to make legislation better, better for Canadians, and that is who we are here to serve.

[Response to the Supreme Court of Canada Decision in R. v. Tse Act, March 19th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise today. I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Brome—Missisquoi. I know the member well because I serve on two committees with him.

I am very pleased to speak again in the House on the NDP's views on this piece of legislation, Bill C-55. It would amend the Criminal Code in response to the Supreme Court ruling referenced several times here this morning in previous speeches.

The point that has to be reiterated is that this is all coming about with a very few days remaining to meet the deadline that was provided to the House by the Supreme Court. It stayed a decision for a year to give the government the opportunity to bring forward an improvement to legislation that is much needed. We have supported this legislation throughout the process, although we found the process daunting because of the delay that took place in getting it here. We supported the government because it is an important tool for our police services in this country.

However, on the counter side of that, it is very important for the official opposition to look cautiously at any legislation that authorizes people to look into people's lives in the manner that this would. This enactment seeks to amend Canada's Criminal Code, and the Supreme Court ruling talked about the need for safeguards for Canadians, because this allows for authorized, and I want to stress the word “authorized”, interception of private communications, done prior to judicial authorization as foreseen in section 184.4 of the act.

It is worth noting that the enactment states that it:

requires the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and the Attorney General of each province to report on the interceptions of private communications made under section 184.4;

and

provides that a person who has been the object of such interception must be notified...within a specified period;...

The assumption is that those persons have not been found to be taking part in any criminal activity, and thus they have every right to be informed; and if they were involved with criminal activity and are part of an ongoing investigation, there could be an extension.

It narrowed the class of individuals who could actually make such interceptions, and those limited interceptions to particular offences are listed.

I was speaking a few moments ago about the fact that we are within three weeks of a deadline supplied to us by the Supreme Court. There was the benefit of a year from the Supreme Court to act on this, and the government has not done so until the very last minute. I have to question what the delay is. Why did it take close to a year for the government to respond to this? This was not a great difficulty, from the standpoint that the Supreme Court identified the areas in which the government had to make changes.

I would go so far as to say that when any government or any party in government looks to put forward legislation, a significant part of the process is debate in this place. Another significant part is the opportunity for all parties to come together, which we did in the instance of Bill C-55 at committee, to look at it, to hear witness testimony, to do those things necessary to offer any piece of legislation the due diligence necessary to make it as good as we possibly could. That is the concern over the timeframe, the concern over the fact that we had a couple of days to try to do things that could have well extended beyond, had we brought in more witnesses. It is troubling because that impedes the due diligence we have to administer on behalf of those people who sent us to this place.

I tend to repeat myself in my remarks, because that troubled me to the degree that I felt it was worth repeating.

There have been other times in this place that the opportunity to debate and to consider various bills has been impeded. I would ask how many times the Conservative government has moved time allocation on bills. It is not the delay just in this particular bill, but in other bills. We must be closing in on 30 times that it has occurred in this Parliament. It has to be close to that by now. I hear other members agreeing.

We have seen budget bills and other legislation affecting services, which Canadians rely on, shut down or extremely limited by the Conservatives, at what appears to be almost every opportunity. It stifles the opportunity for us to make those bills better. It stifles the opportunity we have as members to point out what they have done well and what they have done not up to the standards Canadians expect. We get to do that in this public forum. That has been curtailed too many times.

Once again, that is part of my concern with this bill, Bill C-55, and how it got to committee after such a delay. It has the potential of impacting ordinary Canadians in a very negative way if the protections of which the Supreme Court has spoken to us were not put into place.

Bill C-55 is simply an updated version of wiretapping provisions the Supreme Court previously deemed unconstitutional. That is quite a statement when we think about it. Fortunately again for the House, the Supreme Court set the parameters of what it saw as the need to protect Canadians' rights.

I have to say that Canadians have good reason to be concerned about privacy legislation that comes out of the government. To date the government has not had what I see as a good record in that area. It is not encouraging at all.

There is an obligation on the official opposition to work for the public good in upholding the rule of law, our Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It was in February 2012 that the Conservative government tabled Bill C-30. Members will recall that gave authorities the power to access personal information in a way to which the Supreme Court responded.

It raised very serious concerns across the country, as I recall, about personal privacy and fundamental rights. That was due to the manner in which it was constructed and the powers it was seeking to give out. I will add that it was kind of a compilation of previous bills that have been before this House, Bill C-50, Bill C-51 and Bill C-52 from a previous parliamentary session. The Conservatives were attempting to build on the original legislation from 1999 to provide public safety authorities with extensive surveillance powers over digital information. As I said a moment ago, there was a significant backlash from the people of Canada in regard to this.

Now we have the government with these much-needed changes, I will commend the government. It reached across to us in the committee. We did work better on that bill than we did on some others in the past. If we did not meet the deadline or the provisions required by the Supreme Court, then these emergency powers would be thrown out.

I began my remarks talking about the need for police officials of our country to apply these. In this particular case, these provisions are intended to happen at the worst possible time, when somebody is under physical threat of injury or harm. It was important for us to go a little deeper into it.

I am looking for what really needs to be summarized here, and that is the fact that our role is to ensure that the privacy rights of Canadians are balanced with the police officials' needs to investigate, particularly in a time where someone is under the threat of physical harm. I have to say that, working together, I believe we accomplished that. Thus, we will be supporting this bill.

[Technical Tax Amendments Act, 2012, March 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I served on the finance committee for a time and the discussion we are having today is not about the bill; it is about the time allocation. This is about the thirtieth time that the government has chosen to end a debate process, a process that was put into place in the House to allow people to give the full assessment of a given bill, to report to Canadians, via the television cameras we see here, the pros and cons of any bill.

This is not about a filibuster by anyone. This is about the fact that there is a certain level of due diligence that has been repeatedly pushed aside in this place by time allocation. That is the issue here. There is a great deal of agreement on this particular bill. However, it is the fact that the time allocation is pushing aside the traditions of the House, and that is not a very healthy thing for our democracy.

[Religious freedom, March 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to start off my remarks by reading into the record some material supporting the perspective of this particular individual.

According to the December 2009 report from the Pew Research Center's forum on religion and public life dealing with global restrictions on religions, threats to religious freedom around the world are increasing.

The report found that nearly two-thirds of the world's population, or 59%, live under high government restrictions on religion. Almost half, or 48%, live in areas where high religiously motivated social hostilities exist.

Sixty-four nations, or about a third of the world's countries, have high or very high restrictions on religion, but because some of those most restrictive countries are very populous, nearly 70% of the world's 6.8 billion people live in countries with high restrictions on religion, the brunt of which often falls on religious minorities.

A recent 2012 report from Pew, "Rising Restrictions on Religion", found that between 2006 and 2010, Christians were harassed in more countries—139—than any other faith group. As well, Muslims were harassed in 121 countries and were second. The Christians and Muslims together comprise half the world's population.

What might be surprising to some people is that the Jewish community actually came in third. We hear a lot about anti-Semitism, and in reality they are still seriously harassed in 85 countries, even though they make up only about 1% of the world's population. We can understand the devastating effect of that harassment.

The Pew studies reinforce the recent observations by Globe and Mail columnist Doug Saunders, who notes that “the most important religious freedom is freedom from religion”. That happens to be his perspective. He says that the number one reason people are persecuted for their faith is being a member of a religious minority within a nation or a region in which another religion or sect dominates.

I want to go back to the bill for a minute. It was introduced in May of last year. I want to read parts of it, and then I will comment as I go.

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should: (a) continue to recognize as part of Canadian foreign policy that (i) everyone has the right to freedom of religion and conscience, including the freedom to change religion or belief, and the freedom to manifest religion or belief in teaching, worship, practice and observance

I would observe that most Canadians believe that is how the government and this Parliament are functioning. I do not mean to put this down, but people have asked me why we need it. Obviously the mover of the motion believes in the motion, and I am not suggesting he should not; it is just that often Canadians believe things are a certain way, and maybe they are less so than what they believe.

The motion continues:

(ii) all acts of violence against religious groups should be condemned

Again, a fundamental view of Canadians would be precisely that. We are very much in line with this bill.

The motion goes on:

(iii) Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights be supported

In my notes I put that it is not often we hear the government side quoting. I will say quite frankly that I am pleased to see it.

The motion goes on to state:

(iv) the special value of official statements made by the Minister of Foreign Affairs denouncing violations of religious freedom around the world be promoted

I was a little surprised. I think it is anticipated and expected of anybody in the Government of Canada to stand up in that fashion.

The motion continues:

(v) Canada's commitment to the creation of an Office of Religious Freedom should be used to help protect religious minorities and promote the pluralism that is essential to the development of free and democratic societies

The previous speaker spoke to that very point, and I was pleased to see that. We accept that all religious paths are equally valid, and promoting coexistence is something that Canada is well known for.

The motion goes on in (b) to state:

(i)The opposition to laws that use “defamation of religion” and “blasphemy” both within states and internationally to persecute members of religious minorities

No matter what the tool used, we agree that persecution, particularly of minorities, on the grounds of religion is repugnant and needs to be opposed in all forms.

(b)(ii) reporting by Canadian missions abroad in responding to incidents of religious violence

(iii) coordinated efforts to protect and promote religious freedom

We hear within those two points the obligation to protect. Those who know the United Nations will know that Canada promoted that particular group, but that has been seen within the United Nations as sometimes preventing support for some countries and people because of the fear that it would drag the United Nations into wars. Perhaps this is a question I should have asked the member following his remarks. I wonder if he sees it that way, or is he suggesting a lesser form of engagement, which I believe is the intent of the motion?

(iv) the maintaining of a regular dialogue with relevant governments to ensure that the issue of religious persecution is a priority.

In this area, I wonder just when was the last time the current government had discussions with China regarding religious rights in that country. It is an obvious question.

We see here:

(v) the encouragement of Canadian embassies to seek contact with religious communities and human rights organizations on gathering information related to human rights abuses.

Fewer than 10 days ago, I was in Burma. We met with expatriated Canadians who talked at length about their views of what had happened in that country. They lamented the loss of rights and democracy. They believe that it was an essential part of the development of Burma. I thought I would raise it here as a commentary, because they saw that as a group that was promoting precisely what the motion is talking about.

(vi) the training and support of foreign affairs officials for the advocacy of global religious freedom.

This particular part of the motion is likely the most concerning for some Canadians who believe in the separation of church and state. We oftentimes hear discussions about that, and I am sure that a variety of views could be brought forward here. Speaking for the group of Canadians I come in most contact with, they actually believe that we have the separation of church and state in Canada at this point in time.

We all know that people oftentimes do not look deeply into a bill that might come before the House. Oftentimes, as well, they will have the kinds of questions about those bills, because of that lack of understanding, that makes it sound as if they are raising a concern that perhaps is not even necessary.

I want to go back a moment to my role as vice-chair of the subcommittee on human rights. Over and over, we hear testimony to the effect that in many parts of the world, religious persecution is commonplace. Just today, a woman in Egypt spoke to us by teleconference. She talked about the situation for religious minorities, such as Coptic Christians, Shia Muslims and others within that country, because of the change that has taken place. We have heard of Iraqi minorities, such as Christians, Mandaeans and the Baha'i, who have become targets of violence since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Last year we were told that in Pakistan, the Taliban have targeted Christians for attack through killings, torture and forcible confinement. Again, Mr. Bhatti's name comes to the fore when we have that discussion. Witnesses stated that they believe that at least some of this was a backlash against the U.S. and Pakistani military operations.

If we really honestly step back and look at it, a lot of the things that have occurred in countries are historic by nature. There are groups of people within those countries who have been at odds for an awfully long time. It is easy to point to one particular situation and say that it is the cause. It certainly was a contributing factor, but to say that it was the cause might be over-extending.

Being in Burma, I had the pleasure of meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi, along with others, and she spoke to us about the situation with Rohingya Muslims in that country, the deportations and things that were happening.

I will wrap up by saying that New Democrats support this bill. We question the need for the bill, but we support it.

[Religious freedom, March 5th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I do not doubt for a moment the sincerity of the words of the member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex today. I have seen him enough times in the House. I am heartened to hear the amount of times he referred to the United Nations in his remarks and its various protocols. There is a back and forth that occurs in this place and at times on this side we have questioned the commitment of the Conservative government to the United Nations.

I want to echo the member's thoughts on Mr. Bhatti. I am vice-chair of the subcommittee on human rights and we had Mr. Bhatti before us. He quite clearly told us that he was at risk for his beliefs and he ultimately died as a result of them.

Again, this is more of a commentary on the evolution of the relationship, or what could be perceived as a deterioration of the relationship, between the Conservative government and the United Nations. Hopefully this is a sign that perhaps we may have misjudged.

[Rail Transportation, February 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it seems the government only wants to invest in one type of travel: cross-country fundraising trips for senators.

Canadians do not want to foot the bill for jet-setting Conservative senators. Canadians want and need affordable, accessible rail transportation.

We have seen VIA's budget cut $300 million since 2011. Instead of wasting money on their senators, when will the Conservatives restore the budget for VIA and invest as well in high-speed rail service for Canadians?

[Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act, February 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for that question, because in my opinion, that is the most significant failure with respect to the bill going forward. We have to educate people. With knowledge comes responsibility.

Often people in the workplace, not just in the RCMP, but in general, do things with a sense of humour that they believe justifies what they do. They do not give a lot of consideration to the feelings and the fears of the people on the receiving end.

I recall a time, around 1966, when I worked for the railway, in a machine shop. There was a man there who was highly nervous. When people went by, they would give him a little tap, and he would jump. They had him so shell-shocked, he could not talk. If someone said boo, he would literally jump and take two steps away from him or her. The people in that workshop thought it was wonderfully humorous. That man was fragile and close to having a breakdown.

If we view that in the context of sexual harassment, we put it in a place where we have to talk about it. We have to understand that this so-called sense of humour is a testing vehicle for people. If they can do that to her, what else is available? It could be an exercise in power if it is done by a superior. In some instances in the RCMP, it was a superior who did these things. It humiliates the woman. It embarrasses and troubles her. It devalues her in front of her co-workers in a fashion that is totally unacceptable.

The only answer is to go back to those individuals who are doing it to determine whether they are truly bad people. They have established that they are people of trust by becoming RCMP officers and completing the training. In my opinion, the only answer to that is what you raised, which is to educate those people and provide corrective action that would bring them back where they belong.