Wayne Marston

[Fair Rail Freight Service Act, February 8th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I spent nine years working on the railway as a signal maintenance man. Prior to that, I grew up with my father working on the railway, one of the things that was crucially important and that we saw everywhere we went in our own travels.

I lived in a little town called Plaster Rock, New Brunswick. If I wanted to go to Moncton, I took a train. Today, in northern Ontario, the Ontario Northland Railway is shutting down. These smaller communities, such as the one I grew up in, rely upon that service, and the current government and the previous government have allowed that to slip away. It is not a luxury. In many instances, it is people's sole mode of transportation. We sometimes have to question where the oversight is. Where are the people who should be standing up for these workers?

I know the member for Timmins—James Bay, the member for Sudbury and others from that area have worked hard. Our northern Ontario folks have worked hard to try to keep that railway. However, where is the government on that?

[Ethics, February 1st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the official opposition is quite pleased that the minister for science and innovation reversed course on his policy of hiding the details of a $20 million government loans program. Of course, this happened only after the Conservatives were caught red-handed by the NDP.

Now that the minister has decided, or appears, to embrace transparency, will he inform the House what other programs or funds he needs to give full disclosure on?

[Business of Supply, January 31st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, being the human rights critic for our party, I take particular note of the United Nations' view of Canada.

Canada has a very high rating normally in regard to the human development scale but, according to the United Nations, that would dramatically drop if it was based solely on the economics of our first nations and their social well-being. We would drop to 48 out of 174 nations if that had been included.

That low position is something that should be an embarrassment to this country. The reality is that other places and other people are measuring us, and we have failed. We continue to fail. As long as we do not dialogue, nation to nation, directly with the first nations, we will continue to fail.

[Income Tax Act, December 11th, 2012]

Yes, as a friend was saying, all elected and repeatedly elected.

However, I had close to 20 years as a rank and file member previous to that. I attended monthly union meetings where I reviewed line by line and then voted on our monthly financial statements. The trade union taught me one important lesson, which may be why Bill C-377 is before us here today, and that was to question authority.

In the 1980s and 1990s there were two leaders fighting for justice and equality and questioning authority. Nelson Mandela was first supported by the Canadian labour movement when it was not acceptable in society. Then there was Lech Walesa, a trade union organizer, human rights activist and co-founder of Solidarity, the union. That was the union believed by many to have started the downfall of the Soviet Union. Both Mandela and Walesa were feted and honoured in Canada by our federal government.

To my Conservative colleagues, I want to share some information about union operations they may not know. Please take a moment and listen. In fact, I doubt if many members of the Conservative Party have ever set foot in a union hall, union meeting or a union convention. Therefore, I will try to inform them as to why Bill C-377, in my opinion, is not needed.

I spoke of my early years as a rank and file member, but later, around 1979, I became vice-president of my local union at Bell Canada for communications workers and then president. In those positions, I was responsible for ensuring that the treasurer's reports were complete and available to our members each month.

As an officer and a delegate, I attended union conventions, political Federation of Labour conventions and Canadian Labour Congress conventions, where we received and voted on audited financial statements, approved future workplace information campaigns, and also campaigns to inform the general public of the labour movement's views on municipal, provincial and federal governments. For 14 years as president of the Hamilton and District Labour Council, we also produced monthly financial statements and yearly audited statements for our delegates. Therefore, if this is the case, why is Bill C-377 before us?

Bill C-377 is intended as an attack weapon against unions that do not share the Conservative government's political view. In other words, unions question the authority of the government, which is one thing the Conservative government has a great deal of difficulty with.

Unions have stood up against the policies of all three major political parties at one time or another, including the NDP. Therefore, as Walesa and Mandela did, unions continue to stand up for their members and in doing so stand up for the broader community. The last I heard, this is how our democracy is supposed to work.

Bill C-377, in my opinion, from the very first has been a flawed piece of unnecessary discriminatory legislation designed solely to impede legitimate member-approved union activities that call into question the actions of the Conservative government. Any union member who says that they do not know the functions of their union has not been attending their monthly union meetings where they are debated and voted upon.

We are in favour of transparency, but it must be applied fairly to the organizations that should be targeted and must not cause harm. The bill violates the rights of association, privacy and freedom of expression. The privacy commissioner agrees with that statement, by the way.

The bill is an ideological attack on labour organizations, and it is interesting, because it uses the words “transparency” and “fiscal responsibility” to mask its real objectives.

It would be a costly bill. It would cost millions of dollars to put into place and to establish the databases, which will cost at least hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars a year, going forward. The estimates that came before the finance committee were based upon 1,000 organizations. More than 25,000 would be covered by this in the labour movement of Canada. This is a huge burden for both government and workers. The purpose would lessen the vitality of those organizations to defend the rights of workers. Imagine what would happen if there were an additional 17 million hours of paperwork foisted on to business, like it would be foisted on to labour?

Bill C-377 would also give confidential information to businesses and government, which would give them unfair, competitive advantages and political advantages over the labour movement.

Why does the bill target only labour organizations and not all organizations? There are other organizations in the country that receive the benefits of tax breaks and, further, they receive them from the government. In fact, the government promotes many of them. Is this not discriminatory? Are the Conservatives comfortable spending millions of dollars for the records of unions' financial transactions during this period of fiscal restraint? Are they comfortable disclosing so much private and personal information on Canadians?

I realize I am getting close to the end of my time, but we have a bill to deal with an issue that nobody was complaining about, except the government. The Conservatives decided that they lost an election in Ontario because of the labour movement, and this is the end result. This is the reality of what it is all about.

There is another minor point: double taxation, and it is double taxation exactly. It would cost the taxpayer to institute Bill C-377 in the government. However, it would also cost the same taxpayer who happens to be a union member because 4,300,000 would have their union dues raised by the Conservatives. Is that not a first. They would have to pay for it. How do we think it would get done?

Now there will be Conservative union dues for the union workers in the country, and I am sure they will send letters of thanks to the government.

[Income Tax Act, December 11th, 2012]

Representatives for the Merit group and the Carpenters' Union were in the room. I asked the representative for the Carpenters union: “If Bill C-377 passes, would Merit Canada see a financial gain?” Of course, he said “yes” and went on to speak about it.

Clearly, the Merit group is a competitor to the building trades and, in particular, to carpenters and electricians. It would be competing for the same jobs, seeking to employ its workers as the union would be seeking to employ theirs. However, the Merit group would know the bid structure that the unions were working from. Where do we ever see that in the business community?

We hear talk about big labour bosses in this place. I am not quite that big, but I am getting there. I signed my first union card at 14 years of age in 1961. I was a member of the CBRT&GW and later with the communications workers. I was vice-president and president, both terms of six years. I was an executive member of the Hamilton and District Labour Council for 28 years and president for 14 years.

[Income Tax Act, December 11th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin today with a couple of quotes.

The Canadian Bar Association said: “It is difficult to see what issues or problems this bill is trying to fix. It provides for a greater public disclosure of information on labour unions' financial operations and restricts their political and lobbying activities through mechanisms that could be problematic constitutionally and in terms of privacy”.

The member who sponsored this bill, who is in the House with us today, said that public disclosure, which will help the public better understand how the benefits are provided, is being utilized. He also said in an interview that he had not received a single call or complaint from any member of a union or the general public, saying that they wanted the information that they were unable to obtain.

During the finance committee hearings on Bill C-377, we heard from witnesses who spoke about Merit Canada. Merit has had dozens of meetings on this bill with the sponsor and with the Prime Minister's office officials. At committee, when they were before us, the carpenters were there talking at the same time as Merit. They were testifying.

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, December 7th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I also want to thank the member for the service he has given. I was unaware of it. We should occasionally pause and give credit to where it is due. I do not speak much about my personal service because I was only in the service in 1963-64 in a sapper apprentice program. I applied for release and went back to high school. I have never felt ingrained in it in the same fashion as someone who made a career in it.

When we discussed the matter with our critic, he recommended that we not support this legislation. However, the reality in this place is that the government has a majority and the chances are that the bill will go to committee.

I stressed earlier in my remarks that we are certainly willing to revisit the recommendations the NDP made in the past and to try to work with the government on this particular issue, because we think our amendments are of value. I do not want to appear in any way to be maligning our present system because I stressed how it has improved over the years. That was the point I was trying to make, that this is one more step along the long road of trying to ensure a balance. We have to keep improving our systems generally, including in the House and, in this case, our system of military justice to ensure that it is fair, balanced and just.

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, December 7th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, historically in Roman and Greek times the Spartans had terrible disciplinary measures, which I will not go into, but they were pretty grotesque. There has always been severity in the kinds of punishment meted out in our military. In many cases that was used to drive people forward in battle, to ensure that they did their duty as seen fit. However, the reality is that we are not talking about people in battle. We are talking about people who, in their everyday duties as military personnel, come into conflict with the military's rules and regulations and find themselves before a tribunal without rights that are really essential to ensuring a balance.

Later today I will be making another speech on Bill C-377 and will talk about questioning authority. That is the one thing that the military does not wish a service member to do; the military sees that as almost an offence in itself.

We have to find a way to balance a genuine, and I stress the word “genuine”, democratic and open process that is accountable within the military to those people who administer the so-called justice. The reality is that it is important that we ensure balance in this.

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, December 7th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, as I start this speech, I am reminded of several historical situations where military commissions failed a society. I go back to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in the United States and the Mary Surratt case. She had run a boarding house where the conspirators had met but had nothing to do with the conspiracy. She was put before a military commission and she was not allowed to speak, and neither were her lawyers, and ultimately she and some others were hanged. That led to a change in the U.S. at that time, which gave every citizen habeas corpus rights, the right to face an accuser to get the evidence against them.

Those who have been here for a couple of terms will know that I spoke out on behalf of Omar Khadr many times in this place, the reason being that the military commission in Guantanamo had been moved off-site to avoid the changes that had been brought in by the Mary Surratt case. From our perspective in Canada, that was seen as an abuse by some, and not so much by others.

In that light we look at our military justice and how it is applied in Canada. I in fact served in the Canadian Forces in 1963 and 1964, which seems like a hundred years ago now, but I was proud to do so. Fortunately for me, I was not in any severe difficulty but I noted at the time the difference between the administration, rules and regulations within the military compared to what civilians had to live with.

Here I would point out that his bill has been before us previously as Bill C-41. It went to committee and the New Democrats worked with the government of the day to try to improve that legislation. The bill did not return to the House and we wound up with an election, so we are back here with this bill for what is probably the third time at least. The good work done in committee the last time was not taken into account in this bill, because it does not include them.

The Minister of National Defence introduced Bill C-15. While it is called “An Act to amend the National Defence Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts”, the government refers to it as “strengthening military justice”. To my mind, strengthening military justice is about finding a way to balance the rights of military personnel in a similar fashion to what is done in civil society. Just prior to the time I went into the army in 1963, the non-commissioned officers could actually strike a person in the military. That changed just before I went in. There was a little trick they then used to get one's attention. They would stand us at attention and tighten our ties to the point of cutting off our breath. Of course, they were not striking the men any more but succeeded in getting their attention. While that may sound off-topic in this discussion, what we are looking at here is a justice system within the military that in many ways is a throwback to earlier times. That is something that should be addressed, and this bill goes part of the way in doing that.

While the New Democrats have stated that we will be opposing the bill, we are willing to work with the government when it gets to committee, presuming that the government takes it there, to do the best we can to improve it again because we argue that it falls short in key areas.

Our previous amendments included giving the Chief of Defence Staff authority in the grievance process to respond directly to Justice Lamer's recommendations. We felt that it was within the purview of the Chief of Defence Staff to have the authority. We also felt there should be changes in the composition of the grievance committee to include 60% civilian representation. In a democracy, this Parliament is supreme, but the civilian authorities also have to be supreme over the military.

The Canadian military has a great history of serving this Parliament, our country and Canadians. However, when it comes to the administration of justice and these tribunals, there should be a balance between military authority and civilian oversight. Including 60% civilian membership adds a level of accountability, as originally foreseen in Bill C-41. For 10 years we have regularly heard from the government regarding its interest in accountability. Therefore, I am a little surprised that civilian membership was not included as part of the bill's provisions. Hopefully, we will be able to reason our way into that situation at committee and be allowed to add that amendment.

The provision that ensures that a person convicted of an offence during a summary trial is not unfairly subject to a criminal record is an important one because of the difference in accountability between a civilian court and a commission. The fact that some offences leave one with a criminal record in a military proceeding but not a civilian proceeding is blatantly unfair to the people who serve our country. A person in the military who has perhaps made a mistake would pay for that for the rest of their life, whereas if they had done so as a civilian they would not carry that burden.

Regarding reform of the summary trial system, the amendments in Bill C-15 do not adequately address the unfairness of summary trials. Currently, a conviction of a service offence in a summary trial in the Canadian Forces can result in a criminal record. The accused are held without the ability to consult counsel. That is why I made the linkage to the Surratt case and Guantanamo Bay as over-the-top situations. Those who do not know the military or have a military background would be quite surprised to know that in a summary trial in Canada the accused cannot consult counsel. We think that is fundamentally wrong. Also, there is no appeal process, nor are there transcripts of the trials. As well, the judge could well be the accused's commanding officer. Most people would see the obvious conflict in the fact that the officer was the very person who allowed the commission to proceed. We are very troubled by that.

At committee stage last March, when Bill C-41 was before us, the NDP amendments to expand the list of minor offences were carried. Again, that goes back to our making sure that our good service people do not receive criminal records for “genuinely” minor offences. We are not proposing that people get away with what they should not be doing, but the list of punishments that might be imposed by a tribunal without an offender incurring a criminal record could include a reprimand, a severe reprimand, a fine equal to or up to one month's basic pay, or some other form of minor punishment. The point is that it should not result in a criminal record. Obviously, if the offence were not worthy of time served, it should not be worthy of a criminal offence.

I want to go back to the question of civilian oversight and the need for 60% of the commissions reviewing these cases to be made up of civilian authorities. That balance is important; it would add to the credibility of the system. Over the last 50 years our military service has improved in many ways in this particular area of the justice system. This is an opportunity to move it further forward.

[Conservative Party of Canada, December 3rd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I had a dream this weekend. Well, maybe it was a horrible nightmare. I dreamed I was a Conservative MP, stuck on the assembly line of misleading statements and being handed script after script by those kids in the Prime Minister's Office.

Then my nightmare went on. Conservatives have been raising fees on Canadians. Over the last six years, 47 billion dollars in user fees have been imposed on men, women and children. The Conservative fees were raised on birthdays, on Thanksgiving, even on Christmas. I cried out, “When will the Conservatives stop raising fees on everything”?

It was horrible. It made me realize how bad I feel for my colleagues across the way who have to repeat, over and over, so many misleading statements.

I feel for my Conservative colleagues, but there is a solution. Instead of standing and making things up, try standing and repeating the facts.