Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  It really highlighted that we need to have an amendment to the State Immunity Act to make clear that immunity should not be provided for officials who commit torture.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  So, there you have it: that is the impression and the feeling I have been living with for five and a half years—that of a government that has and continues to make it clear that it could not care less. Because, not only were its initial efforts in vain, but it resists and expresses opposition to the action taken against the Iranian authorities, preferring instead to support enforcement of the Law of State Immunity in relation to Iran and its officials, in this case.

Human Resources committee  There's a bit of a chicken-and-egg issue there: your income may be down because you had the mental illness, but the reality is that there is a very clear linkage between income and mental illness. The Canadian community health survey, the one done by StatsCan, shows very clearly that socio-economic status and mental illness have a very strong linkage.

Agriculture committee  More needs to be done, but we are in a position to lead from the front. Environmentally, the International Energy Agency recently published a report that made clear that grain ethanol enjoys a 55% advantage over traditional gasoline when it comes to reducing harmful greenhouse gas emissions. Similarly, the energy balance for ethanol was determined to far outpace that of fossil fuels.

Official Languages committee  We believe that a clear distinction must be drawn, for the purpose of distributing federal funding, between institutions whose primary responsibility is French, like Campus Saint-Jean, and institutions that only secondarily offer courses in French.

Justice committee  From that came the Organized Crime Agency of British Columbia, which got off to a flying start—seemingly, and predictably, well resourced and well organized, and with a clear strategy, led by Bev Busson, who subsequently went on to be the Commissioner of the RCMP. So at first blush, it was a very useful looking organization. That organization disappeared in 2004, for reasons I've yet to establish.

Health committee  The ministry also set up a hotline to provide information to the public and to health care professionals. Those who answered the phone were confident and very well meaning, but it soon became clear that they were not able to address the clinical questions that family physicians were asking. We assisted the Ministry of Health by recruiting retired family physicians and some of our members who were on maternity leave to be a valuable source of providing that telephone contact.

Canadian Heritage committee  We made a very specific campaign commitment, as I've said, with regard to funding for the CBC. We've kept our commitment. We've been crystal-clear on every single one of our campaign platforms and every single one of the four budgets we've passed through the House of Commons. We've sent a clear and consistent signal that we have been supporting the CBC with over $1 billion of investment in every single one of our budgets.

Committees of the House  I want to read on the record some statements that were made by the Leader of the Opposition, so that Canadians are very clear on his position on this particular issue. On April 8, he said: The humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka has continued to deteriorate, causing grave concern to the international community and demanding urgent and coordinated action to end this conflict....

Canadian Heritage committee  I assume that you support the Local Programming Improvement Fund, the CRTC' famous $60 million fund that you obviously have access to. You said that you want to make your position on that clear. Have you made it clear today? Do you think that more money should be allocated to that fund?

National Defence committee  It's also my hope, in ignorance, that an emergency plan, a formal emergency plan, exists among the different actors within the Canadian government--so between DND and other actors, about how such a dramatic scenario would be managed. To be clear, my perspective is that to protect its legal position, the Canadian government would have to react vis-à-vis any ship or submarine that had entered the archipelago unannounced and uninvited.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Nothing could be further from the truth. Canada's world-renowned chief veterinary officer, Brian Evans, made this point very clear to this committee. HACCP is not privatization and never will be privatization. In reality, HACCP identifies the most critical stages in food production where problems are most likely to occur.

House debate  Interestingly enough, by the time we had passed a year, the 2008 projections had been dropped from 220,000 tonnes to 35,000 tonnes, a dramatic reduction and, I think, clear evidence of a recognition that the program was failing. The cost for the first two years, so this is money already gone now according to the report, was $635 million. The report states that t he public transit tax credit “will have a negligible impact on Canada's greenhouse gas emissions”.

House debate  Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to respond to the member's question surrounding recent changes to strengthen the equalization system. First, let me be clear. We are committed to treating all provinces equally and that is why we have restored fiscal balance through long term and fair transfer support to the provinces, as well as the territories, and why, under our Conservative government, federal support to the provinces has reached historic levels of over $54 billion and will continue to grow every year.

Finance committee  Having the projection updated four times a year, you get a better-quality projection, if you will. In doing this, it's our responsibility, though, in the intervening period to be pretty clear about whether we're starting to get off course on that projection. It's obviously our responsibility to be pretty clear about the assumptions underlying that projection. With respect to government measures, I'll leave it to this committee to advise the government.