Helping Families in Need Act  Mr. Speaker, I want to assure the hon. member that I am not trying to give a mixed message on the benefits. As I have said, all Canadians have the compassion to want to assist families that are in the most dire crisis. I am trying to point out that in my community there are many parents who worry every day about their ability to put food on the table and provide shelter for their kids.

Helping Families in Need Act  Mr. Speaker, the member's dedication to making progress on aboriginal issues in this country is well known. I certainly thank him for his hard work. I do not have the answer to his general question of why we failed so badly as a Parliament to address the needs of aboriginal people.

Helping Families in Need Act  Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-44, a bill that has some very good ideas to help families who are in very critical situations. All Canadians have compassion for parents of critically ill children and, of course, for families who have lost a child.

Public Safety  Mr. Speaker, either privatization of prisons is on the table or it is not. The minister likes to talk about certain models being considered and certain models not. A 1,400 page study--

Public Safety  A 1,400-page study about the privatization of prisons does not just appear out of nowhere. However, the Minister of Public Safety kept Canadians and even the correctional investigator in the dark about this secret study. Mike Harris already tried this in Ontario and it cost the taxpayers millions.

Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act  Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague's comments on the bill and she has really pointed out some of the areas in the bill that need to be strengthened and improved. I would like to give her the opportunity to talk a little bit longer about those suggestions for improvement and why she thinks it has taken the government so long to get the bill before the House.

100th Anniversary of the Township of Esquimalt  Mr. Speaker, 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the Township of Esquimalt in my riding of Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca. From the initial European and Chinese settlers in the 1850s to the arrival of the navy in 1865 and the establishment of the naval dockyard in 1887, Esquimalt has continued to grow as a diverse and vibrant community.

Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act  Mr. Speaker, the member is vice-chair of the status of women committee, and I think what she has illustrated is a kind of rebuke to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance who cited the number of police on the Conservative side to speak on this. It is the very diversity of this chamber and the backgrounds from all parts of Canadian life that we are drawing on in order to improve the bill.

Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act  Mr. Speaker, I, too, have benefited from the very thoughtful speech by my colleague from St. John's East on this topic. I wonder if he has any reflections on the amount of time it has taken the government, which has been in power since 2006, to act on these issues, which we have all known exist in the RCMP.

Questions on the Order Paper  With regard to the decision to terminate the Office of the Inspector General of Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) in Bill C-38: (a) when was the decision made; (b) who was consulted on the decision; (c) what provision has the government made to ensure that the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) will be able to replace all the functions of CSIS; (d) what provisions have been made to give SIRC the same investigatory powers that the Inspector General formerly had; (e) what plans has the government made to ensure that SIRC is able carry out these functions, in addition to its other responsibilities, despite a budget cut of $800,000?

Questions on the Order Paper  With regard to audio-video monitoring and recording by the Canadian Border Services Agency: (a) how much has the federal government spent on the equipment and installation of that equipment to date; (b) under what legal authority has the audio monitoring equipment been installed; and (c) what provisions have been made to handle the information gathered from airport surveillance?

Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act  Mr. Speaker, the member raises a very serious question on how we can actually make the legislation provide the kinds of things the RCMP commissioner needs to take action on sexual harassment. In terms of the timing of the bill, one of the curious things is that the minister had the courtesy to inform me that there were translation errors in the text of the bill.

Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act  Mr. Speaker, this is part on which Paul Kennedy, the former public complaints commissioner, made very strong statements. His view was that in his time in the job, which amounted to five years, he felt he needed greater powers to make binding recommendations. It goes back to this kind of nexus of relationships between the commissioner and the minister and the commission, which is supposed to hold them accountable.

Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act  Mr. Speaker, the member has asked a very interesting question. We have seen a regrettable tendency by the government across the board to shed responsibilities and pass them down to the provinces. The RCMP is in fact our national police force. If Canadians are to have confidence in the RCMP, it seems that the buck has to stop at the national level which should quit trying to push these responsibilities down to the provincial level.

Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act  Mr. Speaker, there are two further concerns in the area of sexual harassment. One of them is that the RCMP commissioner has launched a gender audit within the RCMP to determine what kinds of problems he is going to need to address. We are going ahead with the legislation in the absence of the results from that audit.