Criminal Code  Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my friend for West Nova, who has been an excellent member of the justice committee and with whom I have enjoyed working a great deal. I have been told more than once that hybridization was sought by the provinces. That might be the old adage o

Criminal Code  Mr. Speaker, I acknowledge the member for Richmond Centre's advocacy on behalf of seniors and the elder abuse issue. I am very familiar with it in my riding of Victoria, as members might imagine. The possibilities of fitting the punishment to the crime have to be taken seriousl

Criminal Code  Mr. Speaker, when the government speaks to this, it claims it has had conversations at federal, provincial and territorial meetings with their counterparts in the provinces and territories. The people I talked to were very worried about the downloading. The claim is that is not a

Criminal Code  Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the parliamentary secretary for his thoughtful question. I agree with him that we have to find a better way to get more discretion to judges. Again, that was the thrust of my comments about mandatory minimums. It is sad that we do not have the

Criminal Code  Mr. Speaker, I was just making the point that the Criminal Lawyers' Association has made, about why mandatory minimum sentences are important. It is because if a criminal lawyer has the possibility, a zero-sum gain, that his or her client will get the minimum sentence that is the

Criminal Code  Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise, albeit at this hour, to discuss Bill C-75 and the Senate amendments that have been brought to this place from there. I agree with the thrust of the Senate amendments on behalf of the New Democratic Party, which supports the thrust of those

Criminal Code  Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the minister on his speech. I agree, on behalf of the NDP, with the thrust of his remarks with respect to the Senate amendments made to Bill C-75, certainly with respect to intimate partner violence and the bail reform provisions and, in

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns  With regard to the case of Abousfian Abdelrazik and his claims that Canada violated his rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, since June 1, 2018: how much has it cost the government to litigate the case, broken down by (i) the value of all legal services, (ii)

Petitions  Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present to the House today. The first petition is an e-petition from Mr. Roger Clark of Ottawa calling on the government to appoint an independent commissioner to conduct a public inquiry into the circumstances regarding Dr. Hassan Diab's ex

Petitions  Mr. Speaker, the second petition concerns the housing crisis in our country. Currently, over a quarter of a million Canadians experience homelessness every year and 90% of the funding for the government's so-called national housing strategy will only flow after the next election

Post-Secondary Education  Mr. Speaker, student debt is a huge burden for so many young Canadians. Steacy from Victoria tells me there is so much interest accumulating on her student loans that she cannot pay the principal of the debt. She feels she just cannot get ahead. People like Steacy have been work

Federal Courts Act  Mr. Speaker, I am rising to express my strong support for the enormous contribution made by the member for New Westminster—Burnaby. He has been championing this legislation for so many years, in so many parliaments, and here it is again. It is a bill that would work toward the in

Access to Information Act  Mr. Speaker, this is not unique to the current government. It is a fact of life and it applies to parties on all sides. Access to information sounds like a good idea when one is in opposition and can use it as a tool, but when in government, it is expensive and is a pain. The pub

Access to Information Act  Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby for his very kind remarks. He talked about the amendments. I was involved in bringing forth some 36 amendments to Bill C-58 at committee. Many of them were deemed inadmissible because they were beyond t

Access to Information Act  Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the hon. member for Hull—Aylmer on becoming a parliamentary secretary in this important field. The amendments of which I spoke were the ones brought forward at the ethics committee by the NDP. I gave notice of 36 amendments and 20 were accepted as ad