Tobacco Act  Madam Speaker, I am pleased to see this legislation advance in the House. I am particularly pleased that this follows the hard work of my colleague, the hon. member for Winnipeg North. I come from British Columbia, where we have one of the lowest rates of smoking in the country,

Public Safety  Mr. Speaker, three years ago the government promised it would deliver 2,500 police officers to Canadian streets. This has not happened, and worse, the Conservatives are now backtracking from their commitment. Members of the Canadian Association of Police Boards have been here th

Protecting Victims From Sex Offenders Act  Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak on behalf of the New Democratic Party on the merits, and not, of Bill C-34, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and other Acts. As has been previously mentioned by other speakers, this bill amends a number of pieces of legislation, most nota

Protecting Victims From Sex Offenders Act  Mr. Speaker, once again, the New Democrats support, and have always supported, this legislation. This legislation would give important tools to police to help protect the public in cases of, as my friend properly said, the heinous crimes of a sexual nature committed against peopl

Protecting Victims From Sex Offenders Act  Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his astute comments and good questions. The New Democrats, and in fact, all the members of the committee, I would hope, were working to make this registry even better. As an example, some of the police testified that if we

Protecting Victims From Sex Offenders Act  Mr. Speaker, this highlights another problem with the approach of the minister, because one of the issues that the committee was working on was the fact that there are no statistics relating to the efficacy of the DNA data bank. We asked questions such as how often the data bank

Protecting Victims From Sex Offenders Act  Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the hon. member for the fine work he does on the committee. As an ex-justice minister in Quebec, he brings an enormous amount of skill and knowledge to our committee. He is quite right. Unique examples do not make good policy. Often they

Criminal Code  Madam Speaker, I think that all Canadians have seen what happens when there is a substantial departure from Canadian legal tradition. In the recent case of Mohamed Harkat, we saw what happens when trials are held in secret, cross-examination is truncated, and evidence is presente

Criminal Code  Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to the member's comments and I have a couple of questions. The first concerns the repeated use of the words “imminent threat”. Those words do not appear in the legislation. The infringement of rights that we are talking about, basic fundamenta

Criminal Code  Madam Speaker, I am cognizant that I have 20 minutes to speak but only 4 minutes to begin. I am going to lay the preparatory groundwork for my speech later on. Not everybody in the House will agree with what I am about to say, but the fundamental issue presented by the piece of

Criminal Code  Mr. Speaker, as the House may know, prior to question period I was discussing Bill C-19, which engages the issue of civil rights in this country. I would like to point out the valuable work that is done in our country on behalf of the civil rights of ordinary Canadians and, in f

Criminal Code  Indeed it could, Mr. Speaker. To quote someone who is eminently unquotable, Ronald Reagan said, “One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter”. How do we define terrorism? The provisions of the bill are directed at compelling people to come forward and potentially be

Criminal Code  Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my hon. friend's party, the Bloc Québécois, which also has stood firmly in principled fashion against these incursions against our civil liberties. He is quite right. There are many examples in this country where legislation has been pas

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, the NDP has long stood up for pensions and income security for seniors. Our commitment to the dignity of seniors and all Canadians stems back to the work of MP J.S. Woodsworth, who fought hard for the Old Age Pensions Act passed in 1927. Stanley Knowles, as well, pla

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, this week, Teamsters Canada is having their convention here in Ottawa and I had the pleasure of addressing them yesterday. Prior to being elected, I worked for a Teamsters local and sat as a trustee on a employer and union jointly administered pension fund. It is t