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ndpMay 10, 2012 2:50 pm | Ontario, Windsor—TecumsehMadam Speaker, this matter has been before the House, motions by the official opposition, on at least two other occasions since we had this announcement from the government, post-election announcement I would point out, that—
April
- MPndpApr 05, 2012 9:25 am | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, we just heard the argument from the member for Toronto Centre, so I would like to reserve our opportunity to come back after the break with a more fulsome comment.
I want to get this on the record now. It is clear that when we hear what the Auditor General has said, every one of us as members of Parliament has to think if our privileges have been breached. On a preliminary basis, our analysis is that it is still premature to determine that. I say that from the perspective of the Speaker having to make an ultimate ruling on this motion.
However, we are still analyzing all the information we have. As the leader of the third party mentioned, more information came out in a scrum this morning from the Auditor General. Therefore, we are doing that analysis. Both for the reason that we have heard the arguments for the first time and for the reality of the need to continue to do that analysis, I ask for the right to be able to respond after the break.
- MPndpApr 05, 2012 9:05 am | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, as everyone knows, this is the last day before our constituency weeks and the break for the Easter weekend. I want to take this opportunity to thank all the staff here in the House and on the Hill generally for all the services they give us during the year. I want to acknowledge the fine work they do.
I ask the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons what his plans are for the week when we return, that is what legislation will be before the House.
- MPndpApr 05, 2012 8:20 am | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, is that not typical, again no responsibility and no true information coming to this House.
The government is dumping it over to an F-35 office, and it has already been found by the Auditor General that those people did not do due diligence.
What the Canadian people want is value for money. They want a plane where the specifications have not been rigged in advance. They want a government that actually takes responsibility for its failure.
What is wrong with having a competition? Why will the government not hold a simple, open competition to replace the F-18s?
- MPndpApr 05, 2012 8:15 am | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General has identified a never-ending litany of problems with the F-35 program: Ministers failed to be accountable and key departments failed at their jobs.
This morning, the Auditor General said that the responsibility for the misleading information that came to this House about the cost laid directly in the cabinet of the Conservative government.
Will the Prime Minister stand today in this House and tell us whether in fact the cabinet knew what the true costs were going to be for the F-35s?
- MPndpApr 03, 2012 7:10 am | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
moved for leave to introduce Bill C-414, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals).
Madam Speaker, this private member's bill deals with an issue that is scandalous in that it was not put into law many years ago. This bill, in a somewhat different form, has been through this House twice and then stopped, once by prorogation and another time by the Senate.
The bill is quite straightforward. It is to address the reality that our criminal law dealing with animal cruelty has not been changed for over 100 years. This bill would bring us into the 21st century where other countries, which I would argue from a criminal justice standpoint are not nearly as advanced as Canada is, have moved on this issue.
The bill would do two basic things. It first recognizes that animals are sentient beings as opposed to a piece of wood or a piece of furniture, which is the way the Criminal Code currently treats them. The other thing that it would do has a very clear consequence. The number of convictions for animal cruelty would increase dramatically under the Criminal Code. We have estimates that only one in a thousand cases of animal cruelty can result in convictions under the Criminal Code, and this would address that issue.
It is a bill that I have worked on for a very long time and this is the third time I have had it as a private member's bill. It has been before this House for well over a decade and still has not become law.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)
- MPndpApr 02, 2012 12:25 pm | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, I would ask you, in particular when you are looking at today's statement, to take into account the statement that was made last Thursday. How can a member possibly call someone a hug-a-thug and say that is about his philosophical underpinnings or about a policy issue? It is not. It is a personal attack. It is name-calling at its basest level. Therefore, I would ask you to look at both the statements, not just the one today.
- MPndpApr 02, 2012 12:20 pm | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, earlier today, you interrupted the statement that was being presented by the member for Mississauga—Brampton South. As there is some confusion, I am asking for some indication from the Chair as to how you intend to handle this.
Mr. Speaker, you will recall that last week the member for Toronto—Danforth had raised a point of order with regard to the statement, again presented by the same member on the government side, in terms of the nature of the statement being a personal attack on him, which is a violation of the long-standing tradition of this House and any number of Houses in the Westminster system, and more specifically, it is in violation of the rulings of your predecessor, Mr. Milliken in the last Parliament where he ruled that personal attacks against other members during the course of an S. O. 31 statement is improper.
We are not clear, Mr. Speaker, whether in fact, by cutting her off today, you were expressing your intent as to your ruling or when we might expect a determination from you on the point of order that was raised by the member for Toronto—Danforth last week.
March
- MPndpMar 29, 2012 12:15 pm | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, before I go to the question, I have a point to make. As we know, we will have the budget later today. What we have seen repeatedly is a breach of the long-standing tradition of the Westminster Parliament of not putting out in advance information that is in the budget. However, we have seen it repeatedly done by the government, not just in this budget but in prior ones.
My first question for the government House leader is whether that will be a continued practice and, if it is, why do the Conservatives not just do away with the sham of any confidentiality around the budget.
My next question is this. Could the government House leader confirm which four days will be dedicated to debate the budget? We have had various indications from him. If he could, we would ask that he be more specific at this time, assuming that it will start tomorrow.
Also, the government should accept the fact, as expressed by all Canadians, that Bill C-31 would dismantle our immigration and refugee protection policies and that the minister obviously does not understand the impact of that legislation.
Can the hon. member opposite confirm that the government is dropping that bill, yes or no?
We also have Bill C-30 outstanding, which is the so-called lawful access bill. It was up for debate at some point but it seems to have disappeared off the radar, along with Bill C-4. Both of them are quite misguided pieces of legislation. I am wondering if the House leader can tell us if the government will go ahead with these bills or come to its senses and either send them back for rewriting or just drop them completely.
Finally, there is a motion, which all parties in this Parliament accepted, with regard to the voter suppression scandal and it calls on the government to rapidly look at amendments to various pieces of legislation that would prevent that type of scandal and abuse of the democratic process from happening in the future. Is the government proceeding with any legislation and, if so, when will we see it?
- MPndpMar 16, 2012 8:15 am | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, the 700 complaints came from Canadians, not from New Democrats.
The Conservatives have also been careless and haphazard with the F-35 file.
The Conservatives have really messed up the plan to replace the CF-18s. The Auditor General is about to release a report confirming that the Minister of National Defence misled Parliament on the subject of the F-35s. That is very serious.
Has the government seen the report—we know that it has—and did it mislead Parliament?
- MPndpMar 15, 2012 12:10 pm | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, I was going to get up on another point of order on Air Canada because that last statement was not correct.
I would like to ask the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons what the House's plans are for the rest of this week and for the week of March 26.
I am particularly curious to ask the government House leader to confirm that the reason the budget is being brought down, as opposed to tradition, on a Thursday is that the next day, when the debate would start, is a Friday when we have little time. It is a way of hiding the budget from the Canadian people because of the negative backlash the government is expecting.
It is an ongoing pattern, the Minister of Finance ducking all sorts of questions in this regard. It is another technique. I just want the minister to confirm that this is just another technique by the government to limit debate around serious issues confronting this country.
- MPndpMar 13, 2012 12:10 pm | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, I think people in the House, who may not understand what just happened with this motion, is that the House leader for the government is invoking closure, doing it on a bill that flies in the face of the long-standing practices of allowing collective bargaining to go on without interference from governments, whether it be the federal government or provincial government. It is also a continuation of a pattern by the government of running roughshod, using tactics like this, both time allocation and closure.
We look at this and ask what the urgency is on this legislation. The Minister of Labour has issued a directive that prevents a strike at this point, or a lockout, at Air Canada, for that sector of our transportation system. It is a situation where this is a duplication. The government has already made it impossible for there to be a lockout or a strike, an interruption of the operations of Air Canada, by a directive that she gave last week. Therefore, where is the urgency with regard to this legislation? How can Conservatives possibly justify invoking closure?
- MPndpMar 12, 2012 12:20 pm | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, the government has moved 17 time allocation and closure motions since it got its majority and this is now number 18.
Every time we do this, we set an all-time record in the history of this country and this Parliament going all the way back to 1867. The closest any government came to it was the Liberal government in the 2000 to 20404 time period and that Parliament sat for an even longer period of time before it set the record.
How can one possibly continue to justify it when the provinces do not do it and England, Australia and New Zealand do not do it? Those all have parliaments similar to ours. Whether it is on this immigration bill or on any number of bills where the government has applied the motion, how does the government possibly justify it and then still claim that we will continue to be a democracy?
- MPndpMar 12, 2012 8:20 am | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, the government has moved 17 time allocation and closure motions since it got its majority and this is now number 18.
Every time we do this, we set an all-time record in the history of this country and this Parliament going all the way back to 1867. The closest any government came to it was the Liberal government in the 2000 to 20404 time period and that Parliament sat for an even longer period of time before it set the record.
How can one possibly continue to justify it when the provinces do not do it and England, Australia and New Zealand do not do it? Those all have parliaments similar to ours. Whether it is on this immigration bill or on any number of bills where the government has applied the motion, how does the government possibly justify it and then still claim that we will continue to be a democracy?
- MPndpMar 08, 2012 12:05 pm | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, I stood here in the same place last week and acknowledged that the government had gone a whole five sitting days without moving a time allocation motion and I encouraged the House leader of the government to continue that practice. Therefore, I am quite disappointed standing here today.
They moved not just one time allocation motion on Tuesday, but they moved two such motions. What they are doing is truly undemocratic. I urge the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons once again to put an end to this practice immediately.
For the coming week, there are a number of issues that are outstanding and unclear so I will list them.
I understand that we have a confirmation that Bill C-10 will come before this House for debate tomorrow and that the vote on Bill C-10 will be put off until Monday evening.
I further understand that Bill C-31, the attack on refugees bill, will come before the House on Tuesday. I would ask the House leader if that is still the case and if it will be before the House for the balance of the week.
With regard to other legislation, I will repeat a question I had earlier for him but never got an answer to. Where is Bill C-30, the Internet snooping bill? When will that be back before the House? Will we ever see it again or is the government just going to dump it?
Finally, could I have a confirmation for the House that the final supply day, which was originally scheduled for Monday, has now been put over to Wednesday and all the votes that will flow subsequent to that will be Wednesday evening?
- MPndpMar 07, 2012 2:10 pm | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, I am not surprised by this motion. There should not be any reason why we should be surprised. It has happened 16 times since Parliament started. Since the May 2 election, this will be the 17th time.
It is a total abdication of the democratic responsibilities that the government should have, and every Government of Canada should have and has up until this point, to allow for meaningful democratic discussion and debate in the House. We are here for that. That is why it is called Parliament.
The government has never understood this. Since the Conservatives received a majority, they have run roughshod over that moral, democratic responsibility they have to the opposition parties and to Canadian citizens as a whole.
I understand the member will move another motion of this kind on Bill C-31. When will we see that one?
- MPndpMar 02, 2012 10:45 am | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, I will respond to the issue that has been raised with regard to problem gambling.
I was on the first public board for casinos in Ontario, which was an administrative board initially. I am proud of the work that I did in that period of time with regard to demanding, insisting and cajoling the provincial government to put additional resources into dealing with the problem of compulsive gamblers.
The point that always needs to be made when we are looking at this legislation is that this gaming is going on now. We also know, from a number of studies that have been done, that there is at least some reasonable expectation that once that form of gaming is legalized there is an increased opportunity and probability that the compulsive gambler will be, one, identified, and two, encouraged to get assistance. There are very few compulsive gamblers who cannot be treated. It is like any other addiction. With the right type of counselling and professional assistance, it can be beat.
All of the big casinos in Ontario have locations on site where compulsive gamblers can go to or be directed to. I do not think we spend enough money on it. I want to be clear on that. I have said repeatedly, as I have worked on this project, that the provinces that deploy this should be morally compelled, if nothing else, to look at the problem of compulsive gambling, to see how much they are spending in their provincial jurisdictions and to seriously consider increasing the amount they spend so professional counselling and treatment is more widely available.
I have looked at some studies that break it down province by province and the per capita spending is quite dramatically different. Ontario and Quebec lead the way. B.C. is fairly far behind in spite of the amount of legal gambling that goes on there. It would be in the best interests of all of the provinces if they looked at the issue and dedicated additional resources.
The final point I want to make, which I meant to make in my opening remarks, is that, as we all know, assuming this bill passes and goes to the other House, I have spoken to members of the other House and I have a sponsor. Senator Runciman has agreed to sponsor the bill in the other House. I know he is looking forward to it getting there so that he can encourage its rapid passage at that level.
- MPndpMar 02, 2012 10:30 am | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
moved that the bill, as amended, be concurred in at report stage.
- MPndpMar 02, 2012 8:20 am | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, I certainly know how my riding got on the list. It is because I got a call directly at my home, which was turned over to Elections Canada on the same day, as opposed to what the Prime Minister has suggested.
The Conservatives are getting their stories mixed up. Yesterday, the Prime Minister confused a Canadian company with a company in North Dakota. All week, the Conservatives have been denying their involvement in the fraudulent phone calls. They defend themselves by saying that the Liberals did the same thing. Even if that is true—which is not impossible—that does not justify the Conservatives' actions.
We want the truth. When will we get the truth?
- MPndpMar 02, 2012 8:15 am | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, Elections Canada is reviewing 31,000 complaints into election fraud. The CBC reported last night that the Conservative Party was reviewing tapes related to illegal calls that came out of Thunder Bay.
Why are the Conservatives now themselves reviewing these tapes if they do not think they are involved? What exactly are they doing to these records before they are given over to the authorities? Why not give to the records to the Elections Canada personnel who are investigating it and do that immediately, today, right now?
- MPndpMar 01, 2012 12:10 pm | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, as you can tell from my voice, I am going to be very brief this week, as opposed to some other weeks. At the outset I would like to note that we have now gone five full sitting days with no time allocation by the government. I want to encourage the House leader on the government side to continue to follow that pattern, perhaps maybe even give us some assurances today that he will follow that pattern.
I have to say, however, that his colleagues in the other House have not been quite so willing to follow that pattern, since I understand that either today or yesterday they began to move a motion for time allocation in the Senate on Bill C-10. I was expecting that we would see Bill C-10 on Tuesday next week. Will that still be the case or will it be coming later?
In addition to that bill, we have had indications from the government that Bill C-30 would be sent to committee before second reading, and I wonder if the House leader could advise us as to when the motion to send it to committee prior to second reading will be coming back to the House.
February
- MPndpFeb 28, 2012 12:00 pm | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, I want to respond to the question of privilege that the Minister of Public Safety raised in the House yesterday.
I will begin by saying that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons presented a well-researched, cogent argument in support of that. I do not think there is anything I can take issue with in regard to that presentation. However, I do have some concerns about the points that were made by the minister himself.
With regard to the material that did come from the parliamentary secretary, it was quite clear that in each case, when one is looking at the question of privilege, the facts of the case must decide whether in fact privilege has been breached. I believe that is again true in this case.
With regard to the points that the Minister of Public Safety made, he basically had three arguments supporting his position that his privilege had been breached. I will just do a quick summary.
First was that parliamentary resources had been used to attack his position with regard to some incidents in his personal life and with regard to Bill C-30 that was the issue of contention, but it was more that parliamentary resources had been used in that regard that his argument was made.
Second, he argued that the threats that were coming at him, and there can be no dispute over that part of it, that is very clearly a breach of his privilege and the privilege of any member of this House faced with those types of threats, that he either withdraw the bill or additional information would be released, is a clear breach of his privilege and one that would cause us to very strongly agree that his privilege had been breached on the facts of this case.
His third point was on the opposition to Bill C-30, that the people who were opposed to it were clogging up his office. That is the part that most disturbed me. The position that we would be taking as a party is that that is not a valid argument in support of an argument for breach of privilege.
In that regard, Mr. Speaker, I would draw to your attention a ruling by your predecessor, Mr. Milliken, on June 8, 2005. There was a similar type of situation where the member was claiming that his office was being intentionally clogged, that his email and phones were being intentionally clogged on an issue of some import to whoever was doing the work.
The key point for Speaker Milliken was, I believe, the same as in this case. It is not the question of whether in fact that is occurring, although that is a factual matter that should be determined, the important point is whether it is the intent of the people who are trying to contact the minister or the member of Parliament to clog up his office and make it inoperable and impossible for other constituents to have access to the member of Parliament.
The test is: What is the intent of the calls coming in, the emails coming in and the faxes coming in? Intent is the key component.
With regard to this situation, it is quite clear that Bill C-30 is very contentious. We as an official opposition party have been adamantly opposed to it. The third party in the House is adamantly opposed to it. Lots and lots of Canadians are adamantly opposed to it. One of the ways of expressing that opposition is to attempt to contact the minister's office and tell him that this is a bad bill and give reasons for opposing it.
If you make a ruling, Mr. Speaker, that says that if the effect of what one is doing in trying to contact the member of Parliament, in this case the minister, is to clog up his office, it will significantly impact the ability of individual Canadians to express their democratic voice in opposition to legislation.
In this case, it is clear that the bill is so contentious that it is almost impossible to envision that that many calls, those many emails and faxes were coming in with the intent of clogging his office. The intent behind those was that Canadians were expressing their democratic right to oppose the bill. Canadians were telling the minister that they were opposed to the bill and they were giving their reasons.
It is quite clear that relying on that ruling from Mr. Milliken, the Speaker of the day, would not be a basis on which to make a finding of breach of privilege in this case. The facts speak to that quite clearly.
I want to repeat that we have no problem with the finding of breach of privilege because of the second point that the minister made with regard to the threats. That is not tolerable behaviour in our society, in this Parliament and in Canada as a whole. It is just not the way Parliament and our democracy function. Ministers and members of Parliament cannot be threatened in that way, so there is no question that there is a breach of privilege on that point.
On the third point, with regard to clogging his office, that clearly is not a basis for a finding of breach of privilege. I would invite you, Mr. Speaker, to make it specific that that is not a basis on which you could make a finding of breach of privilege, as did Mr. Milliken in that particular case of June 5, 2008.
The minister's first point is more problematic. He is arguing that the use of parliamentary resources to, as he put it, attack him surreptitiously, is more problematic. It is a grey area. The anonymity is the part that bothers me. If this had been done by one of my staff who had simply sent the minister a message using the resources that we have here on the Hill saying “At a personal level, I'm opposed to the bill”, there is no question that is permissible because the individual is just doing his or her job.
The grey area is the anonymity in the way this one was done. That one, Mr. Speaker, I will throw back into your lap and not make a suggestion. However, I do not think it is clear as to whether, because parliamentary resources are being used to communicate to a member of Parliament or to a minister, that automatically means a breach of privilege. I do not think that follows. It is the anonymity part of it that would be of concern.
- MPndpFeb 27, 2012 12:40 pm | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, there have been consultations among all parties and I believe that if you seek it you would find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:
That this House call on all members to provide Elections Canada and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police with any and all information they have on voter suppression and illegal phoning during the last election;
offer its full support to both the Commissioner of Canada Elections and the RCMP in their investigations into these despicable practices;
and call on all parties to immediately hand over any and all documents requested or required by the authorities to assist in their investigation.
- MPndpFeb 27, 2012 12:35 pm | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, I would like to reserve the right to come back to the House in the next day or two to speak to this in more detail. I do not think I heard anything from the deputy House leader on the government side that I would take issue with, but there were a couple of comments from the Minister of Public Safety on which I may want to make some comments, so I would reserve that right. I will get to it as quickly as possible.
- MPndpFeb 27, 2012 12:05 pm | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, it is difficult for us to get on our feet at this point and be at all sympathetic to some of the requests from the Minister of Public Safety. On the other hand, the vikileaks30 type of approach, that type of politics, is totally offensive to this side of the House and to my political party. I want to be on the record as saying that to the minister.
However, on February 10 the Minister of Foreign Affairs stood in the House and accused my party repeatedly and unequivocally, using offensive terminology and terms like “sleazy practices”, of exactly what we have now heard came from a staffer from the Liberal Party. We had nothing to do with that.
On this question of privilege that I have to raise for my party, I have to ask you, Mr. Speaker, to compel the Minister of Foreign Affairs to come back into the House at the earliest opportunity and apologize to my party and the members of my caucus.
- MPndpFeb 14, 2012 3:20 pm | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, we need these two tiers. I am absolutely convinced of that. The Criminal Code, our criminal justice system, is, like the mace, too harsh a tool to be used in the vast majority of cases.
I want to address some of the problems with section 13. This section has been in the act since 1977. It is not a new section. It has been amended on a couple of occasions. It really became a problem with the advent of the Internet, the amount of hate literature that was on the Internet and the attempt by the Canadian Human Rights Commission to intervene and try to shut some of that down, if not all of it. Society, as a whole, needs to tell the bigots and hate-mongers they cannot do it and we have a mechanism we are going to use to shut them down. This is not about a debate over free speech. This type of speech, like slander, defamation and libel, we have recognized historically people cannot do.
I want to make one other argument in terms of addressing what we are hearing from the government side. Conservatives say this is a major interference with freedom of speech. That was the same type of argument that I heard repeatedly throughout the 1960s and 1970s as society moved to prevent discrimination in hiring and residences. I could go down the list. We heard usually from right-wing people that they had a right to discriminate, that they did not want someone whose skin was a different colour living next door to them. We heard that they had a right to do that, that they did not have to employ people because of the colour of their skin. We have said that is not acceptable in our society. Now, if we keep section 13, we are saying the same thing about that kind of language being used against those identifiable groups.
- MPndpFeb 14, 2012 3:15 pm | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, I look forward to speaking on Bill C-304. I have a great deal of experience with this in a number of ways, both here as a parliamentarian and at one period of time in my professional career as a lawyer.
In its simplicity, although Bill C-304 has other sections in it, it is really about the repeal of section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. Members have heard this from a number of speeches so far. Clearly on the part of the mover, and I would say generally by the Conservative Party, it is an attempt to appease some of their right-wing ideologues, in the media in particular. It is also in keeping with their right-wing ideology of a society that has no government intervention.
For those of us who support section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, it is about recognizing the nature of what Canada is, what it always has been. At its best, section 13 is what Canada is really about.
We hear demeaning comments from the right wing in this debate that it is really about minor sensitivities that are being offended. However, that is not what section 13 is about. It is about giving the Canadian Human Rights Commission the right to regulate and impose sanctions against people who are prepared to make statements in public, and the big debate more recently has been around telecommunications, statements that are on, and I quote from section 13(1):
...any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that thatperson or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.
It is talking about statements in writing, over the Internet and electronically communicated that will identify groups and draw hatred and contempt to those groups. That is what section 13 is about. It is about prohibiting that type of behaviour.
We hear from the Conservative side that we can deal with this by the hate propaganda sections of the Criminal Code, specifically section 318. I know that section very well. To my knowledge, there has only been six cases that were ever prosecuted under that section. I successfully defended one of the charges.
I have to say that it is relatively easy to use section 318 in defence of all sorts of heinous types of conduct. However, depending on that section to protect vulnerable groups who are the subject of contempt and hatred is like using the mace to tap in a small nail. It is a gross overreach.
Section 318 came into effect sometime in the late 1960s or early 1970s. It has been in existence for over 40 years now, but has only been used six times, and the penalties are quite severe. It requires that every case be approved by the attorney general of the province to allow it to be used.
In defence of section 13, it is a mechanism to help protect vulnerable groups in our society. I think of members of the Jewish community who have historically been a target for anti-Semitic attacks. More recently, members of the Islamic community has been subject to attacks because of their faith. I think of members of Afro-Canadian communities who have a lengthy history of being attacked because of the colour of their skin or continent that they come from. We can go down the list.
There are problems with the Canadian Human Rights Act, but they can be fixed. Amendments could be brought forward that would reform it. We need to develop the jurisprudence around this section. We have not done that very well up to this point, I will admit, but that can be remedied.
We need two levels. We need the Criminal Code for the more severe types of hate propaganda and so section 318 should remain. It is working for the purpose for which it was designed. However, it is not designed to deal with this type of hatred or contempt brought against identifiable groups. Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act is to be used for that purpose. We should be supporting it, maybe with some reform.
We need two tiers in order to have a free society for individuals who are regularly targeted by anti-Semitic or anti-Islamic people. We can include homophobia as well. There are a number of areas where the language used draws hatred and contempt to an identifiable group. Canadians as a society are saying no, that it not the kind of society we want. We want an organization or tribunal to be able to express our contempt for those who are prepared to do that, put a stop to the use of that kind of material and impose some type of penalty to express the revulsion that society feels for people who are prepared to use discriminatory, hateful language against other identifiable groups in our society. We need both tiers.
I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, I am finding it very distracting.
- MPndpFeb 14, 2012 7:25 am | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Madam Speaker, on the point of the government praising the banking system, the reality is that before the 2008 great recession started, it was about to undertake some major deregulation processes and was stopped only because of what happened at that time.
I want to go back to the point that the government House leader is raising. He is beginning to breach the confidentiality that we are supposed to be abiding by with regard to House leaders' meetings. His characterization of those meetings is not at all accurate. I want to say that and will not say anything further because I do not want to breach confidentiality.
I want to go back to the point about the regular process. This is the 16th time the government has put closure and time allocation on bills. This is an all-time record. No other government in the entire history of this country has used it that often in such a short period of time. Is he saying the NDP is the only official opposition party that has ever demanded its right to speak in the House?
- MPndpFeb 14, 2012 7:20 am | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Madam Speaker, I am just amazed that the House leader of the Conservative party thinks I have that kind of control or sway over my caucus. The reality is I have a number of members of our caucus who want to speak on this bill. Madam Speaker, you have the list in front of you today. They want to address this bill. Part of the reality is, we have a large new caucus here. Maybe the Conservatives could have asked us why we have that large new caucus, rather than spending $16,000 on it. Caucus members want to communicate to their ridings what their positions are on any number of bills, including S-5.
I want to go back to the point that my colleague from the Liberals raised. This really is about the incompetence of the government House leader. The government knew the April 20 deadline was there since Parliament came back. It is there. It is the reality. By moving the bill at a much earlier stage, the government House leader could have accomplished what he needed to accomplish in order to meet that deadline. Therefore, why do we see this bill at the last minute, forcing us to be confronted with a time allocation motion? That is not the way to be the general manager in the House. The fact that we are faced with this is his responsibility, not that of the opposition. Not at all.
- MPndpFeb 14, 2012 7:10 am | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
There we go again, Madam Speaker. In how many other Parliaments in Canadian history has this happened? Have official opposition parties ever taken the proper role of the official opposition in saying it has the right and the responsibility to debate in the House, to bring an alternate voice to this chamber and to the Canadian people as to what they are hearing from the government? That is a fundamental principle of our democracy.
As I said in my opening comment, the use of time allocation is not a response to the normal process that the official opposition has used since this Parliament started. This process is being used by the government to curtail debate, to eliminate that alternative voice which the official opposition is responsible for bringing.
Again I ask the government House leader, does he realize how much he is undermining the democracy of this country by the repeated use of this process?
- MPndpFeb 09, 2012 2:50 pm | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise this evening and speak to this bill. I cannot say that about a lot of bills that I have spoken to. I would like to spend a few minutes to praise the author of this bill, the member for Kitchener—Conestoga.
The member's work on this has been exemplary. We were fortunate enough to co-chair an ad hoc committee that we put together on palliative and compassionate care. He was clearly a leader on that study. We were able to produce a substantive report that contained several chapters addressing the issue of suicide and suicide prevention.
I say, proudly, all parties contributed both their time and effort in the hearings that we conducted, in gathering witnesses together, taking the evidence and funding the committee. We did it all from our parliamentary budgets outside the regular course of events. Again, he was a stalwart in leading in all those areas. He did it from a core within his own soul, with the passion and caring that needs to be drawn to this issue in order to accomplish what he has accomplished. As a result of that, we have this private member's bill, Bill C-300, that very clearly sets out a framework from which Canada can finally address this scourge on our society.
I want to recognize the contents of the bill. It would create a framework for suicide prevention. It would recognize suicide as both a mental health and a public health issue. That was interesting. From some of the new evidence, he and I learned during the course of this that it was both a mental health issue and a public health issue. It would designate the appropriate entity within the Government of Canada to deal with and assume responsibility for the program.
The program would be designed to improve public awareness, disseminate information on suicide and on suicide prevention, and make statistics publicly available so that we would be more knowledgeable on the issue. It would define best practices for prevention. We saw that in Canada in a number of areas, but they tended to be isolated.
The agency would be designed in such a way as to promote collaboration and knowledge exchange within the NGO community, the health community, the provinces and the territories. More specifically, it would require the Government of Canada to enter into negotiations with the NGOs and the provinces and territories within 100 days of the bill receiving royal assent. It would set up an ongoing collaboration with all levels of government, along with the NGOs.
Within four years there would be a report back and every two years after that so that we could see what progress had been made. Perhaps if there were any changes to be made, we would address those.
The member and I were both taken aback by the fact that what came out in the course of those hearings was that Canada was in a very strange position. We had led the way. This is testimony from all sorts of experts we have in the country, including one from my own riding. I want to acknowledge the work that Dr. Antoon Leenaars has done in the area of suicide and suicide prevention. He is a psychologist in the Windsor area and a recognized expert in this area, not only in Canada, but across the globe. He has worked for a number of other governments in helping them implement the program that we developed in Canada and then never implemented.
We started working on this in 1993. We developed it. It is a model for the world. All of the other G8 countries have adopted and implemented it. They have reduced the suicide rates in their countries. We did not. To some degree it is a shame that we have not. All levels of government assume some responsibility for that. I want to repeat that the United States, England, Ireland, Scotland, Finland, Australia, and a number of other countries beyond the G8 have adopted it.
I want to also acknowledge the work of the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention. It has been a stalwart for a number of years in helping develop that program. Initially, it was an integral part and is continuing to push to finally get it into place.
I want to single out the province of Quebec. Its provincial government, I think I am safe in saying, has moved extensively in implementing this national program that the Canadian government was instrumental in developing but never implemented. In the course of its implementation over the years, Quebec has actually reduced its suicide rate by 50%. That is not unique but reflects what happened in other countries, where we saw similar reduction rates in suicide. Rates of 25%, 40% and 50% were very common in all of the countries that implemented the program that was developed in Canada. They saw a very successful response within their communities and a very substantial reduction in suicides.
The program also works in Canada. It was implemented in the province of Quebec fairly extensively. Quebec still wants to do more and if this program is put into place at the federal level, it will complete the work it wants to do. Again, there was a 50% reduction. On an approximate basis, there are 4,000 suicides every year. If we implemented this across the whole country, we would be talking about saving 2,000 lives on an annual basis. The faster this bill gets through the process, receives royal assent and is implemented, the faster we will begin to reduce these deaths in our society. These deaths are so tragic not only for the victims but their families, friends and communities more generally.
I want to finish by again congratulating and acknowledging the work of the member for Kitchener—Conestoga. We need more parliamentarians like him.
- MPndpFeb 09, 2012 12:05 pm | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives told Canadians in one election after another that they would come to Ottawa and change Canadian politics and be more accountable, more democratic and more transparent. Instead, they have undertaken a sustained attack on centuries of parliamentary tradition, the most serious attack, I honestly think, we have seen in the history of our country and Parliament.
The procedural guillotine, the use of time allocation and closure motions to shut down debate in this chamber, was designed to be used as an extraordinary mechanism in extraordinary circumstances, not as a routine measure. That is what it has become, a routine measure.
There is a word for the abuse of power to change laws and muzzle the opposition: tyranny. Yes, the tyranny of the majority. I do not know if the member is aware that misuse of closure is a radical departure from the traditions of this House and of other British parliamentary systems around the world. I do not know if the Conservatives believe that their majority gives them the right to act without the opposition and without debate in which views differing from their own are expressed.
I finish with this question. Will the government House leader commit to the House to cease using this measure? He has used it repeatedly, a record majority of times now. Will he cease using it and stop using the anti-democratic process he has used over 15 times now?
- MPndpFeb 09, 2012 11:20 am | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, it is not a message from Canadians. That is not where we are at. The Conservatives have lost their way on this point.
The government is now saying that torture is okay. So much for being the law and order government. In this case it may as well torture people right here in Canada by the message its sending out.
Then yesterday, or the day before, the Minister of Justice was out publicly advocating for people to shoot warning shots. We heard that prisoners should hang themselves. We heard that from the Conservatives. People should shoot from the hip. Torture is okay. Those are the messages we are getting. This is not the wild west; this is Canada.
- MPndpFeb 09, 2012 11:15 am | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, there is no compromising when it comes to torture. Either we are for it or we are against it. The government says that it does not employ torture, but it is okay if others do so. The Conservatives would use information obtained at any cost. The Conservatives cannot ignore international conventions. The government is not above the laws of Canada. The law is the law.
Where is this government's respect for Canadian law?
- MPndpFeb 08, 2012 12:35 pm | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, I was going to start off by saying, another day, another motion to terminate, to muzzle debate in this House, another anti-democratic motion, but that would not be fair to the government.
What I should be saying is, another week, another motion to muzzle debate, to terminate debate, to strike severe blows to the democracy that should be functioning in this Parliament. Because, including this motion, this will be the 15th time that the government has moved either closure or time allocation in 73 sitting days. That is more than one a week now. The speed at which the government is bringing in these motions to terminate debate, to strike blows to democracy is occurring more rapidly than at the start of the session.
Every time it happens, one more record is set that belies anything but that this Parliament is being turned into a farce. We are not being given the opportunity, either on this side of the House, in opposition, or on the government side, the people in the backbenches in particular, to have any meaningful debate on bills that are before this House on issues that are confronting this country. The government is shutting down debate repeatedly.
I say to the minister responsible for this, and to the House leader, how many more times will we see this? Will I have to stand every single day to face these motions?
- MPndpFeb 07, 2012 7:10 am | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Madam Speaker, I must admit that I was a bit surprised today by the government House leader having to read this motion. He has done it so many times, I would have thought he could have simply stood and, from memory, repeated the same motion.
Since this Parliament started, we have had one closure motion and we are now seeing our 13th time allocation motion. There have been 12 since Parliament returned in September of last year. As always, every time this happens it is a new record for the government.
We really need to wonder what the government is so scared of in terms of the debate. I think this is the first time, however, that the motion puts time allocation both on report stage and on third reading. We have not even had any indication from the government as to when time will be allocated on the calendar for third reading.
I wonder if the minister could tell us when the debate on third reading will start?
- MPndpFeb 06, 2012 8:20 am | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, in spite of the protest of innocence by the member for South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, let there be no doubt at all that this is a frontal attack on the labour movement in this country. It is also an indirect but very clear attack on a number of other rights that Canadian citizens and residents have in this country: the right of association; the right, quite frankly, to privacy; and the right to freedom of speech within the right of association. The bill undermines all of those rights, if not completely doing away with them in some cases.
To stand in this House, as the member for South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale just has, to say this is all about accountability and transparency and not about ideology is totally false.
Let us understand the context of the bill. The Bush Republicans did the same thing in the United States. However, they did not go nearly as far as the bill before us does. I have two quotes on the ideology, strategy and tactics behind this. The first is by Newt Gingrich, one of the leading members of the ideological right in the United States, who said that requiring detailed disclosure on union advocacy activities would “weaken our opponents and encourage our allies”.
Another right-wing U.S. activists, Grover Norquist, said:
Every dollar that is spent [by labour unions] on disclosure and reporting is a dollar that can't be spent on other labour union activities.
This was designed from an ideological standpoint, and in the case of Canada, from a big business, multinational standpoint. The support behind the bill comes from that same group, and that is what is driving it. This is not about accountability and transparency. The level of hypocrisy of the government in this regard I think speaks clearly to that. This is an attack on the labour movement in this country.
The bill, to a certain degree, is modelled after the legislation at the federal level in the United States, but it goes much further. For instance, the law in the United States only covers the national unions and the national association of unions. In Canada, it would cover every single union organization, even some of the trusts they have set up around health and safety and the environment and a number of activities they carry on for which they have trust funds. It would cover every single one of those organizations, including the small union local, several of which I have in my riding and that have an executive of four or five people with no full-time staff.
The member is being disingenuous at the very best with the House when he suggests this is not much more than what unions already have to prepare by way of reporting. That is absolutely false.
I repeat, the bill in the United States does not go nearly as far as this one does. However, even in the United States the national unions found they had to assign two people to it for almost half the year to do the additional reporting the bill required.
I cannot be much clearer than this in estimating the consequences of this, just as some of the labour movement cannot be much clearer, because the bill before us would allow for more information to be required of unions by way of legislation. Of course, we have not seen those regulations and would not see them for some time. However, just in terms what is being required of unions to report, it would increase dramatically the amount of reporting they have to do.
There is another pattern that I see here. I happened to be in Russia when Putin was still the head of the government, where he had developed a strategy that required a lot of human rights groups, a lot of NGOs, to do an excessive amount of reporting. It was phenomenal. I will give the member from Surrey credit for not going quite as far as Putin did in that legislation. However, it was clearly designed to undermine the human rights groups in Russia because of the amount of material they had to report.
The bill, to some degree, is modelled after the same type of experience, which has had the effect in Russia of destroying a number of the groups. Some have gone underground because they could not do the reporting.
Therefore, we have two nice models here, that of the right-wing Republicans in the United States and that of Putin in Russia. In both cases, they are very clearly attacking those specific groups. In the U.S. it is the labour movement; in Russia it is the human rights movement and those NGOs.
The other point I want to make in terms of the context of this is that it is quite clear, including from the survey the member mentioned, that the information is available and the Canadian public and union members are not aware of it. In addition to that, according to the Fraser Institute, which analyzed the U.S. legislation, the information required was extensive and highly complex. Again, here I would point out that the bill before us would at least double the amount of information that unions in Canada will have to provide.
The Fraser Institute, in September 2006, when it looked at the legislation and its effect in the U.S., stated that due to the large amounts of information available:
It is very difficult and time-consuming for an average person to easily obtain a realistic idea of the financial performance of a union—
Thus, while the U.S. legislation does disclose a great deal, it does not do so in a way that facilitates analysis and comprehension by average, interested citizens.
When the labour movement did the analysis, what happened there, as was the intention right from the beginning, was that large corporations wanted to know about the organizing activities of the labour unions that might be trying to organize the work force or the collective bargaining process. They got the information and used it extensively. This was really private information that in the past had never been disclosed and they used it against the labour movement, quite effectively in a number of cases.
In this case, Bill C-377 goes much further in terms of organizing activities. It even requires the disclosure of expenses with regard to whom they hired as their lawyer. That part of the bill is going to get struck down by a court fairly early on; no court in this land is going to allow that part of it to stay. The bill simply does not accomplish the purpose the member talks about, because it is so complex in terms of the amount of detail that unions will have to give. That was the U.S. experience, and ours is going to be even worse if we go ahead.
However, the people who are really after this, the people supporting the bill, the large corporations and the right-wing in our country, would be able to do so because they have the resources to use this data effectively to thwart organizing drives and other campaigns that a union may take on. That is what it is designed to do. It has been a very effective mechanisms in the United States to in fact accomplish that, and it is going to be even worse here. That is what this bill is all about.
It is important to appreciate as well that the Canadian people understand that information from the current reporting is available to all union members, either by way of provincial legislation or union constitution. Again, we have a problem with the bill because it probably extends itself into provincial territory, which will probably result in part of it to be struck down as well. Seven of the ten provinces require this information to be given to union membership. Every union constitution that I am aware of also requires consolidated financial statements to be given and made available to every single member of that union.
Let me finish with one final point and that is about the costs, which I believe the member is being disingenuous about with the House. There would be a huge increase in red tape from this file. If the government in fact follows through to enforce this, the number of people it will have to hire, we estimate, is somewhere in the range of at least a hundred people. A whole new data system would also have to be developed to analyze all of the data. We are talking of tens of millions, if not into the hundred million dollar range on an annual basis, of what it is going to cost.
If the government does not follow through, the information would simply be available and the big corporations would be able to use it against unions. That is what it is all about. One way or another, it would have the effect that the member wants, which is to give his “allies”, as Newt Gingrich put it, this information to fight their enemies.
- MPndpFeb 03, 2012 8:20 am | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Madam Speaker, the 600,000 figure the Conservatives keep using is not net new jobs. Net new jobs are in a negative position.
We voted against the budget, and we will continue to vote against budgets that simply give tax breaks to the Conservatives' billionaire and millionaire friends.
The unemployment rate in this country is up. The Conservatives' strategy is not working. After taking millions in corporate tax giveaways directly from the Prime Minister, Caterpillar just closed down in London. Five hundred well-paying manufacturing jobs have gone south to the United States.
The NDP has been saying this for months, but the government refuses to listen. Does the government realize what is happening in the economy in Canada?
- MPndpFeb 03, 2012 8:15 am | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Madam Speaker, Canadians are paying the price for the government's inaction when it comes to the economy. The unemployment rate went up again in January, and behind the statistics are thousands of families who are suffering.
Are the Conservatives ever going to wake up? Probably not. Their economic inaction plan is not working. When will we have a real job creation plan?
- MPndpFeb 02, 2012 12:05 pm | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, today is February 2. It is fitting that it is Groundhog Day, as I rise again to ask when the government will once again bring in measures to shut down debate in the House.
Just this past Monday we witnessed the deplorable spectacle of the Conservative government for the 13th time using the guillotine to shut down democratic debate in the House. It is like a nightmare: it happens again and again and again. That is right; this week, after less than one single day of debate on a brand new bill the government had just introduced, the government House leader moved tyranny of their majority on Canada's elected representatives by moving to shut down debate.
It has become routine for this government, which apparently knows no limits, to shut down debate. This is a blatant attack on House of Commons tradition and an attempt to gag Canada's elected representatives, and it is unacceptable. I am not just talking about opposition members. Conservative backbenchers, too, should insist that their political boss give them the right to speak on behalf of the citizens they represent.
On the schedule for this place going forward, I note that the government seems to be wrapping up what I would call attacking seniors and their retirement security week after passing second reading of Bill C-25, a bill that will clearly undermine the public pension regime on which all Canadians rely in order to retire with dignity.
Next week I wonder, will it be failing artists and users in favour of corporate rights holders week with Bill C-11, the wrong-headed copyright bill, or will the government perhaps be tabling the 2012 version of its undermining Canadians to further enrich banks and oil companies executive budget plan? Which one will it be? I ask the government House leader to let us know.
- MPndpFeb 02, 2012 11:20 am | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, if viability is the issue, the Conservatives' own study and report, coming from the government, concludes on the pension, “Long-term projections show that public retirement-income provision is financially sustainable”. That is a direct quote from that report. It adds that the “OAS and GIS ensure universal coverage and form a very effective safety-net for the old-age incomes”.
The Prime Minister has yet to answer the question. I am giving him the opportunity again today. Will he rise in his seat and say to the country that the age of eligibility for OAS will not be raised to age 67, yes or no?
- MPndpFeb 02, 2012 11:15 am | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, rumours of cuts to old age security benefits are causing widespread concern. That is to be expected, because the Prime Minister is beating around the bush. His government experts say that the system is viable.
Does the Prime Minister agree? Or will he make people wait until they turn 67 before they can receive their benefits if these cuts are not made?
January
- MPndpJan 31, 2012 7:35 am | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Madam Speaker, it is ironic to listen to the House leader on the government side stand in the chamber and accuse one of my colleagues of not understanding procedure. This debate is about time allocation and closure. It is not about Bill C-25. He should understand that.
With regard to that, he also stands in the House and repeatedly says that this is what Canadians voted for. The Conservatives promised repeatedly, in every single election since they have been both a minority government and in the run up to this majority government, that they would clean up the democratic process in the House. What have we seen? Fourteen times now they have invoked either closure or time allocation. What about those promises? Are they going to honour those or are they going to break those promises to the Canadian people to clean up the democracy in the House?
- MPndpJan 30, 2012 1:15 pm | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, the question of the member for Kildonan—St. Paul gives me the opportunity to raise the issue of the sustainability of the OAS.
Nothing has changed with regard to the sustainability of the OAS from where it first started to where it is now. This has always been carried by current funds. We have never had a reserve fund for the OAS in the history of it. What has changed with regard to the revenues that are coming in is the government has consistently said that it will give preference in the economy to certain groups and it will give large corporations major tax breaks. There have been over $100 billion so far and it will almost double before those tax breaks are finished.
If we take that out of the accounting column, on one side the expenses are continuing, the OAS expenses are continuing, and we are lowering the revenues on the other side. That is where the sustainability problems come. It has nothing to do with OAS; it has everything to do with policy decisions by the government with regard to tax breaks for the big corporations.
- MPndpJan 30, 2012 1:00 pm | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, I would ask the indulgence of the House to split my time with the member for Hamilton Mountain.
Mr. Speaker, it is important when addressing Bill C-25 that we set it in the context of what is being attempted here by the government and what is needed with regard to pension reform in this country. It is not only important to do that in terms of the historical context but also in the context of relativity to other jurisdictions and other nations.
In that regard, it is important to understand historically where we have come over the last 50 or 60 years with respect to government pensions or pensions partially contributed to by government. We have established a regime in that regard. We could study some of the reports and minutes of meetings issued during that period of time when the CPP was being established. It was quite clear at that time that an understanding was entered into that the CPP and the QPP which came after, would provide roughly 25% to 30% of what was needed to retire in dignity, and the rest would be provided by the private sector. At age 65, old age security would kick in and that would help to offset the balance. That is where it came from.
If we study that historically right up to the present time, another mechanism that was there, other than private pension plans, is the RSP. It has been a substantial failure in providing that level of security because of its lack of ability to attract enough funds and the inability of most Canadians to contribute significantly enough to an RSP in order to retire in dignity, that combined with the CPP and old age security.
That left the pension plans. As we have heard repeatedly this afternoon, and I am sure as this debate goes on we will hear it a number of times, there are too many Canadians who do not have access to private pension plans. We are at a stage in our history where the system is in need of major reform.
I will compare our status in this area with that of other countries. Across the border in the United States, its social security provides roughly $30,000 a year in Canadian dollars. The full amount of our CPP including the full OAS provides maybe $18,000 or $19,000. That is the context in which we are functioning.
Again, the vast majority of Canadians who are not covered by private pension plans have no ability to make that up and have to rely on RSPs.
What does the government do? Rather than looking at other alternatives, which I will come back to in a moment, it wants to continue with this mostly failed plan of RSPs but turn it into a pooled RSP. This is not just us talking. Even conservative think-tanks like the Fraser Institute have basically said this will not work. There is a list of reasons why it will not work. Let us start with the contributions.
There has been a committee functioning in my riding for what will be three years in May. It is looking at the need for pension reforms. Some members are from unions and others are from the private sector. They have been doing an analysis of what is needed in the way of reform. They have looked at this and have said that it will not move any significant additional dollars or people into the category of being able to retire with dignity in terms of their economic status and economic ability to pay their basic costs of living.
The reason for that is if people have the ability to contribute now, they are contributing to an RSP. Thirty-one per cent contribute and depending on the economic conditions in the country at the time, somewhere between 3% and 7% of that 31% contribute the full amount. The doctor or lawyer doing well financially will contribute the full amount. Even most people within the professions do not.
This begs the question, if they are not able to do that with their own RSPs which they control, why would they put it into this pooled plan where they are going to have to pay very substantial fees? This bill does absolutely nothing to control the amount the people accepting this money, anywhere in the financial sector, can charge in fees.
It is important at this point to juxtapose the reality of what we have seen in a number of these types of investments, the stock market, bonds, whatever, where there is a financial adviser controlling those funds. We have seen that the ratios of the fees are five to six times the fees and administrative costs for the Canada pension plan. That is the reality in Canada today.
Quite frankly, this one is so unattractive that the cost will probably be even higher, because it is so unattractive for a major financial agency, a bank or insurance company, to get into this market. The administrative costs are going to be extremely high because of the low participation. We are going to see huge fees, and this bill does nothing to address that issue.
Another point to look at is when it is that small investor who has some ability to put money aside in an RSP, it begs the question why the investor would do that after what we just saw happen in 2008. We can go back to the high-tech bubble of the late 1990s and any number of times I have watched this happen.
Why would people trust their money going into this pool where there are very few regulations when we have seen what has happened in the U.S. with the housing bubble burst and all of what we have found out as to how funds were handled in that regard? Why would people even consider, if they have these funds, putting them into a pooled registered pension plan as opposed to maintaining control and deciding how best their money could work for them?
For those reasons, it is simply not going to be of any use whatsoever. Bill C-25 is a smokescreen. The government wants to try to convince Canadians that the reform which is so badly needed in our pension system, whatever source there is, is being handled by this one plan, and it is not. It is not at all. It is not going to work.
Let us look at the alternatives for a minute. The expansion of the CPP is clearly one of the routes to go. I heard the last speaker for the Conservatives talk about the stability of the CPP and its ability to deliver and that it is not available for the small merchant. That is one of the reforms that is necessary. We could do that. There are very clear proposals that have come from a number of groups over the last two to three years about how to reform the CPP to attract those people, to give them access to the CPP. It is an expansion of it. The administrators of it say it is possible to be done.
That is only one example of what could be done. I see my time is just about up. There are other reforms that need to be made with regard to the CPP. For instance, priority under the bankruptcy legislation needs to be given to pension funds. The OAS needs to be increased as opposed to what we are hearing, that the government is going to take away benefits by increasing the age. The GIS that needs to be addressed as well.
There are plans out there that are obviously better than this bill which is a smokescreen and should be defeated.
December
- MPndpDec 08, 2011 12:55 pm | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, I want to correct the government House leader, because his government obviously does not understand the nature of the decision that was made, and quite frankly, the nature of the law on this point.
The Conservatives are absolutely right that a parliament cannot pass legislation that would prevent a subsequent government administration from passing laws to change that law or do away with it completely, but it can restrict subsequent parliaments as to how they do it. That is exactly what was done in the Canadian Wheat Board Act, and that is exactly what was found as being proper by Justice Campbell of the Federal Court in his decision yesterday.
The position the Conservatives are taking obviously shows a significant lack of knowledge and understanding of that legislative constitutional principle. I hear from the government House leader that he thinks it is stupid. It may in fact be stupid, but it is the law of the land, and the Conservatives do not get the opportunity to unilaterally break the law of the land. I think this actually would require a constitutional change in order for that principle to be altered.
Mr. Speaker, I am, however, cognizant of his argument that he makes with regard to your status as Speaker to rule on this matter. Obviously the statute is no longer here; Bill C-18 has passed and has gone on to the other house, and so it should lie in the hands of the Speaker there. I have to admit ignorance in this regard in that I do not understand the rules of the other place. I am not sure anybody understands its rules, quite frankly, but I admit that I do not. Whether there is jurisdiction in the Speaker in that place, I simply cannot say.
At first blush one might wonder what jurisdiction and authority you have to rule on this, since this House has passed the bill. I want to say at this point, Mr. Speaker, and I am reserving my right to come back to you tomorrow if I can find more on this, that your jurisdiction may lie in the fact of being able to say to the minister of the day, “Your conduct has in fact breached our privilege. You should have known the law of the land. Every government is supposed to know that. Either out of incompetence that you did not know or out of refusal to acknowledge the law of the land, you went ahead, placed the bill before the House, voted it through the House by your majority government, and that has now clearly been determined by the courts of this land to have been improper conduct, to be illegal conduct on your part”.
Mr. Speaker, your order then would be, because you do have control over that member even though he is a minister, to in effect cease and desist, to find the prima facie case. I think anybody can argue clearly that our privileges have been breached. Our reputations as members of Parliament have been breached very clearly. We are a laughing stock in the general public. The bill went through this House clearly by that decision, and I will not give the government any hope at all that it will be successful on appeal. The government will lose that appeal, almost certainly.
It is a simple finding of fact. The bill reads this way. The existing law reads this way. It fits into the constitutional framework of our country. It is not a substantive issue of law. It is simply a form, how this law is to be changed. The Conservatives are bound by that. Parliament is bound by that. Our reputation has therefore been damaged, the reputation of all of us.
I will leave it at that point, but I would reserve the right to come back to you one more time, at least by tomorrow, if I can find more on it, Mr. Speaker.
- MPndpDec 08, 2011 12:30 pm | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, I have been thinking about the importance of leading by example. I think that the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons should do the same. Last week, he said that we would conclude law-abiding Canadians week and that this week would be democratic reform week. That is very ironic.
It is ironic because of what happened this week. We saw the passing of Bill C-10 on Monday, a bill that has been almost universally panned as being ineffective, not even knowing how much it is going to cost the Canadian public at both the provincial and federal levels. It is probably going to increase crime in this country at the end of the day. Yet, that was supposed to be part of the week when the Conservatives were having their crime agenda.
Then we saw this spectacle yesterday at the Federal Court, slamming a minister, berating a minister actually, in the written judgment for breaking the Canadian Wheat Board Act. It was to the extent, and this is quite unusual, that the federal court judge actually awarded costs to all the applicants against the government for the breach of that act. So that was the Conservatives' crime agenda.
Then, democratic reform is supposed to be this week. What did we see this week? We saw the Conservatives, once again, set the all-time record for closure and time allocation motions by doing so for the 12th time in less than 70 sitting days. The Conservatives beat the Liberal record by almost 40%, if my math is correct. That is what we saw.
In all honesty, after what we have just seen go on, I am almost afraid to ask the question of what is coming this week not knowing the consequences. However, I will close with the question, since that is my duty here, to the House leader of the Government and it is with substantial trepidation that I do this.
I would like to know, and I think Parliament and Canadians would like to know, what is going to happen in the House the rest of this week and the week coming up to next Friday, which is when the House will rise for the winter break? In part, we need to know that. Parliament and Canadians need to know, so they can get ready for what may be some of the consequences if we see the same kind of experience we have seen this week.
- MPndpDec 08, 2011 11:10 am | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, as Chief Justice of Alberta Catherine Fraser said in a ruling earlier this year, “When government does not comply with the law, this is not merely non-compliance with a particular law, it is an affront to the rule of law itself”.
We saw this yesterday when Justice Campbell said in the Wheat Board ruling that the Minister of Agriculture “be held accountable for his disregard for the rule of law”.
This is just the latest in a long list of similar incidents.
In 2006, the Conservatives exceeded their election budget in violation of the Canada Elections Act. They destroyed government files in violation of the Access to Information Act. They gave out private information about veterans in violation of the Privacy Act.
Now the Conservatives have refused to consult with western grain and barley farmers on the future of their livelihood in direct violation of the Canadian Wheat Board Act.
With this arrogant and defensive Conservative government, it is one set of rules for it and one set of rules for everybody else.
- MPndpDec 07, 2011 12:50 pm | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, we are now at a stage where this has become almost farcical. It would be farcical if it were not so serious in terms of undermining a basic democratic process, which is the right of parliamentarians to have a full and complete debate on issues that confront the country, and the ability of citizens in this country to watch that debate and take part in it across the country.
I just want to recite these facts. The Conservative government has used time allocation or closure 12 times since the election, nine times since the House came back in September. It has used closure on seven different bills since the election, six since September. It has used time allocation 12 times in 62 sitting days, 9 times in the last 48 sitting days.
It is important to draw this into the historical context. The worst that we ever had before this was the Liberal government in the 2000-2004 Parliament. At that point, the Liberals took 122 days before they used closure or time allocation nine times in that one period. We are way beyond that.
How many more times will we have to put up with this undemocratic process?
- MPndpDec 01, 2011 12:00 pm | Ontario, Windsor—Tecumseh
Mr. Speaker, I would indeed like to ask the Thursday question. The government is continuing this week with its antidemocratic use of closure for the 11th time since the beginning of this session, this time, for Bill C-10, the omnibus crime bill.
The end result of forcing bills like that through the House is that we end up with the ridiculous spectacle we had earlier this week of one minister of the Crown standing up and making amendments to the bill of another minister of the Crown and then having those amendments ruled out of order by you, Mr. Speaker. That is the end result of trying to force bills through the House this quickly.
We also end up with the result, if this bill does go through, of a severely flawed crime bill that will do this country absolutely no good.
Why does the House leader not agree with the official opposition, take the bill off the order paper and send it back to committee so it can be properly dealt with in an appropriate period of time?
We would also like to know when the last allotted day will be for this supply period and what will be the rest of the calendar for the coming week?
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