44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 30, 2022 11:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I apologize to my friend for interrupting.
There is an incredible amount of background noise going on just outside the chamber. Perhaps you could pass along an instruction for them to quiet down a bit.
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- May/30/22 5:45:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am fairly certain that, during her discussion this evening on this topic, the member made reference to the fact that Frank Baylis was involved with the automobile sector. That is absolutely false. I am wondering if the member can inform the House as to where she got that information, because my understanding is that Frank Baylis never was employed or worked in the auto sector.
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Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to this concurrence motion. Those watching at home might be wondering what a concurrence motion is. A report has been tabled by a committee in the House. Very rarely would there be a concurrence motion like this to vote on a report. It is, in my opinion and as the member for Winnipeg North indicated earlier, nothing more than a tactic by the Conservatives to jam up more House time.
What makes this particular concurrence motion even more remarkable is this. We start off with the rarity by which reports are dealt with in a concurrence motion, but this one is not even a report from the current ethics committee. This is actually a report from the previous committee. I am sorry, I should not say that. All of the work was done by the previous committee. It developed the report, put together the report, studied it, questioned the witnesses and put it forward. All the current ethics committee that exists in this Parliament did was retable that report.
We start from a place where it is very rare to have a motion like this on a report. To make it even more bizarre, it is not even a report that the current ethics committee dealt with. It did not interview the witnesses. It did not ask questions or form the recommendations. It is going off of work that was done before. People might ask themselves why it is doing this or they might become skeptical when we accuse the Conservatives of using this as just another political opportunity. It is very clear, when we look at the games they are playing, that they are willing to go to any lengths to make sure that we cannot get government legislation through.
For those watching, what we otherwise would have been discussing right now is Bill C-18. Bill C-18 is a bill that the Conservatives, at least in their election platform, support. It is a bill that would provide supports to news outlets throughout our country to make sure they can continue to be independent. Rather than doing their job and following through on commitments they made during the election campaign to Canadians, they see no political win or political gain out of this particular bill because the vast majority of members in the House, if not all, already support it. They are looking for blood, quite frankly, and they do not see any here. That is why they say, “Rather than spend time talking about Bill C-18, a concept that we agree with, why not go after something that we can actually attack Liberals and individual Liberal members on?” That is exactly what we are seeing here with the introduction of this concurrence motion on this report that has been tabled by the committee.
One of the comments that I found very interesting, and I was surprised to hear from the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, of all people, was when she questioned the member for Winnipeg North as to why he was using time to debate this. That criticism or question might hold water if nobody else in the room was speaking to it, but Conservatives are. They are using the time, burning the day, by debating and talking about this particular motion. The question then becomes: Why would we not use our designated slots to speak to this and to tell Canadians what is going on?
I find it quite interesting that we would be accused of wanting to speak to this just because we do not want to talk to it. That is like saying that we should not be speaking to it because we do not want to be talking about this anyway. Of course we do not want to be talking about this. We want to be talking about Bill C-18, but the reality of the situation is that through their political games the Conservatives have put us in the position of having to debate this right now. We are clearly going to use that opportunity to debate it and show Canadians what is going on right now. I would expect, to be completely honest, that question to come, in a very cynical way, from my colleagues across the way, but I was surprised to hear it from the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. Maybe she has had an opportunity to reflect on it and thinks differently of it now.
I would like to talk about this report specifically. I realize there are 23 recommendations in this report that were put forward by the previous Parliament's ethics committee. It put forward these recommendations. When one starts to read the recommendations, it becomes very clear how incredibly focused they are on individuals: the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister's wife and people who work in the Prime Minister's Office.
We heard a Conservative member talk earlier about wanting to get certain staff to come before the committee. One of the deep criticisms was that the government would not allow staff to go before the committee to testify. Instead, the President of the Treasury Board, if I remember correctly, offered to go to the committee to speak, but the Conservatives, the opposition, were not interested in that. They wanted actual staffers to go there.
I find that very concerning. I realize that Conservatives have no issue with attacking individual people. For the slightest bit of political gain, they will take down somebody's career. We already know that. They did, after all, for the first time in over 100 years, drag someone before the House, to the bar of the House. It had not happened in 100 years, and it had never happened to somebody who was outside of the government. The Conservatives dragged before the bar the president of the Public Health Agency of Canada. That demonstrates how willing they are to take down anybody if they think they will get the slightest political gain out of it, and that is exactly what we are seeing happen here today.
When the minister who is responsible for these staffers says they are the leader, they will take responsibility, they will go before committee and they will answer the questions, that shows what a leader does. Was that enough blood for the Conservatives? No, of course it was not. They wanted to go after the staffers, the individuals who are employed by the minister responsible, which, coming from the ethics committee of all places, is extremely unethical.
In any organization, there is always somebody who is going to take responsibility for those decisions, somebody who will be the accountable one. The minister wanted to do that. Were the Conservatives and other opposition parties interested in that in at committee? No, they were not. They wanted staff. They wanted individuals who do not have the same power to defend themselves, who do not have a voice in this place and who do not have a voice in the public to be the ones to go in and be berated for two hours.
The minister was not interested in doing that, which should not come as a surprise to anybody in this House. It certainly should not come as a surprise to Canadians, especially when Canadians witnessed the Conservative Party, propped up by the Bloc and the NDP, drag before the House of Commons a public service individual, the president of the Public Health Agency of Canada. Never in the history of this Parliament had that happened, and when it was done before that, it was never an individual in his position.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: Madam Speaker, they are heckling me now. I can always tell when I hit a nerve. I can always tell when the truth is starting to sink in. When someone is calling them out, we can tell, because that is when they start to heckle, and that is exactly what they are doing right now.
When it comes back to this particular report and the committee work that was done, Liberals did participate in this committee at the time. They participated in the committee. They helped studies with the witnesses. They helped to create their own recommendations. I know that three recommendations that came from the Liberal benches, which I do not see in the same form in the report, were never adopted. I would like to read out what those recommendations were.
The recommendations from the Liberal members do not mention individuals' names or look to berate people. They look to set and develop policy. The recommendations, which were in the dissenting report, were that the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics conduct, at an earliest opportunity, a full statutory review of the Conflict of Interest Act with appropriate recommendations.
It seems like a legitimate thing to do. It seems like a legitimate thing to do from a policy perspective if we are is generally interested in trying to fix perceived flaws in our system. That is what we would do, not talk about all these recommendations that they have in here referencing the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister's wife and various other people, as well as how certain information needs to be turned over immediately. The reason I say that is that colleagues will recall that the Ethics Commissioner was already doing his own study on this issue.
Everything that the committee was demanding in the form of recommendations through this study was for no purpose other than to grandstand and put all the dirty laundry of everybody out in public, regardless of what their involvement was. They are attempts to do that. That is all this was. We know that is because the Ethics Commissioner is not going to do this to the same degree as the official opposition wanted the committee to do it. That is all they are interested in.
The Ethics Commissioner was already investigating this, and it was as if the committee said, “No, no; we're better at this. We should do all this work instead of the individual who has been hired to do this in a fair, non-partisan, unbiased way.” That is exactly why this report has been tabled again.
As I mentioned previously, this is not a report generated by this particular Parliament at the ethics committee that sits now, but one from the previous Parliament. They basically just grabbed the report and retabled it so that the Conservatives could continually do this over and over and over.
The second recommendation that the Liberals put forward in that dissenting report was that the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics conduct at the earliest opportunity a full statutory review of the Lobbying Act, with appropriate recommendations.
Again looking at it from a policy perspective, the Liberals were saying that they recognize there is concern out there, that it is possible there are flaws out there, and that this is how they would address it. They would look at the Conflict of Interest Act and look at the Lobbying Act and at ways to make them better and strengthen them. That is what proper policy from a committee should look like, not these arbitrary demands that are being made by the opposition for no purpose other than to try to shame individuals and try to keep a scandal going as long as they possibly can. That is all they were interested in.
The third and final recommendation made by the Liberal members in the dissenting report was that the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics refrain from conducting parallel investigations with any independent office into the conduct of members of Parliament, either directly or by proxy.
That last recommendation was the Liberal members saying, “Hold on a second, as this ethics investigation is already ongoing by the individual who has been appointed to look into this stuff. Maybe it is not a good idea that we do this at the same time.” It would be the equivalent of a judge reviewing a case in court while a parliamentary committee is trying to do the exact same thing on the side. They are trying to influence it. They are trying to highlight and bring everything possible to the surface so that they can try to attack individuals and personalities. They do this time after time.
This brings me back to where I started in the five minutes I have remaining. What we are seeing here today is part of a pattern. It is part of a pattern that has been developed lately by the Conservative Party of Canada, a pattern of continually trying to put up any possible roadblocks. They are moving concurrence on a report that a committee in this Parliament did not even write. They are not even doing the work before trying to move the motion here. They are just grabbing a report from the last Parliament and retabling it here so that they can move concurrence on it. We are seeing this time and time again.
As indicated by the member for Winnipeg North on a number of occasions, the Conservatives have complained, saying they want debate, that they want to debate the issue. They say, “Why won't you let us debate these very important pieces of legislation?”
Then the government says, “Good point. Maybe we do need some more time to debate.” Motion No. 11 comes along, basically saying, “Let us sit later into the evening.” What did the Conservatives do? They tried to filibuster that. We had to move closure on that motion, the motion to try to set our work schedule. That is how incredibly obstructionist they have been.
Earlier today we saw a Conservative member stand up and move an amendment to the concurrence motion. He was just trying to create another vote. He was trying to burn more time. That is what is happening over and over in here. This is not about actually debating policy.
If Conservatives wanted to debate policy today and had a genuine interest in advancing the objectives of Canadians, they would be debating Bill C-18, something we know they care about because it was in their platform, and something they had said they are pushing forward on.
However, it appears as though the Conservatives are only interested in moving it forward if they form government. As we saw, they put it in their election platform and they ran on it. We get here and say, “Let us bring this idea forward.” It should be a fairly easy one to get through, because we know the Conservatives support it, but every single time we bring it up in this House, they put up a roadblock like this to prevent us from actually talking about it.
The Conservatives are only interested in delivering for Canadians if they can be in the driver's seat. That is not how democracy works. Democracy works, in Canada at least, with people being elected from 338 parts of the country, coming together and figuring out the best way forward. If we cannot do it through consensus, which by default we rarely ever could, then we vote on it. Then we move on. We recognize that we played our role in that democratic process, that we helped advance the lives of Canadians for the better. We accept the roles that we have been given in the House.
Canadians will notice that the Liberal Party said that we accept the role we have been given in this House. We accept the role of being a minority government. What did we do? We looked to other parties. We went to the NDP to see if it wanted to work with us to advance issues for Canadians. The NDP accepted its role. It said yes. It had an interest in advancing issues for Canadians and wanted to get together and work together. That is how we got a supply and confidence agreement.
We know what the Bloc's objective is. It is interested in being its own country. I guess, by default, it is going to be a lot harder to work with them for the interest of all Canadians, but at least we know exactly what its position is. We know exactly where it is coming from. The Conservatives, however, are literally rudderless right now. Who is driving the ship over there? I would absolutely love to know. There is no way that they can continue to operate in this way. They do not even know what their role in this House is.
I have no problem voting against this concurrence motion and I have given my reasons. I have referenced the report, but this is not what we should have been talking about today. We should have been talking about Bill C-18, an issue that would genuinely advance the interests of Canadians and make our country more independently focused for news organizations and outlets throughout the world. Unfortunately, we are not there, because the Conservatives are once again playing games.
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Madam Speaker, I will start by saying that I hope those who tune in to the goings-on of the House recognize that normally when a government member gives a speech, it is very rare that they receive a question from another government member. However, importantly, the very first question is coming from a government member. Where are the Conservatives to ask me questions right now?
This goes back to the point that, if the Conservatives are so interested in this motion they have put forward, why are they not participating in the debate? Conservatives should have had the first question, and they never asked me a question, yet they put forward this motion today because they are so passionate about the issue. I think it proves my point that they are not interested in anything other than just being obstructionist and burning three hours off the clock, which is what we have seen today.
To the member's question, Bill C-18 is a bill that would help many smaller news organizations, in particular. I think of the Kingstonist in my riding, which is a news organization that started from a grassroots level and has slowly worked its way up. It does not have the ability or the reach to compete with some of these other organizations, but it is very good at reporting on the facts. Very rarely will we know the opinion of a reporter at the Kingstonist. It is reporting on the facts, and we need that now more than ever. We need information that is based purely on fact to be provided to the public so the public can make their own decisions as to how they feel about an issue and not be influenced by a pundit's opinion or objective on one thing or another.
Bill C-18 is incredibly important because it would provide the resources to make sure that smaller news organizations, such as the Kingstonist in my riding, will have the opportunity to continue to do the very important work that they do.
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- May/30/22 6:15:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opinion of the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands as to what the results were. The Ethics Commissioner, in his investigation, came to the conclusions that he did, and that was it.
The member talked specifically about the WE Charity and its involvement in this, but let us not forget that, at the end of the day, WE Charity supported and helped a lot of children throughout this country. However, for no reason other than political gain, Conservatives were willing to walk all over that because they thought they could get an ounce of political gain out of it, and that is what they did.
WE Charity is not a Liberal organization or an NDP organization. As a matter of fact, the provincial government of Manitoba, in multiple budgets, awarded money to WE Charity to do work in Manitoba. WE Charity was an organization that many Conservative MPs had visited, frequented, participated in and encouraged.
WE Charity only became a lightening rod when the Conservatives decided it was time to use it as one for political gain. Up until that point, the Conservatives were all about WE Charity. Both Conservative MPs and Conservative governments throughout Canada routinely built funds into their budgets to give to WE Charity to do work for them.
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- May/30/22 6:17:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the Conservatives for finally participating in the debate. I had to wait for three questions before they decided to be interested and ask me one. We listen to the rhetoric from the member talking about the WE Charity, ethics and a violation, and this and that, but I will remind him that the Ethics Commissioner determined that the Prime Minister had done nothing wrong. The Conservative member looks surprised when I say that right now. Just because his caucus members might be telling him that something was wrong, the Ethics Commissioner did not determine that.
I would encourage him to go back to read the report from the Ethics Commissioner because the Conservatives utilized a national charity that supported thousands of children, and with all due respect to my friends in the Bloc and the NDP, they were right along with them during the process. They utilized the charity, at the expense of those who would benefit from it, for political gain. The member is continuing to do it right now, even after the Ethics Commissioner came to his conclusion on it.
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- May/30/22 6:19:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is because the previous question was about the Prime Minister. If the member wants to talk about the previous finance minister, then yes, the Ethics Commissioner came to a conclusion and the information was out there, so why do we still need this report?
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- May/30/22 6:44:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member said “cut bait and run”. We literally went back to the electorate and said that it was time for them to weigh in, and they had the opportunity to get rid of us if they did not want us. That is what happened.
What I find really interesting about the member's speech, and I have a lot of respect for the member so it is nothing personal, is that about two-thirds into his speech he started to talk about how if the Conservatives keep reminding the public and telling the public about this and that, then eventually the public would not have trust in the government anymore and it would not elect it. That is the entire strategy of the Conservative Party. It is not about, “Hey, public, this is my idea. What do you think? Do you think you want to support us because this is a great idea for Canadians?” No. The whole premise behind everything the Conservatives do is trying to attack individuals so they can prove to Canadians why they should not vote for this side of the House, instead of proving to them why they should vote for that side of the House.
Does the member not agree that perhaps the Conservatives should spend less time focusing on trying to dig up and manufacture outrage to upset Canadians about the government, and more time actually proposing to Canadians what they would do if they were in government? Is that not what this democratic process is all about?
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Madam Speaker, we are the ones who got rid of the boutique tax credits. By the way, it is a tool to use in the marketplace to incentivize consumer choices; that is why we do it like that.
Let us get back to what the member said earlier. I actually really appreciated the beginning of his response to that question. He said their job is to critique legislation and to make it better. He said to look at Bill C-11, and that he did not think the government should be doing that.
That is not what the Conservatives are doing, though. The member and his party are not coming here and saying they want to make the legislation better. They are coming here and putting up every single roadblock possible to prevent anything from happening. That is not their job.
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- May/30/22 7:10:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his intervention today, and particularly for focusing on some of the recommendations that he thought were important.
There were some other recommendations that never made it into the report. They were part of a dissenting report that I think would have been equally, if not more, beneficial for policy creation. That was specifically with respect to the committee conducting, at its earliest opportunity, a full statutory review of the Conflict of Interest Act as well as the Lobbying Act.
Could the member comment on whether he thinks that looking at those particular acts would be more beneficial in ensuring that issues raised in committee and raised in the public were properly, and more efficiently and effectively, dealt with?
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Madam Speaker, here we are again, and it is ironic that the last question we heard from the House leader was about not having an opportunity to debate issues. We just went through the process of listening to a concurrence debate for three straight hours in the House, for nothing more than for Conservatives to prevent any form of legislation coming through and being adopted by the House.
What were we supposed to talk about today? I realize we only have a few short minutes remaining in our official day today. What were we supposed to debate today? It was Bill C-18, a bill that the Conservatives, at least in their election platform, support. It is an idea that they brought forward and that they ran on. They were interested in helping independent small news organizations throughout the country when it was an election. Once they were elected but realized they were not going to form government, they suddenly no longer had an interest in advancing this objective for Canadians.
I hope that Canadians are watching this today, because they are now seeing not one but two motions introduced into the House for no reason other than to purposely obstruct the business of the House and to make sure that debate on Bill C-18 cannot continue today, which is just remarkably ironic. The irony is literally oozing through this place right now, after the member for Barrie—Innisfil just stood up and asked his deputy, “Oh, tell me more about why it is we do not have the opportunity to debate in the House. Why are they rushing through all this legislation? Tell us how important it is, deputy.”
What was his response? His response was, “Oh yes, what an incredible question the opposition House leader just had there. He hit the nail on the head. Are we not all so great?”
Do we see what is going on here? I hope that Canadians are tuned in to this today, because what we are seeing is, time after time, Conservatives obstructing any way possible to get any legislation through the House.
They are laughing right now, but we are talking about a piece of legislation that they put forward in their election platform. They ran on it, and now that it is before the House, an opportunity to pass a piece of legislation that everybody will agree on because it is in the best interest of Canadians, what are they doing? Routinely—
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- May/30/22 7:25:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, by the way, to the member for Barrie—Innisfil, I want to extend my best wishes to his former colleague, the Liberal candidate Jeff Lehman, who is running in Barrie in the upcoming election on Thursday. I send best wishes to Jeff. I hope he is successful in the provincial election and that he becomes a good Liberal MPP representing the city of Barrie, providing representation that I know is so badly needed right now in Queen's Park.
To that member, I would hope that he would extend that congratulations—
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Madam Speaker, I guess that one stung a little. I apologize. I will get back to the subject at hand.
What is happening in the federal Parliament right now is that the House leader for the opposition is not doing his job. Because, quite frankly, the Conservatives are leaderless other than him right now, his job—
An hon member: Thank you. I am the leader.
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: Madam Speaker, finally the member for Barrie—Innisfil has informed Canadians that he is leading the Conservative Party of Canada. It certainly is interesting to know that because Canadians have been wondering, as have I and so many other people, but to know that the member for Barrie—Innisfil is now the de facto leader of the Conservative Party of Canada truly is eye-opening and refreshing. It certainly would explain the hostile nature of the House and the way it is deliberating.
Back to my point, the job of the House leader for the Conservative Party, the official opposition House leader, is to coordinate his MPs to make sure they play a constructive role in developing better policy for Canadians, which will impact their lives and make their lives better, and the one policy we want to talk about so much is a policy that they ran on in the last election. They ran on the supports in Bill C-18, but they were not interested in—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- May/30/22 7:28:21 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, what I was saying was that the Conservatives' job here is to help inform policy and to make policy that is better for Canadians. What do they have before them? It is not only a policy the government feels would be better for Canadians, but a policy that the Conservatives ran on, a policy that they are interested in and a policy they saw as beneficial, at least during election time. Then, they lost the election, and suddenly they are no longer interested in these policies for Canadians that they ran on.
The opposition House leader instructed his MPs to put forward a concurrence motion earlier today, which burned three hours of House time. We have spent three hours debating a concurrence motion of a report that this Parliament's ethics committee did not even produce. It did not do the research. It did not study it, and it did not create the recommendations. The Conservatives literally grabbed the report from the last Parliament and retabled it as their own in this one, then they moved a concurrence motion on it, which is rare on its own, let alone on a report that was not even from a committee in this Parliament.
After the opposition House leader did that, he asked the question earlier through the member for Calgary Shepard about more debate time and wanting more debate, notwithstanding the fact that they had already filibustered the motion we had to give them that.
Members might remember Motion No. 11. That motion was about giving the House more time to debate issues, because the Conservatives were concerned that they were not getting enough time, but then they filibustered Motion No. 11, which was to give them more time. Now, the member comes forward and moves another motion still within the motions proceedings we are in during the daily Routine Proceedings, just to kill more time.
If it is, indeed, true, and the member for Barrie—Innisfil is the de facto leader of the Conservative Party now—
An hon. member: You are the only one saying that.
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: Madam Speaker, no, I am not the only one saying that. As a matter of fact, I said it earlier. I will respond to their heckles, if they want—
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- May/30/22 7:31:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, earlier I was giving my speech in the House and I said that it appears the member from Barrie—Innisfil, the opposition House leader, is the leader of the party. He said, “Thank you. I am the leader.” He said that. I only picked up on his own words.
An hon. member: I said I was House leader.
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: Madam Speaker, was he being facetious? It is quite possible, but I would suggest that he only be serious in the House so we make sure we have all the right information.
That is what he has done here. He has now introduced another motion in an attempt to burn more time, so that we cannot debate the important issues that Canadians have. It is ironic. Now they are heckling me and asking me to stop talking, but the irony is that this is the same individual who, only moments ago, asked why we could not talk more. He said that we need to talk more and that we need more debate.
The incredibly rich hypocrisy from the member for Barrie—Innisfil and Conservatives generally speaking is absolutely breathtaking. I see the games they are playing and the manner in which they are conducting themselves, and they are not interested in anything that is their job.
When I was in an exchange in the previous debate with the member for Regina—Lewvan, he even said that they were going to keep bringing forward issue after issue in the hope that Canadians would eventually get to the point where they say they do not trust the government. That really stuck with me because it highlighted what the Conservative objective and agenda is here. It is not to do their job.
The Conservatives' job as Her Majesty's loyal opposition, as they like to call themselves, is to make—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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Madam Speaker, I say that they like to call themselves that because they want to assume the role, but they do not know how to do it. It is a pretty basics politics 101 course to figure out what the job of the opposition is. It is not to put up roadblocks and to prevent things from coming through.
There was another really interesting part that came out of the previous debate with the member for Regina—Lewvan. When I asked him if it was not his job to make policy better and said that all he was doing was putting up roadblocks to stop legislation from getting through, his response to that was that they could not let bad legislation go through. That is not how it works.
They are entitled to their opinion on the legislation. They are entitled to put forward their ideas. They are entitled to try to make the legislation better, but at the end of the day, the way that democracy works is that, if the majority does not agree with them, then we move on. That is how democracy works. However, the Conservatives do not know what the role is in the House. Their role is not to be obstructionist and to put up a roadblock in front of every single issue. Their role is to come forward and to propose ideas, and to try to convince others, a majority in the House, that their idea is better, and to advance that objective.
As I said earlier, the irony here is that the issue we are talking about right now, Bill C-18, the one the government has tabled to actually discuss, the one the Conservatives keep filibustering, is an issue that they ran on in the election. It is an issue that they support. Even the issues the Conservatives support, they are refusing to let move through.
I find it extremely—
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- May/30/22 7:41:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank both you and the member opposite for the opportunity to speak about this important issue. This evening, I wish to address a few points that have been made recently in the House pertaining to the penitentiary agricultural program, commonly known as the prison farms.
To start with an issue that has been brought up a number of times, I will reiterate, first, that at this time, Correctional Service Canada does not possess any goats, and there are no contracts for the sale of goat milk.
Second, after the last exchange with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety, she asked for more information on the rehabilitative nature of the employment programs run by Correctional Service Canada. She was informed that research undertaken by Correctional Service Canada, dating back to at least 2014, demonstrated rehabilitative effects and positive reintegration outcomes for offenders who participated in these programs, as they were able to develop meaningful skill sets. These findings also noted that offenders who were able to find employment in the community were less likely to reoffend. The statistics are very clear. In fact, offenders who find jobs in the community are three times less likely to return to custody for a new offence.
Third, I want to address an allegation that was raised the last time the member opposite spoke during Adjournment Proceedings. The allegation made was that CORCAN is slave labour. I want to be very clear: Offender employment programs operate under the principle of free consent and do not occur under the threat of penalty. In accordance with the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, inmates receive pay for participation in correctional, education and employment programs, which contribute to their rehabilitation and reintegration into the community. An inmate's level of pay is reviewed at least once every six months, and their pay level may be adjusted based on the ability to meet the requirements of each pay level.
I wish to advise the member opposite that throughout the pandemic, Correctional Service Canada also took steps to ensure inmates had more funds on hand to keep in touch with their loved ones. This was done by temporarily waiving food, accommodation and telephone deductions.
These operations are being implemented in accordance with applicable provincial and federal government legislation and practices, and in accordance with industry standards. Canada, as a founding and active member of the International Labour Organization, also continuously works to meet its strict obligations that pertain to prison labour.
I will also address the nature of these operations. CSC continually re-evaluates its operations based on consultation with stakeholders and sustainability.
Lastly, on the issue of the abattoir, offenders who participate in the employment program through on-the-job training in any area do so voluntarily. This includes the abattoir, where inmates can choose to apply to participate in vocational training. This is not mandatory. Each time the lease is up for renewal, CSC considers the options relative to continued operation and does so regularly. It will continue to engage with appropriate community members and stakeholders.
I should remind the member that there are many farmers in his riding, in the riding of Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes and indeed in my riding who rely on this abattoir. Disrupting the operation of it will seriously impact their livelihoods.
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- May/30/22 7:46:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, if the member cherry-picks his data and just goes after one survey response or another survey response, I am pretty sure he can get any answer that he wants. However, if he looks at those survey responses in their totality, he will see that, overwhelmingly, the program has demonstrated that it serves inmates well.
I would encourage him to watch the documentary, much of it filmed in his riding, called Til the Cows Come Home. It was made during the previous Conservative government and is about what they were doing to prison farms that many inmates relied on so heavily. In that documentary, he will also hear testimony from inmates who talk about the positive contribution the program gave to their rehabilitative process.
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- May/30/22 9:29:31 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I rise on a point of order. The member just said, “Why did it take you so long?”
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- May/30/22 9:32:48 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I recognize that you are just sitting in the chair as of now, but both this Conservative member and the previous Conservative member have used the term “you” numerous times, and the member just said it again.
Perhaps they need a time out to go back and rewrite their notes or something, because they keep reading the term and the phrase “you”. Perhaps you could stress to them that they are to speak through the Chair to you because I doubt that they are asking all of this of you, Mr. Chair.
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