- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Courtenay—Alberni
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 66%
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- Feb/13/24 11:40:03 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-7
Mr. Speaker, a lot of discussions needs to take place at the AMAD committee, to look at the existing legislation.
However, right now, we are dealing with a timely situation, and I am going to speak to that. This is around the Liberal government's ill-advised decision to accept the Senate amendment to Bill C-7 in the 43rd Parliament. That is what has gotten us here today. This is why we are having to rush legislation, because there is not adequate support for people with the sole underlying medical condition of a mental disorder.
The Liberals changed the law before any kind of comprehensive review had been conducted, and we have been trying to play catch-up ever since. The Liberals decided to support an amendment from the Senate, the unelected Senate, that was brought back to the House. We voted against it because of that. We did not believe that the supports were in place for people to make those decisions.
We are working toward ensuring that we have parity between our mental and physical health care system, that we listen to the experts and that we do a full evaluation. This needs to take place. However, I appreciate the comments from my colleague in that there needs to be broader conversations about the existing legislation.
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Madam Speaker, it is a privilege and honour to rise to speak to Bill C-290, an act to amend the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, at third reading. First, I want to give a huge shout-out to my colleague from Mirabel for tabling this bill and taking leadership on this. I also want to thank my colleague and friend from Beauport—Limoilou, who worked really closely with me and our team of New Democrats because we both care and really are passionate about protecting workers' rights.
I want to talk about those workers. These are brave Canadians and Quebeckers who report wrongdoing or crimes in their workplace and often experience consequences like losing their income, health and happiness and all for speaking the truth. All Canadian and Quebec workers should be able to feel safe when they are reporting workplace crimes and negligence.
We know Canada has some of the worst whistle-blower laws in the world, tied with Lebanon. The Conservatives like to pat themselves on the back and say that they care about whistle-blowers, but it is Liberals and Conservatives who have teamed up over decades to make sure that whistle-blowers do not get the chance to protect our society and government.
It was actually the current leader of the Conservative Party who last brought in legislation when he was in government. The experts say that he did not make things better; he made it even harder for whistle-blowers. He made it even worse. The Conservatives say they are for workers, but what did they do today? They moved a concurrence motion so that we could not talk about anti-scab legislation. The Conservatives are not here for workers.
Liberals and Conservatives teamed up to defeat numerous amendments that would actually strengthen protections for whistle-blowers in this bill. They voted against many amendments to Bill C-290. We talk about the coalition. Let us talk about the coalition of Liberals and Conservatives who are fighting workers, muting workers and stonewalling workers from doing the right thing and being able to have the opportunity to protect Canadians and Quebeckers. It is not surprising for the Liberals and their rich friends who are not worried about whistle-blowing. The leader of the Conservative Party and the Conservatives will always prop up their big bosses and not workers. We know that. They have a track record. We have receipts. We are keeping receipts. Canadians and Quebeckers need stronger whistle-blower protection, so that there is more transparency and accountability of government and the public service.
As New Democrats, we are committed to protecting the rights and safety of all workers. That is why we are pushing to make sure Canadians and Quebeckers have the strongest whistle-blower protections possible. I want to talk about the importance of strong whistle-blower laws. Because of how weak our protections for whistle-blowers are, less wrongdoing will get reported and stopped. Protecting whistle-blowers is necessary to protect Canadians' and Quebeckers' lives and security.
Whistle-blower reports protect Canada's global reputation and relationships, so this is important. Luc Sabourin reported that superiors at Passport Canada were destroying foreign passports and logging that they returned them to the foreign embassies. He endured eight years of harassment and abuse, including hand sanitizer in his coffee and threats to his children's safety. Before losing his career in 2016 and almost losing his life, he had the courage to show up at our committee and to fight to protect the future of all workers. He is a hero and the reprisal has been significant, and the impact and damage to his life have been significant. I want to thank Luc for the courage to have shared his story; and my colleague from the Bloc who brought Luc to committee and worked with Luc.
As I said, whistle-blower reports save lives. In 1996, Michèle Brill-Edwards also lost her career after she reported that big pharma was influencing the drug-approval process here in Canada, endangering Canadian lives.
We brought forward amendments that were defeated. Our first amendment that we brought forward was to allow whistle-blowers to go to the public or media in specific situations where, for example, the commissioner is not dealing with the complaint or decides not to do anything to stop the wrongdoing. Liberals and Conservatives teamed up in their coalition to oppose this. Therefore, now whistle-blowers are at a huge risk if they expose wrongdoing to the Canadian public.
The second amendment was interim relief, which would have protected whistle-blowers from punishments like termination as soon as they reported wrongdoing. Instead, we are allowing punishments to happen to them and then spending years investigating whether they were indeed punished. The coalition defeated it.
The third one is the reverse onus. Right now, the whistle-blower has to prove reprisal. I will give an example: If they were fired, they have to prove that it was because they reported wrongdoing, which is virtually impossible. This amendment would have forced their superiors to prove that there was a real reason to fire them. In other jurisdictions, this change brings the chances of success from as low as one in 500 to as high as one in three, which would make sense. Those would be strong whistle-blower laws. What happened? The coalition of Liberals and Conservatives teamed up to defeat the amendment.
Again, these are critical amendments. Some things we brought forward as New Democrats were passed. I am grateful that the coalition did not fight these and that we actually got them through, working closely with our Bloc colleagues, who were fabulous on this bill.
The first one is that we improved whistle-blowers' access to the tribunal. This is critical, because the commissioner has been acting as a gatekeeper, preventing workers from accessing the tribunal. In the tribunal's 16 years of operation, the commissioner has only referred nine cases to it. That is insane. It is a terrible track record for Canada and right there, as I said, with Lebanon. There needs to be access to both options, because the commissioner sometimes decides not to even investigate a complaint. It is unbelievable.
The second amendment we brought forward and that passed, as we were glad to see, would create a survey metric to measure whistle-blowers' satisfaction with the process, how supported and protected they felt, etc. We have been looking at the effectiveness of these laws with no input from the whistle-blowers they were supposed to protect. Now they have a voice. Again, I want to go back to my colleague from Mirabel and thank him for that.
The third amendment we were able to get through was adding psychological damage from harassment as a form of reprisal that whistle-blowers are protected from. That is absolutely critical. These are Canadians and Quebeckers who are standing up and fighting for the best services to deliver to their communities.
I am going to finish with one area that is not covered, which is subcontractors. I will give an example: At the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, we found out through the ArriveCAN scandal that there were companies that received a contract, Coradix and Dalian, and they subcontracted to a company called GCStrategies, which then subcontracted to a company called Botler. However, they are not protected. Even though they are delivering services under a government contract through the Canada Border Services Agency, they are absolutely not protected. This is just unbelievable.
Both Dalian and Coradix took a commission of between 15% and 30%, and GCStrategies took a commission of 15% to 30%. None of them had expertise in what they needed. These are headhunters. It is like the worst pyramid scheme, in terms of outsourcing, that is happening with Canadian taxpayers' dollars and the layering of commissions.
For Botler, the reprisal was significant for Ritika Dutt and Amir Morv. It is unbelievable, the punishment they took for standing up for Canadian taxpayers, for whistle-blowing, and the treatment they have been under. The government is continuing to fail them for continuing to tell the truth. It is continuing to allow these contractors, who are suspended from the Canada Border Services Agency, to have contracts with other federal departments, even though they are under investigation by the RCMP. We can talk about how failed and miserable the situation is.
We are taking a step forward to fix how the coalition of the Conservatives and Liberals teamed up to mute whistle-blowers. Again, it is because of my colleague from Mirabel, who used his slot. He was high in the order of precedence, and he took this on to stand up for human rights. New Democrats stand with the Bloc, and we worked really hard on this. I am glad it is moving forward.
Let us hope for a better future. Let us hope we can address the concerns that are not addressed in this bill and continue to work together. Workers deserve it. We owe it to them.
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- Dec/11/23 7:53:28 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I want to thank my colleague.
The member talked about consultation and right now, Indigenous Services Canada, or ISC, has been changing funding formulas for education without even talking to the nations that are impacted, so it is hard for them to continue doing their programming with new formulas. It has a huge impact on children, of course.
On ISC engagement with indigenous communities, first nations, Inuit and Métis people, does the member agree that it should be an absolute requirement to obtain their free, prior and informed consent before changing any funding formulas in all areas of service delivery?
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Madam Speaker, we have heard from veterans about the gold-digger clause, which was implemented after World War I to prevent women from marrying veterans for their pensions and benefits. The Liberals promised to fix this. For eight years they have been in government. I know my colleague heard about this from veterans in her riding.
Blair Meadows, a veteran from Qualicum Beach in my riding, cited, “If I marry after the age of 60 and pass away before my spouse, she won't receive any of my benefits.” This 100-year-old law needs to be abolished. It is an archaic regulation that really needs to be fixed.
Does the member not agree that this is discriminatory against veterans, people who put their lives on the line, and leaves spouses in poverty? This is unacceptable. Does my colleague agree that this needs to be fixed by her government?
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Madam Speaker, we know what happens when we do not look after people. If they do not have good dental care, they end up in the emergency room. If they do not have mental health supports, it drains the whole system. I was just with a first responder, a friend of mine who works for the Ottawa police department. He said that so much of his time is spent dealing with mental health issues. When we do not have a head-to-toe system or pharmacare, when people do not get the medicine they need, they get sick and end up in the health care system.
We have asked the Liberals to increase health care transfers as well, so that we can make sure that people get access to the health care support they need when they need it. We need a system, but we need to make sure that it is funded properly. We see corporations with runaway excess profits. We know we can invest in saving taxpayers' money not by straining the other systems, but by actually providing solutions in dealing with mental health, dealing with dental care and dealing with our health care system in a way that is more efficient and with the proper supports and investments. We know we can save taxpayers' money in the long run.
It is actually prudent and good fiscal policy to ensure that we have a head-to-toe system, and that is something we will continue to push for, especially when it comes to mental health. We need parity within physical and mental health. I tabled a motion around that, hoping that all parties in this House would support that motion.
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