44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 10, 2024 11:00AM
- Jun/10/24 7:26:16 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to stand again to ask further about the parliamentary secretary's response to my question on having the commission take in some of those complaints, hearing them and learning from them. That may be all well and good, but would it not be better for the legislation to help address the issues before they happen and deal with them proactively so that we could prevent someone from coming to harm in the first place?
82 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise this evening to speak to Bill C‑20 at third reading.
We worked hard on this bill at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. We are finally at third reading, about to send this bill to the other place. It is extremely important that we do just that.
Our role as members of Parliament is to improve bills. It must be said that this bill was introduced by the government. This was its third attempt. Before now, it did not really put in the work to set up a review and complaints commission. We have seen this in previous bills. The government introduced bills so late in the parliamentary session that they never passed. There is a clear need for a complaints commission. Everyone is calling for one. So far, the government has failed to make it a high enough priority to get it through all stages of the parliamentary legislative process.
The bill passed second reading and was referred to committee for study, where there were several delays. It was not the government that caused these delays, it was actually the Conservatives who, on several occasions, prevented amendments from being considered and witnesses from being heard.
Happily, after spending hours considering each amendment, the bill was passed. All the witnesses said that it was really important to improve this bill. At the same time, it needed to be adapted. I want to say that finally, after several delays, my colleagues on the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security and I have succeeded, by working together, in getting this bill passed and improved.
I would like to take a few minutes to talk specifically about how the NDP worked to improve the bill. The NDP got approximately ten amendments passed, all of which are quite crucial. We worked with the other parties, the governing party, the Bloc Québécois, the Conservative Party, to pass amendments that had been submitted by the other parties.
Even though the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security had to meet several times, and the Conservatives moved a completely separate motion rather than hear from witnesses and hear such important evidence, even though all these delays slowed down the study of the bill, we are now getting to the final stage. We even hope the bill will pass unanimously this evening and be sent to the other place.
First, this complaints commission will cover more than just members of the public. Internal employees should be well represented. We put forward an amendment, NDP-6, to ensure union representation. When you work in the labour movement, it is important that unions be represented. Workers must have a representation process.
We amended clause 28 of the bill, allowing union representatives of Canada Border Services Agency and Royal Canadian Mounted Police employees to jointly set service standards for the review timelines specified in that section of the bill. We set a one-year deadline for resolving these representation and timeline issues. It is a victory for union representation and assurance of union representation in the service standards initiative.
We did not stop there. We also pushed for greater transparency and accountability. The committee heard from a number of witnesses, including the Breaking Barriers coalition, which wanted to see more transparency and accountability in the bill. We asked that copies of the reports submitted be distributed. The transparency issue was raised in amendments NDP-7 and NDP-14. We wanted all this information to be available, and we worked hard to get these amendments passed.
We also wanted to contribute to the reconciliation process with indigenous peoples, and we submitted amendments NDP-9 and NDP-9.1 to include all reconciliation issues in the bill.
We also wanted to give complainants more time to bring forward complaints, which is key. Initially, before it was improved in committee, the bill said that complaints had to be brought within a year. We wanted to extend that period to accommodate organizations that testified, such as Amnesty International, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and all the other organizations, including the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group.
We wanted to ban the use of non-disclosure agreements, an issue that was brought up in connection with the Hockey Canada scandals. We wanted to ban non-disclosure agreements, which prevent victims from speaking up. Amendment NDP-23 on that subject was agreed to.
We wanted to definitively prevent intimidation and know why a complaint was withdrawn. The monitoring group suggested that a complainant could provide reasons for withdrawing a complaint, which would be another way to better protect victims. Other proposals of ours were adopted, making the version of the bill amended by the committee more transparent than the original version.
There were other extremely important improvements. I would like to list the organizations that played an important role in improving this bill: Amnesty International Canada, both the francophone and anglophone wings; the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association; the Canadian Council for Refugees; the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, the Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association; the Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council; and the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group. Because of them, Bill C‑20 will pass at long last, but with extremely important improvements.
We are now hopefully coming to the end of the House saga around Bill C-20, a bill that would establish the public complaints and review commission, which is so important for both the CBSA and the RCMP. We want to have in place a public complaints commission that does its job. We want to make sure those who serve our country at the RCMP and CBSA are subject to the appropriate oversight but at the same time have protections as well.
The bill, as improved by the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, would achieve that mandate. We have managed to improve the bill and provide for more transparency and for a better set of checks and balances to ensure victims have more rights and that labour representation is acknowledged and upheld in the bill itself. Also, providing for a longer complaint period is something that is extremely important, as well as banning the use of non-disclosure agreements to silence victims.
There are so many organizations that provided valuable testimony. I am hoping the bill will pass tonight by unanimous consent, despite the delays that took place through the committee process. The reality is that this bill is much better coming out of committee than it was going into committee. It is necessary. It is important to put this into place. I am hoping that all members of Parliament will vote to send it to the other place this evening.
1150 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, debate is moving at a rapid clip, and I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to Bill C-20.
I will pick up on the point of the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby that, my goodness, this bill has been in front of us for a long time. First reading was more than two years ago. The bill is long overdue.
I will also put on the record early that I will vote for this bill. I am very pleased to see it head toward the Senate.
I do have some comments, though, because I still have some concerns about the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency.
We have had a public complaints commission for the RCMP for some time. I think it is fairly shocking that it is only now that we will have a public complaints commission of any kind for the Border Services Agency. The number of complaints about systemic racism within CBSA is legend. It is certainly distressing and disturbing, and no one has had any place to take those complaints until and unless Bill C-20 gets through this place.
There is no question, as other members have mentioned, that the bill was much improved in committee. There were amendments that improved the bill on many scores for the RCMP public complaints commission, which is steadily being improved. I will never forget that when I was first elected to this place, the RCMP public complaints commission did not have the right to subpoena witnesses. Things have improved. CBSA needs to have this available for people who are dealt with roughly by CBSA.
At some point in the future, certainly not tonight and certainly not before we pass Bill C-20, it would be very useful to reflect on the recommendations of the Mass Casualty Commission in relation to the single biggest mass shooting in Canadian history, as the Speaker will certainly recall as a member from Nova Scotia. The shootings in Portapique remain with me and sit with me, and I do not think we have done enough as a House of Commons to deal with the report of the Mass Casualty Commission.
I certainly hope the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security will pick up on unfinished business relating to what happened in the circumstances there. The Mass Casualty Commission made broad and sweeping recommendations for reforming the RCMP, and as far as I can see, in response to alarm bells, the RCMP has hit the snooze button. I really hope that we will return to that at some point in future.
Certainly, the Canada Border Services Agency needs to make improvements. When I spoke to the bill at second reading, I shared an extraordinary story in which I was involved, as a member of Parliament. There was a man from outside my riding. He was indigenous. CBSA, without any warning, showed up at his door right before Christmas, arrested him and put him in leg irons. They took him away from his indigenous wife, a survivor of residential schools, threw him in the back of the van and told him he was being deported to the United States, which is where he was born, without any regard to his rights as an indigenous person under the Jay Treaty and with no previous attempt to connect with him. He had been living in Canada for decades. He had been married for decades. He was a member of the Penelakut first nation, a grandfather and a pillar of the community, and, but for the grace of God, he would have been deported.
605 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
