Alistair MacGregor

[National Strategy on Brain Injuries Act, June 6th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, we would request a recorded division.

[National Strategy on Brain Injuries Act, June 6th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I want to start by saying that I am joined in Ottawa today by two very special individuals: Janelle from my riding of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, with whom I started this conversation all the way back in 2018, and Michelle from Brain Injury Canada. The bill was not solely my idea. It has had many authors, and many people have been involved in mounting a campaign to bring it to where it is today.

I am so heartened by the speeches I have heard from colleagues right across the House, and I really want to take time to recognize those individuals. They are the Liberal member for Yukon, the Conservative member for Regina—Lewvan, the Bloc member for Montcalm, the NDP member for Courtenay—Alberni, the Liberal member for Kingston and the Islands, the Conservative member for Kelowna—Lake Country, the Bloc member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, the NDP member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, the Conservative member for Kenora and my New Democratic colleague from Nanaimo—Ladysmith.

I thank each of them for sharing their personal stories and the stories from their ridings. I really think that helped illustrate what a pan-Canadian issue this is. Especially at this time of year, the House of Commons can become quite a partisan place. On an issue such as this, where we had members from all parties speak in support of the bill and share personal stories, it is really a moment for me to personally reflect on and be thankful for. I thank all those members. I hope that, next week, when we come to a vote, the bill will receive unanimous support to be sent to the health committee.

I do not want to repeat a lot of things, because I think I outlined a lot of this in my introductory speech. In Canada, the societal consequences of brain injuries are quite profound. To my Bloc colleagues, who have always been stalwarts for provincial jurisdiction, I want to say this: I believe the bill respects provincial jurisdiction. I am fortunate to come from a province where the New Democratic Party is in government. I do not want to intrude on its obvious jurisdiction over health.

My goal with Bill C-277 is to recognize that this issue is bigger than any one province or territory can handle on its own, just by virtue of the stark statistics we are dealing with. This is really just an effort to break out of the siloed approach to problems that are affecting people in every single province. We are trying to coordinate a strategy where we make use of best practices, find out ways we can educate the population and develop awareness, prevention and treatment plans.

People from every single province have spoken up about the bill, and they have related their personal lived experiences. We have people from Quebec, from the Maritimes, from my home province of B.C., from the Prairies and from up in the territories. There is an incredible campaign being mounted in support of the bill, and I really want to recognize those people's efforts; they are the ones who have spoken to other MPs and to the government, which has brought us to the point where it looks as though a successful vote is possible.

I will say this to my colleagues: Let us get this bill to committee, hear from witnesses and see if there are ways we can improve the language. I remain open to that. My ultimate goal here is not just for myself personally; it is for the people who are attaching real importance to this, because a brain injury is such a dominating feature in their lives. They are looking to us to lead, to pay attention to an issue that affects so many Canadians and really affects their quality of life.

I thank all the individuals with lived experience who have shown the courage to share their personal stories. I thank the organizations that do the important work of raising awareness every single day. I thank the numerous city councils from across Canada that have spoken up and urged MPs to support the bill.

With that, I thank my colleagues for lending their support to the bill. I look forward to it coming to a vote so that we can get it to the Standing Committee on Health.

[Democratic Institutions, June 6th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, troubling allegations were revealed this week that some MPs have been willing participants in foreign interference. Despite this, and instead of giving Canadians answers, the Liberals are withholding more than 1,000 documents from the inquiry. The Conservative leader continues to refuse to get the security clearance that will allow him to be properly informed.

Both Liberals and Conservatives are trying to protect themselves instead of Canadians. It is unacceptable.

When will the Liberals release all the documents and ensure that compromised politicians are not on the ballot?

[Public Complaints and Review Commission Act, June 4th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, there was a terribly erroneous link in my colleague's speech between the crime rates in Canada and what the bill is actually about. Let me be very clear that the legislation is here because of complaints of Black, racialized and indigenous people who had interactions with the police not because of what they did but because of who they are, what they look like and what their background is.

I would like to give my hon. colleague a chance to speak about that, not about the crime rate in Canada but about people's interactions with both the RCMP and the CBSA because of their indigenous background, because they were Black and because they were racialized, not because they did anything wrong but because they were profiled. That is why we are here. That is what we need to hear from the Conservatives about.

[Public Complaints and Review Commission Act, June 4th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for that comment. It goes to show the nimbleness and power of the NDP. On the one hand, we are able to force the Liberal government to bring in things such as dental care and pharmacare, but at the same time we can hold it to account for its shortcomings on legislation like this. I am glad my Conservative friend can finally see that and show it publicly here in the House.

[Public Complaints and Review Commission Act, June 4th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I agree. I think that this is a real opportunity to collect that macrodata because I ultimately think that all good government policy has to be informed by good, solid data. That is not to say that we are unaware of the complaints that have existed with both the RCMP and the CBSA. I think those are both very well documented, but again, I think that through the formation of this commission, through the proposed act of Parliament, we would have that formal legislative body that sits above both of those agencies and would have those formal legislative powers that we, in the House of Commons and in the Senate, have given it to actually go further than what we already know by anecdotes and media reports, and the existing complaint mechanism.

I would agree with that member. I think there is a real opportunity. I think the legislation would allow us to collect that better data to inform better government policy going forward.

[Public Complaints and Review Commission Act, June 4th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I am not going to let the Liberals off the hook there.

I do want to note that there was an incredible gap, not only between the second reading and when the public safety committee reported the bill back to the House, but also between that date and where we are today. Absolutely, the NDP agrees that it is an important bill. That is why we are happy to support time allocation, but again, the government has great power in this place in terms of how it schedules orders of the day, and we agree that there were some very important pieces of legislation that we wanted to see passed, but I do not think there is much of an excuse to the people who are directly affected by the proposed bill to see the delays that were put in existence by the government.

As such, I am not going to explain that away. I think the Liberals owe an explanation, not only to Black racialized Canadians, but also to the indigenous people who live in this place called Canada.

[Public Complaints and Review Commission Act, June 4th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, it is nice to see my Conservative colleagues clapping for me. That is really quite thoughtful.

I am very pleased to be rising in the House today to speak to Bill C-20 at its report stage. I just want to note that when this Parliament started, the 44th Parliament, I was appointed as the critic for public safety. Of course, this was one of the first pieces of legislation that I got to deal with as the critic and that was handled by the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

I just want to remind the House and the people watching this debate that this bill has been a long time coming, not only in this Parliament but also in previous Parliaments. Just to give a sense of the timeline involved, this bill was first introduced way back on May 19, 2022. It received its second reading on November 25, 2022. However, it was not until November 9, 2023, a full year later, that the public safety committee completed its study of the bill and reported it back to the House. Here we are, on June 4, trying to get through the report stage of this bill, Bill C-20.

That needs to be noted because this bill, of course, is the result of many different people talking about the shortcomings of both the RCMP and the CBSA, not only their shortcomings, but also the lack of an effective oversight and accountability mechanism. That has nowhere been more true than with the indigenous people who live in this land called Canada.

I first want to note that the riding I represent, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, is served entirely by the RCMP. In my time as the member of Parliament for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, which I have been fortunate to hold since 2015, I have developed a good working relationship with the RCMP, the North Cowichan/Duncan detachment and the West Shore. I know that the people who serve those detachments are doing it out of love for the communities, and I know they are going out and doing their best every single day. I know they are dealing with some very difficult circumstances.

Like many communities across Canada, my riding has not been untouched by the opioids crisis. We have a mental health crisis. I know that many of the RCMP officers are not only responding to those incidents as police, but also, often as the first responder, dealing with a mental health crisis or with someone who is close to an overdose. I do want to recognize the good work that they are doing.

I want to also recognize the good work of the people who staff the Canada Border Services Agency, who, right now, are involved in some very difficult negotiations with the Government of Canada regarding their hours of work and their pensions. Of course, these are the people who keep the borders of Canada safe. They do important work.

The public safety committee has been doing a big study on car thefts. The CBSA has an incredibly important role not only to examine the cargo coming in and going out of Canada, but also to screen the people coming here to make sure that everyone is a verifiable visitor and is here for the right reasons.

That being said, I do need to take note of something. My riding of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford is home to several indigenous communities. We really need to highlight that and need to underline it when we are talking about this bill, Bill C-20, because it is well known, in the history of this land called Canada, that indigenous people on this land have had a very troubled relationship with the RCMP. Just saying that sentence would, in fact, probably be a gross understatement. We have to keep that in mind.

I also want to recognize that, as a member of the NDP caucus, I am incredibly privileged to serve with three incredible and outstanding indigenous members: the member for Edmonton Griesbach, the member for Nunavut and the member for Winnipeg Centre. I want them to know that I rely on their counsel and their wisdom quite heavily. I also rely on the wisdom and the counsel of the indigenous people who live in my riding of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford. They not only inform me as a person, but also inform me in the work I do as their member of Parliament.

It is important that we underline those concerns because I think that forms a very important basis of why Bill C-20 exists and why the House of Commons is finally reaching a point where we are giving it consideration and hopefully sending it on its way to the Senate and soon to royal assent.

Of course, my riding has been no stranger to controversy. I have been its MP since 2015, and I would say that probably the biggest flashpoint between the RCMP and a number of protesters, many of them indigenous, happened in the summer of 2021 at Fairy Creek, which is one of the last untouched, old-growth reserves on Vancouver Island. People are quite rightly concerned with logging practices in the province of British Columbia and with the preservation of old growth, but there were some very serious concerns raised about the conduct of the RCMP during the protests at Fairy Creek. Given the reviews that happened after the fact, it makes a bill like Bill C-20 all that much more important. In fact, none other than the B.C. Supreme Court ruled that the RCMP's media exclusion zones and checkpoints at that time were unlawful, given that they unreasonably limited press freedoms and that the principal purpose of the injunction is to maintain public access to roads in the injunction area. Again, a lot of the conduct there was very questionable, and certainly for people who were on the receiving end, it was described as quite brutal.

However, this is now my third Parliament, and this has been an issue that has crossed all three of those Parliaments. I want to read from the report of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security from the previous Parliament when it did its deep dive into systemic racism in policing. It reads:

Given the pervasive nature of systemic racism in policing in Canada, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security...has concluded that a transformative national effort is required to ensure that all Indigenous, Black and other racialized people in Canada are not subject to the discrimination and injustice that is inherent in the system as it exists today....

The Committee was told that accountability, oversight and transparency are critical to restore trust with Indigenous and racialized communities subject to systemic racism. Witnesses also emphasized the need for the collection of disaggregated race-based data to provide Canadians with an accurate picture of the impact of police practices and policies on Indigenous and racialized people.

I gave a pretty thorough speech on this bill at second reading, and I do not want to repeat the points I made at that time. However, I do want to note the important work that the public safety committee did on the bill and particularly on the important NDP amendments that were passed by the committee. I will quickly read through a number of them. They are the following: to ensure that there is proper union representation; to increase transparency and accountability; to ensure a reconciliation process with indigenous peoples; to expand the PCRC's investigative power; to increase transparency, to allow complainants a longer period to come forward to make a complaint; to ban the use of non-disclosure agreements to silence victims, to avoid intimidation and to allow the PCRC to know why complaints are being withdrawn, and so on and so forth.

I want to emphasize that this bill is incredibly important. We have heard repeatedly that the existing complaints process is not working and that we need something that exists outside the confines of the RCMP Act. Finally, for the CBSA, the remaining law enforcement agency that is under federal jurisdiction, we need to bring those two important agencies under the jurisdiction of this new PCRC.

To conclude, we are happy to offer our support to Bill C-20. It is about time that we got this bill across the finish line for important transparency and accountability for the people of Canada. I hope the Senate treats this bill with the urgency that the people demand of it.

[Business of Supply, June 4th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, in this latest version of the Conservative Party, a lot of working-class cosplay is going on. However, I would like my hon. colleague to talk about this. During the years of the Harper government, one of the biggest wealth transfers happened from Canadian families to corporations, and I am talking about the corporate tax cuts.

Could my hon. colleague remind Canadians what the Conservative government did during the Harper years to the corporate tax rate and how that hobbled the revenues of today, which could have been used to support Canadian families in my riding, his riding and right across the country?

[Business of Supply, June 4th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, what I would say to my hon. colleague is that on the whole spectrum of the food supply chain, there are the farmers at one end and the consumers at the other. I would argue that both groups are being screwed over by the people in the middle. That is what is happening.

I am not talking about going after farmers; they need to make a living, and I know their margins are very tight. I am not talking about consumers. It is the actors in the middle, the middlemen, and particularly the grocery companies, which despite all of the costs associated with climate change and supply disruptions have still seen their net profits go up to unacceptable and unreasonable levels.

That is what we should be tackling. That is what Canadians expect. If we had an activist government actually doing that, we would actually see the results Canadians want and need at this very key moment.