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Bill 48: Speaking in Favour of Kent Hehr’s Amendment to Bill 48

Ms Blakeman:

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I’m rising to support the Member for Calgary-Buffalo in his amendment to refer Bill 48, Crown’s Right of Recovery Act, to the Standing Committee on Health. For a couple of reasons I’m willing to support this. I’ll admit that this creates somewhat of the same dilemma we had earlier in that it will slow down the passage of this bill, which I think a number of us are unhappy to see. Nonetheless, in order for me to be able to support the bill in the state that it’s in, with part 1 attached to it, I need some information that’s not forthcoming from the members in the Chamber. So I would be looking for it to be referred to the Standing Committee on Health with the hopes that they would invite certain stakeholder groups in to present to us on the feasibility of part 1.

I mean, I would be interested in hearing from John Howard Society, for example, or Elizabeth Fry Society on how likely this part 1 would be to be successful given their particular knowledge of people who end up being incarcerated. Of course, John Howard works with people both inside and outside of the corrections system, but they certainly have a very specific expertise, as does Elizabeth Fry.I would like to hear from the experts that work with our aboriginal populations, which is another group, as my colleague from Edmonton-Strathcona mentioned, you know, that is overrepresented in the inmate population and in the remand centres as well in Canada.

I’d like to hear from advocates for the mentally ill about how likely this is to be successful. Are we dealing with, perhaps unbeknownst to me, people that end up being convicted and serving time, that have a mental illness and have a whole pile of money that I haven’t been aware of, having served many of those same people as my constituents for a number of years? Maybe they’ve all been sleeping on mattresses stuffed with hundred dollar bills all this time that I didn’t know about.

I think it would also be useful to hear from someone that’s working with the drug treatment courts for what their take on this particular proposal would be. I think there’s an opportunity for us to hear from experts in the community that may be able to advise us on the feasibility of this.

You know, if it’s going to work, then I might be willing to go there, but without trying too hard, I can see a whole bunch of reasons why it’s not going to work, and I have to figure out what I’m going to do if this legislation goes forward with part 1 in it. That’s the problematic part. I’ve got no problem supporting parts 2, 3, and 4, but part 1 is hugely problematic.

Therefore, I appreciate my colleague’s attempt to try and shine some light on this by bringing forward an amendment to refer the bill to that standing committee for possible input. I mean, the committee can take a reference of a bill and from there work a number of ways on how to gather information and report back to the House. There is a time limit on it that has been established. There is a requirement that within a certain period of time there be a report back to the House.

There are a number of ways of working through that committee and getting certain tests met, which have not, unfortunately, been able to be met by the government when they have taken this on by themselves. But because of what the standing orders offer us and that we could take advantage of through this referral motion, I think it’s a possibility of finding a way to work with this particular piece of legislation. I sure wish that the government hadn’t decided to create this particular bog, but they did, so I appreciate my colleague’s attempt to try and give us a way out of the bog.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I urge all of my colleagues to vote in favour of the amendment.