Report from Parliament's Hill - June 4th, 2010
By Prince George - Peace River M.P. Jay Hill
Friday, June 04, 2010 03:43 AM
Incarcerated Murderers are Not ‘Entitled’ to Entitlements!”
Canadians who work hard, contribute to our society and play by the rules deserve Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and Old Age Security (OAS) payments. Mass murderers sitting in jail cells do not!
Yet Canadians were shocked this past March to learn that convicted serial killer Clifford Olson is collecting OAS and the Guaranteed Income Supplement while serving multiple life sentences for his heinous crimes.
It is offensive and outrageous to Canadians across this country and our Conservative Government that someone who murdered 11 children, forever altering the lives of their families and traumatizing the communities where he committed his dreadful crimes, is receiving these entitlements while in jail.
Those who broke the rules of society and are in prison for their crimes should not receive the same entitlements as law-abiding, hard-working citizens.
That’s why our Government introduced legislation this week to eliminate government entitlements for incarcerated criminals. If Bill C-31 is passed by Parliament, implementation will begin with inmates who are incarcerated in federal penitentiaries for two years or more. We will work with provinces and territories to continue implementation in provincial and territorial institutions for criminals serving sentences of greater than 90 days.
In other legislation our Government introduced in recent days, we are working to tighten laws surrounding activities that an increasing majority of Canadians undertake each and every day…email, Internet and cell phone use.
Email and wireless “spam” is not just an annoyance. It discourages the use of electronic commerce, undermines privacy and increases the risk of identity theft and fraud. It also poses a significant expense for businesses that must use precious resources to minimize the risks associated with spam.
Among other measures, Bill C-28 proposes fines for sending false and misleading email, and for attempts to steal personal information. It would also allow for civil action against those who violate the law.
To complement these measures, our Government simultaneously introduced Bill C-29 to safeguard Canadians’ personal information. This legislation protects consumers from identity theft and privacy breaches. Yet it also encourages continued growth of businesses in the digital economy by strengthening trust and confidence in their ability to secure the personal information they must collect to serve their clients.
A key proposal in the legislation requires organizations to notify affected individuals of data breaches. It also strengthens law enforcement and security investigations.
Both bills are the result of extensive consultations with a wide range of stakeholders, including business, consumer and privacy advocates, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, provincial governments and law enforcement authority.
The online marketplace and the digital economy are playing an increasing role in our every day lives and in the prosperity of Canada’s economy. It’s imperative that our laws keep pace.
While I expect the opposition parties will want to examine these two pieces of legislation in more detail in the coming weeks and months, I am hopeful they recognize that our legislation to end government benefits for imprisoned criminals is straightforward, just and urgently needs to pass! Every cheque a criminal like Clifford Olson receives is another blow to victims, their families and their communities!
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Posted by: SummerSoul on June 4 2010 7:36 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iyjyDKcPSI
Watch this video of the Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan condemning the Israeli raid on the Gaza aid ship. Put it in big screen and try and get a sense of the force he is making his argument with, and the rational he is using to make his point, and the ramifications that potentially could develop as a consequence of the diplomatic certainty with which he is speaking. This is a very important moment in history. You will notice the Iraqi Prime Minister is present, as well as many other Middle Eastern leaders and ambassadors.
Ask yourself what does this have at all to do with Canada? This could very well be the precursor to a wider Middle East war… and that in itself with its resources could be a precursor to a greater global war. Canada traditionally was the sober voice in the room that took the high road and based our policy on principles and integrity for the respect of others, and because of this in great part we have never suffered the indignity that comes from nations that find out the hard way why those things are important. Canada was the nation people looked up to for peacekeeping because we were seen as the fair minded on the global stage inventing the term middle power and soft power, because we always had the legitimacy of our values that we projected in our multilateral foreign policy.
Fast forward to this week. This week we had a qualified foreign war criminal visiting our country on a State Visit. Bad enough that we have a qualified war criminal here on a state visit, but he is also here to use our country, and our Prime Minister as a cover for a known operation that is about to go down with predictable results for an intended projection of intimidation… while simultaneously delivering war ultimatums in person that he would direct our nation to war with without open and transparent communication to the Canadian people… even when given the opportunity (on Mansbridge). Israel wants war with Iran, they want war with Pakistan, they want to never recognize the existence of human rights for Gaza and the Palestinians in general… they want Canadian politicians to endorse this or say nothing at all, but curse any that step out of line. Stephen Harper eats it up, and is spoon feed his logic straight from his ‘state visitor’. Harper plays his role well.
Fast forward across the ocean and you have Turkey that is a major power… one of the largest armoured forces in the world and has never lost in war to the West on its home soil. Turkey like it or not is a major strategic power in this world… they are a democracy, a vibrant economy, a NATO power and anchor in the east, and they have the moral support of the entire Middle East right now hailed as potential saviours to their (Muslim) sufferings at the hands of the zionists. Turkey has all the power right now.. they have the forces on the ground and in the air, they have the allies in the region, they have the legal authority under international law and NATO (probably guarantees by Russia as well), and most importantly they have seized the high moral ground if even for the people of the Middle East… and thus can say they have the integrity of international law, humanity, and the respect of the people in the region to be able to seriously motivate people to their agenda.
So while back here in Canada Stephen Harper was playing tribalist politics with his ‘state visitor’, getting Canada’s war marching orders in private, minimizing the on-going atrocities in progress on the international highseas involving known Canadian humanitarians… Turkey meanwhile was pointing to us in effect and saying ‘see those people have no moral authority’, ‘see they are hypocrites and their words mean nothing’, ‘see if you listen to them you will have no rights like those people on the humanitarian vessals’, ‘see if you want to be safe and protected than you need to join us on the high ground and take this war to the Zionists and their collaborators’ (in not so many or maybe more words). Essentially while Harper crapped his pants in the presence of a clearly more dominant man, thereby surrendering all that Canadians have strived for in our meaning as a country exemplified in our foreign policy since our earliest fog of nationhood, while Harper crapped his pants and set our foreign credibility on fire with an affirmative zeal… our NATO ally in Turkey was experiencing an indignation at the hands of our ‘state visitor’ and thereby gaining a moral high ground so huge that it could forever change the geopolitics of half the globe as nations realign around the new realities that have been laid so bare by the actions of weak minded politicians like our Prime Minister… and all the other MP’s that stand by in silence content to let others with no power to speak on their behalf for the dignity of our country. Ditto for the Americans… spineless all of them (politicians).
For sure that is the most important speech of the week, and like it or not it has global implications that do and will in a large way effect Canada, future Canadians, and quiet possible the men and women of our nation in uniform.
People need to think about that next time they vote… whether its in a poll that gives credibility to these politicians, or in a voting both trying to have your say. People need to wake up and realize that with out the respect of international law we in Canada become nothing to those that would harm our nation and its interests. Without universal respect for the law our society becomes nothing and disintegrates into tribal barbarism.
Some people might say while Israel can just nuke Turkey and the problem is solved… those are the people, and the people that provide cover for that possibility, that are our greatest threat in the years to come. That is the ultimate enabler of our eventual downfall from grace and yet all we here from our politicians here in Canada is silence… no leaders among them as we blindly march along.