Debates of Oct. 1st, 1997

Revenue Canada

[Herb Dhaliwal, Liberal, Minister of National Revenue]

Mr. Speaker, I want to assure the hon. member and the House that Revenue Canada staff provides no preferential treatment to Federal Express over any other carrier involved in the departmental courier program.

Under the department's collective agreement with our unions employees are entitled once in their career to apply for unpaid personal needs leave. They are reminded also of the conflict of interest guidelines should they choose to take outside employment during this unpaid leave.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Edmonton North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is funny he should talk about personal needs. I am not sure what the qualifications for personal needs would be to go work for FedEx during the time they are unpaid.

I want to ask the minister something specific. There is a veteran customs officer we have just heard about who is going to be blowing the whistle on the corruption at Revenue Canada. It is not just an isolated case like the minister would like to talk about. Documents are about to be filed. This officer reports that when the minister's staff members were supposed to be searching aeroplanes at Toronto's Pearson airport they were actually pulled away from their jobs to expedite FedEx shipments. There is no excuse for this and I want to ask—

[The Speaker]

If the minister would like to answer the preamble he is welcome to.

[Herb Dhaliwal, Liberal, Minister of National Revenue]

Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member has anything substantial rather than rhetoric and cheap political points she is trying to make she should table it in the House right now instead of making these types of accusations which are incorrect and not true.

Supreme Court Of Canada

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today the Prime Minister appointed a new justice to the Supreme Court of Canada, Mr. Justice Michel Bastarache. This is obviously a patronage appointment made under a system that allows the Prime Minister to appoint whomever he pleases depending on what he wants done.

Does the Prime Minister not find it unacceptable, as much for the sake of the Supreme Court's credibility as for that of the judicial system, that the members of the highest court in the land are appointed by a single person without any sort of public consultation?

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to announce today the appointment of Mr. Justice Michel Bastarache, of the New Brunswick Court of Appeal, to the Supreme Court of Canada.

It is with very great pleasure that I announce to the House formally this afternoon the appointment of Mr. Justice Bastarache of the New Brunswick Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. I made that recommendation to my colleagues in the government after a lengthy consultation process with interested parties in the Atlantic region.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in anticipation of the upcoming farce in the Supreme Court about Quebec's right to decide its future, the Prime Minister has appointed an amicus curiae to speak on behalf of Quebec without any mandate from Quebec to do so. That takes some doing.

Does the Prime Minister think that he has boosted the Supreme Court's credibility by appointing to it the former co-chairman of the national yes committee in the 1992 referendum on the Charlottetown accord?

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I want to reassure the House that the hon. Mr. Justice Bastarache is a man of extraordinary capabilities and an extraordinary background. As a legal scholar, as a business person and as a judge, Mr. Justice Bastarache has proven himself to be exemplary.

Perhaps my friends in the Bloc would be interested to know something.

[Michel Bellehumeur, Bloc, Berthier—Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister has just appointed Michel Bastarache to the Supreme Court of Canada, not long after this same Liberal government had appointed him to the New Brunswick Court of Appeal.

Does the Prime Minister not find it indecent to appoint to the highest court in the country a former colleague, someone very close to him, someone close to the Liberal Party of Canada, someone who co-chaired the national committee for the yes side during the referendum on the Charlottetown accord?

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member is referring to the fact that the hon. Mr. Justice Bastarache worked for three years at the distinguished Canadian law firm of Lang Michener where the prime minister also served for some period of time, we do not deny that. Why would we?

I am deeply offended that anyone would suggest that Mr. Justice Bastarache's service at that law firm would in some way disqualify this distinguished individual from his appointment to the—

[Michel Bellehumeur, Bloc, Berthier—Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's silence on issues as important as this one is quite telling.

Does the Prime Minister recognize, and I hope he has the courage to rise and respond to the question, that in addition to using the Supreme Court of Canada for strictly political purposes, he has just undermined its credibility with this highly partisan appointment?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, if there is someone who has fought for the French fact before every court in Canada, it is Justice Bastarache.

When a seat became vacant on the Supreme Court, I asked, as is the custom, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada to inquire and find the most competent person to fill this important position.

The minister did just that. She held discussions with judicial authorities in the maritime provinces and came to the conclusion that Justice Bastarache was currently the most qualified person for the job.

Pay Equity

[Bev Desjarlais, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the President of the Treasury Board. For the past 20 years it has been illegal in Canada to pay men and women different wages if they are performing work of equal value.

For 13 years this government has been evading the law, dragging its feet and wasting our tax dollars through tribunals, hearings and court challenges on pay equity.

Citizens must comply with the law. Unions must comply with the law. Will the President of the Treasury Board inform the House whether this government intends to comply with the law and honour its obligations to women without resorting to legislation that would water down and diminish the rights of Canadians?

[Marcel Massé, Liberal, President of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for Infrastructure]

Mr. Speaker, it is of course false to say that the government has been evading the law.

The government has been applying the law and the government has been paying over $1 billion over the last 20 years in applying the law. The government has also offered $1.3 billion to the unions that represent the women involved in order to give justice and pay equity in the country. This government has been a model in the application of pay equity.

[Bev Desjarlais, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the minister has not answered my question. Pay equity is an issue of human rights and basic fairness.

The federal government must decide if it wants to continue forcing those lowest paid to pay personally for sexist discrimination by their employers or if it wants to end the discrimination today and honour the law on human rights.

If government can evade the law and refuse to honour the finding of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, how can Canadians trust this government not to change the law, any law which it finds inconvenient?

[Marcel Massé, Liberal, President of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for Infrastructure]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is obviously misinformed if she believes that the government has not been applying the law.

There is at present a case in front of the human rights tribunal and we are waiting for that judgment to be rendered. Once again, we have been trying to negotiate with the union to get a fair settlement. We stand ready to apply the various judgments once they are made final.

Rcmp Investigations

[André Bachand, Progressive Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General of Canada.

Can the Solicitor General of Canada confirm in this House that an RCMP investigation is currently being conducted in the Montreal area into allegations of conflict of interest and influence peddling relating to the Liberal Party of Canada's fund raising practices in Quebec?

[Andy Scott, Liberal, Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I am not aware of the allegations that the member has made, but the role of solicitor general is not to interfere with the operation of the RCMP.

[André Bachand, Progressive Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform this House that I have been given confirmation that an investigation is indeed under way, and that ministers of the current government might be directly or indirectly involved.

If this is the case, can the Prime Minister assure this House that this investigation will not be delayed or interfered with in any way, and that if any members of his Cabinet are involved in any way, he will take the necessary steps to relieve them of their duties until it is completed?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, as the Solicitor General says, RCMP investigations are not the responsibility of political authorities. The RCMP must perform its duty, and it will.

If the police make recommendations, the government will act, but making such unfounded accusations before the police investigation is completed is totally unacceptable in our legal system.

Supreme Court Of Canada

[Jack Ramsay, Reform, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, a retiring supreme court judge, Gérard La Forest, called on the Liberal government to select his replacement through an open review process. Obviously the prime minister did not heed the advice of a man with almost 50 years' experience in the practice of law. Today, the prime minister appointed one of his law partners.

Why did he insist on making this appointment without parliamentary review?

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, as I have said in the House before, the appointment process of supreme court justices has served the country very well for 130 years.

However, I have also indicated that if there are ways in which I can develop a broader consultation process to receive the views of those interested in supreme court appointments, there may well be merit in that and I would be willing to consider the possibility.

[Jack Ramsay, Reform, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps the justice minister could take the advice of the retiring supreme court justice.

The supreme court is preparing to hear the legal reference determining whether or not Quebec has the right to separate unilaterally.

Given that he is a party in this court case, has the prime minister considered that he may have put the court in a conflict of interest position by personally appointing his old law partner to the Supreme Court of Canada?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Saint-Maurice, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have informed the House that I have never been a partner in that law firm. I worked two or three days a week in the law firm and was paid for my services. I had nothing to do with the management of the firm. I was never a partner and I did not know anything about the relationship among any of the lawyers in the firm.

Information Highway

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry.

The advisory committee on the information highway tabled its final report in September. It contains no specific reference to Quebec or to Quebec culture.

Would the Minister of Industry not expect Quebec to play a principal role, in the North American context, in setting up the francophone information highway?