House of Commons Hansard #136 of the 36th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was extradition.

Topics

Extradition ActGovernment Orders

12:40 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

I am afraid there is no consent.

Extradition ActGovernment Orders

12:40 p.m.

Reform

Rob Anders Reform Calgary West, AB

Mr. Speaker, that is unfortunate. I had hoped these people from Alberta would have had the chance to have their views heard in the House. The people of Alberta would like the opportunity to submit the petitions, to have them recognized and to have their voices heard. That is only fair. They took the time to write down their names, to send in faxes and to compose e-mails. They took the time to make the phone calls and do everything. To have them denied the ability to have the rest of the members of the House take a look at these petitions and peruse through them is a real denial of the fundamental justice. Is this what we have to put up with while we are in Ottawa?

I would like to speak about how we obtained these petitions. They were given to us by Dave Rutherford on behalf of the people of Alberta. Many of the responses are from clip-outs that ran in the Calgary and Sun newspapers. There are many different forms of the petition but I would like to read briefly what a few of them have to say. They are addressed to the Prime Minister. They say on behalf of these people who have written in that they demand that the Prime Minister and his government respect the will of Albertans for choosing their own senators.

That is a pretty simple, straightforward request and it speaks to the issue of jurisdiction and justice because we have jurisdictions across the country. We have 10 different provinces and two territories and they believe they should have fundamental justice and have the ability to choose for themselves who represents them in the other place. They are being denied that today because these petitions are not allowed to be presented. We were denied unanimous consent to present them on behalf of the people of Alberta who have taken the time to fill these in.

I would like to talk about the extradition that we should have performed. Today we are talking about extradition, about justice and about the whole idea of jurisdiction.

Not so long ago there was a character I will call extradition Andy. He was not in Canada. He was in another place which we will call Mexico. In the criminal sentence the maximum he would have to sit was 65 days a year. He gave himself his own parole. He gave himself his own walking papers. Instead of serving the 65 days he should have he served only two. He served one in the spring and one in the fall. What penalty did Andy get for all this? He got a salary, $64,000 a year. That is what he got in return for only showing up once every spring and once every fall.

On top of that it was not just a salary. He had a tax free allowance of $10,000. He also had a budget with regard to his parliamentary staff on the Hill. All these things were the sentence that Andy had to serve while he was in the other place. But that was too much to ask of Andy, 65 days a year for a salary of $64,000 and a $10,000 tax free allowance. It was too much and Andy figured that he only had to serve two days of that sentence. As a result he spent the rest of his time in a safe haven down in Mexico, his hacienda that cost him about $300,000. Most Canadians cannot afford that but he certainly had that luxury.

Today we are speaking of the idea of international crime of people outside the jurisdiction of Canada, people we want to be able to bring back to serve their time in this country. Andy did not serve his time. Andy was not serving the people of Ontario. Andy was not serving the people of Canada and that is a real travesty. There should have been extradition to bring back Andy from Mexico but that did not happen, did it?

We have stood up in this place time and again and criticized the slowness and the complexity of the extradition process. This was one of those times when there should have been a much faster process, but year after year Andy was not extradited. Andy was in Mexico serving a sentence to his own fitting at $64,000 a year and never a word from the government in terms of extraditing Andy. Andy was never asked to come home during all those years. Year after year he spent his time down in Mexico in his hacienda and the government did not say a word, not a whisper about extradition for this type of crime that Andy was committing against the people of Canada and the people of Ontario, misrepresenting them. That is a shame. That is something this government should hang its head in shame for. It is not just that it was something that was right to do.

The Prime Minister, when he was running for the Liberal leadership in 1990, made promises that this type of thing would not happen. He said he believed in reforming the Senate. He promised the people of Alberta, the Liberal Party membership and the people of this country that he was going to go ahead and reform the Senate so that we would not have to consider extradition for some sort of truant like Andy. But that did not happen. It was another broken promise yet again that was not fulfilled, one of those red book promises that was not made good.

The people of Alberta took the time to draft and compose 7,000 different petitions, letters and e-mails to address this issue and today it has fallen on deaf ears of this government—

Extradition ActGovernment Orders

12:50 p.m.

Liberal

Eleni Bakopanos Liberal Ahuntsic, QC

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I remind the hon. member of the bill before the House, an extradition bill which has nothing to do with the Senate. He has not understood what extradition is all about. That is obvious from the rhetoric we have been hearing for the last 10 minutes.

I would like the member to stick to what we have before the House, Bill C-40, a bill on extradition of criminals and organized crime.

Extradition ActGovernment Orders

12:50 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

The parliamentary secretary does have a point. The hon. member for Calgary West is really stretching the point to try to get extradition for a non-attendance as some kind of means of enforcing attendance. I think perhaps having made his point he will want to move on and discuss the content of the bill.

Extradition ActGovernment Orders

12:50 p.m.

Reform

Rob Anders Reform Calgary West, AB

Mr. Speaker, once again it was up to this government to define and it has failed to do so with regard to a host of other justice issues. But it should be a crime for somebody to take a salary in this land and only serve two days a year. That should be a crime. That speaks to the Criminal Code. Should the justice minister and the parliamentary secretary not be concerned about that?

Extradition ActGovernment Orders

12:50 p.m.

Liberal

Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. Despite your admonishment the hon. member persists in straying from the topic of debate which is the Extradition Act. He may think it is cute in his snide remarks straying from the topic but from the point of view of most of us here this Friday afternoon, I think it is a bit of rhetorical masturbation on his part—

Extradition ActGovernment Orders

12:50 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

The hon. member was I thought about to heed my admonition and proceed with remarks relevant to the bill before the House.

Extradition ActGovernment Orders

12:50 p.m.

Reform

Rob Anders Reform Calgary West, AB

Mr. Speaker, those types of low comments across the way indicate to us the lack of respect that the people of Alberta get in this institution and around this place when proposing these types of fundamental changes.

Let me talk about extradition in Bill C-40. It is about extradition. It is about international crime and international criminals and havens for crime. It is about slowness and the complexity of the extradition process and the judicial process in general. Bill C-40 is about modernizing the law and bringing it up to speed with the current day. It is about flaws in the actual mechanics of the law. It is about political intrusion in the process.

That is what Bill C-40 is about. That is what we are addressing today. We have all those problems in spades with what is going on with regard to extradition in this country. It is a crying shame in this House today that we have Liberals who have reneged on their promises which they made in 1990, Liberals who reneged on the promises they made in their red book because they said they wanted to see a transparent and open process. We are not seeing that because I am not even allowed to present these petitions on behalf of the people of Alberta who would love to see somebody extradited who is spending their time down in Mexico and violating Canadians by not doing what they should be doing when they are receiving a salary on behalf of the people of Canada. I will have to find some other way to address these things, to bring them forward and to make sure that the Prime Minister is able to peruse through these petitions as the hon. members across the way should have the ability and should also have the duty and the responsibility to go through these petitions and consider what Albertans have to say about this issue of extraditing criminals who are serving outside of Canada in safe havens away from Canadian law and from the responsibilities here in Canada.

Extradition ActGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

Thornhill Ontario

Liberal

Elinor Caplan LiberalParliamentary Secretary to Minister of Health

Mr. Speaker, I listened with amazement. I cannot believe the member who just spoke is not going to support this bill. I believe the people of Alberta and the people across Canada would be appalled to know that he does not want to see criminals expedited in an expeditious fashion out of this country. They want to know this bill is going to pass and that we will have the ability to rid Canada of those people who should not be here, and also that we send a message to those who would want to come to Canada as a safe haven. They know this bill will be a deterrent to those.

I feel very strongly about this because unfortunately Canada for too long has had the international reputation of being a place where people could come because our laws were not strong enough.

This bill fixes that problem. I am proud to support it and I ask the member to stand in his place on behalf of his constituents to support it.

Extradition ActGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

Reform

Rob Anders Reform Calgary West, AB

Mr. Speaker, I have news for those across the way. This bill is about extradition, not expedition. The “x” in Federal Express and Fedex is not about extradition, it is about expedition. So if the member wants to talk about Federal Express or UPS or Purolator or whatever, she is more than welcome to do so.

I support extradition and so do the constituents in Calgary West. We want to see people extradited when they are violating Canadians, that they do not have a safe haven down in La Paz, Mexico. What is wrong with this country, that somebody can go to Mexico and get away from their Canadian responsibilities and obligations to taxpayers here at home.

Extradition ActGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

Liberal

Elinor Caplan Liberal Thornhill, ON

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, the member trivializes a very important debate. I would ask that he address himself to the issues of this important bill which will expedite extradition in this country and ensure that we send a message to all those around the world that Canada will not be a haven for criminals. I ask him to stand and support the bill and stop this nonsense, which is trivializing a very important issue that Canadians care about.

Extradition ActGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

The hon. parliamentary secretary under the guise of a point of order really made a question or comment on the hon. member's speech to which he may reply.

Extradition ActGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

Reform

Rob Anders Reform Calgary West, AB

Mr. Speaker, members bellyache across the way, but I remember in Calgary when we had Charles Ng, a repeat murderer and rapist in the city of Calgary, and this government lollygagged and did nothing to make sure that man went back to serve his time in California.

Albertans and Calgarians know too well the problems with extradition in this land, or expedition in this land, as the hon. member will have it. But it is also wrong for somebody to go down to Mexico and have a safe haven just the same way that there was a safe haven for Charles Ng in my community.

Extradition ActGovernment Orders

12:55 p.m.

Reform

Jay Hill Reform Prince George—Peace River, BC

Mr. Speaker, I find it quite appalling that the parliamentary secretary, who knows the rules very well in this place, would use a bogus point of order to endeavour to ask two questions in a row when other people were standing and wanted to pose questions and comments to my hon. colleague from Calgary West.

I enjoyed very much the member's comments and dissertation on extradition. He raised a very important issue and that is, exactly how bad does it have to get as far as senators hiding out in other lands before we will consider that to be a criminal offence in this country?

Extradition ActGovernment Orders

1 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

Order, please. I think the hon. member knows that is not relevant to the bill before the House.

Extradition ActGovernment Orders

1 p.m.

Reform

Lee Morrison Reform Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK

Mr. Speaker, there is a prominent urologist in my riding. He is a professional of very high standing. He has the misfortune of being a Libyan national. For three years this very fine medical practitioner has been trying to get landed immigrant status in this country. He has been declared clean by CSIS, he has been declared clean by the RCMP, but the people in immigration are still bracing their feet.

Does the hon. member believe that if this physician were a known terrorist or perhaps a fugitive serial rapist that he would have a better chance of staying in Canada?

Extradition ActGovernment Orders

1 p.m.

Reform

Rob Anders Reform Calgary West, AB

Mr. Speaker, that is a good question. The sad thing is that I think my hon. colleague is right.

That prominent urologist would probably have a better chance of staying in this country if he were a serial rapist or a serial killer. The reason for that is sad: it is politics, political intrusion. That is exactly what has happened in situations a number of times. If the government feels it is a hot potato, it does not want to touch it with a 10 foot pole. Even if it were a promise in the red book, a promise in the election and a promise in the leadership campaigns, the government avoids it like a 10-foot pole. It is terrible. The Liberals toss that hot potato around and never deal with it. That is a shame.

I will address the question that was posed to me previously regarding how bad does it have to get. There was a senator who was only serving 2.6% of the time. That senator should have been extradited to Canada to serve his time here. We have other senators who only serve 10% of their time—

Extradition ActGovernment Orders

1 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

Order, please. I am wondering if wild turkey is being served in the lobbies for lunch today. It is Friday afternoon and the House is somewhat unruly. I have urged hon. members to make their questions and comments relevant to the bill before the House and we seem to drift off the topic at every turn.

Perhaps we could now move on. If there is a further question or comment that is relevant to the hon. member's speech and to the bill, I will be glad to entertain that. Otherwise, we will resume debate. Is the House ready for the question?

Extradition ActGovernment Orders

1 p.m.

Some hon. members

Question.

Extradition ActGovernment Orders

1 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

Extradition ActGovernment Orders

1 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

Extradition ActGovernment Orders

1 p.m.

Some hon. members

No.

Extradition ActGovernment Orders

1 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

Extradition ActGovernment Orders

1 p.m.

Some hon. members

Yea.

Extradition ActGovernment Orders

1 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

All those opposed will please say nay.