Don Boudria

[Petitions, February 25th, 1994]

Be quiet.

[Petitions, February 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour and privilege to present, pursuant to Standing Order 36, petitions with regard to the serial killer board game.

The petitions I am tabling today, along with others tabled previously, total some 105,552 signatures, all of them calling for a ban on the importation of this product into Canada.

Allow me to salute the particular contribution of one of my constituents, Mrs. Lina Cléroux, who collected on her own several thousand signatures in order to ban the serial killer board game. Today, I have the honour and the privilege to table those petitions. The grand total of signatures to date is 105,552.

[Point Of Order, February 25th, 1994]

That is not a point of order.

[Excise Act, February 22nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure I understood the analogy the member was trying to draw. If he is insinuating that our ancestors fought for freedom and for respect for law, that is exactly what I am advocating as well.

[Excise Act, February 22nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think there was a question there. Let me add a reality number six or seven to what the member has just said. The reality is that the laws that were there have ceased to be laws because of the negligence of others in the past.

Law and order had to be restored. It was done because it was the right thing to do. Politically correct, my eye, I say this to all my colleagues. When my constituents were being shot at and when people were losing their lives over crummy packages of cigarettes, it was time for governments to do something, and I am proud of it.

[Excise Act, February 22nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I noticed that some hon. members were applauding, but not the hon. member for Argenteuil-Papineau, who, I think, shares some of my feelings regarding the effects of smuggling. He can see these effects from up close in his constituency. Besides, the hon. member who just asked me a question also faces a similar situation.

He talks about the distribution network. It would be very naive to think that this distribution network did not exist in all parts of society before! In my own riding or, without even going that far, how many parliamentarians know that illegal cigarettes were sold right here on Parliament Hill?

In my riding, the day before the Prime Minister made his announcement, I received a phone call from a constituent complaining that the village's local smuggler had just made a delivery to the parish priest's house. It is a sad, very sad statement.

We saw the same thing in another region with the MATRAC group, when similar statements were made by other people in society sharing similar positions. These people did not see themselves as criminals, yet they unknowingly were part of an organized crime network.

[Excise Act, February 22nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I start by congratulating the Solicitor General and the Minister of Health for addressing what was obviously a life and death issue in the constituency I have the honour and privilege to represent in the House. I do not believe I am exaggerating the point when I describe it that way. Over recent years literally dozens of constituents of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell have been murdered or have disappeared as a result of tobacco smuggling and associated crime.

When we talk about the ill effects of tobacco on young people I wonder how many of us have stopped to think of how many times a teenager working in a cornerstore has had his brains blown out so that someone else could steal the cigarettes from the shelves of that store to resell on the contraband market. That is not just in my riding. Unfortunately it has happened several times in this country.

I want to describe the extent of this problem. It was highlighted by another member earlier today. The commissioner of the RCMP said in a letter tabled before the House: "This implies a need to reduce the tax on cigarettes significantly enough to approach parity, thereby eliminating the profit motive for smugglers". In saying that he was telling us the time had arrived whereby we no longer had the choice and this is what we had to do.

It was not always that way. I remember when smuggling was about one-tenth the amount it is now or that it was when these measures were introduced. I remember on November 22, 1991 rising in the House and addressing a question to the previous government.

This is what the then Solicitor General, Hon. Doug Lewis, replied on the subject of smuggling: "Obviously it still exists a certain extent. We are doing everything we can to eliminate it".

That is what was said at that time. In other words. do not bother us. It is not very important. It is no big deal.

The last day Parliament sat before the election again I asked a question. I had asked questions many times. I asked the following and members might think the question was a little dramatic or at least members thought so at the time. In retrospect it certainly was not.

On that occasion, I said the following:

"Almost every night machine gun fire is heard and speedboats are running the rivers at full speed in the dark with their lights turned off pursuing criminal activity. I am not describing life in Sarajevo or Mogadishu. I am describing the practice of tobacco smuggling on the St. Lawrence River near Glengarry in my riding."

I made that statement in the House on June 13, 1993. And I went on to say:

"I want to ask a question of the Solicitor General on the last day of this Parliament. What precisely does the government intend to do to stop this illegal activity which endangers the lives and safety on my constituents? What is he going to do to ensure that we stop losing billions of taxpayers' dollars in this terrible process that is going on right now 50 miles from Parliament Hill?"

Nothing was done. Yes, there was a time when we could have done other things, federal and provincial governments, and in Ontario Mr. Rae could have done something.

For two years the Ontario Provincial Police detachment at Lancaster, a stone's throw from Lake St. Francis, was closed at night. Only after I raised it publicly was the police station reopened last November. Imagine that. The police station in the area where all the criminal activity is taking place shuts down at night, courtesy of Bob Rae's cutbacks. That is what happened. He self-righteously said before the media last week and the week before he did not know this was a problem in Ontario and

that it was a regional problem in Quebec, as he or Mr. Laughren put it. Those statements were a little less than totally honest. He knew of the problem.

My colleagues from western Canada will know of the report on tobacco smuggling by the Mackenzie Institute. All of them have received copies of the report. It explains to what extent this criminal activity has gone on. If members have not received it I will gladly provide them with copies.

Everything we hear today and have heard for the last weeks in this House the Mackenzie Institute has been telling us for months. However members were not listening. This government has listened. For three years I and others tried to get the previous government to act for the safety and security of Canadians and for the respect of the law and nothing was done. Within three months the new government did something and I am proud of it.

Some people claim tobacco smuggling is a victimless crime. I want to read what Claude McIntosh, the associate editor of the Standard Freeholder of Cornwall, wrote on July 3, 1993. He was citing examples of victims of smuggling. He wrote the following:

A Cornwall welfare recipient switched to a supplier selling cartons $1 cheaper than his previous supplier. His old supplier, fearful of losing other "accounts", paid him a visit. During the conversation he had his arm broken in an "accident". He went back to the previous supplier. Welfare recipients are soft because they are: 1) more willing to take the chance, and 2) available night and day.

Listen to this one about young people. A teacher ordered a disruptive student out of the classroom. On his way out the student reached into his pocket, pulled out a wad of bills and sneered: "I don't need your education". The student works as a runner in one of the cigarette smuggling cartels with the potential to earn more in six months than the teacher does in a year.

That is the reality of smuggling. For those who wish to put their heads in the sand and think that is not a reality, well they are wrong.

What kind of message does it give to our young people when the one who is smuggling cigarettes and selling them in schools drives around in a corvette while the rest of the students walk home at night? We are concerned about young people.

The social contract has crumbled. When 60 to 70 per cent of cigarettes are sold illegally, as it is the case in Quebec-35 per cent in Ontario, very close to 100 per cent in my riding and as much as 25 to 30 per cent in Western Canada-I tell you that the social contract has crumbled in that respect and that we have returned to the so-called hobbesean state of nature: Every man for himself.

Life is brutish and short, as Thomas Hobbes put it. That is not the kind of society we want. We have to restore that social contract. The way of doing that was to take every action necessary, all governments together in concert. The federal government and the Government of Quebec did it. The Government of Ontario was dragged in kicking and screaming in order to do that which it should have done in the beginning. Nevertheless it has done so now.

There is another article from the Standard Freeholder . It was written by Claudia Peel on February 16, 1994 and is entitled: ``Smuggling is down to a trickle'':

The volume of black market cigarettes moving through this region has dropped significantly since the federal government's crackdown on smuggling began one week ago today.

OPP Det. Insp. Chris Lewis said police have seized some smuggled smokes since the federal anti-smoking plan went into effect last Wednesday. But the volume of contraband seized in the past week has been "quite a bit less" than police have been accustomed to seizing in a seven-day period.

As you can see, Mr. Speaker, action was required. I do not even have time to get into the whole issue of contraband, which thrives on illegality and leads to smuggling not only cigarettes but also drugs, alcohol and the likes.

Whether we come from western Canada, Ontario or elsewhere, whether we are separatists, sovereigntists or federalists, I think that we all have the same interests. In our society, we want laws to be obeyed. What was done had to be done. And to conclude, I congratulate the government, because that action was necessary and was taken. I hope that we will soon be able to say that we have managed to eliminate this evil that is preying upon our society.

[Supply, February 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I hate to put it this way but I am going to repeat this slowly.

The motion today asked the government to change the rule of the House-this is the first thing that is wrong with it-in order for us to have a vote on petitions. There is already such a mechanism and many members have availed themselves of the privilege of putting motions before the House-everyone except Reform Party MPs.

If they need any help with drafting those motions I will gladly go across and give them a hand.

[Supply, February 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague reminds me that the electors of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell were kind enough to send me here with a substantial majority. We are equal as members, whether elected by one vote or two votes or whether the majority was larger, as I was fortunate enough to have received in the last election. Once we are here we are all equal and I recognize that.

I made the case to the House and to the member that there exists a procedure right now through which the content of any petition can become votable through a motion. There is not one motion on the Order Paper in the name of any Reform Party MP. I have a copy of the Order Paper in front of me. It has six motions by the member for Richelieu who is a Bloc Quebecois member, one from the member for Winnipeg North, one from your humble servant from Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, two from the member for Kamloops, one from the member for Laurier-Sainte-Marie, one from the member for Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing, and one from the member for Anjou-Rivière-des-Prairies. None of those ridings is represented by the Reform Party.

[Supply, February 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am perfectly aware of the fact that no vote was sought, although the opposition has the right to seek votes on any opposition motion. Such a vote would be a vote of confidence.

Second, it is not a matter of whether the motion itself is out of order. Of course it is not out of order. As a matter of fact, placing the words "consider the advisability" in any motion makes it virtually always in order. As one who has proposed a number of motions when I sat across the way, whenever in doubt include the words "consider the advisability" and one will be pretty well always safe, as the Speaker will know.

By including words like that it is obviously not out of order. That does not mean that the motion is worthy of support or that its contents are appropriate or that they are those which should be adopted by the government or by the House or anyone else.

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