John O'Reilly

[Firefighters' Pensions, May 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I want to perhaps bring a little levity to the debate in a short time. In my former life I spent six years as a part time firefighter with Lindsay Fire and Ambulance. Believe me, it is a very dangerous and time consuming job. I could go into many stories, which I am sure the people in the gallery have all heard, about roofs collapsing, barns burning and all the things I faced as a firefighter. It is a profession in which every time a bell sounds one's life is on the line. For that reason I fully support the motion.

I want to assure the opposition that I have been one of the lobbyists for the firefighters. I have talked to the finance minister. He has given me his commitment that he would deal with it expeditiously. I believe him to be a man of his word. I think this will go ahead. I think all party support for the motion will push it forward. We have been lobbying on behalf of the association, on behalf of ourselves and on behalf of the member for Dufferin--Peel--Wellington--Grey on Motion No. 326.

I would just like to let the House know that for other people here, and maybe there are other firefighters in this place, I am not sure, I have to say that I do not think members could support anything that would give them any greater satisfaction. I want to bring that to the attention of members.

In my former life, I was also a finance chair of a municipality. Of course in all provinces, every contract, benefit, wage and everything that comes before a municipality is part of the collective agreement system. I do not think we are lacking the knowledge that there will be an extra burden of financial hardship in municipalities in some cases, but I think this is where we spend the money. This is where we get the best results. When we get down to asking firefighters to do what they do, we have to ask ourselves if we are doing what we should be doing to assist them. As a former firefighter, I want to bring that to the attention of members.

[Business of the House, May 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak to Bill C-55. I had been prepared to speak to Bill C-42 at one time. I am pleased the bill has been withdrawn, changed and critiqued.

I will take this opportunity to go over what the Minister of National Defence stated today and what we believe to be significant improvements in the bill. Recent events continue to show that the security environment in Canada has changed significantly. The measures contained in Bill C-55 would improve the ability of the Canadian forces to protect Canadians and respond to the new threats.

It is clear that the government has listened to Canadians in terms of what they wanted changed. The government has also listened carefully not only to its own caucus and backbench but to the opposition. The new public safety act, 2002 has taken into account the concerns expressed about the previous Bill C-42. When opposition members study the new bill they will realize it is an improvement and that it tries to address the problems.

I will deal specifically with the amendments to the National Defence Act. They are a logical continuation of the amendments contained in the Anti-terrorism Act which received royal assent in December 2001. Sober second thought has prevailed and we now have time to look at the terrorist threat and highlight some of the changes.

One of the amendments deals with controlled military access zones. It is the amendment everyone is trying to read something into whether it is there or not. It would replace military security zones with controlled access military zones. The new zones would be limited to the protection of Canadian forces and visiting forces personnel or property. Contrary to what other members have said, the zones would be strictly for the protection of our military and the military of our allies. They are not intended and would not be used for other purposes, plain and simple. They would be temporary. Any extension of a designated zone for more than a year would require the approval of governor in council.

After the USS Cole was attacked by terrorists in a harbour in Yemen I came to the conclusion that there was no control. I could also point to a recent visit to Halifax harbour by an American aircraft carrier which was so big it had to stay in the outer harbour. Let us imagine that. The boat was 28 storeys high. Its landing surface was four and a half acres. It was a huge piece of military equipment creating a tourist attraction in itself.

If we allow huge military craft and vast numbers of personnel into our harbours, whether on the west coast or the east coast, they must be protected. We must allow the designation of zones to protect them. It is only prudent. We do not have that now. We have it in civil law but not military law. That is important.

Bill C-55 also contains amendments for notification and publication of the designation of zones. This would make Canada a more reliable international partner and at the same time address concerns about the extent to which the zones could be used for non-military purposes. Obviously we are talking about military purposes and terrorist activity. The zones would protect visiting aircraft whether at an air show in Trenton, a harbour in Halifax or Cold Lake, Alberta. When people visiting from other countries want to be assured they have protection we must be able to offer it whether it is in military or civilian areas.

The second part of the bill relating to the military would improve on the amendments in Bill C-42 regarding the ability of Canadian forces to protect their computer systems and networks and the data they contain. The proposed amendments are now consistent with the amendments contained in Bill C-36 for other government agencies. We should keep in mind that the Department of National Defence operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week in many countries of the world and therefore it must be protected during that time.

Certainly that means there are limits. The Department of National Defence would only interpret communications that would prevent harmful, unauthorized use or interference with DND and CF computer systems and networks and the data they contain. It is vital we protect it.

A key role of these systems and the networks is the daily operation of the Canadian forces anywhere in the world in conjunction with our allies. Because of the fact that these systems and networks are targeted by our enemies and hackers, they require the Canadian forces to have the ability to protect these systems 24 hours a day, seven days a week anywhere in the world. The amendment would allow that. It is a fairly simple amendment.

The third part is the reserve military judges panel. The amendment contained in Bill C-55, modified from Bill C-42, would establish a reserve military judges panel. This panel would provide the chief military judge with access to appropriately qualified reserve force officers who have previously performed military judicial duties. It would also provide the military judiciary with the necessary flexibility to meet any increased demands placed on the military justice system. They can be quite relevant.

It is important that Bill C-55 adds the word voluntary in relation to a panel member ceasing to be an officer of the reserves. This change would enhance institutional independence by ensuring that a panel member who involuntarily ceases to be an officer of the reserves would only have his or her name removed from the panel after a recommendation has been made by an inquiry committee.

The government has made a clear and concise commitment to fight terrorism and protect the safety and security of Canadians. The areas I touched on further enhance the ability of the Government of Canada, the Department of National Defence and the Canadian forces to protect Canadians from terrorism while ensuring the rights and privacy of individuals.

I encourage all members to support the bill, to get it into committee and ask questions. That is where committee work will come into play, when expert witnesses are called and people are allowed to ask questions.

Members previously touched on compensation. I know the right to sue would be withheld, but anyone suffering loss or damage as a result of a controlled access military zone would be compensated from the consolidated revenue fund.

I believe the enforcement of controlled military zones would involve a range of items such as erecting fences or barriers and the removal of unauthorized persons from controlled access military zones. Any person who is removed from a controlled zone would be turned over to the appropriate civil authorities, be tried in a civilian court, and if charges were laid be entitled to all due process under civilian law. Section 288 of part eight within Bill C-55 offers trial by civil courts.

Most of the concerns of the members have been summed up. I am anxious to see the bill discussed in committee, for all members to have input into it, to bring expert witnesses forward to explain every portion of it and to make sure that it is examined with a fine toothed comb to ensure everything that is of concern to members will be looked after.

[Committees of the House, April 17th, 2002]

The Prime Minister did a fundraising dinner for you.

[Committees of the House, April 17th, 2002]

I was in the reserves then.

[Species at Risk Act, April 16th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I want to follow in my colleague's footsteps because he made some valuable points about the legislation. The facts are a little different from what the member has said. Of course what the House of Commons is all about is being able to stand and talk about the differences we have and the various political philosophies. Certainly this bill is one which draws out the differences.

My riding is the second largest riding in southern Ontario. If we put it with the riding of Hastings--Frontenac--Lennox and Addington we would have a third of the land in southern Ontario. It is a large agricultural based riding with 44 municipalities, 24 Santa Claus parades and 18 cenotaph services so I think I can talk for rural Ontario.

Rural Ontario is much like the west. We have the alienation of being 80 miles from Toronto, the CN Tower and so forth. There are some similarities between rural Ontario and the west. I have figured it out. Apparently when someone moves out west and buys a pair of Boulet cowboy boots and puts them on, he or she immediately feels western alienation. It is the French made cowboy boots that do it. I have a couple of pairs that I wear in the riding.

Due to the fact that I do come from a large agricultural riding, I have consulted with ranchers, farmers, trappers and the various people who make their living off the land. I was at the dairy farmers banquet on Saturday night and we dealt with this subject. What I explained to them and what I talked to everyone about is that somewhere along the line the government has to govern. It cannot go along leaving gaping holes in the species at risk act as things that cannot be addressed. We have to address them. Somewhere along the line the government in power has to come to the realization that something has to be done.

The member across the way talked about the burrowing owl. I know that if a groundhog tried to take over the trees we would probably do something different with it than we would do with the burrowing owl.

We do have land that is at risk. We do have species that are at risk. We do have the responsibility as a government to make sure that some of the items that are in the bill are brought forward and are acted on by the government. That is what a government is for. It has to govern whether the opposition members like it or not.

Members of the opposition will continue to try to talk this bill out and hopefully earn some brownie points by passing a speech back and forth to each other. I do not know how that works, but I admire them for their tenacity and tell them to keep going. We finally may have an opposition. I have not seen one since I came here.

The species at risk act has been nine years in the making. Nine years seems like a long enough time to put forward policies, different words and a cumulative process to bring forward informed policy. Not everyone will like the act and not everyone will be against it.

Today I met with real estate people from my riding. They have an issue with compensation. I fully agree with them. If someone's land is to be taken out of production, he or she should be compensated. I think we will find support for that particular item.

For instance, if someone takes out a loan with Farm Credit Corporation and a certain number of acres are needed in order to qualify for the loan, if some of that area is taken out of production, does it still remain part of the overall package?

Those are questions that have to be addressed and they are addressed through some of the revisions. We have revisions, changes, studies and refinements and each time the legislation has been brought back, the government listens a little more.

We talk to fishers, farmers, ranchers, resource companies, conservationists and environmentalists. I think I have spoken with most of them because my riding covers large operations. There are 27 commodity groups in the agricultural area I come from.

There was a demonstration. The grains and oilseeds people are in trouble right across Canada but particularly in Ontario because the Ontario government has not come up with its portion of the allotment that farmers need in order to be equal to the farmers in Quebec. Quebec gets the same amount of money on a proportional basis as Ontario. It is just that Ontario does not spend it. Some of the government policies have to be reviewed and we hope the new government in Ontario will do so.

There were 334 motions during the clause by clause review of this particular piece of legislation. There were 125 amendments made to the bill and 75 of those are supported by the government. I think that is progress. An opposition member cannot get everything. The minister will respond to the 75 amendments that were made which will make the legislation much more secure.

As we go through the bill and study it clause by clause, as a good Liberal government should, to make sure all areas are covered, all items are studied and re-examined and various people are consulted. We do not take sides. We do not hang our hat on one particular lobby group that is perhaps well paid to get some section through. We have to look at all aspects, particularly when we consider the various segments of the population that are affected, whether it is people in the dry cleaning business or people who are ranchers.

I was quite pleased to announce this week that I managed to get a $12,000 grant for a school in my riding that will rehabilitate the creek bed leading into Lake Simcoe along one of the valuable tributaries. There will be some tree planting and shoreline development. A couple of settlement ponds will be built for cattle to drink from so the stream will not be polluted. These are very worthwhile projects. It will benefit Brock township, which is in my riding. It will benefit the area. It will benefit the environment. It will teach young people to be land stewards and to actually see what can be done to save the environment.

I encourage members opposite to apply for these grants or to get organizations in their ridings to apply for them. They cannot complain about not getting them if they do not apply. I do not seem to have any opposition in getting them. I have the highest number of grants. It is only because I encourage people to apply. It is not anything I do. I do not take credit for them, but I do push them on this end. If nobody on the other side is competing with me, then obviously I will take everything I can for my riding. My riding benefits from it and that is the way it works. We have to become involved.

We work our way through that program, through the Haliburton game and fish farms and the various things we deal with. A representative from the Haliburton Real Estate Board was at my door today to talk about compensation. I fully agree with him. In my former life I was a real estate broker. In fact I am still a real estate broker; I am just on hold.

Moving along to the bill, there are a large number of species at risk and we have to review them, not just in the context of a burrowing owl or some other species that might be at risk. We are also looking at how we can deal with wetlands. It used to be that farmers would find the worst piece of wetland and use it as a dump. The township would dump all its trash there because it was wet and nobody could use it. Now the wetlands are being cleaned up.

A grant for $650,000 just went to Sir Sandford Fleming College in my riding. The college is developing an ecosystem that will treat all the brown water, all the various pollutants. It will be of great benefit to everyone in the House to copy that type of plan and see that things can be done with land that is reserved for various parts of society, whether it is wetlands or the Carden plains, the Carden Alvar in my riding where people deal with the expansion of quarries and what to do with the waste water from them.

Liberals are more than happy to speak to the bill. However we want to talk about the positive things in the bill, the things that make Canada a better country in which to live, things that make my riding a better place in which to live, and make all provinces and territories equally benefit from this very good piece of legislation along with the amendments.

[Criminal Code, March 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, let me sum up by saying that the department is committed to improving the level of environmental awareness throughout the department and the Canadian forces through environmental awareness training and to encouraging and recognizing the actions of personnel that have a positive impact on the environment.

Since 1992 the department has had a dedicated funding program in place to deal with major environmental issues facing DND and the Canadian forces. Between 1992 and 2000, $400 million was allocated to this program, the majority of which went to clean up contaminated sites.

[Criminal Code, March 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, sustaining and protecting the environment as well as human life are priorities for the Department of National Defence.

The Tracadie Range was used for various military purposes from 1939 until its closure in 1994. The Department of National Defence agreed to transfer the Tracadie Range to the province of New Brunswick in 1997. The agreement stated:

All environmental contamination...will be remediated or cleaned up by the Department of National Defence at its own risk and expense in a timely fashion.

The agreement clearly demonstrates the Department of National Defence's commitment to assuming its responsibilities with respect to environmental matters. The overall aim of the cleanup work is to allow the re-utilization of the site for forestry and blueberry cultivation as well as recreation and tourism.

A five year plan for ammunitions related areas cleanup of unexploded ordnance was also established and was completed in summer 2001. Thus far, the department has already spent $20 million at the Tracadie Range.

With respect to the putative presence of PCBs and Agent Orange on the site last year, which my hon. colleague referred to in his question, an investigation conducted last June showed no contaminants above provincial guidelines. Moreover, the barrels that were found on the site and mistaken for Agent Orange were indeed orange in colour but full of holes, indicating their use for target practice, not for the storage of toxic contaminants. In this case, as in many others, the Department of National Defence responded promptly.

The Department of National Defence is well aware of the environmental impact of its past and present activities and is committed to addressing environmental issues across Canada in a proactive manner. The Department of National Defence takes its public safety responsibilities very seriously. It has always had an open relationship with local residents, consulting and working with them to respond to their concerns. We also have a close working relationship with Environment Canada and provincial officials and we ensure that all our activities comply with provincial standards and regulations.

As one of the federal government's largest landholders, with responsibility for more than 20,000 square kilometres of land, DND remains deeply committed to minimizing the impact of its activities and operations on the environment. The department's first sustainable development strategy was tabled in 1997. Building on this strategy, in February 2001 the department tabled a new strategy that further took into account the input of an array of stakeholders from inside the defence team, other government departments, non-government organizations and our allies.

The new sustainable development strategy demonstrates our continuing commitment to integrating environment considerations into all the department's activities and practices. A commitment to sustainable development, to the implementation of an environmental management system that is comparable with the International Organization for Standardization, better known as ISO 14001, and to the code of environmental stewardship are all integral components of the defence environmental policy. In accordance with the code of environmental stewardship, the department will integrate environmental concerns into all its activities.

I want to thank the member for Acadie--Bathurst for bringing this forward. I hope we have been able to clarify some of his concerns, that is, there is no Agent Orange or other contaminant on the site.

[Supply, March 12th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I always listen with great interest to my colleague from Winnipeg--Transcona. He always adds a lot to the debate in the depth and wisdom that he has.

We are in a period where the opposition is in disarray. It cannot seem to get its act together, and leadership contests may be interfering with it. This type of motion by the PC/DR coalition is probably one of the failures of the opposition because it is so broad that one could actually get up and talk on almost anything, as the member so rightly said.

When will we talk about addressing security issues? No one, to my knowledge, other than perhaps the member for Saint-Jean, has indicated anything about defence. This is where a lot of our responses to the terrorist activities are taking place.

We should be very proud of our response. We were one of the first nations to commit to the American coalition. We committed five ships, four transport aircraft, two patrol aircraft, an element of JTF2, a battle group and a fifth ship, the HMCS Ottawa , currently en route to the Arabian Sea, and more than 2,500 men and women from the Canadian forces deployed in Operation Apollo.

We are putting our deeds into action. The government has made it clear that Canada will stand with its allies in fighting terrorism. We are making progress in that mission to identify and defend against terrorists. We are degrading their network, bringing them to justice, and working to improve humanitarian situations that exist in Afghanistan.

Could the hon. member take some time to comment on that because that is something that all Canadians want to know about and all Canadians are very proud of.

Although there was no military involvement in the terrorism, it was a matter of hijacking aircraft and crashing them into buildings that set it off, it was an act of terrorism. In response to that, a lot of the good work that is being done by Canada is being done outside of Canada. Our military involvement is something that we should be proud of. I wonder if the member could comment on that.

[Question No.100—, March 1st, 2002]

I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.

[Questions on the Order Paper, March 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, Question No. 100 will be answered today.