Sarkis Assadourian

[Immigration Act, February 6th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I suppose I could start by wishing everyone a happy 1995. I wish everyone prosperity.

In this House sometimes we educate others, sometimes we get educated from discussions such as this. I welcome this opportunity to discuss Bill C-44 today in this House.

I was watching television on January 16 which happens to be Martin Luther King's birthday in the United States. In one of his speeches he said that a first class nation deserves first class citizens. This bill calls for Canada being a first class nation, which it has been called for the last two years by the United Nations. This is a first class bill for first class citizens, especially those who are new arrivals in this country. They know they are going to start a new life with their family in this new country which they have adopted.

I was following the comments of both of the opposition parties, the Bloc Quebecois and the Reform Party. Obviously the Bloc Quebecois is telling us that we are not going far enough. I know its point of view because it sits with us on the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. The Reform Party spokesman said that it does not go far enough. We are confused as to how far to go to satisfy the Bloc or how far to go to satisfy the Reform Party. That is why as good Liberals we always support the middle ground because the middle ground is where

the average Canadian's mentality rests. That is where average Canadians want us to be.

When we talk about immigration we always refer to negative things, the cup is always half empty. Let us look at the positive side of immigration.

Earlier I asked my colleague if he could give us the number for the 24,000 deportees which he mentioned. He could not give me a number. I would think the number is not more than 625. For 625 criminal refugees it is fair not to raise the figure to 24,000. It gives the impression that immigrants are all criminals, that they all have criminal records or that they intend to commit a crime when they adopt Canada as their new homeland.

This bill makes six basic points. Earlier the Reform Party spokesman said that this is a good bill but does not go far enough. As was mentioned earlier, the job of the opposition is to oppose. That is what it is paid for. We on this side are paid to put forward programs, which we are doing. The six points that were mentioned by the hon. member go far enough.

We should not take the approach that we are going to build a cement wall like the Berlin wall against refugees coming in, saying that anybody coming in from a certain part of the world is a criminal or intends to commit a crime in this country. That is not the way we do business in Canada. That is not the way we do business in western society.

I am sure the member agrees with me that we cannot put police officers with machine guns at every step of the way who will say: "You look different than I do, so you had better stay out because you look like a criminal to me". We cannot do that.

The hon. member from the Bloc Quebecois says that he hopes after this bill is passed that someone will challenge this bill in the courts. I hope they will because we want to do the best we can. We want to make sure that we become first class citizens in this first class country.

That is the responsibility we have and we take it very seriously. I hope they will share that responsibility with us and support the bill. If there are improvements or suggestions to be made, we should do that as we go along. The system allows that to be done. For the time being we should support this bill because it is the best we can do under the circumstances.

Before we arrived at this bill we had one year of consultations. I know the Bloc Quebecois says that consultations were not good enough because of a, b, c or d. The Reform Party says they were not good enough because x, y or z and because 29 million people did not have a chance to come forward to speak.

In my riding I organized two or three meetings to talk about immigration. People spoke up. Some said yes and some said no. Some said it was good policy and others said it was bad policy.

I sent out questionnaires and 1,100 people responded. I passed those questionnaires on to the minister. I am happy to say that most of the concerns presented to me by my constituents are addressed in this bill.

I am very happy to support this bill. I will do whatever I can to support this bill because it is important. We must have it because we have to go forward and be forward looking. We cannot be negative on everything new planned by this government.

[Immigration Act, February 6th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I go back to my second question about 24,000 deportees. I would appreciate if in the near future the hon. member would look into the numbers and report to this House the exact number of criminals. He says there are 24,000. Maybe he can tell this House how many criminal deportees he is referring to.

[Immigration Act, February 6th, 1995]

Call them Canadians.

[Occupational Safety, December 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development. Every year on the job accidents cost the government and the economy about $10 billion. In these times of fiscal restraint it is important to find ways to cut costs.

What action is the minister taking to eliminate waste and cut on the job accidents which currently total about $10 billion a year?

[Petitions, December 13th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, this petition was signed by 300 Canadian citizens.

The undersigned residents of the province of Saskatchewan draw the attention of the House to section 745 of the Criminal Code of Canada wherein convicted murders sentenced to life imprisonment without chance of parole for 25 years are able to apply for a review after 15 years.

Whereas the murder of a Canadian citizen is a most reprehensible crime, the petitioners request that Parliament repeal section 745 of the Criminal Code of Canada.

[Immigration Act, October 31st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I assumed from reading the motion that my hon. colleague wants to stop immigrants from coming into Canada when they test positive for HIV.

Today, the way the laws of the land stand, we have testing for all kinds of viruses and the medical doctors decide who gets in. I do not think we in the House have outlined the facts as to how much it costs in each and every situation. Who can decide who can come in and who cannot? It could be tomorrow that the HIV test or the medication will cost $10,000. Some might argue that is too much. Even a cost of $5,000 some could argue is too much. Where do we draw the line on how much is effective?

For that purpose the government has a law already in place so medical officers can decide who can be and who cannot be admitted to Canada on medical grounds. Also the government is reviewing the extensive information it has on HIV and will announce a decision soon about HIV cases in Canada.

Our policies have to reflect the social structures, health systems and justice system we have in Canada. Otherwise it will be disastrous for us and it will be one sided. We cannot afford to have that. Misinformation and misunderstandings about HIV are very dangerous elements that we face today. I hope in the near future the government completes its investigation and studies and comes up with a policy that will satisfy the concerns of everyone in the House and of the population at large. We take care of our own citizens first and we are compassionate enough to allow others to come into the country.

The best hope we have is to come up with a solution for HIV. I think that would make everyone happy. I suggest we keep things as they are for the time being and allow the system to work. We need medical discoveries, medical approaches and information so that we can make wise decisions on the issue. Otherwise there is nothing stopping us from coming up with a motion next week that says anybody who has cancer should not be allowed in because cancer costs too much to treat. Just about every disease in the world costs money to treat.

Where do we draw the line? Where do we start and where do we end? Since we do not know that, I am unable to make a decision on who should be admitted and who should not. On that basis I oppose the motion and wait for the government to come up with a solution after researching the matter carefully and checking the track record of the last five years so we know the expenses we are talking about for HIV.

[Firearm Acquisition Certificate, October 26th, 1994]

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

The fee for a firearm acquisition certificate is $50. However, the real cost of processing an FAC in metro Toronto is $180. What measures will the minister be taking to reduce the administrative costs of FACs in metro Toronto?

[Social Security Program, October 24th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to see the United Nations continues to demonstrate our position to the rest of the world: Canada is the best country in the world in which to live.

When was the last time the government gave the opposition a chance to discuss social policy reform? When was the last time any reform policy met the approval of 91 per cent of the population? When was the last time one year after coming to power a Prime Minister enjoyed 42 per cent popular support, personal support? When was the last time the opposition leader received only 7 per cent popular support?

Obviously, that says something about the good job the government is doing.

This morning I was in my riding of Don Valley North. We just had the ground breaking ceremonies for one of the projects that will create jobs in my riding. It is one of four projects and it will create about 111 brand new jobs. These people will have food on their tables. They will be able to feed their children, not go on welfare or UI. That is the job the government is doing to provide Canadians better opportunities and a better future.

The previous government had a committee, as was referred to earlier, which was to redefine poverty, especially poverty among children. The way the committee wanted to do it was to redefine the whole income process so, poof, in one sentence it would take away 50 per cent of poverty among children. That is not the way we are going to do business. We want to listen to other Canadians so they have a positive input and not be negative about Canada. We want to change the system the best way we know how. That is how we are going to do it.

I have not heard anything from hon. members opposite that is positive about Canada, always negative and negative. I want to repeat my colleague's statement, they always see the glass half empty. We see the glass half full and we are going to fill it all the way up.

[Canada Elections Act, September 27th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I want to take a few minutes to respond to some of the questions and points put forward by the opposition members.

First of all, the member from the Bloc Quebecois says the bill is not democratic. I do not understand what his definition of democracy means. If he means democracy is decided by 25 per cent of the population, certainly he is right. Democracy for me means the majority of the population.

He also accuses this bill of being Draconian. I wonder which is more Draconian, the bill itself or the intention of the opposition party here today to separate Quebec from Canada. The answer is very simple. All you have to do is walk around the country and find out how Canadians feel.

My colleague from the Reform Party said that the bill restricts individuals from running for any political office. That is not true. You can run for a political party or a political office, whatever you want. Nobody can take that away from you. That is in the charter. What I am saying in this bill is you cannot be recognized as an official party during the campaign.

I never said the nation's capital must be in Ontario. I said this nation has one capital. That capital happens to be Ottawa. Ottawa happens to be in Ontario. So I invite the federal parties to join us and other parties by bringing their headquarters to Ottawa.

Recently there was a property for sale. The NDP was selling its national headquarters. I hope one of the parties will take advantage of that and purchase the property so it could be here.

I have one more point. If anybody is worried about our representation to this House, we won election in October 1993 by 41 or 42 per cent. Today we are 60 per cent. Obviously we are doing something right. People in the west, people in the east and in central Canada approve of our position. We are very happy for it. We thank them and will continue to provide the best government we have ever had in the last 127 years.

[Canada Elections Act, September 27th, 1994]

moved that Bill C-229, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act (registration of political parties), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, first I wish to thank the House for allowing me this opportunity to speak on Bill C-229. I also want to say that I am a bit disappointed that this bill will only have one hour of debate and will not have a chance to be voted on. However, that is how the system works and that is what we have to live with.

Before I speak about the changes I want to apply with Bill C-229, I want to briefly describe to members of the House the present situation existing in the Canada Elections Act.

The law reads that if 50 candidates are nominated in any region of the country they qualify as a national party. That is a very narrow definition of the law. It has to increase in order for democracy to work.

The changes I would like applied to the act are the following: first, to be a national party, that party should be running candidates in seven provinces at least. Second, representation should be from 50 per cent of the population of Canada. Third, 50 per cent of the candidates should be from each of the seven provinces in order to qualify as a national party.

In last October's election we had 15 political parties running for office. At the top of the list were the two national parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals who had 295 candidates nominated, next were the NDP, followed by the Natural Law Party of Canada which nominated 231 candidates, and the lowest party was the Marxist-Leninist Party which nominated 51 candidates.

Some people will argue that Bill C-229 restricts Canadians from practising their right to become a candidate or to form a political party. This is far from being true. In effect, what this bill does is it allows people in all regions of the country to participate in the change. For example let us take one of the principles of this bill. It states that the party must run 50 per cent of its candidates in seven provinces in accordance to population.

Today in the House we have an opposition party that ran 75 candidates in only one province. Out of the 75 candidates it won 54 seats and became the official opposition. By tradition the official opposition is the government in waiting and the leader of the official opposition is to be the Prime Minister in waiting. Can you imagine this country and this House which has a political party whose sole purpose is to break up this country and a Prime Minister in waiting whose sole purpose is to implement that break-up? That is not democracy.

I live in Ontario. I am the member for Don Valley North. People in Don Valley North never had a chance to vote on who the opposition is in this House. That is not democracy. We in Ontario have the right to decide, as much as the people in Quebec have the right to decide, who will be the opposition party. People in B.C. have the same right as do the people on the

east coast. The way it is, this right is denied to the citizens of this land.

Two opposition parties is the way it is today. One of them is headquartered in Quebec City claiming to be a national party. The other party is headquartered in Calgary again claiming to be a national party. If a national party is to be in this House of Commons, their headquarters should be located in the nation's capital in order to facilitate their activities.

Seventy-five per cent of Canadians did not participate in choosing this opposition party. It is only fair that we would also be asked. Twenty-five per cent of the population in this case should not decide the opposition party of this House.

When I was campaigning in the 1993 election campaign I saw a big sign, 4 by 8, in front of the Reform Party candidate's headquarters which said: "We will run the country the way we run the campaign". The Reform Party ran the campaign without Quebec.

I am very happy that Reformers are thinking of expanding into Quebec. This is very good and I commend them for it. I also hope that with the changes I am proposing in this bill the Bloc Quebecois will have a chance to run candidates in other provinces, in other regions, next time around. I am sure they are going to be here and I hope to be here so we can have constructive discussion about the future of our country.

I return to the point I made about the 15 political parties that ran in this election. One of the benefits of being a national party is that you get reimbursement from the federal government.

For example the Conservative Party spent $10,398,101. They received $2,339,752.72. The Canada Party had the lowest expenditures in the last election campaign and had 56 candidates. They spent $172.72.

Surely today's opposition party spent more than $172. Surely it can spend more than that in order to have a proper opposition, a good opposition in this House, so the system can work and function.

Without implementing these changes I think we will lose the unity of this country.

I want to conclude my remarks for the time being, but pick up again toward the end. If we intend to have strong central government we have to change the law in order to achieve it. When we change the law we can achieve a united, indivisible Canada.