Ghislain Lebel

[Supply, December 8th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to thank the hon. member for Saint-Léonard for participating in the current debate taking place in Quebec, this in spite of his views. He is acting like a true politician, as well as a solid and honest man, and I commend him for that.

However, I find that the hon. member is too easily outraged. I guess customs change with the times. Government members have been using the word democracy all day.

But remember the unilateral patriation of the Constitution. That was not the work of angels. It was done in 1982, by the Liberals opposite. Back then, they were proud of their democracy. The current Prime Minister, who is from Quebec, was the one behind that dirty job on Quebecers. What happened? It is very simple. They did not try to shaft Quebec. With his typical smile, which has become his trademark, he said: But we still got them, did we not? Just like a kid who did something bad.

The Liberals were not scandalized back in 1981. I remember Mr. Lévesque saying to these people, the day after the night of the long knives, that their rejoicing at Quebec's expense would end some day. Indeed, that rejoicing just might end very soon.

We mentioned the patriation of the Constitution. It goes without saying that this was not Canadian federalism's finest hour. René Lévesque was not impressed; he was no more impressed than the hon. member for Saint-Léonard is now when he talks about being forced to move.

At the Bélanger-Campeau Commission, the Bloquistes and the separatists did not have the upper hand. Yet, you were not upset by the undemocratic structure of that commission. You remained very quiet. Who took part in the 1982 coup, the unilateral patriation? At the time, you had relegated democracy to some dark place where the sun does not shine.

Madam Speaker, such a figure of speech is not unparliamentary.

Quebecers, including the hon. member for Saint-Léonard, are invited to a sort of summit. They are asked to give their views on the issue. Anything can be amended in this draft bill, which contains 17 clauses.

The preamble will be decided by Quebecers. I do not remember being consulted on the preamble of the Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in 1982. Democracy works only if you agree with the Liberal Party. Then it is democracy at play and the Liberals can have anything done to Quebec, usually by a Quebecer, because it does not look quite as bad. In fact, we know who their hatchet man is; he is not here today, but we know who he is.

It is now up to Quebecers to speak up and even draft the preamble of this historic draft bill.

Maybe he did not realize it, but the hon. member for Saint-Léonard just scored a point for the federalists. I congratulate him on it, but I wish he would not say that the process is undemocratic. I think the members on the other side of the House should be the last ones to talk about democracy.

Look what they did to democracy in the famous Bill C-22 on Pearson Airport; look what they do to democracy in Bill C-62 which was introduced so innocuously and which the government will use to give away huge chunks of federal operations to its friends, probably the same people who were involved in the

Pearson Airport deal. Since the government can no longer subsidize its friends, it gives away chunks of government operations. Democracy? I say to the hon. member for Saint-Léonard that this has nothing to do with democracy.

I want to know something. You know that democracy also includes the right not to get involved. Some communities may decide not to take my advice, not to get involved, and not to contribute to the process. If they choose not to take part, it will not make me cry. I will respect their right, because it is their most basic right not to get involved.

But I still want to stress that they are welcome to participate in this debate, if they live in Quebec, of course. I hope that members opposite will have the magnanimity to respect their cultural communities, especially French-speaking communities outside Quebec, which will not be included in the debate either.

To conclude, I just want to say that I am deeply offended to hear our process being called undemocratic, especially by some of the big names in the Liberal Party who were here in 1982.

[Supply, December 8th, 1994]

No, you are not invited.

[Supply, December 8th, 1994]

Not you.

[Supply, December 8th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, can the hon. minister explain in what respect the Charlottetown process was more democratic that the one proposed by the Quebec government? In the Charlottetown process, I remember that we were even asked to vote on unwritten agreements, and, in the third round of the 1992 referendum, when the government realized that the house was on fire, they had to hurriedly write up the infamous Charlottetown accord, where they asked Canadians, and Quebecers in particular, to vote on something which did not even exist in concrete terms.

We kept hearing: "Trust us, because we know, we feel, and we tell you what is right", but nothing was written up. In what respect was that process more democratic than the present one? I would appreciate an answer from the minister.

[Violence Against Women, December 6th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the remarks of the hon. member who just spoke. I have three girls myself. They are still young, of course, but they will grow up. I realize that Quebec has gone much further than the federal government with respect to equality between spouses and equality for women.

In 1990, for example, Quebec passed an act to encourage economic equality between spouses, so that when they divorce, or separate or one of them dies, the property acquired by the couple is divided pretty fairly between the two former spouses, the man and the woman. Canada lags far behind Quebec and several other provinces on this issue of recognizing spouses as equals.

I remain somewhat sceptical just the same. In a justified and justifiable outburst, the previous speaker mentioned women being in danger on our streets and everywhere, women being done an injustice.

I have a problem reconciling this with the fact that the hon. member herself and her colleagues recently rose in this place and brought the house down when the Minister of Human Resources Development tabled his famous bill amending the Unemployment Insurance Act. The policy statement says that from now on, entitlement to UI benefits in Canada will be based on family income. Unfortunately-and the Bloc Quebecois and I did not make this decision-women are hit hardest by such a measure. If the husband's annual income is, say, $55,000 and his wife earns $22,000, $25,000 or $28,000 per year, and becomes unemployed, she will not be entitled to UI benefits because her husband makes good money.

The hon. member opposite rose in this House to applaud this measure at the time it was introduced by the Minister of Human Resources Development. Personally, I find it is all too easy to act offended, to rise and say that the right hand does not know what the left one is doing or vice versa. Logic should prevail and one should rise once in a while, not only on days when we debate the status of women, violence against women or other such issues, and tell the minister that he is off the beam with his procedure.

It seems to me that the story changes depending on the circumstances. On days when we are dealing with women's issues, violence against women or matters affecting women directly or indirectly, they come here and denounce injustices. I agree there are some, but in the normal course of day to day administration, knowing that federal legislation concerning women is 30 years behind provincial legislation, I think that more could be done, besides such statements, to remedy the situation.

This concerns men and women alike, including fathers like me. I have three young daughters who will grow up to be women living in this society and I am not so proud of the legacy we are leaving them. In Quebec, there is an ad on television that says: "I myself am not affected by violence. I do not go out at night; I stay home. I do not talk to strangers; I stay home. No, I cannot say that I am affected by violence".

That is similar to the situation faced by women in Canada. My friend, the hon. member for Frontenac, said earlier that while walking in a somewhat disreputable neighbourhood in Sherbrooke, his daughter was asked by police officers: "What are you doing walking at night in a neighbourhood where you should not be?"

This does not happen only in Sherbrooke. It happens in Halifax, Edmonton, Calgary, and many other places. What are we doing about this? What steps did the Liberals take to address the situation? They gave us a nice gun-control policy to be implemented in the year 2003. It took Marc Lépine 20 minutes

to go on a shooting spree at the École Polytechnique five years ago. How many more shooting sprees can we expect before 2003? When all you need is 20 minutes, it is anybody's guess.

I think that the government must translate words into action, show some backbone and try to do something so that women will feel after today's session that something was accomplished in the House of Commons today and that there is a political will to achieve justice for women. But no. All members of this House make big speeches but when the time comes to support or reject motions that go against women's interests, the party line comes before anything else, including nice speeches like the one that the hon. member just gave us.

I strongly disagree, because I do not want to see my three young daughters in 10, 12, 15 or 20 years treated even worse than their mother is being treated at this time.

[Committees Of The House, December 1st, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the second report of the Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations.

[Supply, November 22nd, 1994]

Madam Speaker, Bloc Quebecois members find this morning's debate a little funny because we do not intend to stay here very long and will not need the pension plan. Quebec's representatives will certainly leave this chamber before long; we predict that it will happen in 1995.

However, what I find really funny this morning is what I could call Reform's self-flogging exercise over salaries. These people, who engage in grandstanding at the drop of a hat, regularly come here to talk about cutting the salaries of overpaid members, despite last year's Price Waterhouse study stating that members of the House of Commons are underpaid.

Strangely enough, we do not hear much about the members of that party who collect both their salaries as members of Parliament and their pensions as former army generals or members of provincial legislatures.

What is the point of this? I wonder how sincere they are when they make such comments. Could it be that they found a cheaper way to engage in grandstanding? The day when a member of the Reform Party can prove publicly that he has decided not to collect the various pensions accumulated in the armed forces or elsewhere, he may earn the respect of the other members here today.

Furthermore, I wonder if the money they will save on voluntarily uncollected pensions will be spent on enlarging prisons, since they are so keen on incarcerating people for longer periods. Their right-wing policies are not very consistent with what they said this morning.

So until Reform members can prove that they are acting in good faith and that those eligible have voluntarily forgone the benefits accumulated in other pension funds, allow me to question their good faith and their honesty in this House.

[Recognition Of The Patriotes Of Lower Canada And The Reformers Of Upper Canada, November 1st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I recently asked the revenue minister in this House two questions concerning the new regulations on the collection of import duties and taxes that will come into effect on January 16, 1995.

In a document signed by the Deputy Minister of Revenue Canada, Customs, Excise and Taxation, after a long preamble trying to justify the measure and make importers feel safer, the department unilaterally decides to increase the bond required of importers to 100 per cent of their monthly instalments, up to a maximum of $10 million. The reason behind this change is the losses sustained by the government because customs brokers or importers were no longer able to pay their instalments.

For now, but for a short time only, the requirement is 35 per cent of the first $200,000 and 17.5 per cent of the next $1.8 million, up to a maximum bond of $2 million.

This bond can take the form of cash, Treasury bills, a letter of endorsement from a bank or a bond issued by the government.

Under the Customs Act, the importer is ultimately responsible for paying the duties and taxes. In Canada, these duties and taxes amount to about $11.5 billion a year, most of which is collected by customs brokers at no cost to the government.

A manufacturer who wants to import a given quantity of materials or products can import them himself. Use of a customs broker is optional, not required.

In the Canadian importers' magazine for October 5, they raise real objections to the increase in security demanded. This increase would force them to freeze assets, most of which are used to secure their working capital.

The conclusion of the industry committee's report on financing small business is that the lack of financing for small business is the fault of everyone except the government. It makes no sense.

Furthermore, I learned today that some very big importers like GM, Chrysler and Honda strongly refuse to provide such security and that they are negotiating with the Department of National Revenue to obtain a review of this policy. They are negotiating with the big ones, but crushing the little guys.

Is an importer or a very large customs broker with remittances of $250 million a month, who secures only $10 million of that, not favoured by this measure compared to a very small broker who must secure 100 per cent of his monthly remittances? Is favoritism not being shown, at the expense of the smaller operators? The government says that it is ready to encourage small business, but when the time comes to keep its word, it backs down.

I would like to have an explanation of this.

[Criminal Code, October 26th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-226, tabled by the hon. member for York South-Weston.

I have to admit that, when first asked if I wanted to discuss this issue, I almost decided to resort to demagogic comments such as: A criminal is the victim of his own action. All sorts of ideas like that are expressed and, unfortunately, too often by parties in this House, including the Reform Party, which I certainly respect. However, these comments sometime distort the reality.

I have met a few individuals who did truly regrettable things, including murder. Some of them never repented; they wilfully committed their crime. Even after a rather long time in jail, they had not learned anything. I think they would have been capable of committing the same crime again. Yes, there are such individuals.

We also have in mind the recent example of people who committed unfortunate acts. We know famous elected officials who ruined their careers by mere shoplifting, like the one who took a jacket from a department store.

That is why I have always said that the brain is the weakest organ in the human body. The brain sometimes betrays its owner.

Recently, in the Gaspé region, a father threw himself off a bridge with his three children. If this man had survived, I think he would have been the unhappiest of men. This unexplainable act is still a mystery.

When dealing with a mistake made without forethought and often unintentionally, our society must not act out of revenge in handing down sentences and guarding prisoners. It is not up to society to avenge victims.

Society benefits from the incarceration system, which removes dangerous offenders from its midst. However, it eventually realizes that these people are rehabilitated-as we often realize from the outset that rehabilitation is possible by reading pre-sentence reports, etc. As soon as offenders start serving their sentences, correctional officers have a pretty good idea if they will eventually be able to reintegrate society.

Jailing people also entails social costs, major repercussions on their immediate families, not to mention purely financial costs. Unfortunately, there have been reports lately that our prisons are overcrowded.

I believe that section 745 of the Criminal Code, which this bill seeks to strike down, has its purpose in the sense that, in certain cases, it provides for the re-evaluation, after the fact, of the state of mind of individuals who committed crimes and allows for an assessment of the advisability of their release. There is nothing mandatory in section 745. The jury hearing the application is not obliged to release the inmate. This review can only take place 15 years after sentencing. Then, people who know right from wrong and can weigh the pros and cons, may recommend that the individual be released.

I believe that in a society like ours, we must be able to afford acts of mercy of this kind since, as I mentioned before, sometimes people who committed crimes were not in their right minds at the time, a situation which can change after a while.

Therefore, in my opinion, it would be mean and would not benefit society. It could even be costly. When people are truly repentant, when they acknowledge their wrongdoings, take appropriate actions to solve their problems while in prison, and get positive results, keeping them in prison would be an act of revenge on the part of society.

A society which acts out of revenge is often ill-inspired and ill-advised. Revenge is a very poor adviser.

I know that there are heinous crimes. The Reform Party never fails to mention a few during Question Period. It is like an endless round of quotes from reporters on the police beat: "In Winnipeg, between 42nd and 32nd Avenue, at 2.25 a.m., So-and-so stabbed and killed Ms. Someone, as she left the hospital where she worked. She was wearing hushpuppies". And so on.

We hear this time and time again, and every time the Reform Party asks for stiffer or longer sentences. There is truth in what they say. Society must not leave crime unpunished and violence should not rule our society. I heard the hon. member for York South-Weston during the referendum debate. I was not a member then, I was not even in politics, but I heard him speak heinously of Quebec. That was at the time of the Charlottetown and Meech Lake agreements and the hon. member was probably driven by his well-known fiery spirit. I can understand that, but in Quebec we were hurt.

We do not bear a grudge against the hon. member who introduced this bill. We understand that this fiery spirit of his and boundless love for this beautiful country can lead to the fits of anger he is known for.

I read in the papers, yesterday, that the hon. member was himself the target of violence, and that he had to seek help and protection from the authorities, and I feel for him. I said to myself: a man of his intelligence must realize how violence feels-parliamentary violence, or verbal or political violence or whatever-we could even talk about ecological violence, for instance. Violence in any form, no matter who the perpetrator, is always bad, and I am sure the hon. member for York South-Weston realizes that now, which probably explains why, since last year, he has become extremely civil in his dealings with his colleagues in the Bloc.

I think the hon. member has seen the light. He is aware that society can and must exercise a measure of clemency at some point. If society does not believe in rehabilitation, why did we get rid of capital punishment?

I am somewhat baffled by all these considerations. The section they want to abolish was used by 40 people in the past 28 years. I have seen no statistics to show that these people became repeaters or abused their freedom.

For all these reasons, and considering the small number of cases that have come before the courts since this section came into effect, I am inclined to vote against this bill.

[Department Of Industry Act, October 26th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I draw your attention to identical provisions which appear in three bills recently tabled, namely clause 18 in Bill C-46, clause 17 in Bill C-52 and clause 8 in Bill C-53.

In Bill C-46, the provision reads as follows:

1. (1) The Minister may, subject to any regulations that the Treasury Board may make for the purposes of this section, fix fees that the Minister considers appropriate in respect of products, services, rights, privileges, regulatory processes or approvals and the use of facilities provided by the Minister, the Department or any board or agency of the Government of Canada for which the Minister has responsibility.

Once in effect, this clause will reduce Parliament's control over increases in government revenues. Although the process is not new, the enactment of such measures will result in greater powers of taxation.

It is important to note that, in 1991, some very controversial amendments to the Financial Administration Act considerably increased the power of the executive branch of government to impose fees and costs through legislation.

These amendments are found in Chapter 24 of the Statutes of Canada, 1991. Although they are questionable in some respects, the clause contained in Bill C-46 is even worse. Indeed, that provision allows the minister, or an official authorized by the minister, to fix discretionary fees within the department.

Sections 19 and 19.1 of the Financial Administration Act already provide sufficient authority to the Executive without making it necessary for Parliament to once again increase its power to collect more money.

At the time, members opposite fought tooth and nail against those amendments. I guess times change.

Clause 18 in Bill C-46 allows the minister to impose fees or increase those already applicable, without having to resort to any legislative instrument that would have to be registered and published under the Statutory Instruments Act and that could be reviewed by a competent parliamentary authority such as the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations. This is due to the fact that the clause allows the minister to set the costs but not to do so by order. The words "by order" were omitted from the bills now before the House. Those words are very important in the British parliamentary tradition, as they have always transferred to the executive power, that is, the Governor General in Council, the enforcement of all legislation.

I find this process unacceptable. If ministers can increase public revenue as they see fit, it would be logical for the relevant documents to appear at least in the Canada Gazette , which is accessible to all Canadians.

One of the main functions of this Parliament is to ensure fair and equitable taxation. Let us try to imagine what the Auditor General of Canada must do, in preparing his annual report, to find out if taxpayers really paid what they owe the government. The question would be: how much do they owe? The rule of law, a principle treasured by our constitutional monarchy, is being superseded today by the rule of the minister. An important point is the extent of the discretionary power that the minister gives himself in this clause.

This government's usual approach is to entrust its ministers with highly discretionary powers totally inconsistent with the most basic principles of sound fiscal management. Clause 10 of Bill C-22 concerning Pearson Airport, so strongly denounced by the Official Opposition, is a good current example.

The minister's authority is not limited to setting costs or charges appropriate in respect of goods or services.

Under Section 19(2) of the Financial Administration Act, the minister does not have to prescribe an amount up to the real costs in respect of a service provided. The use of these very subjective terms means that, from now on, the minister has the discretionary power to set costs above the real value and, secondly, that these discretionary decisions will not be subject to any kind of legal review.

I find it extraordinary that Parliament can delegate to a minister the power to decide by how much he will increase public revenue other than through taxes submitted and debated in the House of Commons.

Canadian courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada, have recognized the principle of domanial duality in administration. For those not familiar with this notion, it can be explained as follows: a truck used to move government household effects is government property, while a bridge is public property but useful to the general public. That is the distinction. That is what the courts call domanial duality.

The government could, for example, charge $20 an hour by ministerial order for the use of its truck without advertising or enacting regulations, but it could not charge a passport applicant for the full administrative cost of issuing the passport. The cost could vary depending on whether the application was sent to officials working in a run-down building in Montreal or in luxurious quarters in Toronto.

Finally, I am troubled by the description of the items for which the minister will be authorized to impose service charges and user fees.

This concept was picked up in the Financial Administration Act and was one of the main points of the Liberal opposition when it proposed amendments in 1991 concerning the power to charge fees for rights. You will see how the Liberals argued then.

I find it wrong for Parliament to say on one hand that a citizen has a legal right, or is entitled, to receive certain benefits and on the other that it authorizes the executive to charge a fee to have this right or benefit recognized. A right is a right; it is not something that an individual has to buy from the government.

I am trying to understand this new power to ask people to pay for regulatory processes. That is the term used in the clause in question: regulatory processes. This expression is so vague as to be meaningless.

What is a regulatory process? The clause itself rules out any recourse to the regulations. Or is "règlement" used in the French sense of reaching an agreement? By giving the word "règlement" this common meaning, agreement, the English version of the same clause would be meaningless, since it also uses the term "regulatory process". But what is it?

Also note the extended opportunity to collect funds through permits and licences and by other means.

In this context, it is clear that regulatory consent is similar to a licence or a permit. However, that is not the case with clause 18. The Financial Administration Act and this clause can lead to abuse.

It is plausible that a minister facing a deficit may increase his revenues by charging fees for every consent he gives; this will just lead to a new regulatory scheme to impose a basis for collecting new charges.

It is true that the power granted by clause 18 would be subject to the regulations that Treasury Board could make for this purpose.

Since it is not certain that Treasury Board will exercise this authority or, even if it did, that it would impose restrictions on the minister's discretionary authority, it is quite logical to think that the public's concerns are justified.

The citizen cares little whether what he is paying is called a tax, a charge or a fee: it is disguised taxation. Mr. Speaker, you will agree that this new Liberal tactic of collecting public funds by all sorts of devious means is much more like highway robbery in the last century than the forthright collection of fair charges related to a particular expense. They are changing the maxim from "ignorance of the law is no excuse" to "guess right".