Pierre De Savoye

[Jean Coutu, November 2nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday afternoon, we heard the sad news of Jean Coutu's death.

An entire generation of Quebecers who grew up during the early days of television and who watched the popular Radio-Canada series, Le Survenant , which ran from 1954 to 1960, will forever remember this talented and generous actor who left his mark on an era and on Quebec's cultural world.

Anyone remembering that time, when the new medium of television began to change the lifestyle of Quebecers, cannot forget the great popularity of Le Survenant and the role played with intelligence and sensitivity by Jean Coutu, who, for three more decades, pursued a career that took him from the theatre to the cinema and made him a familiar face on television for several generations of viewers.

The Bloc Quebecois offers its condolences to Jean Coutu's family and friends. His deep voice will resonate in our ears for a long while to come.

[Adisq Gala, November 1st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday evening the production Notre-Dame de Paris triumphed in Quebec City, at the 21st gala of the Association de l'industrie du disque, du spectacle et de la vidéo, the ADISQ.

In addition to this well-deserved success, the whole Quebec record and entertainment industry was in the limelight yesterday, and for good reason. In the past year, Quebec performers have sold close to three million records, a performance which speaks volumes about the economic strength of Quebec's cultural industry, and which also shows how much Quebecers love their performers.

While these figures are impressive, let us not forget the creativity and talent of Quebec authors, composers and performers, because this is where their real strength lies.

Through their voices, words and notes, these performers know how to reach us and to move us. On behalf of the Bloc Quebecois, I congratulate those who won a Félix award, and I thank them for the pleasure they bring to us on a daily basis.

[National Parks, October 26th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, just recently, we learned that national parks, which come under the authority of the federal government, are in terrible shape. Parks Canada is standing by and watching the sad spectacle of many species of wildlife disappearing into oblivion.

The problem is generalized, and not limited to one or two parks. This is a real crisis. One expert is not hesitating to blame Parks Canada for the disaster.

And yet, the government has tabled a bill to create marine conservation areas, for which Parks Canada would have responsibility.

How can the government think about adding to the responsibilities of an agency that has obviously shown itself unable to handle its existing mandate properly?

Parks Canada must first halt the disappearance of threatened species in existing national parks before the government can think—

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, October 21st, 1999]

Madam Speaker, my colleague spoke so eloquently that there is nothing much I can add. Nonetheless, I would like to say that this bill is quite different from many bills introduced in the House.

When the subject is a treaty with aboriginals, it is important. When the subject is legal issues, it is important. When the subject is international treaties, it is important. But today's subject is the most important of all. We are talking about our children. I appeal to the good judgment of all members and, especially of government members, in particular those from Quebec, in the hope that they will bring the Liberal government back to its senses and convince it to withdraw this bill, which goes against the interests of our children.

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, October 21st, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I welcome the hon. member's question.

It is true that I had the pleasure of visiting his riding, I think it was in 1994. The hon. member came to visit my riding too. That has been a very beneficial exchange and I have a great deal of respect for this member of the Reform Party who, like several other colleagues of his, is more open-minded.

However, to answer the particular question he asked me, I will say that, while his position appears to be consistent, the fact of the matter is that the bill would destroy the very foundations of that position. First of all, the bill focuses on measures of the third category, which are aimed at the most difficult cases. It is clear that it puts less emphasis on measures of the first and second categories.

So, if less emphasis were put on these measures, that is on the care of young people convicted of minor offences, if fewer efforts were made in that respect, these young people run the risk of committing more serious offences for lack of help. They will then be facing measures of the third category because they will have become difficult cases. What the bill will do is merely create more difficult cases.

Following this reasoning, the present legislation would have to be retained so that all of the emphasis may be put on the first two measures, in order to have a minimum of individuals move on to the third.

And now what can be done with that group? The last thing we want to do—and I am sure that my colleague from Kootenay—Boundary—Okanagan agrees with this—is to block their rehabilitation. If not rehabilitated, when they are back on the street, the semblance of security we enjoyed for the two, three or four years of their incarceration will blow up in our faces when they do get out again one fine day and, instead of being rehabilitated, are really hardened criminals.

The tougher the cases, then, the more needs to be invested in rehabilitating them. This is the only way, not just to ensure the safety of our communities, not just to save money, but also to save the young person himself.

The arguments being used by my colleague for Kootenay—Boundary—Okanagan are exactly the opposite of the laudable objectives he wants to pursue. He must realize this. In Quebec we have demonstrated the right way to apply the Young Offenders Act in its present form.

I would invite him to come back to my riding with me and I will show him directly how well things are working. Perhaps then he will be able to remind the people in his part of the country that, if we want the first two measures to work properly, there must be more investment so that the third becomes the exception. For those cases, we have to make sure that the results are exceptional as well, so that public safety is guaranteed and the young offenders become full-fledged members of society.

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, October 21st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to this debate since the end of question period, and I am flabbergasted at some of the things I have heard. For example, a member of the Reform Party said that this bill does not go far enough.

Actually, the bill is going in the wrong direction. It has already gone far enough, and even too far. Still, the Reform Party is not satisfied with a bill that is going in the wrong direction, it would like the bill to go even further in the wrong direction. Let me explain.

One of the purposes of this bill is the general protection of the public, of course, but its primary purpose is to ensure the welfare of young people who have committed a crime or an offence. Obviously, we do not want to cheer these young people for their wrongdoings, but we not want to turn them into criminals for life either. After all, these are our children. They are not strange beings from a distant planet. They have been brought up by their parents, here. They have been brought up by a community that has, or has not, given them certain resources, of sources of interest, of motivations. Those children have studied in our schools and have, or have not, received the training, the upbringing and the values they needed. Those young people are our children.

When they were born, they all had the same opportunities. Most of them are doing well, very well even, but a minority of them have problems. It is not necessarily their fault, very often it is not their fault at all. Society, the community and their family often have an important impact on how they have turned out. Fortunately, in such situations, solutions can usually be found.

As a matter of fact, the Young Offenders Act has allowed us to take action and come up with some positive solutions. As my colleague from Berthier—Montcalm was saying earlier, since the current law was passed, the youth crime rate has dropped by 23%. Quite a decrease. The rate of repeat offences has also dropped.

Since other laws also give us the means to support a young person having difficulties and help him or her in the rehabilitation process, it is in Quebec that the youth crime rate is the lowest and the rehabilitation rate the highest.

What we have is a situation that is both rather remarkable and ironic. We have in the current legislation everything we need to intervene and help young people reintegrate society in a meaningful and responsible way. The current legislation is working. However, the Liberal government has introduced a bill that is headed in the opposite direction from the current, which is working and produces results.

This is reverse engineering. This bill is doing the opposite of what allows us to reach the desired goals. Public security and, more importantly, the rehabilitation of our young people should be at the heart of the bill before us today. However, according to every study done so far and all the data we have, this bill is a step backwards. It will not help to lower the youth crime rate, nor will it facilitate reintegration or maintain the excellent rehabilitation rate we have now. This bill is regressive.

Earlier, a Reform Party member, answering my colleague, the member for Berthier—Montcalm, ridiculed what he had said because he is a sovereignist. I am going to tell House something. In Quebec, things are working. We have the best results with youth crime, namely the lowest rate. We have the best rehabilitation rate.

The federal government opposite wants to enact legislation that is going to set us back in the pursuit of this cause, coast to coast. If this bill becomes law, it will be one more reason for Quebec to want to become sovereign and to separate from a country that wants to mistreat its children.

Quebec has followed a very different path over the last 20 years, and since the Young Offenders Act took effect, we have had the best results. But the federal government refuses to use legislation from Quebec and the situation in Quebec as a model. It refuses to heed the advice of experts from all over the country.

To win votes in western Canada, a Reform stronghold, it is willing to sacrifice—and this is the right word—our young people with iniquitous and punitive legislation that does not favour rehabilitation and that will not steer young offenders away from a life of crime.

Members will agree with me that this situation is absolutely unacceptable. I find it hard to understand how it is that the Liberal government, that usually has a better grasp of these kinds of issues, does not realize that this bill will lead us straight to disaster.

Do we want Quebec and Canada to become a place where people feel unsafe on the streets, like the United States? If that is what we want, then the Liberal government is proposing the right bill. And if we want the situation to be even worse, we just have to follow the Reform Party.

But if we want safe communities, where it is possible to rehabilitate young people who have strayed from the straight and narrow so they can become full-fledged citizens, reintegrate society and make a positive contribution to our life, then we must not change the law. Let us enforce it as it stands now, with all the measures that lead to the full rehabilitation of offenders.

Quebec has set a good example in this area, and nobody has ever denied that. What I am saying has never been denied. Witnesses who appeared before the committee during the last session explained at length what I have been telling the House for the last few minutes.

I would like to quote what some people said, because I think it is important for the House to understand that the bill before us is going in the wrong direction. I will quote a criminologist from the University of Montreal, André Normandeau. This is taken from an article published in a Quebec City newspaper,

Le Soleil

, on March 13, 1999.

Mr. Normandeau said “People in western Canada”—he is talking about British Columbia and Alberta—“always react as they did 20 years ago, at a time when the crime rate increased each year. They have kept more of a punitive approach. Changing the law is the easy way out, but, more importantly, it does not work. Violent criminals, who represent 10% of offenders, do not react to coercion”.

Those are the words of a criminologist. He says that the law, as it is now, has worked. If we change it in the way the government wants to do now, we will be going in the wrong direction.

Not only will it not work, it will have the opposite effect. Mr. Normandeau goes on “The behaviour of prosecutors and police officers in other provinces will influence what goes on in Quebec. For instance, a Quebec police officer will quickly start acting like his colleagues from Saskatoon. He will then need the same complicity from the crown prosecutors, and then we will end up in a vicious circle”.

Let me quote from another criminologist, Cécile Toutant, a member of the young offenders sub-committee of the Quebec Bar Association. The Quebec Bar Association represents all of the lawyers in Quebec. Ms. Toutant is a highly competent professional who knows first hand what is going on in the field.

In an interview she gave on J.E., a very popular television program in Quebec that the rest of Canada has probably never heard about—which is another of the characteristics of our two cultures and our two nations who live alongside each other, and someday there will be a political solution to this situation—Ms. Toutant stated that she was concerned about the reform because some measures will become automatic, like the transfer to adult courts.

This criminologist argued that, even with what the Liberals call the flexibility of the system, the measures that we condemn will be applied. She concluded by saying “Why allow what is unjustified? Why allow what is inappropriate? In fact, why pass this legislation?”

On March 19, during a press conference of the group of organizations that are concerned with the situation of young offenders, Mr. Jean Trépanier, another criminologist, and a member of the Barreau du Québec sub-committee on young offenders, also condemned this false flexibility of Bill C-3.

According to him, this so-called flexibility we were talking about before the bill was introduced is in fact a political trap. Unfortunately, Quebec judges will have to fully enforce the law, since they will not be able to ignore sentences that will be imposed in other provinces.

In conclusion, because of your legislation, members of the Liberal government, young people from Quebec will not be treated fairly, they will no longer have the opportunity to be rehabilitated, and the safety in our society as a whole will be affected. The reason for this is that young offenders who are not rehabilitated become criminal adults. We must not forget that. They do not disappear because they are put in jail. They will get out, one day or the other, with vengeance in their heart.

Of course, prevention is good, but when a young person has committed an offence, rehabilitation becomes essential to ensure the long term safety of the community and to ensure that we have a citizen who will work with us toward social objectives, instead of having one who will be in and out of jail all his life.

I would also like to tell the House about a representative of the Quebec youth centres association, André Payette, who said it all in a nutshell “It will be a real mess if the bill is passed.”

What could be clearer? The bill is going in the opposite direction from what should be done. I recall what my colleague from the Reform Party said earlier “The bill does no go far enough”. The bill is going in the opposite direction, and that is already too far.

Let me quote also from a court that everybody knows well around here, the Supreme Court of Canada. In a recent decision, the court agreed unanimously that too many offenders are put in jail in Canada, particularly native offenders, and that happens not in Quebec but in the central and western provinces. The supreme court said that judges should get more involved in reducing the incarceration rate, for the rate in Canada is one of the highest in the western world.

Members do not have to be very good at maths. The government wants to lower the age limit to 14. You were once 14, Madam Speaker. Think about it for a moment: to be behind bars at that age, does it not make the system look a bit stupid? As lawmakers, we should have enough common sense to realize that there are other things to do with a 14 year old to educate him, instead of putting him behind bars. We are not in the Middle Ages. I am not surprised that members of the Reform Party say this kind of thing, for they have a somewhat reactionary mindset, if I may say so.

But when members of the Liberal Party talk that way, I am sorry, but I do not understand. Somebody somewhere is asleep. They should be able to stand up and say “No, wait a minute, it is true, we are going the wrong way, all the statistics show it”.

The supreme court tells us that our jails are already too crowded. If we put 14-year olds behind bars, there will be even more people in jail, and for a long time, because by the time these young offenders get out, at age 16 or 17, they will have attended crime school instead of CEGEP. CEGEPs may not be perfect but, frankly, I would rather send a young person to CEGEP than to crime school.

When it comes to choosing between helping a young person get back on the right track or seeing him acquire all the skills necessary to remain on the wrong path, common sense dictates that we invest in reintegration.

This young person who is sent to jail at age 14 and is released at age 17 will go back again at age 18 and will end up in a penitentiary. An inmate in a penitentiary costs $100,000 a year to taxpayers. A social worker hired to look after a number of young persons for two or three years, or a social worker hired to look after teenagers for a time would cost much less, even with full pay. They would save money to our society. Common sense clearly dictates that we invest in reintegration. For every dollar invested in reintegration, we will probably save $10 in incarceration costs.

This is about your money and my money but, more importantly, it is about our young people. Let us use our judgement. This bill goes against common sense. It goes against human decency. It goes against the history of humanity, which seeks to improve the way human beings treat one another. The best way to start treating one another properly is to show respect for our children.

If Canada and the Canadian parliament cannot respect our children, this will be yet another reason for me to separate my Quebec from a country that does not respect its children.

[Bruny Surin, October 21st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, today, Quebec sprinter Bruny Surin will receive the Maurice Richard award.

This award for excellence was created in 1979 by Montreal's Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste and is given to an athlete who is an honour both to his or her sport and to Quebec.

Recognized for his integrity, determination, courage and perseverance, Bruny Surin is one of Quebec's great sports figures. He has run the second fastest 100 metre dash in history, and he is a true inspiration and model for all young people.

The Bloc Quebecois congratulates this great athlete, not only for his outstanding performances, but also for persevering in a sport he loves, sometimes against all odds, through the good years as well as the more difficult ones.

Bruny, our hearts will be beating for you when we watch you race in the Sydney Olympic Games. Congratulations and good luck in the pursuit of your brilliant career.

[Division No. 6, October 20th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I would very much like, following the remarks by our colleague from the Liberal Party, to say “The Bloc Quebecois will support this bill”. But you know that the Bloc Quebecois will not support this bill, not because it would not provide good services to our Canadian friends, but because it, unfortunately, is being forced on Quebec by the Minister of Industry, and Quebec has already had, for many years, a law in effect, which is effective and meets our needs.

I am perhaps in a somewhat special position, because, if I go back to 1992, before I became a member, I was the president of the Association de sécurité informatique de la région de Québec. As such, I had the opportunity to submit a brief from our association to a parliamentary committee of the National Assembly on the subject of the establishment of a law to protect personal information in private enterprise, a Quebec law.

The Liberal government in office at that point, that of Mr. Bourassa, introduced the legislation. It was passed, it took effect and it is recognized worldwide as one of the best laws to protect personal information in private enterprise.

When we see the bill that is before us today, we are pleased that, seven years after Quebec, Canada has finally decided to provide personal information protection for Canadians. However, as an expert on these issues, I dare say that the bill proposed by the minister is rather weak compared to the law that has been in effect in Quebec for quite a few years now.

The Minister of Industry could have used the Quebec experience as a model. Instead, as is unfortunately too often the case, he chose to ignore it and, worse still, he wants to impose his legislation on Quebecers.

The Standing Committee on Industry heard a number of witnesses state their concerns. I want to mention one such concern expressed by the Confédération des syndicats nationaux, the CSN, which is a well-known central labour body.

The CSN said:

This bill is likely to create a problem by establishing two systems, depending on whether the information is used outside Quebec or not. Indeed, a business could be subject to the Quebec law but, as soon as the information was transferred outside the province, the federal legislation would come into effect. And it would not be easy for an ordinary citizen to know where his information is gone.

As members can see, the Minister of Industry's bill creates a problem because the minister wants to impose his legislation on Quebec. This means that Quebec businesses, which already invested money in 1993 and 1994 to comply with the requirements of the Quebec law, will have to spend money again to comply with the federal law, whose requirements are different, sometimes significantly. In any case, the federal law will provide less protection than the Quebec law.

This is a major problem. Quebec businesses have already taken measures to ensure the protection of personal information. Now, they will have to comply with a new law, and this means additional costs. Worse yet, some Quebec businesses that have until now been subject to the Quebec legislation will be able to withdraw from the Quebec legislation because they come under federal jurisdiction—I have the banks in particular in mind. The Quebec legislation is stringent, but it treats people fairly. Instead, they will be covered by the federal legislation, which is less stringent, and less protective of the individual.

In such a context, the effect in Quebec of Bill C-54—or Bill C-6 now, since its number change—will be the opposite of what was intended. The bill we have before us is intended to inspire consumer confidence in e-commerce, yet the perception in Quebec is likely to be very different.

In Quebec we know that legislation has been in place for seven years, legislation that inspires trust. Now certain sectors of activity which make considerable use of e-commerce, such as the banks, an important sector, a strategic sector, will be covered by legislation that is not as good as the Quebec legislation.

In such a context, what are the consumers going to do? They are going to exercise more caution, they will be more hesitant to use electronic resources. This is the exact opposite of what the bill is intended to do.

What would the elegant solution have been? The Minister of Industry referred to it when he stated that Quebec, and any other province that would like to have its own similar legislation, would be exempted from application of the federal act. That was a noble intention; it would have allowed the Bloc Quebecois to support with pleasure the fact that Canadians are acquiring legislation to protect personal information.

Under the circumstances, however, we cannot in any way accept this duplication of legislation. While I am at it, I will quote Ian Lawson, an independent expert who testified before the Standing Committee on Industry precisely on this issue.

He said “In order to resolve this problem of double legislation, the people of Quebec and the lawyers of Quebec will have a lot of work to do”.

Why will lawyers in Quebec have so much work? Because businesses will have trouble knowing where they stand. Things will be very difficult to sort out.

The Standing Committee on Industry had every possible opportunity to inform the minister about the impact on Quebec of this legislation, although it is good news in the rest of Canada. The Minister of Industry chose to ignore that advice.

But there is worse, even for the rest of Canada. The bill exempts from the authority of parliament entire, important sections explaining how this legislation will apply to Canadians and Quebecers.

In fact, the very terms that will be used in the related regulations are contained in a schedule which can be amended at will by the present or any future minister.

Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, told the Standing Committee on Industry “I have a problem with the fact that the code of the CSA”, which is a standardizing body, “is simply attached as a schedule. The principles of the code should have been incorporated into the legislation itself. I fail to understand why it was not felt advisable to try to use them as a point of departure for drafting legislation that meets the needs of Canadians in several respects where the Code, which, as you know is a compromise, might not be up to the task”.

Here we have a university professor telling us that the bill, despite its good intentions, has a entire section on which the regulations will be based that will not come under the authority of Parliament.

The Canadian legislation, the bill proposed by the minister, is weak. Quebec has much tougher legislation that is a far better response to the needs of consumers. The Bloc Quebecois cannot support such a bill, because it is nothing less than interference in Quebec's jurisdiction, and I am therefore glad indeed that sovereignty is on the horizon. That will exempt us from all these kinds of problems.

[Division No. 6, October 20th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, let me first say that I deplore the attitude of this government, which is imposing today, in only the second week of a new session, a double gag order regarding the bill on electronic commerce and personal information protection.

I must say that I had some hopes following the representations made by the Bloc Quebecois during the previous session, in the spring, and during the sittings of the industry committee, which reviewed this bill or, rather, its predecessor, Bill C-54. I had hopes that, following our representations and those of the witnesses heard by the committee, the Minister of Industry would reconsider his decision to impose this bill on Quebec and would withdraw it, or would at least conduct an in-depth review of this legislation.

I was wrong. It was not enough for the industry minister to see that Quebec as a whole stands united in its rejection of this bill, he is now denying us the opportunity to explain again what we thought he had not understood correctly. We were hoping to have a few more days to re-iterate the arguments we had already presented, perhaps stating them more simply this time so that he could understand them. We had hoped we could change the course of this bill, but today, with this gag order being imposed on us barely two weeks into the new session, I must face the fact that the industry minister is giving the shaft to Quebecers.

I am not mincing my words because I am totally outraged by the way the industry minister is treating Quebec. I recall that in the last session, in this very House, the minister gave us the assurance that Quebec would not be subject to the application of this act since Quebec already has its own act, and has had it for several years now.

The minister's words were just that, words; nowhere in the bill can we find the assurance he gave us verbally to the effect that the act would not apply to Quebec. Obviously, once again, the minister has decided to ram down the throats of Quebecers a piece of legislation they do not need.

I must point out that, last Saturday evening, while I was on an open-line show with listeners in the Vancouver area, one caller said that it might prove beneficial, in a number of issues, if other provinces joined Quebec in its protest against the involvement of the federal government in fields under provincial jurisdiction.

I told the caller that this had been tried on numerous occasions and that, unfortunately, we had always been disappointed. I must say that today is one more example of the insensitivity, lack of concern, and arrogance of the federal Liberal government when it comes to Quebecers.

Already in the early 1990s, Quebec had put the necessary money into researching, seeking input about and drafting a bill that is held up throughout the world as a model of what legislation to protect personal information in the private sector should look like.

But, rather than turning to Quebec's act for inspiration, the minister decided to put together a new one completely from scratch. This bill in no way meets personal information protection requirements.

As proof, because time is running out very quickly, I will recall to the House a number of eloquent statements we heard in committee that should have caught the attention of the minister, who is obviously either poorly informed by his officials or not listening to what we have to say, or perhaps both.

In committee, we looked at the constitutional aspect of the bill, and basically we can see that the federal government, the minister, is using e-commerce as an excuse to interfere in provincial jurisdictions.

One of the people we heard from was Derril McLeod, Saskatchewan's privacy commissioner. He said:

It is a surprising attempt by the feds to enact legislation in an area where it is highly unlikely that they have jurisdiction. The federal government can enact legislation on matters of federal jurisdiction, but not on matters of provincial jurisdiction.

That was Saskatchewan's Privacy Commissioner McLeod speaking.

The Conseil du patronat du Québec also made similar comments on constitutionality. To quote what they said to us at one of the sessions of the industry committee:

Given the constitutional jurisdiction assigned to the provinces by section 92.13 of the British North America Act relating to the protection of personal information and privacy, and the fact that the Quebec legislator has already passed legislation in this area, there is no doubt that a large number of jurisdiction conflicts will arise.

In other words, the Conseil du patronat is very much aware that the lawyers will be putting a lot of overtime into trying to get to the bottom of it, now that the federal government is trying to get into an area that falls under Quebec jurisdiction.

In the end, the odds are pretty good that Quebec will win out over the federal government, unless for some reason the supreme court does not come out on the same side once again.

The area of application of the legislation was also the subject of a number of concerns expressed by the committee. We should point out that no federal company has challenged the Quebec legislation, but if the bill we have before us is passed in its present form, that will change. The Canadian Bankers Association confirmed, in fact, in its appearance before the Industry Committee, that the banks would in future come under the federal legislation alone.

What will be the reaction of Quebec consumers when such legislation takes effect? There will then be two systems in place in Quebec, one that protects people properly, and one that protects them far less well. The banks will be among the groups of companies covered by the second regime, and will protect individuals' information less well.

This bill does not make any sense, and I will show you a fundamental difference between the act currently in effect in Quebec and the legislation proposed by the Minister of Industry. The Quebec act states that consent must be expressed clearly and freely, and must be given for a specific purpose. Consent that is not given in accordance with the first paragraph is null and void.

The proposed federal act states that “Organizations shall make a reasonable effort to ensure that the individual is advised of the purposes for which the information will be used”. What does “reasonable effort” mean? This is a joke.

It also states that “The form of the consent sought by the organization my vary, depending upon the circumstances and the type of information”. I submit that one better not to say anything than say such platitudes. It states further that “In obtaining consent, the reasonable expectations of the individual are also relevant”. This is all Chinese to me. Finally, it says that “An organization should generally seek express consent when the information is likely to be considered sensitive. Implied consent would generally be appropriate when the information is less sensitive”.

That is enough. The minister is making fun of Quebecers, and I will just not put up with it.

[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, October 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Bloc Quebecois I congratulate Robert Rabinovitch on his appointment as the president of the CBC.

M. Rabinovitch certainly has the qualities and the abilities needed to carry out his new duties honourably. He will, however, face a major challenge, that of ensuring the independence of the CBC, on which the public places its trust, justifying the allocation of public funds.

The corporation's independence is threatened by the desire of Canadian Heritage to use the CBC to serve the political ends of its government.

Recognized for his determination to have a free hand in performing his duties, Mr. Rabinovitch, we hope, will feel freed of the old Trudeau demons, who wanted the CBC to be an instrument of Canadian unity.