Len Hopkins

[Petitions, May 27th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have some petitions here dealing with Canada's having enacted legislation providing for the two official languages.

The petitioners call for a referendum of the people binding upon Parliament to accept or to reject two official languages.

As their member of Parliament, I am duty bound to present this petition to the House. It is signed by people from Pembroke, Eganville, Renfrew, Victoria, British Columbia.

[Peacekeeping, May 26th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the Special Joint Committee on Canada's Defence Policy has just returned from hearings and briefings at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

We also visited, travelled and lived with our 2,000 Canadian soldiers who are doing a superb job of enforcing United Nations' peacekeeping rules within the former Yugoslavia.

When we accompanied our soldiers throughout the vast area they patrol on land and sea, we saw the devastation of war and man's inhumanity to man which one could not believe without seeing and without on site briefings.

What a first rate job our Canadians are doing. What dedication and professionalism they are exemplifying. They perform humanitarian tasks far beyond the call of duty. They are firm in handling infractions of the United Nations rules and are respected.

The soldiers feel very disappointed that all their efforts to represent Canada are not being recognized by the media, including the CBC. Many of the reports that get back home come through the BBC.

Come on, Canadian media, let's give our troops some well deserved recognition. Put Canada out front where she belongs in promoting peace.

[Young Offenders Act, May 2nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I want to say a few words on the bill this morning. I congratulate the hon. member for York South-Weston on bringing the issue forward. It is one that has been very much on the minds of all members of Parliament and certainly on the minds of the general public. There are some very succinct parts of the young offenders legislation that should be given a very serious look and review.

This issue is like any other major issue that arises and becomes a public concern. There are serious events that occur that bring the issue forward in the media. People feel that nothing is working. Something is working. Something is not. The something that is not working should be reviewed and repaired.

All legislation has to be changed from time to time to meet the trends and the changes that take place in society. However there is one thing I disagree with. As a former educator I hear some people saying that young offenders do not understand the implications of what they are doing. I can say, having taught many teenagers in my earlier days before coming to this institution, they understand what they are doing. No one needs to throw that argument out. It will not work.

The other sad part of this argument is the fact that some people automatically think that these people come from poor homes, no training and so on in the home. There are areas where this occurs. There are other cases where people are looked after in the home and they still go astray because peer pressure is very strong on them to join gangs and go in the wrong direction.

I spoke many times in the last Parliament on young offenders because we had a serious case in my constituency in the village of Barry's Bay. I think one of the major problems is that the plea bargaining that goes on in the courts is simply not justifiable and cannot be supported. I am glad to know that the justice committee at the direction of the government is making a serious review of this legislation and will probably be into it before June or, if not, during the month of June. I congratulate it on that.

The plea bargaining that goes on in our courts today has to be changed if we are going to change the Young Offenders Act and other legislation dealing with the criminal element. There is no way that we can allow lawyers to go on bargaining away the laws of the country. The laws of the country are put in the records of Parliament, put in legislation to be carried out. That is the intent of the legislators who pass them.

I am absolutely opposed to handing it over to a group of lawyers and the court and the crown and saying: "You drop this, I will take that". In the end you have a situation similar to one that was brought to my attention recently by the hon. member for Victoria-Haliburton. A person goes into a store with a sawed-off shotgun, holds up the store, gets away, is finally caught and brought into court. When he is sentenced he gets four months and he will probably be out in two and a half months. They used to get 10, 12 and 15 years for armed robbery.

That is not justice in the eyes of the public and the punishment certainly does not fit the crime. These are things that have to be changed.

We cannot have people committing crimes in this country and walking away laughing at the law. That is indeed what is going on. We cannot have people going down the streets and shooting a top-notch graduate student on a sidewalk in Ottawa, Toronto or anywhere else, destroying good lives.

The system has to be seriously reviewed, not just reviewed and looked at and talked about and so on. I wish the justice committee well as it does this later. I thank the hon. member for York South-Weston for bringing the issue before the House and giving us a chance to discuss it. I know he is very serious about having the bill adopted for further study and brought before the justice committee.

The bottom line here, and I do not like using that term because it is usually used in an unsophisticated manner, or the real essence of law is that legislators pass laws hopefully to be obeyed, hopefully to be administered, hopefully not to allow a loophole where the law can be bargained away for those who want to get the case over with and win cases for people who should not be on the streets. When someone does get out on the street early and commits another crime, up goes another big sympathy wave saying: "Oh, this person shouldn't be out on the street".

He should not have been out on the street. The law has to be administered. Some of it is already on the books so that when a person is in prison he or she should not be out of incarceration until they have had medical treatment and are deemed by medical authorities to be capable of running their own lives, leading a decent life out on the streets and byways.

If there is anything that we are going to have to improve along with this legislation, it is to make sure that the treatment, medical care and the advising are in place to bring these young people back into a productive way of life.

There are some who have come under the Young Offenders Act who are now very productive in society. We have to recognize that side, too. It is not a one-sided picture. We can only try to perfect it if we try to correct the things that are not working in it today.

I want to review briefly the things that I have touched on. There is the medical treatment of these people, ensuring that the plea bargaining system is changed so that it is going to back up the law that we put on the books, the publishing of names of young offenders as indicated in the hon. member's private members' bill this morning and the fact that these young people do know what they are doing.

Let us go at this in a very constructive way and correct what is working to complement that which is working today.

[Foreign Affairs, April 21st, 1994]

Madam Speaker, as we stand in the House tonight we have a lot to be thankful for. We have freedom of speech, a free country. We have food in Canada. We have running water. We have toilets. We have hospitals with good medical people. Tonight we are going to talk about people who have very few if any of those things.

I want to compliment the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of National Defence and the government for bringing this business before the House tonight. I also want to compliment the other parties for agreeing with it and for participating the way they have. Foreign affairs of this nature should not be partisan. We as Canadians should be pulling together on issues like this where great humanitarian values are involved.

The situation in the former Yugoslavia is something we never thought we would see in the 20th century, certainly not in the middle of Europe. But it is there and we have to face up to it.

We are dealing with a Serbian group who cannot keep agreements. They are people who hold Canadian peacekeepers hostage. That is something this country cannot stand for under any conditions. The world cannot stand by and allow this to continue.

Over the years foreign affairs have been very much a contest among parties in this House but this one certainly should not. We have to ask ourselves: What price do we pay for freedom? What price do we pay to promote decency in the world? What price do we pay for respect? The answer of course is that no amount of money will buy them. They have to be earned and Canadians have been earning these qualities over the years.

We must look at history from where we stand tonight. Henry Ford once said that history is a lot of bunk. That is one of the most horrible contributions that could possibly be given to the record of the human race.

Tonight we must take into consideration why during the thirties the League of Nations failed. It failed because nobody would support it. Nobody would stand up for the causes of freedom and for the rights of people in other countries. There was no unity within the world to promote those qualities.

World War II did not just happen; we drifted into it because we did not do anything. We know what happened in World War I. It was a Serb who shot a prince and from there we went into international conflict in very short order.

Today there are over 60 hotspots in the world. More than 20 of them are active conflicts today. This is a time to learn from history, not to call it a lot of bunk, not to fall into the same old rut we have fallen into before as a society.

Canadians have participated all around the world. The Canadian forces have made their mark and made their name and they have taken the qualities of Canadian nationhood with them. We thank them for that.

Tonight the Muslims, the Croatians and the Serbs are in turmoil. Let us ask why. They are in turmoil because of that old-fashioned, centuries old term hatred. We talk about all the diseases. No other disease creates so many problems for humanity as hatred. No aggressor can be allowed to get away with what is going on in Bosnia tonight, or tomorrow, or yesterday.

Human rights and the decency of mankind is important to Canada and to every free civilized nation. We cannot stand by and allow slaughter to go on. We cannot stand by and allow rape to occur in that country.

Peacekeeping versus peacemaking. If we are going to ask our Canadian forces to go abroad into these difficult situations, then I say with all sincerity it is up to this Parliament of Canada to provide them with the right equipment to do so and the good training which they have had over the years.

Let us get out there and support them in real terms and not just with rhetoric from time to time. Our military community in Canada has led the way on many great days for this nation over the years of Canadian history and it will continue to do so in the future. We in this Parliament and Canadians from every part of this nation must give them our utmost support.

As we stand here tonight we can look upon this as a test case. Do we allow the UN to become weakened? Do we allow the western world to become divided? Do we not stand up and be counted? Do we drift and send a message out there to the despots and dictators of this world that there is not enough cohesiveness in today's world among the nations of the free world to put a stop to some of these atrocities?

If we allow that message to go out there we will not have more than 20 hot spots around this world, we will have many, many more because they will feel they will get away with it.

We have to stand up and be counted as a nation and Europe itself must stand up and be counted as a group of nations. I think it is a fair criticism tonight that many Europeans did not come forward soon enough and that Canada has played a role in every UN operation since day one. We need not be ashamed of our record in any way whatsoever. We must be proud of it, but if we are going there we want every nation pulling their weight.

Yes, NATO in this case is a UN support and it should not be looked upon by any nations as anything else but a support to the UN today. Yes, Russia should come on board with the rest of the free world on this one because this too can affect it. You cannot close your eyes and hope that it is going to go away. We cannot send our troops lightly armed into a peacekeeping operation that virtually becomes the middle of a war zone.

We have to make certain to take every measure for their safety. NATO will do its part.

Hatred is older than the hills but it is creating and will continue to create problems for mankind. It is the way we handle these that counts. We have to handle the bullies and the cowards of this world in the only way that they understand.

Canada is respected around the world. We cannot lose that respect because many have paid a big price to earn it. They have paid a big price to pave the way for nationhood in this country and it is that price that I guess we are going to have to continue to pay. Let us never fail to support those soldiers out there in the field and those who are in training. This Parliament must resolve to support them. Our Canadian soldiers will do their jobs but we as the Canadian representatives in the Parliament of Canada must do ours by supporting them in real terms.

Canada has been a nation that has played a major part in the founding of the United Nations. Canada has played a major role in the founding of NATO.

Madam Speaker, you are giving me my signal. I will give you my closing remarks. Today, these two institutions are serving mankind well. Let us remain as a team. Let us, as a responsible nation in the free world, pull the other countries together and work with them to bring peace to those troubled spots and to bring decency and respect and decent living again to those poor people in the former Yugoslavia.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for your patience.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Process, April 19th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I stood up and voted in the usual manner and I sat down in the usual manner. There were so many people shouting at me to tell me to stand up to vote I did not hear my name. I just want to be assured that my name has been duly recorded.

[Borrowing Authority Act, 1994-95, March 7th, 1994]

You give that away and don't brag about it.

[Avro Arrow, February 22nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, it was 35 years ago Sunday, February 20, 1959, that the Diefenbaker government cancelled the Canadian made Avro Arrow aircraft which was the sleekest and most advanced military plane of its day. Thus ended a second national dream for Canada.

Janusz Zurakowski, who had a distinguished military career in Poland, Britain and Europe, arrived in Toronto in 1952 and became the first test pilot for the Avro Arrow. Jan and his wife Anna own Kartuzy Lodge near Barry's Bay in my constituency. When asked about flying so fast he said: "It feels just like flying slowly, only faster".

The Arrow could fly at twice the speed of sound. It would still have been a modern aircraft in the early 1980s when we spent many times the cost to buy CF-18 aircraft from the United States.

The Diefenbaker government ordered the six Arrows already built to be cut up for scrap. All records, all factory facilities, all plans of any kind were ordered destroyed. What a sad commentary on a fantastic Canadian achievement.

As Canadians, let us build from our fires of success, not from our ashes. The Janusz Zurakowskis will be glad to see the change.

[Defence Policy, February 17th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member mentioned lastly the environmental problems. If we could prevent wars such as the one that occurred in the Persian gulf we would be doing that entire part of the world a great favour. The fallout on the environment as a result of the Persian gulf war has been horrendous in that region of the world.

This is why I want to emphasize today that our new defence policy and our foreign policy have to put great emphasis on keeping those types of battles down to a minimum and trying to settle them peacefully before they blow wide open. This is where I think the United Nations comes in. If the United Nations had had more power to move quickly and to act, maybe we could have prevented some of those disasters from happening in the manner in which they did.

I agree with the hon. member that wherever our forces bases are located, the people tend to live in the surrounding communities. That is good because they get to know one another very well. They get to know some of their problems and they have a feel for the civilian community. As we go on with this defence review it is going to be very important to emphasize civilian military relations in those communities and in communities where we do not have a military presence at all.

The hon. member and myself have a feel for it. Other members who spoke today have a feel for it, but those who live in communities that never see the military from one day to the next do not have the same feel for it. That is why this defence review is very important. That is why it is important the defence committee travel Canada to have an impact on those areas and to let them know what is going in the military community.

[Defence Policy, February 17th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. In response, I have heard the term boy scout used a great deal when talking about our Canadian forces. All I can say is that if we had more boy scouts like them, we would have a lot less trouble in this world. The term is used in a friendly way, but Canadian forces have always proven themselves, proven that they have metal, that they have courage and that they do their jobs well.

If it were not for the qualities of our Canadian forces to bring people together we would be in a lot worse position in this world today than we are. I applaud the forces for that.

Where do we stand after the review? I know that the hon. member would not want me to upstage the committee that is carrying out the review of the forces, nor would I try to prejudge it at this stage of the hearings which just got under way this morning as we went on with the defence committee.

I would like to say a word, though, about the UN. Not only is Canada having a defence review, but the time is long overdue when we should have a United Nations review. There is no better country in the world to lead up that review and to promote it than Canada because of the role that we played and the support we have given to the United Nations over the years, plus the fact

that Canada had such a major role in the founding of the United Nations to begin with.

We have to watch its operations now and upgrade it as well because that will mean that however the United Nations is upgraded will have an effect on our own defence policy in the future. We want to get better decision making powers out there.

Where do we see NATO? I can give my views on that at this stage. If we are going to continue to have major problems in the world and fires such as we have, then we are going to have to have a good alliance.

It is very important that we keep up the NATO alliance and keep our relationships together in the event that we have to pull that organization together for a major crisis some day. We do not have to be out there flaunting great forces every day of the week, but we have to keep it together and keep a good base for strength there in the future.

I read something the other day that I think is a good example as we start this defence review. It said that we should build on our fires, not on the ashes of our past.

Some of the fires of the past are what we used to organize the United Nations. What this country had was statesmanship in those days to organize the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Let us not lose it, let us build on those fires of the past and keep them there for many years to come. That is the only way we are going to retain any level of peace in this old world that we live in today.

[Defence Policy, February 17th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I have not had the opportunity to congratulate you on your appointment to the chair. We wish you well. I know you will do a very fine job.

I want to take this opportunity in this debate to thank my constituents for my re-election and for supporting me over the years the way they have. We have the largest county in the province of Ontario. In addition to that in my riding we have a large part of the district of Nipissing.

I live three miles from the base gate in Petawawa township. That base has been in the forefront of peacekeeping activities since day one. The families of the military and the civilian community have been rubbing shoulders. They get along well together. They play together. They work together. They study together and they plan together.

There is a very good civilian-military relationship throughout the entire community. That is very important. It is very important that our civilian community support our Canadian Armed Forces. This defence policy we are talking about today is undoubtedly in the long run going to mean they will be facing challenges of great cultural differences wherever they go in the

world. They will be facing great differences in religious beliefs and customs wherever they go.

It is not easy for personnel in the Canadian forces to be sent to any trouble spot on the face of the earth. They are ready to go, they are professionals, but there will be accidents along the way. When there are accidents we have to support them and when they do an excellent job we support them. If we do not do that then I would suggest to everybody that we are not really living up to that great promise we make on November 11 as we stand around the cenotaphs and say: "We will remember them".

Every soldier who goes abroad to do work on behalf of Canada, every soldier who works for this country has the same dedication to this nation and to his or her duty as those who have gone before them. We wish them well.

As we talk about Canada's defence policy in the few months ahead it is going to be very important that we consult those people as well as the Canadian public at large.

You cannot have a debate such as this on Canada's defence policy and have an inward look at it. Defence policy and foreign affairs policy automatically mean that we are not only looking at things in a national perspective here at home but we are looking at the world as an international community and we are going to work with them.

We must be humanitarian in our view of the world. We must be realistic. There is no way we can face the situations in this world today without being professional. Our Canadian Armed Forces are professional. There is a great visiting back and forth between Gagetown and Petawawa. I want to thank my hon. colleague from the Gagetown area for the speech he delivered this afternoon. He obviously has a very good feel for his constituents in the military community. It is very important to have that feeling on the floor of this House as we talk about defence policy and foreign policy for this great nation of ours.

There was a great deal of comment this afternoon about the defence committee. I cannot believe some of the comments I have heard. One would almost think that a standing committee around this place was something new. Standing committees have been going for decades. Standing committees have been meeting some of the best professional witnesses, the professional community and organizations anywhere in the world to come before a parliamentary committee. What is democracy all about? When a government is elected, does that government make decisions without consulting people along the way?

We just finished nine years of a government of that kind. It said it was consulting people all the time but it very seldom did. I ask the question: Where is it today? The leader of the Bloc Quebecois sat right here in the front row on this side of the House under the previous government. It is probably a good thing that he changed parties or he would not be in the House today.

We talk about standing committees of the House of Commons. My goodness, my own county council back home has about 35 or 36 very respected people on it. They have their committees for local government and they do a fantastic job. You save yourself a lot of heartache and trouble in the future. At least you have a feel for what is out there. You have some expert advice.

We in our capacity as individual members in this House of Commons are not all experts. We cannot stand in our place, and I defy any members of the opposition parties to stand in their place, and say that we know it all, we do not have to talk to anybody. That is not the way a good government operates.

A good government works with the people of the nation. It takes advice from the people of the nation. There are cases where you have to stand up and be counted because there is no real consensus of opinion. It is called leadership.

You cannot have a democracy if you do not have leadership. Sometimes you have to make those tough decisions but make them we must. That is why we are here. That is why people are paying us to be here.

We have played a great role in peacekeeping in support of the UN and we have heard a great deal about that today. However let us remember that when we are talking about those two things and when we are talking about a defence policy, what we have been doing in recent years in the international community as well as at home has been born out of our participation in two major world wars and the League of Nations in between those two world wars.

The Korean war came as the really first test of the United Nations. Was it going to stand up and be counted? Were the nations that belonged to the UN going to stand up and be counted or were they going to take the side step as happened to many nations that were members of the League of Nations between the two world wars?

It is very important that we continue as a nation to be good negotiators. It is important in this community that we have a good Canadian Armed Forces that has the ability and the capacity to operate in the international scene and to face all kinds of disasters and challenges. People who are in the forces joined because they know that is what their challenge is. They love the life they are in.

Canada played a major role in the founding of the United Nations after World War II. In that respect, I suppose we built some of our defence policy at that time. If we were going to promote the United Nations and be a member of the United Nations from its founding day onward, we had to support it. That

meant at times that we had to support them in settling international conflicts.

If we do not take that attitude then we not only let ourselves down, we let the United Nations down and we let the international community down. Worst of all, we let the peace forces throughout the world down and we are going to run into a major conflict. There are all kinds of people out there looking for a scrap these days.

Canada played a major role in the founding of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Lester B. Pearson, St. Laurent and King before him played a major role in the NATO organization. We know very well that if it had not been for the NATO forces sitting there ready to do battle, ready to face the Warsaw pact head on, if it had not been for trying to promote a balance of power in the world in those days, and there is no question in my mind as a student of history, we would have run into another major conflict in the world.

What would have happened in a nuclear arms war? We know the answer to that. I suppose we do not want to believe the reality of it but the potential was there. If we do not meet those challenges of today, if we do not have a good foreign policy for Canada and if we do not have a good defence policy for this country, I maintain that we will not be doing our responsible job as a nation in the international community nor will we be doing a good job for our own people right here in our beloved nation of Canada.

The Ogdensburg agreement of 1940 signed by Mackenzie King and President Roosevelt is a good example of the kind of international responsibility that we participated in during the second world war.

The North American air defence was another example of protecting Canada at the same time as helping to protect other nations.

Canada has always believed very strongly in multinational defence operations. Here with a population of 26.5 million or whatever we have today we could not begin to defend our borders, our coastal waters and our far north if we were not members of an international defence alliance. That was the real basis of NATO. That is where we must maintain our relations with other countries in the world.

Canada is a respected country around the world and that is why we can work with other countries in keeping the peace and keeping small battles down to a small roar instead of a big roar.

We were very influential in the founding and the ongoing activities of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe. That too is part of our defence organization because if we did not promote it we would not be promoting the well-being in the international community of those involved in that organization.

During the cold war what happened? The cold war was almost a battle to see who would go broke first. Military equipment and new technology cost so much and so dearly that it was a matter of who put the most into it, who had the best tax base and not who could win a war but who could sustain the cold war the longest. We know that the Soviet Union went broke first, but in doing so it certainly put the United States into a healthy debt situation today. We know what our own situation is like here in Canada.

The real basis of a defence policy is not just to get together at home and form a defence policy, but to get along with our neighbours and get along with the world community at large. That demands some expertise and some professionalism.

I would stack the members of our Canadian forces up against any diplomatic organization in the world. We think about them as fighting people. They are ready to do that. They are good soldiers but they are also good negotiators because sometimes they find themselves in the middle of things when they have to negotiate or talk to the enemy or to try to bring parties together under peaceful conditions.

I always say to members of our Canadian forces that not only are they good soldiers, they are good diplomats. They may not like my third definition for them but they are also good politicians because it takes that kind of leadership, that kind of negotiating skills that one requires in politics. We need that in the international community today. Our soldiers need that and our professionals need it when they go abroad.

World problems did not go away with the ending of the cold war. There are some people who think they did. We are only kidding ourselves if we believe that. Look at what has happened in the former Yugoslavia. We call it a humane world. We think that parts of the world have been here so long that today they are very human and realistic in their outlook. What we have seen in the former Yugoslavia is a good example of what took place in the dark ages when there were wars among tribes, et cetera.

Somalia is another good example of a nation divided within itself, fighting within itself and starving its people into doing what the military leaders wanted them to do or the local leaders wanted them to do. It is just a terrible situation.

Our defence policy is going to have to be-and I state this in the strongest, sincerest terms-such that our numbers in our Canadian forces are going to have to stay at a healthy level at which we can carry out our foreign policy.

If our forces are reduced to levels at which we really cannot have an effect on the international community, if we really cannot carry out our duties as effective peacekeepers, if we cannot really carry out our duties to help the United Nations in major challenges that come along, then we will not be playing our role and our foreign policy will not be in place. Our Canadian forces are a large part of the foreign policy of Canada.

Questions have been asked across the floor of the House today of why we do not bring in a white paper now, why do we go to all this trouble of interviewing people and having hearings from experts, specialists and our Canadian forces personnel, and why do we not just bring in a white paper and table it and then have a debate.

The last government, the Tory government that we had between 1984 and 1993, tried that out for size. The Tories brought in a white paper. Where is it today? What part of that white paper is valid today? Where would our nuclear submarines be today? We would have spent billions of dollars under that white paper that was not properly thought out before it was tabled in this House of Commons.

That is not the way this government is going to operate. This government is going to operate in a responsible manner in which we know what we are talking about before we take off on the run with some white paper. That is going to be a very important document.

We write our white paper after we put our policy together. Our policy means that we understand what the challenges out there really are. Our white paper should tell us that we are ready to face those challenges. It should provide for the changing conditions out there.

I want to go back to my home base of Petawawa. On many occasions when peacekeeping groups were put together they were brought into base Petawawa and there we had paint shops set up. Vehicles that were going to serve the UN were all painted white. Then they went through another shop and the big initials UN were painted on them. Then they were loaded on to Hercules, on to flat cars and were taken by ship and by plane to the problem area, wherever it was in the world. That is a great operation. It is run from square one.

We can bring an element of troops in from Calgary, others from Gagetown, others from base Kingston and others from Chilliwack if they are needed. It is a national operation. They are brought all together. The professionalism of our forces, which is going to be very important to promote in our defence policy review, is that they can work together. They train together and they are training together with our allies. Certainly that is going to be part of a defence policy. We have to continue to train with the Americans, with the British, with the Germans and have them over here, people from the international community.

As we know, we have the international community already training in Canada in places like Goose Bay and Shilo, Manitoba and in Alberta. It is a very good operation.