Philippe Paré

[The International Centre For Human Rights And Democratic Development, September 18th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the annual report of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development will be tabled in this House today. This

public body, set up in 1988, truly reflects the traditional values that make Quebecers and Canadians proud.

However, since March 1996, when it was announced that Mr. Broadbent, the president of the Centre, would leave at the end of his term, on September 1, 1996, the government has not found the time to appoint a full time successor, preferring to give to the new chairperson of the board, Maureen O'Neil, the additional responsibility of serving as acting president for a period of three months. Moreover, five of the thirteen positions on the board are vacant, pending a government decision.

This obvious laxness truly shows how little this government cares about the protection of human rights and democracy. What is the government waiting for to fill these positions?

[Nigeria, June 20th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the situation that has prevailed in Nigeria since the 1993 democratic elections were cancelled could have a disastrous impact on a large part of Africa, where Nigeria is a major player. Such destabilization could also have unpredictable repercussions throughout the world.

The human rights violations, particularly the arbitrary arrests and executions as well as the persecution of the Ogoni minority, are all reasons in favour of the international community taking swift and firm action against the Nigerian government.

Consequently, at the Commonwealth conference next week, Canada must actively promote the imposition of sanctions, including an oil embargo.

It has been more than a year since the Prime Minister raised the issue with Commonwealth officials; it is high time that concrete action were taken against Nigeria, as was done previously against South Africa.

[Petitions, June 20th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I have drawn the attention of this House several times already to the plight of Tran Trieu Quan, a Canadian citizen who has been imprisoned in Vietnam for two years.

These petitioners add their names to the many petitions tabled so far asking Parliament to ensure Mr. Tran's safety and to see that he is released as soon as possible.

[World Desertification Day, June 17th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, some 100 countries, 80 of them developing, are facing the consequences of desertification, which results from non-sustainable soil use practices. As a result, 900 million people may be affected by this ecological disaster, which leads to famine and population shifts.

The United Nations has declared June 17 World Desertification Day. This decision is one of the follow-ups to the Rio Conference held in June 1992. Subsequent international negotiations resulted in the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. To date, it has been ratified by 29 of 115 signatory countries, including Canada. But this convention must be ratified by 50 countries before it can come into force.

On this World Desertification Day, I urge the Government of Canada to assume a leadership role vis-à-vis other countries so that this convention can come into force as quickly as possible.

[Tran Trieu Quan, June 13th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Taking the whole world by surprise, the public ministry of Vietnam has decided to bring Tran Trieu Quan before an appeal court at a hearing to be held on June 17. Meanwhile, Mr. Quan continues to be shackled every day from 3 p.m. until the following morning.

Given the rather timid reaction by Canada to the treatment being afforded Mr. Quan, can the minister at least make a commitment

that the Canadian consul in Hô Chi Minh will attend Mr. Quan's hearing, in order to ensure that the rights of this Canadian citizen are respected?

[Oceans Act, June 10th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I did not want to take part in this debate but so much talk of good horse sense by my colleagues finally caught my attention and influenced me.

This is totally contradictory. A few months ago, there was a referendum in Quebec and a few days before that referendum, we saw the Prime Minister stand up, as another Prime minister had done before the 1980 referendum, and promise with his hand on his heart that yes, the Canadian federation would be changed to take the interests and demands of the people of Quebec into account,

but, poof!-as the Prime Minister would say-today all that has vanished.

In this debate, government members are telling us that they cannot do otherwise than what they are about to do because the Constitution and the British North America Act must be respected. How nicely put. How is it that respecting the Constitution has suddenly become such an absolute and inescapable criterion? What have the successive Conservative and Liberal governments done since 1867? We had time to observe them.

What have they all done since then? With their spending powers, they have intruded on areas of provincial jurisdiction under the Constitution. And, as my colleague from Gaspé put it, they have encroached on these provincial jurisdictions. At the time, the Constitution was not that important. What was important was the spending power.

But when the members from the Bloc Quebecois make claims in the name of good horse sense and talk about the Quebec's will to take its rightful place and exert some influence on lawmaking in this country, the only important thing is the Constitution.

Not too long ago, some time after the referendum debate, there was a speech from the throne. What did it say? It said that the federal government would no longer interfere in areas under provincial jurisdiction. I agree that this is an area under federal jurisdiction, but we could have thought that, following the speech from the throne, there would be a willingness to change the federal system.

It is obvious, as my colleague from Trois-Rivières mentioned earlier, that this willingness does not exist. There is no willingness to make changes. It seems that, in this country, federalist members, federalist politicians are unable to learn from the past, even from the recent past. We are constantly sending them messages, but to no avail. Here is another opportunity that the government is preparing to miss.

It would be a chance for the Liberals to prove that they can adjust, that they can transform the Canadian federation, as the prime minister likes to say. However, they are unable to do so because they have a different vision of this country. They have a vision where the government that has the most powers has to be in Ottawa and where the other governments, the provincial governments, have partial jurisdiction over matters of little importance.

The same thing happens each time we have a significant bill before us: the rhetoric is there, but the government does not deliver the goods.

[Copyright Act, June 4th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, about a year ago, when the House had to vote on the bill to implement the WTO agreements, we had to look, among other things, at the federal Copyright Act. At the time, we were stunned to see how obsolete and outdated the legislation was.

If I am not mistaken, it had been almost 50 years since the act had been last reviewed. It is a good thing the government, through its heritage minister, proposes to update this legislation, to provide better protection to authors and performers, so that the artists who make culture a central element in our country, particularly in Quebec, can finally get a return on their work.

We must not think that Canada is an innovator, since at least fifty countries have already granted their creators the recognition of these neighbouring rights. Of course-and I will have something to say about exceptions-every time a government introduces a piece of legislation granting rights or recognizing new rights for a class of workers, it has to be understood that there are reactions from people from which some privileges are removed.

I totally agree with my colleague from Québec that there should be no exception to this rule. I think that artists, through the sacrifice they made of the rights they should have recovered over the last years, have already done more than their fair share for economic development.

My colleague from Québec mentioned broadcasters, universities, colleges, schools, municipalities, people writing to complain that now they will have to pay. Of course they will have to pay; they did not pay for 50 years, so it is only normal that they pay now.

I would like to ask the hon. member the following question: Why should the government not apply in this case the sacrosanct principle this government has been advocating for a number of years, the user pay principle? All of a sudden, we find that the

government, which pays lip service to this fine principle, is introducing all kinds of exceptions. Earlier today, we passed Bill C-20 on the privatization of air navigation control services. We saw the government go against its own user pay principle when it said that National Defence should not pay for using these services. Now it is coming up with a series of exceptions.

As soon as we open up exceptions, we can add indefinitely to the list. That is why I ask: Why does the government not apply the user pay principle in this case?

[Civil Air Navigation Services Commercialization Act, May 17th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I thought my colleague opposite was getting ready to speak, but he was getting ready to leave.

Since this is both the report and second reading stage, I would like to broaden the debate and deal with a point which seems to be well covered in a clause, but which is nevertheless a cause for great concern. That point is whether the Official Languages Act will apply to the new air navigation services corporation, Nav Canada.

Air navigation services have been under the jurisdiction-actually, they still are, as long as Nav Canada is not operational-of Transport Canada, a government department. Despite this direct link between air navigation services and the government, Quebecers working in the air transportation industry had to put up a great big fight to be able to use French in planes, control towers, and air control services.

This is a cause for great concern. If they had to fight so hard when air navigation services were under the government, how can we be sure Nav Canada will abide by the Official Languages Act? The former minister told us Nav Canada would be covered by the act, and that the bill says so, but how can we trust him?

Even after the Official Languages Act was put in force, we had to wage a great fight. I remember the part the late Roger Demers played in this fight for the right to work in French in the air transportation industry in Quebec. It took years, even if the Official Languages Act was in force and if we were dealing with the government.

Those opposed claimed that disasters would result if French was used in air navigation services. As if as soon as they entered Quebec air space, all the planes would have crashed simply because French could be used to communicate.

Roger Demers and the Association des gens de l'air fought some very important battles over this issue and the use of French in the air, and that battle is far from over.

This was such a major event in the history of Quebec that the Association des gens de l'air has created two awards to commemorate the battle French speaking Canadians had to fight. Every year, the Association des gens de l'air presents to an individual who has distinguished himself or herself in the air industry the Roger Demers Award and the BILCOM, which is short for "bilingualism communication".

These people remember perfectly the battle they had to fight and that is still going on.

At this point in my speech, I would like to read part of a letter my colleague from Beauport-Montmorency-Orléans and I wrote to the Minister of Transport in April, 1994. Part of this letter concerned the issue of services in French, and I quote: "After Canadian air control is centralized, only one of the nine air control centres, the Montreal regional air control centre, will be French, that is, one centre for 7 million people, while the ratio for English speaking persons will be one for 2.6 million". How can Quebecers accept these figures?

The letter goes on: "It is not surprising, then, that the Îles-de-la-Madeleine are served by the Moncton regional control centre, usually in English unless a pilot demands to be served in French, in which case the control tower leaves him on standby at the end of the runway. He will sometimes have to wait up to ten minutes to get his instructions in French.

"It is in this context also that we should look into why Transport Canada is so offensively slow to bilingualize the Ottawa terminal control unit". We are, of coure, talking about the Ottawa airport here.

"Indeed, for the last five years-this letter was written in 1994-Transport Canada has been trying to make this terminal control unit bilingual, but in vain. For the umpteenth time, it has been announced that this service will be available as of May 1, 1994". It was still not to be on that day, since it was postponed to May 26, 1994, that is, more than five years after it was promised.

I will continue with the letter, and I am talking here about the use of French: "It also relevant that, in this part of our discussion on French services, we take a look at the airports that you, Transport Canada, have decided to exempt from centralization, namely Ottawa and Calgary". These two airports have kept their terminal control units, whereas many cities lost theirs, including Quebec City.

"Until now, in justifying these two exceptions, you always referred to the traffic density and complexity of the Ottawa and Calgary airports".

Traffic density and complexity are just excuses. We believe the real reason is totally different. Ottawa being the capital of Canada, Transport Canada knew that, some day, air traffic control in Ottawa would have to become bilingual. However, to think that the Toronto area control centre could become bilingual was an aberration. And to think that air traffic control for the Ottawa airport could be done from Montreal was hardly more acceptable for Transport Canada officials.

So Transport Canada used another kind of logic to solve the problem. It was determined that the Calgary airport was busy enough and complex enough to warrant the maintenance of its terminal control unit. Then, Transport Canada concluded that Ottawa was similar to Calgary in this sense. Therefore, it had just found a way to justify its decision. But, in reality, it is the old battle of French in the air that justified the maintenance of the terminal control units in Ottawa and Calgary.

If you look at-and this is something that is even more insulting to francophones-Order No. 4 from Transport Canada and read section 3 of that document, you will see that the title of section 3 is "Interdiction". Not tolerance, but "Interdiction".

The section reads as follows: "Unless otherwise provided in section 4, 5 or 6, anyone operating an aeronautical radio station in Canada shall not exchange advisory services or air traffic control services in a language other than English".

This order was issued on May 29, 1980, therefore after the battle fought by the Association des gens de l'air, after nearly 10 years of applying the Official Languages Act, and it is still not allowed. Obviously, the exceptions in section 4 apply to airports located in Quebec. This means that, outside Quebec, francophones wishing to speak French with other francophones, a francophone pilot wishing to speak with a francophone air traffic controller in Toronto, Moncton or Halifax, is not entitled to do so. And that was by authority of Transport Canada, in other words the government.

Just because Bill C-20 says that the Official Languages Act will be applied, how can we be sure that French will be protected in the air? That seems to me to be an extremely important point. I have the impression that workers in the aviation sector in Quebec will have to remain extremely vigilant. However, as the responsibilities are being transferred to a non-profit agency, I think that future battles will be all the more difficult. They will require even greater effort.

I will conclude on this note. There was one nice thing in Order No. 4. It said that, in the event of an emergency, two francophone pilots could perhaps speak to each other in French in Canada's air space, but only in an emergency.

[Tran Trieu Quan, May 17th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I would remind the minister that the appointment of his special adviser has produced little to date.

Is the minister telling us that he does not intend to take the initiative in this matter preferring to await the outcome of the appeal procedure, among other things, and that, in other words, regardless of the information he has in hand, he will continue to do nothing while Mr. Tran continues to languish in prison?

[Tran Trieu Quan, May 17th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

While the federal government continues to drag its feet in the matter of Tran Trieu Quan, he continues to languish in a Vietnamese prison. However, more than a month has passed since the minister received documents from Paul Morgan proving that the cotton was indeed delivered to Vietnam. The minister was to verify the authenticity of these documents.

As more than a month has passed since the government received the documents, which could hasten Tran Trieu Quan's release, could the minister tell us what stage this longstanding matter has reached?