Borys Wrzesnewskyj

[Royal Canadian Mounted Police, April 17th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the hypocrisy of this. Yesterday we learned, despite the minister's denials, Mr. Zaccardelli gave him a full briefing on what happened months ago. In Maclean's, on March 29, the former Conservative public accounts chair said, “I would rather see a judicial inquiry”.

Yesterday's highly conflicted testimony reinforces that a non-arm's length, powerless investigator, who reports to the minister, will be unable to get to the truth.

When will minister stonewall call a public inquiry, or does he plan to ignore the will of the committee?

[Royal Canadian Mounted Police, April 17th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, since March 28, Liberals have been calling for a full judicial inquiry into the RCMP pension scandal. Yesterday the public accounts committee endorsed this call even though Conservative members on the committee abstained from voting on the matter. Yet the minister continues to stonewall, blocking full accountability for an organization that just happens to be deciding whether to investigate him for the Jim Hart scandal.

When will the minister do the right thing and call for a full judicial inquiry into the RCMP?

[Royal Canadian Mounted Police, April 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives say that they want to deal with the issues quickly.

Last year whistleblowers raised shocking concerns with parliamentarians of all parties about fraud, nepotism and cover ups of criminality at the top echelons of the RCMP. Unfortunately, Conservative MPs on the committee blocked our calls to get to the bottom of the scandal for months.

Whistleblowers and investigators faced constructive dismissals, and now the minister is putting up a constructive roadblock.

Will the minister appoint a full judicial inquiry, or is Conservative law and order at the discretion of the minister?

[Royal Canadian Mounted Police, April 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, this issue is not about blind partisanship.

Why is the government blocking efforts to expose the alleged fraud in the RCMP pension and insurance funds and to expose subsequent cover-ups?

This money belongs to front line officers. It belongs to the courageous RCMP personnel who protect our communities. They deserve our support and the Canadian public needs the cloud hanging over the RCMP to be addressed in a transparent and fulsome manner.

Why will the minister not scrap the idea of a powerless investigator and appoint a full judicial inquiry?

[June Callwood, April 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, early Saturday morning past, an angel who walked Toronto's streets departed.

The late June Callwood was a prolific and awarded writer, however, it will not be in the reading salons that the greatest amount of tears shall be shed. June applied most of her boundless energies to repairing the aches of her communities.

An aching void will be felt in places like Nellie's House, where abused women and children found shelter; Jessie's Centre for Teenagers; and Casey House Hospice for people infected with HIV-AIDS.

In the 1980s, in Toronto's rough Queen and Bathurst neighbourhood, I first encountered June's inexhaustible energies and good works, and in recent years I have been honoured to have been able to call June a friend.

June has departed leaving behind thousands of friends and admirers, however, we know that as she passes through heaven's gate there will be thousands there to greet her, the thousands whose dying days were made bearable by her goodness at Casey House Hospice.

[The Budget, March 30th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, three of Canada's largest police organizations publicly rebuked the supposed law and order Conservatives. They are angry at another broken Conservative campaign promise.

The Minister of Public Safety has ignored months of calls from these organizations.

“It seems like the public safety minister forgot to mention it to the finance minister”, said Mr. Cannavino, President of the Canadian Police Association. There also is no money in the government's budget for new police officers on our streets.

Why has the Prime Minister broken his promise to hire 2,500 more police officers?

[March 29th, 2007]

You tore it up. You threw it away.

[March 29th, 2007]

There was a signing agreement.

[March 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, we just saw a blatant case of revisionism on the part of the parliamentary secretary.

He said it was in the small print. First of all, the Conservatives did not even put anything in their 2006 or 2007 budgets for internment, but he said it was in the small print. If he listened, it was referenced in the opening paragraphs of the 2005 budget and he actually acknowledged there was $25 million. In fact, the sources and uses table on page 4 indicates that an additional $30 million was put into this particular program.

The Ukrainian Canadian community has said that CHRP and NHRP, the new programs mentioned by the hon. parliamentary secretary, are absolutely unacceptable. In fact, if the government proceeds down this path, they will be looking at legal avenues.

Bill C-331--

[March 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it is with a heavy heart that I must once again rise in the House to call on the Conservative government to live up to the historic internment agreement signed by the previous Liberal government and the Ukrainian Canadian community on August 24, 2005.

This agreement was for the acknowledgement, commemoration and education of Canadians of a dark episode in Canada's history: the internment operations against Ukrainian Canadians.

Beginning in the 1890s, Ukrainian Canadian settlers transformed the wilderness of the Northwest Territories into the golden wheat fields of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. They were enticed to Canada with promises of free land. The government did this to counterbalance the northward push of American settlers into Canadian territories.

These hardy pioneers guaranteed the territorial integrity of Canada's borders.

Today, we can in fact say that they were one of Canada's founding peoples.

However, during World War I, prejudice and racism were fanned into xenophobia, leading to the introduction of the War Measures Act by an order in council of the Conservative government of Robert Borden.

Over 8,000 so-called enemy aliens, of which over 5,000 were Ukrainians, were interned, including women and children. Homes and homesteads were confiscated and some 80,000 Canadians were obliged to register as enemy aliens and report to local authorities on a regular basis.

Then, two years later, that same Conservative government passed legislation disenfranchising tens of thousands of Ukrainian Canadians based solely on the location of their birth.

Back on August 24, 2005, the previous Liberal government signed an historic agreement in principle with the Ukrainian Canadian community. An initial amount of $2.5 million was to be the first instalment of a $12.5 million multi-year package administered through the Shevchenko Foundation.

During question period on March 1, the Secretary of State for Multiculturalism all but confirmed that the Conservative government had no intention of living up to that agreement.

To add insult to injury, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Canadian Heritage and the Secretary of State for Multiculturalism all thought it more important to declare in their so-called historic budget that three-down football is a heritage sport worthy of public support through heritage tax dollars, yet this same budget was completely silent on the acknowledgement of and education about injustices suffered by Ukrainian Canadians during World War I internment operations.

What a contrast. In the 2005 Liberal budget, the former finance minister, in his opening paragraphs, referenced Ukrainian Canadians and provided the funding for an internment settlement agreement.

The Conservatives, on the other hand, tore up this historic agreement. There is not even a mention of internment or a future consideration in the Conservative budgets of 2006 and 2007.

This failure to act by the Conservative government, despite record surpluses, is a breaking of the trust. When the Prime Minister was in opposition, he invoked the name of Mary Haskett, born Manko, the last survivor of World War I internment, in a House of Commons speech in which he committed himself to the resolution of internment.

Will the government re-announce this Liberal initiative while Mary Haskett, the sole survivor of the internment operations, is still with us? Will he do the right thing?