Jack Harris

[United Nations Security Council Resolution Concerning Libya, March 21st, 2011]

Mr. Chair, I, too, want to say how supportive we are of the fact that this debate has been brought before the House today. We have already agreed on a motion to be passed later on today. It is extremely important that this military action by Canada outside of our country be brought to the House at the first reasonable opportunity, with an opportunity for members of the House to debate it and to vote on the motion later on today.

I want to thank the minister for outlining some of the issues. I do have a couple of questions, and we will in the course of debate get to some of them.

The United Nations Security Council resolution, which we fully support, is about more than military support. We support section 4 and section 8 that deal with the protection of civilians and the no-fly zone.

The objective out of all of this is to obtain a ceasefire with the ultimate aim of necessary political reform. There needs to be a peaceful and sustainable solution to this problem, led first by a ceasefire with the use of envoys and representatives on the diplomatic side. I want to emphasize that at the outset.

We have jets there now that have already participated in the mission. I presume it must have been a surveillance mission because there was no engagement of ground forces.

Could the minister tell the House if the CF-17's and the Hercules that we have had there for a couple of weeks have been engaged in assisting with the humanitarian effort? That has been a consistent problem there. There are many refugees on both the border of Tunisia and Egypt. What role has the—

[National Defence, March 10th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, on the F-35s, Conservatives are using 10-year-old costing numbers provided by Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer. They did not even bother to do their own analysis.

According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the price tag for the F-35s now nears $30 billion, not the $16 billion claimed. This would cost us more than the entire war in Afghanistan.

How can the government be trusted when it is not telling Canadians the truth about the real cost of these jets?

[Afghanistan, March 7th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, first it was to be military training in classrooms behind the wire in Kabul. Then the line was that it was to be Kabul-centric. Now we find out that the Conservatives do not know where our troops will be going.

This is not the first time the government has extended our military mission in Afghanistan by saying one thing to Canadians and doing another. Previous extensions were supposed to be about training too, but our soldiers continued to be put in harm's way.

How can the government expect Canadians to keep buying the same lines over and over? It is time the government kept its promise, repeated again and again, to bring all of our soldiers home in 2011.

[Afghanistan, March 7th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are right to distrust the government's plans for the extension of the military mission in Afghanistan.

We know that weeks after its about-face announcement of the extension, the government had to send a fact-finding mission to the region to figure out what to do.

Today we learn that the government still has not decided what our soldiers will be doing and that it is running out of time to do so.

How can the government promise a Kabul-centric mission when it has not even figured it out for itself?

[Regional Development, March 4th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, Atlantic Canadians are still struggling to recover from the recession, but this government continues to chip away at the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. The 17% cut to ACOA's budget while the unemployment rate is above the national average is a stark reminder of the Prime Minister's opinion of Atlantic Canadians. Included in the cuts is a $2.5 million drop in the promotion of official languages and $24 million from RInC funding.

When will this government accept that the people of Atlantic Canada are not locked in a culture of defeat and give them the support they need to prosper?

[Business of Supply, March 3rd, 2011]

Madam Speaker, perhaps the member could elaborate on his views.

I heard his very enthusiastic and vigorous speech. One thing I did not hear, though, is whether or not he supports the idea of Canadians getting to decide whether they want to get rid of the Senate or not. This is what the motion is about with respect to the Senate. Are the people of Canada sick and tired of this notion of an undemocratic Senate, with the kind of concerns that he raised? Having the powers it has under our Constitution, should people not be given an opportunity to express their view? And if they want to get rid of the Senate, then it is up to us as political leaders to find a way of doing that.

Could he tell us whether the Liberals support the idea of Canadians having a say, or at least find out what their opinion is as to whether or not we should rid ourselves of this relic?

[Business of Supply, March 3rd, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to the very intelligent minister on this issue, but when this issue of abolishing the Senate is raised, the complaint that I hear from over there is that it would involve constitutional change. How can we do what the member suggests without getting into that quagmire?

We have Alberta with six Senate seats compared to 10 in New Brunswick. The whole thing is a mess. To even try to get any sense of it would require the most agonizing amount of constitutional bargaining, disagreement, and unhappiness that one could imagine.

The simplest thing to do, what the minister's leader said to do, is to abolish the thing. I do not think it can be fixed.

[Business of Supply, March 3rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member would like to comment on the fact that after prorogation in December 2008, when the Prime Minister did not want to face Parliament and the music, he then appointed 17 senators on January 2, 2009, one of whom was the individual who lost the election in Avalon in my province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

That person, Senator Fabian Manning, voted very recently to kill Bill C-311, the very bill the person who defeated him, who is sitting in the Liberal caucus, voted to support in the democratically elected House.

What does the member think of that, and what should Canadians think of a system that allows a Prime Minister to appoint a defeated candidate to an unelected Senate, who then votes down something that the person who defeated him voted for in the House of Commons?

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, March 1st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I had hoped that we had passed the high-water mark of paranoia. Understandably, the Americans were concerned about what happened September 11, 2001, but that was not a result of problems that this agreement is designed to solve. The people who did this nasty business in the United States in 2001 at the World Trade Centre did not fly from other countries, they were inside America. They were not coming from foreign states to do this nor over-flying the country. I think an awful lot of work has been done since then to be more vigilant, there is no question about that.

I hope that we are at the high-water mark and that the invasion of privacy envisaged by both this agreement and by the perimeter agreement are not going to be implemented. We oppose them. We think they are going too far and we will vote accordingly when the time comes.

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, March 1st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, that will give me a chance to tell the story of my visit to Russia in 1981.

I met an individual who that very day had been interviewed by the KGB because she had been seen in a place where foreigners would visit. I asked her what the consequences of being interviewed by the KGB were. Her answer was very interesting. She said, “One never knows”.

What we do know is that they wrote down the fact that there was a meeting, why there was an interview, everything that was said, and they put it in a file somewhere. That information could affect one's future when applying for a job, or trying to travel to a foreign country. This was 1981, before the wall came down.

Her answer stuck with me ever since, “One never knows”. One never knows what the consequences are of information that a secret agency might have on a person. That is why people like me and other Canadians value our privacy, freedom, and our own security. We consider it wrong that foreign government agencies have information that they have no need for without any protection, safeguard, or any ability to correct that information.

That's the essential reason why this legislation ought to be opposed. The agreements are not transparent, the information is not protected, and there are no safeguards as to what the information may be used for. These are the concerns we have and continue to have. This is why we oppose this bill.