Libby Davies

[Legalization Of Marijuana For Health And Medical Purposes, April 14th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member for Rosemont for bringing forward private member's Motion No. M-381, to allow the legal medical use of marijuana.

This motion is a very good demonstration of what we can do as parliamentarians to examine an issue. In some ways this institution of the House of Commons is sort of far behind public opinion, even where the medical community is. Certainly people who are suffering from pain and diseases like AIDS or cancer are very eager to see this motion pass.

I congratulate the member for his diligence in bringing this issue to the House and seeking out support from other members. I think that support is now quite strong. Many of my NDP colleagues are very supportive of this motion. Our health critic, the member for Winnipeg North Centre, spoke on March 4 and outlined very well the medical evidence that already exists to demonstrate that this motion should be approved in full rather than with the amendment put forward by the government.

There is lots of evidence before us to show that the medical profession has made it quite clear there are very good grounds and information to show the medical use of marijuana is actually something beneficial. It helps people who are suffering from HIV, AIDS, cancer, MS and other ailments. We have received communications from groups such as the Canadian AIDS Society. It has very strongly outlined and advocated its support for this motion.

There is no question there have been numerous studies. Also, very brave individuals in our society have taken on the justice system, sometimes almost alone, to challenge the archaic laws when it comes to the medical use of marijuana. People like Jim Wakeford, Terry Parker and others with a lot of expense and anxiety have had to take on the system to get this issue before the courts and to challenge the sanity and the rationale of why this law still exists.

Numerous polls show us that even the Canadian public believes very strongly that the medical use of marijuana is something that should be sanctioned and supported. It creates a very strange situation that we have public opinion, and we even have judges making court rulings, we have health professionals, and the medical profession all telling us that this is the right thing to do. The lack of political will and commitment to follow through is now the greatest obstacle we face.

I along with other members were very happy to see the Minister of Health make his announcement on March 3 that Health Canada will study and develop a plan around clinical trials for the medical use of marijuana. I do think we have to question whether or not this is simply a stalling tactic that is going to cause people more harm and more suffering as they wait for more studies to be done.

We have to be very clear that the Minister of Health has the discretion and the power today. He had it last year and the year before that but he has it today to approve applications on compassionate grounds for the medical use of marijuana. There are applications before him.

The Vancouver Compassion Club is an organization in my riding with a membership of about 700 individuals. Marijuana is actually dispensed for medical purposes. They have a lawyer who is signing people up to apply for an application for exemption. They are even prepared to go to a legal challenge based on their constitutional rights to have this medical exemption take place while the trials are taking place.

I encourage members of the House, particularly government members, to continue to put pressure on the health minister. It is a useful and good thing to have these clinical trials go ahead as there are things that we need to learn. However, we have enough information now to ask the minister to go ahead with the exemption so that people can get relief, help and support now without having to become criminals if they seek help through places like the Vancouver Compassion Club or other organizations.

Why are we afraid of taking immediate action on this? Why is the government afraid of doing that? It is partly wound up in the morals we have. We heard from the health critic of the Reform Party. It is all wound up with people's concerns about recreational use. This is part of a debate which I think is very necessary on Canada's drug laws. We need to have progressive reform in our drug laws.

I have been working on an issue that affects my riding very much. It deals with injection drug users, heroin addicts who are literally dying on the streets. I have been advocating for heroin prescription trials as a way of medicalizing support and help to actually prevent people from dying, to get support for those people who now are completely outside of the system.

The biggest barrier is not from the medical community, nor even from the public. It is from elected representatives, particularly the government representatives who are afraid to take this issue on. It deals with the taboos around a drug policy.

I say very strongly that this is a place to begin in terms of drug reform policy. There is strong public support but we do have to go further.

We can make a very rational, articulate and well reasoned case why the motion should be approved. The Minister of Health should be approving applications today for exemptions so that Canadians do not suffer any longer, so that they can get the relief they need without having to go to all kinds of difficult means and being made to feel like they are being marginalized and stigmatized by having to get medical marijuana illegally. That is a shame. It is something that does not need to exist if we had the political will and the leadership.

I thank members of the House who support the motion. We must continue this work. There is a lot at stake here. This is an important debate. We must put pressure on the health minister to provide those exemptions.

We must make it very clear that we do not want to wait another two or three years for the trials to be conducted. We do not want to wait for another study or another plan. We want help and relief to be provided now while those trials are going on. That is what we must urge the government to do in the interest of compassion and of providing people with real help and assistance.

[Kosovo, April 12th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his comments. Throughout the debate today and certainly in question period the leader of the NDP; our foreign affairs critic, the member for Burnaby—Douglas; and all of us who have spoken in the debate have made it very clear that we believe the debate today is an opportunity for us to assess the position that has been taken by all political parties and what we should do now and in the future.

I reiterate we are hugely concerned that after 20 days of bombing we appear to be no further ahead in terms of achieving the objectives of how NATO was sent in, in the first place. We believe that through the United Nations, through a special meeting of the general assembly, we should be issuing a call to Mr. Milosevic to end his ground war, to come back to the table, and to pursue diplomacy and negotiations. On that basis bombing should be halted.

We should take this time to say that if we are serious about negotiations there are choices within that. The peace accord from Rambouillet is something that is probably now off the table. We only have to look at what happened in Northern Ireland to know that if there is a commitment to make it work a very real and genuine course can be followed.

In response to the member, that is what we in the New Democratic Party want to see emphasized. We believe now is the time to increase that effort from the UN and to have the international community, including very strategic players in terms of Russia and China or other interests in the Balkan area, be part of that initiative so that we do not lose an opportunity to give negotiation and diplomacy a chance.

What is the alternative? It is to issue other ultimatums and to keep up the bombing. I would ask a question of the member. Can we seriously and legitimately say that we have achieved the objective that was laid out to us 20 days ago? I think not.

[Kosovo, April 12th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, Kosovo has drawn the attention of the world. No matter where we live in Canada we have watched on television and we have read in the newspapers the horrors and the atrocities, the violations of human rights that have taken place in Kosovo against Muslim Albanians.

In the past two weeks in my riding of Vancouver East I have been overwhelmed by the response that I have received over the telephone, by mail, e-mail, faxes and from people I have met on the street. The response I have had in my own community has been on a couple of levels. First, there has been the response that we have all seen in the House of Commons, across Canada and indeed around the world. That has been the response of: What can we do to stop this violence? What can we do to provide a humanitarian effort to ensure that the Albanians of Kosovo are not violated further?

From my constituents I have also heard another very thoughtful response. It concerns the question of what is the appropriate role and what is it that Canada should do as part of the international community to ensure that there is a just peace in the Balkans and in particular in Kosovo.

I have been very gratified by the amount of debate that has taken place regarding what Canada's role should be. Many of my constituents have expressed very grave concerns about the fact that Canada has participated in a NATO action that has escalated into military intervention.

Twenty days ago all political parties in the House, including the NDP, supported that intervention because we believed that it was necessary to provide a humanitarian response to the atrocities that were taking place.

However, here we are twenty days later and I think we have to say that the situation has changed. Twenty days ago there was an assurance, a prediction, that the NATO initiative would be short and effective and that its objective was to protect the Kosovars.

This debate has gone on for many hours. We are approaching early morning. Although we will not be voting, today is the time to take stock, to pause for a moment, even in terms of our Canadian contact, to say “What is Canada doing? What has our response been? Is it still the appropriate response?”

The situation has changed. Rather than the situation being contained, which we were told was the objective of NATO, in actual fact the situation has worsened. The bombing has provoked a horrific number of atrocities and a greater fleeing of refugees. Over 500,000 refugees have fled Kosovar.

The bombing has caused untold harm, suffering and death to civilian populations. It is very important to point out that in today's wars—and this is a war, let us make no mistake about it—it is the civilian populations who are the primary casualties. Even though we are told that there is strategic bombing, it is still the civilians who pay the price.

We were told that this would be effective, but we now face the very real danger and threat of the situation escalating. As I and people in my community of Vancouver East watch the news, we watch with a sense of anxiety and stress. We see this drama in the Balkans playing out with Russia particularly, as well as China, becoming involved and making various threats. The whole situation is becoming destabilized.

In today's debate and certainly in our discussions in caucus we believe that we must have the courage to stand and examine what solutions are going to provide a humanitarian, peaceful and just solution in Kosovo and in the Balkans.

We have to ask ourselves if the continued bombing of the people of Serbia and the continued fleeing of refugees is bringing any stability to the area. Evidence is mounting that the contrary is happening. There is greater instability, greater harm is being done and the NATO initiative is leading us into a situation that is more and more volatile and tense.

People in the peace movement have suggested and predicted that because NATO went in without the authority of the United Nations the very issue of NATO itself has become one of credibility. We went in with a massive force, we issued an ultimatum and then it became very hard to back down, rather than seeking out other resolutions that would bring peace to the area.

Our caucus has had very serious and thoughtful debates about what it is we should be bringing forward to this House of Commons, what we should be saying on behalf of our constituents. We believe very strongly that in terms of what Canada does at this point we should be emphasizing and moving back to a role within the United Nations, a role within international peacekeeping forces, which includes Russia, the OSCE and China. Otherwise we run the huge risk and danger of having the situation worsen daily and we will see the NATO objectives failing.

One of the major peace organizations in British Columbia, End the Arms Race, whose members are expert in the areas of international law, peacekeeping and conflict, wrote a letter to the Prime Minister expressing their opinion that Canada has failed the United Nations. They said that the unilateral military action of NATO has further undermined the authority of the United Nations, the new international court of justice and other UN bodies, and that Canada has contributed to international anarchy by demonstrating that international politics is not governed by law, but by military power.

Those are very sobering words. I urge members of the House to take stock of what is taking place and to recognize that, yes, we must have a humanitarian response, but we are also allowing a crisis to develop in the role of the UN and how the international community responds, not just to the situation in Kosovo, but elsewhere.

We only have to look around the globe at the situation in the Congo, which is a bloody civil war, at the Kurds in Turkey, at the Great Lakes region of Africa, at Sierra Leone, Indonesia or East Timor. There are very fundamental issues about how it is that we strengthen international law, how we protect human rights and how we use the role of the UN as a catalyst to facilitate peacekeeping and the protection of human rights, rather than using NATO as an instrument of U.S. foreign policy to further its own interests.

There is a huge concern growing about the further escalation of the war in Kosovo and whether we have met the humanitarian objectives which we started with 20 days ago. Now we have the contemplation of the possible use of Canadian ground troops, with no assurance from the government that it will be done through a democratic vote in the House of Commons.

I think it is time to say that we want to see an end to the bombing. We want to see a serious pursuit of diplomacy and not the rejection of every diplomatic overture from Russia or other countries. We want to see a serious negotiation take place under the auspices of the UN. We want to see an international peacekeeping force and, very importantly, an international system under the auspices of the general assembly, after a debate in the general assembly, to adjudicate and make decisions about the use of peacekeeping forces.

Also I think we want to see a commitment that other atrocities, often perpetrated or abetted to serve U.S. interests, receive the same kind of attention. There is an issue of consistency here. The media have drawn our attention to what happens in Kosovo, but we have to be aware of other situations that also demand that kind of response from the international community.

[Aboriginal Affairs, March 22nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the Nisga'a people have spent the last 20 years negotiating a land claims treaty with the federal government. Now that the fulfilment of a 100 year dream is near, the feds are stalling. As usual, the Liberals are weighing the political pros and cons instead of sticking to their commitments.

We say that the time has come to right the wrongs of the past. I ask the minister, will the federal government keep the promise it made in good faith negotiations with the Nisga'a people and move immediately on this historic agreement?

[Young Offenders Act, March 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have this opportunity to speak to the private member's bill that was introduced by the member for Surrey North.

I thank the member for bringing this issue forward. It is not always easy to bring forward a private member's bill for debate. A lot of work is involved. Next week we will begin debate on the new youth criminal justice act which is very important. I would like to congratulate the member for having done the work on this issue and for being part of a democratic process which ensures that these issues are aired.

The member's personal circumstances surrounding this issue are tragic. This is all the more reason that we need to debate these issues, to ensure that our youth justice system works properly and protection is provided not just for young people but for society as a whole.

The purpose of this bill is to make an offence as set out in section 7.2 of the Young Offenders Act a hybrid offence. As we have heard today in debate the bill does not change the section other than to make the penalty more serious. In serious cases under section 7.2, parents or guardians could face a jail sentence of up to two years if they fail to supervise their children who have been released from custody. This would be an increase from the current maximum penalty of six months in jail and/or a $2,000 fine.

Normally when a child is charged with a crime under the current Young Offenders Act, a parent or guardian signs an agreement with the court to supervise the child and enforce certain conditions until the charges are heard. This bill would increase the penalty if the conditions are not met.

There will be a much fuller and comprehensive debate in this House as a result of the newly introduced youth criminal justice act, Bill C-68. While we welcome this private member's bill as a good opportunity to debate something that needs to be aired, it is important that it also be in the context of youth justice as a whole. From that point of view it is important that the new youth criminal justice act be debated on the next day of business of the House.

We in the New Democratic Party very strongly support measures to protect the public from serious violent repeat offenders. We believe that youth who fall into this category and have been determined to be a risk to public safety should be held in custody.

One purpose of our youth justice system is to recognize when violent crimes have taken place, if custody is determined to be in the interests of the public, then those young offenders should be held in custody. We will get into this more when we debate the new act that has been introduced. We have some concerns about the impact that provisions such as the one before us today may have on families and their ability to meet conditions. What kind of difficulty will imposing a stiffer penalty have for a single parent, low income families or even families where both parents are working full time?

It is important to put on the record that although there are very good intentions around this bill, we have to have a balanced approach. We have to look at whether or not this kind of penalty will place a significant and unfair burden on some families and parents who lack the resources to strictly enforce the supervision orders. A bill such as this one may be something that becomes discriminatory.

In the last few weeks a lot of the debate in the House of Commons has been about what is happening to Canadian families and how they are under enormous stress. We have had debates from the Reform Party about the tax system. There has been a lot of useful exchanges in the House.

In today's day and age there is enormous stress on families. Parents sometimes have one, two or three jobs. Wages are being driven down. People are working longer and longer hours for less money. All of those things create stress on families, particularly on single parent families and low income families. These are very difficult times.

I do want to be clear about our concerns on the impact this bill, if it were approved, would have on some families in terms of their ability to provide the resources and supervision required under this bill and generally under section 7.2 of the act. We have to make sure that the families that can least afford the resources are not families that would be singled out and unduly punished.

If we want to deal with the issue of youth crime or youth justice, the NDP believes very strongly that we have to look at the underlying causes of youth crime. We must have adequate long term programs, not just a little bit here, a band-aid there, a new announcement today, or a few more dollars here and there. Governments at all levels have to make a serious commitment to address things like chronic youth unemployment and the lack of educational opportunities.

In my own community, I am sure every parent is aware that education has a real impact on young people. Young people who are seriously involved and doing very well in school and whose needs are being met through the educational system are very unlikely to get into trouble.

Education is a lifelong process. Young people must be supplied with the educational, employment and training opportunities they need. I and many other members in my caucus believe they are fundamental and critical things we can address as a society to ensure that we are actually preventing crime.

When kids are productive and involved in their communities and in their schools, they are not getting into trouble. They are not falling off the edge. They do not feel isolated, that nobody cares about them, that they have no future and that they have no hope.

Unfortunately, the converse is true. When we see the lack of educational opportunities, the lack of training and jobs and the lack of community support then we see kids who are very high risk. They become vulnerable to the sex trade, to illegal drug use and to youth gangs. All of those things become pressures on young people.

From our point of view, those are the issues that need to be addressed if we are serious about addressing the causes of youth crime.

Next week for the first time, the B.C. government is declaring a week to stop the sexual exploitation of children. Youth awareness week is being very much supported by the RCMP as one way to draw attention to some of the issues facing our young people and how they get drawn into a criminal and marginalized lifestyle. This is something we need to deal with and ensure that there is an adequate response.

We appreciate this bill being brought forward. As we begin to debate the youth criminal justice bill next, we want to deal with these issues in a more comprehensive way. While we do support the intent of what is being brought forward here, we do have some concerns about the impact this provision would have on some families.

We look forward to the debate that is coming forward in the next few days around the youth criminal justice system.

[Canada Elections Act, March 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, a recent court decision in Ontario striking down discriminatory provisions of the elections act concerning smaller parties was a significant decision.

I recently attended a press conference as a result of this decision to uphold and support the fundamental principles of democracy and fairness in Canada. How we conduct elections is fundamental to our democratic system. The discrimination faced by smaller parties is shameful. These provisions have been struck down.

Now it is up to the government to be clear that it will not appeal this decision and will indeed bring in amendments to the Canada Elections Act to eliminate punitive and discriminatory provisions as struck down by the court.

Will the government give an assurance that it will do the right thing?

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1998, March 18th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to have this opportunity to speak to Bill C-72, the income tax amendments act, 1998. I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member for Kamloops, Thompson and Highland Valleys.

I begin by drawing attention to the fact that the bill we are debating today is as a result of the 1998 budget. Thinking of that budget, what it contained and the amendments now before us as a result of changes to the Income Tax Act, we remember this budget as something that came from the government side of the House being characterized as the education budget, the youth budget.

As the spokesperson for the NDP on post-secondary education I went through that budget and talked with students and student organizations. It was to take stock of whether this so-called education budget, and now the income tax amendments that flow from it, contained measures that would really assist students in Canada. Throughout 1998 as the impact of the budget began to unfold it became very clear that although this was characterized and held up by the Liberal government as the great education budget, the reality was that very little had changed in daily lives of students.

As someone who defends the interests of students, along with other members of the House who have concerns about students in Canada, I think there was one really despicable thing in that budget. While we were told it was an education budget, secretly, through the back door, there was something that was not announced in the finance minister's speech. It was changes to the Bankruptcy Act which impacted on students, changing the laws affecting bankruptcy so that students could no longer declare bankruptcy after having exhausted all other means. They could not declare bankruptcy after two years but had to wait ten years.

A couple of weeks ago I attended a press conference held by the Canadian Federation of Students where a test case was being brought forward to challenge the bankruptcy changes made by the Liberal government in 1998.

Ms. Annik Chenier is a young woman who attends Saint Paul University here in Ottawa. She had a student debt of $63,000. After some very modest interest relief and debt remission, Ms. Chenier was still left with a debt of over $50,000. She had left school and was now working and would be paying close to $700 a month on her student loans. Ms. Chenier had tried to obtain a reduction and a different type of payment plan but had reached the end of the line. Because she had no other options available to her she wanted to declare bankruptcy. She could not do so because of the changes in last year's budget. I bring this up because this really portrays what students are facing.

In this bill before us today there are some minor changes, a kind of tinkering, that provide some relief to students. I will go through them. The basic inequality and crisis being created as a result of the retreat of public funding, the massive increase in tuition fees, the increase in student debt, remains.

We have students like Ms. Chenier and other students across Canada still facing very desperate circumstances and still facing collection agencies that harass students. I have had phone calls from students crying because they have been harassed by collection agencies at work or school. Canada student loans have been privatized, turned over to banks which get a premium on student loans and if students go into default, through no fault of their own, they are turned over to collection agencies.

I think it is very important to point out that with some provisions in this bill, some debt reduction, Canada education savings grants, the 17% federal tax credit, while they do provide some minor relief, unfortunately the reality is they do not fundamentally or substantially change the situation for students.

One good measure was included, assistance for students with dependants. This, which was actually a Liberal red book promise, provides grants of $3,000 a year. That was a good measure and something I am glad to see the government acted on.

I was very disappointed, as I know students across the country and Canadians in general were, that the relief promised in the budget in terms of what was actually provided fell far short of people's expectations.

One of the changes in this bill involves personal income tax. If we look at the example of a one income family of four earning $20,000, under these provisions that family would get a tax cut of $165. It is certainly better than nothing but I have to compare that to a letter I received a few days ago from a woman in British Columbia.

She described her situation to me. She works in a fast food outlet, making minimum wage. She is raising two children and pays more than 50% of her income toward rent. She was writing to me about housing because I have raised the issues of housing and homelessness. With the measures we are debating today, would that woman and her kids be better off?

Would she have more money substantially to pay for her rent? Would she have more money to put food on the table? Would she have any money to put into savings for RRSPs for her kids' education which is one of the provisions in this bill today? She is struggling even to pay the rent, so any hope for her to put money into an education plan is something way down on the agenda.

I came to the conclusion, as my colleagues in the NDP have, that again this budget has failed in these amendments to the Income Tax Act before us today. It has failed in terms of dealing with the growing inequalities that face us in society. I hear some of the debate from the members of the Bloc who are pointing out the same kind of situation in terms of the constituents they represent as well and their perspective on this matter.

I think we have a really serious problem in this country. We have now had a succession of budgets. We had the education budget. We had the budget this year that was a so-called health budget. There is talk about the children's budget next year. None of these budgets or the income tax amendments that flow from them serve to substantially alter or change our tax system to make it fairer and progressive and to make sure that for low income Canadians, poor Canadians who have borne the brunt of massive cutbacks and of inequalities in our tax system, it will improve life in a meaningful way for those Canadians.

I think that is a real sad day for Canada. That is why my colleagues and I in the NDP voted against the budget last year. It failed to address those issues. Certainly in terms of the income tax amendments before today us when we look at the criteria of who this budget really helps, does it really help the people who are most in need, we come up with the same answer, that this budget and the legislation before us today have failed.

I guess we cannot escape the glaring facts that after tax inequalities are increasing and that low income Canadians and students are falling further and further behind.

[Housing, March 17th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the minister is just not getting it. He knows that what he has offered to B.C. is at an interest rate so high that it is not a usable program. He knows that they have been negotiating for a year and there is still no commitment from the feds. The homeowners do not need political manoeuvring. They need action. Will the minister at least accept responsibility to help the thousands of co-op housing owners still under federal responsibility who are facing the same crisis?

[Housing, March 17th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Public Works and Government Services.

Why has the minister turned his back on thousands of leaky condo owners in B.C. left stranded as their assets literally drain away? In the past the minister committed to federal loans to B.C. with interest rates so high that the province is better off accessing them on the open market. Yesterday he offered the B.C. municipal affairs minister more of the same: nothing.

Why would the minister offer a so-called partnership that offers zero to leaky condo owners?

[National Housing Act, March 11th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his comments.

On the situation in Winnipeg, I visited Winnipeg. I saw communities that were completely devastated because housing was abandoned and there were no funds to rehabilitate the houses in the north end of Winnipeg. A consequence of the public policy decision that was made by the member's government is affecting the member's constituents and the people of Winnipeg like other cities across Canada.

Yes, I agree that the meeting with the mayor of Toronto was very important. But why was the meeting required in the first place? Why did the mayor of Toronto have to come here hand in glove and beg for funds to meet the disaster that is happening in Toronto and elsewhere? Why has the Prime Minister not gone to the city of Toronto to view the disaster? That is the question I would like to ask the member.

The situation in Toronto is really bad. People are dying on the streets. And it is not just in Toronto, it is across Canada. The Golden report clearly pointed that out. To this date, we have not had a response from any Liberal member or from the Prime Minister as to what is going to be done to enact the Golden report, or more than that, to deal with the situation across Canada.

Yes, there will be an emergency conference in Toronto at the end of the month. I am glad that it will take place.

This entire disaster could have been prevented had the federal government continued its provision of funding social housing since 1993; 75,000 units have been lost. That is why we are seeing more people on the streets.

Regarding the money that was announced in the budget, it is Liberal members who are saying that it is going to health care. I would argue that housing is a health care issue. They should be looking at housing as a health care issue. Good housing is a basic determinant of health. I encourage the member to do that. By the government's own admission, that $11.5 billion is going to health care which is also in a crisis.

Again, where is the money for housing? Where is the commitment to meet this very important social need?