Stephen Harper

[Members Of Parliament Retiringallowances Act, June 16th, 1995]

moved:

Motion No. 10

That Bill C-85, in Clause 4, be amended by replacing lines 36 to 41, on page 4, with the following:

"an allowance equal to one half of the basic retirement allowance, but if more than one person is entitled to an allowance under this paragraph, the total amount of the allowances shall not exceed one half of the basic retirement allowance".

[Members Of Parliament Retiringallowances Act, June 16th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I understood that there was also going to be a motion from the Minister of Justice to move this. He has repeatedly stated to the House that he supports amending the Canadian Human Rights Act and extending same sex benefits. I understood we were also going to have a motion from the Minister of Justice to seek unanimous consent to move these motions.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, 1995, June 14th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, as I said many times before, I am not a Quebecer, but here is how I understand Quebec's history: Quebecers want to form a society within a bigger Canadian society. They want to keep both their Canadian identity and their Quebec identity and that will only be possible in a federal state.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, 1995, June 14th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I find the member's remarks very interesting. I am a bit confused. I think Quebecers will be just as confused as I am during the referendum campaign.

In responding to the member for Bellechasse, the member for Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup talked about the need to have only one member in Quebec City and only one level of government and the need to eliminate duplication and overlap, as members of the Bloc always say.

Now, in the agreement signed by the three sovereignist leaders, we see a proposal for a new Parliament for an independent Quebec and the rest of Canada, and not only a Parliament, but also a new cabinet, and we know what will happen. There will be public servants, offices, etc. They are also proposing a tribunal to solve some problems between the two nations.

In fact, they are proposing a new level of government with independence. I think that it is contrary to the commitment of the Parti Quebecois, which is to eliminate a level of government, and we must take into consideration the fact that this PQ government has already promised to hire all federal public servants here, in Hull. I cannot understand this position. It will be interesting to see how they will explain to Quebecers the creation of a new level of government after independence.

Regarding the member's question, he asked me if I would accept the result of a referendum. Obviously, we cannot recognize Quebec's power to determine the future of all the provinces, but the result of a referendum is clear. It is the expression of the will of the people. If the result is affirmative, it means that the majority really wants to separate, and if the result is negative, it means that they want to remain part of Canada. What I want to know now is if members of the Bloc will accept a negative result this time.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, 1995, June 14th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, first let me explain exactly what it is we are debating tonight.

At the moment we are debating Senate amendments to Bill C-69 which amends the previously amended bill from the Senate, Bill C-18, which sought to amend and suspend the Electoral Boundaries Commission. If that explains what we are doing, let me add a little more. If we accept all or some of these amendments the process will continue amended. It will amend Bill C-18 which will then be suspended. The amended process will begin again and we will have amended boundaries for the next election.

However, should we decide not to proceed with any of this, the process continues just as it was before with no amendments whatsoever. This is the incredible journey we have been on in the government's quest to, for reasons that are becoming less and less clear by the day, redo the electoral boundaries all over again. I think I will stop there before I confuse myself.

The member for Bellechasse addressed a very interesting point in his speech. He really addressed the role of the Senate in making these amendments. It is an interesting question because I think all members of the House feel some concern about the role of the Senate. We are here at the end of the 20th century, nearly the 21st century, and we will be one of the very few countries even if we include the non-democratic world that actually has a quarter of the seats in its Parliament unelected.

There are two proposals to deal with that, as the hon. member for Bellechasse suggested, either of which would be preferable to the status quo. One is to abolish the Senate, the proposal of the Bloc Quebecois. I find it interesting that it comes from the Bloc because Quebec was the last province to eliminate its own upper house, in 1968, in the living memory of virtually every member of this institution.

At the same time, Mr. Parizeau has created a council of ministers, a council of unelected regional advisors, to really parallel the very role the Senate is supposed to play in the Chamber, which it does not. It was admirable innovation by Mr. Parizeau. I do not know if it is working quite as he hoped but it is interesting that he would appoint an unelected second cabinet.

We prefer to have the Senate elected but the question we have to ask ourselves, given the government supports status quo federalism and does not believe in changing anything and believes in appointed senators, is what the senators are supposed to do. Senators have constitutional responsibilities to execute. Bills go to the Senate, the Senate is paid to consider those bills and the Senate has considered those bills.

The Senate has suggested six sets of amendments. It has taken some time to study these. In all honesty, although some of the people in the Senate are not my favourite people and that is probably an opinion they share, they have conducted themselves very responsibly on this issue. They have examined a case in which Parliament has grossly abused its authority in a way that is irresponsible financially because it is costing us $6 million. It is irresponsible democratically because it is suspending a process set up by Parliament to be independent. It is irresponsible in a basic governmental sense. The reasons for doing this are obviously for self-interest in interrupting this whole process, so evident it is quite embarrassing to this body.

The Senate has examined these things and proposed a number of amendments. I do not support all its amendments. If I have time I will go into describing why I support some and why I do not support others. The Senate has looked at a number of issues that need examination and has given us an honest opinion. Certainly no one here doubts the chairman of the committee in the Senate that examined this bill is an outstanding constitutional expert, Senator Beaudoin. Everybody recognizes that and certainly he has tried to play a useful role in this debate.

It is also interesting to note that the Bloc Quebecois's opposition is based on the absence of a guarantee of 25 per cent of the seats in the House of Commons. The hon. member for Bellechasse has repeated this fact tonight. It is also interesting because that would obviously be an unconstitutional amendment to this bill. Senator Beaudoin knows that, as do all the constitutional experts, but this is also interesting because it must be remembered that the solution to these problems, as far as the Bloc Quebecois is concerned, is in fact a Parliament where Quebec would have 0 per cent of the members.

The important course taken by Quebec at the present time, the course taken by its premiers over the last thirty years, would have disappeared, and this is the solution. Quebecers should not forget that. The Bloc Quebecois's solution does not guarantee 25 per cent of the seats in the House of Commons. Its solution lies in a Quebec with 0 per cent of the seats in the Parliament of Canada.

Let me go over these amendments in some detail to give my party's considered position on them. To repeat what the member for Kindersley-Lloydminster said, one amendment is certainly acceptable to the Reform Party, just as it is acceptable to the government. In Amendment No. 4(a) the Senate is proposing to add a requirement for the two non-judicial commissioners to be resident in the province for which the commission is established. The Senate recognized that is a tradition and something that really should be in the bill.

It is fair to say in the committee that studied this bill, of which I was a member, this requirement was inadvertently omitted by the technical drafters. This is an amendment the Liberal government will accept and which we are certainly prepared to accept. Our amendment also accepts this change and clarifies something that should be in the bill. It would be an abuse to have a commission that contained members who were not resident in the province.

Consistent with what we have advocated in the past, the Senate has proposed that the allowable deviation from the provincial quotient be reduced in its general application from 25 per cent to 15 per cent. This is was one of a series of amendments the Senate is proposing because it felt, not without some justification, we have drifted so far from voting equality in a number of clauses of the bill that there needs to be some correction. Independent of that we in the Reform Party had already supported this consideration when the bill was before committee last summer and also when Bill C-69 was in the House.

Our view is there should be more equalized voting power, that the 15 per cent discrepancy should be acceptable between various rural and urban constituencies in all but the most exceptional cases. That would achieve this. We argued for this at all previous stages of the bill.

The contrary argument is there need to be special discrepancies for rural areas but 15 per cent is a wide discrepancy. It means a variation from 85 per cent to 115 per cent. We would actually have quite a wide variation in the number of constituen-

cies plus the fact the bill actually allows for exceptional circumstances that go beyond that, not just those laid out in the senatorial clause or the grandfather clause of the Constitution but discrepancies that go over and above that for exceptional ridings in the far north of the various provinces. We propose in our amendment that this amendment from the Senate be accepted and we have argued for it at all previous stages of the bill.

The Senate has proposed along the same lines in its Amendment No. 6(b)(i) to eliminate the provision that a commission will only recommend changes to existing electoral district boundaries where the factors set out are significant enough to warrant such a recommendation. This was basically designed to encourage the commission to give greater consideration to electoral boundaries.

We had a lot of debate on this and related topics in committee.

The government should remember I was troubled by the comments of the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader in the House and before the Senate committee on legal and constitutional affairs. He really tried to convey the impression there had been massive agreement on this legislation.

In our case we disagreed fundamentally with the entire purpose of this legislation, with the idea of suspending electoral boundaries right from day one. We had questioned also the purpose of re-establishing the commissions prior to the next census when it would be necessary. There were disagreements beyond that in terms of the amending formula, for the number of seats in terms of the quotient. Beyond that there were many items in which we had multiple differences before arriving at an agreement.

When the member for Kingston and the Islands suggests we had agreed on all these areas, we had agreed on all these areas only after our first, second, third, fourth and fifth preferences in many cases had been rejected.

To say there had been enthusiastic agreement about all these things from the Reform Party is certainly an exaggeration. As he knows and knows full well, both opposition parties and particularly the Reform Party have opposed this bill at every important stage of its development.

With regard to Amendment No. 6(b)(i) the Senate has in its consideration come upon something that deserves re-examination. There are probably a lot of things like that, given the timetable forced on this bill. The re-examination here is that there should be this special factor, clause 19(2)(c), that if factors are not significant enough to warrant such a recommendation the commission should not recommend changes.

That is covered in several other clauses of the bill, as the Senate pointed out. There is the definition of community of interest which describes existing constituencies as one of the most important basis of any new electoral map. Wide deviations are already allowed, the 25 per cent plus additional consideration for constituencies that go beyond 25 per cent in come cases. There are already many factors in the bill that give a very high priority on keeping existing ridings intact.

As well, the bill as it is now probably provides to members a bit of a false assurance. One of the things we were told in our committee hearings last summer by people who had been involved in the drafting process is to stop thinking of our ridings as individual ridings. This is a trap that we fall into as members of Parliament. We represent a riding and if that riding changes we see that as a change to our riding. Commissions do not draw ridings, they draw boundaries to ridings. It is impossible to change one riding without changing another riding.

Once the criteria set out in the act require a change to any riding, almost always that has a domino effect that impacts on the vast majority of ridings in a province. Therefore in practical terms once one hits the basic triggers laid out in the bill it is impossible to preserve existing ridings exactly as they are in any case.

For that reason the Senate has pointed out a consideration which is probably not terribly useful and which the House should withdraw. That is why in our amendment we propose accepting Amendment No. 6(b)(i) from the Senate.

Let me now talk about those Senate amendments the House should continue to oppose. In doing so I will lay out the considerations the Senate did give in suggesting these amendments. In every case they have some merit and we should understand the reasoning.

The Senate proposed to eliminate this new clause we have in the bill that would give 20 members of the Commons the ability to challenge the Speaker's appointments to boundary commissions. The Senate did that for a couple of reasons. It was concerned about the role of the Speaker. The Speaker is required to give rulings every day and his impartiality is an important criterion of his effectiveness. The concern was that setting up a mechanism in a bill that allowed people to challenge the Speaker in and of itself provided a situation where the Speaker's authority could be easily undermined not just on this issue but on a number of issues.

The Senate was concerned about the introduction of fairly blatant partisan politics into the process. I would not deny that is the case. In supporting this amendment we in the Reform Party recognize that it would force the Speaker to consult with all three parties and maybe in some cases with representatives of other parties.

We did that not because we prefer partisanship but because we have come to the conclusion that a certain amount of partisanship may enhance the independence of the process. Let me explain what I mean by that.

There is no doubt that the process we have today is independent. If we look at it on paper it is independent. It was established in 1964 and nobody has suggested that it leads to undue political interference. However, what has the reality been since 1964? The reality has been that every time boundary commissions have made proposals for change, the House of Commons has intervened not to interfere directly in the process but to use its power to quash the process completely.

In a sense the House of Commons can always interfere, and it interfered on a grand scale. In the past the outcome of that interference has been a new formula for distribution of seats among the provinces under the Constitution. This time that particular route was rejected and we made no major changes along those lines. That was fairly blatant political interference.

We in the Reform Party are hoping that the process of consultation, which will ensure that the Speaker not only hears from the government but hears from all parties, will bind all parties and all members into the process so they do not invent the kind of wild stories and conspiracy theories that were necessary to justify the kind of interference we had in 1994. That is what we are hoping and I think the Senate should take that into account. There is a dynamic here. The dynamic is partisan. We have been unable to secure true independence and we feel this is the next best alternative.

These appointments are not a ruling by the Speaker and thus challenges to his appointments. While they would be embarrassing and would certainly undermine the credibility of the Speaker were he to propose any kind of commissioner that was not accepted on a partisan basis, it is certainly not likely to be seen as a non-confidence motion.

I would like to continue to analyse some of the amendments. The Senate proposed to eliminate the use of the special trigger based on population shifts for the very establishment of a boundaries commission in the first place. The Senate was concerned that we were in effect violating the Constitution by not automatically having boundary commissions, and that because the boundaries would not be considered in a certain province it would easily put the legislation before the courts in some kind of a court challenge.

Once again the Senate has something which it has a right to consider. I believe in this case that the senators are fundamentally wrong. Senator Carstairs argued, and I think she is correct, that the Constitution requires only interprovincial decennial redistribution and not intraprovincial decennial redistribution. In other words, the failure to have intraprovincial decennial redistribution would not in our view contravene section 51 of the Constitution Act.

As well, by not changing the boundaries if they are at least within 25 per cent we are in effect reasserting boundaries that already exist and that presumably have survived any previous court challenge.

The reason we supported the measure originally was that it was a considerable cost saving. In the redistribution that will likely recommence after the bill is passed, it will not be necessary to re-establish commissions for Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island, as well as the Northwest Territories. That will save over $1 million in the next process.

While the Senate has raised some concerns of a legal nature, I believe they are incorrect. I also believe they are dealing largely with theory. I believe very few people would challenge a redistribution simply because it failed to change a riding that already existed.

Finally I will comment on the redefinition of community of interest the Senate is proposing. Its definition came from the Lortie commission which had a number of worthwhile recommendations on the electoral redistribution process. We in the Reform Party worked hard to provide another definition because we fundamentally reject the Lortie commission's approach that there basically be affirmative action-racial kinds of criteria involved in the drawing of boundary commissions.

The Senate and the Lortie commission have some legal support in suggesting that there are court decisions. There are legal precedents that not only recommend this but, in the case of some courts, are actually pushing this kind of approach. Whether or not that is the case, it is in our view clearly contrary to the best interest of our country and to the idea of a non-racial Canada that we support. We feel the Lortie commission and the Senate are mistaken in that regard. We were satisfied that all three parties in the committee agreed that approach was not appropriate.

That is the Reform Party's review of the various amendments the Senate has proposed. I hope it sheds some light on why it proposed them as well as why we accept or reject them.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, 1995, June 14th, 1995]

I rise on the point of privilege, Mr. Speaker. If you were to review that point you would find there is no point of privilege. If you were to review the blues on the speech of the member for Kindersley-Lloydminster you would see that he merely stated a fact, that there were several changes of position by the Bloc Quebecois in the course of the electoral redistribution debate.

The Bloc member is certainly capable of describing what was his motivation. I think you will see that the member for Kindersley-Lloydminster was simply establishing the fact he behaved that way, and in any case it is not a violation of his privileges to do that.

[Firearms Act, June 12th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, this will be the only opportunity I have to address Bill C-68 in the Chamber. I was not able to speak to the bill at second reading because there was time allocation then. Now there is time allocation at report stage and time allocation again at third reading. There has been time allocation at every stage of the bill. It is unfortunate that in the end most members will be lucky to have 10 minutes to speak to this bill.

It is my intention to oppose the bill at report stage and at final reading unless substantive amendments are made. I have mentioned before that in the last election I made certain commitments to represent Calgary West in the House of Commons and to do so on the basis of Reform principles and policies. All Reformers ran on those principles.

Among those principles and policies is a commitment to ascertain the views of our constituents and to vote those views where they can be ascertained. Specifically, on moral issues and on the issue of gun control, I have made a particular commitment to discover and to vote the wishes of my constituents. I have followed a process in attempting to do that.

Through my householder I surveyed the general opinions of my constituents on gun control prior to the tabling of Bill C-68. That survey covered three general areas that are included in the bill. It covered the area of registration of all weapons, tougher penalties on gun crime and also the area of further restrictions and prohibitions on various classes of weapons. All of those things were supported in principle by a large majority of those who responded to the survey. That was prior to the tabling of Bill C-68. Consistent with that I supported Bill C-68 at second reading despite my own misgivings about some elements of it.

At that time I sent out a second survey to my constituents giving a little more information on the bill and asking very specific questions about the contents of Bill C-68 as well as giving my own views on it. Those questions, which were much more complex, asked about elements of the bill. As well they asked for their overall feeling on the bill. It came back with a somewhat different result that I think reflects not only greater knowledge of the bill but a change in public opinion that has occurred in Calgary in the past few weeks.

While some elements of the bill remain strongly supported by the population I should say that both my householder survey and the scientific survey I have conducted have indicated that there is still broad support for the general principles of the bill. However there are some very severe concerns about specific matters, about some of the penalties for non-registration, the confiscatory elements of the legislation and the cost concerns.

Some areas are supported and some are not. In the end the households that replied indicated about 60 per cent overall disapproval of the bill. I will reflect that in my vote.

From my own personal standpoint I believe there are elements of gun control and specifically of this bill that could be helpful. The government has over reached in a number of areas of the bill and it is unfortunate that we cannot get a more modest package.

Let me make some comments from my perspective as intergovernmental affairs critic of the Reform caucus because there are several areas of the gun control package that deserve some comment. We know that the Department of Justice retains overall responsibility for gun control but the program is predominantly administered by provincial and territorial governments, through chief firearms officers and local police agencies.

In 1993, the auditor general concluded that delays in reaching financial agreement with the provinces and territories under the authority of section 111 of the Criminal Code could well weaken the gun control program. Financial agreements had been initiated in 1979 and extended several times. The agreements expired on March 31, 1993 and now new agreements have been signed only with the maritime provinces.

I have been told the funds that the provinces received are not adequate to cover their costs. For example, in the case of Saskatchewan, it has not received payment for its administration of existing gun control programs since April 1, 1993 and it appears that little progress toward resolving this conflict has been made.

The federal government's latest offer amounts to only about two-thirds of the actual cost incurred for these programs. Agreements with the provinces are also mandated under section 108 of the Criminal Code to ensure maximum co-ordination with regard to administration of gun control.

We know that several of the provincial and territorial governments, and I include here Alberta, Saskatchewan, the Yukon territory, the Northwest Territories and now Ontario are not supportive of the bill. Clearly a high degree of provincial support is needed if this program is to be implemented with any degree of success.

Many amendments have been suggested to the bill, including the creation of a new level of bureaucracy, gun control inspectors, for which no cost estimates are available and about which all provinces are very concerned.

It would seem to me that a government that wanted to have its provincial counterparts on side would slow down and consult with them more on the bill, on the amendments and on its implementation. Instead we have a situation where at least two provincial governments, Saskatchewan and Alberta, are considering constitutional challenges or perhaps even refusing to administer gun control programs. That is unfortunate but it is part of what I talked about earlier in my speech where we have a situation where in many areas the government has over reached itself. In some cases it raised some very legitimate areas of concern and in other areas raised concerns where concerns were not necessary.

My own feeling, having talked to many people in my riding about this, people who own guns and do not own guns, people who are for the bill and who are against the bill, gun owners who are for and gun owners who are against, non-gun owners who are for the bill and non-gun owners who are against it, is that there is a fairly broad consensus on the kind of gun and crime control that is needed.

Many citizens would be more than willing to register their weapons and co-operate with police if they felt that in so doing this would affirm the legitimacy and respect for their responsibly used property rights and for responsible gun ownership.

Unfortunately there has been a pattern of legislation in the past decade where registration has been followed by increased regulation, ultimately by restriction, prohibition and then by confiscation, often without compensation. This has led to fears that some may say are unfounded but which do have their grounding in people's experience with gun laws.

These are people who have tried consistently to obey the law. That is unfortunate. Government has reinforced that impression by concentrating on the issue of gun control. Most people see a role for gun control but we have a government that refused to move in most areas of criminal justice reform.

The Young Offenders Act remains unreformed. Sentencing remains not reformed satisfactorily. We have ongoing debates about capital punishment and other areas of the criminal justice system which the government has not touched at all.

All in all, the government's fairly one dimensional determined agenda in this area has probably cost it the support of many Canadians who might otherwise support this legislation.

I will be the first to admit that it is very difficult to measure public opinion on this bill. Certainly when this bill was originally brought before the House my constituents were overwhelmingly in favour of its general direction. There has been a shift in public opinion. That shift has been away. The fact of the matter is that no clear consensus now exists for many of the measures in this bill. For that reason, I will be supporting a wide range of the amendments to the bill, and if those amendments are not adopted I will oppose the bill on the final vote.

[Pensions, June 12th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question.

The House will notice that minister did not offer to reveal the real cost of MP pensions. We know that some Liberal members must opt out of the pension scheme in order to fulfil campaign promises made in the last election.

If the government will not commit to publishing the benefits of the MP pension plan, will the minister at least agree to publish a list of those members who opt in and those who opt out or is he trying to hide that information too?

[Pensions, June 12th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is also for the Prime Minister.

The cost to taxpayers for individual MPs' expense allowances, travel expenses and salaries are available for voters' scrutiny in the Public Accounts of Canada, volume II, part II. However, the cost of individual MP pensions is not there. The information commissioner is being forced to take recourse to the courts just to obtain a list of MP pension beneficiaries.

Why is the government trying to hide how costly the MP pensions really are?

[Bill C-69, June 9th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure how many friends I have in the Senate.

In the Ontario election last night premier-elect Harris defeated the Liberals partly by proposing that there be a 25 per cent reduction to the number of seats in the Ontario legislature. If the government is not willing to at least let the redistribution go

ahead, would it consider combining the redistribution with the modest 10 per cent reduction to the number of seats that the Reform Party has proposed?