Young Offenders Act  Mr. Speaker, the minister has indicated that this is a complex issue and I would tend to agree. We just witnessed her predecessor's overly simplistic fiasco with the 1995 amendments. But 10 months? I ask the minister: How complicated is public safety and accountability?

Young Offenders Act  Mr. Speaker, the justice minister must not hide behind the complexities of the Young Offenders Act any longer. The 10 year review is done and the recommendations are in. The minister has had 10 months yet she has accomplished absolutely nothing. If the justice minister is not up to the job, will she step aside and allow someone else to bring in the needed amendments to the Young Offenders Act?

Young Offenders Act  Mr. Speaker, the justice minister has had 10 months to bring in amendments to the Young Offenders Act. She has read the report to parliament and its recommendations. She has heard from the provinces and their people. She has dozens of lawyers at her beck and call yet she has accomplished absolutely nothing.

Banking  Mr. Speaker, we have the very real spectre of less banking choices in the immediate future for Canadians. The finance minister is hiding behind his task force report hoping the whole issue will go away. It is not going to go away and frankly, Canadians deserve an answer. Our position is very clear: no mergers without competition.

Banking  Mr. Speaker, the minister said watches, but they are doing nothing. It is like watching paint dry, frankly. Ordinary Canadians are terrified of what these mergers will mean to them and their businesses. The banks have the shareholders speaking up for them, the lobbyists. They even have high profile Liberals speaking up for them, but it is a one-sided conversation.

Hepatitis C  Mr. Speaker, a captain wanted to lighten his ship's load so on a stormy day he warned that the ship would sink unless some men were thrown overboard. Gripped with fear the crew turned on each other and as a result several were lost. The health minister warns that compensating all hepatitis C victims will sink the entire medicare ship.

Hepatitis C  There is a big difference, Mr. Speaker, between accidents, negligence and what has occurred in this particular instance. The Liberal Party presents itself as the party that promotes Canadian unity and sharing and community, but that is not the truth. At the very first sight of choppy waters it is pitting the majority of Canadians against hepatitis C victims.

Hepatitis C  Mr. Speaker, the health minister is trying to compare the hepatitis C tragedy with another major tragedy in Canada by saying who would pay for breast implants. The answer of course is that the companies which made those breast implants will pay for them. There are ongoing lawsuits.

Cuba  Mr. Speaker, a communist ombudsman is a contradiction in terms. When the Pope went to Cuba earlier this year he was able to free some political prisoners because he talked publicly and openly and concretely about human rights abuses in that country. He brought up the subject publicly for all Cubans to hear.

Hepatitis C  Mr. Speaker, the minister says when should the government pay. The answer is when the government is responsible. We have here a minister who is hanging on to this legal argument as though it were a thread, and that is all he has. The truth of the matter is insurance pays for medical mishaps, but this was no accident.

Cuba  Mr. Speaker, we join in welcoming the new member as he takes his seat. We just hope he will not take it literally. If the Prime Minister is going to Cuba he should be going for the right reasons. He should be going for human rights reasons, not for a holiday. According to Amnesty International political opponents of the Castro dictatorship are routinely tortured.

Cuba  Mr. Speaker, I remind the Prime Minister that he is not quite the pope yet. That was a pretty weak and fuzzy answer from the Prime Minister on his reasons for going to Cuba. If he is really going to Cuba on a human rights mission what concrete measures will he be asking for? Will he be asking for freedom of speech?

Hepatitis C  Mr. Speaker, I would like the Minister of Health to listen to the human side of his hepatitis C decision. One of my constituents, Mrs. Joyce Smith from Mission, B.C., writes: My three grown children are trying very hard to accept the fact mom is not the same. She does not smile or laugh as often as she used to.

Quebec Minister Of Municipal Affairs  After having accumulated a deficit in excess of $1.5 million as dean of the university in Rouyn-Noranda, running for the New Democratic Party of Canada in the 1988 election, having failed to deliver on promises made by Jacques Parizeau in the last provincial election campaign, Quebec municipal affairs minister Rémy Trudel soon found himself stuck, on April 7, in a meeting at his office in Rouyn-Noranda with people who had come to ask him for an explanation for his government's plans for social assistance reform. In front of the cameras, Minister Trudel said there were thieves. If Minister Trudel has theft charges to lay against some individuals, Quebec has judges to hear his case. Otherwise, the citizens of his region are likely to think that his statement was off the mark.

Drunk Driving  Mr. Speaker, I rise to remember a sad anniversary. One year ago on April 19, my very own son's birthday, three people were taken from the world in a head on collision between a pick-up truck and a Greyhound passenger bus on highway 43 just outside Fox Creek, Alberta. As is too often the case the driver of the pick-up truck was impaired.