Bill C-36 (Historical)

Anti-terrorism Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Official Secrets Act, the Canada Evidence Act, the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) Act and other Acts, and to enact measures respecting the registration of charities in order to combat terrorism

Anti-Terrorism Act

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Right Honourable Prime Minister and concerns Bill C-36.

The Prime Minister is recorded in the press today as being flexible when it comes to Bill C-36. We were worried last week that the government might be changing its mind with respect to openness, with respect to sunset clauses.

I wonder, in light of the report from the Senate and the flexibility reported on the part of the Prime Minister, can the Prime Minister say today that he is open to the committee coming up with some kind of sunset clause for Bill C-36?

Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act

[Brian Pallister, Canadian Alliance, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, 10 months ago an Ottawa woman, Catherine McLean, was killed by a Russian diplomat who was driving drunk. At that time the Minister of Foreign Affairs deplored the fact that the drunken diplomat was able to claim immunity from Canadian law.

Now under Bill C-35 the same minister proposes to expand the number of foreign representatives who are above Canadian law. This contrasts to Bill C-36 which asks Canadians to surrender their civil liberties in the name of security.

It is not true that expanding diplomatic immunity is necessary to catch up to the international community. Most countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom are very careful about not extending diplomatic immunity too far, no further than is required under international law.

There is no excuse for putting anyone above the law while asking Canadians to surrender their civil liberties. Bill C-35 should be withdrawn.

Yukon Act

[Deborah Grey, Canadian Alliance, Edmonton North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to give qualified support to the government on this bill. We have questions that will come forth in committee but we look forward to getting the bill into committee so we can have those discussions.

As the minister knows, it has been a long time coming. It has gone on for a few generations. Certainly since the gold rush in 1898 there have been updates and changes made to it but this particular form of the bill seems to have taken a while to work its way through the labyrinth of parliament. I certainly look forward to the discussion. It is probably a really happy day for people in Yukon.

We have heard various members of all parties here say that the Yukon government and aboriginal groups are in favour of the bill. I am sure a lot of third party private exploration concerns are also in favour of it. It makes me nervous to think that things are going so well here that maybe this will get through and everyone is in favour of it. That is probably a testament to the fact that the minister realizes how important consultation is, not just a kind of phony, trite consultation but to really get in there and talk about it because we need to get the thing right in the first place.

It is good that we can look at some of the specifics of the bill but also see that there is a good spirit and a good intent for whatever groups to work together and say let us get this thing right and make sure it stays that way.

This will take effect at the beginning of April 2003. Going back 10 years we thought that the year 2000 would never arrive. All of a sudden here we are ready to go into 2002. Even for people who think this is still a long time coming, that is just a year this coming spring and many things have to be put in place before then. It is probably wise to have the time limit on it and the starting date.

On the Yukon northern affairs program devolution transfer agreement, it is a smart thing to start devolving powers. Yukon certainly is not just some young kid looking forward to adulthood. It has gone on its own for many years in terms of functioning as a territory. That is one thing in particular that makes the amendment in Bill C-39: that the words “the Yukon territory” will be replaced with “Yukon”. Some people may think that is a very small thing but it is important to notice that now it will simply be called “Yukon” and we will be able to celebrate that.

The legislation gives Yukon the power to make laws regarding exploration, development, conservation and management of its own non-renewable natural resources. Although in theory I am sure there has been a great deal of that going on over the last few years, this transfers that power and says “Yes, you really are you and yes, you really will have the power and the authority to make your dealings and look after your own land management, et cetera”.

It also allows the Yukon legislature to make laws regarding oil and gas pipelines located entirely within Yukon and the export of the primary production of non-renewable natural resources and forestry to other parts of Canada. In other words it is assuming and finally legislating on those things that have been going on in theory and perhaps some practice over the years but on which it always had to go to Ottawa for permission, to see if it was okay with big brother. It is certainly wise that Yukon be given the authority to sign these deals and have its own self-sufficiency. Of course we have been dealing with that lately in the Alberta and Saskatchewan land claims agreements to make sure that third party interests are protected, and in the Manitoba Act as well. This is one more in the chain.

The Auditor General of Canada will conduct yearly audits of the Yukon government and will report his or her findings to the legislative assembly. It is good for all of us to be held accountable financially. We think this is very wise.

The federal government will retain some administration and control of property in Yukon if it is deemed necessary for defence and security, creating a national park, settlement of an aboriginal land claim, et cetera. The federal government should continue to maintain those responsibilities.

What happened on September 11 seems to work its way into almost every piece of legislation, or everything that happens in the House.

When we talk about defence and security it certainly has a more poignant meaning to it now. When we look at the enormous borders in northern Canada we can see that it is something we need to be very concerned about in terms of defence and security.

Those are some positive things we see in the bill. I will talk now about some concerns, not just pros and cons but things that we in the coalition want to ask questions about. We want to make sure that everything is right on before the legislation goes through.

We have concerns regarding the federal authority that could perhaps be seen as maintaining a heavy hand in the legislation. The commissioner of the Yukon would be appointed by order of the governor in council. That makes it political in its own right without a free and fair election. We always need to be careful that it is not just the loudest person who says “I am the best. Vote for me”. In fact politically over the years when our party was the Reform Party, we said that the first five people who came running to us saying “Pick me, pick me” probably should get eliminated from the list automatically.

We need to make sure that we find a lot of really qualified people, not just those who have lined pockets or who have been appointed because it has been a good election year. It must be based on merit and merit alone to make sure that the commissioner is the very best person we possibly can find, because of course that commissioner would be doing an incredible amount of work and I suspect would be seen as a puppet of the federal government if the appointment was nothing more than a political one.

Under the legislation the commissioner of Yukon must follow any written instructions given to the commissioner by the governor in council or the minister. Again we need to be careful about sending out missives, memos and dear knows what all to say “Thou shalt do this”. The commissioner, if chosen by merit and if from the Yukon, would probably know at the ground level what is more practical, reasonable and workable for them rather than a missive in a memo from the governor in council or the minister.

However I do notice in the legislation that 10 years hence this clause will be repealed. That sort of sounds like a sunset clause. I find it strange that there would be a sunset clause in this legislation but not in another piece of legislation that is working its way through here, so it is not necessarily a sunset but a sunset if necessary. We need to be really careful, because if it is good enough in this bill to phase out something 10 years later we need to hold every piece of legislation up to that bar and say that there must be a mechanism for review, whatever we want to call it, that sooner or later down the road in every piece of legislation there will be a sunset clause, that federal powers would phase out somewhat, to be able to re-examine the legislation, whether it is in this bill, Bill C-39, or in Bill C-36, the anti-terrorism legislation.

Another concern we have is that the governor in council could direct the commissioner to withhold his or her assent to any bill that has been introduced in the legislative assembly. The governor in council could disallow any bill from the legislative assembly within a year after it is passed. That is a bit of a hefty veto, for sure. If a law is legitimately passed in the Yukon legislature, an entire year later the minister would be able to slap a veto on it. That piece of legislation would have worked its way right down to the streets in the Yukon. To give the governor in council the power to disallow any bill from the legislative assembly within a year after it is passed would, I sense, cause some nervousness at the ground level. We would encourage the minister to make sure that would not happen for some political reason which may not have any practicality at all.

Bill C-39 would give the commissioner and the executive council the power to appoint an auditor general. It could be the Auditor General of Canada but does not necessarily have to be. We believe the entire legislative assembly should have the right to review qualified candidates for the position rather than the appointment being left to the commissioner and the executive council. Again the point is to get it right. If he or she is the best auditor general we can find then surely the ratification and the strength that would come from it, from the entire legislative assembly, would be nothing but healthy. Therefore it is a great idea to make sure that everyone ratifies this position. It is not that huge a task to make sure that someone is the best person for the job and that the appointment is based on merit and merit alone. Surely it should go past the legislative assembly, not just the executive council. It opens it up and frees it up. It makes the process more transparent and therefore more saleable down the road.

There are a number of questions regarding certain clauses in the bill. I look forward to having a chance to discuss those in committee. Bill C-39 in clause 18 gives Yukon the power to define what constitutes an intoxicant for the purposes of making laws on importation of those intoxicants into Yukon. I think we should define what they are ahead of time. Under the Northwest Territories Act and the current Yukon Act intoxicants are defined, but in Bill C-39 they are not. I would like to know, the coalition would like to know and I am sure the whole committee would like to know, including the Liberal members, why this definition has changed or why it has been omitted in Bill C-39. Intoxicants used to be defined. Now they are not. For people who will be using those intoxicants or for some who may try to traffic in those intoxicants, I think it is only fair and might be a really good idea to have that definition right up front so people would know the penalty involved.

Clause 190 amends the Judges Act to double the cost of living compensation for supreme court judges in the north from $6,000 to $12,000, maximum representational allowances for senior judges from $5,000 to $10,000 and for chief justices as well from $5,000 to $10,000. I will not necessarily squawk about the numbers or amending the Judges Act, however it would seem to me to be a really smart thing to amend the Judges Act and not necessarily the Yukon Act. We will be asking those questions in committee to make sure that everything lines up, that it is parallel and that it fits together perfectly like a jigsaw puzzle.

Subclause 48(1) gives the commissioner of the Yukon “the administration and control of all rights in respect of waters in Yukon” and then of course with the consent of executive council the power to exercise those rights “or sell and...dispose of them” while retaining the proceeds of the disposition. Starting to talk about water immediately sends out an emotional signal, so I think we need to be really careful in the bill in terms of what we mean by “the administration and control of all rights in respect of waters”. We have just been through something like that with the provincial government in Newfoundland talking about provincial rights to export water.

We want to be very careful here. I know of the environmental concerns of Yukon people. I know how important water is to them. We had better spell it out very clearly ahead of time rather than having some commissioner down the road who realizes he has absolute control of all rights in respect of waters. We do not want to get a bad egg in that position. We do not want someone who thinks he may be able to make a quick buck by transferring water and selling it. It seems to me we would be very wise to define exactly those “rights in respect of waters in Yukon”, because down the road somewhere in a financial crunch that renewable resource might look pretty profitable. I think we need to be very careful to have that spelled out ahead of time because, as we know, it is a lot more difficult to try to spell it out after the horse is out of the barn. We need to make those definitions, laws, legislation and regulations very clear up front.

There is a wonderful leader in Yukon now, Pat Duncan, and there may be an excellent commissioner coming after this one, but who knows what will happen and who will be there several years down the road? We would be a lot smarter to cut that off at the pass ahead of time.

Of course there are questions. Would this include the right to export Yukon's water? How does this affect the rights of aboriginals under the Yukon Indian land claims agreement? All those things need to be spelled out ahead of time so they are clear. Then we would not get into an emotional fracas down the road with people saying we did not tell them, that they did not know, and that they thought they had the exclusive right. Again, it is just human nature to try to push the parameters. We need to be very particular and put those safeguards in place ahead of time.

I look forward to dealing with this in committee. I thank the minister for bringing this forward and for the debate we have had on Bill C-39 today.

Independence of the RCMP

[Jim Abbott, Canadian Alliance, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I also would like to congratulate the Bloc member for the motion. As the previous speaker indicated the motion is very timely in light of the fact that we are presently considering Bill C-36. Bill C-36 gives tremendous power, power that in a free and democratic society under normal circumstances we would never, ever consider. It is a bill that is draconian in nature and one that is of deep concern, I am sure, to every member of the House. Therefore this motion is singularly timely.

Let us go back to the events of APEC in 1997. Flowing from those events, the activities of the police and the apparent interference of the Prime Minister and his office, there were two questions. The first question was about the actual conduct of the RCMP. As has been mentioned by the former ombudsman for the province of British Columbia, the member for Vancouver--Quadra, the point is that the public complaints commission established in 1986 indeed was the correct venue to be able to determine what happened, what the activities of the police were and indeed if they were appropriate, but there was an equally pressing second question that the government to this day has never answered. The question is, did the Prime Minister and his office interfere with the RCMP enforcement activities at APEC 1997?

I spent a fair amount of time at the hearings. In listening to the testimony of the people who came before the commission and in seeing the way in which the commission was actually started up, I saw that it was clear that there was the hand of the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister's Office, even through the public complaints commission, even through commissioner Heafy at the beginning of the public complaints commission process, to ensure that the people of Canada would never, ever receive an adequate or a true answer to the question, did the Prime Minister and his office interfere with the RCMP and its enforcement activities at APEC 1997?

We recall that at the beginning of the public complaints commission process there were three commissioners appointed, a chair and two commissioners, for a total of three people who were involved in that process at the beginning. What was very clear was that there had been interference. There was interference with the original chair of the public complaints commission. He said so himself. There is evidence that there was interference by the head of the public complaints commission, Shirley Heafy, into the process at that time. The question about that has never been answered: Why did she interfere with that process?

Let us fast forward to the end of this process, where commissioner Hughes has come forward with some innuendo, and that is all he can do, about the involvement of the Prime Minister in interfering with the RCMP. Why can he only do it by innuendo? Because that is the way the Liberal government set this up. It was to protect the Prime Minister. It was set up so that the public complaints commissioner himself, Hon. Justice Hughes, was incapable of getting to the bottom of the question of whether the Prime Minister and his office interfered with RCMP enforcement activities at APEC 1997.

Justice Hughes came forward with the portion of his report which has been noted by my Bloc colleague. Now the government says we must make sure that the commissioner and her reporting is unfettered by government interference. It is a little bit thick because in spite of the fact that she uses the words fair, impartial and independent, the fact of the matter is we know that at the beginning of the public complaints commission process she was not fair, impartial or independent because of the way in which the first three commissioners of this ended up crashing and burning.

We can fast forward to section 33.3.1 of Justice Hughes' report. Commissioner Zaccardelli of the RCMP was not standing up for the RCMP. He was being an apologist for the government. He was ignoring the involvement of the Prime Minister and the political aspect of the decisions that were made at APEC.

Colleagues before me gave a very good explanation of why he was doing this and I agree with them. He has to recognize as a top government official, the equivalent to a deputy minister, which side his bread is buttered on.

That is a very harsh thing to say and I am well aware of that. However it is my judgment that the Prime Minister of Canada got away with the fact that he interfered with the RCMP and its enforcement activities at APEC in 1997.

As a matter of principle there must be an absolute barrier between politicians and police in a free democracy. I say that as a politician, but as I take a look at other politicians, particularly people like the Prime Minister and other ministers of the crown in positions of authority who can directly influence the police without a clear line of delineation between politicians and police, they can continue to do that.

It is scary that Bill C-36, the anti-terrorism bill, gives so many powers to the police. It tips the balance away from our free and democratic society, the very freedoms we are trying to protect. We are having to set some of those freedoms aside so that we can protect the freedoms we must keep. It is a terrible situation for us as politicians to be in.

I commend the Bloc Quebecois member for her motion. I consider it a crying shame that it has not been permitted to come to a vote. This is an action that the Prime Minister and the government should be bringing to the House, if only for good faith reasons, as part of Bill C-36 so that we would understand that there could never be a breakdown of the barrier between politicians and police.

[Jay Hill, Canadian Alliance, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, like it is for my colleagues on both sides of the House, it is a pleasure for me this morning to address Motion No. 391 put forward by my hon. colleague from Saint-Bruno--Saint-Hubert. As was noted the motion would set out in writing the independence of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police regarding its relationship to the government.

It has been four years since the riotous Asia-Pacific economic conference was held in Vancouver, an event that will forever be a black mark on the way our government interacts with our national police force. Despite the conclusion of a formal inquiry and various legal challenges, little has been done to change the intimate relationship between the RCMP and the government. In fact every effort seems to have been made to maintain the status quo.

It would be reasonable to expect that in a country such as ours there would be a very clear delineation between our politicians and our national police force. Therefore it would be unreasonable, one would assume, for a developed country to have its national police force influenced or controlled by elected politicians.

Likewise one would expect that in a developed country the rules regarding the control, interaction and scope of authority for the national police would be enshrined in legislation strong enough to prevent any future government from an abuse of power. Were this the case in Canada, we would not be having this debate.

The RCMP has earned a reputation as one of the finest policing agencies in the world. The men and women who wear the red serge do so with pride, and their professionalism and integrity serve as an example to all Canadians. This is a national institution that Canada should be striving to protect, not undermine.

As the national police force the RCMP will undertake duties within its scope and mandate. To enable it to do so effectively the mandate must be free from political interference. Regrettably the present accountability structure does not allow for this. The inherent difficulty in the accountability structure of the RCMP is that the commissioner reports to a single minister rather than to cabinet or to an oversight committee. It is here that we have a clashing of ideologies.

The commissioner of the RCMP is focused on law enforcement and national security, the core principles of any police agency. The minister, on the other hand, as an elected official is quite naturally concerned with re-election as well as the political impact the actions of agencies within his portfolio may have on the popularity of his party.

The introduction of politics is an intolerable situation. Any time the RCMP has to weigh the political impact of any decision it is called upon to make, its ability to do its job is undermined.

There are also reasonable concerns regarding the misdirection of the RCMP by the minister responsible. At present there are insufficient safeguards against the use of the RCMP for investigations which may find their basis more in political retribution than in fact, a potentially expensive undertaking, as Canadians discovered with the Airbus fiasco.

The RCMP is our single national police agency and as such cannot continue to be run as another branch of the civil service. It must be free from the influences of the government of the day. To be effective it needs to be independent. It is time for the government to examine its relationship with the RCMP and to draft rules regarding the nature of its relationship with the agency.

Previous speakers have talked about Commissioner Zaccardelli appearing before the justice committee. I was present the day he spoke to Bill C-36. He clearly identified one of the conflicts he has. On the one hand he is viewed as the deputy minister and on the other as the head of our national police force. To be quite honest I think it is an intolerable situation to place anyone in.

That is why I think the motion brought forward today is very appropriate, especially at a time when the country is debating Bill C-36 and where, by extension, there will be more powers given not only to the RCMP but to other police forces in the country, such as new powers to detain and to wiretap, and there is certainly at least the potential loss of privacy rights for Canadian citizens. Given all of that, I think it is appropriate that we are debating the motion today.

In conclusion, I am pleased to support the motion before the House as a means of increasing transparency and accountability. Again I congratulate my colleague from the Bloc Quebecois for bringing this forward. It is extremely unfortunate that members will not have the opportunity to vote on it, which opens up a whole different can of worms in regard to how many times members take on issues and go through all the work of bringing forward motions and bills to the floor of the House of Commons only to see what we are seeing again this morning, a very worthwhile initiative that unfortunately will have one hour of debate and then in all likelihood that will be the end of it as far as the government is concerned. I say that is unfortunate.

[Dick Proctor, NDP, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate on this private member's motion. I congratulate the member from the Bloc for her initiative in the matter. I associate myself with the remarks not only of the hon. Bloc member but of the previous speaker in fully supporting the motion.

I will use my few minutes today to focus on three aspects: first, the findings of Commissioner Ted Hughes; second, the response of RCMP Commissioner Zaccardelli; and third, what the RCMP has or has not learned as a result of the Hughes inquiry.

I have read the final report of the Hughes inquiry. It is clear that Commissioner Hughes pointed some pretty blunt fingers not only at the RCMP but at government officials. For the record I will go through some of those.

Mr. Hughes acknowledged in his closing observations that many of the examples of substandard performance reflected failures in the planning process. I will not go into detail but he referred to briefings and late buses at the UBC campus on November 25, 1997.

Referring to the open space in front of Green College, Hughes said there was a:

—failure to realize that the grounds of Green College located outside the secure zone were an obvious gathering place for those residents of Green College who had previously indicated a desire to protest, with the result that no contingency plans were in place to address the presence of protesters at that location.

Regarding the march to the fence which we kept seeing over and over on television, Mr. Hughes said there was a:

—failure to have anyone in a command role at the well publicized noon rally who was aware of the protesters' planned civil disobedience and was in a position to realistically evaluate late-breaking information of dubious credibility about the expected actions of the protesters.

I find this particularly significant. Mr. Hughes said:

My inability to determine who made the all important decision to allow protesters to have unobstructed access to the security fence tells a great deal about the state of readiness of the police to meet the challenges of the day. I will always believe that, but for that decision, based on dubious information, the events on campus from noon until 4.30 that afternoon may well have been non-violent throughout, though boisterous, noisy and challenging for the police. It was the violence that broke out at the flagpole at noon that set the stage for many of the subsequent events that unfolded over the remainder of the afternoon.

There are also references to the blockage of exit routes, the involvement of local RCMP detachments and the arrest of Jaggi Singh. Here Mr. Hughes said:

Had the UBC Detachment been properly integrated into the security planning process, I believe that Mr. Singh would not have been arrested on November 24 or at any other time for the November 7 megaphone incident. Had the UBC Detachment been required to consult on its plan to eliminate Mr. Singh from campus on November 25 with wise and seasoned heads with full knowledge of the background of the leaders' meeting, I believe that the plan would never have been implemented.

Similarly regarding the arrest of Mark Brooks, another frontline protester, Commissioner Ted Hughes said:

This was a precipitous arrest made in an atmosphere of crisis, directly attributable to the chaos that resulted from inadequate police planning to ensure the orderly and safe exit of the world leaders.

There were also negative references to the strip searching of all female protesters at the Richmond cells. Mr. Hughes was very condemnatory of the RCMP or police action at that time.

Mr. Hughes identified two areas where he believed the federal government acted improperly. The first was the removal of tenters from the grounds of the Museum of Anthropology that has been alluded to earlier. Mr. Hughes wrote:

I am satisfied that it was because of the government's intervention that the tenters were removed that evening. Were it not for that involvement, the contrary view of Site Commander Thompsett would have prevailed. As it happened, his view did not carry the day because of the acquiescence of other RCMP personnel, principally Supt. May, who had succumbed to government influence and intrusion in an area where such influence and intrusion were inappropriate.

Mr. Hughes was critical of the improper and inappropriate level of federal government involvement in the RCMP's provision of security with respect to the size of the demonstration area adjacent to the law school. He noted that the government's efforts did not prevail due to the intervention of others such as Site Commander Thompsett on behalf of the protesters. Had those intervenors not prevailed Mr. Hughes noted that the security challenges the RCMP faced on November 25 may well have increased.

In his final comments Mr. Hughes said:

It is inescapable that in most instances where I have found police conduct to have been either inappropriate to the circumstances of inconsistent with charter rights, the primary responsibility rests with those who held key offices in security planning for the APEC conference. That may go to the highest level of RCMP headquarters in Ottawa. This seems to have been the source of approval, if not direction, that security services on November 25 would be delivered by officers who were, at best, on the periphery of the two year planning process, while those intimately involved in that process were out of command from the moment the APEC conference opened.

Regarding gate 6, Staff Sergeant Stewart and the incident involving pepper spray, Commissioner Hughes wrote:

I feel very much the same way about the involvement of Staff Sergeant Stewart and those on site with him at Gate 6. He never should have been placed in the position of having four minutes to clear the road. Given the pressure he was put under, he made some unfortunate decisions but far more culpable, in my view, are those in positions of responsibility who allowed the Gate 6 events to develop and unfold as they did.

We need to point that out in the context of the former solicitor general's remarks in an unguarded moment a few years ago. In reference to Staff Sergeant Stewart he said “Hughie may be the guy who takes the fall”. It is pretty clear from the report of the commissioner that this goes right to the top in Ottawa. Staff Sergeant Stewart should never have had to take the fall. Nor has he as a result of the Hughes report.

I think Commissioner Zaccardelli is supportive of the report although, as has been noted earlier, he does not agree with Ted Hughes that there is a need for statutory codification. That is perhaps shortsighted on the part of the commissioner of the RCMP.

Commissioner Zaccardelli said a co-operative relationship between the police and peaceful protestors is essential. I would challenge Commissioner Zaccardelli and the current solicitor general to take that comment in the context of what happened in Quebec City several years after the APEC inquiry. They should tell that to the mostly young people who were detained arbitrarily for several days before either being charged or sent on their way.

Three young people from my riding of Palliser were in Quebec City. They insist they were doing absolutely nothing wrong. They were sitting on the grounds outside the perimeter fence and security area when they were arrested by the police.

Our caucus in its entirety was in Quebec City. We saw tens of thousands of peaceful protestors. Yes, we acknowledge that some were bent on violence and disorder. However the overwhelming percentage of people were there to protest a cause they felt strongly about. I am concerned that the RCMP learned virtually nothing from its APEC actions.

They will not follow through with the security at APEC because of the flaws that have been identified by Hughes and others but they have stepped up security a lot more. We have seen that with whatever WTO protest is involved. This is all even before Bill C-36, the bill on anti-terrorism.

[Kevin Sorenson, Canadian Alliance, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to participate in the debate on private member's Motion No. 391. I thank and commend the hon. member for bringing this motion to the House. To date the government has escaped criticism or questioning regarding the report released by Judge Ted Hughes.

Conveniently for the Liberal government, parliament was recessed when the findings and recommendations were released following the public hearings regarding complaints against the RCMP. Since the House resumed sitting on September 17, we have been preoccupied, and rightfully so, with the horrific events of September 11.

The unprecedented attack on America, and terrorism in general, has caught the attention of this country and the world. Canadians are anxious about the safety and security of our country and its people. They are concerned about the well-being of our friends and neighbours to the south as well. Therefore, all our efforts in the last two months have been focused on appeasing these concerns.

Despite this preoccupation, it is important that we address the issues raised by the Hughes report and discuss his many recommendations. Again, I commend the member for Saint-Bruno--Saint-Hubert, Quebec for providing this opportunity. It was a pleasure for me to second this motion.

If enacted, the motion before us today would have the government set out in writing the nature and the scope of the independence of the RCMP in its relation with the federal government, as recommended by Judge Hughes.

In his report Hughes concluded that the federal role at APEC was improper and that the RCMP succumbing to government influence was not appropriate. Therefore, Hughes recommended that the federal government bring in legislation to spell out the RCMP's independence from government interference.

In section 10 of his report, Hughes said that currently the nature and extent of police independence is not clearly defined in Canadian law. Furthermore, he stated “there is no consensus, either in academic writing or in judicial decisions, as to what is the proper relationship between the federal government and the RCMP although it is generally agreed that the RCMP does enjoy a measure of independence”.

In fact, Hughes believes that the RCMP Act suggests that the force is not entirely independent of the government by stipulating that the commissioner of the RCMP is appointed by cabinet and controls the force under the direction of the solicitor general. Indeed, the commissioner of the RCMP is a deputy minister in this cabinet serving under the solicitor general.

After reviewing the English approach and the supreme court decision in R. v Campbell, Hughes stated “it is clearly unacceptable for the federal government to have the authority to direct the RCMP's law enforcement activities, telling it who to investigate, arrest and prosecute or other purposes. At the same time, it is equally unacceptable for the RCMP to be completely independent and unaccountable, to become a law unto themselves”.

Based on this conclusion, Hughes recommended, under recommendation 31.3.1 of his report, that the RCMP request a statutory codification of the nature and extent of police independence from government with respect to two areas: first, existing common law principles regarding law enforcement; and, second, the provision of and responsibility for delivery of security services at public order events.

Responding to the Hughes report, RCMP Commissioner Zaccardelli dismissed this key recommendation saying that there was no need in his opinion for statutory recognition of police independence. To date the government has not embraced the recommendations, although it has accepted and is attempting to enact the second part of the Hughes report under Bill C-35.

Canadians must have confidence that the RCMP can do its job. That includes doing its job in respect to investigating the government in suspected cases of wrongdoing without the fear of there being reprisals or interference.

Canadians must also be confident that the commissioner of the RCMP, although a high ranking public servant, is not and does not simply become a puppet of the current government supporting its policies and programs even when it may be detrimental to our national police force and to the very frontline police officers.

A couple of weeks ago Commissioner Zaccardelli appeared before the justice committee as a witness in regard to Bill C-36. During his testimony and subsequent questioning Mr. Zaccardelli said:

Obviously, we are very pleased with the resources we have been given by the government. This is not just with respect to the terrorist activities--

The commissioner went on to say:

Could I use more? Yes, I could. The government, as I said, has been very responsive to our needs as we deal with this.

In direct contradiction to Commissioner Zaccardelli, the Canadian Police Association which represents 30,000 officers across Canada including some RCMP officers told the justice committee that the $9 million recently given to the RCMP as part of the government's anti-terrorism initiative was not enough to meet the exceptional demands placed on the Mounties since the September 11 attack.

The $9 million would only allow the RCMP to hire 72 new recruits as 2,000 officers are pulled off priority organized crime cases and frontline community policing duties.

While the commissioner said the RCMP could always use more staff, Michael Niebudek, Canadian Police Association vice-president, told us there clearly is a staffing shortage. He says there are insufficient resources for the RCMP to work on both terrorism and organized crime investigations and that the RCMP has shelved important organized crime work across Canada. Mr. Niebudek said:

Under this flavour of the month approach, enforcement resources are allocated based on shifting political priorities. We have been robbing Peter to pay Paul, and the shell game has to stop.

While the commissioner praised the government and said it had been responsive to RCMP needs, Mr. Niebudek said the government must move swiftly to repair gaping holes in Canada's security and enforcement capabilities.

In response to Mr. Niebudek's comments the solicitor general denied the RCMP was unable to do its job properly because it lacked money and staff. According to an article in last week’s National Post the solicitor general said:

What I've received from the RCMP Commissioner is that they are certainly able to fulfill their mandate.

While the top police bureaucrat and his boss say one thing, our frontline officers are saying something quite different. Clearly Mr. Zaccardelli is supporting or siding with the federal government when he should be supporting his frontline officers and defending the safety and security of our country's citizens.

It was only this spring that we brought witnesses to the justice committee in regard to a bill dealing with organized crime. We understood the severity of organized crime in Canada. We should not be shelving or putting on a back burner investigations that may lead to the apprehension of organized criminals, drug traffickers and other like-minded criminals.

We have a war on terrorism, unquestionably. However we have a war on organized crime as well. This war is a concern and it is bringing down our society as we see it. For the commissioner of the RCMP to be taking people off the organized crime file is irresponsible.

The commissioner of the RCMP should be fighting for the necessary resources so the RCMP can effectively meet the demands being placed on it because of the September 11 attack. For Mr. Zaccardelli to be doing otherwise and accepting the pittance provided to the force by the federal government demonstrates that he is a puppet of the solicitor general. This must be changed.

RCMP independence from the government must be statutorily codified as recommended by Judge Hughes. I therefore support private member's Motion No. 391.

Anti-terrorism Legislation

[Peter MacKay, Progressive Conservative, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the verdict is in from the other place. Along with the majority of witnesses appearing before the two parliamentary committees, along with some ministers and MPs, the Senate also is extremely apprehensive about Bill C-36 going too far. This is evident in the major changes they have recommended.

Is the Prime Minister going to allow the necessary amendments as well as a free vote on this bill?

Anti-Terrorism Legislation

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-36 provides for the offence of terrorist activity which is broadly described to include facilitating, participating in, financing or directing terrorist activities.

The decision not to ban membership of groups is to overcome a major legal difficulty of proving membership. It also can have constitutional implications. The way of targeting anyone who takes part in terrorist activity or facilitates, participates in, finances or leads it is a much more effective way of catching those who are responsible.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-36 allows the Government of Canada to implement more than 12 international conventions dealing with terrorism. Many of those provisions allow for extraterritorial charges to be laid and proceeded with in Canada, but also provide obligations for extradition where appropriate.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, we have provisions now in the Immigration Act, section 40, which allow for the deportation and removal of people who have been suspected of terrorist activities. We have mutual legal assistance treaties with many countries. We have extradition treaties with many countries.

Bill C-36 also addresses the issue of people who facilitate terrorist activity as described. These people can be detained and they can be extradited or deported in the appropriate circumstances.

Privilege

[John Bryden, Liberal, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I realize you have important guests so I will try to be brief on my question of privilege. Opinion is divided on whether or not this is a question of privilege. I am told by some that it is and some that it is not. It is however an important matter to bring to the attention of the House as it pertains to the right or opportunity of ordinary MPs to have access to government officials.

It is something that has arisen in exceptional circumstances. We will need your decision on whether it is a question of privilege, or even has the aura of a question of privilege, to decide whether or not it should be considered.

I will remind everyone that in the House we are a company of equals. When I stand or sit at my place I am exactly equal to the Prime Minister in his place. Every colleague is equal to every other colleague, be they ministers, parliamentary secretaries, members of the opposition or otherwise.That is why all our desks are exactly the same.

That is why, I might add, Mr. Speaker, you sit in an elevated chair, not because you lord it over us but because you are our servant. You are the one who makes sure that we do act as equals in the Chamber and indeed on Parliament Hill because as members of parliament we serve the public equally. We do many things by common consent. We decide who is the government. We set up rules in the House. Everything functions in the House by common consent.

I have an instance that appears to be outside the rules of parliament. No rules exist to cover the situation that occurred to me as an individual MP. I am referring to attempts last June by a group of members of parliament to set up a special committee to examine an issue of immense public interest.

The special circumstance was that it was summer and the House was not sitting. We thought we had a deadline. We wanted to present a report before a bureaucratic task force that existed on the Access to Information Act. We thought it was very important that we do this as soon as possible during the summer months.

Part of our plan was to receive briefings from government officials. We sought out those government officials and we had a work plan. We lined them up and many of them agreed to appear before our group.

We were going to hold meetings for the record in the open on Parliament Hill with all the attention to detail of a normal standing committee. However, and this is so important, we were not a standing committee. We were a group of MPs from all sides of the House who were not part of government and who were concerned about an important public issue.

To our surprise, the government suddenly ordered the officials we had lined up not to appear before our committee. The order extended not only to the government officials that we lined up but also to officials from crown corporations. It was every official in government. We had also hoped to talk to some very junior people with respect to access to information.

The issue is not the reason why the government decided to do this. We recognize that the government has certain powers that we by common consent give to it. One of those powers is the right to determine when public officials appear before members of parliament.

What is different in this particular case is that a situation occurred where backbench members of parliament were not carrying out ordinary business. They were carrying out exceptional business, in the sense that the law we were looking at was a law that was quasi-constitutional and affected all members of parliament. Ironically there is a direct analogy with Bill C-36, the anti-terrorism legislation that is before the House because this is a piece of legislation that affects civil liberties. Consequently it affects all members of parliament.

There are situations which occur in which backbench members of parliament or ordinary members of parliament, if you will, might find an absolute necessity to receive briefings from government officials. This is not trivial. It is not as though this was just a casual incident where a group of MPs wanted a briefing from government officials. I think we would all agree that the government would be correct in determining when and where it was appropriate to do this. This was an exceptional circumstance. The government said no and the officials were unable to come.

Mr. Speaker, the guidance I seek from you is that I think there are exceptional circumstances where members of parliament are acting in the most absolute interest of the public, in which the government needs some guidance from parliament, some guidance where it recognizes there are exceptional instances where there should be some sort of mechanism whereby the MPs who are seeking these briefings from officials, briefings in public I might add, can go to perhaps you, Mr. Speaker and say “Mr. Speaker, this is an exceptional circumstance. Will you advise the government on whether this is an appropriate request?”

Mr. Speaker, what I am asking is if you feel that I as an individual have had my work compromised as a result of this decision of the government.

I have before me the report of this committee of MPs who were studying the Access to Information Act which was presented to the public today. It is entitled “A Call for Openness”. It is an excellent effort on the part of backbench MPs to examine a very important issue. Mr. Speaker, I regret to tell you that although I think it is an excellent report, it is less than what it could have been because we were unable to receive briefings from public officials whom we had asked to appear and had no opportunity to question them.

It seems to me that this strikes to the very heart of the privileges of a member of parliament. Whether we are prime minister or backbench MP, when we set out to examine a policy issue that is in the deep public interest, we must have access to the officials whom we need to have access to. It cannot be left absolutely to the government to decide that issue. I am not saying that on a day to day rhythm of things that the government should not have this say, but there are exceptional instances and I believe this report “A Call for Openness” is an exceptional instance.

This report contains 11 recommendations. It is a clarion call for more transparency on the part of government. I have to say that it is a unanimous report by 12 backbench MPs covering most of the major parties. The contribution was entirely non-partisan. I want to particularly mention the Bloc MPs, the member for Saint-Jean and the member for Kamouraska--Rivière-du-Loup--Témiscouata--Les Basques, who made a particular contribution that we all applauded. So, Mr. Speaker, I do not want you to think that this was not an entirely joint effort.

I do not know what the answer is. I think the government acted the way it thought it should act. I think it was perhaps afraid that if backbench MPs can call government officials, that this might happen all the time. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, it would happen only rarely. I think every one of us on the committee still believes in partisan politics. We were no less members of our parties because we were acting in a non-partisan way. It was a very fine example of the kind of co-operation that can occur in the House.

Consequently, Mr. Speaker, I would ask you to consider my remarks. What I would like to do is that if you feel that there is a prima facie case for a breach of privilege here, I would like to suggest that I would move a motion that the matter be referred to the appropriate committee of the House to give guidelines to the government on how to deal with these very exceptional instances where backbench MPs might feel they have to gather in a non-partisan manner, and I mean non-government MPs, to consider a major issue. Mr. Speaker, I do thank you.

Anti-Terrorism Legislation

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the justice minister is conveniently ignoring the fact that Bill C-36 is a particular threat to visible minorities and that is why there is a split in this caucus.

If the Prime Minister refuses to listen to Canadians, perhaps he can listen to his colleagues. They are worried about this bill and its potential for abuse. Instead of bullying them, perhaps the Prime Minister could start listening to them.

Why will the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice not act on their advice and commit now to a sunset clause?

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, more and more Canadians are joining our call for a sunset clause in Bill C-36, the Canadian bar, the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the Newspaper Employees' Guild, Canadian Civil Liberties, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, the Special Senate Committee and others.

It is time for the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice to send a clear signal that they will support a sunset clause. Will they do that today?

Air Canada Public Participation Act

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, today's debate on Bill C-38 is in connection with Air Canada's demands for a review of the ceiling on individual ownership of shares.

The Bloc Quebecois will support Bill C-38.

Of greatest concern are the speeches by the Minister of Transport and the representative of the official opposition on the future of Air Canada and airlines in Canada.

Bill C-38, a simple bill with only three pages, repeals section 6 of the act. I will read it for the men and women of Quebec. The Air Canada employees watching us surely understand it. The act contained, and I quote:

1. (1) provisions imposing constraints on the issue, transfer and ownership, including joint ownership, of voting shares...to prevent any one person, together with the associates of that person, from holding, beneficially owning or controlling, directly or indirectly...voting shares to which are attached more than 15% of the votes that may ordinarily be cast to elect directors of the Corporation—

What the Minister of Transport is proposing in Bill C-38 seems thoroughly harmless. It would, however, allow a single shareholder to hold more than 15% of shares. It would be this shareholder other shareholders or entities who would hold the shares. They would thus have the right to take over control or to take part in the control of Air Canada's board of directors.

Is this desirable? It is what Air Canada is asking for. It is thought that investors could be interested. Citizens and companies across Canada will probably want to buy Air Canada shares, ensuring with colleagues, friends or related corporations that they have a certain degree of control over the board of directors so as to be able to play a greater role in the company's decisions, to perhaps be able to run it better and turn a profit. This would surely allow them to make some sort of return on their investment.

What this means is giving Canada's business community a free hand to control, to continue to control and to increasingly control this national company, Air Canada.

This is cause for concern, because the minister has told us quite candidly what our neighbours to the south have done. He has told us in all sincerity that the Americans provided massive assistance to the airline industry, over $15 billion he tells us, and that was the figure. Five billion dollars in direct aid and $10 billion in loan guarantees. A choice was made. In the wake of the sad events of September 11, the Americans decided to invest heavily. The minister was quite open about this. The Americans invested heavily, he told us, and that is so. The figure mentioned was $15 billion to revive the airline industry.

Other countries in the world suffered, such as Switzerland's Swissair, which sought bankruptcy protection. Switzerland decided to invest heavily in a company called Crossair, a regional airline in Switzerland. This company will soon buy up Swissair's shares and revive the airline industry. Switzerland has made a choice. It decided to invest heavily in Crossair, which will soon take over the defunct Swissair. This is a choice as a society.

What is saddening to hear today is that Canada has decided to give the market free rein and not to make any massive investments to kick start the airline industry. Anything it does do is on a bit by bit basis. Canada's approach is a piecemeal one. At the outset, the minister announced investments to meet high insurance costs.

As a result of the sad events of September 11, the airlines were faced with astronomical hikes in insurance costs. Some carriers were no longer even able to insure themselves. The government therefore decided to compensate them for the astronomically high premiums they were being charged for insurance.

It then reimbursed expenses. Since the air space was totally closed down, all companies' equipment was grounded. The Government of Canada decided, still within its piecemeal approach, to announce one week later that it would offer compensation and assistance, reimbursing the airlines' losses that were the result of the six day closing of Canadian air space.

This assistance was in dribs and drabs. After that a loan guarantee program was announced, followed last week by another loan guarantee to Canada 3000 of $74 million.

The minister refers to a business restructuring. He spoke of massive staff reductions. Once again the minister helped out Canada 3000 once it had restructured and, in particular, made massive staff cuts.

The minister has told us very candidly that the government can help the five major carriers in Canada, including Air Canada, Air Transat, WestJet and Canada 3000. He said very candidly “once they have restructured”. Downsizing is an important part of the restructuring of any company.

This is a message to the employees of all these airlines in Canada and Quebec, saying “In the end, you are the ones who will pay for the September 11 events. We will help—as was the case with Canada 3000—once your company has restructured financially”. And the minister adds “once your company has reduced its staff”.

In order to get help from the federal government, airlines must absolutely restructure. They must submit a restructuring plan that includes staff reductions. This is very hard to accept for airline industry workers, because what happened on September 11 was not their fault. It is not their fault if their industry suffered such setbacks but they are the ones who are paying for this.

Again, this applies to four airlines at the exclusion of Air Canada. In the agreement and in the various acts, very important guarantees were demanded for Air Canada. Such guarantees were demanded by the Bloc Quebecois, which questioned the government in debates on the various acts establishing Air Canada as we know it today, and by others. Why? To protect the rights of workers.

Air Canada is the largest airline, with 80% of Canada's air traffic. Therefore, it is important that it be afforded some protection. When Canadian was integrated with Air Canada, we made sure that workers would not lose. As the minister said, we made sure that small municipalities would be served. This has always been a requirement in the original legislation that is now being amended. These requirements have not changed. Protecting the rights of workers and serving small municipalities are still requirements under the acts that established Air Canada and French in the skies.

It is sad to hear speeches such as that of the Alliance member in a country where there are two founding peoples, anglophones and francophones. Members will understand why, with such speeches, that sovereignty is not dead in Quebec. If we were to hear speeches like that of the Alliance member every day, I am sure sovereignty would take off for the pure and simple reason that francophone rights must be protected.

And the law provides for the protection of French in the air.

What is harder to accept is the fact that 136 complaints are before the commissioner of official languages. They were lodged against Air Canada because French is not respected in the air. This is the harsh reality.

It is hard to hear the representatives of the Canadian Alliance say, today, that it is time to stop protecting French in the air, a practice established by one of the two founding peoples, thanks to representations by the Bloc Quebecois, among others. Air Canada is Canada's largest airline, carrying 82% of the volume.

Obviously we must carry on and make sure that the rights of travellers are protected. As regards service to small municipalities—I am using the minister's expression—it must be protected. That is what the minister said earlier.

There are no large or small municipalities. Canada was built from communities that diversified their approaches. Communities were established around natural resources. Cities—this is the term we should use and not small and large municipalities—were established across Canada.

No law makes a distinction between towns and cities in Quebec. They are cities. There are no large and small cities in the Quebec Loi des cités et villes. There are cities. Obviously, there are cities in the regions and there are cities near major urban centres, and the law must protect and continue to protect service to cities in the regions.

Canada owes its existence to its natural resources and continues to be very much a country of natural resources. The future is very important for all regions of Canada. Such is the diversity of Canada, what makes it great. We are one of the largest countries in the world in which the decision has been made to allow the market to operate freely.

That is where the problem lies. In such a vast country, a country of such diversity, the strength of which depends in large part on the natural resources located in distant regions, the government has a duty to intervene in order to ensure that transportation services are maintained, including the most rapid means of transportation, air service, so that regional cities are connected with the major urban centres.

That is why it was hard to swallow today the statement in the minister's speech saying that, with Bill C-36 which merged Air Canada and Canadian, we obtained and included protection for service to small municipalities.

I hope he will rethink his choice of words. Cities in the regions have as much right to air service as major urban centres. That is reality. Just as Canada's francophone air travellers have as much right to service in their own language as anglophones.

I am proud that the act which created Air Canada protects the use of French in the air. I hope the rumours that Air Canada wants to abandon Air Canada Regional precisely because the use of French in the air is a constraint on the expansion of all the businesses that make up Air Canada Regional, are not true.

Apparently they want to abandon these businesses, sell them or transfer a part of their routes. That is the current rumour. This is an attempt to improve the bottom line and to avoid having to respond to the 136 complaints received by the official languages commissioner against Air Canada regarding the use of French in the air.

It is difficult and it is a hard fight but we must continue to fight to protect the rights of workers under the statutes that created Air Canada as we know it today. We must continue to protect service to cities in the regions, and not small municipalities as the minister said, and protect the use of French in the air.

This bill only changes the percentage of individual or group participation in the share capital of Air Canada. It only amends this clause.

The Bloc Quebecois will support Bill C-38 for the simple reason that the rights of workers at Air Canada will still be protected, as will service to cities in the regions, and the use of French in the air.

We must continue to fight so that cities in the regions of Canada and Quebec are better served and that the use of French, the language of one of the two founding peoples of Canada, is better protected in the air.

This is a commitment which the Bloc Quebecois is determined to defend in the House.

It is sad to see the federal government deciding to put its faith in the free market in something as important throughout Canada as the airline industry. This is a position strongly backed by the Canadian Alliance, which would like to go much further. It would be a disaster for Canada's entire airline industry for the good and simple reason that this great country of Canada, and of Quebec, needs flights linking cities in the regions with major urban centres. They do not all have the same number of inhabitants and are so diversified that we must support them. In my view, the Government of Canada would do well to do as Switzerland or the United States have done and provide massive aid to the airline industry. It is a vital part of our economy.

Companies such as Bombardier were able to create markets in aeronautics because we in Canada were heavy users of air services. The entire aeronautics industry is supported by the airline industry and we must encourage this industry and its workers. They should not have to pay for what happened on September 11. They should not bear the brunt of industries' losses through the loss of their jobs. We are condemning entire families to poverty just because the government decided to give the market free rein.

I call on the minister to rethink his position on this issue. I call on the federal Liberal government to start looking at the larger picture and to send out a clear message. I hope the Minister of Finance will understand and that in his next budget he will announce heavy investments to support Canada's airline industry. As in the United States, Switzerland and other countries, this industry needs significant government support right now, until business picks up. We all hope that business picks up in the airline industry. Only time will tell.

Working on security is a good example. I support the Minister of Finance with respect to the Government of Canada's investments in security.

The problem is that we did not do enough before September 11. This is why we now have to invest so massively in security. We did not do it before. In 1987 the government decided to move the RCMP out of all Canadian airports. The RCMP was responsible for monitoring and supervising security at airports. It is not just the Liberal government that made this type of decision. That decision was made by the Conservative government and was supported by the current Liberal government. Why? For reasons of economy.

The government delegated to so-called non-profit organizations the responsibility of managing and administering some of the duties relating to security at airports.

Today we are seeing some of the results of that decision. There has not been much investment. Instead, cuts were made. The government tried to transfer the burden of security to airline companies which, over the past 20 years, have undergone major changes, including bankruptcies and the merging of Canadian Airlines International and Air Canada. Meanwhile, it was asking airlines to pay for security.

It did so by investing as little as possible. Since 1987 Transport Canada has been responsible for security at airports. This is a civilian agency which over the past 15 years has been much busier dealing with disputes about the costs to airline companies compared to the services provided by non-profit organizations set up by the Government of Canada to transfer its responsibility. They tried to make it as inexpensive as possible and now we can see the results.

Today we are being forced to make massive investments and the Liberal government is now afraid that it will not have enough money, for the simple reason that we do not know exactly how much the security bill will cost. In the meantime, we are not investing in the airline industry, we are saving our pennies to invest in security and protect passengers, users and all Canadian.

This is a choice we as a society made, and today the airline industry is paying the price. The federal Liberal government does not want to invest like the Americans have done. Once again, I thought the minister's statement was quite frank when he said that the Americans had provided massive support for the airline industry, $5 billion in direct assistance, $10 billion in loan guarantees; $15 billion in all.

Switzerland made a choice, following Swissair's filing for protection under the bankruptcy act, when it decided to invest massively, with the purchase of 38% of the shares of Crossair, which will take over from Swissair in January. So, it is a societal choice.

In Canada, all that is being promised, all that is being offered to employees in the airline industry, which supports the aviation industry, airplane manufacturers, et cetera, is Bill C-38. The world's leading companies in aviation and aeronautics are here, there are manufacturers and companies that produce parts, and all that we can promise them today is Bill C-38.

We agree that individuals should be able to have more than a 15% control of shares if they want to. If this finally allowed a major investor to control Air Canada's board of directors and try to jump start the company and get it on track, this is a societal choice that the government of Canada has made.

We must think about the workers in the airline industry, in all the companies, and not just the five major ones. There are regional companies as well. This afternoon, Air Alma was mentioned. There is Air Inuit and all the other regional carriers, which were hit with the reduction in air traffic across Canada and around the world. They are not being helped by the measures the minister announced yesterday.

This afternoon in oral question period, the minister told us candidly that revitalizing the major companies was likely to give the smaller regional carriers a boost. This represents a choice not to support the regional companies, which are often family operations, and letting them go adrift. When they hit really hard times and are within inches of seeking bankruptcy protection the government might agree to guarantee loans for them, if things are really going bad.

No plan is in place to help the airline industry. They will deal with things piecemeal, day by day. They put out fires. That is how security was dealt with. When problems arise, they deal with them. Otherwise, they try to save as much as possible in security. This is the way they have operated since 1987.

They are making massive investments because there is a security problem but the passengers on the airlines are paying the cost in Canada. Today they have nothing more to sink their teeth into. They have a bill that will enable private investors to participate more in Air Canada in an attempt to revive it.

I hope and we will demand that the context in which today's Air Canada was established will be maintained. In other words, Canada and Quebec need a strong airline that respects travellers' rights, that serves the cities and the regions and that uses French in the air, for both founding peoples.