Debates of Oct. 24th, 1994

Immigration

[Art Hanger, Reform, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, immigrant sponsorships are breaking down and this minister has not done a thing to enforce them.

Peel region in Ontario recently reported to the minister that up to 70 per cent of sponsorships are breaking down and ending up on welfare. Even the Globe and Mail is admitting that sponsorships, despite being a contractual agreement, are not worth the paper they are written on.

Can the minister of immigration tell this House if he thinks the enforcement of this program has failed?

[Sergio Marchi, Liberal, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, the family sponsorship breakdown is of concern. Certainly the consultation process has said that very loud and clear.

Currently roughly 14 per cent of family class sponsorships do break down at an estimated cost of roughly $700 million to the federal and provincial treasuries. It is something that I think is of concern. I ask the member to await November 1 when the government will present its levels for immigration in 1995. We will very clearly address this concern.

[Art Hanger, Reform, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, is the minister aware of a family which has collected more than $106,000 in unemployment insurance and welfare in the last five years and now has sponsored five more relatives, or a man who was illegally collecting unemployment insurance who just sponsored his wife? These applications were approved by the Immigration and Refugee Board.

If the minister does not think that the sponsorship program is failing, then will he recognize that the Immigration and Refugee Board has once again proven its stupidity and should be scrapped?

[Sergio Marchi, Liberal, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, talking about stupidity, I think the member should listen to the answer before reading his second question. I said very clearly that family-

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Speaker]

I am sure the hon. minister will want to rephrase his answer just a little bit at the beginning of the answer.

[Sergio Marchi, Liberal, York West, ON]

I thought since he was throwing the word over we might have a tit for tat, but I respect the Chair's position.

What I want to say, which I said in the first answer very clearly, is that the government is concerned about the minority, nonetheless a very expensive proposition for taxpayers to pick up. I have met with officials from the region of Peel in my office. I have discussed the problem with them. Our officials have discussed the problem with them. We do have a solution and it will be announced on November 1.

Communications Security Establishment

[Jean-Marc Jacob, Bloc, Charlesbourg, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence.

Since last week, the minister is refusing to provide any information on the activities of CSE, as though the subject were taboo. I hope that I will have more luck than my colleagues and that the minister will give a real answer.

Will the Minister of National Defence tell us who is the director of the Communications Security Establishment? Who is responsible for the 1,800 employees of that agency?

[David Collenette, Liberal, Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I think that the government has been quite forthcoming with answers on this particular matter given the fact that we are dealing in areas which are somewhat sensitive and deal with our relations with our allies.

With respect to the CSE in particular, it is a fully constituted part of the Department of National Defence. Its budget is included in the departmental estimates. If the hon. member has any specific questions he can come to the defence committee and ask questions.

The Minister of National Defence is accountable to the House of Commons. Certainly I am prepared to answer questions in committee on the security establishment.

The answers that were given by the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister are accurate. The CSE complies with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Criminal Code, the Privacy Act and Canadian human rights legislation. In fact in 1987 the former privacy commissioner, Mr. John Grace, had an examination made of CSE's activities and found that all was in order and all was compliant with Canadian law.

[Jean-Marc Jacob, Bloc, Charlesbourg, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I guess I do not have any more luck than my colleagues. It seems to me that I did not get an answer. My supplementary question is as follows: Who is in charge of the Communications Security Establishment and its 1,800 employees?

[David Collenette, Liberal, Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I gave the answer. I am sorry the hon. member does not understand it.

The Communications Security Establishment reports to the Minister of National Defence who is a member of cabinet and who answers to this House of Commons.

Airports

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Ontario, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport.

I recently attended a Transport Canada public meeting in my riding on the southern Ontario area airport study. This study is in part examining if there is a need for a future airport on federal lands in Pickering, a legacy that has been going on for some 25 years. Related to this is the question of what will be done with the lands which have already been declared surplus.

What assurance will the minister give this House that the result of the study will be made public before a final decision is made on Pickering airport and of course on the surplus lands?

[Douglas Young, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, the study is ongoing. It should be concluded fairly soon. I am prepared through you, Mr. Speaker, to undertake to the member and to the House that as the reports are completed we will make them public. They may not all be done at the same time. There are technical studies being done and whether they have to do with the airport construction in the future or the disposal of surplus lands. We will make the reports public as soon as they are completed.

National Defence

[Jack Frazer, Reform, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Responding to questions on the Lagueux report, the Minister of National Defence claimed that the report in no way implicates any of the senior officials in the department. Yet two directors general were reprimanded as a result of it. One subsequently committed suicide. The other was promoted one category and still occupies that same position. In fact, access to information reveals that two years after the Lagueux report this individual was still regularly approving contracts for amounts in excess of her authorization.

Will the minister explain these inconsistencies in his response, especially since he claimed that the problems and the individuals concerned had been dealt with?

[David Collenette, Liberal, Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I should emphasize that all of these activities predate this government. We are very concerned with ensuring that all matters pertaining to the administration of the Department of National Defence are done in an appropriate manner.

With respect to my comments earlier in the House, we were talking in the context of the deputy minister and assistant deputy ministers. I do recognize that senior people at the level of DG have been disciplined. There was one unfortunate occurrence to which the hon. member referred.

I should also say, because the hon. member and his colleagues seem to believe there is something being hidden, that the Auditor General has been fully aware of this file for the past year or two. He has been kept fully abreast of all the details pertaining to this matter. Indeed he has the right to initiate any inquiry-in fact, I would invite him to do so-if he feels that the actions being taken internally are insufficient.

Those actions have involved the RCMP, the Public Service Commission and other internal investigative organizations in government. It means that if the Auditor General wishes to initiate an investigation he may do so. All he has to do is let our officials know.

[Jack Frazer, Reform, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General, as we have been informed in this Parliament, is an extremely busy individual. I doubt that he has time to isolate individual investigations of this sort.

I am informed from within the department that this situation has resulted in poor morale and even fear of retribution for people who speak out.

How can the minister justify failing to commission a professional, independent, clearly unbiased investigation into these areas of defence department management procedures? By refusing to take such action he is lending credibility to the perception that something is very wrong in his department.

[David Collenette, Liberal, Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, first of all concerning the Auditor General, at any one time in national defence the Auditor General is conducting between seven and twelve audits.

The Auditor General has known about the situation in that particular administrative unit for a couple of years and has been briefed on how the department is dealing with it. At no time has he felt that a further investigation was warranted. If the Auditor General wishes to conduct such an investigation, he may certainly do so.

As far as morale is concerned, Mr. Speaker, when you get a unit with about 45 or 50 people in it, where there have been allegations of misappropriation of funds, where there have been allegations of harassment and improper contracting practices, where a criminal charge has been laid and somebody is convicted, of course that hurts morale.

I would ask the hon. member not to contribute to trying to make morale, which is otherwise good in the national defence department, seem any less secure than it really is by the misguided charges that he and his colleagues have been making over the last number of weeks.

Communications Security Establishment

[Jean-Paul Marchand, Bloc, Québec-Est, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on Saturday, the Prime Minister issued instructions putting an end to the surveillance activities of the Communications Security Establishment involving thousands of Canadian citizens on whom the CSE has important data banks collected through listening in on their telephone conversations.

My question is for the Minister of Defence. Can he tell us exactly what action he has taken, following the Prime Minister's instructions, to put an end to the operations of the "French Problem" unit or any other unit of the CSE involved in the same kind of activities?

[David Collenette, Liberal, Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the Prime Minister's remarks on Saturday I believe that the Deputy Prime Minister's response covered that quite adequately.

As far as the operations of CSE are concerned, we do not target the communications of Canadians, pure and simple. Beyond that I will not say anything else.

[Jean-Paul Marchand, Bloc, Québec-Est, QC]

Mr. Speaker, does the minister intend to take action against those who were involved in illegal surveillance operations?

[David Collenette, Liberal, Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I totally reject any implication carried in the hon. member's question.

Gun Control

[Jim Abbott, Reform, Kootenay East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, because the Prime Minister clearly does not understand the problem, we have the headline in Toronto's Saturday Star that says: Every gun will be registered''. However we have the real story on page 15:Smugglers swell gun numbers. I can sell everything I can get, underground dealer says''.

My question is for the Minister of National Revenue. When is he going to wake up and start to do something about the real problem, which is illegally smuggled weapons?

[David Anderson, Liberal, Minister of National Revenue]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member may have forgotten that on February 8 the government launched a quite dramatic 25 per cent increase in surveillance at the border. This was in relation to cigarettes and alcohol, but concerned as well smuggled weapons.

We have expanded quite dramatically this year the resources going into the protection at the border posts from these various items which we are attempting to pick up.

[Jim Abbott, Reform, Kootenay East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, on Friday last week some people from the minister's office were in my office. They gave me the same answer the minister just gave the House: There really is no problem.

The problem is that we have people dying on the streets of Canada. The problem is being fed with weapons that will never be registered.

Will the minister at least undertake a review of the processes so that the problem can be uncovered? Thousands of weapons are coming across the border illegally.

[David Anderson, Liberal, Minister of National Revenue]

Mr. Speaker, the review the member requests is already under way. It is well known that myself, the Solicitor General and the Minister of Justice are attempting to do whatever the government can to produce changes to our existing system so that we can decrease the number of smuggled weapons.

I would remind the hon. member of a fact of which he appears unaware. We have 130 million border crossings annually between the U.S. and Canadian border. The United States is a country which has very widespread ownership of handguns in particular, but also other weapons. It is extremely difficult to interdict the weapons coming across under normal circumstances. We have to have a concerted program involving the American authorities, ourselves and many government agencies to reduce the number of weapons.

We certainly wish to do everything we can to reduce the number of smuggled weapons coming into Canada.