Debates of Dec. 6th, 1994

Fisheries

[Brian Tobin, Liberal, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans]

Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely right. It is a shocking thing that fully 35 days have passed since the Government of Quebec tabled a proposal that would radically alter the nature of the relationship between the federal government and the provincial government. This government has not yet offered a comprehensive response to this radical altering of the nature of the way in which we manage the marine fisheries and we have had fully 35 days to deal with it, to fully discuss it and implement it. It is a shocking, shocking thing and I will attempt to do better in the future.

Gun Control

[Jim Abbott, Reform, Kootenay East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in Revenue Canada's press release last week on gun control it was indicated: "The RCMP and Revenue Canada Customs are using

resources allocated under the government's anti-smuggling initiative and will continue with stepped up measures to combat smuggling". Even the justice minister accepts the fact that there are thousands of guns coming across the border every month and yet the port of Fort Erie across from Buffalo has only interdicted six per month in the last year, six out of one thousand.

Does the revenue minister agree that both he and the justice minister are giving a false sense of security to Canadians with their ill thought out gun control legislation and the fact they will not be able to enforce the laws at the border anyway?

[David Anderson, Liberal, Minister of National Revenue]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member appears to be unaware that the proposals for gun control are extremely well thought out and in fact have wide support among the Canadian people.

Further, with respect to the border, I do not know where he gets these precise accurate figures on illegal weapons unless he himself is out there doing it.

Violence Against Women

[Audrey McLaughlin, NDP, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. As she will know, in the last four years we have had two major reports on violence against women: one, the war on women which is a subcommittee of Parliament and, second, the panel on violence against women which cost over $11 million. She will also know that transition homes, rape counselling centres and women's centres continually struggle for adequate funding.

I want to ask the Deputy Prime Minister whether her government is committed to ensuring through core funding the continuation of these essential services which help to prevent, to treat and counsel against violence against women and whether her government will do so through shared costing with the provinces and territories.

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, I can certainly assure the hon. member, knowing her own personal interest in this issue and the interest of her party, that we are going to do everything we can to live up to the commitments that we made in the red book to make Canada a fairer and a safer place for all women.

That is why we moved within the first year on specific legislation on gun control, a very strong package which could prevent the Marc Lepine massacre from happening again. That is why we are moving very soon on pay equity legislation, so the women in the public service get the equal treatment they deserve. That is why we will respect our commitment to core funding for transition houses, so the women of Canada can be protected from violence whether it comes from the streets, from their neighbours or sadly, from their own homes.

Cornwallis Park Development Agency

[Harry Verran, Liberal, South West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, in South West Nova the Cornwallis Park Development Agency has been established to promote economic development since the government announced the closure of CFB Cornwallis.

Can the Minister of National Defence assure this House that the government remains committed to ensuring the economic viability of the Cornwallis community? Will the Department of National Defence work together with the Cornwallis Park Development Agency to render CFB Cornwallis property attractive to outside investors?

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

Mr. Speaker, I can certainly give the assurances to my hon. friend from South West Nova who has worked very hard for the interests of his constituents after we closed the forces base at Cornwallis.

One of the things the government announced in the last budget was the establishment of the Lester B. Pearson Peacekeeping Institute. We want to make this a world class facility for trainers in peacekeeping techniques.

We hope to be able to divert more funding through bilateral arrangements with some of the eastern European nations and other European nations as a result of the readjustment of NATO infrastructure funds.

We are absolutely and totally committed to helping make that establishment a world class facility, but also to preserving many of the buildings on the site so that the hon. member and the local authority can market them and give that base a new economic life.

Points Of Order

[Jim Abbott, Reform, Kootenay East, BC]

I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I think upon reflection you will find that the Minister of National Revenue has accused me of smuggling guns. I believe that was exactly what he had to say.

[David Anderson, Liberal, Minister of National Revenue]

Mr. Speaker, if there was any suggestion that the hon. member was smuggling guns I immediately would like to correct that impression. My question was only how does he get these accurate figures on the guns that are smuggled?

[The Speaker]

I take it that whatever was said hopefully is withdrawn and that no offence was intended.

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Violence Against Women

[Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral, Bloc, Laval Centre, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to share a thought on violence against children, a painful reality I have often been confronted with in my profession.

Even if our instinctive reaction of outrage tends to overshadow everything else when we are confronted with such unacceptable tragedies, I have learned from experience to read in this violence the signs of a society which is out of balance, a society in which social expectations of performance at any cost, family isolation, financial difficulties and psychological deficiencies play a major role. These are sick families.

As Fairholm wrote in a book published in 1990 and entitled "Child Abuse Prevention Program for Adolescents", children of all ages are abused. In every social, economic, racial and ethnic environment, there are adults abusing children under their care. All families and all children are vulnerable to this problem. Psychological violence is at the root of all forms of abuse or negligence, but we do not know how common physical neglect actually is. Is such ignorance tolerable? I do not think so.

In conclusion, I would like to go back to the events of December 6, 1989, exactly five years ago today. A light late afternoon snow is falling on the city, when horror suddenly strikes: 14 young women are gone forever, robbed of a promising future.

This tragedy affected me personally because I knew one of the victims; her name was Anne-Marie. In memory of all her sisters, I laid 14 white lilies near her grave. I thought for a moment of adding a red rose dedicated to Marc Lépine's mother, but I decided against it because the violence done to this woman in the evening of December 6 was beyond imagination. This woman died deep in her soul.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Dear colleagues, the issue we are dealing with is a very serious one, so I would ask my colleagues to hold their discussions outside the House. The hon. member may continue.

[Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral, Bloc, Laval Centre, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thought for a moment of adding a red rose dedicated to Marc Lépine's mother, but I decided against it because the violence done to this woman in the evening of December 6 went beyond imagination. This woman died deep in her soul.

I want to tell her today what I could not tell her on December 6, 1989: We share your pain in solidarity and we refuse to condone daily violence because it always erupts in the end, leaving indelible scars.

I say to the grieving families, particularly the three families in Laval, that they are in our thoughts and that this ultimate sacrifice has become the symbol of the campaign to eliminate violence against women.

[Mary Clancy, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

December 6, 1989. Memories come flying of that night five years ago. I remember it very well. I remember it was cold and there was a lot of snow in Ottawa.

I remember the night particularly because the then Leader of the Opposition, the then member for Vancouver Quadra had a party at Stornoway for members of the Liberal caucus. I remember the fellowship, the Christmas cheer.

I remember a number of us going out for dinner after the party at Stornoway. I remember in particular there were more than a dozen of us in a downtown Ottawa restaurant waiting for the member for Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte, now the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. We were wondering what was keeping him and why he was holding up our evening. I can remember. So many memories like this are etched in our minds. I can see the hon. member standing ashen faced in the restaurant doorway coming to tell us he had just heard the news on the radio of the 14 young women at l'École polytechnique.

I remember many things and forget others. Hon. members know the hon. member for Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke has sat for many years in this House and is one of its senior members. He was sitting next to me and he said things like that do not happen in Canada. They are not supposed to happen.

I remember later that night back in my apartment the member for Saint-Laurent-Cartierville and I were riveted to the television set watching Ian MacDonald of CBC report from l'École polytechnique. I remember the flowers in the snow. In particular I remember a beautiful young student talking about her fateful meeting with Marc Lépine in one of the corridors at l'École polytechnique. She described how she saw him and she crouched down and how he pointed the gun at her and fired twice. Both times through chance and the incredible grace of God it misfired. She kept saying she did not know why she was alive and the others were not.

I remember most particularly from first hearing the news to today five years later realizing that in this instance women were culled from the crowd. They were singled out. They were stood against a wall and they were executed.

They were executed because in that diseased mind, and there is no question of that, they had raised themselves above the trench, if you will. They had taken a step away from the norm. They had gone into a non-traditional profession for women. They had dared to do something that in that diseased mind women were not supposed to do.

I want to say a very special word about two of my former colleagues in this House. I want to pay tribute most particularly to Dawn Black, the former New Democratic Party critic on the status of women. Through her efforts on a private member's bill she sponsored this day has become the day of remembrance and action.

I remember being in this House many times speaking and supporting Dawn and being supported by the other women I would like to pay tribute to today. There is the Hon. Mary Collins who was then the Minister responsible for the status of women. I also want to pay tribute to our colleague from Saint-Hubert from the Bloc Quebecois who also supported us very much on that.

I remember these things and I want all of us to remember these things. I remember the people I met when this terrible tragedy focused the debate and the battle against violence against women. One person I will never forget and to whom I would also like to pay tribute today is Suzanne Laplante-Edward, the mother of Anne Marie Edward, one of the victims. She would probably not want to be singled out. She would talk about herself as a parent and an activist but she has become a symbol as well. She would probably have preferred to remain the mother of an engineer.

What happened on that cold December night in Montreal galvanized all of us to a degree but we still have much farther to go. It is very true that violence against men and against children exists in our society. However it is not sensible to refuse to recognize that violence against women is a particular problem that exists in every cultural group, in every society, east, west, north, south, in every racial background. It is a tragedy and a horror, but it is there. Asking what about men and what about children does not take away from the fact that there is the peculiar and particular problem that in far too many cases women wake up in their own houses and are afraid. When we talk about fighting this problem it does not mean that we think less of the victims of other forms of violence. It does mean that we underline this problem as a special one, as one that needs special responses and special protections. I mentioned journalists before and I spoke about Ian MacDonald from the CBC. I want to say a word about Stevie Cameron. I doubt there is a woman who read the Globe and Mail that week that does not remember Stevie Cameron's incredible column that was entitled ``What do we tell our bright and shining daughters?'' She spoke for all of us, those who are the mothers of daughters and those who are not but who have a responsibility to all the daughters. She talked about issues of safety. She talked about bringing up young women so that they do not have to be afraid. She talked about the way we all worry about our young, whether they are ours personally or ours generically. I will always remember her words.

Just yesterday I looked at a plaque in my office with the pictures of those 14 young women. I think the average age was 22. There was one I remember looking at and saying: "Gosh she was quite old. She was 29". I think of the terrible waste that took place in Montreal that night. Those young women would have made such a contribution to their profession, to their own families, to their communities, to their province, to their country, to all of us.

Madam Edwards mentioned in her interview in the Montreal Gazette this morning that what was lost there was not just all that beauty, talent, youth and enthusiasm. As a country we lost some of our innocence and our naivete because, as my colleague from Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke said, this is not supposed to happen in Canada and suddenly it had happened.

We have many spirited debates about the question of gun control, about questions of violence, about how to deal with and how to make sure that what happened in Montreal will never happen again. If we are lucky never again will we see a mass murder like that. We all pray that we will not. The tragedy is that we do see this violence against women every day.

There is a badge that some of us are wearing today that says: "Never again, December 6, 1989". The tragedy is that it is still going on. The tragedy is that we have not yet come to grips with how to deal with the question of violence against women. The tragedy is that every six days a woman is killed in this country with a firearm. I did not make up that statistic. It is not false. It is there. The tragedy is that women are beaten, brutalized and abused.

Yes, others are beaten, brutalized and abused but on a continuum-I underline this and repeat this-there is a particular, horrible and deep-rooted problem in our society, right here in Canada, whether in British Columbia, Yukon, Nova Scotia, southern Ontario, whether in a city or on a farm, it can and does happen in every single one of our ridings. To a degree we are all frightened and struck by our helplessness in the face of this ghastly and unacceptable situation.

We are legislators. We are all here, every one of us, no matter what our political belief or background, because we want to do what is best for our constituents and for the people of our

country. We have to legislate in the way we see fit. We have to understand that to root out this kind of horrible growth in our society, sometimes the surgery that has to be undertaken is radical.

If it means intervening and removing certain rights, whether it is the right to privacy, the right to have certain things in our possession, then I have to say that every single one of us has to understand that the problem is so severe and so ongoing and so all-pervasive that I fear we will all be judged very harshly if we do not take the steps necessary to cure it.

A year and a half ago the blue ribbon panel on violence against women reported. It was the summer before the election and part of my job at that time was to respond. I now think that to some degree my response was harsh. It was an expensive panel. As the hon. member for Yukon mentioned, it spent almost $11 million. To this day I have reservations about some of its responses.

However, one thing I did not make enough of at the time and I need to make something of today, and I know other speakers will also, is the committee very clearly stated the acceptance by the general population of the deep-seated problem of violence against women. I call it what it is, violence against women. It is not domestic violence, not spousal violence. Do not try to hide it behind words. It is violence against women. It is something that too many people in our society still do not accept. They think that it belongs to some strange subculture. There are some even in the House, and again I impute no motives but is just a lack of awareness, who think it is provoked, who think that there are reasons in a victimology that creates violence against women.

We all have to ensure that we understand the issue, and that we understand that to hit another person is wrong. It is a criminal offence. It does not deserve to be put in a special category because it happened in the home, because it was between husband a wife, because it was between two people who share a bed and a history that it is somehow different. It is violence. It is always a crime. It is never acceptable. There are too many dead bodies. There are too many injured women. There are too many scarred children.

This is Canada. The member for Renfrew-Pembroke-Nipissing said it five years ago tonight: "This kind of thing does not happen here". This kind of thing should not happen here. But we have a responsibility to do everything in our power as legislators to ensure that it does not.

[Marlene Catterall, Liberal, Ottawa West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Because of the interest in this debate, I wish to inform you and the House that the government members will be dividing their time from this point on.

[Ian McClelland, Reform, Edmonton Southwest, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to join in the debate and to follow the very moving and eloquent words of the member for Halifax. I am sure the House was moved in a very real and a very positive way five years ago when this tragic occurrence took place.

It is particularly timely to reflect on that. We are exploring violence in our society as we begin to discuss the impending legislation, Bill C-41, which is the hate law and the legislation to come on gun control.

All of these things are intermingled and mixed with the violence that seems to be pervasive in our society. When we turn on the television and see children's programs that are one violent scene after another, when we go to movies and see that they are based almost exclusively on violence can we wonder when it happens in our midst what causes it?

This incident was horrible to a degree that we in Canada had not ever seen previously. It was aimed not randomly but specifically at women. The action was taken by someone who could have lived next door to any one of us, by someone who could have been one of our children, someone who otherwise seemed to be normal and just like everybody else.

This happened to ordinary people who were identified specifically because they were women and the killer thought they were a threat to him. They were engineering students in an occupation that traditionally has not had a lot of women.

My wife and I have a daughter who is an engineer. We understand that females who are engineers are unique because there are not that many of them. This touches so many of our lives because of the very ordinariness of the people who were affected by it and by the fact that it happened in Canada. This kind of thing just does not happen in Canada.

It does happen in Canada. It happens all over our country. It happens with alarming frequency. It happens with randomness. Here in Ottawa we had a young man who had just finished university shot and killed by a random act of violence in a drive-by shooting by a young offender.

When we compare that to the horrific events of the l'École Polytechnique five years ago, we have to speak to all of the people who are victims of violence, not just those who were tragically killed that night. Barb Danelesko was awakened in her home. She is just as dead, just as gone from her loved ones as anyone else.

As a society and as a legislative body we need to get beyond the superficial and see if we cannot find out what are the underlying problems in our society that cause or will allow this

kind of tragedy to happen. Violence against women is usually a domestic situation.

One thing that has puzzled me is that when there is violence in a domestic situation it is the women and the children who end up leaving the home and going to a shelter. The perpetrator of the violence is given a warning but usually that is about it. It is usually a male and he is usually allowed to go to work and lead a fairly normal life. What happens to the children? They end up being shunted about, torn from their home, torn from the things most familiar to them, torn from their friends and perhaps even torn from extended families if they are being stalked.

Why can we not throw the husband in jail? It is because the husband has rights. Society does not have rights. The children do not have rights. The wife who may well be dead does not have rights but the husband has rights.

The member for Halifax mentioned in her dissertation when she alluded to the question of gun control that sometimes in the greater good the rights of others need to be trampled. I believe in this reference she was speaking about firearms, and perhaps the rights of people to own and use firearms for the greater good have to be in some way restricted.

If we accept that as being true, surely in the interest of the same greater good the rights of husbands should also be curtailed. It makes absolutely no sense to me that society would have a situation where we protect the rights of an abuser or a husband, take the wife and the children from the home and put them into a shelter because we cannot in any way interfere with the rights of the husband. It makes no sense whatsoever. Why can we not throw him in jail for 90 days or 120 days, for a cooling off period?

Statistics show the vast majority of women are injured or killed as a result of domestic situations. However also in a vast majority of cases neighbours or friends know a disaster is about to happen. If we as fellow citizens, neighbours or relatives know that, why can we not intervene? Why can we not tell the police?

One of the underlying factors in domestic homicide is violence. If people are not getting along the chances of them being shot are greatly enhanced. Therefore it would be a good idea if the police very quietly and very gently said: "We know you are having problems. We do not want them to get worse. We know that you have guns. We want to remove these guns from your home for the protection of society and for the greater good. When the problems abate we will return them".

These laws are on the books right now. It would not require one new law. The police have the right to confiscate weapons if they feel and have good knowledge that there is the possibility of a crime being committed with the weapons.

We need to be cautious when we are promulgating laws that deal with violence in homes, violence in general or violence in society. We have a situation in the country where violence is really endemic in society. In my view we are now trying to put politics ahead of principle. The principle we as a nation should hold dear is that we will not condone or in any way allow violence to become the way to resolve disputes in our society. Whether it is father and son, husband and wife or brother against brother, we are not going to use violence as a means of solving disputes in society.

We all agree on principle. I am sure every member of the House would disagree with the statement of principle that we do not want violence to be the means by which we resolve differences. What happens in a society when we say that some forms of violence or violence directed toward some people is more reprehensible than others? In my view that happens when we start to introduce penalties associated with a defining characteristic of the victim rather than the principle that we should not be doing it. It is almost as though we make allowances for some forms of violence or violence toward some people because they do not happen to fit in to a protected category.

I know this is not the intent of the legislation. I know this is not the intent of the government. However it is the reality of the legislation and the government if not the intent. We have abrogated the principle of evenness and fairness to all and replaced it with the notion that crimes committed against a person of a particular gender or with a particular defining characteristic are more heinous than crimes committed against the norm. That just does not make sense.

It does not speak to the root problem in society, that we tolerate ever increasing levels of violence as a means of resolving disputes. We see that in our grade schools. We see that on television when we turn on the TV. I wonder how many people have ever seen "Power Rangers", the children's program that was banned in many places.

When children grow up watching an ever increasing level of violence that is accepted, tolerated and condoned, is it any wonder that we end up with a society that uses violence to resolve disputes? I am speaking directly to the question of domestic violence, which is the vast majority of violence in our society.

Another form of violence I would like to spend a few minutes speaking to this afternoon is the violence directed toward children. That violence is the passive violence of neglect. In Edmonton there is a home called the Youth Emergency Shelter which is pretty much run by a few professional, very capable staff members and a lot of volunteers. It is pretty much supported by donations. It has a tremendous reputation within the community.

In 1983 in a nine-month period the Youth Emergency Shelter in Edmonton comforted around 200 young people around the ages of 14 to 16. Last year it was 200 and some or about a 15 per cent increase in the number of people helped by the Youth Emergency Shelter. We talked to the people at the shelter and asked them why people came to them and what their success rate was in salvaging young lives.

If we are to use a prophylactic approach to violence in our community, it would make great sense to be far more interventionist in support of agencies like the Youth Emergency Shelter so that children and young people 13 years old, who certainly could not be called children, have a place to which to go and be welcomed without question. They do not have to go to the door, knock on the door and ask to come in because they have done this or that. All they have to do is show up. When they are there they have to abide by the rules. They are welcomed. They are fed. They are given warmth and love. An attempt is made when possible to reunite the young people with their families.

What often happens is that a situation between a parent and a child becomes desperate and reaches a pivotal moment. Words are said and perhaps even blows are exchanged. One thing leads to another and the child leaves the home. Even if it is not the case, many young people feel they just cannot go back, that they are not welcome.

In many cases all that is required is a cooling off period, an opportunity for the young people to give it a second thought and the parents to speak to someone who has had some experience in this regard. As parents we all perhaps think we are inventing every situation as it comes along, but I have learned through my association, limited thought it is, with the Youth Emergency Shelter and my long experience with the youth programs of the Rotary that none of us are going through a unique occurrence. It has always happened to someone else before and many of us are in exactly the same boat.

It requires someone with some skill, some compassion and motivation to be an intervener and to build a bridge between the parents and the children to get the children, where possible, back into the nurturing environment of their homes. As we know that is not always the case. From time to time the only hope for a young person is to get out of an abusive situation.

We could make a tremendous return on our investment in society if we were to ensure that those young people who could not go back to their homes had another place to which they could go where they would feel safe and secure. We could keep them out of jail and perhaps they could become productive members of society.

I have had an opportunity to share in the debate today. I did so recognizing that violence in society directed toward women is something that all of us, men and women, have a role to play in preventing or in some way ameliorating. As well we need to look at the complete and the broader picture of violence as a part of our society, in particular the passive violence of neglect and abuse of children at home.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Earlier I said that I would recognize the hon. member for Matapédia-Matane. Since the Minister of Justice is not here to take the floor, I recognize the member for Matapédia-Matane.

[René Canuel, Bloc, Matapédia—Matane, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it goes without saying that we must remember. I was at home when I heard about the tragedy at the École polytechnique. Even five years later, the memory is almost just as painful.

I spent my whole adult life as a high school teacher in a rural area.

Even in a comprehensive secondary school with 1,200 students, there was quite a bit of violence, so much so in fact that some children were persecuting each other in almost a tragic way.

When I first started teaching there was some violence, but it was more sporadic. However, toward the end of my career, it had become almost a daily occurrence.

Earlier, we referred to verbal abuse, which is very prevalent among young people. It is fine to describe that violence, and when we discuss violence, we forget about partisan considerations and think only about the victims, but we forget about meanness.

I have a question for this House: Why is there so much violence? It goes without saying that if a young boy is not loved, he will not like himself. And a young boy who does not like himself will develop a mean streak which he will express in various ways.

How does he behave? He hits, makes harsh comments, or hurls insults. It is said that violence generates violence. Gangs are organized: three against three, four against four, and so on. These gangs carry on their activities; they often use drugs and then they find weapons. There is practically no limit to what they will do.

How de we stop that? I believe there are several ways. By looking for the causes of violence, we will find the means to stop it. We feel that prevention is an excellent means to that end. In some schools, there is a lot more prevention than in others and violence has diminished considerably.

It is also true that where poverty and unemployment are a fact of life, crime tends to be more widespread.

The massacre of these young students was a tragedy, I agree. But two young people who make a suicide pact is also a tragedy. This happened in my riding two years ago, when two young people committed suicide. When you consider that these were intelligent, healthy youngsters, you wonder why they no longer

wanted to go on living. Why did they want to take their own lives? There must be a reason. And I wondered how at sixteen, seventeen or twenty, you could consider suicide. Many of my students committed suicide, and every time I said to myself: There is a reason. There is a reason, because we instinctively hold on to life, as anyone who has been near death will agree.

If you are in good health and you decide to take your own life, there may be several reasons but we have to find the right one.

Other students are in prison, some of my own students whom I see from time to time. Apparently, at 15 or 16 they were like everybody else, just as open-hearted. So what happened? Why did it happen to him and not someone else? Maybe it was some experience they had in their lives or somehow they had reached the point of no return, with very unfortunate results.

I agree we need legislation on firearms but we need more than that. I think that starting with primary school, we must find ways to wipe out this petty violence that occurs year after year. How can a three or four year old child become so aggressive that he is almost ready to strangle his next door neighbour? If we take them at 25 and send them to jail, the cost to society is enormous. Sometimes they get out with new tricks, and some, although not all, become repeaters.

My main concern is not firearms. I agree that we should control guns. I could not agree more. It does not make sense to send people to prison for 20, 25 or 30 years, and turn them into hardened criminals. I am not saying we should not do that, that is not what I mean. My point is that we have to go to the root of the matter and find out the initial causes as soon as possible.

Some children go to primary school without breakfast or lunch and only have a snack for supper.

Some of my oldest students were saying that poverty did not exist or hardly. Once, during the holiday season at the school where I taught we made Christmas baskets. I told these older students who were big and tough and sure of themselves to come with me. They came, and the first house we went to we saw two cases of empty beer bottles, each with 24 bottles, and a man lying on a kind of chesterfield. The cupboards were bare and children were crying.

When we got back, these guys who were 16, 17 or 18 and pretty tough, said: Poverty does exist, and we should go and visit poor families more often. These kids had been in trouble before, some had been convicted of theft. They felt they were luckier than others, but it takes time to make them understand. They should have these experiences, otherwise they harden their hearts and lose their self-esteem, and then they will do anything to survive. They try to be tough and become marginalized.

So to come back to what I was saying, I am glad the Minister of Justice is here.

I want to ask the minister whether all the legislation we are going to adopt should not emphasize prevention. Prevention should take place at the earliest possible age, because once a person is 40 and has been in prison repeatedly, I am not saying nothing can be done, but it is certainly far more difficult.

[Allan Rock, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, let me quote the message published in Quebec newspapers today:

Every citizen had to open their eyes and refuse to tolerate the various expressions of violence against women, from the smallest to the biggest, most obvious ones.

"Never again, Polytechnique!"

I have personally undertaken, as Minister of Justice, to put forward measures to counter violence.

When we are asked what the government is doing with respect to violence in society and violence against women in particular, a frank and direct answer must be that we are not doing enough.

We have taken certain steps and we resolve to take others. Working with the members of the House who have expressed so eloquently today their commitment to the principles we share and to the effort which we have embarked upon, I think we can truly make a difference through this legislation.

The steps we have taken include the changes contemplated in Bill C-42 to the regime of peace bonds which makes peace bonds easier to obtain from the court, which permit the applications for those protective orders to be made by police officers on behalf of women victims and which makes the enforcement and the consequences for the breach of such orders more significant.

I refer as well to the creation of the National Crime Prevention Council. I agree without hesitation with the comments made by the hon. member who spoke just before me about the importance of prevention in everything that we do. The National Crime Prevention Council which met for the second time in October has taken violence against women and children in Canadian society as one of its priority objectives during the coming months.

I refer as well to the family violence initiative, led by my colleague the Minister of Health, and the efforts that initiative involves to co-ordinate the actions of governments at all levels to address domestic violence toward women and children.

I refer to the announcement last week of the firearms control policy of this government and the very direct way in which it is intended to deal with domestic violence. Yesterday morning I had the honour of speaking in Edmonton at a breakfast organized to raise funds for shelters for women who are the victims of violence and for community services for such victims. I emphasized there one of the reasons why our firearms control policy is sensible. One of the reasons why universal registration is required is so that it will permit police the real tool to enforce prohibition orders where they are made in the context of a domestic dispute.

Nowadays, although prohibition orders are provided for by law, when the police officers arrive to enforce them they have no idea of what firearms are in that home. They must take the word of the occupant to determine what firearms should be taken away. That is simply not good enough. There should be a register. There will be a universal register of firearms and that will be overcome.

I can refer as well to the fact that I co-ordinate the efforts of nine ministers in the federal cabinet who work in a co-ordinated way to address the subject of violence in Canadian society generally. This includes the Minister of Canadian Heritage, for example, whose preoccupation in this context is with violence in broadcasting. It includes the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development whose concern is for the incidence of violence in the aboriginal communities. Together, the nine ministers co-ordinate their efforts, working in a variety of ways to reduce and address the issue of violence.

Finally, on June 13, we tabled Bill C-41, to make a number of changes to the sentencing procedure. Under these proposals, abusing a position of trust or authority to commit a crime would be deemed to be an aggravating factor for the purpose of sentencing.

This bill is designed to provide women with further protection against the violence they suffer at the hands of persons in a position of trust.

That too will help, although none of these specific measures will be enough on its own.

There is a great deal more for us to do as a government. We must do a better job in the Department of Justice in testing and auditing the impact of all laws, particularly the criminal laws in terms of gender. What is the gender impact of changes we propose from time to time to the criminal law?

We must in the Department of Justice work harder and more urgently to resolve the issue that is getting worse by the month, dealing with the disclosure of confidential records in the course of criminal prosecutions, confidential records relating to female complainants that are subpoenaed from professionals who are treating the complainants, from confidants who may have heard the complainant make statements, from rape crisis shelters that may have helped the complainant immediately after the alleged event.

We have to find a way to resolve that issue, balancing on the one hand the right of the accused person to make full answer in defence, which is fundamental to the law, but at the same time the right of complainants not to be revictimized through the unwarranted invasion of their private affairs and what amounts to intimidation to prevent them from participating in the prosecution.

We must also grapple with the drunkenness defence in respect of which I am at work now to prepare legislative proposals for February. In many ways that is a woman's issue as well as a criminal law issue generally. It is no accident that the Daviault case involved allegations of sexual assault by a man against a women. It is no accident that the cases that occurred subsequently in other provinces too often involved allegations of violence by men against women.

As we address these challenges, as we face up to the fact that we are not doing enough and that we must do more, as we approach the remaining tasks with an enhanced sense of urgency and commitment, I urge all members of the House to participate with the government, to take on this societal imperative. Our daughters must grow up to inherit a different country, a country which expressly and as a fundamental matter of citizenship rejects violence in all forms and rejects violence against women and children in particular. That must be our goal and we must work together to achieve it.

[Leon Benoit, Reform, Vegreville, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is any doubt that everyone in the House abhors violence, whether it is against women or against anyone else. There is no doubt about that.

I have heard a recurring theme here today. It is a theme, it seems to me, to make all of us feel guilty, especially men. This theme runs through the Canadian Human Rights Act, through the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and through other legislation that has been directed against men and in particular white men.

I would like to ask a rhetorical question of the minister. Is this fair? Is it not time to talk about violence against anyone as a serious matter? Is it not time to deal with the criminal who is committing the violence and deal to some extent with the potential criminals who are likely to commit violence? You do that best in a family setting. Instead of just trying to make men

particularly feel guilty, is it not a better approach to deal with the criminals and with the crime that is committed and with prevention through the family?

Instead of putting forward legislation that is damaging the family, destroying the family, instead give the family fair treatment under our tax regulations, under our social program system and under other areas of law, particularly under the minister's control.

I have one further part to this question concerning gun control. If the gun control the minister is proposing prevents violent crime, will the minister take personal responsibility for any crime that is committed once these laws are in place? Will the minister, when realizing that this gun control legislation totally fails, take the next step which is confiscation of all firearms?

[Allan Rock, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not speak as I do because I wish to make the hon. member or any other person feel guilty. I speak as I do to make all of us together feel responsible for changing the way things are.

I do not single out white men or middle aged men or men with blond hair or any other subcategory of the population. What I am suggesting is that we must face the facts. Violence in all of its forms against anyone is unacceptable. However sometimes violence against particular groups in society is so predominant, so widespread, so ingrained in the culture that it has to be identified for particular action.

Let me tell members why I say that. In November 1993, Statistics Canada published a survey which was unique in all the world. It surveyed a huge segment of the population about violence. All members of the population surveyed were women.

They found, among other things, that over half of the women surveyed had been the victims of an act of violence committed by a man against them during their adult life. That is extraordinary.

What am I? I am a middle aged white Anglo-Saxon male. If members went out and surveyed the middle class, white, middle aged Anglo-Saxon males you would not find anything like that kind of statistic in terms of victimization of violence. Why do we not face the facts? We have a problem here. We have a problem.

The man who walked into l'École polytechnique with the Ruger Mini-14 five years ago today said something when he pulled the trigger. He said bring on the women. I want to get the women. He killed 14 of them and injured another 13. It was at random. He was not after white, middle class Anglo-Saxon lawyers. He was after women, so let us deal with the reality.

It is everywhere. May I ask the hon. member if he has seen the television programs recently, the rock videos on MTV or the commercials that peddle products? What is implicit in them is the victimization of women which is deplorable. Let's stop it. I am not doing that to make anybody feel guilty.

Of course I support the family. That is where we must begin. We must teach children from the beginning to treat other people as human beings first, not on the basis of gender.

In so far as gun control is concerned, yes, I strongly believe that those measures will help address, among other things, domestic violence. Do I say that such violence will never occur with these changes? Of course not, because we cannot make it a perfect world. But I firmly believe that they will help to make things better.

I urge the hon. member in closing to not feel guilty because it is not anyone's intention to make him feel guilty for what others have done, rather to join us in feeling responsible. Together as members of this legislature we can do something to make it a somewhat a better world.

[The Deputy Speaker]

There is about a minute left. I would ask the member and the minister to divide that minute between the two of them please.

[Dick Harris, Reform, Prince George—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not have much time therefore I will just say what I want to say to the Minister of Justice.

I listened to him talk about prevention. Prevention is a key element in cutting the violence in our society. I hate and despise violence as much as anyone in the House. I want to hear the hon. minister use the words deterrent, consequence and penalty more often so that I can have some comfort in my belief that more severe consequences for violent crimes is on the hon. minister's agenda.

[Allan Rock, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be brief in just saying that deterrence is an essential part of this. I am the person who introduced decisions last week increasing to four years mandatory minimum penitentiary time for anyone who uses a firearm in any one of ten serious offences, including robbery.