Debates of March 9th, 1994

Members Of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I think this member thinks that he is not worth the pay we are giving to him.

[Elwin Hermanson, Reform, Kindersley—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot understand why the Prime Minister cannot distinguish between pensions and salaries.

However I have a supplementary question. The worst NHL players get fired, traded or sent to the minors. The worst MPs get a gold-plated pension plan with no threat of being recalled.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Speaker]

I am sure all hon. members would want to hear the question the member is trying to put. He does have the floor. The hon. member will put the question, please.

[Elwin Hermanson, Reform, Kindersley—Lloydminster, SK]

As I was saying, the worst NHL players get fired, traded or even sent to the minors. The worst MPs get a gold-plated pension plan with no threat of being recalled.

When will the government act to let Canadians demote ineffective members of their national team through a recall mechanism?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I hear what the hon. member is talking about. I would like him to explain it to some of his caucus colleagues who are receiving pensions from the Alberta government. One of them is sitting just behind him, but he is not there at the moment. We would like to have examples from themselves too.

We said we would look into the pension plan. There will be a committee to review it. At the same time I say to everybody that members of Parliament today earn $64,000. I can understand the member knows that he will not be re-elected so he will never have a pension. I understand that. However perhaps those who have served in Parliament for a long time, with the type of salary they have received and being 51 and going into the market, should have a pension.

As for the double dipping, we are willing to look into that if they get a job in government. If it is a question of having the pension too early in life, as it was in the case of one of the members of the Bloc Quebecois who quit last year, we will review that.

At the same time I do not like the tone that leaves the impression members of Parliament elected in every riding who earn less than a school principal or manager of a hospital are overpaid and are not rendering a service to the public of Canada.

Criminal Code

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

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

Yesterday, the minister seemed quite hesitant and embarrassed when asked about the government's intentions regarding the practice of excision in Canada, excision being the sexual mutilation of girls. He deferred for one month his decision as to whether the Criminal Code should be amended.

Will the minister pledge today to quickly table the appropriate amendments to criminalize the practice of excision, instead of postponing his decision?

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

Mr. Speaker, I recall neither having been embarrassed nor flustered at the question yesterday. I felt I answered it in a direct and straightforward way.

What I emphasized in the response yesterday and what I wish to make clear today is that it is the advice of my own department and it is my own view that the present provisions of the Criminal Code are quite sufficient to render criminal any assault which involves the mutilation of female genitals.

I made it clear yesterday that there is no cultural pretence which can excuse that misconduct in this country. I also made it clear yesterday that we will not tolerate it and that we wish to make clear to anyone who comes to this country that it will not be tolerated.

In order to demonstrate my open mind on the question and in deference to the questioner of yesterday, what I said was that I am prepared to consider whether an additional and specific provision should be added to the code by amendment to identify this specific form of assault and to outlaw it.

I gave the hon. member my assurance that I would spend a month considering the question and would be happy to let her know at the end of that period.

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, knowing that the Official Opposition is prepared to fully co-operate to speed up the passing of an act to ban the practice of excision, does the minister not agree that he could save time, energy and money by avoiding the setting up of a totally useless committee?

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

Mr. Speaker, in the period during which I will consider the question I want to examine first of all whether there have been investigations and prosecutions under the present section for the kind of misconduct referred to.

I want to consider whether it is worth the expense and time of the House to pass yet another section of the code when we already have sections in the code that prohibit the misconduct.

I want to consider whether we have laws on the books already which, if properly enforced, will achieve the objective the hon. member refers to without adding laws to the code that may not be necessary.

Indian Affairs

[Elijah Harper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

Earlier this year six young children died in a house fire in Lynn Lake, Manitoba. According to an annual report by the Manitoba College of Physicians and Surgeons aboriginal children in Manitoba are four times more likely to die than non-aboriginal children, and aboriginal children are 11 times more likely to die in house fires.

Could the minister tell the House what he is doing about the horrendous social conditions endangering and killing aboriginal children?

[Ron Irwin, Liberal, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development]

Mr. Speaker, that is a difficult question about one of the most serious problems we have in Canada.

It is so sad in a nation as rich as ours that we see day in and day out a loss of aboriginal children by fire. We see suicides. We saw them recently right across the country.

I have seen the houses; they are firetraps. I have seen the lack of economic opportunity. At the same time I have seen successful businesses, aboriginal doctors, aboriginal lawyers, aboriginal teachers and great aboriginal leaders. They are saying one thing to us, that we should get rid of or dismantle the Department of Indian Affairs.

As a consequence I have asked aboriginal leaders or chiefs in Manitoba to do so in the province of Manitoba. It will be the lead province to dismantle Indian Affairs. Hopefully it will be the model for the rest of the country.

I know my hon. friend from Churchill will be in the lead because it is time to bring, in the words of the Prime Minister, dignity, honour, self-reliance, self-government to a people who are held, not necessarily embodied, certainly as supplicants under an archaic act. It is time to press on.

Telecommunications

[Bob Ringma, Reform, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development.

An income security program's telecentre is to be established in May of this year in Bathurst, New Brunswick. In making the announcement the government was proud to jump on the high tech telecommunications bandwagon. However it specified that all 68 persons to be hired must be bilingual.

In the words of one federal employee in Bathurst, the bilingual employees there now speak either broken French or broken English.

Does the minister not agree that the centre would better serve the public in both languages by hiring unilingual French and English-speaking personnel and asking the public to press either one or two on their telephone to get better service in the language of their choice.

[Lloyd Axworthy, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development and Minister of Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member should know, the Auditor General made an assessment of the services we provide under the Canada pension plan and other areas which handle something like seven million to eight million calls a year.

The major concern members of Parliament in my caucus have received is that people like to have direct contact with somebody on the other end of the phone, especially those in rural areas who do not have the privilege, as does the hon. member, of having touchtone phones but still have dial phones. We are not all as capable or as privileged as the hon. member in having these modern techniques. Maybe it is one of the perks we should look into with the hon. member: rather than a pension freeze he will not get his touchtone phone.

The fact of the matter is that-and this is important-we believe in service to Canadians. The best way to provide that service is to provide a major telephone bank that can take in surplus calls from across the country, make sure that people can be answered in either of Canada's official languages and get direct human services, direct responses, which is the reason we have established the phone bank.

Rather than relying upon the scurrilous opinions of some anonymous person about someone's language capabilities, the member should go to Bathurst himself to see how good they are.

[Bob Ringma, Reform, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, would the minister not consider, partly for saving bilingual bonuses to the tune of $54,000 a year for that centre alone, combining the propositions put forward on this side with the answers provided on that side to give service to individuals in the language of their choice and viva voce as well?

[Lloyd Axworthy, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development and Minister of Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, the only proposition I have heard on this subject coming from that particular party is to eliminate official bilingualism in Canada, and we will not do that.

We believe it is one of the reasons Canadians understand this is a country where, whichever language one speaks, one has full rights and full access to the services of the federal government.

That is one reason New Brunswick, being the only official bilingual province in Canada at the present moment, is ideally suited for providing those kinds of services across Canada.

Unemployment Insurance Reform

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. In his budget plan, the minister claims that his decision to roll back unemployment insurance premiums to $3 in January 1995, which is next year, will create 40,000 jobs over a period of two years.

If the minister is right, why does he not create these jobs now by reversing the increase in unemployment insurance premiums introduced by the government in January?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance and Minister responsible for the Federal Office of Regional Development-Quebec]

Mr. Speaker, we raised unemployment insurance premiums in January with, as the minister himself said, a great deal of reluctance. The government faced an enormous deficit a month and a half or two months after it came to power. We admitted it did not make sense, but we were stuck with the deficit.

We still are. Until we introduce the structural reforms mentioned by the minister, which will provide the funding we need, we cannot reduce unemployment insurance premiums, and unfortunately, that will not be until next January.

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, Mercier, QC]

Does the minister not realize it is crazy to attack jobs by raising unemployment insurance premiums the way he did last December and taking the money he needs from the unemployed?

[Lloyd Axworthy, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development and Minister of Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, with all due deference I find the hon. member's question to be singularly confusing. One day members of the Bloc Quebecois tell us to reduce the premiums and complain about the measures we take to do it. Now they are saying to take them back to the year before which means we have to pay for the programs.

I want to say to the hon. member we had to introduce the increase in order to account for the cost of the programs of the previous government. We did not have time in the first six weeks of office to make those arrangements. The Minister of Finance has now done that in his budget.

This move has been broadly supported by all the small business organizations across Canada. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business has said that this measure will give them the mandate to go out and create work.

However, we cannot have it retrograde because these programs do not come into effect until July 1. Therefore we still have to pay for the programs until July 1. At that time we will bring in the new measures, acquire the surplus necessary, bring down the premiums, create jobs and make the hon. member very happy.

National Defence

[Monte Solberg, Reform, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, a constituent of mine who works at CFB Suffield has complained that management at the base recently circulated a memo that called for temporary help to be hired simply to use up the remainder of the budget by the end of the fiscal year.

Will the Minister of National Defence investigate this very serious allegation and will he tell us whether or not this problem is occurring in other CFBs across the country?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am glad the member posed the question. It certainly is troublesome.

I cannot believe it is true. I will investigate and get back to him at a later date.

[Monte Solberg, Reform, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the same constituent complained that personnel at the base are retiring with a pension only to be immediately hired back as consultants or in civilian positions thereby enabling them to collect two cheques from the federal government often for doing the same job they just left.

Will the President of the Treasury Board investigate what is widely known to be a problem in the public service and produce for the House a rigid set of guidelines to minimize such blatant abuses?

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

Mr. Speaker, I have no knowledge of such practices. I am sure my colleague the President of the Treasury Board does not have any knowledge of those practices.

They are very serious allegations. The hon. member has not given us any details. These are just wild assertions and hearsay as one would say in court. If the hon. member has specifics, perhaps he could make them available to us.

Unemployment Insurance

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, first I was so pleased to hear the Prime Minister's response to the question from the opposition with regard to the pensions. Now I know my private member's bill is going to go right through.

Last week when I was home in my riding I went to the legislative assembly in Fredericton. At that time Premier Frank McKenna, our Liberal premier, one whom we all respect, put a motion on the floor with regard to the UI reforms. According to Premier Frank McKenna these UI reforms will take $200 million away from the province of New Brunswick.

Has the premier contacted the Prime Minister? Has he discussed this with him? If so what is he to do to make up for this $200 million which will be taken from the province of New Brunswick?