Debates of Sept. 22nd, 1994

1992 Referendum

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, as I said, we will respect the commitments made by the government. If someone can clearly establish that the Government of Canada made a commitment, we will respect that commitment. We were not there, we were not part of the discussion and I asked senior officials to verify whether commitments had been made between the two levels of government.

No trace of any commitment was found. Therefore I conclude that we have no obligation and that the Government of Quebec at the time knew very well that if it held a referendum under provincial law, the expenses would be incurred under that same law.

[Lucien Bouchard, Bloc, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, in the Ginn Publishing case also, it was an anonymous verbal commitment made under a previous government-we never found out who had made it-and it was supposedly honoured.

Furthermore, the Prime Minister seems to be making a strange distinction between the Prime Minister, the head of the federal government, and the government, as if the Prime Minister did not have authority to commit his government when he gives his word of honour to another first minister. There must also be honour among first ministers.

Is the Prime Minister not ashamed to punish Quebecers in this way for rejecting the Charlottetown Accord?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I am quite surprised that the leader of the Bloc Quebecois is asking me to keep a commitment made by someone else, when last week, he asked the leader of the Parti Quebecois in Quebec not to keep his word about holding a referendum within eight to ten months.

If the Hon. Leader of the Opposition could just give us a document showing that there was a commitment between the Government of Quebec and the Government of Canada, we will honour the government's commitments. However, I have been unable to find any commitment of that kind. It is not mentioned anywhere in the minutes of Cabinet or in any documents.

Gentlemen, give me proof that my predecessor and the previous government made a commitment and we will gladly pay.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, instead of going on about the Quebec government's referendum, which is none of his business, perhaps the Prime Minister should start by paying his bills, and I am referring to what he owes Quebec.

On January 28, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs said in the House that he was looking into the request from the Government of Quebec. On May 4, the minister stated that the government had not yet reached a final decision. Yesterday, he said in passing that the government would not pay, which has been confirmed by the Prime Minister.

Is the Prime Minister trying to say that the federal government's refusal to pay the $26 million was motivated by the election of a sovereigntist government in Quebec, which would

confirm what was said by the Deputy Prime Minister on Tuesday: "That is the price of separation."?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member claims that what the Province of Quebec does is none of our business. What were he and his leader doing during the provincial election, when they went on the hustings? They are federal members, and federal members should stick to federal business. But he went around the province and ended up looking like a Don Quixote tilting at windmills.

We did not cross the line between our jurisdictions. However, Canada's future is the Prime Minister's business.

I am a citizen of Quebec, and Quebec's separation is my business, and I will do everything that is necessary to keep this country united.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if the Prime Minister of Canada wants to know what we were doing in a federal election, we were getting elected. He still does not realize that.

Is the Prime Minister's attitude, which deliberately and for no good reason is depriving Quebec of the $26 million to which it is entitled, is that attitude supposed to reflect this new spirit of co-operation with the new Government of Quebec? Will the Prime Minister of Canada, from now on, take the position that agreements do not count and he is the boss?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I am not going to say the same thing twice. If the Bloc Quebecois can establish that there was a commitment, we will abide by that commitment. I cannot make it clearer than that. However, we have worked very hard to find any evidence of such a commitment, and there is none.

At the time, the Premier could easily have asked the Prime Minister to put it in writing, but we have found no indication whatsoever that any commitments were made.

You said "we were getting elected", but I think it is now clear you got elected under false pretences.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Saint-Maurice, QC]

Oh, yes. Mr. Speaker, they said: "We are going to be the real power in Ottawa", but they are all in the opposition, and not for more than four years. There will be no repeats.

Immigration

[Preston Manning, Reform, Calgary Southwest, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out that while the Prime Minister and the Bloc were arguing about the cost of this referendum and the bill from Quebec, the total debt of the country just went up by a million dollars.

The minister of immigration has been giving tough talk and proposals to the House that purport to tighten up the loopholes that allow criminal immigrants to remain in Canada. At the same time his department has been giving the Immigration and Refugee Board guidelines that specifically expedite the refugee claims of such dubious characters as Algerian double agents, members of the former Ethiopian dictatorship and guerrillas from Latin America.

The minister gives the appearance of shutting the door to undesirable immigrants on the one hand, while allowing the IRB to open it right back up again.

How does the minister plan to resolve this glaring contradiction in the implementation of immigration policy?

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

Mr. Speaker, the short answer is that there is no contradiction. The editorials across the country, after your critic spoke on that, talked about the fabrication of the words spoken by your critic. Certainly that-

[The Speaker]

Order. I would ask the hon. minister to please direct his remarks to the Chair.

[Sergio Marchi, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, I think that put the matter to rest.

Pursuant to the Hathaway report, we have made it very clear to our case presenting officers that they have a duty to aggressively, regularly and consistently produce information to those applicants that would suggest that they either have a criminal background from the country they came or in Canada itself. Second, I made it very clear that the refugee case presenting officers have a duty to put forward the same information.

The only question at the heart of those guidelines is that both my officers and the independent officers to the refugee board should not get involved in the adjudication of that case but they very clearly have the obligation to provide that information. If the information sticks then that will be carried out in the case of the adjudication.

[Preston Manning, Reform, Calgary Southwest, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the fact is that the system does not work. When the minister denigrates the critic from Calgary Northeast he should remember that he is a 20-year veteran of the Calgary police department who with his colleagues has spent years dealing with the defects of the department's processes and the failures of its processes.

His perspective on this issue is not an academic or an interest group perspective, it is a street level perspective to which the minister should pay more attention.

The minister's department used to handle all dimensions of immigration including the refugee dimension. Since the quasi-judicial IRB was set up and populated by members of the immigration industry the minister denies responsibility for the defects of the-

[Some hon. members]

Order.

[The Speaker]

Order. I would ask with all respect that the hon. member please put his question.

[Preston Manning, Reform, Calgary Southwest, AB]

My question, Mr. Speaker, for the minister is this. When is the minister of immigration going to assume full responsibility for immigration policy?

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

Mr. Speaker, it is very clear that on this subject matter this leader is out of his depth because he does not know what he is talking about.

First, neither I nor my government have ever abdicated policy for either the IRB or immigration policy. For you, sir, there is a difference between-

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Speaker]

I would ask you, my colleagues, to please address your remarks through the Chair.

[Preston Manning, Reform, Calgary Southwest, AB]

Perhaps the minister is out of depth on parliamentary procedure, Mr. Speaker.

We are talking about depth, Mr. Speaker. The real reason, and the minister knows this, for the difficulty in keeping illegal immigrants and foreign criminals out of Canada is that the Canadian courts ruled some time ago that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to anyone who is physically present in Canada regardless of how they got here or their criminal defects.

Surely this is not what the Parliament of Canada nor the legislatures intended. They did not intend that the charter would undermine the ability of Canada to protect the integrity of its own boundaries.

We can think of two ways to rectify this situation.

[Some hon. members]

Order.

[The Speaker]

This is quite a day. Welcome back to Parliament. I wonder if the hon. member would please put his question.

[Preston Manning, Reform, Calgary Southwest, AB]

Does the minister have any proposal for getting to the root of this problem?