Debates of Oct. 4th, 1996

The House resumed from October 3, consideration of the motion that Bill C-55, an act to amend the Criminal Code (high risk offenders), the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the Criminal Records Act, the Prisons and Reformatories Act and the Department of the Solicitor General Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Criminal Code

[Chuck Strahl, Reform, Fraser Valley East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to this bill today. It is an important criminal justice bill which has been talked about and anticipated for a long time and parts of which have been demanded for a long time by members on this side of the House and by Canadian citizens.

There is both good and bad in the bill, as is the case in many bills the government brings forward. I would like to go through some of the positive things which are in this bill and some of the things which we think are mistakes, and to offer my advice and enter into the debate on whether Bill C-55 should be supported.

Usually on this kind of bill which is of a technical nature I try to do work on behalf of my constituents to bring forward what I think would be their analysis and their concerns. The criminal justice system is an issue which is often top of mind in my riding. From my own phone surveys and from more technical surveys that I have had done and from the letters and phone calls I receive in my office, I can say that people are not convinced that the criminal justice system is operating on behalf of the best interests of law-abiding citizens. There is a feeling in many parts of the country, and certainly in my own riding, that there is too much emphasis on the rights, opportunities and demands of the prisoners and not enough emphasis on the rights of the law-abiding citizen.

I would like to talk about an individual case that happened in my own constituency which has ramifications for this bill. Many members of Parliament will probably be able to relate to stories like this because we all have situations which we confront from day to day.

This constituent's name is Carol. She was married to an abusive husband. Her story is really the plight of thousands of women, and even some men I suppose, across Canada. Day in and day out they live in silent fear, not just fear of abuse, but in Carol's case fear for her own life. She was badly beaten by her husband in 1993. She did the right thing, the one which I always encourage spouses in abusive situations to do, and that is to get in touch with the police. She called the police and her husband was charged.

Unfortunately, as is often the case this made her husband very angry. Instead of becoming a chastened man who realized the error in his ways, he became a very angry and dangerous man. And this is where our criminal justice system failed my constituent.

As a bit of an aside, in the October 3 Ottawa Citizen it was stated that even the police are angry at the courts for granting bail to a man accused of forcing a woman out of a 10th storey window. Is there no sense of justice in the justice system? People must ask: How on earth can we grant bail to some of these horrible people? How can the immigration minister grant bail to dangerous offenders? A person who has been convicted of a crime and has escaped justice in the United States can come to Canada, throw himself at the mercy of the Canadian system and say that he needs refugee status, that he is a poor abused person.

The justice system is not balanced. It does not understand that when people do serious crimes, especially personal injury crimes, they need to be addressed in a serious manner. That has not happened to date.

In the same way, the system let my constituent Carol down. Her abusive husband came back with a vengeance. There was a restraining order against him, as there often is, but that was useless. The total protection offered to this poor lady was that the courts had a restraining order on someone who had already beaten her to a pulp. This scuzzy excuse for humanity stalked his former wife, eventually kidnapped her, stabbed her six times nearly killing her, and he was sentenced to two years less a day.

That sentence does not sound too horrible, but this is what it was about. He would come around and tap on her window with a butcher knife. When she would open the drapes there he would be. Although this was well known and well documented, that is what happened. He was charged with aggravated assault for what he did to Carol. He should have been charged with attempted murder but he was charged with aggravated assault and received only a two year sentence. This man will be out of jail any time now and his former wife, Carol, who has changed her name, once again lives in fear.

I sat in the office with this lady, who has made a remarkable recovery, and her father. As with many members of Parliament, these cases are outside my realm of reference. I had no way of knowing how to handle this case. I keep a box of Kleenex on my desk for the people who come in to tell me these stories which I just cannot believe.

They sat there and told me the lead-up to their story. The father said: "Chuck, what would you have me do when this happens again? There is no justice in the justice system. They knew he was trying to kill my daughter. He stabbed her six times and for that he gets two years less a day for aggravated assault. I will tell you what I am going to do. If he taps on my daughter's window again, I am going to kill him. What would you do in that situation?" I told him if he did that he would get 25 years for protecting his daughter, because it would be premeditated murder.

[Jack Ramsay, Reform, Crowfoot, AB]

He will be able to appeal after 15 years.

[Chuck Strahl, Reform, Fraser Valley East, BC]

As my hon. colleague says, he will be able to appeal after 15 years under the new regulations but I do not want to get into that.

What could I tell this father when he asked what I would do if somebody tapped on my daughter's window with a butcher knife and the police just said: "Hey, you take your chance"?

I wrote to the Minister of Justice and the attorney general of the province of B.C. to ask if there was something we could do to change the system. The system is broken. It is not working. It is not protecting people like Carol.

I wanted the standard of proof in the Criminal Code to be lowered in the case of attempted murder. I also wanted to allow probation to be imposed along with sentences longer than two years less a day, which was not allowed at that time, so that judges would be free to give inmates longer sentences knowing they could be supervised afterward. Let me run through what happened after that to indicate the sad sorry state of justice.

The attorney general of British Columbia, whom I do not see eye to eye with politically on a lot of things, did have the courage to undertake a study of the Criminal Code. He is not in charge of criminal law but he did undertake a study on my behalf and he in turn made the two suggestions to the Minister of Justice.

When I met with the Minister of Justice upstairs in Centre Block he gave me this advice: "Why not try a civil restraining order instead of a criminal, court ordered restraining order?" That was the sum total of advice and help for this lady: "Last time he was under a restraining order from the courts, he stabbed you six times. That did not seem to work too well. So why not try a civil restraining order? That ought to fix him". That was it for an answer and that is not good enough.

This lady is running, hiding, changing her name. She has been beaten with a rifle butt. He has tried to throw her in the river. She has been stabbed six times. She has been living in fear and is on the run. So get a civil restraining order because the courts cannot deal with it. That is not good enough and that is why I made the demands I did at that time.

This was one of the first cases I dealt with when I became an MP. Three years later, the B.C. attorney general and I have been badgering the Minister of Justice. He has asked to have the issue put on the federal-provincial Criminal Code review. Finally after three years we are starting to see some changes in the law, and some of those changes are reflected in Bill C-55.

But again the minister has fallen short. There is nothing in Bill C-55, nothing in the legislative agenda, nothing in the works anywhere, nothing in the hopper that I can find to deal with this problem of attempted murder. It is not dealt with in this bill of course. It is not dealt with in any bill. We just have to put up with it.

The reason attempted murder is almost never successfully prosecuted in British Columbia is that it has to be proven, without a doubt, that the person meant to kill their victim.

I will cite this example again. This woman was stalked for months. She was beaten with a rifle butt. She was stabbed coming out of her apartment. Thankfully she did not have her children with her. She was stabbed six times until she dropped to the ground and lay unconscious.

The man told the crown prosecutor that he had stabbed her a few times, that he had stalked her, that he had beaten on her window with a butcher knife, that he had beaten her with a rifle butt, that she had fallen to the ground unconscious with blood pouring out of her, but that he had not meant to kill her. He told the crown prosecutor that he was just sending her a message. He said he was warning her.

It is sicker than sick. What does it take? What does a person have to do to be convicted of attempted murder, sever the head from the body?

This is wrong. The minister has to address it. The attorney general of British Columbia has demanded that the law be changed to stop this from happening. Regularly in British Columbia they plea bargain away the attempted murder charge because it has to be proven, beyond any doubt, that murder was intended.

What does it take? The case against this man was plea bargained away. Worse yet, it was plea bargained away over Carol's objections. It was plea bargained away without telling her. It was plea bargained away when they had promised her they would not do it. It was plea bargained away when she had told them that she wanted the case to be pushed to the maximum degree. This animal has to go away not only for the protection of the woman but for the protection of her children.

It did not happen. Again it did not happen. I have to wonder what it takes. I sat down with the minister and he empathized with me. He said: "Yes, that is a tough one. Why do you not get a civil restraining order on the guy?" That is not what I want. That is not what Canadians want. Canadians want animals like this to be treated as animals.

I believe all members of the House could cite cases in which a victim of crime asked to be notified if the perpetrator was going to be transferred to a nearby prison. They want to know for their own security. I have chased these cases down to the warden of the prison where the guy is incarcerated. I have asked the warden to flag the guy so that when he is transferred to Chilliwack, for example, I will know it has happened and my constituent will know that it has happened. It can happen, but we deserve to know.

Do victims have rights? They do not. Prisoners are transferred. Sometimes we read in the newspapers that the guy has escaped from jail. The officials come back to us and say "gee, he slipped through the cracks". Victims were not notified. Victims have no rights. It is always written in terms of "we should consider notifying them". It may be that they will be notified. That is not adequate. That is why people continue to rise on this side of the House to speak on behalf of these people who say the minister is missing the boat.

There is something about mandatory supervision in the bill. The bill allows for some high risk offenders to be subject to ten years of supervision after release from their sentences. That is half of what I ask from the minister.

Up until this bill was introduced judges were frequently saying "I am going to give him two years less a day because then there can be some mandatory supervision afterward". If the guy gets 10 years, like he deserves, he cannot be supervised. He gets out and he is gone. This bill at least addresses that.

For that, maybe my three years of letter writing, begging and pounding doors and desks had an impact. I hope so. One never knows. The minister, I am sure, would not give me any credit. At least it is something I have been asking for, begging for, demanding, however you want to say it. At least it is there.

I want to note that there are provisions in the bill that I disagree with as well. There are accelerated parole provisions for so-called low risk non-violent offenders which will permit them to return to the community after serving only one-sixth of their sentence, a maximum six months in jail.

It seems there is something wrong. I do not know if this is the minister's idea of truth in sentencing. I do not know what it means. It seems there is an indictment of our entire penal system in this.

Why sentence criminals to jail time at all if the sentences are basically meaningless? They say to somebody, whatever the crime that if you do that, you are going to get a couple of years in jail. If you sentence the person, everybody walks away and says that should be the end of that.

Then they find out: "We do not want to punish them and, of course, we are not going to really rehabilitate them. We just do not want to have them, so jail sentence suspended". Off they go, one-sixth of their time.

This bill also gives courts the power to put people under electronic monitoring, even those who have never been charged with an offence. Do I want to see things toughened up in the criminal justice system? You bet. Do my constituents say that the criminal justice system is failing the law-abiding citizen? You bet.

They ask whether we should supervise and monitor dangerous offenders, pedophiles, sexual perverts, violent offenders and stuff. You bet. They want them supervised. They want to know where they are. They want to know who they are. They want to know when that person applies for a job in a day care centre. They want to know all that.

I do not think they want to take it the next step, which is to say that someone who has never been charged, I am going to put the shackles on him and he has no say. I do not know. Get tough on criminals, but criminals who have been convicted of something. We have to follow the rule of law.

The evidence points to a conviction in the case I mentioned. I think it is pretty clear. If the guy has attempted murder, at least I would toss the guy away and lose the keys. Besides that, people would say there is a due process that we have to follow. The due process includes getting before a lawyer, having their day in court. If they are found guilty, the full force of the law comes down on them. Protection of victims is paramount.

In our system people are innocent until proven guilty. I hope the government would listen to the concerns of many people who are concerned about civil liberties who say "I understand why you are doing it, I understand you want to protect the people, and so on".

I am not prepared to say that without their day in court, without a formal charge, without a hearing, without time to defend themselves, as some official says, that the person should be specially marked, the shackles thrown on him and we will be able to follow him around to the ends of the earth. I am not happy with that.

The government is schizophrenic on this. On one hand, it coddles the criminal. On the other hand, it lets people out after one-sixth of their sentence. On the other hand, it will not eliminate section 745.

It coddles the criminal in many ways. We could go into what goes on in the prison system. I could tell about the prison breakouts in my area. In prison now they refuse to wear certain coloured T-shirts. They just rioted in Kent. They say: "I can't be expected to wear a T-shirt that reflects my position as a prisoner. I want to wear whatever I want". They get away with it.

I wish I could say more. I have more private member's bills which I will be bringing forward on the criminal justice issue in the coming weeks. In my office I have a petition bearing 25,000 names dealing with sexual predators and the way the justice system treats them and what I and the people in my constituency would like to see done. I am happy to bring forward these concerns from my constituents and I hope that somewhere the justice minister or his people are listing to the concerns of Canadians. It is not evident in this bill.

[Rey D. Pagtakhan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, as I listened to the member for Fraser Valley East, I could not help but remember a truism that to give no information is bad but to give misinformation is worse. The member for Fraser Valley East just said there was nothing in the bill. He emphasized those words.

I would like to say to this member that all my colleagues on the government side are definitely committed to the safety of the entire Canadian citizenry. That member, of course, is again not telling the truth.

[An hon. member]

Nonsense.

[Rey D. Pagtakhan, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

I wonder if the member for Fraser Valley East and the other member would be polite enough to allow reasonable debate, which may be also part of civility in our society.

The member for Fraser Valley East said there was nothing in the bill. I wonder if the member has read clause 9(1) of the bill, dealing with potential serious personal injury offences. It is a special amendment to the Criminal Code. For the member to say there is nothing in the bill is entirely false. Where the attorney general feels there are reasonable grounds to fear that another person will commit a serious personal injury offence, as the expression is defined elsewhere in the bill, in respect of one or more persons, the attorney general may lay information before a provincial court judge whether or not the person or persons in respect of whom there is fear that the offence will be committed are named.

Within that section are enumerated the many grounds that could be included in that order by a court, including the non-possession of firearms.

I think the member for Fraser Valley East has to be forthright in the Chamber, forthright with the Canadian public that this bill is an advance in ensuring the safety of Canadians. I can see the member is finally agreeing with me.

[Chuck Strahl, Reform, Fraser Valley East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I did not say there was nothing in the bill. As a matter fact, I said I was happy to see that after three years of my bashing my head against the minister's wall there are some provisions I approve of. I said that in my speech. I like the idea that there can be mandatory supervision for up to 10 years after. That is a good provision. I like that. I have been demanding for three years to get that. The AG of British Columbia has been asking for it.

I did not say there was nothing in the bill. I talked about some of the things that have not been addressed in their entirety in the criminal justice system and I used this opportunity to talk about a few of those. However, do I think that people who have uttered threats using a firearm should have their firearms taken away from them? You bet.

When it comes to firearms and threats with a weapon, I personally have a zero tolerance policy. If we had a better system in place in British Columbia we would not have had the tragedy in Kelowna. Somehow that person received permission to own a handgun even though he had threatened his wife's life. It turned out that he took not only her life but nine members of the family. It was a real tragedy.

The tragedy is that the government has taken the easy route, the publicity route, especially on firearms. It says we have to get the hunters of this world, the shooters of this world, the Olympians of this world to register their weapons and the world will be a safer place. That is the problem with the justice system, the law-abiding people are made to jump through the hoops.

Let me tell you a story of another case in my riding. A guy slipped across the Canada-U.S. border at Columbia valley. The police sent out someone to intercept him. A police women apprehended him. He lunged at her, grabbed her gun, shoved the barrel into her mouth and said: "It's curtains, lady". Thankfully a

passerby came over and talked him out of this, even though he had the gun cocked and shoved in her mouth.

Thankfully, because of this passerby, he eventually turned her loose. However, he stole the four-wheel drive cruiser and drove it into the mountains. He had the shotgun, his own illegal unregistered gun, the police woman's weapon, the police car. He set it all on fire, burning everything to the ground. The police got the dogs out and they caught the guy.

In Canada you can get five years for having an unregistered clip for your gun. This guy got two years. He is not that bad. He entered Canada illegally, he assaulted a police officer, he threatened to kill her, he stuck the gun to her head, he did $50,000 damage to federal property, he evaded arrest, he had possession, and he had a track record of former convictions. What he did not have was not worth talking about. What sentence did he get for these crimes? Two years, but he will be out in six or eight months.

Ask the police in my area what they think of the justice system. It is weak. A guy like that is an animal and probably should never be let out of jail. Instead laws are passed that make honest, law-abiding people jump through hoops. Many of them will become criminals through ignorance and this guy, instead of having the book thrown at him, is left to walk free in a few months. It is not right.

[John Bryden, Liberal, Hamilton—Wentworth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-55 mainly because I am a government MP. As a government MP I naturally would prefer to support my government in any legislation that it brings forward. Indeed I try to do so in all instances.

As a government MP I feel that I have a fundamental obligation to signal my concerns when I see something in the government's legislation that concerns me deeply. The reason this is important for a government MP is that when a law passes the courts go back to the parliamentary debates and examine the discussions and pay particular attention to what government MPs say about the legislation. They believe what they hear from both sides of the House represents the thinking of Parliament with respect to legislation. Judges use that as a means of interpreting the legislation.

[Some hon. members]

Gun control legislation.

[John Bryden, Liberal, Hamilton—Wentworth, ON]

I am coming to that, gentlemen, if you would just wait a minute.

My concern with this legislation has to do with electronic monitoring provision. Ironically I find myself in agreement with some of the observations of the member for Fraser Valley East.

Last night I took time at home in my apartment to read George Orwell's famous novel 1984 . George Orwell, if members recall, made famous the expression ``big brother''. The novel was written in 1949 just after the world had experienced the tyranny of Hitler and had just entered into the deepest phase of the cold war when red army troops had seized eastern Europe. Most of the former democracies and countries of eastern Europe had fallen under the totalitarian sway of Stalin. Orwell's book is a depiction of the ultimate totalitarian state in which big brother, the state, controls every aspect of human behaviour. Orwell creates a picture of this man-his name is Winston-in which Winston's only problem is that he wants to express a certain amount of individuality. He wants to be a human being, if you will.

However, the state has prescribed the type of behaviour it wants from its citizens and has set up an elaborate means of monitoring their actions. Ultimately the state's purpose, big brother in George Orwell's novel, is to put shackles on the freedom of movement of people in society so that they always have to act according to what the state prescribes as the correct behaviour.

Orwell in writing this novel created the ultimate nightmare. It led to a series of other books and popular culture stories that involved the state control of individual behaviour by electronic means, by implanting devices that controlled individuals and restrained them. You can see the parallels that come out of 1984 which in that period was regarded as the ultimate horror for society, state control.

Then I read in the proposed legislation that the government is now considering electronic monitoring. These monitors are intended to be a sort of bracelet. People are ordered to wear these bracelets to restrain certain forms of behaviour. The bracelet can be used to keep track of their whereabouts. If the judge wants to prevent a person coming near some home because it has been decided that the person is a threat to someone, this bracelet would electronically monitor the whereabouts of the person.

Once we enter into this whole business of an electronic shackle, and that is what it is, an electronic shackle, an electronic ball and chain, all kinds of opportunities present themselves in the George Orwellian model. We can have a bracelet that remotely inflicts pain on an individual wearing this bracelet should that individual be about to engage in behaviour that the state wants to prevent.

As the bill is currently constituted, it basically addresses people who have the potential of committing violent offences. It could also be used on, say, a heroin addict. With a smart chip in the electronic bracelet if the addict approached a drug dealer the chip could scent the heroin and could immediately administer an electric shock to the individual to prevent this behaviour. And so it goes. The possibilities with a smart chip in this kind of bracelet are endless. We could restrain all kinds of behaviour remotely.

According to this legislation it is proposed that this is going to be aimed at only a certain type of offender. The problem is that when we get into this kind of thing, we are addressing very fundamental liberties. We are going right to the bottom of our basic freedoms. It is the same thing as our freedom of speech and the constant struggle there is between how to put limits on pornography while still maintaining freedom of speech.

An electronic shackle is the ultimate limitation on liberty. It allows the individual some movement in society, but in fact it is the same type of shackle that the Romans used and that was used in the slave trade.

I will explain what a shackle is as opposed to a rope or a prison cell. A shackle is restraint. We have used the nice words judicial restraint. In fact a shackle is something that limits behaviour.

Let me give an classic example. When slaves used to work in the fields picking cotton or sugar cane, they were shackled with an iron bar, the idea being that if the slave attempted to escape through the fields the shackle would get caught in the underbrush restraining their movements so that they could not get away. The ball and chain held the same idea. The ball was a weight that they had to drag and they could only get so far before they became exhausted. These were the means used by overseers to restrain their slaves in the field for work and not actually have to keep them in prisons. It was an economic tool that was very useful in the days of the slave trade.

To me there is not a great distinction between this electronic shackle and the old ball and chain. Let me just finish a point here. As proposed, this electronic shackle is only going to apply to certain types of individuals who pose certain types of risks.

One of the things I have learned in my three years in the House of Commons is that the great danger when we pass legislation that contains a subsection of a subsection that actually impinges on basic liberties is that while in this particular legislation it may be restricted to one group of individuals, at a later time legislation may come along that will pass in this House that will extend the application of the provision.

I will give an example. Right now the legislation applies to individuals who pose a threat of inflicting bodily harm. I think it is directed primarily toward sexual offenders. However, drunk drivers are a threat to society. Drunk drivers are capable of inflicting physical injury and death. Why not some day have this bracelet imposed on people who have two or more convictions for impaired driving? As members can see, it is so easy to take it to the next step and the next step and the next step until we have an Orwellian state in which any form of dissent or some form of dissent results in an electronic shackle. We can do all kinds of things with that. We can prevent all forms of behaviour remotely.

Where does this concept come from? I suggest the concept comes once again from our neighbour to the south which is confronted with a major crime problem. It is an epidemic problem in the United States. The Americans are building prisons faster than any country in the world and they are actually experiencing economic difficulties because of the difficulty they have in providing enough prison spaces for the number of people they are incarcerating.

One of their reactions to crime, which has been a subject of much debate in this House, has been unlimited acquisition of firearms. Canada has reacted in quite a Canadian way to this issue. We have had a very aggressive debate in the House about the whole question of firearms. Regardless of what side we are all on in the House, we all agree that Canadians do not want to see the weapons possession that exists in the United States. The government has gone to great lengths with the gun control bill to create a different answer to violence that does not involve the availability of guns for protection. Therefore, Canadians have found an alternate solution to what the Americans have found with respect to arming themselves against the criminal menace.

The other side of the coin is that the Americans have come out with this electronic shackling as an economic measure. They are building so many prisons and it is costing them so much that it is cheaper and more economically feasible, instead of putting people in jail, to apply electronic shackles. I am not saying they have gone that far yet, but the opportunity is there. We can see in American society the advantages of using electronic shackles to prevent people from committing armed robberies. They could be used in the drug trade. If these things could be put on people, crime could be limited in certain areas.

The difficulty is that in the United States, crime is centred upon one group in society. The Americans collect statistics based on race. I hate to bring this issue up, but we must talk about the Americans. They feel they have demonstrated to their satisfaction that blacks in particular have a higher proportion of incarceration than other categories in their society.

That is a frightening statistic. I am pleased this is not the kind of statistic which is collected by Canada. Nevertheless, because the Americans are very conscious of this, if electronic shackling is pursued to its ultimate end, then we will see the re-enslavement of a people in the United States. Instead of being shackled to the ball and chain of the overseer on the cotton plantation, they will be shackled by an electronic device which will be more common in one racial group than in any other. This has the appalling potential of returning to the 19th century to an era which we must leave behind.

We as Canadians, on all sides of the House representing all points of view, must not be driven by the type of social forces and dilemmas the Americans are confronting, be it the question of the availability of firearms or the question of the availability of an electronic shackle, an electronic ball and chain. I am very concerned that my government has brought forward the suggestion of the electronic shackle.

I agree with my colleague from Fraser Valley East that it is particularly dangerous because it is not intended to apply simply to people who are convicted of crimes, it is also designed to apply to people who may be perceived as potential criminals. Before the suspect has actually committed the crime, they may be shackled. That is a huge step. I would say it is a dangerous and a frightening step.

There is an easy solution to the problem. We can have this type of restraint if we write into the legislation that it is voluntary. The person to whom the order is to be applied would have the option of electing whether they will go to jail or some other option instead of accepting the electronic shackle.

In some instances I would think that people would voluntarily accept the electronic shackle. If a heroin addict wants to shake his habit, or if a person is a pedophile and cannot control his or her impulses but wants to control them, they might want to have a shackle. Then it becomes a positive thing because we are respecting human will.

I hope the members of the justice committee will read my words and the words of others who have been worried about this one provision. I hope they will think very carefully about the option of making it a voluntary provision.

I will make another analogy. Anyone who is a farmer will recognize what is called a cattle grate. When a farmer has cattle in the field and he wants to go back and forth with his tractor and he does not want to go to the trouble of opening the gate every time he goes through, he takes the gate off and he puts in what is called a cattle grate. It consists of a few bars of a certain spacing and is about a foot deep. The cattle can never cross. When they approach, they see the grate. They know that if they try to cross they could get caught in the grates and could break their legs. The animals recognize this and consequently they are restrained in the field pen.

The grate works very well for all hoofed animals. It is very very good for cattle. It works for pigs, it works for horses and it works for sheep. One thing we do not want to do in any legislation we pass in this House is to reduce our allowance for human will. We are human beings with some freedom of will, some ability to decide between right and wrong. When we reduce human beings by a shackle or by any kind of restraint to the level of animals, I think we are creating a very sad and despairing problem.

[Rey D. Pagtakhan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment on the very reasoned presentation by the member for Hamilton-Wentworth. I have always appreciated his sincerity on any issue of potential controversy and I am addressing this issue on that basis.

I can see his point that such a judicial restraint would be a limitation to freedom; that is a given. But even the charter of rights in the Canadian Constitution allows for limits to freedom where it can be demonstrated in a democratic society that such a limitation is allowable. Who will interpret this allowance? Ultimately it will be the Supreme Court of Canada. For example, the laws on hate where we may not spread hate propaganda definitely represent a limitation to freedom of speech.

The Supreme Court of Canada would like to establish that the goal to be achieved in any limitation to freedom is a very laudable goal for society at large. In terms of the subject under debate now, the limitation would be imposed in the case of serious injury to a Canadian citizen and there is no other alternative that we could use as a tool. I am sure that in this instance, any court of law in Canada would take that into account when trying to pass judgment on such an application by an attorney general of a given province. I am sure the courts would like to see that such a means would be capable of achieving that ultimate goal.

Being a non-lawyer, I do not recall all the tests that Canadian courts of law have applied when a balance must be struck, when limits to freedom have to be imposed. I continue to have faith in our judicial court system.

The very learned member spoke about shackles. I could imagine the physical shackles and not being able to move with the restraint of the weight on one's legs. I remember historical photos. But if electronic monitoring is used, it would likely be non-visible, non-intrusive to the eyes of others. Perhaps only the person upon whom this device would be imposed by a court of law would know that such a device existed on his body. I am sure this will be taken into account. To compare the electronic monitoring to shackles as we were used to imagining them is extending our imaginations a little too much.

The member indicated that this may be a return to enslavement. The only enslavement I can see in this would be the enslavement of risk. We will now have one additional tool with which to control risk of serious injury to others with this control being imposed on other members of society.

It is a huge step but the challenge of personal safety which is before society is very huge indeed. On that basis I would like to submit that such a provision in the bill is reasonable. Considering that it has only to be determined by the attorney general of a given province based on reasonable grounds of fear that the person is

about to commit a serious personal injury, there will be an examination of this during the hearings.

My last point is that electronic monitoring is not a monitoring that will be imposed on the person for eternity. It is only for a period of 12 months. In other words, there is a finite period. If the person's behaviour has been sustained such that such an occurrence is not likely to happen again, then the person will be freed of his electronic monitoring.

I submit that this is a reasonable approach to a serious problem that faces society. Therefore, I concur with this initiative on the part of the government.

[John Bryden, Liberal, Hamilton—Wentworth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for the member's judgment and sincerity in all the issues he addresses.

If I may say so, he put his finger on what is the precise problem with this kind of legislation. It is that it springs from consultation with the courts. He has said that the courts have been consulted on this legislation and then it was written.

I submit that this is one of the great problems we have in legislation in this House all the time. It is not remembered that this House of Commons is the highest court in the land. It is we the MPs who look to our constituency to try to understand the nation, to try to understand who we are as Canadians and to write the laws. It is wrong in my view to consider legislation and to consider how the courts will interpret that legislation rather than considering its moral and ethical impact on society. It is putting the cart before the horse.

I am not prepared to give the judges of the land who sit in their chambers a better acknowledgement of what Canada is all about than members of Parliament. It is we who have to interpret the ethics and the propriety of the laws.

[The Speaker]

You seem to be on a roll. I was afraid to come in too fast but it being 11 a.m., we will proceed to Statements by Members.

Gravenhurst Achievement Awards

[Andy Mitchell, Liberal, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Mr. Speaker, many of the constituents in my riding have special programs in place to honour their residents and volunteers for their outstanding contributions and achievements, which is one of our fine rural Ontario traditions.

In my hometown for example, through the Gravenhurst Achievement Awards the community honours people who have made their mark in things as varied as music, sports, art and architecture. The objective of the program is to publicly recognize the achievement of the townspeople, thereby promoting pride within the community.

I applaud this positive demonstration of community spirit. I encourage all the communities in my riding to keep up the good work.

I congratulate this year's Gravenhurst Achievement Award winners: Stephen Brackley, David Dawson, Erin Edwards, Christine Harris, Wayne Hill and Nancy Snider.

The Fight Against Aids

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to pay tribute to the organizers of "Ça marche", an event that took place last Sunday in Montreal and in over 30 towns and cities in Quebec.

This annual event is held to raise funds for the Farah Foundation, which distributes them to dozens of organizations serving people living with AIDS. Over the years, this event has become an ideal opportunity for expressing solidarity with those whose lives have been touched, even if only remotely, by the consequences of this terrible illness.

The march in Montreal this year was an unprecedented success. The organizers estimate the number of participants at 30,000 and the money collected at $582,000, $22,000 more than last year.

This event shows beyond a shadow of a doubt how important the fight against AIDS is to the people of Quebec and of Canada. Research in this field must be a government priority.

In closing, I would like to warmly thank the organizers, the Farah Foundation, the dozens of volunteers who made this event possible and all the community groups that, day after day, work on behalf of those living with AIDS.

Kuper Island

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to inform the House that Chief Randy James and the Penelakut Band on Kuper Island in my riding of Nanaimo-Cowichan will be conducting a memorial service tomorrow, October 5, to honour the memory of those children who died while attending the Kuper Island Residential School.

While the Penelakut Band estimates the number of students who perished between 1890 and 1984 to be in the hundreds, the exact number may never be known because of the manner in which records were maintained.

Following the memorial service there will be a traditional native healing ceremony for the survivors and their families. Along with Chief James, I call upon members of Parliament to think of Kuper Island today and tomorrow and, in so doing, honour the memory of those who died not only on Kuper Island but also at residential schools across Canada and ask for the healing of those who survived.

Federal Conference On Youth

[Chris Axworthy, NDP, Saskatoon—Clark's Crossing, SK]

Mr. Speaker, last week the federal Liberal government wined and dined over 100 hand picked delegates gathered in Ottawa for a three day national conference. The aim was to have these youth delegates help provide solutions to growing problems faced by young people in Canada today.

The problem is the federal government did not invite any student groups, where corporations were welcomed with open arms, showing once again how this government believes that only the wealthy and large corporations really matter.

Obviously the government believes that rising tuition costs, decreasing quality of education, high student debt, chronic student unemployment and decreased accessibility to university education are irrelevant and trivial issues for the youth of today.

The chair of the conference conveniently forgot to mention the government is backtracking on the Liberal Party's red book promise to fund a $100 million youth core program to employ 10,000 youth every year. He also neglected to mention the government's plans to privatize Canada's student loan program and the $7 billion cuts to provincial social transfer payments.

The corporations and the government were so successful at pulling off this farce that Canada's second largest bank, the CIBC, has generously offered to host the second national conference on youth next March. And why not? The government has already abandoned middle class and working people for banks and big corporations.

Mary Lou Carroll

[Larry McCormick, Liberal, Hastings—Frontenac—Lennox And Addington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Mary Lou Carroll of Adolphustown is an extraordinary volunteer, and I am honoured to recognize her humanitarian achievements during Women's History Month.

Mrs. Carroll first contacted my office in October 1994 with a request for assistance in arranging an airlift of supplies on a DND flight to the Sisters of St. Joseph Orphanage in Haiti. Since that successful airlift, Mrs. Carroll has continued her efforts to aid the people of the village of Sen Rafael.

I recently received a note from Mrs. Carroll:

When Sister Cecilia Tallach started the school, the parents were less than enthused about sending their children. However, when the community became aware of what those children who did go to school could now do, then all the parents wanted their children in school.

As a result, 90 new students, some 20 years old in grade one, are attending this year.

Mrs. Carroll is presently organizing a fourth shipment. She has motivated countless people and gained broad community support. Her efforts have been assisted by individuals and groups.

Seager Wheeler Historical Farm Society

[Georgette Sheridan, Liberal, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the Seager Wheeler Historical Farm Society. Named for Seager Wheeler, the internationally renowned plant breeder, the society was one of only 10 organizations to receive a Parks Canada award in 1966.

These awards are presented by the Government of Canada in recognition of exception or innovative achievement in the protection, preservation and presentation of Canada's natural and cultural heritage.

The recipients of these awards must have made a contribution in at least one of the following areas: responsible action and stewardship, education, research or policy development. The Seager Wheeler Historical Farm Society excelled in all categories.

Today Larry and Doreen Janzen will attend a special Parks Canada awards ceremony in Banff, Alberta to accept this prestigious award on behalf of the many volunteers like them whose tireless efforts have safeguarded and enhanced this Saskatchewan heritage treasure.

Francophones Outside Quebec

[Ronald J. Duhamel, Liberal, St. Boniface, MB]

Mr. Speaker, francophones outside Quebec are giving increasing thought to the development of economic strategies that will enable them to make an even greater contribution to the future of their community.

Three regional economic forums will be held to look at the best ways of furthering the economic development of our community, the first in St. Boniface, Manitoba, October 4 and 5, the second in St-André, New Brunswick, and the third in Ottawa. These regional forums will be followed by a national forum, to take place in

St-Georges, Quebec, in November. The purpose of the national forum will be to work out the necessary planning.

These forums will bring together municipal elected officials and the business community and will facilitate the establishment of economic ties and co-operation agreements among French-speaking Canadians with respect to economic development across Canada.

I wish all the participants good luck and much success. Thank you for your efforts.

Canadian Centre For Magnetic Fusion

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, at the Bloc Quebecois's general council held last Saturday at Lac Delage, delegates voted unanimously in favour of an urgent motion calling on the federal government to maintain its $7.2 million financial participation in the Varennes Tokamak project.

The withdrawal of the federal government from this project will deal it a fatal blow, as layoff notices will start to go out at the end of this month. The talented researchers who work there will inevitably have to look for new work beyond our borders. The skills developed within this country and the $70 million invested over the last 20 years in this project will be lost forever, and Canada will be deprived of the spinoffs resulting from the development of new technologies related to Tokamak.

It is therefore imperative that the federal government rethink its decision to end its financial participation, which represents a large portion of the federal government's already too small investment in research and development in Quebec.

I appeal to the common sense of federal government representatives and call on them to reassess as quickly as possible this decision that may well be bitterly regretted. Time is running out for Tokamak.

Justice

[Myron Thompson, Reform, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, why is it that the heavy hand of the law always punishes non-violent citizens who fighting for the principle of freedom, while violent criminals who break in and destroy the sanctity of our homes receive a mere slap on the wrist?

Darren Watson of Saskatoon pleaded guilty to breaking into a Leask area farm in April and stealing two trucks. During the burglary three dogs were beaten to death and a truck was set on fire. Under the sentencing bill Watson's lawyer asked the judge to merely impose community service as an appropriate punishment.

Conversely, in the case of wheat farmer Andy McMechan of Manitoba, he was found guilty on all five charges laid against him in a dispute over the Canadian Wheat Board's monopoly on grain sales. He was subsequently fined $13,000, jailed for four months, told to turn over his tractor and sentenced to two years of supervised probation.

Here we have yet another example of hypocrisy in our justice system. It is clear to me that one man poses a threat to society while the other does not. Why were alternative measures not suggested for Andy McMechan?

High Technology

[Robert Bertrand, Liberal, Pontiac—Gatineau—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to inform you that the Canadian government has just announced the creation of a new service to encourage the economic development of Quebec in the high tech sector.

This was announced yesterday by the Minister of Industry. The partners for investment in Canada bureau will focus on identifying foreign investors and encouraging them to come to Canada and Quebec.

The categories of investment being sought by the members of this bureau will vary from province to province. We already know that pharmaceuticals, aerospace, biotechnology and telecommunications will be given priority in Quebec.

In announcing this new initiative, the Government of Canada is once again confirming its determination to actively encourage the creation of more jobs and a strong economy with development potential for the future of Canada and Quebec.

Robert Bourassa

[Anna Terrana, Liberal, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, when people hear the name of Robert Bourassa, they think of the father of James Bay comes to their mind. That was, of course, the high point in his long service at the head of the province of Quebec.

But remembering Robert Bourassa also means remembering the two major recessions he had to face during his time as premier and his epic battles with the big labour unions in order to preserve the delicate balance between the needs of workers and the economic needs of the state.

Remembering Robert Bourassa means remembering the man's devotion and determination in propelling his province into a new economic universe, by providing it with the tools essential for its prosperity.

Quebecers are, and will forever be, grateful for his exceptional contribution to the economic development of Quebec.

We have lost a great Canadian, who rendered exceptional service to his country and his province. I would like to express my heartfelt condolences to the Bourassa family, both personally and on behalf of the people of my province of British Columbia.

The Minister Of International Co-Operation

[Philippe Paré, Bloc, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in recent public statements, often partisan ones, the Minister of International Co-operation has criticized the official opposition for not having asked him anything in the House since his appointment.

In his speeches, the minister refers very little to international co-operation, preferring mostly to entertain his audience with questions relating to Canadian unity or the constitutional debate, since he realizes that his colleague in Intergovernmental Affairs enjoys precious little credibility in Quebec.

Yet, it would be worth his while to do more in his own area, and to question the unacceptable decisions made by his predecessor, André Ouellet, such as the abolition of the public awareness program, the use of double talk in defending human rights, the watering down of official development assistance through the NGOs and the propensity to favour only the private sector.

As you can see, we have an urgent situation here.

Canadian Aids Society

[Elijah Harper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the Canadian AIDS Society on its sixth annual National Aids Awareness Week which wraps up tomorrow. The annual AIDS Awareness Week helps increase awareness about AIDS and raise funds for services and programs.

Many people think that AIDS is only a problem in the cities, but it is also a serious threat in our northern communities. Ignorance of this threat makes it worse, as our people think they do not have to worry about it. There have been few AIDS programs in rural areas.

Healthy Thompson, a volunteer organization in the city of Thompson, is working with Health Canada to address this issue in the Thompson region. It is working to improve treatment, prevention and awareness of AIDS in this area. I applaud Healthy Thompson and I applaud all Canadians who have contributed to a successful week of AIDS awareness activities all over Canada.

Frazer Institute

[Stephen Harper, Reform, Calgary West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to draw to the attention of the House the September edition of Fraser Forum . To cut through the bafflegaff, two years ago the Fraser Institute developed a Canadian budget performance index to monitor the financial records of the country's 11 senior governments.

The index is composed of an array of variables dealing with both spending and taxation as well as deficits and debt. The best performer in 1995 was the province of Alberta, and Saskatchewan is forecast to be the best performer in 1996.

The worst? Over the two year period it is forecast to be the federal government, placing 10th out of 11 in 1995, and forecast to be no better than 9th for this year. This is all the more fascinating since much of federal budgetary progress in the past two years has been in the form of offloading to the provinces.

There are two lessons here. First, Canadians should not be conned about the federal fiscal situation. The federal Liberals have a record of brilliant propaganda and mediocre performance. Second, the House should be reminded once again of the invaluable public policy work that is regularly provided to Canadians by the Fraser Institute.

Liberal Government

[Maurizio Bevilacqua, Liberal, York North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, taking a tough line on violence against women and children, strengthening our gun control laws, reforming the Young Offenders Act, improving our sentencing system, reducing hate crimes, introducing measures to deal with high risk violent offenders, reversing Canada's growing crime rate; in 1993 this was the list of what the government promised to do to improve the lives and safety of Canadians.

In 1996 it is a list of what we have done. We promised to provide Canadians with safer homes and safer streets and we have delivered. Canada's crime rate fell again in 1995, its fourth straight drop, following 30 years of almost constant increase. Violent crime is down for the third year in a row and the homicide rate reached its lowest level since 1969.

This government has indeed made a difference.

Seniors

[Maurice Dumas, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in 1990 the UN General Assembly designated October 1 as international senior citizens' day.

As the official opposition critic for senior citizens organizations and as a retired teacher, I would like to emphasize the important role played by seniors throughout the world.

The United Nations has asked the government and non-governmental organizations to contribute to a special UN fund on aging in order to increase public awareness throughout the world.

In a world where work and productivity are the order of the day, senior citizens must not be perceived as a burden on society. Every year, this international day dedicated to senior citizens reminds us that these people have contributed to the development of our society and will continue to do so according to their abilities.

I would like to pay tribute to all senior citizens throughout the world, and especially to those who built this country.

Yvonne Tousek

[Janko Peric, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in order to create greater awareness of women's contribution to Canada, the federal government declared October Women's History Month. For this reason I wish to pay tribute to Yvonne Tousek who, with great determination, represented Canada at the Atlanta summer Olympics.

A member of the Cambridge Kips Gymnastics Club, Yvonne was named the 1995 athlete of the year by the Canadian Gymnastics Federation and was the only Canadian to reach the gymnastic finals, competing with the elite of the world and placing a very impressive 26th.

On behalf of the people of Cambridge, I congratulate Yvonne on her tremendous effort and excellent showing as a member of Canada's gymnastic team.

British Columbia

[Val Meredith, Reform, Surrey—White Rock—South Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, on Monday when the House was debating a motion on federal issues that are adversely affecting the province of British Columbia, we witnessed a litany of Liberal members inform this House that they are responsible for B.C.'s booming economy. Never mind that B.C. had been doing just fine prior to this government's election in 1993, the Liberals actually wanted everyone to believe that they were responsible.

However, yesterday the provincial Government of British Columbia announced that it has slashed the province's economic forecast from 2.7 per cent to just 1 per cent.

Well, if you want to claim the credit you also have to accept the blame. So can we expect the Minister of Transport to admit to British Columbians that his government's policies are responsible for this significant drop in B.C.'s rate of growth? Of course not, because this government's philosophy is accept the glory but put the blame on somebody else.

Job Creation

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski—Témiscouata, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister.

As he vaunted his government's performance on job creation, the Minister of Finance said that Canadians were doing well. However, in its latest report, the Conference Board estimates that in 1995, two million Canadians were jobless and 500,000 had left the labour force. This means, according to the Conference Board, that the real unemployment rate in 1995 was not 9.5 per cent but 12.5 per cent.

Considering the government's triumphant statement on job creation, could the Deputy Prime Minister explain why the real unemployment rate in Canada, which includes those who have given up looking for a job, is now 12.5 per cent?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, we are certainly not triumphant. We are still looking for ways to create new jobs. That is why I was somewhat surprised to hear that the leader of the Bloc Quebecois does not fully support the federal government's plans for the infrastructures program, which has created 80,000 jobs across the country, many in Quebec.

I am surprised he does not endorse the second infrastructures program, which could be expected to create more new jobs.

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski—Témiscouata, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to correct a tendency of the Deputy Prime Minister to misquote people. The Leader of the Opposition said that he was prepared to support an infrastructures program, provided that, unlike the first program, which created temporary jobs,

this one would provide stable and well-paying jobs. That is what the leader of the opposition said.

How can the Deputy Prime Minister say, with the Minister of Finance, that Canadians are doing very well, when according to the Conference Board, two million people are still jobless and the figures of Statistics Canada indicate the government has created only 153,000 jobs since early 1996? These figures come from Statistics Canada, not from the Bloc.

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, as long as there is a single unemployed person in this country, we have no reason to be triumphant. Someone who is unemployed means someone who cannot feed his family, and that is why we want to go ahead with the infrastructures program.

I can assure you that although the Bloc Quebecois did not support a program that created 80,000 jobs across this country, we, the Government of Canada, trust that we proceeded with a program that was supported by the people in their ridings.

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski—Témiscouata, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thought the Deputy Prime Minister had a poor memory, but now I wonder whether she hears what is said.

I said that the Bloc supported the infrastructures program, provided there were durable, well-paying jobs. Did you hear me, Madam?

[The Speaker]

I may remind hon. members that I am the one who is supposed to hear.

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski—Témiscouata, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I wish some day you would make sure she understands what was said.

The Deputy Prime Minister refuses to face the facts. Not only has the labour market not returned to what it was in 1989, the real labour force participation rate is in free fall and the job-population ratio is stagnating. Even worse, Canadians are 7 per cent poorer than they were after the last recession, in 1989. If that is what you call doing well in this country, I wonder what the future will be like.

Does the minister realize that the labour market situation is a disaster and that the few jobs created by her government have failed to add to the wealth of Quebecers and Canadians? It is high time the government created stable, well-paying jobs.

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, according to the Mayor of Montreal, one of the current problems is political instability. I would urge the hon. member opposite to consider what her own leader said yesterday when he referred to the infrastructures program as an election goody.

I am going to make sure we go ahead with this program, even if the Bloc Quebecois is now obstructing a program that created jobs in all ridings across the country, including the ridings with the highest rate of poverty and unemployment in the province of Quebec.

[René Laurin, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, what the Conference Board is saying is that low productivity is the primary reason for the lack of investment in research and development and the lack of job training. A distinction must be made.

My question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. If it had wanted to bring back the sort of job market the people of Quebec and of Canada had in 1989, in terms of the unemployment rate and the participation rate, this government would have had to create over one and a half million jobs since it came to power. According to its own statistics, the government has created only 669,000 jobs. It still has over 800,000 to go.

Does the Deputy Prime Minister realize that, at the rate this government is going with job creation, it would take at least four more years before we see conditions similar to those of seven years ago before the last recession?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, when we see the rate of unemployment among young people, and especially when we see that the majority of people who have left the province of Quebec this year are young people, it is a terrible loss.

What we want to do, through programs like the infrastructure program, which has not been supported so far by the Bloc Quebecois, by the way, is to restore some semblance of economic stability. For this to be possible, the Bloc Quebecois and the Parti Quebecois must respect the promises of Quebec's premier to set aside the quarrels over separation and work flat out on the economy.

That is what we want, but unfortunately it is not what the Bloc Quebecois is doing right now. Right now, it is creating political instability.

[René Laurin, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, is political instability the reason why New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland have an even higher rate of unemployment than Quebec? Yet there is no talk of separation in these provinces.

After 2 years and 10 months of power, this government is crowing about having created 669,000 jobs, while the former government created 930,000 jobs in the same length of time. For a government that was elected to create jobs, we have seen better.

When will this government stop patting itself on the back and admit that it has not yet delivered on its main election promise?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, what creates political instability is what they are now calling the referendum. There was one referendum, and Canada won. A second was held, and Canada won. Now, they are talking about trying again. As long as they keep on wanting to hold referendums, the Parti Quebecois and the Bloc Quebecois are adding to the climate of political instability, whose results we are now seeing.

Smuggling

[Art Hanger, Reform, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday one person of a group of ten who arrived in Canada from Pakistan died as their boat turned over in choppy waters on the St. Lawrence River near Cornwall en route to the United States.

Yesterday, Akwesasne police and the OPP charged a Canadian man with manslaughter in connection with this botched smuggling attempt. This incident illustrates a well documented problem, namely, the unchecked flow of illegal smuggling through the Akwesasne reserve.

Why has the solicitor general not clamped down on this activity? How many more must die before he takes action?

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

Mr. Speaker, it was a tragedy the other evening when lives were lost in an illegal attempt to smuggle people across the border.

The hon. member knows that any such activity is a criminal offence under the present laws of Canada, that the RCMP work closely with the American immigration and naturalization service. Every effort is made to discourage, detect and to prosecute this unlawful activity.

The reality is that some three years ago, the government created the anti-smuggling initiative which represented an increased investment of funds and people into the resources of the RCMP and related services to deal with smuggling in general, including the smuggling of people.

Our resolve in that regard continues. We shall do everything we can to detect and to prosecute such illegal activity.

[Art Hanger, Reform, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately the reality is that the police are afraid to patrol the river at night because the criminal activity is a threat to their safety. Organized criminals, drug traffickers and bootleggers are running rampant on Akwesasne and Cornwall Island. Obviously the police on the reserve have been ineffective in doing their jobs.

Canadians are beginning to question if the police there are turning a blind eye to the smuggling and drug running that is going on. If the Akwesasne police will not do their jobs, maybe it is time to send in the RCMP or even the Canadian Armed Forces.

Will the solicitor general send in the RCMP to clean up the mess? Or will he continue to tolerate organized crime and give it free rein on Akwesasne?

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

Mr. Speaker, I can assure the hon. member that the RCMP are very much directly involved in efforts, not only in that area but across our border to deal with efforts to smuggle and to break Canadian laws.

Last weekend the solicitor general and I hosted a forum on organized crime in Canada. The forum was attended by representatives of police forces, provincial governments, prosecutors, defence counsel and working police officers. We reviewed not only the present state of the situation but also specific measures that can be taken to give police additional tools in their efforts to combat organized crime.

Arising from that conference, together with the government's demonstrated resolve to deal effectively with smuggling, I am certain that we will have even more effective steps in the months ahead to deal with this problem.

[Art Hanger, Reform, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the police in the area and in other areas of this country have been seeking desperately the assistance and support of the federal government and have not been able to obtain such.

This tragic incident demonstrates the government's double standards in enforcing the laws in the nation. The government has made it a priority to arrest, detain, fine and even harass western farmers who want to do nothing more than to sell grain to the United States at the best price they can get. The solicitor general turns a blind eye year after year, even after people have died, from the rampant crime on Akwesasne.

Will the solicitor general commit today to end the double standard, enforce the law equally and send in whatever force necessary to stop the crime at the borders, in other words, do his job?

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

Mr. Speaker, I can only assure the hon. member that the RCMP take their responsibilities very seriously. Their resources were supplemented almost three years ago with the anti-smuggling initiative.

The border is never going to be entirely beyond the commission of offences. It is a 3,000 mile border and it is an open border. The hon. member knows the level of difficulty in policing it all.

We believe that the RCMP are doing as effective a job as they can under difficult circumstances and the government's resolve to do everything possible against smuggling is quite clear.

Official Languages

[Gaston Leroux, Bloc, Richmond—Wolfe, QC]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the President of Treasury Board alleged that 54 per cent of federal public service positions in Quebec needed to be bilingual in order to serve anglophones and allophones. By thus linking the allophones with the anglophone minority, the President of the Treasury Board, a francophone minister who is an elected member for Quebec, is openly admitting that he is working to anglicize Quebec's allophones.

My question is for the President of the Treasury Board. Why is the President of the Treasury Board, a francophone, working to anglicize Quebec's allophones, in contradiction of every language policy adopted by the governments of Quebec since 1960 for the purpose of integrating them into Quebec society through their use of the French language?

[Marcel Massé, Liberal, President of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for Infrastructure]

Mr. Speaker, the allegations the opposition member is making are totally unfounded and, what is more, he is attacking my credentials as a francophone. Allow me to say that his French name does not entitle him to defend all francophone traditions.

My family has been here since 1648. My entire family has defended the francophone literature, culture, language, institutions, and no member of the Bloc Quebecois or of the Parti Quebecois can tell me what my family has done from the francophone point of view.

In my opinion, the Bloc Quebecois are the ones working against the interests of Quebec at this time, and the ones whose efforts will gradually weaken the influence of the French language and culture in Quebec. It is they who are doing a disservice to francophones.

[Gaston Leroux, Bloc, Richmond—Wolfe, QC]

Mr. Speaker, clearly, the truth is hard to take. It is up to the President of the Treasury Board to stand up for himself, for it is he who clearly spoke yesterday of "serving the allophones". So he is incapable of standing up for himself.

I wish to ask him this: if it is good for Quebec anglophones to have five times as many bilingual public servants as their demographic weight justifies, would it be logical for the same rule to apply to the francophones of New Brunswick, who represent 34 per cent of the population, or those in Ontario, who form the largest francophone minority in Canada? Why do the federal government, and the President of the Treasury Board, a francophone member of Parliament from Quebec, continue to systematically disadvantage the francophones in English-speaking Canada?

[Marcel Massé, Liberal, President of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for Infrastructure]

Mr. Speaker, it is clearly not true that the government, or myself, are disadvantaging the francophone minorities in Canada. The opposition does nothing but spread rumours which, they know to untrue.

What the report by the President of the Treasury Board demonstrates, and clearly demonstrates with figures, not with untrue allegations, is that the linguistic minorities in Canada have received far better service in recent years than in the past.

In fact, from the point of view of service to the public, from the point of view of language of work, from the point of view of their numerical representation in the public service, francophone minorities are better off now than they have ever been in the past, than they were 20 years ago. I myself bear witness to that, and the allegations being made by the opposition will not change those facts.

Canadian Heritage

[Jim Abbott, Reform, Kootenay East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the heritage minister's defence of her free flag program giveaway is total garbage.

We are proud that Reform staff are trained to help constituents, which does not change the fact that her program sucks wind. This program has been flim-flam from the word go. Her officials originally said that it was going to be $6 million. Now it is $23 million and climbing.

The minister told Canadians that her flags were free, yet on the document that comes with the flags she says that you will receive a tax receipt for donations of $10 or more.

Why does she refuse to give any spending details to this House? It is $23 million and climbing. Precisely how many dollars have been collected?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for bringing to the attention of Parliament the most popular program of government.

As of this morning 613,420 families across Canada have participated in the flag program.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Hamilton East, ON]

That represents one in every sixteen Canadian households that have actually received a flag. In certain ridings the participation is even stronger.

In the riding of Beaver River, one in eleven households has received a flag. In the riding of Calgary Southwest one in sixteen households has received a flag. In the riding of Fraser Valley East one in thirteen households has received a flag. In the riding of Calgary North-

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Kootenay East.

[Jim Abbott, Reform, Kootenay East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the minister does not seem to understand that the Liberals have no monopoly on patriotism, it is just that they do it with taxpayers' money.

Realizing that these flags cost money, can the minister tell the House how many hospitals will close, how many books will be taxed, how many seniors will be cut off from benefits to pay for this program?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, none.

Military Justice

[Jean H. Leroux, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, things being what they are, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister.

A shocking case of fraud at the Valcartier military base is one more reason to question the effectiveness and relevance of the court-martial system. Although the same kind of fraud was allegedly practised in several other military bases in Canada in the past 15 years, very few charges have been laid. Light sentences and limited investigations cast some doubt on the credibility of this justice system.

Since the entire military justice system has been sorely strained since the appointment of the Minister of National Defence and the current Chief of Staff, General Boyle, will the government appoint a parliamentary committee to carry out a full and detailed examination in this respect, and do so as soon as possible?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, considering the seriousness of the allegations and the fact that an investigation is now taking place, we cannot comment on the case here in the House.

[Jean H. Leroux, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my question to the minister is entirely relevant and does not concern the current investigation.

The attempt to silence Corporal Purnelle and deprive him of his most fundamental rights, when the army wanted to bring him before a career review board instead of a court-martial, is a very good example of what is wrong with the military justice system.

And now for my supplementary. Instead of minimizing the problems, will the minister or will she not admit that the military justice system is ailing in more ways than one and that a remedy is needed, not six months from now but right away?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member says he is not talking about problems but that is exactly what he is doing. We take these charges very seriously. That is why the investigation is continuing, and that is why we do not want to discuss the justice system here in Parliament.

Canadian Heritage

[Jay Hill, Reform, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Canadian Heritage has summed herself up quite well over the last two days. She blows $160 million on flags, propaganda and TV advertising while her government taxes books and cuts medicare. Her only response to Canadians is to wave her little list. Canadians deserve a whole lot better from their Deputy Prime Minister.

Let me try again. The minister has been building a list of voters' names from flag order forms. Is that list to be used for Liberal election mail-outs?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, the flag is not Liberal. The flag is Canadian.

When the member talks about the television programming fund, he should be aware that the television programming fund, with a budgeted investment of $100 million which was provided for in the last budget, is expected to lever a total of $600 million in investment in new Canadian programming.

That same program is expected to create thousands of jobs across the country. At the same time, it will help Canadians share their stories with each other, something that we desperately need in this difficult time for our country.

[Jay Hill, Reform, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder how many byelections it is going to take for this minister to learn the importance of honesty in politics.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Speaker]

Colleagues, I would ask you please not to use reflections on the honesty of any member of Parliament. We take it for granted that you are all honourable members. I would ask the hon. member to please be very judicious in his choice of words.

[Jay Hill, Reform, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the flag giveaway is nothing more than blatant electioneering by this government.

Is it not true that the Deputy Prime Minister thought her reputation was so badly damaged by her broken GST promise that she had to rob $23 million from Canadians to prop it up?

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Speaker]

Once again, if the hon. Deputy Prime Minister wishes to answer that question, I will permit it.

Air Transport

[André Caron, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

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

We learned, last July, that the Minister of Transport was taking the Prague route away from Air Canada and giving it to Canadian, the very day that Air Canada announced its new service to Prague, in partnership with Lufthansa.

How can the Minister of Transport justify this decision as anything other than a shameless bias in favour of Canadian to the detriment of Air Canada, which has its head office in Montreal and employs 5,500 people in the west and over 14,000 in Ontario and in Quebec?

[David Anderson, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, the answer is simple. There is an almost automatic policy in place for cities such as Prague. If the first airline does not use the route, and Air Canada did not, it goes to the other airline. It is almost automatic. I made no decision. That is how it works.

Air Canada knew this, as my colleague, the former transport minister, sent them a letter last year, when they indicated that the Hong Kong routes would also be available for Canadian International.

[André Caron, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is odd that it happened the very day that Air Canada had an agreement with Lufthansa specifically to use the Prague route.

How can the transport minister justify before this House that Air Canada never had an opportunity to be heard before it was decided to take the Prague route away from it and give it to Canadian? At least they could have listened to what Air Canada had to say.

[David Anderson, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, as I have just said, it is not a question of reviewing the matter or making a decision. It is automatic. If the route is not established in 365 days, it goes to the other airline. It is very clear. Air Canada is aware of this rule.

Yes, they put out a press release saying that they were in the process of setting up an office, and it is too bad, but they did not clearly indicate that they were selling tickets long before the automatic application of the policy established by my predecessor, the former transport minister.

General Motors

[Alex Shepherd, Liberal, Durham, ON]

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

Over 15,000 auto workers are now out on strike in Oshawa, Durham and Ste-Thérèse. Canadian auto workers feel they are being used as pawns in negotiations between General Motors and the United Auto Workers in the United States. The cars are made by Canadians; they do not want their agreements made in Detroit.

Will the minister tell Washington that Canadians demand made in Canada solutions to their labour problems?

[Alfonso Gagliano, Liberal, Minister of Labour and Deputy Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the labour negotiations between General Motors of Canada and the Canadian auto workers fall under provincial law and not under the Canada Labour Code. Therefore, I cannot intervene in this dispute.

However, I am very concerned about the effects such a strike will have on Canadians and the Canadian economy. Therefore, I invite the parties to continue negotiating and to find a Canadian solution as soon as possible.

Canadian Heritage

[Ted White, Reform, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Speaker, despite the claims of the Deputy Prime Minister, Canadians from coast to coast are complaining about the cost of the flags program. They typically state that the certificates alone must have cost more than $1 million and surely that money could have been put to better use.

Since the Minister of Canadian Heritage originally stated that this program would be funded by corporations, could she please tell the House how much money the corporations have given toward the purchase of flags for this program? And while she is at it, could she please tell the House how much of her personal money she has put into the program?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, I would have to challenge the hon. member's claim that complaints are pouring in from across the country. In fact, calls are pouring in from across the country. In the first eight months of the program we have received over three million calls from Canadians who obviously believe this program has something to offer.

I will say that we have also received a commitment from a very large number of corporate presidents for the corporate flag challenge, which I believe will be launched on November 1.

[Ted White, Reform, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I take it then that the corporations have donated nothing. It is interesting that out of three million calls, two and a half million have gone unanswered because of the busy signal.

It has taken the taxes of 1,600 Canadian families to pay for this program. In addition, owners and employees of flag shops across the country are being put out of work by a government program which competes directly with them. Now a Léger and Léger poll shows a dramatic increase in support for separatism since the program was introduced.

Is the minister so blinded with ideology that she cannot see that her flags program is playing into the separatists' hands and contributing to the break-up of Canada?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, I suppose I should say that as usual the Reform Party has it all wrong. In fact, in the Léger and Léger poll which came out today, there has been a significant drop in support for the Parti Quebecois and for the Bloc Quebecois. As usual, the member's polls are probably way behind.

Rail Transportation

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

Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport.

In early July, Canadian National announced its plans to sell or abandon the Matapédia-Gaspé line. So far, the section between Chandler and Gaspé has not found a buyer and may disappear altogether.

Does the minister realize that this railway network in the Gaspé is in danger of disappearing altogether and that especially in the winter, local communities will be deprived of the only safe means of transportation in this region?

[David Anderson, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, railways throughout Quebec are in the same situation as those in the rest of Canada. If there are doubts about safety, we cannot let passengers continue to use these lines.

If the problem is a lack of proper maintenance or if an accident creates a hazard, then, as is the case in other parts of the country, they will have to resort interrupting service. It is impossible to do otherwise and at the same time protect Canadian travellers.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is not the same everywhere. In the Gaspé, Radio-Canada has practically been taken off the airwaves. And now the government also wants to make cuts in transportation. It is not the same everywhere.

Could the Minister of Transport at least give us a guarantee today in the House that he will take the necessary action to have the passenger train service maintained along the entire Matapédia-Gaspé line?

[David Anderson, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, we are now looking into a number of different routes, especially fairly short ones. We are considering ways to continue the service referred to by the hon. member. The decision cannot be made now, because investigations and studies have not yet been completed.

Canadian Heritage

[Chuck Strahl, Reform, Fraser Valley East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we continue to ask questions about the flag program because it is very symbolic of something the government is doing wrong. It symbolizes two things. One is that the government has very poor spending priorities. It will shut down the lighthouses, it will shut down the coast guard in my province and then it spends far more money on the flag program. Also, there is no unity plan coming out of the minister's office. There is no plan A and no plan B. There is a plan F for flags and that is it.

Will the minister ever come out with a comprehensive plan for national unity, or do we just have to find it in between the cracks?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, the member was absolutely right when he said there is something symbolic. Obviously, there is something symbolic in the fact that in the riding of Fraser Valley East, one in 13 households have thought this program was worthwhile.

I think I made the point yesterday that the flag program is only part of an overall government approach that seeks to build for Canadians a sense of ownership of their country. Flying a flag is not going to save the country but it is certainly giving Canadians a positive public expression of their belief in the capacity of this great country. It has obviously struck a cord with a lot of Canadians, including the hon. member who used his own fax lines at considerable cost to the taxpayers to fax my office in Ottawa from his office in British Columbia to get the flags.

[Chuck Strahl, Reform, Fraser Valley East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the people the minister needs to talk to about national unity are the separatists in Quebec. The rest of us are already proud Canadians and we do not need a flag to prove it. Her flag plan is a failure. Of

all the flags the minister has sent out, only 8 per cent have gone to the people of Quebec. When the people in the west want to order a flag they have to go to their MP's office or phone in on the French only line because it is the only line that is open.

How many separatists in Quebec does the minister really think she is going to persuade to become federalists with this flag program?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, it is an unfortunate manifestation of the narrowness of the hon. member if he thinks it is only one part of the country that needs to work on the links that are going to keep this country together.

In fact, 2,677 households in the member's riding obviously thought the Canadian flag was important enough that they wanted to fly one.

I would have to say that with the kind of narrow view expressed by members of the Reform Party, I think it is unfortunate that instead of working with the government to try to build this nation, they are only interested in scoring cheap political points.

Land Mines

[Marlene Catterall, Liberal, Ottawa West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Canada has taken a leading role on the world ban of land mines, most recently this week with the announcements by the Minister of National Defence of the destruction of two-thirds of Canada's stock of land mines, and by the Minister for International Cooperation of an additional $2 million to clear land mines around the world.

Has the conference in Ottawa this week given us any real progress on this issue? Is there reason to hope that the scourge of land mines may be removed from this earth?

[Francis Leblanc, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, the purpose of the conference was to bring together like minded countries from around the world to work toward the goal of a global ban on the heinous weapons which are anti-personnel mines.

The conference has already had a demonstrable effect. The number of countries that have committed themselves to such a ban increased from some 14 a year ago to over 47 today in time to participate in this conference. We hope that more countries will join this accelerating bandwagon in time to have a really strong resolution on these weapons at the UN this fall.

In addition, the conference brought together not only governments but also parliamentarians and NGOs active in this area to develop an action plan to lead to the global elimination of these weapons.

The Pearson Airport

[Ghislain Lebel, Bloc, Chambly, QC]

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

The government is still facing lawsuits on the order of $660 million following cancellation of the Pearson airport contract. And this is all because the Liberals, since coming to power, have refused to listen to the official opposition, which is asking them to get to the bottom of this political and financial scandal. The minister obviously has no intention of taking any action.

Is the minister not admitting that the federal government is sitting back and doing nothing while it waits for the courts to decide how much Canadian taxpayers will have to pay for the mistakes of this government, which is trying to protect its friends involved in the privatization of Pearson?

[David Anderson, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, yes, we must sometimes wait on the courts, but I can assure the hon. member that as soon as we are in a position to make a decision that will be right for all the individuals involved, we will do so.

Canadian Heritage

[Myron Thompson, Reform, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have news for the heritage minister: There is no free lunch and there is no such thing as free flags. A dozen hospitals in this country could have been kept open for $23 million. For $23 million, enough police could be hired to do a better job of protecting society.

When will this minister wake up and get her priorities straight and stop wasting my grandchildren's money? Does she not realize that my grandchildren and hers are going to be paying for these so-called free flags on borrowed money?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, my priority and the priority of this government is to make sure that my grandchildren have a country. We will do anything to involve ordinary Canadians in the capacity to express their love for their country. Flying a flag

is not going to save the country but flying a flag is part of the fact that as Canadians we have to start celebrating who we are and standing up for the fact that we have the greatest country in the world. The flag can do that. I think the member should get on board the program, as obviously many of his colleagues already have.

Canadian Wheat Board

[Len Taylor, NDP, The Battlefords—Meadow Lake, SK]

Mr. Speaker, at this hour at a news conference in Regina the minister of agriculture is apparently making an announcement concerning the Canadian Wheat Board.

The rumours this morning suggest the minister is announcing a costly plebiscite on barley marketing.

Can the parliamentary secretary confirm these rumours and, if so, will he also acknowledge that this important decision was made without the consultation of the producer elected Canadian Wheat Board advisory committee?

[Fernand Robichaud, Liberal, Secretary of State (Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Mr. Speaker, it is true that the agriculture minister is now in Regina and that he should be momentarily starting his news conference to announce his response to the Board's report.

Rather than confirming or denying the rumours that the member seems to want to put before us, I would invite him to come to my office to listen to the minister at the news conference, which will provide him with all the answers he wants.

Government Services

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, members of Parliament, their staffs, individuals and associations across the land make extensive use of the government telephone directory which was last updated in 1994.

Would the parliamentary secretary for public works and government services confirm whether the government intends to publish an updated version and, if so, when?

[John Harvard, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. I appreciate his keen interest in the matter.

I do have good news for him. There will be a new paper version of the phone directory available to the public in January, about three months from now. I mention the new paper version because this directory is already on the Internet. It can be accessed at the Government of Canada home page. All one has to do is click on that little red phone on one's computer screen and the Internet message number is http:canada.gc.ca.

Presence In Gallery

[The Speaker]

I draw the attention of hon. members to the presence in the gallery of the members of the German/Canadian Friendship Group from the German Bundestag led by Mr. Siegfried Hornung.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

Point Of Order

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski—Témiscouata, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order under Beauchesne, which is very clear. The President of the Treasury Board said earlier that my colleague made false statements, which is tantamount to accusing the member for Richmond-Wolfe of lying in the House.

The member came at this honestly, referring to remarks made by the minister, which can be found on page 5059 of Hansard:

In Quebec, the proportion of anglophones and allophones is nearly 20 per cent, and consequently we have a proportionate number of bilingual public servants which reflects the needs of the province.

We are quoting the minister. So my colleague made no false allegation. Mr. Speaker, I ask the President of the Treasury Board to withdraw his remarks.

[The Speaker]

Dear colleagues, the President of the Treasury Board is here. If he wishes to add anything to these comments, I invite him to speak.

[Marcel Massé, Liberal, President of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for Infrastructure]

Mr. Speaker, the false allegations that have been made show clearly through the hon. member's question, since it includes personal allegations which, in my opinion, show disrespect for the dignity of the House and the other hon. members.

This is an unfortunate tendency, and one which ought not to exist in this House. The members of the opposition should stop making false personal allegations, should stop attributing motives which are false, should stop claiming that any Quebecer who does not follow their way of thinking, for one reason or another, is a traitor to his race and his roots.

The question from the opposition members needs careful rereading, and it will be seen to contain false allegations that are not based on fact, that are contrary to reality, that are evidence of a type of effrontery and arrogance that ought never to be tolerated in this House.

[The Speaker]

I believe, dear colleagues, the words in question here are "false allegations". At times, we use language in our debates which comes very close to crossing the line into unparliamentary language.

I would like, if I may, to ask all of the hon. members to cease using inflammatory language during our debates. We have seen today that one side has interpreted the matter one way, and the other side, another way. I would simply ask you not to use terms like "false", because they stir up controversy here in the House.

I do find, however, concerning the point of order, that the minister has explained what he meant to say with use of the term "false". I believe that he ought to have withdrawn the words in his explanation, and I would ask him that directly. I would ask the minister, after his explanation, whether he will withdraw the word "false", which he used here in the House?

[Marcel Massé, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Speaker, now that you have given me the opportunity to explain clearly why I responded as I did, I consider the allegation withdrawn.

[The Speaker]

Very well. If there is another point of order, I will listen to it, but I consider this one closed.

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski—Témiscouata, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask you to take this point of order under advisement, for his first reply just added insult to injury. If stating that the minister is a francophone and an elected member for Quebec is false, than I wish he would reveal his true identity.

[The Speaker]

Yes, if the hon. member wishes me to look at Hansard, I shall do so. If it is necessary, if I deem it necessary, I will get back to the House.

Employment Equity Act

[Ted White, Reform, North Vancouver, BC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-332, an act to amend the Employment Equity Act (elimination of designated group and numerical goals) and the Canadian Human Rights Act.

Mr Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to present a private member's bill which would deliver on the wishes expressed by my constituents.

The bill amends the Employment Equity Act to remove the concept of designated groups and numerical goals and to repeal the employer's reporting requirements. It will come into force when the Employment Equity Act comes into force.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed.)

Immigration Act

[Ted White, Reform, North Vancouver, BC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-333, an act to amend the Immigration Act and the Criminal Code (refugee or immigrant applicants convicted of an offence on indictment).

Mr. Speaker, this is a very important bill which was developed with the assistance of a Liberal supporting lawyer in my riding. If passed and accepted by this government, it would give the power to provincial judges to deport criminal refugees in lieu of sentence.

It is supported by some crown prosecutors in the Vancouver area. I think it is a great bill and I look forward to debating it in the House.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed.)

Petitions

[John Bryden, Liberal, Hamilton—Wentworth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I present an entirely spontaneous petition from all across the country that would call on Parliament to take measures to withdraw charitable status from special interest groups.

By special interest groups I believe the petitioners mean those groups that lobby on behalf of particular interests and yet receive government funding because of their charitable status.

Canadians from one end of the country to the other would support the initiative in this petition 100 per cent.

[Janko Peric, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, today I have the privilege of presenting to the House two petitions from concerned citizens in my riding of Cambridge.

The first petition contains approximately 400 signatures and requests that the Parliament of Canada amend the Criminal Code to ensure that anyone convicted of impaired driving causing death receive a sentence from seven years to a maximum of fourteen years.

[Janko Peric, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition urges the government to enact legislation to prohibit convicted criminals from profiting financially by selling the details of their crimes to others for publication through books, movies and videos.

[Philippe Paré, Bloc, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, of all Canadian institutions, surely the most controversial is the other house.

Pursuant to Standing Order 36, the petitioners, 2379 in number, are calling upon Parliament to take steps to abolish the Senate.

[Dave Chatters, Reform, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this is a bit like asking someone to close the barn door after the horses have escaped, but in spite of that I rise today to present a petition signed by 97 of my constituents who wish to draw the attention of the House to their belief that the privileges which society accords to heterosexual couples should not be extended to same sex relationships, and their fear that the inclusion of the term sexual orientation in the Canadian Human Rights Act will be seen as societal approval for same sex marriages.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—Woodbine, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to table a petition from Canadians who encourage the government to ensure that Canada remains united and indivisible in the future.

[Ted White, Reform, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to present a petition on behalf of Mr. Bob Hackett and 32 other residents of North Vancouver who point out that currently Canadian law does not prohibit convicted criminals from profiting financially by writing books, setting up 1-900 numbers, producing videos and so on.

The petitioners ask that Parliament enact Bill C-205, introduced by the hon. member for Scarborough West, at the earliest opportunity, to provide in Canadian law that no criminal profits from committing a crime.

Questions On The Order Paper

[Rey D. Pagtakhan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[The Speaker]

Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-55, an act to amend the Criminal Code (high risk offenders), the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the Criminal Records Act, the Prisons and Reformatories Act and the Department of the Solicitor General Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Criminal Code

[Jack Ramsay, Reform, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened with interest to the comments of my colleagues from all parties represented in the House on Bill C-55. I would like to indicate that there are good portions in this bill. However, we do not think it goes far enough and I will be dealing with some of those aspects during my speech today.

On September 14 of last year an article appeared in the Financial Post containing figures from Correctional Services Canada. These figures, the author said, and I concur, are worrisome and clearly indicate the system does not protect the public from convicted murderers and other dangerous predators. These figures demonstrate a need for additional Criminal Code changes which go far beyond Bill C-55.

According to a chart furnished by the solicitor general to Diane Francis, editor of the Financial Post , between 1989 and 1994 no fewer than 78 people committed murder while they were on conditional release. This means 15 innocent people were killed each year in this country during that period of time by people who were on conditional release.

The same figures reveal that some 4,960 persons convicted of a lesser violent offence such as child molestation, manslaughter, rape or attempted murder repeated their crimes while on conditional release. Miss Francis concluded: "Those figures are awful". I concur.

Statistics do not provide an adequate picture of how repeat offenders become progressively more violent. Therefore, I would like to provide the House with evidence that supports a need not only for Bill C-55, but a need for additional Criminal Code amendments as well.

Since 1975, Allan Wayne Walsh of Mission, B.C. had more than 60 convictions for kidnapping, confining women, sex crimes, robbery and weapons offences. In 1983, he was convicted of 26 offences, including two counts of rape, and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Ten years later he was out on parole. Within months he used a knife to try to rape one woman and then raped and robbed another. On September 21, 1995 he was convicted of seven new offences, including sexual assault, which led the crown to have him declared a dangerous offender.

These seven additional offences never would have occurred if Walsh had served his full 25-year sentence. Seven innocent people would have remained unharmed if this dangerous offender had served out his full sentence of 25 years. I ask the question: Why do we continue to release high risk offenders into society to go on to reoffend?

Reform believes in truth in sentencing for violent criminals in the absence of a dangerous offender designation. Truth in sentencing means that if a 25-year sentence is imposed a 25-year sentence is served. In essence we support no parole for violent offenders; no reduction in the term decided by the court on consideration of the facts.

Why would government members want a court, a judge, perhaps a jury to consider all of the facts and the circumstances and impose a penalty based on those facts and circumstances and then have a parole board second guess them and reduce the time that a violent offender spends in jail? They will not answer that question.

Ronald Richard McCauley, another B.C. rapist, was sentenced to 17 years after two vicious rapes in which the victims were left for dead. At the time of sentencing McCauley had a criminal record dating back to 1969. When McCauley came up for parole in 1992 he admitted to the parole board that if he had not been caught he would have become a serial killer like Clifford Olson. The board, noting that McCauley appeared to benefit only superficially from treatment, turned down his request for early parole.

In 1994, two years later, McCauley got statutory release. According to a September 25, 1995 newspaper article, Mr. McCauley is now a suspect in the murder of two Vancouver prostitutes.

The Reform Party proposes that Bill C-55 be amended by eliminating statutory release. Melanie Carpenter would not have been murdered if Mr. Auger had not been free on statutory release.

In 1983 James Ronald Robinson of Ottawa was convicted of manslaughter in the stabbing death of Roxanne Nairn, a 17-year-old grade 12 student. He was sentenced to three years on a manslaughter conviction, but was released early, despite being caught trying to smuggle hashish into jail while returning from an unescorted temporary release.

In 1990 Robinson spent two years in jail for raping and threatening to kill a woman he had lived with after his release from prison. On March 6, 1995 he was charged with another count of sexual assault.

Despite having consecutive sentences adding up to 27 years and despite having committed crimes while on parole, Claude Forget was given an escorted pass to visit his sister in 1993. He escaped. Two months later he shot two police officers.

In September of 1995 he was up for parole after serving only a fraction of his sentence because the parole loophole required any new sentence to be merged with an existing sentence. In Forget's case this meant he was eligible to apply for parole almost as soon as he was convicted of the attempted murders. Forget was granted a full parole hearing in December of 1995.

In 1986 Martin Dubuc, a Montreal hockey coach, was convicted of molesting team members. After his release from prison he did not let a lifetime ban on coaching in Quebec stop him. He changed locales, becoming a coach and eventually president of the minor hockey association of southwest Montreal. As well, three different school boards in the Montreal area hired him as a substitute teacher. In September of 1995 he pleaded guilty to using the telephone to threaten boys aged 10 to 13.

More and more of these types of cases will occur unless additional amendments are made to the Criminal Code that go beyond the scope of Bill C-55. There will be no discernible impact on repeat offender rates unless the government is willing to go the extra mile.

The Liberal's soft on crime approach to justice is not working. What we need to do is implement zero tolerance for violent and sex offenders, which means we come down hard on those criminals who prey on the weak and vulnerable members of our society.

Under Bill C-55 high risk offenders will still be released back into society and Canadians will still remain at risk, even though there are some minimal forms of supervision in place. The only way to truly protect Canadians from high risk offenders is to keep them locked up where there is absolutely no risk of them reoffending. In the case of any serious personal injury, all of those convicted should serve out their full sentences.

Reform proposes that Bill C-55 be amended for greater certainty to require courts to automatically place a dangerous offender finding on any person who commits on two or more separate occasions an offence constituting a serious personal injury offence and subject them to an indeterminate period of incarceration.

Reform also recommends, in support of our colleague from Surrey White Rock-South Langley private member's Bill C-254, that Bill C-55 be amended to allow for dangerous offender findings to be made at any time after sentencing. The crown must be given the right to seek dangerous offender status for persons convicted of serious crimes causing serious personal injury at any time during that offender's penitentiary sentence.

Why would we release an offender if it is clear that offender has not been rehabilitated and will go on to target innocent children or adults on release? That is what Bill C-55 will do.

Reform also supports amending Bill C-55 to expand the list of criminal offences on which a dangerous offender application may be brought to include pedophiles and other sexual predators. There is probably no crime short of murder that offends the sensibilities and the values of a community more than the sexual assault of children. In many ways it is the most unconscionable of criminal acts because it victimizes the weakest, most vulnerable and most innocent among us.

It is not surprising that the public recoils in horror with the news that a pedophile is being released into the community after completing his jail sentence, particularly when the convicted pedophile is considered a high risk to reoffend.

In December 1995 Manitobans were warned about the danger of a released sexual offender who police claimed was a high risk to reoffend. The Winnipeg police were concerned Osborne could either attack someone he knew or simply attack a stranger. Douglas James Osborne was released from Stony Mountain Institution on November 23, 1995 after serving a three-year sentence for sexual assault. He was not to be under any supervision on his release.

Also in December 1995 the York Regional Police in Ontario issued a public alert warning to York and Durham residents of the release of Donald John Jones. The police considered there was a high risk that this sexual sadist, as termed by the police, would attempt to attack other women. Jones refused to take treatment for his sexual deviance while incarcerated in Kingston Penitentiary. He had a criminal record dating back to 1970 when he was sentenced to five years for sexually assaulting a 59-year-old Whitby woman in 1981. Jones attacked an 18-year-old convenience store clerk in 1986 while on a pass from the Kingston pen. He also sexually assaulted a 78-year-old woman in 1987 while out on another temporary pass. Is it not wonderful that these people are allowed passes before there is any assurance they have been rehabilitated? They go on and on to commit offence after offence against innocent people.

Reform proposes Bill C-55 be amended to eliminate any type of temporary release for sexual offenders. As stated earlier, we propose Bill C-55 be amended to include sex offenders in the dangerous offenders designation. We also propose that the review of indeterminate sentence of sex offenders include the examination and recommendation of at least two psychiatrists.

Sex offenders, especially child molesters, have a high repeat rate. The only way to keep our children safe, the only way to prevent sexual predators from taking victims and destroying the life of another innocent child is to keep them locked up, keep them incarcerated, keep them away from those they wish to target, keep

them incarcerated indefinitely as dangerous offenders until there is absolutely no risk of them reoffending.

I do not think there is anyone in Canada, certainly not in this House, who would want to see someone after they have served their term of imprisonment, on being completely rehabilitated, kept in prison. That is not the point. The point is that we must protect society by ensuring that those who have a high risk to reoffend are not released back into society.

No one should be released from prison if they exhibit signs or evidence they will reoffend. We have the power to protect the Melanie Carpenters of this country. We have the power to protect all the citizens of this country. Bill C-55 moves in that direction but it does not go far enough.

In closing, I would like to read for members of this House an Edmonton Sun editorial written by Linda Slobodian:

On July 16, a 36-year-old Edmonton man was sentenced to 71

2 years in jail for repeatedly sexually assaulting two relatives when they were little girls. He was found guilty on numerous sexual offences.

Yet less than three months later he's back out on the street. Little wonder one of his victims, now 26, says she feels "betrayed" by the court system.

"I felt justice had been served", says the victim who testified the assaults started when she was three or four, soon progressed to intercourse, and lasted a number of years.

"Now that he's walking free, I feel it was a waste of time getting up there and mutilating ourselves in front of everyone at the trial. It was so difficult, embarrassing giving all those details", she says.

Court heard the convicted man's abuse of the other victim, her sister who is now 24, started when she was about four and also progressed to intercourse.

The convicted man faces more charges, involving other young relatives, for which he's scheduled to go on trial in the middle of this month.

How can it be that someone who gets such a heavy sentence for deplorable crimes against children gets out so soon?

He put in an application for an appeal. He's not get been granted one but on Sept. 27 he was released on bail.

That isn't all that unusual in our justice system.

The victims received a call Tuesday from his parole officer advising them he'd been released a few days earlier.

"I flipped out" says the victims' mother. "He was found guilty of rape, among other things. We phoned (Justice Minister) Brian Evans. His staff said, `That's the justice system"'.

This is the justice system we are presently burdened with in this country and that we speak out against and implore the justice minister to do something about. It is due to the bleeding heart

mentality which continues to exist in this place to place the rights of the criminal ahead of the rights of those two innocent rape victims. It is due to the fact that we have a federal justice minister who, in the words of one grieving father whose daughter was murdered, is a friend of the criminal. The justice minister has now been labelled by citizens of this country as a friend of the criminal.

Reform proposes we drastically overhaul the justice system. Our first priority will be to make the protection of society and the rights of the victim the guiding principles of justice in this country.

[Jay Hill, Reform, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to my colleague's speech on this important piece of legislation.

I wonder if it would be possible for the member to perhaps clear up a misunderstanding that arose in this House yesterday when we were also debating Bill C-55. The member for Cape Breton-The Sydneys was talking about an unfortunate incident in a riding in Canada where there was a dangerous offender released in that community. It was not until the general public got involved in drawing the attention of the authorities to the fact that they did not want this individual loose in their community that something was done and pressure was brought to bear. Eventually Mr. Oatway voluntarily went back to jail in British Columbia.

It is my understanding that Bill C-55 cannot retroactively apply to dangerous offenders, no matter how bad these people are, no matter whether they do not voluntarily undertake treatment while they are incarcerated. It is my understanding that it simply will not apply.

The hon. member from across the way led the House to believe yesterday that it would apply to individuals who are currently incarcerated.

That is a great concern for Canadians at large who understand that we have a lot of inherently evil people presently incarcerated who are coming up for either parole or the end of their terms in jail. They will be released into society.

Can the member shed any light as to whether Bill C-55 is really going to help society in that regard? It is my understanding, once again, that under the present system the crown prosecutor has to apply for the dangerous offender designation at the time of trial, that Bill C-55 will expand that window to be six months after conviction but that it will not apply to anyone who is in the system and has been there for longer since their conviction. I want to know if he agrees with that.

[Jack Ramsay, Reform, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for bringing this matter to my attention. There is no question in my mind that this bill, if it becomes law in its present form, will not allow any prosecutor to deal with those who have already been convicted with regard to the dangerous offender provision.

That provision is provided for the cases that will be brought forward after this bill has been passed. It has expanded the window, the time that the crown can apply for the dangerous offender status, to six months.

Of course, what we would like to do is amend the bill in this area to have dangerous offender status apply at any time during that period of incarceration, particularly at the end of the warrant of a violent offender.

The reasoning and rationale behind this is simply that if a dangerous offender application has not been successful or has not even been applied, and an individual who has committed a violent offence has served his time and at the end of his warrant period has not been rehabilitated, if there is clear evidence that this person represents a high risk to reoffend, why are we releasing him?

If we would expand the provision that my hon. friend referred to so that the prosecutor could apply to the courts for an indeterminant sentence application, the dangerous offender application, at the end of the sentence we would have a workable tool to determine whether the Augers, a prime suspect in the murder of Melanie Carpenter, ought to be released.

In that case Auger was released on statutory release. The officials were concerned that he was a high risk to members of society. There was not a thing they could do about it because there were no tools within the law for them to do anything about it.

We will be making this amendment to this bill at the appropriate time to expand that window of time from six months to the full warrant period in order to provide the tool that I have just described within the justice system.

[Myron Thompson, Reform, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-55.

The efforts of the justice minister, the champion of the social engineers on that side of the House, are probably a little better than they have been in any bill that I have seen in the last three years.

However, as usual there are some things in there that have to be fixed, there are flaws and there are some changes that need to be made. Hopefully we will be able to see that accomplished at the committee meetings.

The sad part about it and the fear that I have is that behind closed doors in the justice department there are decisions already being made as to what can be or what will be allowed with regard to this bill. We have seen it happen before to bills coming from the committees.

If this justice minister says there will be no amendments to this bill, and he says it to the members of his caucus who serve on that committee, that is the way it will be regardless of the debate,

regardless of the discussion and regardless of the witnesses. I have seen that happen and unfortunately it is going to happen again in my view.

This bill is need of amendments but the dictatorship of this government has already indicated it will not be changed. Decisions are made behind closed doors and then all the members of the party, the justice minister, the social engineer, will be required to rise in their seats and vote according to what he says. That seems to be the democratic process, and I use that term loosely. This government does not seem to understand the democratic process.

What a great thing it would be for Canadian people if democracy truly existed when it comes to making decisions on behalf of Canadian people. We could back up a few years, during the time of Trudeau, when people expressed loud and clear things they wanted and things they did not. The voices were being heard. They tried to participate.

I remember when they brought in the metric system there was quite a outcry. People did not want it but it did not matter. The people in this place do better. So we got the metric system anyway whether you wanted it or not as a Canadian.

I remember the language laws coming in and the great debates that took place across the country. The debates had no play. It is what this government wanted to do.

I remember the GST. There could not have been more resounding voices in the land by the people saying no to the GST, but they got it anyway because the little dictators who sit in this place made the decision and that is the way it is going to be.

That is just the way it was through the Trudeau years, that is the way it was through the Mulroney years and that is the way it has been during this session. Decisions are made behind closed doors and the government will do that whether you like it or not.

I talked to a number of backbenchers who have said that they would like to vote against a bill but they do not dare. Or they would like to vote against this bill but they do not dare because in the Liberal Party you are punished if you do not do as you are told.

[An hon. member]

That did not stop Silye.

[Myron Thompson, Reform, Wild Rose, AB]

I understand there are some people sitting over here, there are a lot of good committee members who used to serve-

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Order. The Chair will not accept members being named either by the person who has the floor or people who are waiting to get the floor possibility. I would ask you to keep those matters in mind.

[Myron Thompson, Reform, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the point I am trying to make is that you have to do as you are told if you belong to a certain party in this place. That is too bad because there are a lot of people on that side of the House as well as this side who would truly like to represent their people even when it comes to Bill C-55. They would like to hear their voices with regard to issues and would like to be able to express that through a vote in the House, but it does not work that way.

Three things bother me about Bill C-55. First is electronic monitoring. A provision in the bill states that a person only has to be a suspect in order to be monitored. This person does not need to have a conviction or a record or even been charged. The provision states that if we think you are he kind of a person who might commit this or that crime, you would qualify for electronic monitoring.

Many people would think that is a fairly strange process for a country like Canada to engage in. Some people would even go so far as to say we are moving toward a police state when we start electronically monitoring people who have neither been charged or convicted of anything. I find that rather strange.

I wonder if that kind of system would even come close to passing a charter challenge. Many things I thought should pass a charter challenge in this land never did, however, this one is very questionable. I imagine there would have to be some changes there. How can they go around this country and say that it is okay to put an electronic monitoring device on someone because they think they might do this or that? That is a serious flaw which needs to be addressed.

Second, I have a problem with the aboriginal clauses. They will go into a community where an aboriginal is released and do special things in order to make that release successful. I cannot say that is wrong in itself. I see nothing wrong with that. But if it is good for that community, then why would it not be good for another community?

Why is the government always so quick to identify a group in a piece of legislation, set them aside and say: "We're going to do something special because they are this or they are that"? If I were to suggest something like that in the House I am sure there would be screams of racism, prejudice and everything under the sun. That would happen if I would dare take a group of people and suggest we ought to do something special for them but not for the rest of Canadians. I find that rather strange. But if it is a good idea, which I think it is, and if it is found to be a good idea, then why stop there? Why not do it for community a , community b and community c ? Why not go through the whole list and do it? I believe that has to be addressed and I hope it will be.

The third point, which is probably the worst of all, bothers me. It is the provision that a criminal can be declared a dangerous offender six months after the time of sentencing. There will be six months after application to declare a convicted criminal a dangerous offender. At the end of the six months, if he is not declared a dangerous offender, then it is my understanding that it can never be done again. I find that really silly. I do not know any other word I could use.

When I was the principal of a school, the students would have loved to have a rule that would say: "In a 10-month year, we'll evaluate you in the sixth month, and if you've been good up until then, we'll pass you into the next grade". They would not have to worry about the next four months. I am sure that a lot of people in prison are thinking the same thing.

If government members do not believe for a moment that these convicts do not know how to play the game, how to avoid certain things, how to get certain favours, then I would suggest they go to the prisons and talk to the guards, talk to the caseworkers, talk to the frontline workers and find out just how wrong they are.

What is wrong with leaving the door open and being able to call them a dangerous offender at any time? Application can be made to do that.

I will go back two or three years to the family and friends of Melanie Carpenter and how they could have probably today been enjoying that young woman if there would have had something in place that would have said to her killer: "Auger, you are not getting out because you are a dangerous offender".

All the psychological reports, case reports, the frontline workers, the guards, the warden and everybody said: "This fellow should not be let out because he is not ready to go into society. He will hurt somebody". However, our hands were tied. Nobody could do anything about it because he had served his time. The result? Melanie Carpenter no longer exists.

What is wrong with leaving the door open? If they were able to discover after seven or eight years that this fellow Auger, who killed Melanie Carpenter, was a dangerous offender and would hurt people again, then why did they not make it possible to say that he was a dangerous offender? Why did they not do it in this bill?

The number one priority that I keep hearing from the social engineers on that side of the House is the protection of people by preventing crime. What better prevention is there than to keep a dangerous, violent person behind bars? However, we cannot do it if we are going to say we have to declare that within six months.

After a six-month period goes by and it has been decided the person being evaluated will not be declared a dangerous offender, what happens if all of a sudden he tells us where to put our rehabilitation programs and that he will not take treatment, which we cannot force him to do? We should be able to re-open the case since this guy is not going to take any treatment and never wanted to do anything about his problems. He is going to be released some day, he thinks. Let us declare him a dangerous offender.

I would rather see something at the end after a long period of time that might lift that classification, if it was deserving, rather than after a long period of time we could not put that classification on him because of Bill C-55.

If the government is so keen and so interested in prevention and protection then why does it not do that? I am sure the Canadian people would applaud that decision. As my colleague from Calgary Northeast knows after visiting a lot of prisons, the guards, the frontline officers, the caseworkers and the psychologists would all appreciate being able to have an influence on the decision makers who release these individuals. That is why we believe that the parole system should be placed in the hands of these people on the front line, those who know best.

I will go back to the school idea when I was a principal. It would been nice for my staff and I to have gone into the community, and because they were nice to us or because they did us favours, we could have appointed a pass and fail board from the community. At the end of the year we could just bring them in and bring the kids before them one at a time and they could decide what to do with the person. I know what the people would say. They would ask: "How can I know? You have worked with him or her all year. You should make that decision".

I believe that if someone is going to work for a number of years with a prisoner then he or she should be the one to have the biggest influence and say on whether that person qualifies to go back into society. It sounds like common sense to me. But no. The good old boys and the good old girls have to be appointed to serve on a board which I think at this time is doing a better job than in the past. In the past it was a dismal failure simply because the people in those positions were making decisions and they were not knowledgeable enough to know exactly what should be accomplished. Does that not make sense?

Just think, June 30 every year, I could have gone home, all my teaching staff could have gone home. We could have brought in half a dozen people from the community and they could decide whether the kids would pass or fail. We could dump a few papers in their laps and let them decide.

We have to stop shirking responsibility for our decisions. We need some accountability. Who is accountable for Melanie Carpenter's death? The killer? Yes. But he should never have been out of prison.

The government knows of many examples. It knows about Oatway, Auger and many more. Why will it not stop them? Why not fix the bill so that anyone can be declared a dangerous offender at any time?

Canadians are continually telling pollsters that 70 per cent of them want capital punishment. What is wrong with members in this place listening to the people and giving them the opportunity to express their feelings in a referendum? Give us a chance to find out. Let the people speak. But not the Liberals. They say they know best.

Let the Darlene Boyds, let the Debbie Mahaffys, let the victims and survivors of victims across the land know that we support what they as taxpayers want from us, that section 745 be abolished.

When Bill C-55 was introduced the minister had the police chiefs all around him. He was smiling, he had their support and that is good. I am glad he had their support. But where were they on Bill C-45? We did not see them then. I saw most of those people and Scott Newark, executive officer of the Canadian Police Association sitting up here waiting for us to vote to put section 745 out of business. When they saw the vote on the private member's bill which would have done that, they were very pleased and they felt that the voice of the people had been heard.

All of a sudden the miracle worker, the champion of the social engineers came out from behind closed doors and says: "This is better". The worst part about it is that he convinced all of his colleagues who initially wanted to abolish section 745. All of a sudden they came out as supporters of Bill C-45. I wonder if they really supported it or if they just continue to do what they are told? I am sure it is the latter.

When this bill goes to committee and the witnesses come before the group, I really hope there will be a genuine effort on the part of the government to allow those witnesses, most of whom are ordinary Canadians, to have their voices heard and be incorporated into the decisions that are made. That would be a nice change. I just hope that will be done.

There are flaws in the bill. It needs to be fixed. Give the Canadian people a voice and fix it.

[Rey D. Pagtakhan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment on the speech of the hon. member for Wild Rose. I would call to his attention that paragraph 753(4) on page 5 of the bill as printed states in part: "If the court finds an offender to be a dangerous offender, it shall impose a sentence of detention in a penitentiary for an indeterminate period". I underscore the word "indeterminate". It is a serious sentence.

[Jay Hill, Reform, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Oh, oh.

[Rey D. Pagtakhan, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

The member should be civil and respect debate. He should be quiet and maintain decorum in the House.

I would like to assure the member that the government is definitely committed to community safety. This remains a government priority. There is no debate about it. Hence, this bill to amend the Criminal Code and other acts.

The member alluded to electronic monitoring, that it could be subject to charter challenges, et cetera. I remind him that in the charter itself section 1 indicates that limits to freedom may be imposed when a higher goal, to protect society at large, becomes paramount. This limitation to freedom is not taken lightly by the courts.

The member may want to learn a few of the precedents established by the Supreme Court of Canada. The goal being attained must be laudable. We all agree that we have to protect Canadian citizens from dangerous offenders. Also, the electronic monitoring approach has a reasonable basis of success and it must be made less restrictive.

[Art Hanger, Reform, Calgary Northeast, AB]

How is it going to work?

[Rey D. Pagtakhan, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

If the member does not know how it will work, then how can he say that it will not work? The member should be courteous and listen. The member belongs to a party which purports to be concerned about high risk offenders, yet the member is objecting to a judicial restraint, electronic monitoring, which will not likely be visible in its restriction of freedom. The Reform Party cannot have it both ways.

I would suggest that the Reform Party is concerned mainly after the fact, after the commission of an offence, after serious injury to a Canadian citizen, and is not prepared to support a provision in the amendment which may in fact prevent such an offence. Even in the field of medicine, prevention is worth more than a pound of cure.

I would like the member to kindly reconsider his views for the greater safety of Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

[Myron Thompson, Reform, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am certainly glad the member was not looking at me when he talked about being heckled and not listened to. I was listening intently.

It is too bad the hon. member was not here for my entire speech. He came storming out here in the last couple of minutes and by golly, he has all the bases covered. If he had heard the speech properly, he would have heard me say nothing against electronic monitoring.

I was only wondering if this kind of law, which would make it possible to electronically monitor those who have not even been convicted or charged but who are only suspects, would pass a charter test. I am sure the hon. member believes it might. I am not so sure that it will. There should have been a little more care taken

in putting the bill together. If it has to be challenged, then it will be challenged.

Many people I have talked to have said that when we start electronically monitoring those who are only suspects, we are moving very close to a police state. We do not want that in Canada. If indeed that is true, we need to talk about it and get rid of that idea if that is what it is leading to.

There is a six-month limitation. There is a six-month period where a person can be declared dangerous. Why only six months? That is all I am asking. Why does the bill say six months? Why not leave it open ended? Ten months from now they may wish they had, but that will be too late. Why do we want to limit ourselves? Leave it up to the people who work in the prisons. Leave it up to the guards and those who have the expertise to let us know when it is time for the person to leave and whether they consider him to be dangerous. If they do, then for heavens' sake, do not let him out.

If that had been done in the Melanie Carpenter case which the member knows well, Melanie Carpenter would be alive. The member knows very well that the killer of that girl was declared to be a real threat the day he was let out. The member knows that and he is willing to allow this bill to go through without addressing the Melanie Carpenters of this land. Who are these guys for, the criminal? Time after time after time they do what they have to to protect the rights of the criminal. What about the rights of the victim?

When are we going to stop having laws written by the lawyers for the lawyers? More court cases, more appeals. Declare him a dangerous offender, appeal it. That will be another court case. We have to keep these guys working. Keep the legal industry booming. Use a little common sense is what we are talking about. That six-month thing the member mentioned is ridiculous.

The bill is the start of a good thing. This is the best effort yet by the justice minister. That is what I believe, but it needs to be fixed.

If the member and other members of his party are allowed to do their job, which I strongly doubt they are, then maybe we could end up with a bill that is worth having. This one, as it stands, is not.

[Ted White, Reform, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to talk a little about Bill C-55 today.

When I was on my feet about two days ago speaking on Bill C-45, I was talking about the member for Kingston and the Islands who was very worried about how he gets hoodwinked by the bills in this place. I think he will be hoodwinked again by this one. He has said publicly that he does not read all the bills but he really should read this one.

I think he is about to be hoodwinked not in the way the Canadian people are going to be hoodwinked by this, thinking that it is actually a good bill. He is going to be hoodwinked because he thinks we are getting too tough on criminals. He actually voted against Bill C-45 because he was worried we were getting too tough. It absolutely amazes me. It may be very disappointing for him that the Reform Party is having such an effect on the government side of the House that we are beginning to make some progress in the area of justice reforms.

Getting tough on criminals works. I know the member for Kingston and the Islands feels he gets hoodwinked by these things but getting tough on criminals really does work.

I used some statistics the other day which are worth repeating in connection with this bill. It reinforces the idea that if we get tough on these people they stop using the system. That is a very good argument also why we should not have this six-month window which is built into this bill for determining whether or not someone is a dangerous offender.

They are going to use that. They are going to use the system. They study the law books while they are locked up in the clink. They are going to look at the law books and say that they only have to be good for the six-month period and then all hell breaks loose but it is okay, because they got past that dangerous offender window.

I would like to present some statistics that support the view that getting tough on crime works very well. In 1989 the bureau for justice statistics issued some estimates of how many crimes were prevented in the United States while criminals were locked up rather than walking on the streets. This was studied between 1973 and 1989, a 16-year period which is an extensive study.

Analyst Patrick Langan of the bureau for justice statistics said that between 1973 and 1989 locking criminals up instead of allowing them to go free cut the number of rapes by 66,000, robberies by 323,000, assaults by 380,000, and burglaries by 3.3 million. The conclusion of the report was that imprisonment clearly contributes to major cuts in the number and cost of violent crimes. That does not take into account the physical cost in injury and the monetary cost that comes from having had these people out destroying people's property.

In 1995 another study was done at Princeton. Criminologists John DiIulio and Anne Morrison Piehl wrote a report. They estimated the actual cost savings to society when felons were locked in prison as opposed to walking the streets. They studied 100 convicted felons who offended at the median rate, that is, some of them reoffended when they were let out and some of them did not. They found that the average cost to society for a felon who was released was $4.6 million but the average cost of keeping them locked up was $2.5 million. It was half the cost to society in

monetary terms to keep these people locked up. As I mentioned earlier, that does not even take into account all the physical damage that is done which really destroys people's lives.

There is an additional study which was published on August 29, 1995 in the Investors' Business Daily . There was a full page of justice information headed: ``Does crime pay? Not if criminals do hard time''. Mr. Barnes wrote that in 1994, University of Arizona economist Michael Block and researcher Steven Twist compared crime victimization rates with imprisonment rates from 1960 to 1992. That is a 32-year study. They found that the 10 states which had the highest imprisonment rates experienced an 8 per cent drop in violent crime over the period, while the 10 states with the lowest imprisonment rates saw their violent crime rates jump by 51 per cent over the same period.

How much proof do we need to see that keeping these bad guys locked up actually saves damage, saves costs and it really helps society? Surely those on the other side of the House who are always arguing for women's rights, for rights for the less fortunate in society, should be interested in those statistics which indicated that 66,000 rapes and 323,000 assaults were prevented by having people locked up.

I do not have any statistics for Canada but it stands to reason that we could transpose them at least at a 10 per cent level. We would see the enormous amount of money, the enormous amount of physical damage, the enormous amount of suffering we would be saving if we had a get tough approach to crime.

As my colleagues have said, there are provisions in this bill that are a good step forward. We are very proud in the Reform Party that we have been able to push the justice minister this far. I really do wish that the bill also dealt with habitual repeat offenders who are only using our justice system for their own ends. I will give a couple of examples of the sorts of things I mean.

The headline of an article in yesterday's Vancouver Sun reads: Drug trafficker allowed to remain in Canada''. The piece reads:The federal court has stayed a deportation order for an Iranian convicted of cocaine trafficking and assault. The order for Abdul Nasser Taher Azar was put on hold Tuesday pending the outcome of further legal proceedings in his case. Taher Azar is fighting deportation claiming he could face a death sentence if sent back to Iran''.

I probably have the largest Iranian community in the whole of Canada in my riding. The first words that come out of the mouths of refugee claimants, usually bogus, who call my office for assistance are: "I'll be killed if I get sent back to Iran". It is the very first sentence.

So this guy claimed he would be killed if he were sent back to Iran. Immigration authorities consider him a risk to Canadian society. What happened? The federal court let him stay here.

He has a wife and three children who live in Victoria. He said that he has changed his habits and will become a productive member of Canadian society. I cannot say how many times I have heard that nonsense. It is absolute nonsense.

I could stand here the whole afternoon and give case after case in my riding of these people who use the system because they know how it works. They come in as bogus refugees, get married all of a sudden and have children. We know what that does. Then they can separate and spend years in court tying it up over custody battles while we pay them welfare to stay here and they keep saying that they are going to be killed if they get shipped out.

Then what happens at the end of it? Two people in my riding went back to Iran of their own accord after arguing for four years that they would be killed. It is the most ridiculous nonsense and it goes on and on in cases like this.

These are habitual repeat offenders, not dangerous offenders as dealt with in this bill. But I wish we had something in the bill to deal with the type of person who is really just using our system.

I have a case in my riding right now that is typical of this, which I have been trying to get the immigration minister to act on. This person first came to Canada in the late 1970s, in the days when we actually had teeth in some of our laws, when we treated criminals like criminals. Very quickly it was discovered that he was a criminal. So he was deported.

They actually deported people back then, but not today. We have 1,300 people in Vancouver alone awaiting deportation, 906 of whom are from mainland China.

So what did he do? The first chance he got after he was deported to Iran he raced over to Paris. Tell me how he could afford that when he claimed he had no money. A couple of years later he went to the Canadian embassy and applied again. Did he tell the officials that he had been previously deported from Canada? Not a chance. The next minute he was back here.

About four years went by and the police were tailing him because he was forging passports so that other criminal friends of his could come in from Iran. I got a call in my office from a lady in the community who said: "Everybody in Iran knew he was criminal. Why did you let him in?"

I contacted the police and discovered they were investigating him for passport fraud. They picked him up for passport forgery on the day he was sworn in as a Canadian citizen. The interesting part of this story is that he had sent someone else to stand in for him at

the swearing in ceremony. So it was not actually him who was sworn in. He only went to watch. It is amazing what these people do.

His case for the passport forgery was dragged out and went on for a year and a half before the judge finally sentenced him to three months at home on probation. I would think that passport forgery goes to the very heart of our being as Canadians. He helps criminals come here and what does he get? Three months at home. That is where he did his business. It was a home based business. He did not pay any taxes or GST and here he was working at home.

Then finally he was under another deportation order, so he appealed, if members can believe it, under the charter of rights. In the 1970s when he was first deported he did not have an interpreter present and therefore his human rights were infringed on.

Now that case is tied up in the courts. The first hearing is next March. I am willing to bet he will be here for another eight years before we finally get rid of him. And the time we are paying him welfare and he is driving brand new cars. Now how does he buy those on welfare? I would like a little investigation into the source of his income.

These are typical of the sorts of things that happen under our weak kneed, bleeding heart government. It will not see the problems. It continues on and on about the terrible childhood these people have had and that there is really no bad in the world at all. The only bad in the world is that we actually lock some people up occasionally. We really should not lock them up at all. We should just let them walk around, take them to counselling occasionally and they will completely mend their ways. And put a bracelet on them, as my colleague says.

I have been digressing a little from Bill C-55, but I think members get the point. This expands out to being more than just Bill C-55. It is an entire rot that goes right through the system.

One thing I did today in the House was to introduce during routine proceedings a new private member's bill which I hope eventually will be drawn from the barrel. We know it is a bit of lottery. There is a bit of a move afoot now to actually get some of these private members' bills votable. It would be wonderful if they all were. My submission to the commission, incidentally, is that all of these bills should be votable. I would like my bill to be votable because it deals with this very problem. If passed by the House it would actually allow provincial judges to deport criminals in lieu of sentence so that we could get rid of them right away. As soon as these bogus refugees commit a crime, let us get them right out of the country.

I know the minister of immigration has argued they really should serve their time here so it will be in Canada. However, that is just a crock. What happens is that they get out on parole and parole is considered to be part of the sentence. They are wandering around free in society and the immigration people cannot deport them.

The first thing they do when they are coming near the end of their parole and the immigration people are standing behind them with the bracelets ready to go is just grab a brick and toss it through the nearest jeweller's window or hit somebody in the mouth and that starts the case all over again. They can go back to jail for another little while and another probation.

I could give literally dozens of examples from my riding alone. When we think that there are 1,300 just in the Vancouver area, we do not have to work too hard to see how many there are in each riding. When we also work out that certain groups tend to use the system a little more, it does not take long to work out how bad the problem really is.

They are probably all asking for a free flag. It would not surprise me a bit if the thousand free flags in the Fraser Valley East riding were all ordered by these people so they can walk around waving them as if they were Canadians.

The only thing that bothered me during question period today was when the Deputy Prime Minister stood up and said that the member for Fraser Valley East had used taxpayer money to fax for some free flags. It is a shame he did not take a $10 bill out of his pocket and say: "Mr. Speaker, I will pay for the faxes if she will pay for the flags". That would have been justice.

I digress again, but it really is related to this whole problem of the justice issues in Canada. I think I will wind up here because I would like my colleagues to have an opportunity to also speak to this. However, I do want to mention a few kind words to members on the other side because I know they do not like to be spoken to harshly.

There are indeed some good provisions in this bill. They do not go quite far enough. I do not think we are going to stall the passage of the bill. We will work with the government, hopefully to try to improve it a little. I hope the people on the other side of the House, who cannot deny the phone calls and letters they have been getting from their constituents on a get tougher approach to crime, will get behind a few amendments to this bill to tighten it up a little.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Lib.]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say to the hon. member that just because he took the liberty of exaggerating, moving information around, picking all over the place and slandering communities does not make it the truth.

For the hon. member to have taken the liberty to slander whole immigrant and refugee communities to say they are all into this and they all do this is totally irresponsible.

[An hon. member]

He never said that.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—Woodbine, ON]

He alluded to that and that is not acceptable to me. I you have-

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Colleagues, I simply ask that in the brief period of time we have left under questions or comment we might be able to get the question in and hopefully the response.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—Woodbine, ON]

While he was talking about a particular case, several members alluded to communities at large. Does the hon. member truly believe that refugees and immigrants in this country are all, or in the majority, criminals?

[Ted White, Reform, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in case the hon. member has not noticed I do talk funny and that is because I come from New Zealand. I am an immigrant myself and so I think I am in a very good position to comment about immigration.

I know what it is like to work to come to Canada. It took my wife and me two years to get permission to come here. We had to apply three times. We had good backgrounds, no criminal records, we had money to bring here to purchase a house and we had jobs to come to as well. So I do not think there is anything wrong with setting a high standard.

I am also not going to apologize for saying it like it is. I have never said in this House, though, that all immigrants or all refugees are criminals. They are not, but if we do not recognize there is a problem we will reap what we sow.

I remind the hon. member that three years ago when Reformers in the Vancouver area were saying that there was a problem with astronaut families who were not paying taxes and were leaving their families here, we were called racists. Today the member for Richmond admits there is a problem with astronaut families.

If the hon. member would like to get the Vancouver papers for the last week she will see it is a major problem that affects real estate agents, accountants and the entire community because we did not talk about it and deal with it when it was a problem at the beginning.

There is a lesson to be learned from all that. We had better start talking in this House about the things that they do not want to talk about over there or things will get worse and worse. They are afraid to talk about them. They hold themselves up behind the flag and claim all sorts of compassion and tolerance, but they should stand aside a little from that ideology for a moment and just look at what is really happening out there.

Nobody is opposed to a good immigration policy for Canada but let us set some decent standards for God's sake. Let us make it so that a person entering this country feels like they want to be Canadian instead of feeling like they want to rip off Canadians, because that is what some of these people do.

The member should go to Pearson airport, as my colleague from Wild Rose has done, to see the plane loads arriving everyday where bogus refugee claimants come through, 100 a day. The immigration people are forced to let them free on their own recognisance if someone is there to meet them. Mr. Speaker, have you ever heard of a refugee who had someone to meet them at the airport?

The trouble is they will not look at the facts. They stand there accusing us of all sorts of things, but if they would just look at the facts they would see there are major problems to deal with. I actually think the move on Bill C-55 is an indication that they are finally starting to get the message. They know the Canadian people want to get tough on crime.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Before going to the1.30 p.m. proceedings I want to give advance notice to the House. When this bill is before the House next, the five hours of debate which allow for 20 minutes of interventions and 10 minutes of comments or questions have expired. The remaining portion of the debate will allow members 10 minute interventions.

It being 1.30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.

Competition Act

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Ontario, ON]

moved that Bill C-267, an act to amend the Competition Act (gasoline pricing), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, the fact that the bill comes at this particular juncture when the House of Commons seems divided on many issues, the issue of gasoline pricing and the concern of our constituents is one that unites us all. It unites us all in the common recognition that there is something patently wrong with gas pricing.

The bill seeks to try to provide some very simple answers for Canadian consumers and those who have a concern about the high price of gasoline. That can be done by way of information.

We are fast approaching the 21st century when the information age will become even more important. Very few consumers or any of us here can say that there is an alternative choice to gasoline.

We need to know why the increases take place, why they take place on weekends and why the only answer by the oil industry is: "We do not have to provide any answers".

Let me say first that the Bill C-267 amends the Competition Act by requiring that the oil company in question, before the price of oil is raised more than 1 per cent, must give 30 days' notice. From the wellhead to the gas pumps where the consumers fuel their vehicles, it takes six months for price increases to work through the system. As members of Parliament we cannot provide answers why these sudden gyrations take place. Consumers are asking above all for some predictability.

The bill does not regulate any industry. I am very emphatic about that point because I think there are some misgivings. Some may want to take the point of view of the industry which says that somehow it is causing the industry to feel it is being burdened. Perhaps this may be an argument that is given by the department.

I think a good corporate citizen which wants to make sure it keeps customers on line would above all want to make sure that at the end of the day the consumers are well informed. This is very good PR and it also allows us to have some accountability to our constituents.

Let me give some points. A year and a half ago when the Minister of Finance presented his budget, he included a 1.5 cent increase in the excise tax. Politicians from all sides of the House may be able to use that as a pro or con, but the money ultimately goes into the general revenue fund to pay for things like hospitals, pay down the debt and do a number of good things for the economy and the general interest and welfare of all Canadians.

At the same time that 1.5 cent increase took place the oil industry took liberties and tacked on another 4.5 cents. From February to March, April, May and June 1995, Canadians were paying an extra 6 cents a litre. Is that justified? That is not for me to question. If I were to ask the question, I suppose some would say that it is matter that would border on regulation. I believe that consumers would like an explanation from the oil industry once and for all.

I have taken it on myself to remove the shroud of mystery that surrounds oil pricing in Canada. When we peel back the various layers of the oil onion, if I can call it that, we find that there is something sinister in the way that gas pricing is headed in this country. For the first time in many years people living in the Toronto and Montreal regions and some parts of western Canada have found that the price of gas rises uniformly and declines uniformly. There is no longer the kind of competition from station to station that was once available. Why is it that way?

It may come as a surprise to members of the House to learn that over the past 15 years we have lost a number of potential refiners in this country. The takeover by Petrofina of BP, the demise of Texaco and the takeover of Gulf Canada has all meant that the question of supply is really relegated to a very few companies.

At the same time, the supply of gasoline would not be a matter of great controversy if there was not the appearance of a new phenomenon known as vertical integration in the market. Crude oil refiners are not only the distributors but are now, in many respects, the retailers. It is the connection from end to end that has given the impression that what we have is an oil monopoly.

If a company controls the supply, its distribution and retailing, it stands to reason that, at some point, the price will be controlled. Therefore, it is not by accident that we are seeing sustained, uniform and high prices in this country.

The people of Canada begged Parliament for an answer. In the absence of any other remedy, it is this Parliament that is the eyes, the ears and the conscience of consumers.

So I have trouble acknowledging that some of us think we have no way of guaranteeing competition in the oil industry.

We have an opportunity with this bill to provide consumers, not only with answers but allow them to formulate, in the absence of any choice, not being able to use any other mode of transportation. They cannot suddenly put lemon juice in their gas tanks. Every Canadian has an interest in finding out why the gas prices are what they are.

In talking about why prices are uniformly high and why we are seeing unprecedented levels of high prices, the argument has been put forward to look at what happened in the maritimes over the past few months. In Quebec, the price has actually gone down.

That example should alarm every member of this House of Commons because it demonstrates very clearly the real possibility of predatory pricing. The wholesalers that had an interest in retailing since they wanted to control the supply over this past summer, engaged in a process of driving the price down at the retail level precisely so that they would knock out the independent gasoline owners who have, for the longest time, provided the equilibrium for competition in the industry.

With all the knowledge that I have received from speaking to many of these independent gas owners from Sudbury to Windsor to Cape Breton to Quebec de la region du Saguenay, we have a very serious situation on our hands which requires at least some consideration by members of Parliament here and now.

If we do not believe that a free market ought to apply in the oil industry, then where do we stop? Do we now say it is okay to have this in the pharmaceutical industry? Do we say that it is all right to have no competition and have only a handful of people or a cartel drive the price to whatever it deems fit?

It is important that we understand the plight of the independent gas station owner, the person who gets up in the morning and knows that if they do not put in 18 hours a day of sweat equity, they are not going to get a paycheque at the end of the week. The problem is that that paycheque has been severely and calculatedly reduced. How is it possible for a person who buys his products from an oil company to be able to make ends meet when the person he is competing with happens to be a gas station that is owned by the wholesaler.

If this does not raise concerns about the abuse of dominant position of the oil industry today, I do not know what will. Canadians may take some slight comfort in the fact that they may, from time to time, get lower priced fuel as they saw in the maritimes.

I take the example of what happened in Grand Falls where there were 11 gas stations. Of those 11 gas stations, 10 were owned by the majors. Only one was an independent. The price was approximately 48 cents a litre about a year and a half ago. When that independent was smothered the price shot up to 68.9 cents. If consumers are concerned about competitively priced oil and gas, they had better understand that it is because of the existence of the independent gas owner, who is prepared to pass on the savings to consumers, and who is one of the major reasons why we have had decently competitively priced gas in the past.

I was a little surprised to learn that there are some members who may still harbour the belief that free competition or open markets actually exist in the oil industry. I should point out that from a national point of view there are really only three major players: Petro-Canada, Imperial Oil and Shell. Regionally there are smaller players but who are nevertheless significant: Irving in the maritimes, Ultramar in Quebec, Sunoco in Ontario and out west Mohawk Oil.

There are agreements between the refinery companies to provide supply for each other. This idea that there is not any agreement or understanding, better known in the industry as product supply arrangements, between refiners would be misleading. Yet the competition bureau seems incapable of trying to address the reality that many of these refiners are actually in a position where they can not only agree among themselves what the price will be, but they can also above all agree among themselves to how much to supply.

When we hear the tired arguments that the industry puts forward, and unfortunately some members may fall victim to the argument that the cost of heating oil, for instance, increased because we had a long cold winter, the members ought to ask themselves if we have a warm winter does that not mean by implication, logically speaking, the price should go down.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about how much a person ought to be paying in Canada for crude oil, for that which they need to use almost every day. Because it affects every member in this House and it affects every one of their constituents there is no mystery here.

Today the spot oil price for crude is, at the highest level, about $24 a barrel. Of that $24 there are approximately 200 litres of gasoline in a barrel of oil. We understand not all of that goes to less costly gasoline for cars. Some of it goes into polystyrenes and to more expensive products.

Let us go with the worst case scenario. It costs the oil industry 12 cents maximum a litre to bring that product on line. According to the Canadian Petroleum Foundation it costs 5.2 cents to refine, to market and to distribute. That is all their costs covered. That is up to 17.2 cents a litre. Add the federal and provincial sales taxes, and we know where they go-even though there is a lot of debate about where they ought to go in this House-that is an extra 29 cents a litre on top of 17 cents. That is about 45 to 46 cents a litre.

Give the independent or the gas owner 2.2 cents and we have 47 to 48 cents a litre maximum. Today in Ottawa when it is 57 to 58 cents a litre, or when it is 61 cents in the maritimes or for that matter 58 cents in Toronto, who is making the money? Where is the accountability?

I have no difficulty with people making money. I think it is laudable that they do. However they have a responsibility and an obligation not to use their position of privilege or their oligopoly or their cartel to bamboozle constituents, to take advantage of consumers and to perpetuate this rip-off.

It is very clear to me that no matter how difficult it may be for some people to accept or to swallow, the oil industry is on the verge of what it has always tried for-I guess what many companies hoped to accomplish in other countries, in particular the United States-and that is to give consumers absolutely no choice when it comes to the cost of gasoline.

I have received thousands of letters since I brought this bill to the House of Commons. It was first introduced as Bill C-361 in the previous session and has been reintroduced as Bill C-267. Notwithstanding the fact that it was not deemed votable, I would nevertheless call upon the House to consider this an important step forward.

We should resolve today to at least attempt to get some answers from the oil industry. Given that many of us in the House assume that the big issue is price fixing, we are missing the point. We are missing the boat. For members of Parliament to assume that the issue today which should concern consumers is price fixing by the oil companies, they are simply missing the boat because the cartel

at the supply end already exists. There is no need to price fix when there are very few players in the game.

I would appeal to members of Parliament to revise their thinking, to modernize their thinking and to get in step with the reality that exists as it relates to the oil industry in Canada today and now.

I also must say to my colleagues, and more particularly to my fellow members from the province of Quebec, that I am very concerned and even disappointed in the behaviour of the oil companies and the way they treated independents.

We see young people who try to get a job and offer competitive pricing to the consumer. This is something we see, not just in the small villages I visited this summer but also in other regions across the country, as I explained earlier.

In the maritime provinces we have heard people saying: "Great, look at the prices. They are coming down to 29 cents a litre". I was just reading in Maclean's magazine an article by its business editor, D'Arcy Jenish. He writes that he met several station owners in the maritimes and one in Nova Scotia told him that in 28 of the first 38 weeks of 1996 the retail price was below the wholesale buying price. That is predatory pricing. That is a recipe for disaster.

It is very clear to me that we need some kind of safeguard over and above the rhetoric that we hear under the guise of the competition bureau to actually protect the people who are protecting the interests of Canadians and who are protecting the interests of our consumers.

If we do not believe today that 68 cents per litre is going to be a reality in years to come, I would suggest that we look at what has happened in Gander, Newfoundland. I would suggest that we look at what happened in Toronto last year. From Burlington to Clarington which covers a population of about 4.5 million people, there are so few independents left that they are not able to make any impact on the price.

Those independents who are out there right now are trying to survive. They are in no position to provide competitive pricing for consumers. They are unfairly prejudiced by the oil companies which are using very blunt instruments such as the removal of credit terms. They have taken away the 45-day credit which was previously extended to the independents. They have taken away temperature compensation. I could go on about the methods by which the oil industry has been able to uproot the independent oil companies. They have done it through vapour recovery. They have demanded higher thresholds.

Imagine if an independent sold 5,000 litres in a day and an oil company said that was not enough because the retail outlets which it owns sells 10,000. It says to the independent that it had better double its sales next week, even though the price has not come down, or the supply will be cut off. That is wrong.

I appeal to Parliament to review the decision not to make this bill votable by seeking the unanimous consent of the House in the following motion. I move:

That Bill C-267, an act to amend the Competition Act (gasoline pricing), be deemed to have been chosen as a votable item.

I do so in the interests of every Canadian consumer.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

The House has heard the terms of the motion from the hon. member for Ontario. His motion was to make this particular bill a votable item.

Is there unanimous consent of the House to make this a votable item?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Unanimous consent is not granted.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member opposite who introduced Bill C-267, because when Liberal members and the government introduce something worthwhile, you may rest assured we intend to support them.

It is true there is a serious problem, and we must have the ability to defend the weakest against the multinationals. The price of gas must be regulated. I would have thought that the big oil companies would allow fair competition with independent gas retailers. In the past few months, especially this summer, I noticed that this competition is entirely unfair.

What do the big oil companies want? They simply want to get rid of the independents, and this is a tragedy for Quebec and the Maritimes. In the past few months they have been intent on closing down independents and possibly getting rid of them altogether. They have already caused many to disappear this way, and they would like to get rid of them altogether.

Of course the consumer may think this is wonderful. If I go to the gas station and I can pay 20 cents less for a litre of gas, I most certainly will take advantage of this. However, we know perfectly well that in a matter of months or years, the multinationals, since

they want to control everything, will strangle the consumer as they strangled the independents.

Well there must be some kind of control. This attempt to knock out the independents is another illustration of the harmonious concert of converging interests, practices and prices that unites the big oil companies: Ultramar, Shell, Petro-Canada, Esso, and Imperial Oil in Quebec. They are refiners, wholesalers and retailers. The big oil companies have broken the unspoken rules of a market in which the big oil companies were prepared to live with competition from the independents.

Formerly, the system worked. Independents could, from time to time, sell gas a little cheaper and provide better service. When the big oil companies saw this happening, they wondered what they should do, and they said: "O.K., let us get rid of them." This summer, Ultramar was particularly ferocious in the ensuing price war.

The independents, who were losing enormous amounts of money, could not keep up, and some with fairly high mortgages had to close their doors. I call that disgusting, unfair, and monstrous when they want to get rid of the little guy in order to control the market.

Over the years, independents, as they are usually referred to, gradually increased their market share from 20 or 25 per cent, and for us, especially in rural areas, in my riding of Matapédia-Matane, it was wonderful. They were not just selling gas but provided all the other services you can get at a gas station, never mind those people who believe that capitalism and a free market are each other's corollary. Personally, I do not think that is true at all.

The government must protect those independent retailers. The presence of efficient independent companies alone assures Quebec consumers a fair and equitable price for petroleum products. If they disappear, if the large oil companies take over, then consumers must beware. These large corporations will set the prices according to their fancy and we will have to pay or walk.

The issue is even worse for the independents. There are 300 distributors in Quebec selling gasoline and heating fuel and 2,423 retailers established mainly in the regions and serving their respective communities. When a community has no more gasoline, no more school, it might as well shut down.

Moreover, it accounts for 10,000 semi skilled or non skilled jobs. This means that many young people with no education or very little education can find jobs, and good ones at that. It accounts for $200 million in salary, 82 per cent of which in the areas around Montreal and Quebec City. The commercial spinoffs-convenience stores, machine shops, etc-throughout Quebec are on the order of $164 million.

The disappearance of healthy competition and the resultant increase in prices are jeopardizing consumers' protection. Again, the goal of multinationals is not only to recover the portion of the market they have lost over the past decade to more efficient independent distributors-and we know they are more efficient because of the many services they render-but mostly to eliminate them altogether so as to have maximum control over the retail market.

In Quebec, we have a situation where for more than a decade regional development and local entrepreneurship are at the heart of economic development. When independents disappear, life becomes very difficult in small communities. The performance and efficiency of some 2,423 gasoline and heating oil independent distributors in Quebec are the living proof of that. The independents must be able to earn a decent living without necessarily turning into multinationals. I say, "Good for them", as they can still earn a decent living.

In addition to increasing their market share from 15 per cent in 1984 to 31 per cent in 1993, they saw the average number of litres sold per station rise by 31 per cent between 1991 and 1995, thus confirming their economic presence in rural communities.

Yet, after five years of price wars against the multinationals, which unfairly control the profit margins of all gas station operators in Quebec, that province's independent businesses find themselves economically vulnerable. They are powerless to stop the fair market value of their businesses from eroding.

Meanwhile, unfortunately, the multinationals more than compensate for the losses arising from this planned retail price war by increasing their consolidated profit margins through their integrated refining and petrochemical operations.

In their case, they can absorb losses through their refineries, since they are not mere retailers. Because they have more options, they can do a lot better than others.

This situation allows them to fix prices, high prices, knowing full well that, even if they incur losses for a year or two, they will make up for these during years, even decades, and that, in the end, they will be richer.

Independent retailers are quite willing to face competition, because they know they can provide additional services. They know it and they have demonstrated it by cornering a very respectable share of the market. In fact, their share of the market was increasing and this is what hurt the multinationals, which then decided to eliminate independent retailers, who were surviving because they could provide more services while still making adequate, albeit lower profits.

The government must indeed introduce a piece of legislation that will enable everyone to operate in a free market, where the competition is fair, unlike what we have seen for a while now.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to enter into the debate. But because I believe it is semi-useless without being able to actually make a decision on it, I would like to ask the House to reconsider and to once again make Bill C-267 a votable motion. I would ask for unanimous consent.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

The House has heard the request of the hon. member for Elk Island. Is it the pleasure of the House to make this item votable?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

It is agreed.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, that is good news. I would like to commend the member for Ontario for this initiative. I suppose we are all affected by the price of gasoline, not only those who own vehicles. There are many people across the country who are dependent on fuel in vehicles in order to bring all the goods and services to them in order to enjoy their standard of living.

All across the country people are dismayed at the cost of gasoline. Just the other day I told someone that had the government not pushed us into the metric system I sincerely doubt that we would be very excited about the cost of gasoline because it would be in the neighbourhood of $2.40 a gallon. I believe most of us would say that is excessive. We would object to that high price and yet that is approximately what the price is. By the way I think it is considerably more, probably about 80 per cent more, than the cost per gallon in the United States. Then of course, we would have to make adjustment for the difference in the dollar and the size of the gallon. But there is a tremendous difference in the cost of gasoline.

It is a shame that gasoline should be so highly priced. Living in the very harsh climate which we have in the north part of the northern hemisphere, we are really dependent on fuel and the energy it provides. We are also a very sparse country. It is not easy for us to get around without a vehicle.

I want to share a personal story with the House that I hope members will find interesting. Some 26 years ago we moved into the country about 20 miles from the nearest town.

When I lived in the city I used my bicycle to go to work. It was a 6.8 mile trip every day. I always felt good about using my bicycle. I saved pollution from entering the atmosphere and I saved costs. Believe it or not, I was able to travel about one-third of the width of the city of Edmonton in about the same time as I could if I used Edmonton's so-called rapid transit system. I was in very good shape in those days. Members think I am probably still in good shape, it is just that my shape has changed. It was also very good exercise and a great thing to do.

When we moved to the country I drove my bicycle but once because it took too long. It was a two hour trip each way and I did not have four hours a day. I wish now that I would have kept it up because I would have been in such fine condition. Unfortunately I bought a two wheeler with a motor and it does not take that much energy to shift the gears on a Honda motor bike.

Getting back to the price of gasoline, one of the reasons I used this motor bike to go to work after we moved to the country was the cost of fuel. In those days we had vehicles that were not quite as energy efficient as they are now. I bought a little motorcycle that delivered for me some 100 miles per gallon. I was able to save a great deal of money even in the days when fuel was only about 20 to 25 cents a litre by using my motor bike instead of my large car.

Since then gasoline has gone up in price so it is now between 50 and 65 cents a litre across the country. I was totally appalled in Saskatchewan recently to see the prices there were edging close to 62, 63 cents per litre in some places. That is excessive.

We must recognize that is a damper on our economy. We must recognize that the high price of fuel makes it less easy for our businesses and individuals to be competitive with the rest of the world.

Although the member for Ontario has fine intents in limiting the way fuel companies can cause the price of gasoline to fluctuate, I must come back to a theme which is very dear to my heart. What is the cost of gasoline? Where does the total cost come from? Whether we like it or not, a very large part of the cost of gasoline is due to taxation.

I made a little chart a little over a year ago, and the prices have changed somewhat, but I do not think the percentages will have changed that much. The price of fuel by the time it reaches the retail level is made up of approximately 30 per cent, crude cost, about 25 per cent federal tax, about 25 per cent provincial tax, between 20 per cent and 25 per cent refining and marketing costs, profits, and then there is retail margin for the retailer.

I do not know if members realized that provincial tax is around 25 per cent, although it varies from province to province. In Quebec it is around 36 per cent. Federal tax varies from province to province as a percentage of the total price because the total price varies from province to province, but it is around 25 per cent federal tax.

I object that this government, like governments before it, uses fuel as a source of revenue. I really do not believe that taxing fuel, which is such a necessary commodity in order for us to compete on a worldwide scale with our industry, with our agriculture, with our tourism, is justified or valid. We should not be taxing fuel as a source of revenue. It should not be singled out from other products for additional taxes.

Approximately $4 billion per year is taken out of our economy and put into government coffers through the federal sales tax on gasoline.

I have to add another thing. When it comes to gasoline, the federal government has displayed an odd characteristic in that it is adding a tax to a tax. After the federal sales tax is added to the gasoline which would bring the price in most provinces to around 50 cents, then it adds the GST. The government actually charges GST on the total price, which means the government is charging GST on the federal sales tax. It is unconscionable to force Canadians to pay taxes on the taxes they pay with money they have earned on which they have already paid income tax.

In that regard, I did a little computation. Follow this. I earn $3.33. My marginal rate of income tax, both when I was an instructor at the college before I came here and now, is about 50 per cent but overall I used 40 per cent. From the original $3.33, I pay 40 per cent or $1.33 in combined provincial and federal income tax. That leaves me with $2. I go to the pump to buy gasoline. The total provincial and federal sales taxes is around 50 per cent of the price at the pump, which means if I buy $2 worth of gasoline, I pay another $1.

What I got was $1 of gasoline in my tank. That is the worth of it, with $1 being tax and $1.33 being income tax that I paid in order to have the $2 when I went to the pump. In total, I earned $3.33. In order to buy $1 of gasoline, I paid $2.33 in tax. That is not acceptable. It is too high a rate.

While the member's bill is well intentioned, the much more important thing for us to do as parliamentarians is to bring government spending under control so that we can reduce our demands on the taxpayer's purse and reduce taxes. I would begin with a reduction in the fuel tax. What a tremendous boost that would be to our economy. What a job builder that would be. What a relief it would be to Canadian families who find it difficult.

I have appreciated the opportunity to comment on this bill.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

I declare the motion carried. Accordingly, the bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on Industry.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to a committee.)

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

It being 2.15 p.m., this House stands adjourned until Monday next at 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24.

(The House adjourned at 2.15 p.m.)